Two Years Old!

Wow, it's been a while!  We've been a bit busy over here, with a new baby and the Mouse turning 2!  We had her birthday party this weekend, and it was a smashing success if I do say so myself.

The Mouse, like most toddlers, LOVES Sesame Street.  Bert and Ernie are her favorites, but she has a soft spot for anyone on "Sess Seet" as she calls it.

After scouring Pinterest for ideas for her party, I made this door sign:

These party favors were forgotten at home, and Daddy had to go get them.  Thank God for my super husband!

Some of this food was also forgotten (Daddy to the rescue again)!

This Texas Trash Dip was popular, as always (thanks again, Pinterest!) and disappeared despite Oscar's grumpy face watching over it.

The birthday girl was especially impressed with her cake, which took way longer than I anticipated, but was so worth it in the end!

 

All in all she had a wonderful day, and since we had her party at The Little Gym the cleanup was a breeze!

Delivery Take Two

4:15 am: wake up call
5:00 am: wake up Amelia and take her to her friend's house for her very first big girl sleepover
6:00 am: arrive at hospital
7:37 am: dilation check, still 5cm, and water broken
8:28 am: Oxytocin started to hurry things along
10:30 am: Nausea-inducing contractions start
11:30 am: Epidural and a little bit of relief
11:45: Dilation check, still 5cm. Tim leaves to get lunch
12:11 pm: very painful contractions continuing, dilation check- 9 1/2cm and 100% effaced
12:12 pm: Tim rushes back
12:30 pm: begin pushing
1:00 pm: Doc leaves because he is "sunny side up" and not moving so I need to rest and see if he will flip
1:05 pm: uncontrollable shaking and teeth chattering continues, making my jaw ache and my speech difficult
2ish? pm: start pushing again, this time he starts moving down
...another break and turn to see if he's flipped
2:15ish? pm: shaking subsides and pushing begins again
2:44: Patrick James joins the world!

7lbs 8oz
21in

Shoulders that felt like a linebacker

A full head of light reddish brown hair

10 fingers and 10 toes, all with long nail beds like his Daddy.

Same lips as his sister

Perfect.

Finger Painting!

I've been too chicken to try this with Amelia so far but I'm glad we finally did it!

As you can see she used a brush at first, carefully covering the paper in paint.

Once she got her hands dirty, though, she was ready!

We will definitely do this again!

Mother's Day!

We spent Mother's Day at Sea World this year, where we got to attend a character breakfast with the Sesame Street crew. Since there were only about 10 families there the characters were able to interact with each kid a lot!

Amelia's favorite was Cookie Monster of course, and Zoe seemed to like her a lot! She grabbed Amelia's hand and took her over to check out the park map, and they were joined by Cookie, Bert, and Ernie.

Later, Zoe got paper and crayons and colored a picture for Amelia.

When Ernie saw what she was doing, he came over and drew her a picture as well. (His said, Ernie loves you the most). He also pushed Zoe out of the way so he could have his own picture taken with Amelia.

After almost an hour of playing and dancing with the characters, they had to go and we took Amelia to see the dolphins. We fed them this time, but Amelia was too scared to get close!

We met Shamu, saw a few shows, and headed home early. Amelia was spent! It was definitely a great way to spend Mother's Day!

It's Electric!

Last year, shortly after my 28th birthday, I decided I wanted to do 10 5K races before I turn 30. Tim and I were already signed up for the Run For Your Lives 5K in December (which was a zombie run), and I signed us up for the Turkey Trot (which was 5 miles instead of a 5K, oops) on Thanksgiving, too. We had a lot of fun at both, and on March 30, I did my third race- the Electric Run!

I ran with three other moms, and we finished in 42 minutes. It was great to run at night (mostly because it was hard to tell how badly we were sweating). The weather was perfect, and the Electric Run was untimed, so I didn't feel like we were going to be run over! There were a lot of people who were walking the whole way. We jogged for most of it, although we did take our time enjoying the different lighted areas. If they come to your city and you enjoy that kind of thing, check it out!

The Kite Festival!

Austin has thousands of festivals. Spring is when many of them take place, and the Zilker Kite Festival is the one that kicks them all off!

We headed down to the kite festival on Sunday morning armed with our brand new butterfly kite, enough snacks to feed an army, and hopes for a fun day!

Amelia cuddled with Daddy (and snack monster) on the shuttle. The shuttle lines were long, but we didn't have to try to park at Zilker!

We got there about an hour after the festival began and there were already dozens of kites in the sky (and a bunch stuck in trees, too)!

We got our food (nachos, churros, lemonade, quesadillas... You know, all the healthy stuff) early on which was good because the lines got crazy out of control later!

We spent most of the day looking up at the sky and trying not to get beaned by wayward kites.

Our friends Laura and Jimmy came with us, too. Amelia enjoyed climbing on them and stealing Laura's hat.

Amelia wasn't sitting still for long during the day. She loved the fact that there was open grass to run around on and thought her Dad and I chasing her was a very fun game!

We ended up with sunburns (Tim and I didn't put on any sunscreen- not smart) but they're pretty much gone already.

Even with all the really good wind, we didn't fly our kite very much. It was difficult with the number of kites in the sky and the number of people around us! Plus we didn't want to risk the kite eating tree that was close by. :)

All in all it was a fantastic day! We will definitely go back next year... with more sun protection this time!