John's Hopkins Play Deck

Here are a few pictures we took on the play deck at John's Hopkins. This is where we spent most of our time while we were in the hospital. Most days, we had it all to ourselves. Ethan loved the playhouse and all the riding toys and trucks, and Sydney enjoyed being pulled in the wagon the most. The play deck was on the third floor of the children's wing.

Fun with trucks

Here's a cute picture I took of the kiddos a few weeks ago at touch a truck day. Ethan is obsessed with anything with wheels or tracks lately. He has really loved going to his grandparent's house to watch the construction teams as they add a new room and pool. We haven't done anything really fun and exciting lately so I haven't had much to post about.

Now that I realize that we haven't been doing many fun things, I will have to make sure we have an awesome weekend full of fun things to photograph.

Ethan made the move from his crib to a bed this week. He had been sleeping in his "big boy bed" for several days, but he didn't want to part with the crib. Yesterday however, he said he was ready to take his crib down. So, we helped him complete the transformation of his room from a baby nursery to a big boy's room. He has talked about his crib being gone all day today. I'm not quite sure if it is because he is excited and happy about this new adventure, or if he is feeling a little overwhelmed by his leap into big boy land.

Sydney got a new pair of shoes to wear with her braces that she is very happy about. She has always preferred her girlie little white keds over any other shoes, and I was finally able to find a pair that would fit over her braces. We did have to have extra velcro added so they would fit, but they are still cute and Sydney seems to enjoy wearing them.

Ethan still talks about his fire station party every day. I don't think he grasps the fact that he is going to have to wait a whole year before he gets another party. Nor does he understand that grownups don't get to have fun parties like kids do. When we tell him that "daddy's birthday is next", he says that daddy's party will be at the firestation too. Who knows, mabe we can cook up a little fire truck birthday cake to help Andrew celebrate his third decade.

Well, now that I wrote all of this I realized that fun things did happen the past few weeks, and I will try to get a picture of Sydney's fancy new shoes and of Ethan in his big boy bed.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ethan!

We celebrated Ethan's birthday this morning with a party at the fire station. He had a great time and so did his big sister and all of his friends!

More Jaymi pics

Sydney found a jumping buddy!

Ethan didn't realize that feeding the goats would entail giving up his fingers.

Everyone looking oh so thrilled with my attempt at a posed picture. At least I had Sydney's support:-)

Fun with Jaymison

Sydney and Ethan had lots of fun visiting with their cousin Jaymison the week before last. They especially loved taking her to their favorite place-the zoo!

Sydney, Ethan and Jaymi all riding the panda bears on the carousel.

Having fun in Ethan's room.

Happy Fourth of July!

Our attempt at a family picture.

I'm not quite sure what Sydney and Ethan were looking at here, but I thought it was a cute picture.

I think we caught great-grandpa mid sentence in this picture, but it was a keeper shot because everyone was at least looking at the camera, well, sort of.

So, I'm a little late on my happy 4th post. Oh well. We had a great holiday! We celebrated Sydney and Ethan's great-grandpa's birthday with a Happy Birthday 4th of July cookout. Then, we headed to Augusta for the fireworks. It was the first time we kept Sydney and Ethan up late enough to watch a real fireworks show. They enjoyed it, but were a little overwhelmed. Ethan kept saying that his ears hurt and that he needed his sunglasses. Sydney just watched with wide-eyed amazement.

Andrew and I celebrated our five year anniversary yesterday. We had originally planned to go out of town for the weekend, but the thought of going somewhere fun without the kids didn't really appeal to us. Instead, the kids stayed the day and night with my parents and we went out to eat, we shopped in lots of non stroller-friendly boutiques, and we watched the Transformers movie. Transformers was obviously Andrew's pick, and shopping was mine. The movie was pretty good though I was surprised.

Last week, Sydney and Ethan's second cousin Jaymison came to visit all the way from Pennsylvania. They had lots of fun playing with her and I will try to post some pictures from the visit later.

Congratulations Aunt Adrienne!

Check out Aunt Adrienne's fancy new ring. She and her boyfriend Martin got engaged on June 27. Congratulations Adrienne and Martin!

A Day at the Beach

We went to Hunting Island beach yesterday and had a wonderful time! We were attacked by a big swarm of mosquitoes when we first got out of the car, but other than that, it was a perfect beach experience. Well, I guess we also had a little hiccup on the way to the beach. It just so happened that yesterday was the Hampton County Watermelon Festival, which we didn't realize until we were stuck in traffic watching the forever long parade. It wasn't too bad though, the kids got to watch the whole parade from the comfort of the car with the air conditioning to keep us all cool.

One big bonus from our beach trip was that Sydney didn't put anything in her mouth. Everyone who really knows Sydney, will realize this is a real accomplishment. Sydney and Ethan both loved playing in the shallow water the best, until Ethan got knocked over by one too many waves and started requesting "no bubbles" to the ocean.

The kids were totally wiped out by the time we got into the car to head home. Mission accomplished-great day at the beach-everyone had fun, no one got hurt, no one ingested scary sand paraphernalia, and we topped it all off with an early bedtime and a good night's sleep.

Picking Strawberries

Ethan eyeing his strawberry right before he pops it in his mouth

Sydney stopping to smell the flowers

Sydney and Ethan got to go pick strawberries this week. There was also a flower garden that they got to walk through, and when we were finished picking berries, we got to cut some flowers to take home with us. It was unbelievably hot, but it was a fun experience and we topped off our trip with some fresh strawberry lemonade.

Father's Day

Sydney and Ethan wanted everyone to know that they think their daddy is the greatest!

Happy Father's Day!

Time Flies By So Fast

Sydney reaching for the bubbles at the Riverbanks Zoo.

Ethan wondering where the bubbles disappeared to.

Sydney was 20 months old when the first picture was taken, and Ethan was 22 months when his picture was taken in the same spot. The funny thing is that it seems like yesterday when I took Sydney's picture, and now she is 4 and her little brother is older than she was when we took this trip to the zoo - my how time flies.

I didn't have the shutter speed set right when I took Ethan's picture so it is a little blurry, but I still wanted to share the matching photos.

Fun with Gabe

Well, we have had Gabe for about 6 months now, and I am still not a dog person. My children however are huge dog fans as you can tell from the pictures. Ethan still likes to use Gabe as his giant pillow, and Sydney is fascinated with his mouth, which is actually quite disgusting.

The kids are doing well. We still haven't been able to get Sydney's seizures under control so we are going to try to increase her medication a little bit. Her neurologist is also ordering another 24-hour EEG so we can see what is going on in that little head of hers and so we can begin to determine the best way to treat her seizures if this medication fails.

On a more positive note, Ethan is talking up a storm now and he is doing great with potty-training. He has been in 'big boy' underwear now for about three weeks, and we can even take him out in public now without a diaper or pull-up. So far so good.

Happy Birthday Sydney!

We all helped Sydney celebrate her 4th birthday this weekend with two pool parties! Her friends came to the first party at 'Momma Hood's' house on Saturday. Sydney even had a cake designed by 'Momma Hood' aka Donna Holman. It had all of her favorites-pink, green and strawberries! (You can see more of Donna's fancy cakes at bdsweets.com) The weather was perfect and we all had a blast swimming and eating yummy cake.


On Sunday, we got to go to Martin's parents' house for a cookout and more swimming. Martin is aunt Adrienne's boyfriend, and he will be leaving soon to work in Germany. He was nice enough to share his party with Sydney so that she could celebrate her birthday again with aunt Adrienne. Adrienne made another yummy cake and a cool birdhouse. The birdhouse was made out of books which makes it especially neat! Adrienne and Marin also got Sydney and Ethan some really cool presents! It was a great weekend!