Randomness...

So I have a little break in my day and needed to think about something other than crying babies, bottles, and diaper changes. It's freezing cold out and pouring rain here--no snow or ice--I can't wait for spring to arrive!

I am a little behind on posting some recent pictures--I love how our new camera brings out such bright colors. I'm still learning how to use it but slowly getting better!

Daddy and Kellan playing together--the boy loves cars!

He enjoys playing with stuff on top of our now empty coffee table (he knocks everything off so we just decided to leave it bare until this phase passes!)

He enjoys playing in the cabinet that contains our pots and pans. He makes a lot of noise but has fun while he's at it!

Marlon's college roommate, Greg, and his family came for a visit on Sunday. They just live up in Pittsburgh so it's not a far trip. They have a little boy Alex's age and a little girl a few months older than Kellan--the kids are looking out the kitchen window waiting for them to arrive!

This is how we get Alex to give us a real smile for pictures--you have to tell her "DON'T SMILE" and she starts with this goofy face, which then becomes her cute, genuine smile. Hey--whatever works!

Kellan has enjoyed the fact that the bouncy seat is out in circulation again for Brady, the baby I watch. Kellan has learned to climb inside it and bounce up and down--since his jumperoo has been banned to downstairs to prevent overcrowding in our living room, this is Kellan's next best choice for bouncing.

I'm going to run and enjoy the few quiet minutes I have left before one child wakes up from their nap (most likely mine!)

SNOW

This is a little delayed, but we got our first significant snow on MLK day, along with so many other people. Alex had the day off from school and I didn't have to babysit, so we got to play out in the snow. Alex helped me shovel and was rewarded with some sledding in the backyard. Our little hill is the perfect size for her! Here are a few pics of our time outside. Unfortunately we didn't have any good snow gear for Kellan, so we opted to keep him inside.

Kellan is 10 months old!

Our little guy is now 10 months old. I'm ashamed to say I missed his 9 month post, but he's been a busy boy the past 2 months! Right after Thanksgiving he began crawling, and he quickly learned how to pull himself up on furniture. He loves to cruise around the coffee table knocking off anything on it. We kept our Fisher Price manger scene here over christmas, and after I would set it up each evening after the kids were in bed, he would knock it all off again first chance he got the next morning! Just this week he started to be able to push his walker around on his own. He loves the independence and concentrates very hard. He needs help turning but I can imagine it will only be a matter of time before he can do that without any assistance! He's definitely getting into everything, being much more of a trouble maker than his big sister was! He loves to pull open kitchen cabinets, knock all of the alphabet magnets off the refrigerator, stick his hands in the dog's water bowl, pull the power cord out of the laptop...One thing that really makes him laugh is playing with Sophie (the dog)--he loves to pick up her stuffed and squeaky toys and play tug of war with her. I don't think Sophie is overjoyed by this but she's really good with him and goes along with it. Kellan starts laughing when she tries to pull her toys away. It's pretty funny to watch. Also, right after christmas Kellan started getting his top 2 teeth in. They are just breaking through, but that brings his total up to 4!

Kellan has been learning how to say "more" and "all done" in sign language. He uses both signs but I think we still need to refine his skill at determining when to use them! He has finally made a few sounds other than just "dada"--that phrase is still his favorite but he also says "mama" and "yaya". He likes to stand up in his crib and throw his favorite sleeping buddy (that we call his "lovie over the side, then scream his head off until you come give it back to him.

Kellan also enjoys pushing his little cars around the living room. The friction ones that Nana got him for christmas are ones he's enjoying right now!

He's still been a good eater--much better than his sister ever was! He eats a combination of some finger foods (bananas, cheerios, puffs, bread, peas) along with some chunky blended foods.

He loves being free of the baby bath tub and enjoys crawling around the big bath, often with his big sister. He is a happy, snuggly boy and we are enjoying the little time he has left as a baby. It's going by too quickly, but I'm definitely glad I am at home to experience it with him!

Last week I started babysitting for a 10 week old little boy, so it's been fun to be around a tiny baby again. Kellan is fascinated by him and wants to check him out. He has yet to show signs of jealousy, which I am grateful for. So far it has worked out well as I rarely have both kids awake at the same time, so it is not yet overwhelming.

Funny story about Alex, since most of this post has been about her little bro. Last week her friend Jarrett was over and I was making them dinner. I asked Alex if they wanted grilled cheese, and she said yes. She looked at Jarrett and said, "Do you want grilled cheese or boy cheese?" She then told me she would have grilled cheese, and Jarrette needed boy cheese, since he was a boy. It was only then that I realized that all this time she thought we referred to it as girl cheese instead of grilled cheese. Marlon was there for the moment as we laughed. Odd that this hadn't come up before because Jarrett has had "girl" cheese at our house a number of times. She's recently made a lot of comments regarding girl vs. boy--that the girls do things together, not with boys; that she wants to play with only girls, not boys at school, etc. Marlon definitely reinforces the "stay away from boys" mentality!

Photography 101

I've been remiss in posting about the fact that my husband has recently become obsessed with taking pictures, thanks to all of my family members who have these great digital SLR cameras. Everyone was discussing them over the holidays and taking great photos and Marlon, the electronics guru that he is, couldn't believe he somehow missed the boat on upgrading our camera. Needless to say, one week and much research later, we were the proud owners of a Nikon D40X camera (Refurbished)--big thanks to my SIL Renee who really got Marlon going with this one! I haven't had the opportunity to use it much as it's typically in Marlon's hands, but it does have the ability to take some really nice pictures (such as the ones in the new header above). Gotta love the photoshop programs available these days to help enhance photos--I truly believe that those programs can make any ole' picture look amazing! I admit I'm glad we'll be able to capture some amazing memories of the kids with the new camera--I just need to learn how to use it first!
I know Marlon has been dying to see some of his works of art on here, so I thought I'd post this for him while he's out of town in St. Louis. Here are a few of my favorites:

Alex standing next to her first completed game of Wii Bowling (she scored a 90--she's improved significantly since then!)

M-I-C-K-E-Y MOUSE!

In case you haven't heard, we went to Disney!! Every year Marlon has to go recruiting in Orlando right after Christmas, and this year we decided that Alex and I would fly down and join him when the tournament ended and visit some of the infamous Disney attractions. Kellan stayed behind with both sets of grandparents since we figured he probably wouldn't enjoy it very much--he had a great time and did well being on his own, despite getting over a yucky cold.
We had 3 full days to spend at the parks, and we were fortunate enough to get free park hopper tickets from one of Marlon's contacts down there--that made the trip MUCH more affordable! We decided to visit Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), and Animal Kingdom. I think Alex was just barely old enough to enjoy some of the sites and be able to stand and wait in line--I don't think I would have wanted to take her at much earlier of an age. Since we saved mucho dinero on park tickets, we decided to splurge and do dinner at Chef Mickeys in the Contemporary resort. Mickey and friends come to your table one at a time so you can take pictures with them. Alex enjoyed meeting Minnie Mouse the most--she wasn't shy with her but was a little shy with the others--she only wanted to have her picture taken if one of us held her. We also splurged on breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table in the castle one day. This is definitely a costly activity ($130 for the 3 of us and no variety in terms of options for eating), but you pay for the experience of meeting each of the princesses and eating inside the castle. The set up was the same as Chef Mickeys--the princesses each came to the table one at a time so we could meet them and have pictures taken with them. I'll admit I wasn't overly impressed with the entire experience here but Alex enjoyed meeting the princesses, so it was nice...definitely not something I would have done if I was already paying for park tickets.
We didn't have much of an agenda and tried to go by what Alex wanted to do, but I did try to highlight a few attractions that I thought she would like and hit those...at Magic Kingdom, we made sure to do Dumbo, It's a Small World, Peter Pan's adventure. At Hollywood Studios they opened a Playhouse Disney section sometime in the past few years since I was last there, and that was PERFECT for Alex. She got to meet the Little Einsteins, and we saw but didn't meet Handy Manny and JoJo (for all of you moms, you probably know who I'm referring to!)

We stayed at the Gaylord Palms, a huge hotel that is connected to the Orlando Convention Center. They had tropical trees, flowers, and koi ponds inside the center--Alex loved to visit the fish each morning when we went down to get breakfast. They also had a boat inside that was also a restaurant.

Here are a few other pictures from our trip...

The christmas parade at Magic Kingdom--what a beautiful day it was!

Alex and Marlon outside Magic Kingdom--day one!

The Safari ride at Animal Kingdom

The Petting Zoo at Animal Kingdom-Marlon was a little grossed out but Alex enjoyed brushing a few goats!

All in all, it was a good trip and it was nice to spend some quality time with just Alex. We look forward to going back when the kids are older so we can take Alex on the "Big rides"! I think she's going to be a roller coaster lover like her mom!

Goodbye 08, Hello 09!...part 1

At long last I'm sitting down to post about our holidays. I've been putting this post off because there was just too much to talk about, but I guess the longer I wait, the worse it's going to get! We had a great time visiting with friends and family but it is definitely good to be back home again after 2 weeks away! We've done so much that it's hard to remember it all--my sister in law did a great job giving some highlights of our family events in her blog. (thanks Renee!!) She as usual included some great photos--I will also try to post some of my favorites.

We headed out to the Philly/NJ area to visit both of our families--we are very fortunate that they live close to each other so we are able to see everyone over the holidays. It was great to see our nieces and nephews and give Alex the chance to play with her cousins. Below are some pics:

My family

Lauren and our nephew Carter

I will post our pics of our Disney trip in a separate post. Stay tuned!