Kites and Slides

The weather has been so lovely this week- around eighty with a nice breeze and best of all- no humidity yet. We have been spending as much time out of doors as possible before the damp, stifling, suffocating, giant bug nurturing, lock your doors and bar your windows weather sets in (can you tell I don't like humidity? I may have mentioned it before)

We took a walk to our great little park the other evening to fly James's first kite- a 1$ buzz light year trinket that lasted one evening. It did fly for a while though.


Can you see Seb's little tooth poking out?


It was hard to get any good pictures of James running like mad with the kite high above him- he got pretty tired of it after a while, so we moved on to the play ground-


This playground was built by the community. They asked for volunteers and about two hundred people showed up. They built almost the entire thing in one Saturday. I was pretty impressed. Anyways, the whole play ground is fun, but the obvious main attraction is the giant slide. The boys (all four of them) had a blast.








Here's to hoping this weather will last!

Happy Ooster (Can I have more candy?)

James somehow got it into his head that Easter was pronounced Ooster. He also quickly figured out that Ooster and candy go together, and the beach.... that's right, we spent Easter weekend in Florida with Joe and Darcee. It was exhausting, but well worth the ten hour drive, at least on the way down. On the way back up, I was starting to think flying wasn't such a bad idea.
We left Steve behind, but I had help from my sister Callie and her roommate Julia who were both a huge help entertaining and feeding three whining kids strapped into their chairs. In reality it seemed a very short trip compared to the sixty hours we spent in the car in January (at least to me).
We had a great time overall- saw a ton of stuff during three short days, and got plenty of warm sun to help us through this unusually cold and cloudy Chattanooga spring. And Easter day really was a celebration with more than just candy.

Friday Callie and Julia spent at Disney World- I wasn't in the mood for that undertaking with my kids just yet. So Joe and Darce showed us around Orlando a bit. We went to a wonderful park in a very upscale part of Orlando. The kids had a blast chasing squirrels and climbing trees. I enjoyed looking at the huge variety of exotic flowers and trees on display.


This was a palm tree growing out of some kind of cedar I think.






This was one tree the kids did not try to climb.


James is going through a stage right now.....

That night we were decorating eggs and we had an egg blowing contest. This, we discovered, is kind of a disgusting process made much harder if laughing hysterically.



Saturday was beach day. It was windy and warm and very very sandy, but also very fun. We built castles and after some tentative toe dipping, James loved splashing in the surf. Etienne allowed the waves to wash over his feet a bit but that was all.






Easter morning we woke up to this beautifully decorated table, our egg blowing efforts well worth the trouble.


I realized today that I hadn't really gotten a photo of the kids all dressed up, but when there aren't any fluffy Easter dresses involved, it doesn't seem as fun. Church was wonderful, as well as the long feast afterwards. Then we cleaned up, napped a little bit and drove uptown for a walk on the water.


Looking at the "big bugs", otherwise known as turtles-







At the end of the day I found James in bed, like this-



I guess we wore him out.
Thanks Joe and Darcee!

Two years old and fidoo free

Yes, we did it. We accomplished our goal and with time to spare. The fidoo is just a memory now. Thank you for your many helpful tips- it proved to be much easier than I had anticipated.
So Etienne is two now. That means I have been blogging for two years, since I started this blog just after he was born. Time sure flies. And James will be four soon, and then school will start and then college and marriage and.....
no I will not worry about being a grandma yet.

So anyways, Steve likes to follow the kids around with the camera sometimes and take lengthy photo shoots. Usually they won't cooperate and most of the pictures end up being the back of their head. Yesterday however, Etienne seemed bent on posing for the camera. I thought these pics captured some of his quirky character, and let us see what had been hiding behind that pacifier. So I give you the many faces of my big two year old.

This picture disturbed me a little. He looks a little too comfortable strutting his stuff down the cat walk.


Wide eyed innocence is a better look for him.


I love how Steve caught the younger brother admiring his older brother's ability to play with mud.


Everything is a wonder at this age- even the zoom lens.


I call this look 'Blue Steel'


Dad- what is that thing crawling up your arm?!!!


Again, a little too comfortable with the posing.


Alright Dad, enough already.

Six Months

So here is my little Seb at six months. I remember taking shots of Etienne at this age in the same little suit and it seems like two months ago, maybe three. And now Etienne is two this week. Yikes. Well, onward we go.

"I walked the dog!" (or the dog walked me)

It has been awhile since I have done a Strider post, but Moriah's post of yesterday reminded me that we actually have a dog who is sometimes worth writing about. James, my big boy who is finally taller than the dog, decided he was man enough to try and walk him today.
Now normally not even I feel man enough to walk the dog. He is huge, hairy, and incredibly strong. I have attempted it several times with the stroller only to have him knock me and the stroller down whenever a stray squirrel happens across the road. Therefore he gets neglected.
However, it was a very lovely day today, and I felt sorry for the poor beast. Every time we take a walk without Strider, he yelps and cries so loudly that I can hear him all the way to the park four blocks away, let alone the little field just across the street where he can see us the whole time. So I yielded to James's request.

He did really well, only getting pulled through the grass face first a few times. He quickly figured out that the only way to stop him was to sit down with his boots dug into the ground. It was just so funny to see skinny little James trying to get that monster to obey him. But I was proud of him. He never let go of the leash, much to the relief of several people walking close by. I don't know why, but people tend to get nervous around our gentle, man-eating dog.

Operation get rid of fidoo

It is time to dispense with "fidoo". Etienne calls his pacifier "fidoo", derived from the second half of the word and pronounced as he pronounces all words ending in er such as- "wadoo" for water, "stridoo" for Strider the dog, etc. He is my only pacifier dependent baby, and I do mean dependent.









He has always been quiet, but the paci increases this tendency. Now I am noticing, as he starts to talk more, that his fidoo is affecting his speech patterns, seeing as he is always trying to talk around a rubber stopper in his mouth. He is also getting bigger and stronger and chewing holes in the rubber so that they are always full of nasty spit, and I just throw them away. That leaves us with just a few, and I am constantly on the hunt for them which is annoying seeing as they are usually behind the crib or hiding in low, baby height places. Besides, I think he looks much cuter without it.


So my goal is to have him clean and sober by his second birthday, which is in just a couple of weeks. Any tips?

P.S. In looking through all these old photos, I noticed that it is also time to start thinking about James and his thumb sucking. And then there are the security blankets. Yikes. Well, one thing at a time.