Official first word!

"uh-oh" was uttered by my little Allie while Nana and Poppy were here on Wednesday evening (November 17, 2010)

It's the cutest little uh-oh ever and she now says it constantly!  She's also trying her hardest to repeat lots of things that we say. She did successfully say "yellow" a few times yesterday!

Oh! And she's also started clapping, which she also now does constantly... see?

Unfortunately we didn't get to see very much of Dave's parents while they were in town. We had them over for dinner on Wednesday night and they drove down to Pawleys to see the lot progress on Thursday night. We didn't see them at all on Friday night and they drove down to Pawleys again on Saturday (because Dave, the kids and I had been down there since Thursday) for dinner at Quigleys. It was just a quick trip for them and they had some golfing friends with them. Pair that with the fact that Dave spent about 4 days straight in the woods, burning brush and cutting firewood, and there wasn't much time left! But, we did thoroughly enjoy the time we did get to spend with them.... especially JD. He led Nana and Poppy by the hand all through the house showing them his toys and things. It's so nice that he's at the point now that he remembers them and gets excited about them visiting!

We also made some progress on the house project. Like I said, Dave and my dad spent a great deal of time out there this weekend cutting trees and stacking firewood. We ordered and received our blueprints and actually had time to thoroughly look at them and identify areas that we'd like changed. We kept one set and gave the other four to our builder. We also met with a guy to clear the rest of the lot and marked every tree that was still standing: pink for keep, orange for cut. He's supposed to contact Dave this week with a quote for cutting the rest of the trees, piling up the hard wood for us to use as firewood, cutting the pine to size so we can sell it and levelling the ground. Funny thing is.... our builder arranged for this guy to meet with us.... my dad informed us the morning of the meeting that it's the same guy who cleared their lot 22 years ago and my grandfather knew his father very well! Pawleys Island is a small, small place.

Enough rambling... I'll leave you with some pictures from our long weekend in Pawleys:

I don't know why but JD really enjoyed sitting on my dad's cannonball this visit...

He also spent a good deal of time sitting with Papa in the mornings....

....and pushing his dump truck around!

Allie's new favorite thing to do at my parents' house is sit on the bottom step. She thinks she's such a big girl! She'd climb all the way to the top if the gate wasn't there!

GA/TN trip

We have returned from visiting my family in Georgia and Tennessee.

We left early Friday morning and returned Monday evening. My mom came with us and thank goodness she did! She did an excellent job of entertaining children in the car for 9 hours each way! Both of the kids did pretty good in the car. We made it a point to stop about every 2 hours and let them stretch. There was a little crankiness, of course, but overall it wasn't too bad!

So we left Friday morning around 8:00 AM, arriving at my brother Merv's house in GA around 5:00 PM. Merv spent a good bit of the day wrenching on his old go cart to get it running in time to take JD for a ride. "Don't worry," he said, "I've got a helmet to fit JD"..... this is what he came up with! It was a little large, but I trust him completely and let him take JD for a ride around the yard.

Dave also had fun with it, of course!

After go cart rides, we took JD to the fire station. I think a fire station visit will be in order just about every time we go visit Uncle Merv:

After the fire station we had dinner, enjoyed a rather large bonfire in the back yard and headed up the interstate to my cousin Beth's house in TN.

We didn't get to Beth's house until late and once we unloaded the car and got everything set up, the kids went to bed around 11:00 PM! Allie woke for a bottle as usual but JD didn't sleep very well that first night. He ended up in the bed with us which worked well for him but not so much for me! The next two nights we put the pack-n-play next to our bed and he slept well in there.

Saturday was fun. One of the reasons we stayed with my cousin is that she has an (almost) 4 year old little boy, Tyler. JD and Tyler had so much fun playing and chasing each other around the house! Once we got everybody up, fed and dressed, we met went to visit my grandmother. She'll be 92 in January and wasn't in very good health last time I visited. Allie was only 3 weeks old at the time but Grandma doesn't remember us being there and I didn't get any pictures at all. I was glad to see her up and about, eating well and interacting with the kids. Later that day I noticed JD was feeling a little warm. I took his temp and it was around 101. I decided to get him to take a nap and see how he was after his nap. Well, when he woke up it was 102.7, so off to urgent care we went. The Physician's Assistant that saw us was pretty uncaring but she said his ears looked good but his throat was really red and his glands were swollen. She prescribed antibiotics and sent us on our way. I continued to give him Motrin through the night for his fever and when he woke on Sunday, it was completely gone and he was back to running around like a maniac with Tyler.

Sunday I left the kids home with Dave and went to visit Grandma Marge with just my mom. It's hard to keep kids occupied in an assisted living facility. We had a great visit and Grandma was reliving the "olden days" as she called them. The first thing she asked me when I walked in, though, is where the babies were. So, I brought Allie back with a toy for her to play with and visited for a little while longer. I didn't want to bring JD back, though because he was in a little bit of a mood and I also didn't want to take the chance of getting Grandma sick!

Sunday evening, Angie and Josh came over to Beth's for dinner. JD had fun playing with Josh again, of course but we missed Merv and Brad!

Monday morning came and we hit the road around 9:00 AM, arriving home a little before 6:00 PM. JD decided to nap in the car about an hour before we arrived home. Again, the kids did pretty well in the car. They were both very happy to run/crawl around when we got home, though. And to make our homecoming even sweeter, my dad met us there with food! JD was excited to see Papa and I was excited that I didn't have to think about dinner!

So that was our trip. We'll make the trek again in late May for my nephew Brad's high school graduation!

Next exciting event on our agenda: Nana and Poppy visit from PA next week!!!

Week #4

JD's fourth week of school has been a vast improvement! He went on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. He cried when Dave dropped him off and when I picked him up on Wednesday but the teacher said he had a great day. And, his lion was in his cubby when I got him. Miss Mary said he only had it during his nap! So not only was he not dragging the red chair around, he didn't even need his lovey for most of the day!

Thursday was the same. Allie and I dropped him off and he cried. Dave picked him up and he cried again but he didn't need his lovey most of the day and the teacher said he did great.

Today, however was a big deal. As I was getting him dressed this morning he started getting anxious and saying "no go school, mommy". We just talked about school a little bit and when I would be there to get him and he kind of dropped it. As we were waiting for Dave to get out of the shower, JD looked at me and said "ready go school, mommy". I was shocked to say the least. So we put his jacket on and got his lion and again he said "ready go school now".

He didn't cry when Dave carried him out of the house like he usually does. He gave me a hug and kiss, told Allie goodbye and blew me another kiss on his way out the door and that was that! Again, I was shocked!

A little while later I got a call from Dave saying JD DIDN'T CRY AT ALL this morning at drop off. Dave put JD down just inside the classroom and told him to go give Miss Mary a hug. JD ran to Miss Mary, gave her a hug and told Dave goodbye. Dave said the look of shock on Miss Mary's face was funny.

I hope this continues. JD has been in a little bit of a difficult phase for a while but I'm starting to see signs that he's snapping out of it. He no longer asks for his binky and is becoming a little more independent. He can count from one to eleven, will actually drink from a big boy cup instead of immediately dumping the contents out and is starting to not have as much of a Mommy addiction. Last night he pitched a fit because I took his football shirt off to put his jammies on. We ended up putting the football shirt back on and that's what he slept in!

10 Months!

Allison is now 10 months old! We were on the road on the 8th so I took this picture last night before bed. She's quite squirmy as evidenced by this progression of "Bear in the Chair" pictures. All she wanted to do is attack the poor bear! Dave was able to capture her attention for a few seconds so I could get her face...

According to my bathroom scale she's now 17 pounds (11th percentile) and is 28 inches long (57th percentile). She is getting very, very close to taking those monumental first steps. She still has to pull up on something to get to a standing position but once she's there she can let go and balance on her own indefinitely. She will turn toward me and reach but doesn't quite move her feet yet before falling forward. I catch her, of course, but I believe it will be any day now that she takes her first steps. Maybe she'll do it while Nana and Poppy are in town....we'll see!

Along those same lines, here is a video of her pushing a toy across my cousin's kitchen floor. Isn't it funny how all kids do things differently? JD didn't push toys around like this until he was walking independently. Allie is exactly opposite!

Week #3

JD's teachers are saying he's doing better this week. He's no longer dragging his red chair around. In fact, they said he hasn't sat in it all week long! And, on Monday he peed in the potty for them! Tuesday he sat on the potty but didn't do anything... it's great he's trying, though!

On Tuesday when I went to pick him up, Miss Mary wasn't there. The other teacher, Miss Jenn said he's very attached to Mary. She also said he does well most of the day but still has a few times a day when he cries for me. She suggested bringing in a picture of the family to put in his cubby so we brought one in today. He was very excited to show it to Miss Mary this morning.

Speaking of this morning, drop off went pretty good. Dave has been dropping JD off on his way to work most mornings so I was surprised at how little crying was involved. He had a lot of anxiety while I was saying goodbye but he only cried for a second and by the time I walked out the door he wasn't screaming anymore!

Dave camped on our lot and burned some brush last night so JD will be very excited when Daddy picks him up and takes him for a golf cart ride today!

Now you're all caught up. We're headed to Tennessee and Georgia soon to visit family. Mostly to visit my grandmother. She'll be 92 in January and the last time I visited she wasn't doing very well and doesn't remember us being there. I want to take Allie back to see her again so she might actually remember meeting her only great-granddaughter. There will be lots and lots of pictures when we return!

BOO! Happy Halloween!!

We sure did have a lot of Halloween festivities this year... all kid related, of course!

First, we took JD and Allie to the Halloween parade and party at JD's school on Friday. The kids wore their costumes for the parade in the morning and Dave used Allie as a prop to get JD's class to smile for a group photo.... the kids in JD's class LOVE when Allie comes in! Poor Allie was so tuckered out by the parade that she conked out in the car and continued her nap in her costume when we got home!

My mom and I took the kids back in the afternoon for the party. JD stuck to me like glue for a little while but eventually let go of my leg and played a little. My mom was pretty much surrounded by kids the whole time. She's like the Pied Piper of children. They love her. All of them. I've never met a kid that didn't immediately love my mom. It didn't hurt that she had Allie with her, though!

See the red chair behind Allie? That's "JD's chair"

JD was quite proud of his ghost hanging on the wall. It's the one directly over his head.

Close up of his ghost... this is the one he was talking about the other night at bedtime when I asked what his favorite part of the day was.

Allie was only interested in ripping things off of the wall...

Saturday we headed down to Pawleys bright and early. I spent a good deal of time in the woods checking out the location of our house. The corners are staked so that makes it easier to envision and also to decide which trees stay and which trees go. We will have a few small, beautiful Live Oaks in our back yard!

Aside from spending time in the woods, I was able to sit fireside for the first time this year. And, we made Halloween cookies with JD! Allie pretty much hung around the house playing with toys... she did really enjoy my mom's Halloween witch, though!

Getting in to JD's snack trap

Sunday was Halloween and we still didn't have our pumpkins carved. Dave had to go in to work for a little while in the morning so we decided to do it after JD's nap. Well, I should say non-nap. He stayed in his room for about 20 minutes. I'm 100% positive he didn't sleep at all because his attitude was horrible when he got up. We tried pumpkin carving with him but it didn't work. Well, it worked for a little while but when it came time to actually carve the pumpkin he kept trying to grab the knife and wasn't listening. When we wouldn't let him have the knife he'd pitch a big fit. So we put the gate up on the door to his room and told him he had to take a nap. He stood there and screamed for a very long time. I had to go meet my mom at Michael's Crafts so I left poor Dave with a screaming JD. While I was gone Dave told JD that if he could count to 10 he could come out of his room.... sneaky little boy actually did it! Usually he says 1, 8, 2, 8, etc... but Dave said he was so ready to come out of his room and not take a nap that he counted to 10 perfectly!

Well, when mom and I got back to the house JD was still in his cranky, non-listening mood and I was very afraid that he was going to miss out on trick-or-treating. One because he was going to have to go to bed early....the boy had been up since 5:30 AM! And two because he wasn't listening and I was afraid he was going to run out into the road! Dave took pity on him, strapped him into the car and went for a ride. JD conked out and finally took a short nap, after which we had chili for dinner and then got ready for trick-or-treating!

Allie was the most precious little angel ever. We had halo issues. Whoever designed this costume did not do a very good job! I had to alter it because the halo pretty much just spun in circles. But even after I altered it, the halo wouldn't stay up. Then Allie would notice it and pull on it so I just got rid of it altogether!

JD was a ferocious lion (not so much). He LOVED his costume. I was surprised he let me use eyeliner to color his nose and give him whiskers but he didn't put up a fight at all! And he kept his costume on all night long. After we walked to a few houses we joined Dave in the driveway to hand out candy. We always sit in the bed of the truck. JD stood beside Dave and roared at everyone who walked by. It was so cute!

Eventually, though, his lack of decent nap caught up with him and into bed he went. When he woke on Monday morning, the first thing he said was "JD bite trick-or-treat?".... he wanted candy for breakfast! I think he thoroughly enjoyed Halloween this year!