Easter Weekend

Easter weekend started with a trip to the zoo. It's a Zoo Atlanta tradition to have an egg hunt for the gorillas. Last year we were too late for the egg hunt and this year...too early. Apparently they do it around 2:30. Oh, well, maybe one year when neither child is napping, we'll see the gorillas in action. While the gorillas are typically pretty active in the mornings, we don't usually get to see them up close and personal. However, there was one female gorilla feasting on cantaloupe and pacing back and forth in front of the glass. Savannah, "She's eating cantaloupe? She's eating cantaloupe, Mommy. She's eating cantaloupe, Daddy. She's eating cantaloupe?"

After the zoo, we heading over the V.E. Easter Egg Hunt. There were 3 hunts for 3 different age groups and since Savannah falls in the 2 and under division, she fared well at the hunt. Savannah saw a lot of her neighborhood friends at the festivities, but was pretty darn excited to see her friend, Emerson, from school.


Savannah and Emerson


Savannah's friend, Nate...isn't he handsome???


After all the excitement of the morning, Savannah was tuckered out and took a nice, long nap. Woohoo! These days, bedtime is quite a chore -- Savannah comes out of her room several times, cries, whines, demands water, her easter eggs and anything else she can come up with that she "NE-EEDS" (insert whiny voice here). So Saturday night, Stephen explained very calmly that the Easter Bunny was coming to bring her gifts, but if she made any noise, she would scare the Easter Bunny away and he wouldn't leave her any toys. She didn't make a peep...not while brushing her teeth or going potty or while Stephen read books...nothing. She stayed in her room and fell right to sleep. I sorta wish the Easter Bunny came every night, but I guess that wouldn't be effective for very long.

Sunday morning came and since we're not church-goers, the morning was quite relaxing. Savannah was very excited to see what the Easter Bunny left for her. Here's the loot for both kiddos.


Savannah is so sweet to her baby brother. This was not staged.


In classic Stephen style, he got up, showered and went downstairs to start the pancakes. Aren't they soooo pretty?!?!?! They were tasty too! Savannah and I ate them ALL!


Finally Savannah got to play with her bubbles. Bubbles have made a huge comeback in our house as of late. Savannah can't get enough and asks us almost daily if we can go outside to play with the bubbles. Stephen found this nifty bubble wand. It really makes a ton of bubbles!


Here's Gage with his eggs. And below Gage is a picture of Savannah's first Easter. She was about 9 1/2 months old here.




Then we headed out front and took some family pictures.
Daddy and Gage


Daddy and his kiddos


Poor Gage...just a couple hours after these pictures, we realized that he had a pretty high temperature and felt awful. He just wanted to snuggle on my chest and rest his head. Poor little guy just moaned. I'm happy to report, however, that Dr. B says it was just a virus and so no antibiotics were necessary. He stayed home with me yesterday and was back to his talkative self this morning.


Guess who took this one??? Savannah got a hold of my camera remote and took several pictures like this.


And our family of four.


Hope you all had a very Happy Easter!

Morning at the park

I have so much photo blogging to catch up on. Springtime in Atlanta is always so beautiful and I tend to have my camera with me at all times. I love the girls in their spring dresses and seeing the boys in their "Sunday best".

Last weekend, Savannah and I met up with Sophie and Susana for a repeat day at the Smyrna Village park. It was a year almost to the day that we took the girls for a springtime photo shoot. They were so cute last year!!! They were cute this year too of course, but much more aware of the cameras, more mobile and independent. This pretty much sums up the day for my shooting...


The girls had fun and I guess that is all that really matters.

This one just reminds me of a children's clothing catalog...maybe it's just the way they are standing. And, yep, I made Savannah's dress...just like last year's dress. Before you think I actually have that kind of time on my hands, I have to admit that I made both dresses before Savannah was even conceived. I figured if I didn't ever have a girl, I do have some cutie pie nieces who would wear them.


Savannah likes the gazebo at this park.


Just me having some fun with some new stuff.


The girls finally stood still long enough to collect acorns


...and embrace in that oh so sweet toddler hug.

Gage is 4 months old!

Stats:
Weight: 15 pounds, 5 ounces
Height: 25 inches
Adorableness: off the charts

Dr. B says Gage is doing great, but we already knew that :-)

Paas...a family tradition

Being the weekend before Easter, and knowing that our Easter weekend dance card was already full, Savannah and I decided to begin our newest family tradition a week early - dying Easter eggs!!! I hadn't dyed eggs in I don't know how many years so I was a little weary since I seem to remember not doing it often and probably because it has the potential of becoming a huge mess. Nevertheless, I could not pass up the Paas display at Publix the weekend before last. I gave Savannah the choice...tie-dyed or animals...and therefore, the choice was obvious...animals it was!

We had fun after finally figuring our which cups would work best for submerging the eggs in the dye (kiddie cups from Outback). The Paas kit still comes with the same little metal dipper thingy that came with the kits when I was a kid.

Savannah enjoyed watching the tablets fizzle in the vinegar and thought I was crazy for letting her drop the eggs in these cups.


But she loved the results!


Here's our little zoo.


And Savannah added the finishing touches of animal stickers.


There was so much more to the weekend...Gage turned 4 months old on Friday and had his 4 month well visit on Monday. That will be for another post. Savannah FINALLY got her hair cut on Saturday...she's been asking us to take her for weeks! On Sunday, Savannah and I met up with Sophie and her mommy at the park and took lots of fun Spring pictures of the girls. That will have to be for another post too since I'll have to include comparison pictures from when we took the girls to the same park this time last year.

Savannahism (the first of many I'm sure)

Sorry...no pictures, but this post is more for memory's sake since I'm losing mine slowly day by day.

Savannah is 99.999% potty trained (she wears a pull-up to sleep). Woohoo! We wanted to make it easy for Savannah in case she needed to go potty at night so we bought her a cute little hippo stool to help her reach the potty. One night a few weeks ago, Stephen looks at me and says, "Do you hear water running?" I listened and sure enough I heard it and immediately my heart sunk into the pit of stomach and adrenaline rushed through my veins. In my mind, Savannah had turned on the steaming hot bath water, attempted to climb into the tub, slipped, fell into the steaming water, bumped her head knocking her unconscious (reason we didn't hear screaming), the washcloth had been left in the tub which blocked the drain, so water filled the tub and she was drowning in steaming hot bath water. I raced upstairs...don't even recall really how I got there...I may have just leaped over the balcony for all I know. Much to my relief, Savannah was happily playing in the sink standing on her other step stool having a grand 'ole time splashing in the water with her cup and a washcloth completely soaked neck to ankles...with cold water. Whew! From that moment on, we lock the pocket door to her bathroom with a dime each night before she gets tucked in. So now, we're back to square one, and IF (that's a big IF) Savannah wakes up and needs to use the potty in the middle of the night, she'll have to come wake us up.

So I had this brilliant idea to leave her Bjorn training potty in her room. Therefore, if she did have to go in the middle of the night, there would be no worries of her falling and busting open her head. That potty has been in her room for about a week now. Each night about 10 minutes after tucking Savannah into bed, she proudly walks out of her room holding said potty and announces with delight, "Look, Mommy Daddy, I pee-peed in my litter box."

What a weekend!

We missed gymnastics Saturday morning to attend a birthday party for 3 of Savannah's friends, Caden, Kyle and Kylie..."C2K '09" as we've referred to it in our house. Gymnastics class was probably pretty boring without half the class there since they were all at Kangazoom. Savannah had a blast as she always does at Kangazoom, but it's even more fun when surrounded by 20 other kids she knows. After the party, Savannah and I had a nice girls' lunch (just the 2 of us) at The Crepe Revolution. The waitress kept commenting on how well-behaved Savannah was. I'd pat myself on the back if I didn't know that she was really just dog tired and didn't have any fight left in her. She barely touched her lunch, but that may have been due to the fact that she ate her weight (40 pounds) in cheese, grapes and crackers at the party.

After a nap, (did she take a nap on Saturday? I can't remember) we brought her Barbie Jeep out of storage to see if she might finally be old enough to enjoy it. Stephen has a knack for buying toys about 12-18 months too early. For example, we have a Black and Decker toy tool set in our attic that Stephen bought after Christmas that I supposed Gage might find enjoyable next Christmas. Anyhow, she seemed to really enjoy the Jeep this year.


Here she is last year. It's not until you see pictures from a year ago that you realize how much of a little girl she is turning into!


Sunday morning took a turn for the worse. Savannah announced first thing, "Mommy, my belly hurts." Those are 4 words I've never heard Savannah say until then. After a small breakfast and 2 successful trips to the potty, we thought we were over the belly ache. So we decided a trip to the park to feed the ducks was in order. As we were getting ready...I think Stephen was putting on her shoes...Savannah got sick...on Stephen no less. I'm chuckling now as I type this because his face was priceless. I don't recall his exact words, but it went something like this:
Stephen: That's never happened to me before.
Me: Welcome to the club.
After all was cleaned up, Savannah said she still wanted to go to the park. We fed the ducks and played for a little while, but Savannah said that she wanted to go home. Uh oh. She must not be feeling good. So we went home and she took a 2 1/2 hour nap...no lunch, no milk, just sleep.

By Sunday night, I was feeling her pain. I too had a belly ache and head ache to boot. We both stayed home on Monday. By Tuesday morning, everyone was feeling good. By Tuesday night, Stephen is now sick :( I just hope Gage dodges this one!!!

Speaking of Gage, he took it easy on Sunday. He read the paper and then napped in the swing. What a life!

The Children's Museum

Sorry for the 3 posts in one day, but it's been a busy weekend!

Today after Gage woke up from his morning nap...that was 2 1/2 hours after only being awake for 1 hour after 12 hours of continuous sleep the night before (okay, so yeah, now I'm bragging a little)...we had our first visit to Imagine It Children's Museum. We were impressed and we didn't even see the half of it! Because we got there so late, we really couldn't stay too long before we needed to leave to grab a very late lunch. However, we are now members and can go back whenever we like which we plan to do on those rainy and/or HOT weekends when we alternate trips to the GA Aquarium.

Savannah really enjoyed playing in the moon sand. The sandbox is the main culprit for the Savannah fits she tends to throw whenever we have to leave Kiki's house. Maybe this year when we go down to Amelia Island and Sanibel, she'll show a little more interest in the beach than she did last year.


Anyway...here she is with Stephen. This was the first trip to the sandbox. We went back for more a little later.


Later, we started to take in a show, but Savannah was a bit freaked out by the girl who was a bit too animated and loud and, not to mention, quite a bit off key. We trekked into the area with water and she had a blast fishing and collecting all the pink fish.



Here's one of me and Gage...


Later, she tried her hand at painting. The painting wall is right next to the sandbox so once she realized this, she quickly washed her hands and bee-lined it back to the sandbox.