Stinky

A lot of you may be familiar with Alexis' favorite frog security 'blanket', Stinky. He has been around since day one, and she sleeps with him every night. When she was younger, he also joined us everywhere we went.

WELL... Stinky has been in trouble lately because he has been sneaking out of the house at night and going on vacation!! At first we noticed that he just looked tired, and were wondering why, but then Alexis started to get letters and pictures in the mail from all of Stinky's awesome trips! It turns out that Stinky hasn't been getting much sleep due to his nocturnal travels. Here are some of the pictures that he mailed to Alexis...

Stinky on the airplane, on his way to Italy... and then throwing up in the airplane sickness bag! There is also a picture of Stinky eating some gelato in Rome.

Here is another picture of Stinky by the sea in Greece... and overindulging in wine in Sicily!

Then something super exciting happened... in his last letter, Stinky told us about his cousin, Winky, that he hung out with in Greece. We all hoped that Winky would visit as promised in the letter. So today when we got home from work, guess who was waiting outside of our door??! Cousin Winky!! He looks almost exactly like Stinky, but he is a little bit fluffier, a little bit greener, and has rosy red cheeks. Alexis about fell over with excitement at Winky's surprise arrival!

Stinky looked tired again this morning, so we are all assuming that he snuck out again, and will hopefully send some more letters and pictures to show us where he has visited. Stinky is always looking for a fun vacation idea, so be sure to let us know if you hear of any fun places for him to visit!

On the Move

Dave has been doing a lot of walking practice lately, and we finally got a decent video of his new moves. Go Dave, go! Pretty soon we will probably be saying "Stop Dave, Stop!"

Ten Minutes in the Life of Parenting Dave

Our experience with baby Dave has been QUITE different from our experience with baby Alexis. He is a bit of a handful... nonstop action from this guy! Let me just walk you through ten minutes of the day with Dave. This morning I was getting ready for work, and had to let Dave free in our bedroom while I was blow drying my hair. In order to let Dave run free in our room, there are several preventative steps to be taken in order to protect the innocent bystanders in the room… namely, the kitty litter, the bathroom, the alarm clock, and the jewelry chest. Once I put up all of the usual blockades, I put him down and sat down to dry my hair. I kept an eye on him with a makeup mirror that I use as a rear view mirror. His antics caused me to pause during blow drying no less than ten times in ten minutes… as follows… First thing I saw him do was crawl over to the garbage can (which is used as a blockade for the phone/alarm clock), and start winging used Kleenex out of the trash. I got up and moved him to the other side of the room. He proceeded to do this again… and again… and again. After the fourth time, I finally moved the can and stuffed a pillow in that opening to protect the phone. Apparently this is a new safety measure we need to take every time he enters the premises. Add that to the growing list. He then crawled over to our stack of DVD’s and knocked them all over. Next time I looked up, he was using a video game controller, with the end of the cord plugged in… to his mouth. I got up and took it away. Screaming ensued. The next thing I heard was a repetitive grinding sound… him scraping the battery powered Thomas trains back and forth against the carpet, as hard as possible. This is not good for train wheels to be forced to go the wrong way. I got up and took away all the trains. More screaming. All of the sudden the world was a little brighter… then dimmer… then brighter… then dimmer… he was turning the dimmer up and down on the lamp on my nightstand. Over and over and over. I figured this would keep him busy for at least 45 seconds, so I let him carry on… until I heard a big crash and turned around to see the lamp laying on the floor. I could tell Dave felt very guilty and scared by the way he looked up at me and laughed when I yelled at him. Back to blow drying. I got in a good solid 30 seconds before I glanced over and noticed that Dave had pulled our computer router out from under the desk, as far as the cord would stretch, and was shaking it as hard as he could. I got up and took that away. He then proceeded to crawl over to the safely locked cabinets, pulled open the door (they open just a crack), and stuck his little arm in as far as possible to grab at all of the bottles. Mental note, we can no longer have anything within ten inches of the front of the cabinet. I finally gave up and put him on my lap, where he proceeded to snatch the bookmark out of my book, lose my page, and then stuffed the end of the lotion bottle in his mouth.

BOYS…sheesh.

But just look at how cute he is…

We'll keep him! :-)

Metra Field Trip

Yesterday Alexis went on her Metra field trip for preschool. We boarded in Tinley, rode to Joliet, toured the station, and rode back to Tinley... very exciting! All of the kids got an engineer hat, and we got our own train car just for the preschool.


Here comes the train!

Class photo... or most of them, anyways.

My favorite part of the field trip... lunch!

One Year Stats

Dave had his one year check up today (a bit late). He has some great stats... 22 lbs 3oz, which is 41st percentile... 31.5" long, which is 92nd percentile (yay tall!), and 89th percentile for head size... not as gigantic as his 9 month head percentile. ;-) Growing like a weed!

Chug Chug

Dave just figured out how to work a sippy cup, and he LOVES to drink water all the time now. He can't drink the normal way, though... he has to lean back so far that he almost tips over.

Happy with his new skill!

Spring Planting

Alexis and I are preparing for summer by starting some planting. She did a great job, and loved using all of her new gardening tools from the Tillemans.

We planted a bunch of seeds, including some pumpkins that are going to be transplanted into Grandma and Grandpa's garden. If anyone is looking for a Jack-O-Lanter in mid-July, our pumpkins should be ready to harvest at that time! ;-)

Dave can't be trusted around giant bags of dirt and sharp pointy tools, so he had to watch from inside. He was not happy, and yelled and banged his spoon on the door for an hour.

The finished product!
We will be watching very closely for the next week for any sign of growth!

Officers Johnny and Alexis

On Saturday, we went over to the Ditty household to take back the jumperoo that we borrowed for Dave. He is no longer happy to be trapped in one of those! Johnny took Alexis for a leisurely spin out back in his police cruiser.

Dave watched from the safety of this little car...

Alexis giggled the whole time... they had so much fun together!

Wait, did I say a leisurely spin around the yard? I meant WILD. There were a few near misses with the fence, the pond, and a ladder!

New Camera

Exciting weekend... our new SLR camera has arrived! I am still figuring out all of the fun little bells and whistles, but here are some of the first round of pictures...

This is Alexis trying to make a sad face...

Waiting to go outside...

This is Alexis trying to make a mad face...

More to come soon... and finally, a picture from the old camera...

Easter

Happy Belated Easter! I am a little bit behind getting up pictures from our weekend. It took three evenings of lounging on the couch to recover!

Alexis wanted to wear her "wedding" dress for our Kelleher party on the day before Easter. This is the dress she plans on wearing when she marries her friend Evan, who she says she thinks she loves!

Dave was going for the "end of a crazy party" look, with his untucked button down shirt and rolled up sleeves. So cute!

Dave tried a strawberry during dinner...

WHOA that has a sharp taste!

Better try another bite...

Augh, same taste again!

Here is a better picture of Alexis in her dress...

The Easter bunny came during the night!

Alexis pointing at the chicken eggs up on the TV...

Alexis and Max seeing if that sneaky bunny hid any in the closet...

Dave found one!

Alexis pointed out some eggs for Dave to find...

Dave is always thrilled when he gets to go into the forbidden bathroom... note that he is carrying one of his many beloved purses. ;-)

Alexis is convinced that the Easter bunny is HUGE... he even got eggs way up high on the fan blades!

Dave tasted every egg...

My attempt at getting a picture of the two kids together...

Kylie, Alexis and Johnny...

Egg hunt!

Ellen kept petting Dave on the head... it must be nice to finally have someone around that is smaller!

Dave looking tough on Ditty's motorcycle...

Rose and Ellen going for a spin in Grandpa's (clean) garbage can...

And going for another spin with Johnny and Kylie...