Mittens, Living Room Tubbie, and The First Walk of the Year

So yesterday was pretty awesome.  Yeah, there were some crappy parts, like Baylor not napping (which, I hate to say, has become sort of a regular occurrence).  But a lot of it was pure awesomeness.
The day started off with breakfast, then we got down to play.  Mollie wanted to have me put Baylor's mittens on her, so I did.  And, boy, was she excited!

Seriously, she wore them around for over half an hour!

At first she was all, "Hmm, how am I gonna crawl in these?"

But she worked it out.

She even used the oven to stand up and took a few steps!  And yes, it was even cuter because of the mittens.

She still just wanted to hang out with Baylor, though.  I wonder if she thought the mittens would make her more stealth as she sidled up to her brother.

In a stroke of genius on his part, Baylor took the cushion off our green leather chair.  For some reason that is like catnip to Mollie; she can't resist the urge to climb up on the uncushioned chair and do a little bouncing.

Of course, with mittens on, her dismount was less than graceful.

She kept wanting to go head first, but the instant she got to this point, she'd grunt and start to make moves back onto the chair.  Maybe she'd actually learned from the night before when she attempted this dismount and got a bloody lip as a result.

Baylor likes to pretend that the party tub we use for rubber blocks is a bath tub.  He'll stand there, pretend to run the water, and make comments like, "Not too hot, not too cold.  It's juuuuuust right!"  It's awesome.  Of course, it was even more awesome when Mollie decided she wanted to take a tubby in the living room, too.

Baylor is such an awesome kid.  He sat there so patiently while I screamed at him, "Baylor!  Don't move!  I have to go get my camera to take a picture of this!  I'll get her off of you in a second!"  He knows my need to document cuteness is unending, and he seems to love me in spite of it.  For her part, Mollie looked super cute with her combination, "Oh, you're in here?/Iloveyousomuchbigbrother!!!" look.

Luckily the night before I had been a bit on the lazy side and hadn't taken care of a laundry basket I had nearly emptied, so we had another "tub" for Mollie to sit in.

Of course, once your little sister is tubbing too it loses a little bit of its cache, so Baylor decided he needed to spell something instead.

And he actually spelled something, too!  Check out the word "brown"!!

Apparently all that spelling makes a kid dirty, so he climbed back in for another bath.

Bless his little heart, Baylor is so patient with his sister.  She's always up in his business, wanting to be wherever he is.

Sure, he's not always thrilled about it, but he generally takes it in stride.  It probably helps that Mollie just adores him and only wants to be near him because she can't get enough of the kid.

After naps and dinner, we decided to take advantage of some wonderful pre-spring weather and go for a walk, our first of the season!  And our first with both kids getting to enjoy the little red wagon!

They were having fun, I swear!

It was a gorgeous evening ... the moon even made an appearance in the clear blue sky.

Bryson pulled the wagon the whole way.  I offered to pull, but I was also pretty happy to have both hands free so I could take pictures.  As you can see in the picture below, there was still a decent amount of snow on the ground, so our walk got cut short a couple times because the sidewalks were impassible at certain points.

I commented that Mollie was struggling a bit while riding backwards, and after a cursory check of the situation, Bryson said, "She's just getting a good ab workout!"  Awesome.  Love you, honey!

Baylor was on the look out for dogs and other kids on our walk, but sadly there were few of either.  I thought there would be more people out, but apparently it wasn't THAT warm out.

We had a lovely little walk.  Hopefully, in a couple weeks, it'll be even lovelier with the snow all gone.

Of course, the catch-22 about walks is that, once you get your two year-old outside he isn't likely to want to go back in.  So, though their garage door was closed when we walked by - signaling they didn't want visitors, we called my in-laws anyway and they were eager for us to come down so they could see the kiddos.  Upon hearing this, Baylor took off as fast as he could down the sidewalk.  It was adorable; I just love the way he runs these days, cheeks jiggling, a little bounce in his step.

Once there, we played with toys, Baylor got to do some typing with Grandpa Chris, and Mollie actually stood up without holding onto anything and took a few steps!  It was the first time she had ever done that so we were all pretty geeked about it.

Finally, it was time to head home and get a real bath.  Baylor was sad to go, but he got to run outside so that took quite a bit of the sting out of leaving.  And a bonus ... Baylor was so worn out from not napping and getting to run outside a bit that he didn't protest at all when it was finally time for bed!  Awesome!!!

You've gotta love days like that.

New Year's Eve 2010: The Doings

Ah, our first New Year's Eve as a family of four!  It was delightful.  Lots of making out happened, but none of it was by my husband and I.  (See the above photo.)

Most of the day progressed as usual.  Baylor had his current favorite "peanutbutterandjellysandwichwithhoneyonit" for lunch.  And yes, you have to say it in one breath ... if you can.

Oh, and Bryson let Baylor feed himself pureed carrots.  Word to the wise, pureed carrots - particularly those by Gerber - are extraordinarily runny.  There WILL be a mess.

Mollie made out with herself a little more.

It was the first time she had done this so I went a little trigger-happy with the camera.

Then, since she had the run of the house with her brother napping, she went wild.

She opened all the cupboards in his kitchen and "ate" some of his food.

She worked on her cruising skills.  Moments after this photo was taken (of course) she stood by herself for a split second as she went from the couch to the plaid swivel chair nearby.  Walking seems imminent.

Sadly, Baylor was a bit out of sorts when he woke up and just wanted to zone out on the couch with a little Kids' Favorite Songs 2.  So we let him.  And, in turn, he let me bundle him up in his own blanket cocoon.  Awesome!

Isn't he adorable?!

After finishing his DVD, it was time for dinner, so we bellied up to the table.  And, of course, Baylor found it necessary to take his socks off; though this time, instead of just tossing them on the floor, he decided to wear one as a mitten/hand puppet.

It was too cute watching him try to pick things up with his socked hand.

My husband, bless his heart, made turkey enchiladas for us when my attempt at turkey chili fell through.  I personally liked these enchiladas even better with turkey, but my husband still prefers ground beef so we'll have to compromise and alternate.

During dinner, Baylor noted that it was dark out, and Bryson promised that, in several years, he would explain to Baylor how day and night work.  I decided to up the ante and challenged him to explain it now.  So he did.  He turned the lights down low, grabbed a couple props (flashlight for the sun, baseball ornament for the moon, and a bowl for the Earth), and went to town.

He quickly switched bowls when he figured out his initial choice was translucent and could confuse the little man.  Oh, and he added a sticker for Michigan, so he could clearly illustrate day and night.

Baylor was mesmerized.

Mollie was less so.

Then my batteries went dead and when I started taking pictures again I forgot to turn off the flash.  So there was a bit of a solar burst that "day".

It was a lot of fun, though Baylor probably didn't get it.  Oh well, he will someday!

Lately our little man has been into telling people when he loves them.  And in the last couple days he's been adding that he'd like to buy said loved ones Christmas trees.  He's a funny little man!

After dinner it was time to play with some new Legos he got for Christmas (and some he had bought earlier in the day with money he got for Christmas).

My husband almost has more fun than Baylor when they play with Legos.  Ahh, childhood memories, huh, honey?

Mollie scooted herself all over the place and joined in when she could.

The guys were happy to show off their creations.

Bryson and I collaborated on a helicopter.

And then it was time for a bath.  A couple weeks ago I started giving the kids a bath together when my husband was away for the night, and it seems to have stuck.  Luckily, the kiddos don't seem to mind too much.

Mollie definitely likes it more because she gets to actually play in the bath instead of being whisked in and out so we can make sure Baylor gets play time.  As it turns out, she is a big fan of splashing.  The last couple baths have led me to early wardrobe changes.

Then, with bath time over, the little splasher got all snug-a-bug in her ducky towel.  Isn't she so cute?!

And Baylor got to put some foam letters on the mirror while Daddy dried him off.

Then, in an even bigger treat, Baylor got to try on some new big boy underwear Oma bought for him the other day.  At dinner, when we were talking about our goals for the year, Bryson asked Baylor if one of his goals was to learn how to use the potty like a big boy, and Baylor replied, "Yeah."  So we're hoping this is the year of the potty for the little man.  Only time will tell.

Lately, Mollie has been having some sleep troubles (waking in the middle of the night and not being able to get herself back to sleep even though she knows how), and our pediatrician suggested we try a sound machine in her room.  So, for the past few nights, Mollie has been drifting off to dreamland with the sound of rain in her room.  Baylor is, of course, endlessly fascinated with the sound machine and is particularly fond of the heartbeat sound it can make.

So, in lieu of listening to it all night long in Mollie's room, we let him listen to our heartbeats.

He thought mine sounded like a heartbeat and Bryson's sounded like a waterfall.  Hm ... oookay.

I don't have much to say about this picture except that it so clearly illustrates how much my boy looks like his dad.

I am crazy lucky to have such an awesome family.  This year, I hope to be present and know that this time, this life goes by so quickly.  You have to appreciate all the little moments you can.

To you, my wonderful readers, I hope you have a joyful new year!