well at least we tried.

ok... well, there is one part of me who would like to maintain a "super-parent" identity and only show you the latter of these photos. but the other part of me wants you to know how insane and hilarious and FUN parenting is and can be.

saturday was a beautiful day and matt and i had decided a little while back that we wanted to try and go kayaking (with the baby) sometime soon. we got the stickers for the boats. we even got aubrey a toddler "off-shore" life-vest. we were ready to go.... and totally out of our minds.

we packed everything up on saturday morning and headed out to marsh creek. no one had had anything to eat yet. we were all a little cranky, but we had loaded everything up....we had driven everything over....we were going to do this. it was a fiasco. it was almost as bad as when matt and i kayaked on our anniversary in one of the two-seater kayaks (AKA "the divorce boat").

aubrey isn't really happy about anything new... she takes a little while to warm up to things, so she started bawling as soon as we put her in the boat. all i could think was, let's just make it to the next shore, we can have lunch and try again on the way back. i spent the entire 10 minute paddle singing "row, row, row your boat" and feeding her snacks so she would stop crying. it didn't work.

we pulled into the next little shore area. it was muck. we waded in and aubrey stopped crying.... and started throwing sand and eating pond scum, while matt and i stood there and bickered over whether it was a harder job to entertain the cranky kid or to pull in the boats and unload lunch. nobody won. we ate lunch..... and three different people got back into those boats. (obviously next time we are eating lunch before we try anything crazy like this again.)

the ride back was an entirely different experience. aubrey threw rocks in the water and when she ran out of rocks.... she was comfortable enough to start moving around. i don't really know which was worse, the crying child who stayed in one place or the happy child who was trying to capsize the boat.

we waded in back at the boat dock.... i pulled the boats up to the grass, and matt played with aubrey in the water. the whole day ended with aubrey bravely sticking her face toward the water and losing her balance....and basically going under. didn't anyone tell this kid there is NO SWIMMING at Marsh Creek, it's a reservoir. she went home in my t-shirt and a diaper.... super-mom forgot a change of clothes.

family days

we are kind of in a lull here.... (a very welcome lull). matt has cut back on hours at starbuck in order to prepare for "house stuff". we are not yet in our new home (Lord willing we settle on June 8th).... and it's a little to early to pack or do anything on this end yet. so we have embraced our free saturday and sunday afternoons and made sure to have some family time whenever we can. last sunday afternoon we spent the day at springton manor farm with aubrey. it was so much fun to have her see in person what she has only seen in books. we saw goats, sheep, horses and brand new baby piglets (like wilbur, aw, how cute!). we are looking forward to these next few FREE weekends before we become "home-owners".

practicing for "fear factor"

little girls hate bugs...right? not ours. we have a bunch of little bugs that i bought a couple of months ago, they have made their way from the toybox to the bath tub. aubrey spends the entirety of her bath "tasting" each one and sticking them on her belly. she does this with all of them except for the lady-bugs which she merely holds in her hand and shakes her head "no," because i have deemed them to small to put in her mouth. nice mother.... let her suck on a centipede or play with a roach but don't let the poor child put the cute little lady-bug in her mouth.

(late) easter post.

i should have posted these a long time ago...
aubrey's first easter she could hardly sit up. this year she got to join in all the fun.
easter egg hunts (in icy cold temperatures) playing with her cousins and getting to eat a yummy easter dinner (thanks mom and dad!).
aubrey's grammy, na-na and gigi were a lot better then mom this year. i totally forgot about doing an easter basket. but luckly she didn't miss out.

personally i love this picture of pappy in the bunny ears. i was going to post the close up of him and aubrey. but i think he would have killed me. but this one gives you the idea.

all the little babies are getting so big. even brooke participated in the festivities. sort of.
i loved looking back at last years easter post to see how big they all have gotten.

if they are being quiet, they're up to something

i heard her go into the bathroom. i heard her talking to the mirror.... then i heard nothing. what's the worst thing she could be doing? the toilet paper was almost out (she had pulled it all off the roll the other day). the cabinets were all shut (she usually doesn't pay attention to them unless i am in there). she's probably playing with her bath toys, right? a few more moments go by, ok, i need to go check this out.

this is what i find.

nice.

No!

i am amazed at how fast your kids grow up. i remember my mom saying "it feels like just yesterday that you girls were...." aubrey is almost a year and a half, and my how the time has just flown by. i cannot believe i am the mommy of a toddler. new parenting "opportunities" are arising each day, as her awareness of her independence grows. i have now come to the point were i have to say "it's time for a nap" or "it's time for lunch" instead of "do you want lunch?" or "do you want to go to bed?" which is met with a miniature "no" from my toddler. now that aubrey has mastered the art of walking (aside from the running into things and falling over stuff).... she is now reverting back to her former passion in life, babbling up a storm! except now it's a little different then a few months ago. the babbling actually resembles words. she tries to repeat things you say and comes out with the darnedest stuff. yesterday the surprise word of the day was "i-pod," now there is a sign of the times, eh?

spring...come back please!

matt, aubrey and i spent lunch at the park. (this is back on that 70 degree day, where we thought spring had finally arrived....lies, lies i tell you!) cannot wait for it to warm up again. there is something wrong with it being this cold in april.

we ran into some of aubrey's little friends...and enjoyed the sunny weather together.

it's so much fun having friends with kids around the same age. i love seeing them interact, especially since just a few months ago they could all be in the same room and have no idea the other one was there.

family fun day

who knew the local feed store could be so much fun. baby chicks are so cute! mommy wants some for our new house (when we get it). we'll see...

shoe fetish....

every girls dream is a closet full of shoes. aubrey just happens to be starting her shoe fetish a little early. most days she will pick out which pair she would like to wear herself.... (and if they match) i usually give in. matt caught this scene while i was in chicago. he and aubrey sat in her room for over a half hour putting shoes on aubrey and her bear.

thank you philadelphia...and GOODNIGHT!

pop pop would be proud aubrey-girl! i mean, he's been playing for a long time... but i doubt he started at the age of one. between rick (he's the silly one in the photo), greg, aunt teri and your pop pop, you are destined to at least have the opportunity to take a whack at playing the drums (pardon the pun). you've got rhythm in your blood!

non-toxic, i hope.

so i have heard that the rule of thumb for painting with toddlers is "vanilla pudding with food coloring".... well, that doesn't sound like any fun. i mean, it's easy to wash off. you don't have to worry if they eat it. we decided to go for the real deal.... blue crayola paint. it was just as fun and she ate it anyway. the washing it off part was a little bit more difficult. the bath water was blue. but it all came off and we had ourselves quite a little adventure.

the accident

in an effort to keep my daughter from pooping on the floor before her bath, i put her on the potty and gave her a book (no i am not insane... there is no way i am attempting to potty train a 16 month old.) this was merely a convenience issue. anyway, as you are all familiar. if you sit on the "throne" and get cozy with a book....what usually happens? well, that was what happened. it was very exciting. i never thought there would be a day that i would be applauding poo.

making cookies

before i left for chicago last week, matt, aubrey & i decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. aubrey loved stirring up the batter and getting to play with the eggs. matt made the big mistake of putting one egg in each of aubrey’s hand. now, if you were 1 years old and someone put something in each of you hands, what would you do? smash them together of course. we made a big mess, everyone was covered in flour….but we had a great time. it’s funny how the everyday is extraordinary when you do it as a family. nothing compares to experiencing all the firsts with you little girl. first cooking lesson…..check.

aubrey goes GLAM

people keep saying "she's not a baby anymore" and now i see it. that little girl that used to depend on me for everything is now pretty good at figuring things out on her own. i am anticipating the day that i find her sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor trying to pour herself a cup of milk, but actually pouring it all over the floor. (i think i saw that in a bounty commercial once.)

i know i kept waiting for the next thing, the first teeth, the first words, the first steps.... but now i wish i had a pause button. couldn't she stay this way for just a little while longer?

she still let's me rock her every once and while. she still laughs when i try to kiss her all over her face. she still wants me to be right there with her (sometimes). i like that...

our little princess

i cannot believe how fast our little girl is growing up. seemed like just yesterday her greatest fascination was trying to get her toe into her mouth and now she walks around the house with her little purse or her baby doll all wrapped up in a blanket. she'll sit and flip through every book in her box, she takes her time and looks at all the pictures. she will look at you and make the animal noises for every animal she sees. she can recognize a star in a book and will do the hand sign for it... she also knows diamonds (after all, they are a girls best friend). she is saying "hi" "daddy" "ball" and "dog" clearly. she loves to sit in her cinderella chair with a snack and some milk and watch elmo. given a choice she would want daddy to carry her, but wants mommy to hold her hand. she loves her friends at church and squeals as soon as she sees maddie, logan or christa. she loves to jump on mom and dad's bed after her bath (somewhat of a daddy/aubrey tradition now). she is starting to use spoons and forks when she eats... it still gets all over, but she's improving. she LOVES cheerios in milk with banana slices. (something we stumbled upon, b/c mommy ran out of eggs one morning.) she is definitely giving us a run for our money.... it's not as easy to keep tabs on where she is at any point in time. you turn around for a second and she's gone.... on to the next thing. it's been such a blessing to watch her grow, each day is a little different then the last and you never know what new thing she will surprise you with. we'll keep you updated. ;o)

shopping will never be the same

leave it to three moms and four kids to clear out an entire section of barnes and noble in less then 2 minutes. believe it or not i totally called the whole thing... as we rounded the corner of the bookstore to camp out in the section with the big comfy chairs. there they sat, unsuspecting of the tornado of diapers, milk cups and cheerios about to ravage their area. "watch how fast we can clear this place out" i said under my breath. the young salesman at the computer watched in awe.... it's as if we pinched all the children simultaneously. they all started to whine. aubrey pooped, logan pooped, jake continued to belch up sweet potatoes and maddie and i began to sing some little mermaid songs while she danced around in aubrey's green blanket. the old man was the first to fold.... he stood up took his books and left. the dad and son team stuck it out a little longer but eventually gave up. we made our little circle of chairs and strollers, handed out some of maddie's books and tried to imagine in moments of quiet that jen, april and i were the only ones there. then someone would cry or try to escape... back to reality.

i put my new shoes on....

our dear friend mike did something special for us crazy old married folks. he gave us two tickets to a show at the world cafe that he was unable to use. it was a great opportunity for us parent-types to do something special and have a night out on the town. the band wound up getting lost on the new jersey turnpike and didn't go on until an hour after they were scheduled. but i am not complaining. matt and i got a chance to sit on the floor of the venue, people watch, talk, play with our camera and get out those much needed bathroom breaks.

chris thile and the how to grow a band played an amazing set. it was staggering to watch such amazing musicians. at one point my husband grabbed his hair and yelled "woah" when brian sutton tuned his guitar down, while playing, in order to hit some crazy low notes.

ok, so where do the new shoes fit in.... well, not that anyone cares but my mother in law found me the boots that i have been looking for all winter. did you ever get a picture in your mind (something you had seen or maybe something you thought up yourself) and everytime you went out to shop for something that picture haunted you and nothing quite measured up. my winter 2007 boots were out there somewhere i just had to find them... and finally did...AND i got to wear them out on saturday night for our date. it made me smile, oh and think of that song by paulo nutini "new shoes".

SNOWDAYS

Leave it to little girl to make a daddy melt when he walks through the door after work. Sure he just spent hours at his job, but that all is out of his mind when she pounds on the backdoor window as he makes his way up the driveway. Yes, he's exhausted... he just put in 8 hours, but he jumps at the chance to experience SNOW with his one year old. I am not sure that sledding was as exciting for Aubrey as it was for us... but she gasped at the sight of flakes falling from the sky and everything covered in white.

introducing stonewall jackson

this is the face i am greeted with each time i pull out the camera. hmmmm.... a pout. seems familiar. funny how the things you do miraculously show up in your kids.

can i help dad?

daddy's little helper

everything takes twice as long now days. what used to be an easy five minutes of unloading the dishwasher... can now take ten minutes or more. aubrey wants to help with everything. she likes blowing her own nose and taking the tissue to the trash. of course she has to walk there herself and she has to do it EVERY TIME she blows her nose. (which in the winter can be quite often.) our little helper assists with the laundry too. daddy's wet jeans are a little hard to lift into the dryer.... but she manages quite well with the socks. it's fun though watching her feel like she is a part of team o'malley. she makes us so proud.

you gotta see this

sorry this is a repeat picture.... but you just have to see this. i kept looking at the "state of the union" photo and couldn't help but think that it looked vaguely familiar to me. check this out.
april 2006......january 2007

the state of the union

no, not really... i just said to matt, "i don't know what to blog about?" he said, "how 'bout the state of the union." i laughed.... hmmm,ok. nevermind.

sorry we have been slacking on blogging lately. not sure why? oh yeah, i remember because i am not aloud on the computer after 7:oo PM. in attempts to cure my recent insomnia there are a number of things that have been put on the NO-NO list.... like "no coffee, no computer and no lists (to-do lists or otherwise). this is all to get me off to bed before 2 AM. so far, nothing is working. my poor hubby, i keep annoying him. last night, every time he snored i held his nose. the nights before that.... when he would talk in his sleep, i would talk back, trying to figure out what he was dreaming about. this would work until he would realize i was talking to him and wake up and then i would laugh at him. nice wife, huh?

anyway.... matt is working a lot. i am busy with mom stuff. we are praying hard about house stuff... and the aubs is growing like crazy. she is getting more steady on her feet and spent much of today walking across susie's living room and down the hall to chase josh. at one point she surprised all of us by just toddling across the room toward the kitchen with for no real reason at all (like someone standing across the room yelling "go, go, go!"). she just walked all the way across the room to the chair and stooped down to pick something up that interested her.
she loves to play ring-around-the-rosey, thanks to maddie mclaughlin who taught it to her the other day at jen's house. "all fall down" is definitely her favorite part. sometimes we get a preemptive "all fall down" and have to start all over again. she know where her belly, nose, eyes, ears and head are.... mouth is a hit or miss. for some strange reason she no longer knows what the cow says. probably omitted it from her vocabulary so that she could tell us what the airplane say. (thank you fisher price) WHOOSH!

** scroll over "go, go, go!" for link to video **

fish?

This past Sunday Melissa and I decided to take Aubrey to see some fish. Since she has always loved to look at the fish in the pond in the back yard, we thought she might enjoy seeing lots of fish. Naturally we ended up in Camden (Baltimore was a little to far for a spontaneous jaunt). She was sooo excited! The first thing we saw was a little pool with rays and sharks that you could reach in and touch. She would have been in the water if I had let her. After a little while we decided to move on to see more, and she was so excited about the fish that she started to cry. We assured her that there was much more to see and she settled down as we came into the room with the OCEAN TANK.... BIG FISH!

She was beside herself.

Next we went to another place that was hands on... this time Aubrey was able to do a little more that just get daddy wet. Although I don't think she felt any different about touching a starfish than she did about touching a shell.

My favorite part was the HIPPOS! They are the most agile beasts I have ever seen (except for maybe Rick Wise, he's pretty agile... although he does not in any way resemble a hippo... at least not any more...never the less he's a beast.) This guy here was definitely showing how big and bad he was... the picture is actually a little bit deceiving. He was so close I could have smacked him on the nose. That was actually the scary part... the fact that I stood there and contemplated doing it... which would have been ridiculously stupid as he probably could have turned my hand into applesauce.

It was a great day... Melissa and I had lots of fun but the best part was seeing Aubrey's wide eyes as she discovered new things. Pretty standard dad stuff I would say.

what does the elephant say?

"THhhhhppppptttt"

I think it is supposed to be the trumpeting that mommy and daddy does, but it comes out a little more like spitting or blowing bubbles. Oh, well.... we know what she means.