More pre-Easter fun

Easter, sunshine, eggs, children and good times. These are all things that are meant to go together. And on Saturday, Thomas joined eight other children age 2 and older (and three babies under age 1) for a beautiful day of celebrating Easter.

(Parker and Sarah Ellen not pictured)

Thomas' best friend Lily invited us over to share in this special day. First they planted some flower seeds:


Thomas just wanted to water his...


Then it was time to listen to a story about Easter:


...before they set off to hunt some Easter eggs! Apparently I neglected to upload a picture of that. Thomas kept getting preoccupied looking to see what was in each egg. And Parker just watched...


And then he surveyed Thomas' finds...


After the eggs were sufficiently hunted, it was time to decorate and color some eggs...


Again, Parker watched (and snacked):

I bet he's thinking how he can't wait to join in on the fun!

Thomas dyed two eggs before he decided he'd rather go find something with wheels instead. He loved Lily's pink trike:


And then it was time for lunch (and fitting seven children at one little picnic table. They thought it was GREAT!).


Parker was content with his table for one:


Thank you Lily & Sarah Ellen for including us in your Easter tradition. We had a wonderful time and hope we can join y'all again next year!

Easter colors

On Wednesday, we asked a few friends from the neighborhood (or close to it) to come over and dye some Easter eggs with us. Thomas' friends Jack and Lily (from school...it's a bit confusing to him that he has two friends named Lily, but he calls this one "Lily from class") came over, along with their younger siblings. So we had three children under age 1 and three "big" kids. It was fun. I forgot to take a picture while they were coloring their eggs, but here they were examining their eggs (Lily's eggs weren't in the picture):


It's impossible to get three kids looking at the camera at one time!

After the eggs were finished, they enjoyed playing and running around the house. We don't have enough playdates here, and judging from Thomas' behavior at times, he needs more practice! But they had fun all the same...


I have to giggle a bit at that picture. That's Thomas' usual look in the house. One sock on, one sock off. Who knows why!?!

It was the first time Thomas has dyed Easter eggs (for shame, I know!), but he really enjoyed it. Here were his beautifully decorated eggs...


It was also my first time cooking the eggs. We've yet to crack one and see if I was successful. Let's hope I can manage to at least hard boil eggs right. :)

Celebrating Easter

On Tuesday, Thomas' class had an Easter party. Thomas, as usual, was excited about the promise of a "special snack," and this one did not disappoint. There were chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A AND a cupcake (and grapes and crackers and cheese...and apple juice).


Of course Thomas wasn't acting quite right after the snack time and later, after we got home, he told me he ate too much and his belly hurt. No wonder!

After the party, the kids headed out for their Easter egg hunt on the playground.


They were all rushing around, picking up eggs and shaking them to see if they sounded like "keepers."


Thomas quickly had a few eggs in his basket...


But as I said, he seemed a bit off, like he didn't feel quite right. And this picture shows it...


Even so, he was eager to see what he had scored...


Parker just hung out, wanting to get down on the ground so he could eat a handful of woodchips. I managed to keep him contained for a short while during the party. He says "hi!"

Down under

I've long called Parker "monkey" because he squirms and moves like a little monkey. He does not like to be still unless he is sleepy (then he can be a fabulous cuddlebug). With his newfound mobility, he goes as quickly as he can to the strangest places. He likes to go under things...tables, chairs, baby gear, the crib...whatever, he just likes to go under anything. In fact, the other day he was so tightly beneath a chair that I had to lift up the chair to get him out. I'm not sure how he got in there! This is another of his favorite spots:


He gets so proud of himself for finding new places. And if he is heading somewhere that he knows he shouldn't be, he will look back at me and give me a slick smile as if to say, "Catch me if you can!" Then he giggles as I chase him down, pick him up and return him to a safer spot. He's a mess!

11 months old!

Parker is now (as of 4/02) 11 months old!


And he's quite happy about it...


Really happy...


Aside from being generally happy, at 11 months, Parker is:
* Seemingly not as big as his brother was at this age, but everyone says he is big to them. He's wearing mostly 12M clothes (some 12-18 and 18M things...though still 6-12 & 9M pants. I look at all of the summer clothes hand-me-downs he has from Thomas and I can't figure how he's going to fit into them anytime soon. We'll see!
* Babbling all the time. He mimics sounds very well, though lately he seems to be on strike against saying "mama." He has said it before. He tries to repeat words like "dog" when he sees the dog and "ball" when he holds a ball. Whenever I applaud his efforts at anything (ie. eating all his food, saying a word) by saying "Great job, Parker!" he claps for himself. It's quite cute. Whenever I ask him something about Thomas, he starts excitedly exclaiming babble and gets the biggest smile on his face.
* Sometimes shy about waving, but usually loves to wave "hi" and "bye bye" to people.
* Still using a commando crawl to get around. At the beginning of his crawl he will usually attempt a typical crawl, and he is getting better and has managed a few "crawls" here and there on all fours, but usually resorts to a commando/army crawl to get where he wants to go quickly.
* Not ready to walk tomorrow...and I'm glad that makes him my little baby for a bit longer. He will stand if I'm holding his hands and sometimes take a step or two if encouraged strongly. He's still not completely steady when holding himself up and he can pull himself up to kneeling, but not standing.
* A much better eater than his brother! He is really starting to dislike baby food, so I'm quickly trying to increase his opportunities to try table food (though it's a little hard since I'm trying to avoid dairy (for him) for at least one more month (to hopefully avoid the same intolerance problems his brother has had)). But when we give him non-baby food, he cannot eat it fast enough. He just shovels and shovels and I don't know how he can get it down as quickly as he can. We give him the baby food first and he usually takes a few bites and then starts screaming for something else. He gets so happy when he just hears the crinkle of the bag when I reach in to grab him a handful of Cheerios. For example of what he is eating these days, tonight after his baby food (squash/apples), he ended up having chicken, apples and lima beans (so he really didn't need the baby food!).
* Nursing 5-6 times a day and still will not even consider the thought of a bottle. This complicates life a bit in that I can never be away from him for too long.
* Napping two times a day (usually down at 9:30 for about 1.5 hours and at 2:00 for 1.5-2 hours). He's still not a great napper, but hopefully one day when he goes to one nap he will be better. On the days where he doesn't get a morning nap he sleeps very well for his afternoon nap.
* Down for bed around 7 and on a good day, he sleeps until 7. Though lately he's been waking around 5:30 and crying out for a second (just long enough to wake me) and again during the six o'clock hour a few times. I'm hoping it's teething because it has not been enjoyable to get such early wake-up calls!
* Possibly working on another tooth. He has four on top that are all still coming through (and they are impressively crooked...thumbsucking is bad!) and two on the bottom.
* A mommy's' boy! :) And though it bugs his Daddy sometimes (understandably!), it makes me smile. Can't say I want him to be that way forever, but for now, it's sweet.
* A sweet, precious little boy; and I cannot believe he is almost one year old!

See what I mean, he's a sweet boy...


He laughs frequently and heartily...


He has a lot of hair, but it's a bit wild and crazy...


And he just makes me smile all the time...


I realize I'm sharing too many pictures, but how could I choose from this sweetness. I love baby feet...




Parker says "bye-bye! See you soon!"

32nd annual Cooper River Bridge Run

Today seemed like a beautiful day to walk the Cooper River Bridge with tens of thousands of other folks...


Today was the day for the 32nd Annual Cooper River Bridge Run. Apparently more than 30,000 people participated and Trey, Parker and I were among that impressve number.

Since strollers are supposed to stay at the very back of the pack, we waited around at the starting line and let the other walkers and runners pass us by. Parker was not quite sure what to make of his maiden race experience:


Eventually we made our way up toward the bridge:

A beautiful day! Not a cloud in the sky!

Finally we reached the bridge and began the slight climb uphill...


Parker was quite chilled out...


And Trey opted not to run as he had planned, and instead hung back with us. We enjoyed it...

(That is as we were walking over the bridge.)

Parker finally fell asleep for the last mile (of the 6+ mile trek), but I didn't take a picture for fear of waking him. When the end was in sight we could also see the church (to the left (with the columns), Trinity UMC) where we were married:


We made it!


Parker woke up while we were hanging out in Marion Square after the race, and once he figured out where he was (sort of), he enjoyed the beautiful day too.


It was a perfect day and a fun event and I look forward to doing it again!

Day at the park

I hate it when I sit down to blog about something and realize that I don't have any decent pictures to share. But there was one event of note, so I'm going to blog anyway. :)

Last Friday, the boys and I joined some friends and their little boys (three adults and six little boys) at Charlestowne Landing. It was a beautiful day and finally we saw more of the animals. In addition to the usual otter, turkeys and bison we finally saw a puma and a black bear, too. Of course when I went to take a picture of the bear, Thomas fell trying to get out of the stroller and by the time I tended to him, I missed a great shot of the bear and got this instead:


The boys had a great time running about (Thomas is in the red shirt):


They stopped to check out the bison...


An attempt to get the four older boys in a picture only proved to show one thing that I already knew...boys don't stop:


We tried to have a picnic in the park, but the gnats ran us back inside. It was still a lovely day and I look forward to going back soon!