William is 2!

Our 2 year old William

William turned 2 this past weekend (on Saturday) and I still can't believe it! He's getting so big so fast! We partied all weekend long and I think he was very satisfied with the amount of cake he consumed. He has a sweet tooth like his Daddy! What big changes from his 1st birthday to his 2nd birthday. This year when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him he listened and took it all in then blew out his own candles (first, clapping and saying "good job" to everyone singing). He waited until I was able to get him a plate and fork then he dove into his treat instead of face first like his 1st birthday party! I will recap what we did this weekend to celebrate!

Friday we hosted the breakfast club at our house to celebrate the 2nd birthday milestone. We didn't do a formal party like last year since I figure William isn't too interested in the details - he just wants to play! Also helped me out a bit by keeping it low key and easy :) Matt dropped off Dunkin Donuts coffee, bagels and donuts for us all to enjoy, I picked up a cake shaped like a donut then we let all the kiddies play in the backyard. Lots of fun!

William LOVES balloons

Doughnut cake

Breakfast is served!

Bounce house fun

All the toddlers love a baby - Grace has an audience 

Happy Birthday to William

Cake with Max

All the cousins came together for a picture - surprise!

Saturday was William's actual birthday and Matt and I decorated Friday night with balloons - William's favorite! We blew up balloons ourselves and let them dangle from the hallway arch with streamers interspersed between! A Pinterest idea - I won't take full credit! He loved it! When he came down the stairs he was very impressed then was running back and forth through the balloons. We served scrambled eggs and fruit for breakfast, opened his birthday gift - a fake fish that swims in water and some train and car stickers then off to the playground with Daddy! Grandma Doreen and my friend Erin came into town that day for Grace's baptism, so we did a couple airport runs then continued William's birthday celebration post-nap. We did a shrimp boil for dinner then another "Happy Birthday" song for William and blowing out the candles!

We read Good Night Good Night Construction Site two times
on 2nd Birthday Eve

Good morning 2 year old!

Birthday balloons!

Birthday present

A fake fish that actually swims in water - no daily care necessary :)

Birthday shrimp boil

The official Happy Birthday!

Sunday morning was Grace's baptism day! We had a relaxed morning at home then got ready for her baptism at 1:15 p.m. William usually takes a nap at 12:30 p.m., but did great staying up well past his nap time. We got home around 2:30 p.m. and he went down for a nap until the rest of the family came over for a joint baptism-birthday party. We served pork tenderloin, Doreen's famous beans, salad and fruit salad. Baptism cake was served for dessert and ANOTHER birthday cupcake for the birthday boy! We also showcased William's 1st year video that is about 90% complete! I know! It has taken way too much time to finish, but I do have a couple good excuses - moving, moving a 2nd time then a new baby sister! I just need a couple more hours and it will be finished. I am vowing to do a video each year to keep all the great photos and videos together and organized. It's amazing to review it all and see how different things are today from a year ago.

Ready for little sister's baptism

Brotherly sisterly love

Go Go Go at Annunciation

Happy Birthday to William!

Blowing out his candles

Yay! "Good job!" as William says

LOTS of sugar this weekend

In addition to lots of sugar, there was lots of love this weekend! William is one lucky boy to have so many people in his life that love him dearly and were around to join in the birthday celebrations. We had such a great weekend and feel so lucky to have such a happy, smart, funny, adorable little 2 year old! I would freeze it all right now if I could. Instead I try to sear these moments into my memory to keep forever.

Happy 2nd birthday to you, William! We love you!

Two teeth

Here is the money shot of Grace's two bottom teeth! 

They still don't seem to bother her too much, but she is continuing to chomp on her fingers. 

NAPTIME

Who doesn't love a good nap? I have always been confused by people who say they could never nap. What do you do if you're home, it's 3pm and you have nothing to do? Nap is the only answer I can think of! Yesterday both William and Grace napped in their cribs for nearly 2 hours! Grace was up first. William is always good for his afternoon naps and since Grace reached 10-12 weeks the usual sleepiness disappeared. She finds time to snooze throughout the day, but it wasn't matching up with William's nap in the afternoon for a few weeks - making for one tired mama by bedtime. Yesterday was THE day though and I'm looking forward to this schedule - for everyone's sake :) Rest makes for happy people. And randomly a friend sent me this text that totally rang true for the day! A good laugh! 

Thanksgiving

This is a recap because Thanksgiving has very much come and gone! But I thought it important to catch up because it was 1. Grace's first Thanksgiving and 2. Grace's first flight and trip to Washington, D.C. It was certainly memorable!

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Virginia this year - Grace's first Thanksgiving and her first trip to Virginia/D.C.! It was an interesting adventure to say the least. Grace and I went up a couple days early to enjoy some quiet time, which as expected, her first flight went very well. She slept the entire way and we were upgraded to first class! We got the chance to meet up with some of my friends, had dinner with family, mama got a haircut! and relaxed. It was really nice, but I still wasn't feeling that great because I had been nursing a cold for a couple weeks prior.

We have arrived in Washington!

Enjoying the fire at Celine's

William and Matt came up to Virginia on Wednesday and William had been under the weather too. Matt as well, but not as bad as me and William. William felt the same, so on Thanksgiving Day we decided we would both go to urgent care to get checked out. I was also worried because William had a couple red spots along his hairline. We called his doctor and they said it was from the cold, but I wanted to double check. I thought for sure I was catching bronchitis or pneumonia at this point. Nope. We both just had prolonged colds and because I'm nursing I can't take anything and because William isn't over 2 he can't take anything either. I guess we were swapping germs back and forth. Grace never got sick at all, which I guess is a testament to nursing! Amazing. Also on top of it, I discovered William's crib sheet was polyester, which doesn't mix well with his skin and he developed a red irritated rash from it... Eesh!

After the visit to urgent care we went to the Air and Space Museum, which William was AMAZED by! We even got video of him walking in and saying "Wow. Wow. Wow… Wow. Wow." over and over. It was hysterical! Where he picks these things up I don't know! The emotion was genuine though. He was really overwhelmed by it all.

William NOT excited about a sibling picture in front of the Capitol

Wow. Wow. Wow...

Can't stop looking up

First of many trips to the museum I'm sure

Thanksgiving at my Aunt Celine's was so much fun. We had a really big group this year. Lots of cousins drove in for it and everyone in town was there too. I think we had around 18-20 people. My cousin Rosie has a 3 year old daughter, Olivia and so William and Olivia played most the time. William kept hugging her very awkwardly and Olivia wanted nothing to do with that! She was playing hard to get - thank goodness, they are 2nd cousins! Celine gave William a candy cane full of M&M's moments before we ate dinner and so that wasn't such a pretty sight. William completely forgot dinner and we wouldn't give him the M&M's. He did enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie after we all finished dinner.

Poor William with his red rash cheeks...

First Thanksgiving!

Olivia tells it like it is to William!

Alec and Godmother Marie

Rosie, Olivia and Colleen watching Grandma Doreen and Grace

Andrew, Joe, Matthew, Adam, Victor, Daniel, Alec and John (Mac the dog)

Then it gets good. Thanksgiving night we went back to our hotel and at 3 a.m. were woken up by security and told we had to evacuate the hotel immediately. No problem with two babies and luggage everywhere, right? The kids were actually GREAT. William got a little scared because he was in the adjoining room and security knocked very loudly on the door right by his crib. But the two of them were extremely flexible and made the very unpleasant move easier by being cooperative. I had to sit in the car with the two of them while Matt worked on our room at the next hotel. Keep in mind it is around 30 degree outside. We were bundled up in the car waiting to get back to sleep. There was a long line of people though and so we got into our rooms around 6:30 a.m. BUT the rooms were not adjoining and there were no cribs available. I took Grace and Matt took William. Grace was easy to let sleep in the bed, but William is a bit more tricky. He's not used to sleeping in a bed. We slept maybe 30 minutes and everyone was back up and off we went with our day. Can't just sit around and snooze with two kids used to a schedule of activity :) We went back downtown and went to the Museum of Natural History and walked to the White House, which all entrances were temporarily shut down because Biden or someone relatively important was heading into the White House. We just couldn't win this trip! William did like the elephant in the lobby of the Museum of Natural History.

Our flight back to Orlando was great. William was so good and Grace didn't sleep, but just smiled and was happy.

So because of our colds and because of the terrible hotel situation we were really exhausted and didn't get to enjoy ourselves as much as we would of liked. I was very happy to introduce the kids to a lot of my family and get to spend time with them all - several hadn't met William yet never mind Grace! So that was fantastic, but next time we travel I don't think we will be doing it unless we are all 100% feeling good!!

2nd Tooth

Grace's 2nd tooth has popped up. Now she has both of her lower two teeth. She's been more fussy since the 1st was spotted, but she is a bit congested as well. Maybe it's the cold or at least a combination of the two. This is a picture I took a few days ago and the drool makes it a little difficult to see the first tooth :) I'll try a double tooth shot when they're more pronounced!

First tooth at 4 months!

I have TWO teeth?! You don't say!

The Artist William

William started drawing a handful of months ago and since then has really been into art. His nursery school teacher told me recently that he really enjoys craft/art time in class. Every week a new piece of art is delivered home from the week before and I really look forward to seeing the latest piece! Today during baby's nap, we played with playdoh. Here is Williams latest work of art! 

Beautiful! Priceless in my opinion!

A few pictures of last year's school art below!