The Little Things

I can't remember the last time I have slept more than six hours in a night. It was probably early on in my pregnancy with Henry. The fact that I haven't slept well has finally caught up to me since Henry still isn't sleeping very well. So last night I was exhausted and Claire has been a typical two year old the last few days so that has also worn me out. Paul was understanding and let me turn off the monitors in our room and he slept upstairs and woke up with Henry. It was wonderful. I slept six hours straight and felt great this morning. Thanks babe! :)

In other news, Henry can now push up to his hands and knees. I am NOT ready for an early crawler. Two mobile children scare me.

Swimming, Swimming, In The Swimming Pool...

When days are hot and days are cold in the swimming pool! 

Breast stroke, side stroke, fancy diving too! 

Don't you wish you didn't have anything else to do?! 

But...(then start song over). 

That is a little camp song we sing to Claire and Henry when they are taking tubbies (aka baths). Pretty silly. Our neighborhood has two pools that are part of a country club to go to when it's hot. The unfortunate part is paying the fees that are associated with being a member. So how do we solve not paying the fees...befriend our neighbors who are members! Just kidding. We have made good friends with our neighbors who have kids the same age as our two. They happen to be members of the club and have invited us to come along a couple of times. It is very nice of them. This morning before it was too hot we went to the pool and the kids had a lot of fun. Henry splashed the water and Claire couldn't get enough of jumping in from the side. We might consider joining this small pool next year for the summer since it is perfect for little kids. The water is only 1.5-4ft deep. Also I might have more confidence to bring two little kids to the pool by myself. There is NO way I could do it this year. Our baby pool works just wonderfully! Thankfully the water did not feel like bath water and was quite refreshing.

Big jump!

Our budding soccer/basketball player. Look at those leg muscles! :)

Checking out the water!

I Know It's Hot When...

...it's 9:30pm and the neighborhood kids are finally coming outside to play as we're going to bed. I guess that could also mean we are getting old? Yuck. Did I mention it's ridiculously hot outside?

"Normie Monster"

We live right by a huge man-made lake called Lake Norman. There is a weekly cruise for kids to look for the Lake Norman monster named, "Normie". It was my first big activity with both kids by myself, normally I save big things for when Paul is home and I have a second pair of hands. It went pretty well. The cruise was fun and it was nice to finally go on the lake. They read a story about Normie and gave the kids cookies and milk. Of course Claire could care less about the cookies and stories, she just wanted the milk and comment on everything she was seeing out of the boat.  Unfortunately it was incredible hot and the cruise was about 20 minutes too long. We only had a slight melt down but afterwards Claire enjoyed sharing all the details of the experience. Henry did great and slept pretty much the whole time. I forgot to put back my memory card in my camera so there are no pictures. Maybe in a couple of years when Henry is a little older we'll try it again. Instead, here are a few random photos from lunch today since both the kids were having fun with the camera.

Five Months

Happy Five Months, Henry! This picture captures this stage perfectly, Mr. Grabber! 

Here are a few more pictures from that little photo shoot. Claire wanted to play with Henry and I never pass that opportunity up for pictures!

Claire trying to get Henry to "fist bump" with her.

She is also really big into shaking hands and saying, "Nice to meet you!".

Sleep Struggles Continued...

To break Henry's habit of staying up until 10pm, I decided today that when he woke up from his mid-afternoon nap around 3-4 I would keep him awake until bedtime(around 6:30-7). This is what happened around 5:45pm after talking to himself while playing:

Sigh. At least he is adorable.

I Think Sleep is Overrated.

Paul has been in NYC for work this week and I thought I would share the sleeping patterns of our lovely children while he has been gone.


Night One: Claire cries, falls asleep around 8pm. Henry decides he wants to be a night owl and finally falls asleep around 10pm. He wakes up at 1am, 4am, and finally both kids are up around 6:30. A pretty normal night.

Night Two: Claire falls asleep around 7:30. Henry and I battle it out until 10pm. He sleeps until 3am (5 hours!). Both wake up around 6:30. There is hope for Henry!

Night Three: Claire falls asleep around 7:30. Henry and I battle again until 10pm(I'm sensing a pattern). He wakes up at 11:45pm, 3:50am, and finally 5:15am. Did I mention Claire also woke up around 4:30am? Thankfully she fell back asleep. Henry and I battled it out again until 6am then he fell asleep just as Claire was waking up.

Paul comes home tonight and little does he know that he gets tonight and I get naps all weekend.

Fingerpainting Fun

We started outside...

Then it started to thunder so we moved the painting party inside.

Henry was a good observer.

Claire showing me the paint on her fingers.

It took her a bit to understand that only her fingers are used. She kept asking for a "hair brush", which is what she calls any sort of brush.

Mom, I will stick to milk. Thanks.

At Henry's appointment last week his doctor suggested trying out cereal to help with Henry's sleeping issues. Henry has decided to revert back to newborn sleeping patterns with getting up every 1-2 hours. It is actually getting better and now he is up about every 3-4 hours. I'm not a huge fan of starting cereal this early but I figured it couldn't hurt his sleeping patterns. Yesterday I decided to try it out and see if he likes the cereal. This is the face he gave me. I think I will wait a few more weeks.

Picture Attempts...

with two kids under the age of three, pictures are pretty impossible. Here's the results from the pictures on the Fourth:

As you can tell, Henry ADORES Claire and is always smiling when she is talking. Claire thinks he's pretty neat as well. We didn't do much for the Fourth. Our big outing was to Bob Evans (similar to Shari's) for some breakfast. Both kids did great but that meant that Paul and I didn't have any sort of conversation. Each of us were assigned a child for the meal. It was still nice to get out and eat a meal in a restaurant again. We went to a a great park in our neighborhood and met up with our neighbors that we've become good friends with They have children the same age, even a Henry too! It was incredible hot, we got bitten alive by mosquitos, but overall it was a nice way to spend the day!