In our part of town, it looks like someone came through the neighborhood planting Dogwood trees Johnny Appleseed-style. The yards are full of them — white and pink — some houses have two or even three trees. And, wow, they are beautiful. The other day we were on a walk and I was telling David
Hippity hoppity, Easter’s on its way When I took these pictures two years ago, I thought it would be the last time I’d be able to convince David to wear bunny ears. What I didn’t know then was that my little boy loves accessories. He doesn’t mind — and even requests — hats, sunglasses, suspenders, and
I got an email the other day from Babycenter.com that said kids should play outside everyday to burn off some energy, and because, “Being outdoors also provides sensory stimulation (the sun, the birds, the dirt) that can’t be replicated indoors.” Great idea, Babycenter.com, but where are you when it’s time to clean up this mess?
Last week was a long week. A long week in which I ignored David a lot because I was busy updating my resume to include “has experience administering suppositories”. On Saturday I went to Target to pick up a few things, including a new water cup for David. I looked at the selection and did
Last week Mary Virginia was pummeled with a small fever that turned into a big fever that turned into the sort of fever that bulldozes your backyard to build a strip mall. That sort of fever. You’re probably getting tired of hearing about us getting sick. You and me both. All Mary Virginia wanted was
Can you feel the chaos? We are in the midst of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. It is madness, yes, but when you live with a teething baby and a toddler who WILL NOT nap, you barely notice. My entire life feels like a sporting event with upsets and unexpected runs; a tournament with the appellation
Not every day is all rainbows and shamrocks around here. But today? (Aside from the snow and sleet outside.) Today that’s all it is. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Hoping your day is filled with pots of gold and blue-eyed leprechauns, and reminders that we have a God who lavishes blessings on his people. “In him
These photos are a bit dated. This happened two months ago. (The really funny thing is, it happened 21 months ago, too) We had just come home from a long weekend away and were unpacking the car. There were bags full of toys, clothes, food, and babies everywhere. Apparently, Mary Virginia needed a snack. You know
Ever since David has had even a little bit of hair he’s twirled it with his finger. He does it when he’s tired, when he’s distracted, when he’s unsure, when he’s dealing with a difficult co-worker. We’ve seen him do it in his sleep. I took this photo over a year ago, before his first
Tom told me that this week was the coldest on record in March. We are so lucky to be alive during this historical moment. Winter is, I hope, having its last gasp; snow, ice, frigid temperatures. I did posts in honor of summer and fall, and though winter is not my favorite, I’m also a
When we were kids, my dad used to tell us he picked us in a cabbage patch. Good try, Dad. Then why do my knees pop just like yours? And how do you explain my inability to throw away a jar of peanut butter before scraping the ever-loving marrow out of it, thereby slashing my family’s monthly
Albuterol, saline, labeled oral syringes, Azithromycin, Tamiflu, ear-numbing drops, thermometers, acetaminophen dosage chart for quick reference. If I had to choose one photo to sum up fall/winter for our family, this would be it. Usually when one of the kids are teething or has a cough, I keep their medicine on the counter and put
I found this idea for making a car track using Washi tape on Pinterest. Since we’ve been snowed in a lot in the past few weeks and were looking for activities, I decided to give it a try. The idea is simple enough. I already have Washi tape from packaging Etsy orders, exactly three square
I’d like to introduce you to Amanda Giobbi, my best friend from college. We met at Virginia Tech on my 18th birthday, August 29, 2000. I was going out to eat with some girls I’d just met on my hall (more about that here), and she made me laugh harder than anyone I’d ever met.
This is a picture of the blonde curl on David’s forehead. It is also a picture of a radio head. Get it? Radiohead. This makes me laugh, mostly because it wasn’t Tom’s idea. Tom, who tries to explain the time signatures in Radiohead songs on every car trip we’ve ever taken. Tom, who thinks the song
If you happen to follow my blog with a reader (like Feedly, gReader, or Bloglovin’) you might have noticed a post this weekend that was a little different than my typical content. I hope you realized the post wasn’t legit — we were hacked and spammed. We don’t know exactly what happened, but Tom is
By now, these snow pictures are two snows old. This is before the southern snowstorm that’s currently outside, before the three-inch snow-pacolypse that knocked out our power, left us without internet and cancelled schools for a week, and after the “2014 Cold Wave” better known as the Polar Vortex. This was our first snow, a typical
I don’t like winter. Not even one little bit. In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, C.S. Lewis uses winter as an allegory for a world overcome by evil. Without hope. Without Jesus. And it’s an image we can all relate to in a visceral way because we’ve all lived through the months known
All day every day I walk around the house humming “Blue Eyes” by Elton John. Because I can’t help but think that when he wrote the song, this is what he had in mind.
Mary Virginia is still in her baby tub, but this is technically their first bath together. And OH MY GOODNESS the fun! The splashing! The giggles! The bubbles! As soon as I pulled out the camera David turned around, faced the wall, and refused to look up. “No picture, Mommy.” No amount of bribery, trickery, or
When we put Mary Virginia in her bear coat it’s impossible to call her anything besides Mary Beary. Go ahead, try it. [Remember when David wore the bear suit?]
It seems out of order to write about looking back after posting about looking forward. But one of my favorite things about having a blog is having a record to look back on; it’s amazing how much and how quickly I forget. When I sat down to look back at last year you know what
I recently mentioned that Mary Virginia is squarely in grabbing-mouthing stage. Holding her is like holding an octopus; the moment you break her grip on those tiny hairs at the nape of your neck, she grabs your ear and the next thing you know she’s sucking on your chin. (Until we try to give her
After snapping this photo, I decided to Google, “Is it ok to let a baby chew on Christmas lights?” And that’s exactly when I realized the effect of 24/7, unrestricted access to the world wide web: loss of even a modicum of common sense. The answer? No. No, it’s not ok. Not even a little
Tom and I agree that our Christmas tree is…fine. It’s small, droopy, a little wonky, and full of mismatched ornaments. But it’s definitely better than last year when we didn’t have a tree at all. We started with good intentions. Tom brought the tree home on a Tuesday night and started stringing the lights. He
The color for the month of November at David’s school is brown. This shirt isn’t exactly brown, but it’s the best we could do. David loves preschool. Loves. I can’t emphasize that enough. He would go to preschool every day for 18 hours if he could. When he’s running away from me in the morning
The other day I thought, “Mary Virginia’s five and a half months old. Wonder if she can sit up on her own.” So I plopped her on the ground. And guess what? She totally can.
What they say about being more relaxed with your second child is true. For example, I didn’t let David try Diet Coke until he was at least six months old. She also got her first fever a lot sooner, and got bonked in the head with a toy guitar WAY before David did. I’m hoping this phenomenon
Brigham’s fan club has a very active, capable, creative, passionate president and founding member. His position as Brigham’s number one fan is pretty well-established, so I, personally, would never suggest a change in leadership. That’s not what I’m suggesting at all. I am suggesting, though, that someone else might be preparing to challenge his status as
October 31 is sort of the deadline for carving pumpkins, right? So this morning, as soon as Mary Virginia went down for her nap, I took David outside to carve our pumpkin. I was hoping for a really fun, sensory experience, but I’ve done this nonsense long enough to know it probably wouldn’t go how
Here’s one way I’m probably different than you: I don’t love fall. I have to admit, I like football and the break in the humidity and the opportunity to gain 15 pounds between November and December, but I do not look forward to fall. Fall leads to winter, and winter means fewer hours of sunshine,
My dad, David’s grandpa, was a firefighter. He’s a retired firefighter now but, even so, you could say firefighting is in David’s blood. Firefighting is the kind of occupation that runs in the genes, and I guess the guys over at Station 12 could tell. I can’t think of any other reason they’d let a
Every day David watches Tom leave for work. Tom says, “Bye, David, I’m going to work!” and David runs to the window to watch Tom get in his car and drive away. Despite that morning ritual, I have this conversation with David over and over, starting about five minutes after Tom leaves, and ending when
Part of being the second child is wearing hand-me-downs. Mary Virginia already wears hand-me-downs all the time from friends, her cousins, her brother. This blue sleeper is actually a hand-me-hand-me-hand-me-down. At least two of my sister’s kids wore it before David. And now, even though it’s blue (which ubiquitously means boy in baby language), Mary
David went to his first day of preschool this morning. Each month his class is going to learn a shape and a color. September is red, so he wore his red shirt. The kids weren’t required to wear red, but I’m hoping that it maybe earned him some sort of extra credit. Or maybe he’ll
Mary Virginia is noticing her brother more and more. It’s adorable when she looks at him dancing and jumping and playing and a smile explodes across her face. It’s also adorable when he wants to interact with her and hold her and brings her her pacifier announcing, “Here ya go Mary ‘ginia! Here ya go
Mary Virginia rolled over, belly to back, yesterday. (These photos are fuzzy because it was dark in our living room; I took them before the sun was up.) We were all a little shocked. Speechless. Tom didn’t get to see her roll over in the morning, so after a long Sunday of church, Costco, visiting
When I’m driving somewhere with David, I try to talk to him the whole time. When we’re at home he won’t let us read books to him or play alongside him. It’s one of the only times I have a captive audience, so I like to make the most of it. We spend most of the
Last week I celebrated my 31st birthday. 31, for some reason, seems remarkably older than 30. Like I said last year, 30 seems like a fake age. The number is too round, it carries too many implications. 31 is more normal, more settled. Less, “WOW! The big three-oh!” On David’s birthday, we wanted to continue
When we ask David what a cow or a chicken or a pig says his default answer is to roar. You’d be surprised at how many animals a roar is appropriate for. Tiger, bear, buffalo, dragon, Daddy, Mary Virginia. Four out of five of these sounds he came up with on his own. One of
Ladies and gentlemen, the birthday boy: Note: David’s diaper is hangin’ low because it’s full of water from the sprinklers. Video transcript: D: Oh, I fine. A: Are you ok, David? D: David the bicycle!…Riding the bike…Come on, Na-EE (Mommy). Nah-EE! Push David bike. A: Hey, David, how old are you? D: I’m two! A:
Whenever I tell her that she’s going to get wrinkles from all that scowling, she just looks back at me and furrows her eyebrows ever harder.
David is slowly warming up to his sister. And by “warming up” I mean “ignoring”, which I think is best case scenario for a newborn and an almost-two-year old. He checks on her, gives her trains, or occasionally runs up to me and says something like, “MARY’S DRINKING WATER!” And I have run through the
Last spring my neighbor’s yard exploded with gardenia blooms and, wow, what a beautiful flower. I made sure to tell my neighbor how beautiful they were. An hour later, he knocked on my door with a bouquet of cut gardenias. That paragraph right there is why Southerners are willing to put up with the mosquitoes
Take a look around, we’re making some major changes around here. Things aren’t perfect, we’re still working on some kinks, but WOW! Check out my new design! Don’t worry, I’m not patting myself on the back. I can freely brag about the design work because I didn’t have anything to do with it, this is
A few weeks ago (and, wow, looking at these photos I can’t believe how much bigger she’s gotten in those few weeks) during David’s nap I dressed Mary Virginia in an outfit with ruffles and ribbons to take a photo for her birth announcement. I planned on waiting until she fell asleep and then arranging
For several days I tried to stage this photo. I wanted them to lay down beside each other on the blanket as a size comparison. It didn’t work. It actually happened once naturally. She was on her blanket and David got on the floor beside her, but by the time I got the camera it
Like I said, Mary Virginia wasn’t smiling by five weeks. But five weeks and two days? Well now, that’s a different story entirely.
At just five weeks old, Mary Virginia is holding her head up practically as well as David did at three months. Five-week old Mary Virginia: Three-month old David: But David smiled at five weeks, and when she was five weeks old, Mary Virginia was still mostly scowling. This has to mean something, right? Like that
One of the side benefits of having a newborn in the house is that they draw lots of admiring visitors. When you’re lucky, the visitors are some of your oldest, dearest, out-of-town friends. The other side benefit is that since you have a newborn in the house, you don’t even have to come up with an excuse