So little time..

The story of my life...so much to do, so little time. So alas, I have been terrible about posting pictures and updates. I haven't even taken pictures with my camera because I haven't been remembering to charge the battery. Ugh, I need to get it together. Which brings me to my other very ambitious want in life--to become a photographer. I am asking for an SLR camera for Christmas from John--and photography classes at Nova. Where i will have the time, I don't know!

Just a quick note and hopefully I'll have more time later this week to post some better stories...

AJ and I went to Wegmans on Saturday morning. While there, we looked at the very high priced Halloween decorations. I explained how AJ will dress up and we will go trick or treating to our family's house and in October we will decorate the house. About 20 minutes later, we were in the checkout line and out of nowhere AJ points to the REAL pumpkins (not decorations) and says "PUMPKIN!". I was (and still am) very impressed. This kid is a sponge. Every day he is saying new things and I have no idea where he picks the works up. Our umbrella was leaned up against the wall in the foyer and he points and says "lella!". He is just so amazing. I am really enjoying this time with him.

OH and a few weeks ago we started a My Gym class. He absolutely loves it! The first day he was mainly obsessed with the balls they had--but now he has opened up to all kinds of new things. He also makes new friends too!

Until next time....

Daddy

John is a phenomenal father. I can't tell you how great he is-you have to see for yourself! Sometimes I sit here and think "he is so much better than me as a parent!". Of course I know it's that we are just different. AJ sees me as the comfort and security and he goes to daddy for fun!

John is just so patient with AJ--more so then I could ever be. Everyday, they have their alone time together during AJ's bedtime routine. I look forward to that 30 minutes to myself as well, but I absolutely love hearing John giving AJ a bath. They have soooo much fun!

As everyone knows, John is probably the BIGGEST redskins fan I know. I'm not kidding--he literally is. As I mentioned a few weeks ago--he has a REDSKINS COUCH. Well, because of John's enthusiasm, AJ is also obsessed with the Redskins. He squeals at the sight of anything Redskins and pumps his hand in the air while attempting to say "let's go Redskins". Here is a picture of them two from just this past weekend:

Too bad the Redskins lost (do you sense my sarcasm) and the Eagles WON!

In honor of Suzanne

I'm posting this in honor of my good friend Suzanne (see photos of Suzanne from John's birthday party post). I love that girl---she brightens up my day! We talked earlier today and she mentioned she reads my blog every day and gets disappointed when I don't post every day! How flattering--someone actually reads my blog! Hopefully this serves as a good surprise for her tomorrow at work.

Suzanne will be leaving us for three months for training. She is going to become a bad arse over the next three months. She will be missed SO much. I am positive that Kevin is going to miss her a ton--men never know how much they rely on woman until they are gone! I'm hoping she will be able to come back and visit us over a long weekend or two. Good luck Suzanne! She is going to kill me for putting these photos up:

So..Suzanne...now you have to post a comment!

Teething Pain :(

After a pretty eventful labor day weekend (I'll post when I have more time), we are back to the grind and today is extra special with AJ teething REALLY bad. This weekend he was slightly uncomfortable, but today...wow. I feel bad for the little man. His nanny just told me when he woke up from a very short nap that he had blood on his sheets from his gums. Poor thing! He was screaming for about 20 minutes so I went upstairs to check on him--which made it worse. We just tried some things unsuccessfully so I went back to my office to work. From the sound of it, she seems to have him calmed down. I guess I should brace myself for some lack of sleep tonight!

John just called to see what he should pick up for him on the way home. From some really great advice from my co-worker Christine (who has a little girl that is only three weeks younger than AJ), I told him pretzel rods (no salt though--ouch!) and popsicles. John is such a good daddy. I'll post more about how wonderful he is-but had to mention quickly that I think he is probably the best dad a little boy could ever have!

Another Zoo Day

So today was a fantastic day! We met our friends Sunny and Seth and their two little boys, Ethan and Dylan, at the Reston Zoo! The Reston Zoo is much different then the national zoo. First off, you have to pay to get it. Although children under two are free, it is $10 an adult--plus you have to pay for feed if you want to feed the animals. They have buckets of what looks like mice do do and bottles filled with goats milk. At one point though, I looked over and caught Dylan sucking on the goats milk bottle. Although now I'm thinking he could have gotten very sick, at the time the only thing I could do was pull it out of his mouth and then laugh because it was very funny. I mean, what is a almost two year old going to do with a bottle? Of course put it in his mouth!

Here is a picture of AJ and Dylan looking at an Alligator:

Another difference is you actually get to use that feed to feed the animals and touch them as well! This is a kids dream I guess. It wasn't, however, my dream. You may know by now how I have a slight (or if you ask John a HUGE) obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to cleanliness. The entire time I kept thinking in my head "we are going to catch some God awful disease while we are here'. The animals were covered in mud for the most part. At one point John turned to me and said, "you want to start cleaning them, don't you". Well, my husband sure knows me very well. It took a lot for me not to get in there and start giving those suckers a bath. If it wasn't for me being a little afraid of them attacking me, I would have dived right it. Oh, and they had pigs there. I actually don't know if I have ever seen a real live pig that close up before. Regardless, they are very ugly animals. Anyway, the entire time we were looking at those ugly creatures, I kept thinking "we are going to catch Swine Flu from these things". Luckily, they had hand sanitizer stations EVERYWHERE. I made sure John, AJ, and myself were all hand sanitizered out.

Here is a picture of John and AJ feeding some goats and sheep. These things are RELENTLESS. It really is survival of the fittest! They would kill for the food.

Here is AJ and I posing with the bulls behind us:

The Reston Zoo was a good little size. For it being a fairly small zoo, they had what seemed like more animals then the National Zoo in DC. They also had A LOT less people. I thought for sure it would be packed, but it wasn't--awesome for a Saturday afternoon.

Sunny said in the week leading up to our visit that the best part was the tractor ride. She was so right. We loaded up and quickly got on our way. On our first stop, the camels came right up to us looking for food. These camels, much like the sheep and the goats mentioned above, were RELENTLESS. They wanted food and they wanted it not. We had a Sunny sandwich going--two camels had their necks and heads hoovered over her in a search for something--even plastic. If you ever go on this ride--PROTECT your bags/cameras/everything because these camels will take it from you! A little girl behind me had her bag stolen from right under her nose by a sneaky camel. Seriously, I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time. Sunny was so right when she said that ride was the greatest part of the entire zoo! Sadly, we didn't get any pictures as we were trying to protect ourselves from the animals! If I take AJ back, that is one thing I will make sure we get--lots of pictures of the camels attacking us! Here are some other pictures (ugh..try getting a 15 month old to smile when all he wants to do is run around!):

After the zoo, we all strolled over to our house for dinner. I must say, it was a great night. Ethan is 3 and Dylan is nearly 2. AJ doesn't get a lot of play time with other kids. He enjoyed himself. Although I love playing one on one with AJ, I didn't need to as he had two other boys to play with. We basically just let them go off and do their thing while we kept a distance eye on them. It was really good for AJ to get that exposure to other kids his age. It makes me happy with our decision to send him to school in the new year (I'll save that update for another post later!).

Something else hit me tonight--the desire to have another child. I know what you all are thinking, here comes baby number 2! I know in my mind that it's not the right time, but I can still want something! We truly are not ready to start expanding our family, but I still want to have another one so AJ will have a buddy to play with all of the time! In the meantime, we are just going to start having to have more play dates with Ethan and Dylan!

After the Hammerly family left for the evening, AJ and John helped me clean up! The boys all really made a great mess--but the toys are so easy to clean! I started to sweep, but AJ insisted on sweeping for me! I felt like a little princess with my boys cleaning for me! I must be doing something right--here is proof my little man will be a great husband like his daddy one day!

So how else to end a wonderful day then with a big glass of red wine? I'm going to go retire with said wine. Church and a visit with the Hall side of the family is tomorrow! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

IT'S A GIRL!

Lauren is having a girl! So excited! The link to the blog is posted to the side, click to see pictures!

John's Birthday Celebration

For the first time since AJ was born, we managed to escape a full night away! My mom graciously offered to babysit her first born grandson (didn't even have to twist her arm or anything!). AJ did very well with her. He slept perfectly for them, played a ton, ate a ton, and pooped a ton for them. Yes, I said he pooped a ton. Must have been my mom's amazing lasagna (which I'm so happy to have been able to take leftovers home the next day!).

John and I got a hotel in DC--a suite in the Omni Shoreham hotel. The hotel was very beautiful and the suite was as well. We checked in, changed, and worked out together in the hotel gym for the first time in two years! It was a great workout--I'm still sore! We went back, showered, relaxed, and ordered room service for dinner. A bunch of our friends met us at the hotel for the Redskins game. After the game was over, we hopped over to Adams Morgan for some fun at our old favorite place--Tom Tom's. The place was great and had some really great DJ's. The bathrooms didn't change--same old gross bathrooms. I was very thankful that DC is smoke free. I love it! Here are a few pictures from the night.

John and I in our suite before going out for the night:


The group of us. Some of the guys look really scary. Smile please!

Us girls! Suzanne, Clare, and myself. It's awesome to have such close friends who have significant others that are close as well! It makes for some really great nights!

Needless to say, Sunday was a recovery day for John. I happened to be just fine. I woke up really early as usual and immediately started to miss my little man. John, on the other hand, couldn't wake up for anything. I took the opportunity to relax that morning and watch some TV without any interruptions. We checked out and went to get our little boy. I missed him so much, I ran to the door of my parents house to get in to see him. I think he missed me too, although he had a blast. All in all, a great weekend!