Music City Star

Since Kaitlyn loves "choo choo trains" so much, we decided to take a little round-trip ride on Nashville's commuter train, the Music City Star. Needless to say, Kaitlyn was just beside herself with excitement. All the way there and all the way back, she kept chattering about riding the "choo choo train." When she got up this morning, she was still talking about it. I love how easy children are to please at this age. What would have been a nondescript experience for us without Kaitlyn turned into a joyful, fun-filled ride as we watched our daughter excitedly soak up the new experience of riding on a train. There are some perks to being a parent!

Taking in the sights from the upper level of the train

She laughed every time the train's whistle blew.

Playtime, Bathtime and Dora

Some pictures from around the house the past few days...

Kaitlyn loves to sort and organize. These toys have been lined up in numerous places around our house. The latest was the window. Do you see the plastic Dora figure sandwiched in between the yellow duck and the chicken? It was one of the cake toppers on her birthday cake. In fact, those plastic figures of Dora, Boots and Diego have been played with far more than any other birthday present. Why buy presents when you can give your children cake toppers?

Who is this little boy and where is my tiny baby?!?! Ethan is changing all the time and looking more and more like a little boy every day. He will be six months old soon. Amazing!

Silliness at bathtime

My mom came up for a couple of days last weekend. After church we decided to take a few pictures. Here's my mom with Ethan.

And here's a picture of her with both of the kids. You may recognize Kaitlyn's shirt from other pictures. It's her Dora shirt and she loves wearing that thing. Any time she hears me start the washing machine, she runs to her room, pulls out the dirty Dora shirt and insists on adding it to the wash so that it will be ready for her to wear again. I have ended up with way too many pictures of her in that shirt. Doesn't it go well with the blue flowers on her shorts?

Arrington Vineyards

This weekend, we enjoyed some unseasonably cool weather and headed out to Arrington Vineyards with Andrew and Lindsey. We've heard wonderful things about this place and have been wanting to try it for a while. It's a relatively new vineyard that's nestled in the hills of Williamson County. It has a spacious place for picnics, free wine tasting and live music on the weekends. And because it's up on a hill, it's a perfect place to watch the sunset and take in views of the rolling countryside. Unfortunately, I think lots of other Nashvillians had the same idea that we did because it was pretty crowded on Saturday. There was a long wait for the wine tasting, so we decided to come back and try that on a different day. But we still had lots of fun eating our picnic dinner and enjoying the outdoors and ambiance. Here are some pictures from our fun night.

Kaitlyn loves Uncle Andrew and Aunt Lindsey!


Our rock-n-roll boy. Thanks for the cool outfit, Jess!


We couldn't get Ethan to look at the camera because he was so enthralled with everything that Kaitlyn was doing.


My "little" baby is not so little anymore!

Random Stuff

Here are some other random snippets from our life lately:

Ethan has started eating vegetables. From the picture above, you can guess what he thinks about green beans! He's starting to come to terms with them, though, and actually ate them yesterday without spitting them out immediately. I can't really blame him though. Those pureed green beans look pretty unappealing!

Mimi and Papa Greg were here for a visit a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures from their visit.

And a typical lazy morning at our house. Kaitlyn in her pajamas watching her beloved Dora, and Ethan doing whatever Kaitlyn is doing.

1st Day of Preschool

Kaitlyn has her first official day of preschool today. I can't believe my little baby girl is growing up so fast!! She has been SO excited about preschool ever since we got back from Snoopy Day. It's all she could talk about this morning. She was also excited to carry her very own Dora lunchbox. I fully expected tears at drop-off this morning, but she went willingly with her teacher with no protest whatsoever. I think her curiosity and excitement outweighed her fears!

Snoopy Day

Today Kaitlyn got to visit her preschool classroom and "snoop" around on Snoopy Day. We had talked up preschool quite a bit, so she was pretty excited when we walked in. There were a few tears when we left her to go attend the parents' meeting, but her teacher said they only lasted a few minutes. Let's hope the same is true when I drop her off on her first "official" day next week!

I think Kaitlyn already likes Miss Sarah and Miss Sheryl! They're both so great with kids!!

With Daddy in front of the "Snoopy" welcome

With her buddy Austin from church

Coming in from the playground with one of her teachers.

Preschool may be fun, but nothing beats seeing Mommy again :) She's running into my arms after coming in from the playground. I'm going to miss her next week!!

It was actually a little hard to pry her away from all the fun things to explore. My little shy girl is getting braver every day!!

Ethan at 5 months

Ethan is 5 months old today. He's starting to sit up on his own for longer periods and he loves his feet. Normally he's kicking them nonstop, but he decided to just hold them in this picture.

Transitions

Big changes in our house the last month or so...

(1) Kaitlyn is in a "big girl" bed. For the first four months of his life, Ethan slept in the bassinet on his Pack-n-Play while Kaitlyn stayed in her crib. But as he kept growing...and growing...the bassinet started to sag under his weight. So about a month ago, I decided that it was time for a change. We disassembled Kaitlyn's crib and put up a new "big girl" bed in her room, complete with Dora sheets. She has loved it from the very beginning. She's done very well at staying put for naps and bedtime. I haven't taken a picture yet of her new bed and quilt, but I'll post it when I do.

(2) And Ethan is finally in a crib! After a few days of Kaitlyn being in her new bed, we reassembled the crib in Ethan's room. Finally, a firm mattress with no sagging spots! He, of course, never even noticed the difference and slept like an angel in his new bed. And I finally got to use the cute fish mobile that wouldn't attach to the pack-n-play.

(3) Kaitlyn's first hair cut. She's 2 years old and has never had her hair cut, until now! After seeing this picture below, I decided it was time to do away with the wild-child hair.

We went to Snip-Its, a very kid-friendly place. True to form, she started crying when we put her in the chair, but a video, a lollipop and some bubbles helped with that. I didn't get a great "after" picture, but I did manage to save a lock of hair :)

During the haircut--notice the apprehension!


After--still clutching the all-important lollipop

(4) Ethan's eating cereal. He wasn't too sure about it for the first couple of days, but now he is a voracious eater. Green beans coming soon!

(5) Kaitlyn's using the big girl potty. She's been using the potty for almost three weeks. Those first few days were pretty rough. I put her in underwear almost from the very beginning so there were lots of accidents to clean up. But then on Day 4 or 5, something clicked with her and she started doing a lot better. She's wearing big girl underwear at home (Dora, of course!) and has stayed dry at home for over a week. I haven't been brave enough to put her in underwear for naps or when we leave the house. But that's coming soon.

The next big event: Kaitlyn starts preschool next week!

Ethan 3 month pictures

Jeff took these pictures of Ethan about a month ago, and I'm just now getting around to posting them. Better late than never!

Below is a picture of Kaitlyn at the same age and in (mostly) the same pose. Two bald babies!

A Busy Weekend

I guess I'm making up for lost time with three posts in a week! The weather this weekend was beautiful and we couldn't bear to stay inside. So here's a little recap of our fun-filled weekend.

On Friday, Jeff was playing at a local restaurant. His gigs usually start pretty late, well past the kids' bedtimes. But this one started at 6 pm, so I was able to take Kaitlyn and Ethan to watch their daddy play guitar. That's all Kaitlyn could talk about during the car ride over there. We sat right in front of the stage. Lest anyone worry about potential hearing loss, it was a restaurant and people were eating, so it wasn't too loud...and it was more of an acoustic set, not his usual rocking out. Anyway, Kaitlyn was fascinated and kept pointing to Jeff on the stage and saying "Hi Daddy." Her face lit up when he gave her a shout out from the stage :) Here's a sweet picture of Kaitlyn and her hero.

On Saturday, we took advantage of a free event at the nearby local agricultural center. They had farm animals available for the kids to pet. Normally Kaitlyn is a little reserved in new situations and has to be coaxed to try something new. But she marched right up to the horses and started petting them. She even put her hand right up to their mouths and fed them. She's still talking about the "big horsie" and the "little horsie." Guess she's not shy around animals.

Then we moved on to sheep. It wasn't long before she was instructing the sheep to "come over here and eat!"

After going back home for naps (all four of us managed to nap at the same time! A miracle!), we headed downtown for more outdoor adventure. Kaitlyn has a particular passion for "downtown." She usually asks several times a day to "go downtown and see tall buildings." She even likes to replicate downtown with her building blocks and pretend that her toys are going downtown. So we went to the fountains at Bicentennial Mall. She loved splashing in the runoff stream from the fountains, but didn't care for the fountains themselves. Somehow she managed to stay mostly dry amid the shooting streams of water.

And she got a special treat when a train went by. Here's a picture of her standing in front of the tracks. She loves trains.

The only way she would run through the fountains is if Daddy ran with her. I think Jeff got wetter than she did!

Ethan was hanging out in his stroller for most of the time, but he did get to enjoy some views too. Here he is checking out the fountains.

Ethan and Mommy in front of the state capitol.