CMH Family Picnic

Saturday we all went to the Agricultural Hall of Fame for the annual Children's Mercy summer family picnic.  It is always so much fun!  This year we all went, plus Meemaw, Grammie and Grandad.  

Meemaw and I stayed in the car for a minute while I fed Maggie, and the rest of them headed in to start having fun.  We learned last year that the earlier you get there, the better.  By the time Meemaw and I got into the picnic, Colin had already won quite a few prizes.  Of course, more balls!

We stayed and played on all the bouncey toys and rode the train, ate some food (they had hamburgers, hotdogs, italian sausage, bbq chicken, watermelon, chips, beans, etc), and had some ice cream for dessert.  It was a really fun day!

Colin picking out a toy after playing one of the basketball shot games

 Daddy and Colin, with the football that Daddy won

 (great, another ball to play with at our house...)

 The boys getting ready to take on the HUGE slide...

 Colin LOVED it, I wish you could see his face better, but he's grinning from ear to ear!

 Maggie was enjoying her time in the stroller.  Of course, with Meemaw and Grammie & Grandad all there, she was getting plenty of attention!  She was just so patient and happy the whole time, what a great baby!

 Colin wanted to go on all the "big kid" slides, so it was quite a bit of work for Brian, but he is such a great dad he did all of them with Colin. 

 Emerging from the bottom of the slide, it was a super high one!

 Mags and Daddy on the train

 Grandad and Colin waiting for the train ride

 So much fun!

 Maggie needed to catch some zzzzz's while we were eating lunch

Colin is always so great about entertaining himself.  We were still eating lunch and Colin saw these carts over in the distance, he decided it would be fun to go push them around.  I was worried at first, but he didn't get too crazy with them, brought one over for us to see, then pushed it back where he got it.  Too funny!

 Look out Grandad....there's a slobber bomb headed your way!

After the picnic we headed back to Grammie & Grandad's for Colin's nap.  

Here he is kissing Maggie goodnight...

Maggie was upset cause she was hungry, but I still thought it was a cute picture.

We all survived

We all survived my first week back at work, that is.

It was pretty tough for Brian with both kiddos on Monday, as well as physically and emotionally hard for me to be back at work.  My boss' father and uncle were not doing well health-wise, so he was in St. Louis with them rather than at work with me.  So, I flew solo most of the week.  It was fine, other than random things happening (like the air conditioner not working, or the treadmill making weird noises, or supplies not being re-stocked, etc). 
Brian made it through Monday, and Maggie started daycare on Tuesday, with Colin.  Our daycare provider says Colin just loved on Maggie ALL THE TIME!  He is so proud to be her big brother and is very concerned when she is crying.  He can get her to belly laugh, too, which is pretty funny to watch.  She is just so entertained watching him, and he loves to give her kisses and hugs.  We couldn't ask for a better set of kids!

Maggie is doing pretty well with Miss Robin, other than the eating situation.  She is refusing to take at least one bottle a day, which means she is only getting 4 feedings total during the day, which means she is waking up in the middle of the night to get more food.  Yuck!  She has been sleeping through the night for 4 weeks now, and I am not ready to start that again.  I know it's just a learning curve for her to get used to the bottle, but I hope it happens sooner rather than later!  Good news is, on Friday, she took both bottles during the day, so I think we are headed in the right direction.

We have started taking Jake for walks at night since the weather hasn't been so hot lately.  Colin just LOVES walking Jake.  Too bad we had some accidents and falls, and Colin actually tore half of one of his finger nails off when he fell on Saturday night.  He's a tough kiddo though, and just kept right on walking Jake.  We turned around to head home, but he didn't want to stop, so we kept going for another 20 minutes, then cleaned off a very bloody boy.  

Here are some pics from our walks:

 Mags in the stroller, all ready to go!

 Colin being so patient with Jake, he says "come on gake!"

 Colin loves Jake so much... best buddies!

 After the walk...relaxing in her bumbo!

 So cute...

 Colin entertaining sister, just being a great big brother

(please don't look at my messy house... it will get cleaned when I get used to my "new" schedule a little bit better).

Family time

The last weekend of maternity leave = family fun time!

We have been wanting to take Colin to a Royals baseball game all season, and of course, we wait until the very last weekend before I go back to work when it's 100 degrees outside.  

Colin absolutely loves baseball so we knew he'd have a ton of fun.  We wanted to take Maggie, too, and she and I just hung out in the stroller in the shade most of the time.  

As soon as we got there, Colin began saying "baseball more".  He wanted so badly to run down onto the field during the game.  He was really into watching the game, which is pretty cool for a 2 year old.  

We spent quite a bit of time in the Outfield Experience, which is full of fun kids entertainment.  There's a carousel, a mini-park area, water fountains, and places you can run, hit and play baseball. 

 The night before the baseball game, Colin and Daddy were explaining to Maggie how much fun we were going to have at the game.  They were also tickling her, Colin LOVES to tickle Maggie (however, Maggie is not always such a big fan of being tickled!)

 We all had hats on, and Colin insisted that sister have one on, too.  So, we dug out another one of Colin's hats and put it on sister.  Doesn't it look great with her outfit?!

 

Our best family self-portrait photo (hey, you take what you can get!)

 Colin and Mommy on the carousel, riding on Slugger

 He had a blast.  We weren't sure how much he was going to like it, but...

 wait...the ride is over?  I want more carousel!!

 Yes, Colin was THAT kid that was throwing a fit when the ride was over.  If you look closely, I was carrying him like a sack of potatoes, kicking and screaming.  Luckily, he doesn't stay mad for long and was fine about 10 seconds later...

 After the carousel we headed to the play area and let him run around.  He had so much fun!  We were pretty impressed that he crossed over on these steps.  Good work Colin!  The girl behind him was a little annoyed that he was taking so long though.

 On the playground

 Another family photo at the game.  Ugh, we were so hot.  Good thing we had seats in the shade, poor Maggie was sweating...

 Hot and sweaty Maggie.  She did so awesome at the game.  I took her to the First Aid station just before the game started so I could feed her in a somewhat air-conditioned room.  After that we went to our seats, where she was smiling and laughing.   There were a lot of people that were watching Maggie more than the game!

 We watched about 4 innings of the game and then headed off to get something to eat.  Maggie decided she needed to rest.  Fine with us!

Colin and Daddy just before we left the game.  

We had such a great time, but we decided that Colin and Daddy should come back later on next month, just the 2 of them.  Maggie is still just a little too young to be carting all over KC.  

As we were leaving the stadium, Colin said "dye dye (bye bye) baseball".

Oh, and for a little treat, we stopped by McDonalds on the way home and got a hot fudge sundae!

What a fun day!

Look alikes?

One of my big projects this past month was to make a couple photo books on Shutterfly.  One for Colin's birth to 1 year, and one for his 1-2 year.  While getting pictures for his books, I noticed a few that we took of Maggie that looked really similar to Colin's pictures.  

Let's see what you guys think...

 

Colin was about 9 weeks old and Maggie was about 10 weeks old.

Like brother like sister!

Really...August already?!

I feel like this summer has flown by, in good ways and bad.  I am really glad we got through the "newborn" stage with Maggie pretty quickly and without too many hiccups.  She is such a great kiddo, very content and happy.  She is still sleeping great and we are currently "working" on the bottle.  She will take it now, but only after being very grumpy about it for a while.  I suppose it will only get easier for her once I go back to work on Monday.  Perhaps she might even like it.  Who knows.

Some new pics of Maggie (since she literally changes on a daily basis)

These pics were taken a few days ago, about 11 weeks old, weighing in at 11 lbs 11 oz.  She seems like a little peanut to me, considering she's only 3.5 pounds heavier than when she was born 3 months ago.  For some reason I remember Colin being heftier and more solid at this point, and maybe he was.  Maybe Maggie will be my dainty little lady.

  Maggie loves her bath!  I really love it too, cause I get to have conversations with her while she is relaxing.  Lately, Colin has wanted to "help" with baths and pour water on her with a cup.  Sometimes this goes well, others, well, he's only 2 and his aim isn't all that great yet.

 Mommy is so funny!

 Hello Bright Eyes!

What a doll baby.

Colin has such a great personality.  Recently we attempted potty training and it didn't go all that well, for anyone involved.  There was a lot of frustration and we decided it's just not time yet.  It would've been nice to have this milestone figured out prior to me returning to work, but there will always be another time to try.

In the meanwhile, we did get to spend some quality time with Colin while we were under house arrest for 3 days during the potty training.  We spent our time playing basketball, riding in our car, building towers with blocks, playing with our Little People farm, playing Playdoh, watching Elmo, reading books, riding his bike around the living room, and running up and down the halls countless times.  Spending time with Colin was a  lot of fun!  He's a pretty awesome kid.

 Playdoh nose

 Swimming around the house in Daddy's goggles.  

Made me miss swimming for just an instant, then I got over it...

Future swimmer?!