Royal Wedding Excitement!

Okay, first things first.  In case you haven't noticed, I keep changing the font and font size of the blog.  I really want a 'handwriting' sort of font...but it's hard to read those.  And it's probably just my horrible eyesight, but I like large fonts...which makes the posts seem super long.  Oh well.  I guess that's what the little spinny thing is for on your mouse! :)

Now on to the excitement!!!  (Warning: if you don't care about the royal wedding, then foo on you and stop reading, ha!)

Unfortunately I was still about 2 1/2 years away from being born when Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married so I didn't get to watch it.  But I loooooooove that my mom got up early to watch it back then, and now we are sharing the fun together!  (In case you were wondering dad--if you want to get mom up early, that's the way to do it!)

The plan is to pick up my mom and meet up with my mother-in-law & sister-in-law (and possibly another couple of people?) to celebrate with a Royal Wedding "watch" party.  Yes, we are getting up at 3am.  Yes, it will be awesome!

So of course we MUST wear the proper attire for the occasion!

I was going to go thrift shopping to find a marvelous hat for my mom and I, however it seemed too daunting to try to find one.  And then I remembered that soon-to-be Princess Catherine really loves to wear fascinators (or small feathery hats).  One quick trip to the craft store for some feathers, and wah-lah!

 These were seriously super-duper easy to make.  They already had the purple 'base' feathers as one piece, so all I had to do was hot glue the black feathers on it!  Both fascinators took me about 30 minutes total.

This one is my favorite! 

 Again, the white 'base' feathers was bought as one piece.  Then I glued the 2 cream feathers and the teal/brown feathers to the front.  I thought it needed a little something else, so I pinned that gold flower broach to it. :)

I think this one needs to be worn more towards the front of the face, and angled backwards.  (It was about midnight when I took that pic, ha!)

Now, on to the food!  I wanted to serve traditional British food, so the only thing to do was google "traditional British breakfast" ha!  And since we're watching it from 3am...breakfast seemed like the best idea.  So here is the menu of food I am preparing:

Earl Grey Tea



Strawberry Fool
(whipped cream and pureed strawberries)

Crumpets
(basically English muffins)

Bacon & Cheese Butties
(fancy for grilled cheese & bacon sandwiches)

Yum yum!!!  And my SIL is bringing very fun English candies, and the very important Royal Wedding Bingo!

I know, this is all pretty ridiculous.  Okay...very ridiculous.  But it's not everyday a common girl falls in love with a Prince and becomes a Princess!  It's like every girl's dream.  It's all so romantic and I love every bit of the pomp and circumstance.  It's a very welcome change of world events, rather than all the yucky stuff that is the world news.

Cheers, dah-ling!

Eggs and a Giant Bunny

So, if you're friends with me on Facebook you've already seen most of these.  But there are a few bonus ones at the end. And plus, you don't get all the additional commentary on FB. :)

Last week our church (well, unofficially our church...) hosted Easter activities and a fundraiser after service.  I was SO excited for Mav to do his 1st ever egg hunt!  Of course, I forgot his basket.  Had to use my purse. That's why he is handing all the eggs to me...although I'm not sure he would've known to put them in his basket if he had one.

Before the hunt even started, the kid was totally obsessed with the stroller parked near us.  This kid has a weird fascination with wheels.  He runs after the strollers at the park.  He flips everything with a wheel over, so he can "work" on it.  He stops at every car in the parking lot to touch the wheels.  Today he even sat and played with the wheels on our curbside garbage container. 

He was pretty good about finding the eggs by himself.  But once he had it, he usually just dropped it again, ha!  Eventually he discovered there was stuff inside of it and was eager to toss the shell aside.

He was SO proud of himself with each egg he found!

I love the look on his face--tense with excitement. :)

By the way, he tried giving his egg to a couple car wheels parked near us. (sigh)

Okay, so my son totally shocked me after the egg hunt.

It's weird how Maverick is absolutely terrified of the smallest, and most obscure things.  (stethoscopes, Thomas the Train, ha!)  And yet, the most terrifying thing of all--a gigantic furry creature with bulging eyes--he loved!

He was a bit leery for all of 3 seconds.

I LOVE this picture!

Maverick couldn't get enough of the Easter bunny!!!

He followed him (or her, ha!) everywhere for the rest of the time we were there.

Besides the egg hunt and fundraiser lunch, they had all sorts of activities for families.  We tried to coax Mav into the bouncy house with Robbie (there were no other kids inside).  But he wasn't having it.  All he wanted was the giant inflated balls on top.

I can't believe how big this kid is getting.

It's seriously unfair how fast he grows!

Robbie and Mav had fun chasing each other all the way to the Jeep when it was time to go.

We happened to park near this bus and Mav was enthralled, of course, with the wheels.

I don't even want to start thinking of him riding one of these anytime soon.  My sweet baby boy is growing into the awesomest little dude.

Robbie and I were just talking tonight that even in the past week alone, how much more of Mav's personality is developing.  He is a rock star. :)

Childhood Past in the Present

This morning I got out the rest of my Fisher-Price "Little People" toys.  It is SO crazy to think how many hours I played with these!  Even more unfathomable--my own child is playing with them now.  Getting them out brought back sooooo many wonderful memories.  And Maverick already loves them too. (I know, I gotta make sure he doesn't put the people in his mouth. Hence the reason why the "Little People" today are so huge!)

Look how much he was slobbering!  He's been a little more on the slobbery side lately with his molars coming in, but when I got these toys out it was like he forgot to close his mouth. :)

Once I showed him this little merry-go-round, it was all over.  He didn't want to play with anything else!

Do you remember any of these toys?!  I am SO glad my mom and dad kept these over the years.  This is a school house and the side folds down for a chalkboard.

Maverick has been playing with this barn for a while.  He likes to stuff the roost full of toys.  When the doors open, it "moo's" like a cow.

I must have filled that swimming pool with actual water...a million times!

The playground is pretty fun too.  If you set a person on the green stump then press that little white button, they fall over and go down the slide.

Mav has been playing with this for a while too, and he loves how the eyes move when it rolls.  This bus was one of my favorites!  I can very vividly remember loading all the people on the bus and sending them to school. :)

Okay, so this picture actually makes this house look pretty creepy, ha!  Can you tell how "loved" it was?  It is SO worn out.  It was played with every. single. day.  When my sister got grounded to her room, we'd open the house so that half would be in the room and half would be in the hallway....that was our solution to still having someone to play with.  Pretty genius, I think! :)

I loved (still do) all the details on the walls.  This is probably silly, but I used to pretend that little girl in the door window was the neighbor who wanted to come over and play.

I think the reason why I loved that little house so much, was because it was similar to our house. (not the candelabra of course, ha!)

Mav has his own little town now too!



Here's something to celebrate--I think we're a binky free house!

Of course, it hasn't quite been 24 hours.  But it's looking like it will be a smooth transition.  For a long time now, he's only used it for nap and bedtime.  And even then, when it fell out, it just stayed out.

I was kinda apprehensive about taking it out of the routine.  Wasn't sure how he would soothe himself.

But he did super!

I got a little teary eyed at bedtime last night, after he fell right asleep without it.  The binky is like the last "babyhood" thing to get rid of.  Sniffle sniffle!

Neighborly Apology

So I was going to take some 'before & after' photos of the yard work I did this weekend, but I was too focused on getting this project finished.

Yeah, it was bad enough to do 'before & after' photos!

Okay, so to explain myself to our neighbors--I didn't start this project last October wanting to get about halfway done, and leave it throughout the winter...I promise!!  When one has only a 2 hr window (during Mav's nap time) to get tasks such as this done, it takes a while.  It just so happened to start snowing in October...and not stop until 2 weeks ago, ha!

Our house is a corner lot, so it's really like having 3 yards--a front yard, back yard, and side yard.  The side yard is bigger than our front yard actually.  Anyways, so along that side of the house we have 10 Burning Bush plants.  They are beautiful bushes...when they aren't 10 feet high and wildly overgrown.  Ever since we moved in a few years ago, they've been SUCH a pain in the you-know-what to maintain.  Originally, the house inspector told us that we should dig them up and re-do the landscaping because rainwater doesn't drain away from the house.

SOOOO  every spring we say we're going to rip them up.  But then life gets in the way.  And we end up sort of trimming them...but they're still pretty overgrown.

Until last October.  I was fed up.  No more ridiculously overgrown wall of bushes.  Enough of the madness!

I started trimming about 2 feet off of the bushes.  When I got to the air conditioner (the halfway point) I decided to cut them down even more.  Those suckers were gonna get trimmed down about 5 feet!!  No more overgrown bushes.  They MUST get down to a manageable size.

But that's when it started snowing...

And so, the eyesore of the neighborhood was born.  Picture five bushes about 7 ft tall, air conditioner, two bushes about 3 ft tall, then three bushes about 10 ft tall.  Can we say tacky? :)

Yep.  The side of our house looked that way for roughly 6 months.  Eeek.  It seems worse in writing!

So to my wonderful neighbors (most of them are elderly):  we're sorry!  Fortunately they are all very nice people and fondly remember trying to upkeep a house with kiddos running amuck.  And they all love Maverick.  Especially when he's running around the backyard playing in the mud and rocks. 

Taking a Toddler Out

It's been nice to get back into the swing of blogging again.  Not sure who is still out there, but I hope I haven't bored you too much!  Although, I make no promises.  I'm sure life will get too crazy to blog in the near future--I have a toddler and work full time.

Anyways, so it's definitely April in St. Louis.  This snow pic was taken 8 days ago, and the day after it was sunny and in the 70s.  Last Monday we reached a record temp of 90 degrees, and the next morning we were scraping frost off our windows.  Yesterday it was chilly and windy, and today it reached the 80s.  This is what drives my sinuses crazy!  The thunderstorms are worth it though.

Okay, so the main topic I wanted to chat about is the new stage I think we're entering into:

The Challenge of Taking a Toddler Anywhere.

I've never wanted to be (and still work towards not being) the mom/family that doesn't do anything because of having a child.  But it is getting so much harder.

Scenario #1: Going to someone's house who doesn't have kids (or they are grown beyond baby-proofing). 

I love, love, love hanging out with all our friends who don't have kiddos, or going to family members' houses that aren't baby-proofed.  It's just becoming more difficult as Mav wants to explore more and more.  I just can't go to relax and hang out.  I'm always on alert as to where Mav is, and what he's touching.  I don't want to be the parents of the kid who destroys everything, ha!  So by the end of the evening, I'm completely exhausted and it's not from partying too hard. 




(This is Mav at our friends' house, he loved their doggies!)

 Scenario #2: Restaurant, Store, or anywhere that requires sitting in one spot.  Going out to eat isn't normally too bad.  That is, if I time Mav's eating around when we're going out...and I bring plenty of fidgets.  The real kicker is going grocery shopping.  And I can't blame him--there is way too many fun and interesting things to pull off the shelf! He also loves to show off his new verbal skills...just a little too loud for most people's taste.  I guess it makes sense to say "Bye bye" to everything while you're zooming along in a cart.  And you have to scream it because the store is so big!

I thought I was gonna cry the other day when I took Mav out to eat, on a whim.  I should've known better to not go because I didn't have any toys packed.  Maverick did not want to sit in his chair and he was letting everyone know about it by doing the "dolphin body kick" and whining.  I tried walking him around but all he wanted to do was run away from me, ha!  Needless to say, I left early. 

But really, overall it's not too bad.

Just wanted to vent a little. 

Maverick is the coolest kid on the planet and I wouldn't have him any other way.

That's his most favorite toy right now--the alphabet puzzle.  Not to brag, but the kid knows his letters thanks to this puzzle.  We can say "E is for Egg" (while he's holding the E piece) and he puts it in the right spot.  He giggles hysterically when we emphasize each sound the letters make.  Leave it to my kid!  :)

(p.s. Do you like the new design?  I thought it was in need of a makeover!)

Coffee table = 1, Maverick = 0

Well, this year's Opening Day was a little more eventful than expected, ha!

Mav was lucky enough to go with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Robyn to Cecil Whittaker's Pizza to partake in the annual home-opener lunch while I had to work. (boo!)

After pizza Mav and my mom came back to our house to hang out until I came home from work.

That is, until the evil coffee table attacked!

Silly and bouncy as always, Mav bounced right off the couch and hit his head on the coffee table.

The weird thing is that we have a round table, ha ha!

But the sides fold down, so there is an edge sometimes.

And he just happened to hit his temple just right on the edge.

Yes, that is a bloody shirt.  However, it washed out!

Mav would've gotten stitches but the ER doc was afraid that he would pick at it, so he glued and taped it.

Glue and tape?  I paid how much for glue and tape?!

At least he got this snazzy teddy bear.

And probably a really cool scar that girls will swoon over.