i heart my kids

I'm in love with my kids these days. They are both in really enjoyable phases. Maybe I'm just in a good mood because it's Friday. I love that Everett will spend an hour by himself in our backyard digging for worms. I love that he'll sit in the back of the car singing, "Black, black sheep, have you a wroll?" at the top of his lungs. I love that he will boldly ask other kids at the park, "What's your name?" and "Do you want to play with me?" and even if he's met with resistance, he will continue to have fun on his own, playing with his imaginary friends, Bingo, Monkey, or his new friend, Dinosaur. He's never met someone he doesn't consider a friend. He's so full of love.

I love that Camille will light up a room with her smile and will literally laugh out loud. She smiles and laughs even when her brother is all in her face and pulling on both arms. I love that she'll sleep on a blanket outside at Stone Mountain during the laser light show and even sleep through the fireworks at the end. She is so easygoing and handles every deviance from a schedule we throw at her. Though past 5 months with her have been a whirlwind, I can't imagine my life without her.

Having two kids is tough with the feeding battles, potty training efforts, discipline issues, lack of sleep, etc. But I wouldn't trade it.

Stinging Caterpillars

Allen and Everett were working out in our yard on Sunday, trimming back our iris plants, when all of the sudden Allen sat down and felt a horrible sting on his rear end. A few minutes later he came across these crazy looking caterpillars and when Everett touched one, it made his finger sting really bad. Then Allen realized he must have sat on one. The stinging lasted for about half an hour. Allen looked them up and they are called Saddleback Caterpillars. It turns out that we had tons of them all over our iris plants, just snacking away. Who knew working in the yard could be so dangerous?

Here are some photos:

Potty Trainin'

We finally decided to ditch the diapers for Everett last weekend and it's going well so far. He's had about 2 accidents a day and still hasn't gone #2 on the potty yet, but we're convinced he'll get it soon. It's definitely nice to not have 2 kids in diapers anymore!!

Everett also now has an imaginary friend named Bingo that goes around with him most of the day. Bingo has eaten lunch with us the past two days and plays games with us too. I wonder...Will I have to potty train Bingo too?

Bye Bye Home Phone...Hello Verizon

In a few days we'll be canceling our home phone and begin only using our cell phones. We've had T-Mobile for years but we don't get service in our house which means up until now we've had to have a home phone. We just switched to Verizon, which has great coverage, and now we can ditch our land line.

So, if you want to reach us, you'll have to call our cell phones from here on out. Thanks!

Sleepy Baby Camille

I never took many sleepy pictures of Everett. I think I was too afraid to wake him up. So, here's one thing the younger one will have that the older one didn't. I'm trying to do a good job of this since I was the youngest and therefore neglected in all of my parent's photography. :)

Camille Elizabeth Joiner

Camille Elizabeth Joiner was born on April 23, 2008 at 3:28pm. She weighed 8lbs. and 7oz. and was 20 inches long. She's adorable and has been a joy and a wonderful addition to our little family. Everyone keeps asking me what it's like with 2 kids and my response is usually, "better than I thought it would be." This post is a long time coming, I know. I was already behind on blogging/posting photos before we had her and now life with a newborn has reduced my capacity for things like this. Hopefully I'll be able to post many more things in the upcoming days now that I've gotten the ball rolling. :)

Here are some photos on our way to the hospital and of her birth:

Happy Easter

Here are a few photos from our Easter. It was a nice, relaxing weekend. I'm now 4 weeks away from my due date. I'm getting quite uncomfortable and I'm really ready to have the baby, I think. :)

Baby Gear

Here are some photos of Everett testing out our baby gear. I got it out for our playgroup and to get it ready for the new baby too. Of course Everett can't resist playing with them.

Exercises

Today Everett and I were out in the car and he saw a man walking down the sidewalk. He asked, "Mommy, what he doing?" To which I replied, "Oh, he's exercising." At which point Everett began to raise his arms up and down and count, "1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7!" (He always skips 5 for some reason.) I have no idea where he learned about exercise...definitely not from me! So, just now as we were playing blocks he began to do his exercises and I decided to capture it on video to share with you. Don't mind the mess in our playroom...after all we were playing, right? :)



I think this is some form of a jumping jack.

At the end of the video, you can hear Everett say, "Let's play blocks now, Mommy." And after I turned off the camera he said, "No more cheese, Mommy, Let's play blocks." To Everett, "cheese" means me taking his picture. So, now I'm heading back to play blocks...

Everett's First Snow!

It actually snowed fairly significantly in Atlanta on Wednesday. Here is a photo Allen took of our house Thursday morning with what snow was leftover:



Here is a cute video of us playing in the snow just after Allen got home from work. I apologize for my commentary. :)