Look Ma...No Hands!

Sean has begun experimenting with letting go while standing. I was able to snap a quick picture of him the other day as he was practicing on the back door. Rex is very excited about the new flashlight Daddy bought for him at Home Depot. Sorry these posts are so late...(and so short) -Rex isn't feeling well. He just stayed on the couch all day today. Definitely not like him. I, on the other hand, was a cleaning machine. (BTW, never mop your floors when your kids are sick- they just puke on them.) We are supposed to go to Dutch Wonderland tomorrow with the neighborhood kids...we'll see how he does through the night tonight. We may have to reschedule. I'd hate for him to "dutch" all over the wonderland! HA!

Better Late than Never...

Happy belated Father's Day to all of you Daddies out there! Here is a photo of all of my boys on Father's Day. After a father/son trip to Home Depot to get lumber for our July 4th float (and to go hunting for forklifts, of course), the whole family spent the afternoon lounging at the pool. We topped the day off with a steak dinner (Daddy's favorite!) What a wonderful day!

Family Farm Weekend

So we all survived and had lots of fun at the family cleaning weekend at the farm...even with 10 adults, 7 children, and 5 dogs staying in one house...but unfortunately, I did not take a single picture all weekend! I found these two pictures from last week and decided to share them instead. Nothing else new at this end. I have finally learned (after 4 years) how to take video clips with my camera. I'm just not sure how to post them on this site. I'll work on it, and I'll try to get a video of Sean motoring along. His crawling has advanced from a wounded soldier dragging himself into a trench, to more of a three legged cat (no offense, Nicole). But it gets him where he's going, and besides, he'd rather walk (as long as there is something to hold onto)!

Water Babies

Rex and Sean jumped straight into summer last week as we made our first trip of the season to the pool, and we visited Grandma Sutton and made our first trip to the community beach at her house. Both boys LOVE the water. Should make for a fun summer. Rex had a blast playing in the sand, and Sean had fun watching. His first experience with the sand consisted of having a sweaty head and laying his head down in the sand. You can just imagine what that was like! He took it suprisingly well considering he even had sand in his ears. He was pretty much just a spectator from that point on. We also had another landmark first, but this one was indoors....Sean has learned that he can sit and stand up in his crib. He's been pulling up on everything in sight for about a few weeks now, but he just last week decided to entertain himself this way in his crib. (Until this point, when he woke up, he would simply lay there and cry until someone came to save him.) Needless to say, after a frustrating half hour and a few curse words(hopefully Rex was out of earshot), I was able to lower the crib mattress so he won't escape/fall out of his crib. I'm silly with an allen wrench. This weekend we are heading back to Virginia to "the Farm." It's family cleaning weekend, so we get to visit with Michael's aunts and cousins and their children, and do a little spring cleaning as well. It's always a fun time, and Rex is going to love running around with his cousins!

Special Treat

It's always a special treat to visit with Grandma and Grandad Sutton since they live so far away. We can't wait until Granddad retires so they can move back to the East Coast! Granddad had to head back to work in Seattle (all alone- despite Rex's pleas to go back on the plane with him), but Grandma is staying for awhile, so we will be heading to Virginia this weekend to see her and their new house there. Grandma is excited to take the boys to the community beach to play in the sand. It will be Sean's first sand experience...I'll be sure to take pictures!

Blue Angels

It was Commissioning Week here in Annapolis last week (that's when the Midshipmen graduate from the Navel Academy). It's always a fun week because the Blue Angels come to town. If you have never had the chance to watch them, you should. They are facinating. And it's really cool to get to watch them from your front yard! Actually, we walked across the street to the stadium to have a picnic and watch them from the hill over there. They have one of the retired Blue Angels on display over there, and Rex loves to look at it. I swear he'd climb in and fly it if he could. Both boys had a good time, though both were not too thrilled with the noise. The jets can be very loud... but Sean gave them quite a bit of competition!

I See You!

Three year olds love to play hide and seek. They just don't have the whole hiding thing down pat yet. Rex's idea of hide and seek goes something like this- "Mommy, I'm going to hide in the box, will you come find me?" "Sure, Rex, go ahead." "Okay, close your eyes and count!" "One, Two, Three, Four ....Ten, ready or not, here I come!" (lots of giggling coming from the box) "You can't see me!" "Where is Rex hiding? Are you behind the door?" "No, Mommy, I'm in the box!" (Duh!) End of game. Three year olds also love to play in boxes. Forget the fancy schmancy tents and tree houses- give Rex a box and he is entertained all afternoon. Okay, realistically, ten minutes, but that's a really long time for him to be entertained. Sometimes longer if he decides to 'hide' in it, and I forget to 'seek' him! (Oops...only happened once). Sean has been having his own fun hiding from and seeking the other baby that lives in our mirror. His reflection is his new best friend. Kids are so easily amused. For five minutes at a time anyway!

Happy Mother's Day!

These photos are from Mother's Day Weekend. I was lucky enough to spend the weekend not only with my wonderful husband and children, but also my Mom, my brother Paul, my sister Mindi, her husband Jeff, my nephew Trevor, and my niece Morgan. Our little house was quite full, but we had lots of fun. Grandma babysat on Friday night so we grown-ups could go to the Clarks concert here in town. (The Clarks are a band from Pittsburgh and they played at Ram's Head). After movie night with Grandma on Friday, the kids were able to play outside all weekend, which helped them to sleep very well at night! Rex loved having his cousins here to play with, and Sean enjoyed all of the extra attention. After everyone left on Sunday, Michael and I and the kids headed downtown to stroll around, and we had a nice dinner on a patio over the water. Rex was very sad to see everyone go home...he doesn't quite understand why everyone we know and like doesn't live here with us...but a trip to the playground after dinner seemed to lift his spirits a bit. (He even managed to stay ON the swing!) Sean was feeling a little under the weather most of the weekend. Just a little cold, I hope. You can see in the pictures, he's just not himself. But he was still spoiled rotten by Grandma! (and loved every minute of it!) That's all for now. I hope all of you Moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day! I know I did!

Some New Pics

Just wanted to do a quick post of some new pictures. My goal is to post them at least weekly, and seeing that it's been a week since my last post, I don't want to be a failure. Here are some photos of the boys from this past week. Sean is happy as can be all snuggled in his towel after bath time. I didn't take many pictures of Rex this week. He fell off of a swing (face first) last Tuesday, and had a horrible scab on his nose and forehead. He is healing nicely, and has agreed to try not to pick fights with the ground anymore. The ground always wins. In this photo he is having lots of fun painting gifts for his Grandmas for Mother's Day. (Don't look too closely, Grandmas, it's supposed to be a surprise!) Sean even helped out a bit- but mostly he just liked playing with the empty paintbrush. You can see that with his intense concentration, he even forgets to keep his tongue in his mouth. That's his new "thing". Anytime he has to concentrate on something- out comes the tongue. I have especially seen it lately as he tries to fine tune his crawling skills. He's able to lift up on all fours now, but unfortunately (and frustratingly) for him, he ends up pushing himself backwards. I guess he inherited my sense of direction. Boy does he get mad. Then he looks at me as if I did it to him! In the picture above, he has backed himself into a corner and underneath a big stuffed bear. He hadn't yet figured out that he was stuck, so I was able to get him to smile.

Yard Work

We had a gorgeous weekend here and Rex got to break out his wheelbarrow, gardening tools, and watering can that Santa brought him for Christmas. (Yes, those were actually items on his Christmas list, along with a leaf blower.) He also had a ball riding around the yard on his tricycle. He loves being Daddy's little helper. As you can see, he is wearing actual tennis shoes- his galoshes were giving him blisters, so I convinced him that we could put them away until a rainy day. I actually kind of miss him stomping around in them...but I don't miss the strange looks at the grocery store.

Sean has been in better spirits this week. No tooth yet, but he seems to be managing the pain better. Or maybe he's just hoarse. Either way, he's quieter, and that makes us all happy. Here he is with that S**T eating grin of his. I swear he knows something we don't. And he's not telling. Gotta love it.

And finally, there's Kaleigh. She is such a good dog, and is great with the kids. But I do feel for her, poor dog. She used to be the center of my world, with walks and treats and belly rubs...now she's lucky if one of us remembers to feed her. How life changes when you have kids. But as long as there are sticks in the back yard to chew on, she's as happy as can be.