Weely iPurge

Another week without many pictures on my phone I guess...

 I took this on Saturday night before I started painting!  There is no way that my 5 foot shelf could reach that ceiling to tape it off, even with a ladder.  I could reach it fine to paint it, but getting the tape on neatly?  Not so much.

 Wyatt started guitar lessons with his Aunt Katie this week.  She tuned his guitar and sat down to teach him a few basics (he lasted for about 25 minutes).  It's blurry because I pulled the phone out of Hudson's mouth and it was a little wet (thanks, Reesie).

Wyatt is a popcorn fiend!  Last night we went to see the Tides play the Yankees' Triple-A affiliate (blog post later) and all he wanted to eat was popcorn!

The End of Swimming Lessons (Week 1)

So I obviously haven't gotten around to finishing a post about their swim lessons last week, so I guess I'll do that now!

 Reese refused to go under the water for the first 2 days.  On the second day she went under, and when she got back to the steps Wyatt gave her this huge hug!

 Reesie in her Ariel cover up.  This color just looks adorable with her eyes! (In fact, it was half off the other day at the Disney Store, so I went ahead and bought one for next year, too.)

 Brian was off last Wednesday, but he had a terrible migraine and couldn't go (but fortunately felt much better when we got home).  He surprised us by showing up on Thursday, and the kids were so excited to see him!  Wyatt showed off his back-floating skills.

 Reese would only jump in while she held Miss Sidney's hands.

 Wyatt preferred jumping into the pool all by himself!

She loved her lessons!  It's a good thing too, because they start all over again next week.  Wyatt passed Station 2 last week, so he'll be moving on to Station 3 and leaving his sister behind.  I think she'll be stuck for awhile - she has no interest in opening her eyes under water!

Our Weekend

We spent a lot of time at my parents' house this weekend.  Wyatt was literally in the pool for at least 10 hours this weekend non stop.  My aunt and cousin were in town, and Wyatt had a lot of fun swimming with Madison. He is getting so comfortable (in his life jacket) swimming around, jumping off the diving board, playing ball.  It is crazy to me that two weeks ago we had to convince him to jump off and now he does it over and over and over again!

Reese likes to swim too, but she isn't quite as comfortable in the water as Wyatt is, which is fine with me!  She won't jump off the board and will barely jump in the pool, but she loves to float through the water or find toys that she knows Wyatt wants so she can steal them.

When we weren't in the pool the kids were asleep and I was busy painting my kitchen.  I seriously picked out 7 paint samples from Home Depot over the last two weeks and finally settled on a color. I love it.  It could use one more coat, but it looks awesome. Now I'm just waiting on the painter to come paint the family room.  There is no way that I could reach that ceiling (and neither could Brian)!  I love our house, but there are a lot of things that people get to pick out when they build their home that we didn't get to do because our house was done when we put the offer in (we had to pay extra to have them lower the fireplace hearth!).  Different counter tops, cabinets and carpet are at the top of my lists of things I would have chosen differently.  I would also never allow them to use builders' grade paint.  You can't clean it and it just stinks.  Lessons learned, I guess!

 Wyatt asked me to take a picture of him Sunday morning, so of course I obliged :)

Sunday afternoon I took Hudson to a play date.  My former boss hosted all the babies that were born within 4 months of each other at her house.  The oldest little girl (to the right of Hudson) is a month older than he is.  She is actually the daughter of the guy who took my job over when I left! The other four are in birth order from Hudson down - we all found out we were pregnant within a few months of each other. With four pregnant women you tend to get funny looks - but it was crazy!  People started calling our meetings Lamaze classes!  Ha! The funny things is that my friend made cupcakes for Mardi Gras last year and she put the traditional baby in one.  I got the cupcake with the baby, and found out I was pregnant a few weeks later.  And then it was just one after the other!

Hudson was in the middle of the girls, but I think he really wanted to be with his buddies Kayden and Ethan!  With girls it's always drama, drama, drama (and they're crawling and kept moving around - the boys are all still immobile)!

Hudson and Darlin'

Hudson was laying on the floor waiting to be changed, and I guess Darlin' was laying on the ground nearby. Hudson decided to pick her up and take a few practice swings.  Brian's mom made Darlin' almost two years ago for Wyatt's Halloween costume when he was Yankee Irving.  Hudson just looked too cute to not get a few pictures!

Weekly iPurge/ Welcome

Welcome to the "new" blog!  Everything from the old one is over there ----->, it's just updated to encompass everything that we do - the old blog's name was inspired by Wyatt when he was an only child ('cause that lasted for SUCH a long time - ha!), and I think this one is better suited for everyone!

I didn't take too many pictures with my phone this week - I had the camera at swim lessons, and well, I've got my hands full when we're out and about!  But here are a few that basically sum up what we've spent the week doing - swimming!





 Wyatt has developed some sort of water obsession!  He spent the week in swimming class, and then spent 5 hours in my parents' pool yesterday and 2 more today!  He would literally jump of the diving board, swim to the ladder, and then do it all over again.  And again, and again, and again.  Crazy!  He has gotten so much more comfortable in the water, which is exactly what we were hoping for!

 Reese wants to be in the pool, and then she wants to be out of it.  She is flighty!  Today she was in swimming, and then out blowing bubbles, swimming again, having a snack - she is always hungry - ALWAYS!  And as a side note - how cute are her french braids?!?

And here is Hudson in his cute little ESPN hat - which we bought for Wyatt on our first trip to Disney!  He loves ESPN - especially Mike & Mike.  Apparently he took a liking to it when we listened to them on the way to work every morning when I was pregnant!  If he's crying in the car Mike & Mike calm him down immediately!

Swimming Lessons!

Wyatt and Reese both started swim lessons this week.  Wyatt took them last winter, but hasn't been back since.  We figured that with all the swimming that they're doing it's safer for them to learn, so we signed both of them up.  It's nice because my schedule at work (while awesome) didn't really allow me to take them to things like swim lessons during the week, but now I can!  Swim lessons is just another fun thing to do for them, but they're learning a lot, too.

It was raining on  the first day of lessons, so I stood under a cover to take these!

Reese is right in the middle of the picture!

Getting ready to do her next "qualifier" to move up to Station 2

Wyatt is practicing his bobbing skills so he can qualify for station 3

Pulling in her teacher Miss Sidney

Wyatt sitting on the side waiting for his turn!

Class meets 4 days a week for 30 minutes.  They have classes all summer long (9 weeks!), but I've signed them up for 5 weeks.  They will be going every other week.  I signed them up late, so we got stuck in the 12:15 class for the first session, but they'll go at 9:45 for the rest of the summer.  Thank goodness!  They are both passing out in the car on the way home, and I have to give them lunch at 10:45.  They've started calling that meal their "snunch," because I give them a snack and lunch at the same time!  Ha!  It's crazy to think that after tomorrow their next class is after the Fourth of July.  Where is this year going?

It's been great to watch Reesie interact with other kids.  I wasn't too worried about her going to school in the fall, but I had just a little trepidation.  Now?  There is none.  This girl is a social butterfly!  It will be so fun to watch her start school and soccer in the fall!

Father's Day Gift - The Extras

I took a ton of pictures the other day just to get 4 good ones, so here are some extras!

Father's Day Weekend

The kids and I didn't do much this weekend.  We spent most of Friday morning and afternoon running errands and swimming with Katie.  Reese ended up with a stomach bug Friday night that lasted about 12 ridiculous hours.  Every three hours I was cleaning up after her "issues."  Around 9 and again around 12 she threw up in her crib, so I made a bed for us on the floor in the living room.  She came out and Star Wars was on TV.  We turned the TV off quickly, but the next day she told Wyatt, "Wyatt, I got to watch Star Wars with Mommy and Daddy last night, and you didn't."  Ha!  Fortunately she used the bowl I put next to her for the rest of the night. Needless to say, we spent most of Saturday in the house!

Brian spent the majority of Father's Day this year at work :(.  We were thrilled last year that he had Father's Day off for the first since he started working, but things have changed a little over the last year.  I thought about taking the kids to the park to play, but Brian was worried it would be busy and he wouldn't get to visit with us anyway.

The kids and I spent the morning at Munden Point Park taking care of part of Brian's Father's Day present.  I love Munden Point Park!  It's out of the way, it's on the water and there is so much to do! I took the kids' pictures holding a chalkboard listing the reason they love their Daddy, and then made it into a collage at Walgreens.  Super cute.  I'm upset because I was so busy wrangling the kids that I didn't think about what I would put across the top if the collage and there are some serious issues with verbs there.  And my husband is no slacker when it comes to the English language.  He noticed immediately.  But he didn't seem (too) bothered by it.

After our trip to the park we came back home to grab swimsuits and headed over to see my parents.  The kids spent the afternoon swimming (Wyatt is going off the diving board now!) and playing.  I was able to leave them there to go pick up the prints from Walgreens, but that didn't work out too well for Hudson.  Apparently he is having some serious separation anxiety.  He has now earned himself the nickname "Screamer." He cried from the second I left until the second I walked in the door.  I guess this is what happens when you stay at home with them all the time?

We planned to go out to dinner with Brian's parents, but they ended up coming here for pizza instead.  The kids had a lot of fun visiting with Mimi and Baba after their trip to Disney World last week.  Even though Mimi spent most of her time fixing a toy parachute that Daddy and Wyatt broke immediately upon use!  It was a fun Father's Day, but we're really looking forward to spending some time together tomorrow when Brian finally gets a day off (it's been 8 days straight)!

Just a Little Hudson

Hudson has been such a happy little boy lately!  He loves playing with his toys, and the big kids' blocks are his new favorite thing. I'm starting to doubt whether this kid will crawl.  Everytime he's on his tummy and starts to move he rolls onto his back.  He's getting pretty good at standing though, so I wouldn't be surprised if he went straight to walking!

And another shot of my little Daddy's boy...

Weekly iPurge!

We don't always take our camera with us everywhere (it's a little big), so we use our iPhones a lot!  Dumping my iPhone seems to be a good look back at our week...

We've gone to Skinny Dip twice this week!  So yummy!  I chose low fat red velvet frozen yogurt with cheesecake.  Brian went for strawberry yogurt with strawberries and bananas.  Reese likes chocolate with sprinkles and Wyatt likes vanilla with M&M's!

At Skinny Dip celebrating Wyatt's last day of school!  Hudson adores his Daddy!

An outtake of the pictures I tried to get of Wyatt on his last day!  This is probably the best one, but he wasn't holding the sign.

While Reese was still at my mom's last week for a sleepover, I took the boys to Lock Park.  After going through a series of bridges, boats then have to pass through the locks (which are to the right of this picture).  Last week was a big boat festival, so a ton of boats passed through while we were at the park.  Wyatt LOVED it!

In addition to Reese's cow girl boots that she sported last week, she also insisted on leaving the house in her rain boots.  I bought her some super cute sandals  the other day that she loves, so she seems to like wearing them more!  But like I told Brian, as long as she looks cute from the shorts up, I'm good!

Um, we bought this for Wyatt at Target on Monday.  And then Brian decided to wear it? Actually, we all ended up as a super hero at some point that day.  Reese was Spiderman, I was Iron Man, Wyatt was Captain America.  We're a family of super heroes!

Blueberry Barbecue Salmon

Brian and I are really trying to eat at home more often.  I like to wait and eat with him when he gets home at night, which frequently means that the kids get one dinner and then we get another (and ours is some sort of fast food - Wendy's, Wawa, Subway).  It's easier for us all to eat together in the winter when he's home by a set time every night, but I can't feed the kids dinner at 8 at night :)!  Anyway, as a result, I'll probably be sharing some of my recipes with blog-land!

I knew Brian was craving salmon last week, so I picked some up at the store.  Now, I usually buy fresh salmon, but this Archer Farms frozen package looked pretty good, so I got it at my new expanded Target.

If Brian were home early enough, I probably would have just seasoned it a bit and let him grill it.  But since I had to throw it in my oven, I decided to go with my old stand by:

 Blueberry Barbecue Salmon

Ingredients

1 tbsp Blueberry Jam

1 tbsp Barbecue sauce

Salt & Pepper

It's super easy.  I put the salmon on a foil lined baking sheet and then sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Then mix the barbecue sauce and blueberry jam together and then coat half of it on the salmon.  I broil it on high for 5 minutes, take it out, put the rest of the sauce on top and broil it for another 5 minutes. Brian would prefer his salmon to be "sushi-like," but that's not my thing!

It tastes super yummy with whole grain rice and green beans with almonds!  It's really a quick meal that can be put together in just a few minutes before he gets home (or after the kids are in bed).

First and Last

Today is Wyatt's last day of school! 

I thought it would be fun to compare his first day photo....

With a photo of the last day (which he absolutely did not want to cooperate with).



I can't believe that the year is over, but I am beyond pleased with how well he did. I'm also a little broken up about how big he is now!  And um, I'm also a little puzzled about when I'm going to run my errands this summer!  I love this boy!

A Trip to the Train Trestle

Brian had his first day off in three and half weeks on Monday!  We were all so excited that he was home with us.  We took it pretty easy that morning and then Brian decided to take Wyatt to do something fun.  Train tracks run right behind our neighborhood and a train passes by about 5 or 6 times a week.  The kids love to run out to the deck and watch it pass and have even made their way over to the tracks a few times to see it up close (sometimes it stops right on the tracks for awhile and the conductor waves to them).  Last year the train derailed and literally hung right off the track!



Source

Brian has literally been planning this adventure for awhile.  He needed to google map the best way to get to the train bridge and then figure out how he to navigate the back roads.  Fortunately, the entrance is just a neighborhood away, and the Jeep fit right through the opening!

The Intracoastal Waterway

Sitting in front of the tracks.  There was a lot of rock throwing that went on that day! Boys will be boys!

Walking along the tracks (just as a note: we can hear this thing from 5 miles away.  Everyone was safe)!  The trusty, rusty old Jeep got them there!

And of course, apparently a train came by and crushed a turtle.  Wyatt found this to be incredibly interesting!

The boys had a blast and Wyatt didn't stop talking about it all day!  Or all week, really.  I foresee lots of trips for them in the future, especially since the Jeep can get them there.  Brian thinks that the van might fit back there too, so maybe we'll take all the kids one day!