Memorial Day Family Fun Time

We have been over-scheduled as a family lately, and as I am about to hit my crazy busy work time (hello 10 days straight of work, can't say I missed you there!), we decided to not schedule anything big for the family over the long weekend. I won't say we weren't busy, but at least we didn't have to be tons of places at specific times. And we didn't worry about our house being spick and span at a specific time since we decided not to have visitors. Instead we just enjoyed our time together and the beginning of summer (and of course thought about those who have served over the years)!

Noelle, Kellen, and I started our Friday off with a trip to Larriland Farm to meet our friends Katie and Evie to pick strawberries. The girls had a great time (although were sad to see the goats missing from the barn) picking berries and having our picnic lunch. Kellen was a bit fussy and was angry about his nap being cut short. I have learned that he does not sleep well when he isn't in his crib, and that he really does not transfer from car to stroller or crib to continue sleeping. I think the days of Ellie and I doing morning playdates are over for a few months!

Noelle showing a little bit of attitude about getting her picture taken! We were trying to get pictures of their red faces from the strawberry consuming going on in the fields! Kellen was being too much of a handful to get any pictures of the actual picking!

Exploring at our picnic!

The girls posing

As Noelle has been begging to go hiking not in the backpack, and Bryan was able to leave work a bit early Friday we began our long weekend Friday evening with a short hike in Patapsco and a trip to the Tire Park for Ellie to play a bit. Saturday we did a longer hike, grilled out, went to church, and babysat for a military family in our babysitting co-op.

Ellie all dressed up and ready for church.

Kellen spent our moments at home practicing moving. He is up on his hands and knees and rocking and is scooting and rolling all over the place. So close to crawling!

Sunday we hiked in the morning, and went to our new pool for the first time after naps. I forgot to bring my camera, but the pool was a huge hit! Our pool has a seperate baby pool that gets gradually deeper to about 1.5 feet max. Kellen loved sitting in the water and splashing around while Noelle made friends and played with water toys. It is so funny watching 2-4 year olds meet each other! Noelle was brave and wanted us to take her in the big pool also and now that she is pretty much totally potty trained she is allowed over there. We took turns entertaining her and playing with Kellen and then had a quick picnic dinner before heading home to bed. We hit the pool again Monday morning and did more of the same. Kel skipped his morning nap due to a shopping trip at Old Navy so we didn't stay too long but the kids again had a great time and we saw a few familiar faces from our mom's group, church, and friends of friends which was nice. The pool also has a really nice playground that Ellie is eager to try out so we'll have to do that soon! Since Bryan has calculated the per visit cost to the pool and says we have to go like 50 times this summer to make it worthwhile, we should be there often!

Monday afternoon we showed some of our favorite Patapsco sites to friends when we went on a hike with some members of my mom's group.

Here is part of our group, getting ready to start down the trail. Noelle was a trooper and did almost the whole hike on her own and it was almost 2 miles. She is getting to be such a big girl!

Here Noelle and daddy are holding hands and being careful as they walk through the tunnel to the paved path on the other side. 

We took everyone up to our favorite scenic point in the park and the kids skipped rocks, had their snacks, splashed in the water, and we took a second to get a family photo in front of the waterfall. I feel like Kellen looks like the longest, blondest baby ever in this picture!

After we hiked back up the trail we stopped by the grill area our friends had going to grab a hot dog for Ellie and some watermelon and then headed home so Bryan and I could have dinner. We topped the weekend off with a trip to my favorite local sweet treat establishment - Opie's. Bryan and I both splurged and had frozen custard in pretzel cones - the perfect combination of salty and sweet!

We had a great long weekend and can't wait for more summer family time!

It's Alright By Me

Late Sunday afternoon I left Bryan with the kids and headed out for girl's night. Five of my friends and I stopped by Caitlyn's house for some yummy appetizers and a few sips of wine before heading over to Merriweather for my first concert in almost 10 years. I absolutely love country music and we saw three of my favorite groups - Thompson Sqaure, Darius Rucker (aka Hootie from the 90's), and Lady Antebellum. The company was good and the music was great, and the weather was perfect all weekend long. Here we are enjoying the night!

While I loved all the groups, Darius Rucker's songs really make me happy. His song "It Won't be Like this for Long" tears me up everytime. Maybe it is that it came out right after Ellie was born, or maybe every mom would get teary, but this song is so true to my experience so far as a mommy. And his song "It's Alright by Me" makes me think of how lucky Bryan and I are in our lives. We don't do a lot of fancy things, but we have a good time together, have some great friends, and have the two most adorable children ever. I find it so funny that my life is so much more balanced now that I have kids! Sure we are all tired all the time, but we'll have time to rest in 30 years when we are retired. For now, we are just enjoying as many seconds as we can and are so thankful for what we have!

Date Night

While we love when my mom visits anytime, we were especially excited for her to come last weekend as my good friend Jeff was getting married that Saturday night. While the kids were invited, since the start time was 5 for the ceremony we thought it would be better if we left them at home where they could hit the hay at a more normal hour. While we didn't know anyone but Jeff and his beautiful bride, we had a great time eating, dancing, and eyeing Camden Yards. How about those O's?

Bryan and I dressed in our wedding attire

 

Posing during the cocktail hour. The wedding was at the new Hilton right behind the stadium

The Swinging Bridges

When grandmom was here we also went on a long hike to show her the swinging bridges, tunnel, and other local park sites. We took the opportunity to get a few pictures in!

The family on the Swinging bridge.

Watching the train go by. The joy on Ellie's face is priceless!

Grandmom and Noelle on the bridge.

The other bridge up near Illchester.

Kellen finally wakes up and is ready for his photo op. This is round two on this bridge. Yup, Bryan made us loop the park! I am pretty sure we exhausted grandmom and I know I was pretty tired after carrying this little guy over two hours of walking! But we had a great time and love how close we live to all the trails!

Fun at the Zoo

While my mom visited Mother's Day weekend, we took the kids on Friday to the DC Zoo. We hadn't been since the previous year when I was starting to feel pretty pregnant. Despite the traffic to and from the Zoo being crazy, the weather was perfect and we all had a great time.

When we got there, we were just in time for one of the orangutans to cross the wires over the road to their other enclosure. His tightrope skills were pretty impressive!

Noelle was in awe, although that didn't keep her from eating her snack for too long!

Then we walked up the hill to see the pandas, elephants, otters, sloth bears, and some other creatures. After all that viewing we were ready for lunch and Kellen and grandmom took the opportunity for a picture!

Noelle wanted to pose on the sloth bear. Trying to get a good picture with both kids in it is one of the hardest things I have ever tried to do!

We finished up the visit with the reptile house which is one of Ellie's favorites, and then viewed the lions and tigers. If you look closely, you can see the papa lion behind us in this picture!

Ellie and grandmom stopped by the petting farm on the way out and then we hit the road. It's always fun times at the zoo - we'll be back soon!

Who You Looking At?

I don't know who that guy is, but man is he good looking!

Happy Mother's Day!

I had a lovely day thanks to Bryan, Ellie, Kellen, and my mom!

It started with Kellen sleeping all night, my family letting me sleep in all the way til 7, 2 sweet cards, and a yummy breakfast with my mom and family. Then we got a girl's picture before my mom headed off to see her mom.

The afternoon was spent with some of our favorite mommy's - Nicole and Lindsay, both celebrating their first mother's days. The kabobs were great, baby Christopher was adorable, and it was nice to catch up with our Miami crew. We of course forgot to take a picture of everyone but with 4 little ones between us it was hardly surprising!

Happy Mother's Day to all of our friends and family. We love you all!

Ladies in Red

And black. And some pink and white. I know you can hardly see my red because of the angle and you can't see Noelle's black at all, but still, Ellie and I are ready for the world and the sunshine today! And we are super excited for my mom's visit starting tonight, especially our trip to the Zoo tomorrow!

The more I look at this picture the more I think my daughter doesn't look anything like me! And we all know Kellen is Bryan's mini-me! Oh well, they're cute so I'll keep them!

Sleep Training

My bouncing baby boy will be 7 months old next week. Crazy. And despite my best efforts to make my second baby a better sleeper than my first, he still wakes up every night. After triple checking with my pediatrician and nurse practitioner, as well as talking with friends who have gone through this, I finally began sleep training my little guy last weekend. And the first night was pretty good. My little one cried for about 4 minutes once during the nght. And the second night was even better. I heard Kellen cough a few times during the night but he slept til 5:30 without crying, a success in our world since I have to feed him at 5 am 4 days a week. The last three nights though have been pretty horrible. Kellen has cried off and on from 1:30 on. Sometimes for long stretches. Bryan or I go in if he seems really upset and try to comfort him, but most of the time that doesn't do anything at all. He wants to eat. But I am not giving in, at least not yet! I have already upped his solid amount at dinner to 4 oz and some puffs and am going to try feeding him milk at dinner and also as the last thing he does right before bed too. We'll see if that helps at all. I know it can take a few days or even more than a week to get through this but I am exhausted! And hearing my little guy cry breaks my heart, even when I know he is ok, and he smiles at me all day so clearly I am not damaging our relationship. But the Saxton's must sleep again. It has been 3.5 years for goodness sake between pregnancies and babies! So Kel, please cooperate and sleep all night tonight, or at least let's move in a positive direction with our ZZZzzz's!

The Princess and the Pony

My little girl is getting so big. On Friday, another mom at the play area asked me how old Ellie was. She thought she was 4. Nope, that's just my giant of a daughter who speaks in full sentences and has a bigger vocabulary than some of the people I work with!

On Friday I let my not so little 2.5 year old princess ride the carousel on her own for the first time. I helped her on, got her buckled in nice and tight, and then watched from the side with her dozing brother. She was so proud! And it was nice to let my little girl have a good experience since she has been having a tough time lately. Accidents have re-enterred the picture pretty regularly for the last week because of a minor health issue so Ellie has been frustrated at herself and sort of down and anxious. 

Even though our mall experience included 3 bathroom trips, one of which was sort of traumatic for both of us, we had a great morning!

Yum! Avocado!

Kellen cracks me up when he eats. Here he is eating avocado (or an avocado banana mixture) which is probably his favorite food.

I love the look on his face. It's like hey mom, what's going on? I don't really understand why you keep missing my mouth. Oh, is my hand here in the way? Sorry let me just smear this green stuff all around and then I'll open up again.

Kel is steadily gaining weight and beginning to chunk out a little, especially in his thighs now that he is on solids. I would still consider him thin for a baby though. He never seems to want more than the amount of milk in his bottle and is perfectly happy with whatever you give him, but take away his solids (or just give him normal quantities) and he let's you know he is not happy!

My Future Lawyer?

Last week before Bryan went to New Orleans on business, we closed on our house refinance. We figured since we plan to stay in our house quite some time, we should probably take advantage of the super low rates (and it looks like we timed things well as rates are going back up a little here). Afterwards I had to go down to Hopkins for a follow-up to the pre-natal study I had done with Kellen. Since they wanted to see K and I interract and compare that data to how he acted inside me, we decided to just bring him with us to save me time. So we dropped Ellie off and headed over to Columbia for our closing. Kellen helped us review documents and presided over the closing. I think we might have a future lawyer on our hands!

Bryan and I are getting pretty good at signing our lives away on the dotted line!