Life with Greyson and Fynnlee – 14.4

Oh hey…guess who turn 15 months tomorrow? That’s right. My 2 giant babies children. I’ll have a 15 month update next week after their doctor’s appt.

This week started out a bit rough for everyone’s favorite Squish. She tripped at home during Daddy’s watch and a bloody nose was a result.

And then we were at a picnic the next day and she fell (on my watch) and hit her head on a cement fire place ring. (Excuse the wild, fresh-out-of-piggies hair.)

I know. I KNOW! How the hell does that happen? In the span of 2 seconds, that’s how. I was right behind her and she picked up speed and I couldn’t get to her in time. She tripped and fell right into the (unlit) fire pit.

Luckily, my Aunt Pat (who is a nurse) was there to assess the situation and assure me that she wouldn’t need stitches. But she would have a pretty nice shiner for a week or two.  I almost (literally) passed out, btw. I can handle hurting myself but man, blood on my kids…yowza. Fynnlee was pretty much attached to Aunt Pat the entire time we were there. She’s the baby whisper.

Major Mom fail in that I didn’t bring their bathing suits on a 95 degree day. To a picnic with a pool. But babies can kind of get away with hanging out all day in their gutchies.

Random photo…but can there be too many pictures of the Beans in the bathtub? I think not.

It was another fab week at school! It is still hot here in the ‘burgh but they get the kids out in the morning while the temps are still tolerable. Hula hoops for the win!

  

There was plenty of indoor playtime too. New sensory blocks were a huge hit with Greyson.

And Fynnlee devours any and all books she can get her hands on.

They made tissue paper veggies for Fruit and Vegetables week.

  

There was some lounging..

And new toy playing.

And they planted some grass to watch how plants grow. Dirt is awesome!
   

Greyson was obsessed with these huge legos.

And Fynnlee channeled her inner Steve Nicks with these fun scarves.

There is always splashing at some point in the week. Those soda bottle sprinklers are pretty genius!

   

We have a whole weekend with not a lot on the schedule. 

I think we’re all looking forward to some R&R. 

Life with Greyson and Fynnlee 14.3

Fynnlee has a new obsession with “fixing” her brother’s hair. It’s super long and completely out of control/a total hot mess and she can’t keep her fingers out of it. Jerry is in charge of Greyson’s hair, for the record, and he’s “letting it grow out”. (please remember that Bug, when you’re older and question why we let you run around with 24/7 bedhead).

She likes to pet him and sometimes smack him on the head.

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Clearly I need to work on my tone here.

So these two kiddos had a fabulous week at school. At home, not so much.

Greyson has a molar that will. not. break. through. and he’s been pretty whiny. Sleep has kinda sucked too. Unless you like waking up every morning at 4:15. Then it’s been AWESOME!

Their teachers are killing me with these baby smocks. It is sports week and they were painting basketballs.

    

The weather continues to be amazing this summer. Lots of sun and hot temps are my jam. (did I really just stay that? What am I, 14? But it’s true.) Beautiful days mean lots of outdoor playtime. Jerry was beside himself when we got this picture of Greyson and the soccer ball.

And not to brag, but Fynnlee’s fastball is outstanding.

Sunny days call for sunny glasses…

Coolest kids in the school.

So, Greyson hates getting splashed. Loves the water. Loves splashing. But hates getting splashed. So what else would his sister do? Splash her brother, of course.

Post splashing.

Mid splashing.

The afternoons were mostly spent inside because temps have been reaching the 90s. After a good sweatfest outside, it’s fun to lay down and cool off.

     

Watering the plants is definitely going to be on his chore list.

And she can handle putting away the toys.

I can’t wait till I can put these kids to work.

Have a fantabulous weekend! 

Life with Greyson & Fynnlee 14.2

Happy Monday Friends!!  I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to tackle a brand new week. Jerry and I are admittedly feeling a little foggy as our sweet Beans are on a bit of a sleep strike (multiple wake ups during the night, 4:30 wake ups EVERY DAY!). But like always, we’ll pull through. And I’ll go to bed at 8:30 a couple of days. Whatever.

So I know you’re here for these two maniacs. We’ll let me tell ya, they are BUSY!

Our daycare just switched over to a new daily experience system, which is done all via iPad. They have ditched their pen & paper system for a sweet new program which gives us real time updates on the kids and lots more pictures (yay!). We used to get a paper sheet outlining their day and we now have an app we can check out all day long. We also get an email summary at the end of the day. I LOVE it!

 So what did they do at school last week?  Splash play in full effect!

I can just hear her yelling “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”!!

Greyson is already picking up chicks on the playground.

They painted some masterpieces. And tasted watercolors.

They also made awesome leaf prints.

I think last week’s theme was camping/nature.

They played outside when it wasn’t too hot.

And chilled out in the classroom when the temps hit 90.

Fynnlee is obsessed with I.D. badges.

They hung out in a real tent.

And listened to campfire stories

And ran off their energy in the big rec room.

He’s so proud that he can lift this cone.

Greyson had a stomach bug and stayed home on Friday but Fynnlee had a blast working on her fast ball.

And learning to fish. She gave up trying to use the pole and just reached in and grabbed all the “fish”.

We’re hoping new school day tires them out today and they sleep until 5 tomorrow morning. FIVE am.  That’s all I’m asking for.  5:00. Puhleeeeaaase????

Fynnlee at 14 months

I know she’s almost 14 and a HALF months now. Sorry for the delayed update.

Squish is a busy bee these days. So so busy!

She is pretty much in constant motion. Usually walking around, carrying something way too big. Like a pillow or throw rug. She loves to throw the pillow on the ground and dramatically fall onto it. Cracks her up. Her walking is pretty solid now. She still occasionally falls if she hits an uneven surface but she recovers quickly. She can run too, which is super fun. For her. I’m exhausted!

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She’s still a lot of drama. She doesn’t like to share but she’s getting better. Trantrums are our new normal. But of the two of them, she is the better listener. She knows what “Not for Fynnlee” means and she will give me things she’s not supposed to have when I ask. 80% of the time. I’m also learning that she’s pretty senstive and when I raise my voice, it hurts her feelings. She was flinging her little wooden hammer around (I know…WHY does she have a wooden hammer?) and then went to smack Greyson in the head with it. I caught her mid-whack and said (sternly) “I don’t think so. We do NOT hit our brother”. Her big eyes filled up with huge tears and her bottom lip started quivering. So of course, I grabbed her and hugged her and explained that we don’t hit and I was proud that she listened to me. Sucker.

Sleep is…I don’t want to talk about sleep, actually. It’s frustrating and inconsistant and makes me nuts. Let’s just say I’m guessing 8:30-4:30 is going to the norm for me for a long time. With some 3:30 wakeups thrown in for fun. She goes to sleep around 7 and don’t try an make it any longer. She goes right to sleep at night, no problem.

Favorite foods at the moment are bananas, goldfish, yogurt melts, anything in a pouch, chicken and pasta. She has 5 oz of milk in the morning, some at lunch and a 7 oz bottle before bed. She has a long list of things she doesn’t like but I just keep offering her lots of choices. Her tastebuds are constantly changing.

She has 10 teeth, size 5 diaper, 18-24 month clothes, 25 lbs, size 4 or 5 shoes. Currently loves: Kleenex, running, splashing, bathtime, books, Mickey Mouse, peekaboo, being chased. Currently hates: diaper changes, getting dressed/undressed, having the remote/phone/toilet paper taken away from her.

Her favorite words are Uh Oh and Hi. She’s still babbling a ton but I don’t hear any intentional words. She’ll say Mama & Dada at random.

Overall, we’re loving 14 months!!

Greyson at 14 Months

Love bug is turning into a little boy. Right before my very eyes. And I love/hate it.

This months has been huge for Greyson. So many changes in 30 short days. He went from a few tentative baby steps to confidently strutting his stuff. Ok, so maybe he looks a little bit like baby Frankenstein but he’s on the move. And you’d better get out of his way…because he’ll run you right over. I used to hold out my arms and cheer him to me “Come on buddy! You can do it. Look at you go!”. And he’d shuffle my way, collapsing against me in a fit of giggles. Now, I hold out my arms and cheer…and he still giggles…while he’s brushing past me.

Two uber mobile toddlers changes everything.

Also new on the Greyson front are tantrums. LOTS of ’em. Accompanied by throwing whatever is next to him. He throws himself to the floor and cries when he doesn’t get his way. Or he’s hungry. Or tired. Or Fynnlee steals something from him. I’ll admit it, This is not my favorite side of my Bug. But it’s an inevitable one and we’ll just work our way through it. He’s not as easily comforted by his Mama’s hugs (rip my heart out, kid) and 9 times out of 10, he pushes me away. But I keep killing him with kindness, even if it’s just by sitting next to him letting him scream his frustrations out. He eventually comes over and sits in my lap. I know this is just the beginning of a long road.

He’s got 11 teeth, with a new molar just begging to pop out (hey tooth…could you hurry up, please?). He’s in 12-18 month clothes and almost ready for size 5 diapers. His feet are still a teeny size 4 and he weighs @ lbs.

He’ll still say Mama and Dada but his favorite word by far is “Uh oh”. All day long. I created this monster by putting Uh Oh on repeat when he’d fall or drop something or knock a stack of blocks over. We’re trying to drop the use of pacifiers to encourage more speech.

Sleep is meh. We’re back to 4/4:30 wakeups and the double ear infection situation had us up every hour on the hour. He does have good nights, sometimes sleeping through until 5:30. But it’s not the norm at the moment. I don’t do well with little sleep and there are some nights where I say to Jerry…”just let him scream” (but only if I know there is nothing really wrong). But I usually can’t stand more than 5 minutes so I get up and rock him. I think the only way to get through these long nights is to recognize it won’t be like this forever. And to remind myself that I’m unbelievably lucky to have a screaming baby to wake up with in the middle of the night. I almost didn’t have that chance. He takes one long (2-3 hour) nap at school and usually two 1-2 hour naps on the weekends.

Favorite foods: PB&J, yogurt melts, gold fish, steamed carrots or sweet potatoes, pasta, Grandma’s meatballs
Currently loves: splashing, walking around, jumping on pillows, pop up books (I bought ANOTHER copy of Cheep Cheep Pop Up Fun), being tickled
Currently hates: not getting his way, diaper changes, getting dressed/undressed

School is awesome and he really loves his new class and teachers. I’ve banned myself from the lunchtime visits so I creeper stalk them during naptime. Nothing sweeter than sleeping babes. He is really active most of the day and they get outside twice if the weather is nice.

So that’s 14 months.

Florida – Summer 2016

We’re back! And we need a vacation from our vacation. We packed a lot of fun into our 5 days in Florida. Wanna hear all about it? I thought you might…

So let’s talk about flying with toddlers. Hoo boy…much different than flying with babies. This was the Bean’s 5th flight, which is about 5 more than most people have by the time they are 14 years, let alone 14 months. You’d think they’d have the hang of it by now!

We exclusively fly Southwest if we can (free bags for the win!) and if the flight isn’t full, we can take our car seats on board and keep the kids strapped in. And that’s just what we did for the first leg of the trip. Greyson was my travel companion and he was pretty well behaved. I took him out of the seat for about an hour and we read books and played with stickers.

The second after we touched down in Atlanta, he fell asleep.

Jerry’s baby slept for the entire flight, of course. (Awesome earphones found on Amazon)

We let them run around a bit before we boarded the plane for Atlanta. Fynnlee tried to make friends with everyone at our gate.

It was a full flight so the kids were lap passengers. Jerry and Greyson watched Mickey Mouse for most of the flight to Ft. Myers.

And Fynnlee and I ate snacks, read books, watched some Mickey and played with toys.

Then with about 20 minutes left in our flight, things went horribly wrong. My first problem was picking a window seat. What was I thinking???? The poor guy in the middle seat was about 6’5″ and we had no room. But he was so nice…putting up with Fynnlee touching him with sticky fingers and hitting him with her book. As we started our descent, the cabin pressure dropped and I’m guessing Fynnlee’s ears started hurting. Because she screamed. Non-stop. For 20 minutes. SCREAMED! She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t drink, she wouldn’t take her pacifier. She wouldn’t do anything but scream and thrash around. Besides her ears, it was really hot…we were cramped…and she was basically just over it. I felt so bad for her because I know how bad airplane ears hurt.

Lots of dirty looks as we got off the plane (which…who cares. I’ll never see those people again).

Grandma picked us up from the airport and we went straight to the pool! Which, conveniently, is at their house.

These kids are fearless around water. The concept of falling in the pool is lost on both of them so we had to watch them like hawks. Oh and Greyson is full on walking now. He decided Florida would be a great place to start being super mobile.

Fynnlee loved this little bucket.

It’s like a mini bathtub.

We spent a couple of days at the community pool. They have an awesome kid area with water at a max 1.5-2 feet.

Grandma is pretty brilliant to bring bath toys along.

Captain Adorable.

This one is very busy.

And Greyson is already picking up chicks.

We spent a day 1/2 hour at the beach.

She spent the majority of time on this towel playing with seashells.

And he slept.

We tried to get a family picture but as you can see, they/Fynnlee…not a huge fan of the beach (yet). She screams. He snacks.

There was a lot of snacking on this trip. They love to pull out fistfulls of Cheerios and shove 1/2 of them in their mouth. The other half are on the floor.

Grandma & Papa will be finding Cheerios for months.

We had lunch al fresco

And feasted on Grandmas famous meatballs.

Double bibs required for red sauce.

We took a fun trip to the Outlet mall, where there was more snacking inside this fun “stroller”.

The mall has a playland for kids under 3 and the Beans had a blast!

I’m on a boat!

I’m on a crocodile. 

Jerry, Aunt Stephanie & I snuck out one night for dinner on the water. We left the kids in Papa’s capable hands (Daniel Tiger & Grandma supervised)

We had a fabulous dinner and caught an amazing Florida sunset.  Awesome selfie, eh?

It was a glorious 5 days and we miss the Sunshine State and our family already.

Back to life. Back to reality.

Life with Greyson & Fynnlee 13.4

It was a short week at school thanks to our Florida vacation but I didn’t want to forget all the fun. They had a busy 2 days!

It was red, white and blue week and we dressed appropriately. The kids had a blast making their own sensory bottles.

Feathers don’t make a lot of noise but they’re soft and pretty!

There was also lots of indoor playtime due to a rainy day.

Greyson had a ball despite the cloudy skies.

Patriotic Squish.

They also had a blast making firecracker paintings with paper towel rolls.

I can’t even with her piggies.

Cheerios for life.

The sun eventually came out and it was time for splashing!

I’m guessing she just got blasted in the face by her brother.

 

See ya later school! We’re outta here..

We are having a blast in the sun. Next week I’ll have their 14 month update (what?) and our vacation recap. You won’t want to miss the story of Fynnlee losing her mind on our flight and screaming bloody murder for 20 minutes straight. Spoiler alert…every passenger hated us by the time we landed.

Have an amazing (and safe) 4th of July!!