Last Month…

In early February, we met up with Samuel at the “duck park” and then went to eat at Cici’s Pizza.

Duck Park VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Then, Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Saturday, February 19th, we had a birthday party for one of Dellaina’s classmates at Burger King! With face painting, lots of tattos and even a pinata!

Burger King Birthday VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On Sunday, we met up with Granny at the zoo! It was cooler than I’d hoped and the kids were much more interested in computer games or TVs or interactive things that were NOT looking at the live animals, but we still had a good visit. In the gorilla exhibit, Dellaina was telling me to look at the pictures of the gorillas on the touch screen monitor and I turned and pointed and said, “look, there are REAL gorillas right there!” We saw the tiger chilling from up high and ran down to see him up close and by-passed several things. They are building a new “carnivore” exhibit! We ate lunch there and then headed home.

Zoo VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Dellaina was off from school Feb. 21-25. Wyatt still went on his regular days and Emily helped me out by watching Dellaina on Tuesday, while I went to school. We dropped Wyatt off at school and then I took Dellaina down to Emily’s house. We met up for lunch at Steak n’ Shake during my break between classes. After class, I went and they were just starting to wake up from naps. My squealing at Emily’s news that they were expecting got Dellaina up!

On Thursday, we paid for Dellaina to go to school for the day while I went to school. They took a field trip to see Gnomeo and Juliet and she had a great time. She was nervous about the older kids that go to “after school” but ended up making friends and having fun.

On Thursday morning, my dad had heart surgery, putting a stint in his aorta. It went well! The kids and I headed to G&G’s house late Thursday to spend the night and go visit dad in the hospital the next morning. But, we ended up going by Granny’s school first and they were doing a large star lab which was a big inflatable dome you went inside and they projected constellations on. Wyatt was a little nervous at first because it was so dark, but we had fun. By the time we got done, Dad had been discharged and was ready to get out of the hospital, so they went to eat lunch at Jennings Mill Country Club while we played at McDonald’s and then met up with them. Dad met us at the door with PJ pants on and a little ruffled hair, but otherwise, you’d have no idea he’d JUST checked out of the hospital from heart surgery!! So, naturally, I loaded up the kids and shipped them off with the guy that had just had heart surgery. The kids had a great time at the lake for the weekend and Greg and I had a nice weekend at home.

Friday night, I got back home in time (after dropping off cards in Morgan’s mailbox for her birthday!) to take a short nap, then go for my run. On which, I fell hard on my knee. I laid in the street and cried for a while and then finished my run. It’s been sore for weeks and although much better, still tender in places! I think I might have cracked my knee cap now that I can touch it, it feels differently from my other knee. Then, I went out to dinner with my ladies from the gym. It was a fun night. The next day Greg and I worked in the yard and house and got things accomplished, which felt good.

On Sunday, I met up with mom and the kids to see Peter Pan. It was such a great show! The kids did really well and it was so fun to watch them, bright eyed and engaged. Wyatt was on the edge of his seat craning to see and even had his little hands covering his mouth at times in anticipation. Dellaina would giggle and just looked so happy. Tinkerbell was really entertaining and there were stunts and the interactive screen was a really neat experience. The crocodile was clearly a puppet with 2 men inside controlling it, so it wasn’t overly threatening or frightening, but had this deep growl that made your chest rumble, so was still impressive. It was a trick to figure out how to get our cars, which were in 2 separate parking decks, together to swap out suitcases and carseats, but we managed. Both kids broke down at different points (Wyatt wanted a sword and Dellaina wanted to go back to the lake) but we made it home and had a great time and fun way to end her break from school.

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

Today was Spring Picture day for Wyatt. Dellaina’s actually is Friday and they are doing CAP AND GOWN pictures?! Because, they are “graduating” and going to KINDERGARTEN in the Fall. When did this happen?!

But, she got dressed up today so they could take pictures together. I recently got her the most adorable dress for Garris & Mary’s wedding on Tybee next month. It’s going to be outside at a house on the marsh side. They asked Dellaina to be the Flower Girl last weekend. I wasn’t around and don’t know what she said, but on Sunday, she’s quietly coloring while mom and I are talking and she turns and asks, “what’s a Flower Girl do?” And mom and I gasp and get all animated and excited and start cooing and she immediately recoils and says, “I don’t want to do it” So, we calm back down and I casually explain the role of a Flower Girl: there is an aisle with chairs and you walk down the middle with a basket, dropping flower petals and just walk up front and then can come sit back down with Mama. We get to pick out a pretty dress and maybe wear flowers in your hair. She turns back to her coloring and mom looks at me and asks, “do you think that will change?” “what?” “the ‘I don’t want to’” “oh yeah, she just needed to process it before she committed and got all excited” a few minutes later, we’d forgotten and she turns around and declares, “ok” Not knowing what she’s talking about, we look at her and she clarifies, “ok, I’ll be the Flower Girl” and she’s grinning and excited now! She draws pictures of dresses and has us all vote on which one we like best. “I wonder what my dress will look like. I wonder what color flowers I will have.” and continues to bring it up and tell her teachers and others all about it. She drew a picture of her in a dress and asked how to spell, “I want to be the flower girl” and wrote it at the top and then said, “we need to mail this to Garris & Mary” So cute. And as excited as she is, every time she mentions, “I get to be the Flower Girl!” Wyatt exclaims with just as much enthusiasm, “I get to be BAREFOOT!”

And so they were, too, for the pictures today. And there was a live bunny rabbit, Romeo. (Whom, I realized Dellaina was pronouncing, “O-Romeo” (maybe I’ve said, “Romeo, oh, Romeo wherefore art thou?” more times than I realized?) Dellaina was very concerned about going into her classroom without wearing green (great scheduling of pictures for St. Patrick’s Day! Although, I’m sure it made for some coordinated class pictures!) so I made sure to give her something green. They took pictures right away while I was still there, so I helped get them set up. I think Wyatt had a funny smile in most of them, but maybe they turned out. Pretty darn cute. I hope it showed her crossed legs and feet, because they were so dainty, but I think they might have been off camera. Then, I got her changed out of her dress into regular clothes. Wyatt had complained about his pants, too, so I’d brought some blue jeans for him to change back into as well.

These were taken just at the daycare, next to where we parked, before going inside. I love capturing Wyatt’s action-packed moves and Dellaina’s pretty poses.

 

 

Where’s Wyatt?

Haircuts

Last week, I finally took Wyatt for a haircut. It was definitely getting bigger in the humidity we seem to be having every other day (with frost in between). I didn’t mean for it to be so short (in fact, Greg could have used the clippers and done this “cut”) but it’s cute and will grow back. Last time, it really wasn’t trimmed up enough in places, so, I think this is better.

 

 

Then, I got a haircut, too, while on Spring Break. Apparently, it had been since the end of October, so I was due. I still didn’t want to go super short, though. Neither of the kids noticed, but Greg did and Granny while talking to the kids on Skype on the computer, even though, I didn’t even realize I’d been in front of the camera. And I noticed my bad roots while my hairdresser was holding my hair straight up off of my head to cut it. ick! So, we’ve since colored it.

   

Confessions

After one rather late morning, I realized Dellaina’s sound machine/clock/weather station also had an alarm. So, I decided to set it to help us get up in the mornings. I set hers for a few minutes after mine just as a back up. But, turns out, we use it a lot these days. The first morning it went off, she said she just got up and turned it off and then laid back down and went back to sleep. So, I explained that she should come into my room rather than lay back down because it means it’s time to get up. I know it’s sad. Greg used to call our house back in high school in the mornings to wake me up and would hear the multiple alarms going off in the background. When I got frustrated with Wyatt the other night and exclaimed, “why won’t he go to sleep?!” Greg simply replied, “it’s the Jones coming out in him” grrr, can’t argue with that fact! But now it’s a nice routine that we get to snuggle for a few minutes together in the morning before getting going. After I set the alarm back a few minutes to allow for this snuggle time since it’s no longer the backup.  

One weekend, we told the kids we were going to go do some running around. We’ve been using this phrase for a long time, but while we were driving between stores, Wyatt asked, “where are the other kids?” Confused, I just looked at him until he continued, “I love to run. You said we were going to run around.” oh, poor boy. No wonder he wasn’t being very cooperative in the stores, he thought he was going to get to go run around somewhere literally!

Dellaina and Wyatt’s new catch phrase is “let's not argue.” Which is pretty cute, but then they’ll start arguing about whether or not they were even arguing and so they’ve even started saying, “let's not argue about arguing.” And if Dellaina says it, Wyatt will protest, "hey, that's my line" but then, they each started saying so much, he amended to "hey, that's both of our lines" It’s just amusing to watch the progression.

 

Abbigail is a new student in Dellaina’s class and one day she came home and proclaimed, “Abbi is a really good artist. She's even better than me! She drew a penguin really, really well. I was really impressed.” It was just so grown up and so cute.

When they sleep, Wyatt is just so angelic. He’s a sweet, peaceful sleeper often with is little hands tucked sweetly under his cheek while lying on his side. Dellaina, on the other hand, is often in awkward positions, head back, chin up, mouth agape, usually snoring or smacking loudly. She takes after her daddy.

Wyatt calls the Georgia State Flag with the seal, the “fire hydrant flag” and gets very excited about seeing it. hahaha.

when walking over drains, he slows down and gets a little freaked out, but he loves to do it. I have commented enough times about how it freaks him out that now he says, “freak out!” as he’s doing it, which makes it that much better.

One night as I’m getting out of the shower, Wyatt comes in and declares, “daddy doesn’t like me laughing” and I had to laugh, because I know exactly how that is. At night, when I’m especially upset about Wyatt getting up out of bed AGAIN, he will often just start laughing. And I don’t just mean a little laugh, but a deep belly laugh that he really can’t stop, because it makes him laugh more at himself about the laugh. And as mad as it makes me, it’s also hard to keep a straight face when you’re watching him laugh so hard and for so long.  

 

One morning after dropping Dellaina off at school we swing through Greg’s work for some kisses and he ends up making some off-handed comment about Wyatt’s “pink” pants, kind of teasing him – or really, rather teasing me, because they are not pink! Salmon, maybe. And as we are pulling away, Wyatt announces, “oh yeah, I want my blue jeans.” Great, thanks, Greg! It takes a lot to get him to wear something other than blue jeans in the morning. grrr.

They are both getting so big and will pick out their clothes and get dressed on their own in the mornings..sometimes, but still it’s progress. And they come downstairs and Dellaina checks the menu for the day to see if they like the breakfast at school or if they need to grab something to eat in the car on the way. And there are mornings where Wyatt will get the stool and grab a banana all on his own, too. And I come down to find him shoveling it in his mouth like he does all his food. I try to tell him no one is trying to eat his food, he doesn’t have to stuff it in, but it’s just how he eats.

Dellaina was very giddy when we went into BJs, laughing and acting silly. She asked if there were toys and I casually replied ‘yes’ but then when we weren’t going to go look at any, she immediately became dejected and moody and my blood pressure went up. The lady at the checkout even asked if she was sick because she had her head up against the handrail and I replied, “no, she’s just pouting because she didn’t get a toy” I tried explaining to her that we CANNOT get a NEW toy EVERY time we go into a store. And that she’d JUST gotten a NEW Zooble with Mammie the very day before! And to think about how many she had at home (and if they weren’t good enough, we could just throw them all away!) The next morning, as we were putting on shoes, she sadly says, “my wish didn’t come true.” I asked her about it and she said, “I wished on a shooting star” and I said, “you did?! when?” and I had to explain that you actually have to see a star shooting across the sky to wish on it. So, at first she laughed about that, but then got sad that she would NEVER see one to wish on. And I asked if she had wished for more Zoobles and she said yes. And Wyatt declared when he sees a shooting star, he’s going to wish to be a Super Hero! And then he pauses and says, “do you think if Santa Claus knows I want to be a Super Hero that he’d make me one?!” I had to explain that Santa could bring him toy super heroes, but couldn’t really make him into one – he just have to be a good boy and help people and that’s what makes him a super hero all on his own. oh boy. crushing dreams left and right.