Every Girl's Crazy About A...

...Sharp Dressed Man.  Joey got all dressed up in his shirt/tie for church last Sunday.  He will be 10 months old next week, and he's doing great!  He loves food...is eating everything they serve him at daycare (yesterday's lunch was a taco, for instance).  He still only has the two bottom teeth, but that doesn't stop him!  He is truly my son, he's a sleeper!  I think the reason I have so few pictures of him out here is that he sleeps most of the day away...and is in bed by 7pm every night!   

Big Sister Advice

Melanie had her friend Grace over on Tuesday night.  Grace has a one-week-old baby sister, so we wanted to have her down to play so her parents could get some quiet time.  Mel knows Grace from daycare, but she also lives in our neighborhood.  She called her by her last name all night.  About 5 minutes after G arrived, Melanie decided she needed to change to her pajamas, hence the wardrobe in the photos above.  It was a fun night, where Melanie got to impart her big sister advice to Grace.  Most important advice:  Keep small toys and food away from your baby brother/baby sister.  They got some practice with this as Joey played with them for a while.  Yet, still no pictures of Joey.  Poor second child.

Happy Valentine's Day!

My parents have been in Florida for nearly two months, and my dad came home for the weekend for a bank board meeting.  He came to our house for dinner and a bed on Monday night, and Melanie could not have been more excited to see him.  The pictures above illustrate her love of her Valentines presents - cookies from Paula and stickers from G&G Worzala; and the present of having her Poppy home.  As Mel was showing us all of her Valentines from her school party, she showed me the one from Blake.  I asked her what Blake starts with - she answered "B."  I asked her what else starts with "B" - she looked at my dad with some shyness, and then answered "Butch."  Later, out of the blue, she looked at Poppy and said "Your name is Doan."  With some prompting, she spelled Doan (from memory from a shirt I had worn a few days earlier).  It was a fun night, and made Melanie even more excited to see Poppy in Florida. 

Joey was in bed by about 6:30....I don't have any V-Day pictures of him!  I need to step it up with his presence on this blog!!

Monkey Melanie's/Monkey Molly's

The weekend of the 12th, Melanie got a lot of play time in.  On Saturday, we went to the library's play room, and then straight over to the Chick-Fil-A playground.  Sunday, Julie and Molly came over and we headed to Monkey Joe's.  Melanie took a while to warm up, and then followed Molly's cues on bravery.  There were a couple of times I had to bail one or both of them out from getting trampled by the bigger kids; it was really crowded!  The girls have some strange game where they chase each other around in circles yelling "Kitty!!"  It wears them out and mystifies us.

Children's Museum

Sunday morning, after we dropped Julie & Molly at the airport for their trip to Florida, Melanie and I went to the Children's Museum.  They open at 10am, and that is the ideal time to arrive, we learned!  The museum has a new Dora & Diego exhibit, which I thought Melanie would like since she has newly become addicted (with her Daddy's help) to these two shows.  However, she wasn't really into that exhibit; instead she spent the majority of her time in the Barbie exhibit.  Yikes.  We enjoyed a couple of hours of playing before she started fading from her late night the night before. 

Weekend Plans

Friday night, we had Paula & Tom over for cocktails and appetizers.  Melanie did not need her typical "warm up" time when they arrived, and was busy entertaining them during their whole visit.  She even read books with Paula, which was progress, as she usually favors Tom (as she does in most male/female dynamics -she warms up to the man).  At one point, we were in the master bathroom with Tom & Paula (showing them the renovations), and Melanie was shouting from the kitchen.  I went in to determine what was going on - she replied "I was just singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." 

Saturday night, Julie & Molly watched the kids while Jeff & I went to dinner with the Dorans.  When we returned home, this is how I found the girls, cuddled up on the couch.  It was a late bedtime for all three kids, but mine made up for it on Sunday with some great naps and early bedtimes.

During the weekend, Joey had several unassisted steps.  He seems pretty excited by the newfound skill, so it's anyone's guess when he'll be off and running.  We also discovered this weekend that Joey is very ticklish.  So I spent most of Sunday listening to his belly laughs while I tickled him.  Melanie received about 10 new plates as hand-me-downs from Jeff's coworker Sarah. Those plates were the focus of her entertainment all weekend, setting the table, re-setting, re-setting....We finally have a new rule, no playing with plates while Joey is sleeping.  On Sunday when Joey woke up from his second nap, Mel's first question was "Can I play with my plates now?"

"Snowpocalypse"????

We were under a huge winter storm advisory starting on Monday, 1/31/11.  So, lo and behold, IUPUI closed their campus for Tuesday before 6pm on Monday!!  It was unheard of.  Subsequentally, ITT and Noah's Ark canceled Tuesday - so, before we went to bed Monday, we knew we were all four out on Tuesday.  Jeff, predictably, went stir-crazy.  Despite the "bad roads," he went to Home Depot twice, to the gas station once, and who knows where else.  The rest of us enjoyed 8,432 puzzles, and a lot of other indoor activities.  We basically stayed in our pajamas all day long....although Mel's interpretation of that was wearing her swimsuit.

Before we went to bed on Tuesday, we learned that we were ALL home again on Wednesday!!  This time, we planned ahead.  We invited our friends over for a PJ breakfast for Wednesday morning, and played the morning away.  It was a great way to pass the time, and the girls loved the diversion.  This time, Jeff went to Home Depot once, to the cleaners, and drove to work "just to see how bad the roads really were."  Joey got into the habit of only taking one nap a day during this timeframe, so Tuesday night, he slept 14.5 hours!!  He was in bed by 5:30pm, and slept until about 8am. 

Before bed on Wednesday, we once again learned that both IUPUI and Noah's Ark were canceled for Thursday!!  Things were really getting strange.  Luckily for Jeff, he was back at work.  Luckily for our sanity, we were able to get out of the house.  Having free days with the kids was great - but even the best of people can start climbing the curtains when you don't have anywhere to go!!-Plus the fact the kids are both still at the age to need mommy or daddy there at all times....(need or want, depending on which one).  Thursday the kids and I went to Babies R Us, went out to lunch, and then headed to Lebanon to Suzi's house.  Melanie, after her traditional warming-up period, did not want to leave.  We had a great time seeing faces other than those who live in our house :)

A couple of funnies from the kids....at Suzi's house on Thursday, she had an orange balloon floating around (which Melanie had told me as she was eating her cake "I want this balloon away from me.")  Suzi gently kicked it at Joey while he was crawling around, and he started crying and crawling away.  So, of course, this mean mommy kicked it to him about three more times, each time he got more hysterical about it.  I have no idea what his aversion to balloons is - Suzi and I then sat down and showed him it was not dangerous.  Also at Suzi's, Melanie was playing with a toy cash register.  She then got my wallet out of my purse and was playing with it.  Later, Suzi found a "real" $5 bill in the register, which Mel denied placing there.  Wyatt confirmed he witnessed the transfer.  I think it's funny she made that connection on her own and made her contribution to the cash register.

As of this post - Thursday night - everyone has work and school tomorrow. The roads are fine - as evidenced by the fact we drove to Lebanon and back today. However, IPS is canceled yet again tomorrow, which is completely unheard of.