Counting w/ Gage....

I always enjoy video clips on blogs, so I hope you'll enjoy this.  Gage just started this one day, so I figured I'd record it before he forgot!





We'll be out of town this weekend.  Going home to see the grandparents and to my very best friend from high school's baby shower!  She and her husband, Pete, are welcoming their 1st baby in late July- Benjamin Michael!  I couldn't be more thrilled!

The rest of Spring Break...

Although we had a wonderful vacation, when we got back I only had a few short days to get things done around the house.  Also, as much time as I love spending with Gage, I did send him to school Thursday and Friday. We pay WAY too much for him to miss an entire week and unfortunately there are some things that I needed to get done around the house that don't involve a 17 month old.  Sometimes I feel guilty, though  I suppose I should take advantage while I have daycare as an option.

So I had a mission on Thursday, the weather was supposed to be nice and I was damned and determined to get some flowers in my beds.  If only I had taken pictures of the before....OMG.  As soon as Luke and I spent over 2 hours digging up EVERYTHING that existed, I thought, "I should've taken a picture."  Anyway, it looked something like this...

....except without the pretty colors.

This is probably more like it.

It was overgrown with what I consider the most evil plant in existence.....lariopy!  I know, I know, it's decorative and people love it, but I HATE IT.  It's just one of those things that you have to closely monitor before it takes over the entire bed.  Last summer, with Gage being so little, I did nothing to my beds and I hated the way they looked.  The summer that I was pregnant, I tried to plant some perennials in hopes they would rebloom last summer....no luck.  However, guess what is back this summer??  2 out of 6, not too bad.  Anyway, it took us hours to clear the whole bed, then Luke proceeded to mulch on another day for an hour and I finally got the flowers down on Thursday after a few hours and I think it looks pretty nice.  If you have a green thumb, then it's not impressive but I'm the girl who purchased 'Gardening for Dummies' once so for me, it's success.  AND at least it looks like someone who lives here cares and we're not that vacant house on the corner!

I didn't realize how bad these pictures looked, as you can tell, we need to mulch again.

Thursday afternoon after my gardening rant, I picked Gage up from school and changed him to go see the Easter Bunny.  It wasn't as bad as Santa, but the picture is still pretty funny.  He was all excited about the bunny and couldn't stand to wait in line, repeatedly saying 'bubby', 'bubby', 'Easa bubby'.  He even said yes when I asked him if he wanted to see the Easter Bunny.  But you know the rest of the story, as soon as I put him down, he screamed! (See yesterday's Wordless Wednesday.)  Meanwhile, you can enjoy some pictures of Gage in his Easter outfit.  I had to try to snag a few since I knew the actual bunny picture wouldn't be so cute.

Always must have chalk in his hand if he's outside.

Momma's cutie pie.

Wordless Wednesday- Easter Edition

Gage's newest school picture at 16 mos.

Ha!

NEWS FLASH

My son ate 2 chicken strips for lunch on Monday and an entire hamburger today!  This is the kid who eats NO meat aside from turkey- sometimes!

Big Step....

Lately, Gage has had a language explosion. There's almost nothing he can't say....I think, this is in part due to being in the toddler room at daycare with almost 2 year olds who all talk very well. While we were on our trip last week, Gage started to repeat phrases we would say like "big step" or "Daddy's hat". Repeating is one thing, I understand, but when later on he says these phrases again, I consider him knowing what they mean or at least putting them into a context. He also says "Mommy's clock", "see ya" and "uh-oh Elmo" or "uh-oh Nuk" or whatever he has thrown over the side of his crib, down our stairs, or his new favorite thing, into our trashcan. It is definitely amazing to hear what he comes up with and to hear him call the teachers and other kids in his class by name. He can repeat ANYTHING we say, but most often if it's too many words, he'll just repeat the last two. Although he's still clumsy and falls alot, at least he has something going for him....it's definitely true what they say- they are either walkers or talkers.

Unrelated to language, I think it's so cool to watch kids this age become really interested in a particular thing, character, etc.  For instance, Gage can spot El-bo from a MILE away and is really pretty obssessed.  We have one or 2 Elmo books, and I just bought him some Elmo sippys.  I'm sure this is a foreshadowing of things yet to come, but I'm ok with that.  I love Elmo too, although I wish he'd speak a little more grammatcially correct ;).  My kid does need an Elmo shirt, though, anyone know where I can get one?  FYI, can you believe there are NO Elmo shower curtains?

Another thing that Gage is obssessed with is flags.  It started months ago, but now he has a word for them 'guys' (don't ask me why?)  And my boy can spot an American flag in a Where's Waldo? picture.  No matter what we are trying to get him to look at, all he cares about is the flags and if it's red, white and blue, all the better.

Easter 2011

Our day was pretty much perfect.  We got up and got Gage dressed in his super cute Easter outfit (shorts that I just bought him yesterday, because it was in the 80's today) and went to church.  Gage hasn't been to church in a while and wasn't too keen on sitting or staying still for that matter, but as long as there was music he was fine.  However, there won't be many church trips in our immediate future, at least until he learns to sit a little better or we find a church with a good nursery.

After church we took a wagon ride because we knew it would be too hot later on.  As always, Gage enjoyed the breeze blowing through his hair.  We came inside to eat lunch and Momma started her cookin'.  On today's menu (planned yesterday, so give me a break) was a chicken, broccoli, rice and cheese casserole (thanks to Mandy at Twice Blessed), scalloped potatoes with  ham and bread pudding.  Nothing fancy, but at least something different.  Gage and I also made Easter cookies yesterday.  They were an absolute pain to make, but tasted surprisingly good.  After lunch was napping for Gage and brand new stroller assembly for Mom!

I've been wanting one of these for a while now, so let's see if I'll get off my butt and use it!  We then ventured out for ice cream and a trip to the toy store.  Daddy came away only a few dollars short!  The hot weather put us in summer mode and we bought a new pool and sprinkler for Gage to play in...we're gonna need it these next few days.  We had Easter dinner and now we have to get ready for another week at work:(  Boo!  Only 7 more weeks of work, though.  Hope you enjoyed your Easter-with your family or however you spent it.

Hoppy Easter and Happy 1st Birthday to our BFF Sawyer!

If you read this blog, then you've met Sawyer, my friend Sarah's little boy.  He is one year old today and we want to wish him the best birthday ever.  Last week, Sawyer came over to play and we had a little birthday party for just he and Gage, complete with presents and rainbow cupcakes.  I'm not sure why I never posted pictures....probably b/c Blogger ate them or some nonsense.  In any case, here they are.  I'll be back later to update you on our Easter.

Sawyer enjoyed the cupcakes.

As good as we could get...

A new baby!

I almost forgot!  One of my very best friends from high school, Brett and his wife, Meg, welcomed their 1st baby boy into the world yesterday evening!  Gage and I were supposed to go visit them later today to make the final days of pregnancy go a little faster...ah well, guess Baby Kellen Marlin had other plans!  Congratulations Brett and Meg!

Whew....

What a week! And what a bad blogger I am!  I have seriously been slacking in my blogging lately, partly due to my being busy and partly due to Blogger having some 'issues'.  In any case, I'm back and hopefully will be regularly.

So way back a week ago I started my Spring Break. We took Gage to the circus last Saturday which was a great way to spend a rainy day. He enjoyed it for the most part and did really well, lasting just about 2 hours before he was completely done with it. The trapeze artists were his favorite and he liked the elephants and music. Of course, he spotted EVERY American flag in there and pointed and jovially yelled 'guys' each time. (Have I told you about my child's unnatural attraction to American flags? hmm...no? Another post, then?)

We were disappointed- Gage was overall uninterested in the kitties



My personal favorite.



Following our trip to the circus, Sunday morning we packed up and headed down to Wilmington, North Carolina.  We had been looking forward to this for a while and were only dreading the car ride.  Gage did wonderfully on the way down and slept for 2.5 hours.  We decided to drive as far as we could and made it all the way to Carolina before we had to stop for lunch. Stopping for lunch in a little town called Roanoke Rapids, almost elicits a post of its own, but I won't bore or disgust you.  In any case, we arrived in Wilmington around dinner time and Gage did pretty awesome the whole way there, thanks, in part to a new car toy Grandma purchased him.

Arriving so late Sunday night we didn't do much.  Gage, however, ate a wonderful dinner of mac and cheese at McAllister's Deli and was as happy as a clam. 

Monday morning we started at the Fort Fisher aquarium. Gage has always been a big fan of the aquarium in Nags Head so we thought it would be a hit. Mommy was silly and left the camera in the car, so we didn't get any pictures. Although, Daddy did buy Gage a gift that he has been eyeing even before Gage was born. AND he LOVED it. We'll have to try and catch him on video playing the clams!

Gage wasn't overly impressed with the aquarium and we took him home for a nice LONG nap.  He decided that while we were on vacation he would nap an hour early and not eat lunch until around 230pm...silly boy.  Monday evening we took a stroll in Downtown Wilmington as I tried to sneak a peek at Dawson and Joey:).  Gage also discovered his favorite part about our house in Wilmington.

check out the mid-drool shot.

Tuesday morning we visited Wilmington's Children's Museum.  We hadn't yet taken Gage to one and although it was probably geared a little towards older kids, he had a pretty great time.

He was especially fond of the train table.

...and the spinning boat.

Gage is pretty obssessed with numbers/letters these days, too.

Finally, Tuesday afternoon, what we had all been waiting for- the beach! The beach in Wilmington was amazing compared to the one we're used to, it felt like it was miles to the water. This was Gage's 1st time walking on the beach so he was definitely a little clumsy! The weather was perfect though and he enjoyed digging in the sand and making new friends but his favorite activity was collecting seashells, Grandma, you'd be proud!

I love this one!

Wednesday morning meant it was time to go home and I wish we could've had one more day there just to do a few more things.  I begged Luke, but unfortunately, the answer was no.  He did offer to rent a car and come home alone so that we could stay an extra day, but that seemed pretty silly to me.  Before we left on Wednesday though, we got to check out Wilmington's Railroad Museum, which  might have been Gage's favorite part of the whole trip.  He LOVED the model trains and kept signing 'more, more' after the trains would cut off.  He loved to push the buttons to watch them 'go'.  Unforunately, there's not any kind of model train displays around where we live, because he sure did love it.  There was also a lot of history to the museum, but Gage and I skipped that part over and checked out the real caboose and locomotives you could climb in.

Gage is now in love with trains and always wants to see 'choo-choos'.  Now that we have room in our basement (pool table sold) we might consider getting a train table.  Mommy and Daddy thought they were pretty cool, too!

As you can see, we had a great time in Wilmington and would love to visit again sometime.  A big thank you to Grandma and Granddiddy's friends who let us borrow their house for a few days!  The ride home was not as fun as the ride there (they never are) and I think we stopped close to 8 times!  Ah well, we're home safe and that's all that matters.

I see now, this post could have easily been broken down into a few since it has such a large quantity of pictures, but nevertheless there was our trip.  I have tons of other things to blog about if I ever get the chance.  Will be making a list this time since I always seem to forget.  Wow, tomorrow is already Saturday and only 2 more days 'til I have to head back to work. 

We are Back...

from our wonderful, relaxing trip.  So relaxing, that blogging wasn't part of it, not to mention my Blackberry won't allow me to post anything anyway.  It was fun and relaxing, but also tiring, so I'll be back tomorrow to post pictures and tell you all about it.  Happy Wednesday! 

(I know, I know, I missed another WW!)

Spring Break 2011...

is finally here and hopefully my computer will cooperate long enough to get through this post. 

It's time like these that I am oh so thankful to be a teacher.  Just when the weather is getting nice and your job is getting frustrating, you get a nice week long break to spend with your family.  Our break starts tomorrow with the circus!  I loved the circus when I was little and I hope Gage does too.  It's at a nearby venue tomorrow less than a half hour away, so we thought it would be perfect....he's going to have to sit for 2 hours while we're there so no sense in making the trip to a faraway venue, like DC, if we can help it. 

On Sunday, our break continues with a trip to Wilmington, North Carolina.  As many years of my life as I have spent in NC, I have never been to Wilmington, but have always wanted to go.  Thanks to some family friends, we get to stay in a real house and not a hotel, and the weather's supposed to be beautiful, so we are pretty stoked!  The 6 hr. car trip will be the only thing we might end up regretting, we'll let you know how that goes.  We'll be there 'til Wednesday, so more than likely I'll be MIA until then and then we'll be back in town in time for Easter.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. 

(The computer definitely shut down twice during the writing of this post...awesome.)

Wordless Wednesday- Animal Edition

I am a little annoyed that not only did I miss another Wordless Wednesday, but my computer seems to be on the fritz.  Did Blogger shut down anyone else's computer numerous times yesterday?  This is not a completed post, but the downloading of pictures seemed to be too much for my computer to handle.  Until then...