easter!

it was a beautiful spring day for caroline's first easter. we all went to church, though never made it past the nursery due to the lack of babysitter volunteers. caroline enjoyed playing with another baby her size. after an hour or so of making a mess of someone else's toys, we went to my aunt's house for easter lunch where the kids got their easter baskets.

quentin shows caroline how to examine her loot

caroline seems to wish she had a pile of new monster trucks too

as close as we got to a nice pic of both of them

notice who has the biggest monster truck

this little people cow is especially tasty

hey! where are the jelly beans?

seriously people. where my candy?

c'mon. i only have two teeth so it's not like candy is gonna rot all my teeth.

whatever. i'll eat this leaf.

are you sure these eggs are edible?

quentin hunts for eggs

here's one!

and another one!

there's one right there!

two more!

any left?

gravedigger!!!! he was so excited about this that he didn't even notice his easter basket for about another 10 minutes.

eventually, quentin discovers the rest of his easter basket

-

after baskets, we went inside and ate lunch. well quentin didn't. he threw some food on the floor and had tantrums while the rest of us enjoyed our meal. caroline really enjoyed hers, giving new meaning to the term omnivorous. she ate baby food carrots, goldfish crackers, asparagus, pineapple, ham, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, whipped cream, chocolate cake, lemon meringue pie, and an entire adult-sized portion of grapenut pudding with cool whip.

-

quentin refused to nap. so on the five minute car ride home, this happened:

-

still clutching his new digger, of course.

green eggs and fam

this morning i took the kids to an easter egg hunt at our realtor's office. we went to the same hunt last year and quentin enjoyed it so even though jeremy is working today, i braved it solo. last year it rained. this year it was beautiful, but quentin insisted on wearing this hat:

i had put a hat on caroline to protect her bald little head from the sun so Q then needed to have one too. his baseball hat just wouldn't do. it had to be this GREEN hat, despite the fact that it is 70 degrees outside and this hat is his sister's.

the hunt was outside, but they had hidden eggs indoors for the 3 and under crowd. i tried to get Q to go outside, but he wanted to stay in (probably because no one else stayed in and he had the place to himself!)

just like last year, he enjoyed finding the eggs. and as an added bonus this year, he told me what color each of them were.

and if you have a dump truck easter basket, you must dump your haul on the floor. repeatedly.

and then clean them up, so you can do it again.

caroline enjoyed playing with the one pink egg quentin let her have. and eating animal crackers.

they both got their pictures taken by the town newspaper photographer, so on thursday we'll see if they made the cut!

the sincerest form of flattery

quentin can be a pain to dress these days because he wants to pick out his own shirts (always truck shirts.) last night, he slept in a truck shirt and a pair of pajama pants. i wasn't planning on getting him really dressed this morning when i went in to get him up because we're not going anywhere until much later today and it was just going to be easier to leave him as is. but he insisted on putting on a different truck shirt for the day. fine whatever. but then he started crying about the gray sweatpants i reluctantly decided i would put on him. he started mumbling incoherently about dogs and presents and then went over to his hamper where he pulled out his flannel christmas doggy pajama bottoms. weird, i thought, until i realized they are the same exact jammie pants i am wearing. (yes, everyone in our family has matching christmas jammies - we're that cool.) so now he is wearing a different, clean truck shirt and a previously-worn pair of PJ bottoms (but not smelly - i sniffed!) so much for easy.

guess who's back, back again

some drama/trauma this time around. yesterday morning, halfway in to this latest monstrosity, jeremy went down cellar to see if we were still dry. big time no. not only was water seeping in from several small area in the foundation, it was also pouring in from under the bulkhead door (home to one of the two permanently-installed and currently overworked sump pumps.) the sump pump was not operating at 100% (probably since it has been running non-stop every 15 seconds for the past month) and it was getting overwhelmed. so lucky jeremy looked when he did because we probably would have completely lost the cellar within a matter of an hour or two. in addition to the two sump pumps in the cellar, we were also running 2 more outside submerged in the puddle spitting water into the road. jeremy moved one of them in to assist the tired pump, so we rode out the rest of the storm with 3 pumps in the cellar and one in the puddle. we also ordered a new big-ass pump online. it should be here friday to get rid of the puddle again - hopefully the final time this year.

meet the family

in case you're not sure who we are

back in the USSR, i mean ER

you might wonder why i am posting cute videos of caroline at 3 a.m. it's because caroline woke up a little after 1 with a barky croup cough. sitting in the bathroom with the steamy shower didn't seem to help her, so jeremy wanted her to go in for some steroids to help open her airways. so the two of them left around 2 to go to mass general to hit up the ER. poor baby girl. but for the first time in recorded history, jeremy was actually at home when a night time emergency happened, rather than on call at the hospital (see: jack bites quentin, caroline has croup - volume one, the great stove alarm, and the potential natural gas leak.) how about that.

i did it! (cue dora music...)

here is a video of caroline waving, as she listens to her pal violet puppy sing her name. thanks uncle tim and aunt kristy - she loves it! it gets a little boring at the end. i don't know how to edit videos. heck it took me three years to figure out how to get them out of the camera and on to the computer.

the wave

caroline shows off her new favorite skill... waving. she LOVES waving. she waves to everyone. she even waves to her own reflection. she amused herself through the entire church service this morning by waving to all the people around us. also church-related, several people today told me i had such a handsome baby boy. one even called her a girl first, and then apologized and said, "sorry, baby boy." seriously people. this is what she was wearing. a dress. with frills and a girly scotty dog with a bow. she was also clutching a pink puppy lovey. what's up with that.

-

i did get some video of her waving too, but like every video i have taken in the last three years, it is trapped on the darn video camera. i am trying something new tonight so maybe we'll finally have years of video to share. good news is i have figured out how to make the camera save videos to a memory card going forward to avoid the issue, but i want to rescue the years of baby vids already stranded inside the depths of the video beast.

gone today...

we have successfully pumped away our puddle pond for the third time this month, in time for a lackluster open house today (2 parties came by, realtor thinks one may be interested, but we'll see.)

-

but our old friend puddle pond will be back tomorrow, with another 2-5 inches of rain headed our way. we are seriously wondering what the yard would look like had we not already disposed of it 3 times. our house might actually be underwater. guess it's a good thing Q loves finding nemo so much??

shweepy

all night, quentin kept exclaiming, "shweepy! shweepy!" and i had no idea what he was talking about. i finally realized he was talking about the vacuum cleaner. he wanted to push it around and pretend he was sweeping like a street sweeper (among his new favorite types of trucks.) this kid is nutzo for anything with wheels, even a dyson. with a disturbing amount of pet hair in it.

yay for poop!

at daycare today, quentin was babbling about stinky diapers and gesturing toward his rear, so linda asked him if he wanted to go poop on the potty. Q answered with a definitive, "yes!" so she brought him to the bathroom. and he did it. he pooped on the toilet. on purpose. yay for Q! who knew you could be so excited about bodily functions!

it's ba-ack

yay.

9 months old!

caroline is 3/4 of a year old today! man time flies! she's such a big girl now. she crawls like a demon, especially if there is a stray monster truck she can get to. she can switch from crawling position to upright sitting all by herself. and she's even trying to stand. she's trying all kinds of big people food - so far she's tried toast, non-mushed bananas, and noodles. she babbles up a storm and has major separation anxiety (i cannot leave her alone in a room, must be within eyeshot.) she waves bye bye and even tries to mimic the motions to songs like itsy bitsy spider. she went to the pediatrician today. here are her stats:

• height: 27 3/4" (59th percentile)
• weight: 17 pounds, 14 ounces (34th percentile)
• head circumference: 45 centimeters (79th percentile)

i think she might be in the middle of a growth spurt. her 6-9 month clothes are getting on the small side. but she's got to hang in there for a little bit because all the 12 month clothes i've gotten her are spring/summer items, and it certainly ain't spring here yet!

speaking of our lake...

this is all that is left!

-

jeremy has been dedicated in his pumping, running 2 pumps all the time and constantly moving where they pump to as to not flood other parts of our yard or those of our neighbors.

but it'll be back with the 1-3 additional inches of rain we will be getting tomorrow. goody.

waygroun

the weather has been nice, but we haven't been able to let Q play in the yard because of the lake. so instead we brought him to the playground for the first time this spring. it was after his nap, so it was already getting chilly. but he had a blast, and so did caroline! as soon as he got up from his nap today, he asked to go to the "waygroun" - too bad it's raining. again.

caroline's first time swinging. she like. though we did need to use my purse to support her in the swing. please don't mock us for her mismatched outfit. it's her warmest sweater and it didn't match her pants.

irish eyes are smiling

and snoozing.