developments

long time no post. sorry. lots going on. but we have had a few developments around here:

1. we all survived a quick but awesome weekend trip to DC. it was caroline's first road trip and first time out of new england!
2. caroline rolled from back to front on monday!
3. quentin has begun to acknowledge when he poops. this is a big step because it is virtually impossible to potty train a kid who does not notice or even care when he has a messy diaper
4. we are getting new appliances! we have been planning to replace our decrepit dishwasher and ailing microwave for a while and now that the stove is broken we needed one of those too. best buy had a really good deal this week on a complete stainless steel kitchen so we're getting all of the above and a new fridge too!
5. last night, we finally (!!!!) moved caroline into her crib. we were totally expecting an early, early morning wake-up call from her but she slept through the entire night (9 hours!) in her crib!!!
6. we did, however, receive an early morning wake-up call from quentin who wet himself (man, that kid can pee!) but he did go back to sleep when i crawled into bed with him (usually he thinks it's party time!)

so the fire department was here...

jeremy was on call sunday night so i was here with the kiddos. after much deliberation i decided NOT to order pizza delivery for dinner and instead to cook a frozen pizza here. how good of me. - should have just called domino's... grrrr. - about half way through the cook time for the pie, our oven started making this really loud obnoxious buzzing noise and all the lights and buttons on the control panel started going crazy. i couldn't get it to stop and i couldn't even unplug the oven because the outlet is behind it and the whole stove needs to pulled out from the wall to access it. the only way i could get it to stop was to cut the power to the whole house, because even though our circuit breakers are labeled, the ones marked kitchen were not making it stop. - since it's a gas stove, i was worried that this was some sort of alarm telling me of a gas leak. i opened a couple of windows so the kids and i wouldn't die and called the fire department's non-emergency line to see if they had any idea what i should do / warn them that my house might be about to blow up. - they said they'd send someone over and a few minutes later, an engine (with the lights on!) is parked in our front yard. they said they'd never seen an oven do anything like this, but they were able to pull it away from the wall and unplug it which stopped the awful buzzing. they used their magic gas detector and there wasn't any leak (phew!) but they disconnected the gas line just in case. - throughout all of this, quentin was in the other room, eating the half-cooked pizza for dinner. he came into the kitchen because he wanted to show me something. he grabbed my hand and brought me to the living room window and pointed, "truck!" somehow he didn't notice the two actual firefighters in his kitchen, but the firetruck in his yard was the highlight of his day. - i think we may be getting a nice new oven. it was flashing an error code when it was going bonkers. i looked it up on the interweb and it means that the whole electrical control panel needs to be replaced. people this had happened to were saying that this cost them $150-200 bucks. yeah. - morale of the story: just order domino's

children of the corn

it was a beautiful day so we headed out to a local farm to do a maize maze today. quentin enjoyed saying, "maize maze" in the car on the way there. we got there early before it got too crowded.

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for some reason i took like 30 of this same exact pic (below)

quentin liked to sit in the middle of the path and play with the corn and rocks

he also pointed out just about every ear of corn he saw ("corn!")

chasing daddy was also fun

an attempt at a fam shot when we finished the maze without the help of the map!

and of course, caroline was there in all her cuteness!

and what is wrong with people?... the girl is wearing lavender yet all day people kept calling her a boy. grrr.

Being a Baby Sure is Tough

I took these a few weeks ago and have been meaning to post them. I put Caroline in the Bumbo while I was doing some dishes. SHe was cooing and having fun. Then I didn't hear her looked down and she was out like a light.

extra! extra! read all about it!

girl meet saucer

in a desperate attempt to find a baby-containment device that is to caroline's liking, we busted out the exersaucer a few weeks early. she's definitely a little small for it, but she seemed to like all the colors and toys. once she's better able to support herself i think she'll like it a lot more. -

our little town is so cute

yesterday our town's fire department held an open house. it was described as a chance to learn about fire safety which itself didn't sound too exciting, but we figured Q might get to see a fire truck up close and they advertised free pizza. so after some debating about whether or not to go (it also happened to coincide with nap time) we decided to check it out since the fire house is all of a mile away. - so glad we did. in addition to the free pizza they had cotton candy, popcorn, sno cones, and a bounce house for the kids. a little bit of cotton candy re-energized Q, making him forget that it was sleepy time. - all of the fire trucks were out and the kids could climb in them and pretend to drive. they could also hold fire house and shoot water and take a ride up wicked high in the tower truck. quentin had a blast.

he was very focused on operating the fire hose - you can see the concentration in his face below. the local newspaper was there and snapped a pic of him with the hose, so we'll see if he makes the cut when the paper comes out on thursday.

this is the tower truck. caroline and i stayed on solid ground. jeremy took Q up for a ride and said that Q was no so amused, wailing, "noooooooooooooooooooooooooo" the whole time. perhaps he shares mommy's dislike of heights.

and of course caroline was there.

from adorable to angry in less than a minute

caroline is not a big fan of any apparatus designed to allow mommy to not hold her from time to time (swing, bouncy seat, bumbo, pack n play, bassinet, crib.) the baby bjorn is really the only thing she finds tolerable. - here she demonstrates how to go from happy to hysterical in no time flat -

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she is also dangerously close to busting out of the bumbo already. i don't think quentin ever figured that one out.

stop. go. stop. go.

for a while now, quentin has been obsessed with traffic lights and stop signs, announcing "stop!" or "go!" as appropriate. it is super cute (though it is easy to get tired of on long car rides because he insists that you acknowledge his announcements by repeating them. if you neglect to say it too he will just keep saying it until you do!) - at the mall last night, he was holding my hand as we were walking back out to the car. he stopped walking and exclaimed, "stop!" then said, "go!" and started walking again. he did this the whole way back to the car. it was like it just dawned on him that cars aren't the only things that can stop and go.

Rolly Polly

So I was chill-axin in playland tonight with the kids and I put Caroline down for some tummy time. I watched her do her baby pushup and I told her how strong she was. Then out of nowhere, she rolled onto her back. Sorry, no video yet but we will try. I am still not sure if this was an accident or actually represents developmental progression but regardless she can start talking smack to her brother because he was 4 months old when he first rolled over. "Yeah, well whatever Quentin, I rolled over earlier than you did!"

aaaaaaaahpools

we've been trying to go apple picking for a few weeks now, but quentin's need to nap and rain have gotten in our way. finally the stars aligned yesterday and we were able to get there on a beautiful day, prior to nap time. the place was a mad house - there was an enormous line to wait in to buy your bags. and we were lucky - it was even longer by the time we were done and heading home. - quentin loved it. "aaaaaaaahpool" is one of his favorite words so he was pointing them out everywhere. picking them off the tree was ok for him, but he really liked picking them off the ground and putting them in our bags. we just put what he gave us in and tossed the bad ground apples when he wasn't watching. he munched on an apple the entire time. -

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as always, caroline enjoyed herself :)