Mother's Day Weekend

My mom arrived late Wednesday to spend Mother's Day weekend with us. After recovering from her delayed arrival, we went to the mall for lunch and shopping and then out to dinner at a local Mexican joint on Thursday.  I had forgotten that it was Cinco de Mayo so it was appropriate. We finished the evening on the back porch playing with the kids.

Friday, we went Strawberry picking with Gina and Samual at Porter Farms followed by a picnic at Lake Wheeler Park.  And in the evening we all sat in the living room and watched Tangled together - such a cute movie.



Saturday, Elisabeth, Mom and I met up with my mom's first cousin who lives in the area for a girls day out. We finished out the day watching Kelly do home improvement projects and watching the kids play in the yard. And Grammie finally got to paint Elisabeth's nails.

Sunday, Kelly made us all breakfast and then we headed to Brick Magic. We went last year on Mother's Day as well, and I was blown away by all the brick creations. This year it wasn't quite as astounding to me since I had been before, but I was elated that it didn't seem so crowded. I didn't take the nice camera this time so the pictures aren't as good. Grammie got into the spirit of things and purchased a female doctor mini-figure and patient.  Go Grammie!

All in all a great Mother's Day weekend!

We took Grammie to the airport this afternoon and thankfully she had no delays and made it safely to Orlando. Elisabeth kept saying, "I don't want her to go to airport!"  "I want to go to Florida."

Happy Birthday Grammie

Birthday Girl

Elisabeth is now two years old!  Grammie flew in for her birthday and we all went out to Red Robin for a special family dinner.  I took the camera, and I am so glad that I did.  Elisabeth laughed and had a grand time.  She made a myriad of expressions and loved on her grammie.  There are so many great pictures; I just can't choose a few.  So here is a slideshow of our evening.

Then and Now

The little girl in the first picture is the grandmother in the second. Five generations are represented in these pictures.

(left) My mom, my grandmother, my great grandmother. (below) Elisabeth, me, my mom.

Visit to Okeechobee

On Wednesday, June 3rd, we continued on to Okeechobee (another 2 hours south) to visit my family. My grandmother on my Mom's side, Mamaw Lewis, has always been dear to me and her health has been more fragile over the last year which has precipitated the need to enlist more help in her care and have her in closer proximity to the hospital. So this was the first trip where we visited with her at the nursing home. We saw her every day, and oddly enough, this environment was more conducive to a more quality interaction between the kids, especially Jonah, and Mamaw. Normally, at the house, Jonah would have been running around or hanging out in the "Man Cave" with Papaw (my dad) making it hard to get him to interact with Mamaw. But in this case, Mamaw ended up with a bedmate for a few minutes. They have these cool TV's on protracting arms that you can pull right up to the head of your bed. So Jonah crawled up in the bed with Mamaw and they watched Animal Planet for a while together and talked about what they were watching. After a little while, Jonah fell asleep. I caught a picture of them with their arms in nearly the same position quite by accident. It was very sweet. Mamaw also got to hold Elisabeth, who loved playing with the beads around her neck.





For more pictures of our visit, including a few fishing pictures, see the slideshow below. (BTW, I caught 8 fish on Jonah's SpongeBob Square Pants fishing pole.)

Thanks Grammie and Papaw!

Special thanks to Grammie & Papaw who were able to come up last week from Florida to support us during this life altering event. It was a real blessing to have them here as caretakers for Jonah. Jonah warmed up quickly to his grandparents with whom he was previously familiar primarily via Skype. They all had a great time together and Jonah barely noticed we were away. They brought Jonah to the hospital to visit all three days we were there. It was a major burden off my shoulders and allowed me to focus on baby Elisabeth and on recuperating.
Jonah also learned some new words and now actually will say yes to questions instead of no all the time. He also learned to say "nasty" which he pronounces 'na-thy' and makes a special face just for this word. Apparently, he got that from Grammie who kept telling our dog Toby he was nasty for eating paper towels and other things he shouldn't. Thanks again Grammie and Papaw. Oh and Jonah loves his early birthday present. We took a walk the other evening and daddy pushed Jonah on his bike and mommy pushed baby in the stroller. It was an interesting feeling taking a walk with two instead of one.

Ever Expanding Toddler Vocabulary

Today, I went to Target and as we were checking out the cashier gave me a sticker for Jonah. Jonah repeated "dider" for sticker and for the first time ever said thank you. I kind of missed it as I was making sure everything was ringing up accurately. But I heard the cashier say "your welcome" and I asked her did he say "Thank you." And she said that it sounded like it to her. And then later we were home and out in the back yard with the dogs. I was trying to get the dogs to run around a bit and get rid of some of their energy and said "Run, Leto, run." Then Jonah says "runnnn" and starts running. (He loves it when the dogs run around and get all worked up.) Also, this evening, I was talking on the phone to my mom and was trying to get Jonah to say, "Hi, Grammie" and at one point he said "memie." Unfortunately it was too low or mistimed so Grammie didn't get a chance to hear it. Maybe next time Grammie. So I guess we're going to hear new things daily now as he learns new words. How fun!