Two

Warner is officially two years old. My how the time flies. We celebrated with our parents, Kevin's sister and her family, and my grandparents last Sunday afternoon.
When I asked Warner what kind of birthday party he wanted, he quickly responded with the Wiggles. When I couldn't find Wiggles party stuff I offered him a choice between Elmo and a train party. Elmo won. Here is the cake I made - with the help of my mother of course. I think it's much better than the monkey cake last year, so at least we're moving in the right direction.
Warner needed a little help blowing out the candles.
The best family picture we could get.
The cake met Warner's standards. By this point in my mom's visit he was an expert in taste testing sugar-based food. I think he still has a sugar high - and it's been four days since Grammie went back home to Texas.
Abby and Ashley helped Warner open his presents. He got a ton of new toys that have kept him busy and entertained, which is a gift for his mommy as well.
Nanny got him Playdoh and he loves it. I put this picnic table in the basement and have made a basement-or-outside-only Playdoh rule since it gets really messy really fast. This stuff keeps him entertained for a good thirty minutes which is like an eternity for a toddler.

I'm not sure if Warner "got" the whole birthday thing, but he enjoyed his party, the attention, and the toys. We've been working on him saying how old he is, so when we ask him his age, he now responds with "two" and tries to hold up two fingers. We usually tell him he's a big boy as well.

A few weeks ago we were at the park and Warner was climbing on everything so well - he is physically able to master most of the playground now. As he climbed a rock structure I kept telling him how big he was for climbing so much. When he got to the top, I told him again how big he was. He then turned around, looked at me, and said "two". Apparently he gets it.

Happy birthday, little man.

Baking with Grammie

We baked and baked and baked some more this past week. The first annual Meredith's Miracles Colon Cancer Foundation golf classic was Saturday, and my mom and I decided to bake cancer ribbon cookies for the golfers. We made over 200 sugar cookies, then iced them in blue and wrote "MMCCF" in white icing.
Warner was a huge help in the taste-test area. When we made the icing we'd ask him what else it needed and he'd just say "more".
My mom gave him his own bowl of blue icing and a small knife to ice cookies. He only iced one, then ate it.
He ate next to nothing for dinner two nights in a row because he was so full of cookies and icing. But he was sure happy.

Torturing Maren

Warner felt the need to include Maren in the fun he was having with stickers ...
She puts up with an awful lot.
Since Kevin was an accomplice it's only fair that the sticker ended up on his nose.

Pictures

Here are a few photos that I can't seem to incorporate into a creative blog post. Maren's Sunday best. Warner helping me knead bread. The look on his face is the reaction to tasting the dough (which I told him not to do, so of course he instantly did).
Maren and Mommy playing while Warner naps. If he knew Maren was in his Elmo chair he'd probably lose it.More smiles for Mommy. Apparently I'm getting funnier.

Farm Frenzy

The UK Cooperative extension hosts a free event each fall called Farm Frenzy. During the day the school kids visit to learn about agriculture and during the evening it's open to the public. Our first stop was to see the dairy cow. Warner was pretty impressed but then slightly scared once she "moo-ed" for him.I'm not sure which animal he's looking at here, but this pretty much catches his excitement the whole evening.Feeding the goats.Maren slept the whole time. Apparently she was not impressed with Farm Frenzy.My favorite part was the hayride. Warner's favorite part was sitting on the tractor. He climbed on it for a good five minutes before we peeled him off so other kids could have a turn. He threw an all-out fit as we left. Ahh, what good, clean, family fun!

Smile!

I finally got a decent picture of Maren smiling.
And I think she just looks pretty in this picture.

Bathtime

To avoid a two-hour bath/bedtime routine, I started giving the kids a bath together when Kevin worked evenings - it simply took too long to bathe them individually. I think Warner likes having Maren with him in the tub, although we often have to remind him to not splash too much or pour water over her face/head.I don't think Maren knows what to think of Warner.My favorite part is their bath towels. MaNell and Aunt Debbie got Maren this bunny towel. It has her name on the back. It's so cute I can hardly stand it.This is Warner's dog towel. He insists on hooded towels and that we put on his "hat" after the bath, then wrap the towel around him as pictured. He then walks from the bathroom to Maren's room ...Where we finish up with lotion, diapers, and jammies for both kids.

Two Months

Maren is two months old today. It's funny, it seems as if she's older because I can hardly remember our family without her. Kind of like how I forget what life was like before kids (sleeping whenever I wanted, going to the bathroom alone, etc.). Her two-month stats are: weight - 11 pounds 4 ounces (50th percentile), and length - 22 1/4 inches (50th percentile). She is sleeping better at night - sometimes going 6+ hours between feedings, which makes me love her even more (not really, but it sure does help). We are so blessed to have such a precious little girl in our family.

Rainy Days

It rained a lot this past week. I didn't realize how much I enjoy getting out of the house until we were stuck here for a few days. This winter should be interesting. Here are a few pictures from our time indoors:Quite possibly my favorite. I suggested we color a picture for Dad to take to work. Instead of coloring Warner got a little crazy with the stickers and stuck them to everything - including his forehead, Maren's forehead, and my pants.We ate broccoli with tongs instead of a fork (Warner's idea). We also did not get out of our jammies on this particular day, and I'm not ashamed to admit I really enjoyed it.Anything that is stack-able gets stacked these days. And here's a new trick: try to fit in the truck.Meanwhile, Maren didn't mind being indoors too much - she gave us her first real smiles. I haven't gotten a good picture of one yet so this will have to do for now.

Green Beans

It took a few minutes, but Warner figured out how to break green beans. I broke off the ends and then handed them to him to be broken in half and put in the pot. He liked it so well he kept asking for more to break after we were finished.
Not quite sure how to do it.
Green-bean-breaking takes a lot of concentration.
Into the pot they go.

He then helped me season the beans (imagine spices everywhere) and stir them while they cooked. He even ate the finished product ... a success!

Happy (early) birthday, Kevin!

We celebrated Kevin's birthday a week early with a trip to Newport on the Levee for dinner and ice cream with his family. Since Kevin is really old I won't disclose his age. It's nice to have married someone older than me - I will always be able to hassle him about his age.Ashley and Abby rode with us on the way there. Warner was happy to have Ashley next to him (even though it doesn't appear that way in the picture).Maren mostly did this the entire time.The best family picture we could get. The evening ended with ice cream from Coldstone Creamery.This was one of the first times Warner has enjoyed ice cream - I think it's been too cold for his taste in the past. He devoured it.Ice-cream-eating action shot with Nanny and Grandaddy.

Long time, no blog!

I have no excuse for being a bad mommy-blogger other than I'm still sleep deprived and am not taking as many pictures as I'd like. We went to the lake for Labor Day weekend and I came home ready to load pictures on our computer only to realize I'd taken ONE picture during our 6 day stay. And the one picture didn't even turn out well.

Maren continues to grow and is sleeping better at night - she'll now go 4 hours or so which means I'm up about 2 times a night if I'm lucky. Kevin's cousin Chrissi gave me a huge bag full of clothes that her daughter has outgrown I now have more fun outfits to dress Maren in. This is one of them:Oh it's so fun to dress a little girl!I got out Warner's old activity mat for Maren to play on but I think it's a bit much for her right now. In the meantime Warner has enjoyed playing with it. Go figure.And of course I still find time to bake sweets to have (even if it's just brownies from a box) which Warner loves to "help" with. He drags his step stool out of the bathroom into the kitchen whenever I'm cooking and insists on participating. Mostly he enjoys licking the spatula.