Lots of pictures.

They may not be twins, but I see Jason in his eyes, nose and smile lines.

We managed to keep ourselves extremely busy on this weekend of no plans.  Mexican Friday night, gym Saturday morning, errands, dinner at the Holders Saturday, church this morning, naps, and an afternoon doing a few honey dos at Gigi's house.  We played a lot too.  Mostly hide and seek and dance party, Hardin's absolute favorites right now.  

I also followed Hardin around with a camera for a long time today because he was looking especially sweet to me. 

 The rest were taken with H crawling all over me!

Ha ha ha... OUCH!

I am entirely too sore to be laughing as hard as this little scenario had me laughing earlier.  Honestly.  It hurt.

On Thursday nights before Elise comes we have to straighten the house.  She cleans, but she does not organize and put up the buckets of stuff Hardin leaves all over the house every day.  As with most things, Jason and I divide and conquer.  He ALWAYS takes the kitchen.  He's a little freakish when it comes to a clean kitchen.  But tonight was crockpot night so he bailed and took the den.

About 5 minutes after he tried to shove 2 rooms full of toys in one tiny toy box he decided that whatever was making noise was not going to stop on it's own.  He looked and dug and looked and dug and looked and dug.  I was crying laughing at his commentary, and Hardin was all about the hunt although he had no clue we were trying to stop his toy from playing music.

Jason finally found the culprit and quickly turned to me and said NO MORE TOYS.  I toned down my laugh, smiled, and said sure babe, sure.  

Um, I guess I'll leave the full kitchen set with all the accessories in my car over the weekend, I don't think he could take it...  but it was all real wood, half off and then 20% off, so I couldn't resist!  Shhhhhhhhhhh. 


Yesterday after spin, I was feeling like I haven't been doing enough weight training and decided to get in a good upper body weight session before work.  By time I hit the shower my arms were jello.  Like the kind where you can't lift the hair dryer and have to go to work looking like a mop jello.

There I stood, jello arms, enjoying the very best part of my shower where I stand face front in the water for a good 5 minutes and wait to stop sweating enough to bother bathing.  Once I got to that point, I turned around to wash my hair only to find that my shower stall door was WIDE OPEN!  Thank God I stayed and did that arm workout so that I missed the mad shower dash after class.  I was the only one in there, whew.  

Then I got dressed and realized I brought black slacks and navy socks...  and no bra.  I was a mess.

I topped that off with Xtreme Pump this morning to further this weight lifting thing.  My partner was a very pregnant girl.  Nothing will make you push yourself like preggo gym Barbie as your partner.  I was determined not to let her show me up.  I failed miserably!  I am sore in places I never even knew I had until Jason had me cracking up tonight.  

Bubbles.

Today was another successful trip to Gymboree. As expected, Gigi's first trip resulted in a purchase from the wall of fun. Why didn't I skip all that school and open a padded room with basic toys and overpriced bubbles?

This is also a total test to see if my post from my phone email will work. This new phone has an awesome camera, and may simplify my life a little.

Overall.

Our day was completely uneventful and lazy, but Hardin did wear overalls for the first time.  When you live in the country, that warrants its own post!

I did it.

Tonight I did it.  I put on makeup on a day that starts with S, and we went out to dinner without anyone inviting us.  There was no function, no birthdays, it was just because.  Most importantly, my sweet mom didn't have to come over.  We hired our very first non-family babysitter! 

She is our neighbor's high school daughter that has given us her card (a cute little fridge magnet) a few times.  She babysits a lot of the kids on the street, and we made sure her parents would be home before asking her.  We also put the baby down at 7:20 before we left at 7:30.  So basically she was in charge of making sure the house didn't burn down.  She did a great job!  House is still standing and baby was still sleeping.  We will definitely be doing that again, it was nice to get out with my hubby after Hardin hours.

This morning we went to the gym and then spent the rest of the day napping and running around outside when the rain let up.  Our little walks are getting much MUCH dirtier.  I wont try and detail how dirty he got, how much he put in his mouth, and how cold his little legs were from being soaking wet.  My mother would have had a fit.  Needless to say we followed it up with a long warm bath and a load of laundry!

It's also worth noting that we are lucky to have neighbors who don't mind if we play in their yards and driveways. 

And an update on the shoes.  When we left Gymboree Wednesday, we walked right by Stride Rite so we went in to pick up some bigger sneakers.  I've been guessing since I got his 3 1/2s, so I wanted to get his foot measured also.  He's a 5 now.  Ever since we got the new sneakers those are the ones he wants to wear.  It is so funny to me that he has never had any preference when it comes to clothes, but the boy is serious about his shoes!

Gymboree!

If Hardin could talk, you know really talk, I'm 100% sure he'd tell you Gymboree is the most awesome place in the world.  Padded floors full of balls of all sizes, tunnels, slides, bubbles, climby things, bouncy things, and did I mention all the balls?  Those were by far his favorite part.  Next was the bubble time.  And a very close third was in between all the activities when it was time to stop and clap.  He's sure got that clapping thing down.


He loved circle time when we sat around and sang songs.  He loved parachute time when we all sat and danced under a huge parachute.  He simply loved it all.  I only took the camera out for a quick second, I didn't want to be that mom, and we were the only new ones there.  These pictures don't even come close to doing his wild happiness justice. 


Once again, I am so glad we waited to try now that he's more independent.  The only time he cried was when we put his coat and shoes on, because he didn't want to leave.  And when I say cried, that boy pitched an all out FIT hollering DOWN DOWN DOWN.  Right in front of a 92 pound little mom holding her sweet smiling 6 month old, that used to be an attorney at my firm.  O'well.

I can't wait for him to go back next week.  It's right across from my office, so I'll meet mom and/or Jason there with him when I can, but I think they'll both happily take him even when I can't go.  He really didn't need much supervision, the second we put him down he took off and didn't stop until we left. 

This is how he was eating his snack tonight.  He would not touch them with his hands.  Crazy kid.
(Please don't judge my house...  daddy day care day!)

Shenanigans

Climbing the bed.

We had quite a bit of shenanigans over the weekend, but I was too busy talking about the cousins yesterday to mention it all.  I've caught some of it on camera with my phone, but wouldn't dare post those pictures, so here are some other phone pics. 

Within 48 hours Hardin...

Threw his favorite snow globe from the two story foyer onto the hardwoods.  There is still shattered glitter surfacing.
Unplugged the nightlights and threw them down the foyer also.
Figured out how to open my carmex squeeze tube and, well, squeezed it a lot.
Threw Jason's less than a week old new phone in the toilet.
Unrolled LOTS of toilet tissue.
Played splashy splashy in the toilet.

And, last but not least, made a break for it when I was changing him.  No big deal, he does that all the time and has never so much as sprinkled so I don't worry.  I put up the dirty diaper and pajamas, then went looking for him.  He quickly surfaced from his bathroom SCREAMING at the top of his lungs holding his hands out.  Hands full of his own poop.  In the 30 seconds it took me to toss the diaper and get up, he relieved himself and tried to clean up.  In his defense, I know he was trying to pick it up to throw it in the toilet, that's where everything goes! 

The lesson learned from all of this is not that we have an exceptionally mischievous little boy, it's that we have a little boy, and not a baby anymore.  He should have never had a new phone in his hands, much less anywhere near a toilet.  Bathroom doors should be closed at all times.  And what were we thinking with a glass snow globe?  Really. 

In addition to those things he also has matching little bruises on both sides of his forehead.  One from running into a cabinet, and one from tripping when he pulled off one shoe but not the other.  Jason and I have a long way to go in a very short time when it comes to little-boy-proofing this place.  And our lives in general.  Up until now he's been such a sweet clingy little thing we never really had to worry much about household temptations.  My how times have changed in a hurry! 

Speaking of things Jason and I have yet to master...  I really never ever ever say anything bad about Jason and/or his parenting.  He is such a good daddy.  Kind, patient, entertaining, thoughtful, present, careful, loving.  You name it.  He really is awesome.  So please don't take more from this than a memory I'd like to have documented.

The man struggles with the wardrobe.  So much so that I am 100% sure he does it on purpose to see if it bugs me.  It doesn't, as long as he doesn't stroll  into my office with H looking like a hobo (again!).  Hardin's clothes are pretty well organized, so you have to go out of your way to put together something not so cute.  This particular getup had me especially tickled.  In order to make this look happen, you must start at the top of the drawer with the sports top.  Dig below the sports bottoms, then below the robot top, to get to the robot bottoms.  Then he had a red and black blanket sleeper on top.  That takes some serious effort, silly daddy!

That same silly daddy takes the time to explain Elmo, and we'll take that over matching pjs any day!

Big mall, bigger fun!

Jason and Justin were both of work today, and my office was a ghost town because banks were closed.  We took advantage of the lazy day by meeting up for lunch and an indoor play date at Mall of Georgia. 

The food court is a fabulous place for two hungry brothers, three little pizza heads, and two mamas.  It doesn't hurt that all three little ones could have stood in their seats and screamed at the top of their lungs and not even come close to being as loud as that place on a school holiday.  Fortunately for us, they were extremely well behaved.  Maybe the chaos intimidated them?

After lunch we gave that mall a run for its money.  We rode everything it has to offer.  Some twice, and the school bus even more.  Hardin had a BLAST on the train!  He has this new deep belly laugh that is so contagious.  He did it the entire time, especially when strangers waved to us.  The school bus was the next biggest hit.  The race car, not so much. 

Jason and I have always had a very close relationship with Cawley.  He gets us, we get him.  We love him, he loves us.  I know it will never be the exact same with Lillian, but I sure do hope it will be close.  That little girl is something else! 

Some serious people watching!

One of the shirts we had made for C.  I may or may not already be making Hardin's I liked them so much :)

 

This is the face I got when I asked "baby, did you ride the TRAIN today?"