Distraction Part 2

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've not been posting as much here this month due to my enjoyment of my current cross stitch project. In addition to that, I have a couple other new distractions described below.

So first: the cross stitch. Since I posted 10 days ago, I've gotten 2 and a half more pages done:

Working on the blue cabinet at the bottom has been a nice change from all of the browns at the top! Knowing that I did this much in about 10 days makes me hopeful that I will finish this by the end of August; we'll see what happens, since I still have ~12 more pages to go.

My second distraction: my new iPhone 4! This thing is amazing; I'm so glad I got it. The proximate reason was that I needed a phone powerful enough to sync to my work email, which  my Droid Eris couldn't do. Imagine my extreme frustration to find that my iPhone still wouldn't sync! It made no sense - I have 5 other colleagues who have an iPhone and have never had a problem with syncing to their email. After 2 weeks of frustration, and trying everything we could to make it work, my boss came back from vacation and managed to fix it! For some reason my phone requires a strange setting (namely my email address has to be entered differently from everyone else's), but it works now and it's SO nice! I had a comp day yesterday, since I worked at a conference on Saturday, and it was so nice to have my email on my phone and not have to pull up my computer at all. The ultimate reason: I wanted one. I could've gotten a more powerful HTC Droid, but I really like the Apple interface on my iPod touch, so this was a logical choice for me.

I've got two apps on my phone that are helping to entertain me, providing further distraction:
1. Words with Friends (essentially a Scrabble game between you and whatever other friends have the app). I currently have about 15 games going; so addicting!

2. Tiny Wings. It was recommended to me for kids, and Natalie does have fun playing the game, but it's addicting for me too! You basically help this little bird fly up and down hills, collecting points, meeting goals, and trying to get as far as you can before the sun sets. While simple, it's highly addicting!

Finally, I've found a new blog that I adore: The Blogess. She's amazing: insightful, hilarious, and just a great read. In particular, check out this post, which started as a disagreement with her husband and just evolved from there:

http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/

I first read this while waiting at an airport, and I think I worried the people sitting across from me with my laughter, given the looks I was getting. It's just too funny. Enjoy!

Happy July 4th!

Ok, only 3 weeks late on this one, but since we all look so silly I have to show the pictures we took of all of us decked out for July 4th. All you need to know is that my mom had super silly star-shaped sunglasses and blue & red star garland. Let the hilarity ensue.

We couldn't let the kids miss out on the fun:

Or Calla either! You know she hated me at that moment

Carrie brought fireworks with her, so Saturday night we went out into the cul-de-sac next to my parents house and set them off. Natalie really enjoyed holding the sparklers.

 But she was not a fan of the bigger fireworks, so Evan took her up on the deck where she could see them from farther away but there was less noise. Carrie got some good ones!

We were going to go see the fireworks they set off over the ocean on July 4th, but it was very buggy out and they didn't start until almost 9:30, so Natalie would've been a basket case by the time everything finished. Instead, we watched the national fireworks on the TV. Hopefully we'll see some live ones next year!

Yardwork

Henry is now 15 months old. Time for him to start doing his chores, like I did.

Straight lines, Henry!

OBX: Boat trip

In keeping with our almost-yearly tradition, we headed to the Outer Banks for a few days over July 4. We try to go then every year, from mid-week to mid-week so as to avoid the worst of the traffic; last year we couldn't go because I had just gone back to work from maternity leave (and I'd been there during my leave), so we definitely wanted to this year! We were able to go for 5 days, which was a nice little vacation for us. We arrived on Friday July 1; on Saturday my parents rented a pontoon boat for us to go out on for 4 hours. The trip started off fantastic; unfortunately, it ended about an hour early as Henry was just DONE being on the boat (and did not want to wear his life jacket), and we ended up getting a ticket when the water police spotted him out of his life vest (frustrating, but not much we could do about it). Despite all of that, we did have some fun.

Natalie has her own life vest from when we took her on a boat a couple of years ago; it fits much better now than it did then!

 She actually liked being in her life vest, particularly when we anchored the boat and went swimming. She realized that she could swim all by herself in the vest! I'm thinking we should start having her wear it for at least a little while in our pool, to get more swimming practice in.

Henry did start the day in his vest, and was good in it for a while. He particularly enjoyed watching the wake behind us.

Natalie and Henry both got to help Grandpa drive the boat.

There was a small platform out front where you could sit...I got this picture of Carrie sitting out there. It's one of my favorites of the day!

I finally got Henry to sleep on me...

 and he stayed that way while we drove the boat past the water front in Manteo.

 There were some very cool channels in the sound, cutting through the swamp grass

 and lovely houses as well.

It was after returning back into the main part of the Albemarle Sound that we were spotted by the water police, waking Henry violently from his nap and causing the huge screaming fit when we had to put his life jacket back on. That unfortunately led to the end of the boat trip. But it was nice while it lasted!

Enjoying the park

Evan was gone Friday & Saturday to a VA politics meeting down in Richmond, so Saturday was a Mommy-Kid day! Luckily the weather was fantastic, which let us kill some time outside. We started the morning with my friend Deb and her son Chase - her husband was out of town too, so what better way to entertain all of the children than put them together?! We all had breakfast and then headed over to Target for a bit. After Deb & Chase left, it was time to head to the park!

Henry got to enjoy the park more than normal, as he can now crawl around and climb on things.

He even did his first solo slide trip! Definitely the safest way for him to go by himself. He does like to sit like his sister, but still needs me to hold his hands to help him slide.

Natalie could of course climb on everything and go down all of the slides. We tried to have Henry go down this one with her, sitting on her lap, but they both got a bit freaked out so that plan was aborted.

We then went home for lunchtime, naptime, and then to a bbq at Justin & Jen's house so the kids could all play together. To end the day nicely, Evan came home a couple of hours early and was able to see Natalie before she went to bed! The kids were so great for me - I had so much fun with them all day.

Distraction

I've actually been home the vast majority of the past two weeks, with the exception of the night I spent down in Richmond for work and to pick up Natalie. Hence the little splurge of posts I did last week. What's kept me from posting over the past week? I've been distracted by my latest cross stitch project! Here's what it's supposed to look like:

I wasn't sure when I started it that I was going to like it - I started in the center, as you're supposed to, and the colors in the star were kind of boring. It's for Carrie; she picked it out to go with some of the nautical things in her apartment, so I stuck with it. Turns out that I really like the colors and am having a lot of fun working on it! Here's the first 5 pages I had done.

You can see that even with the lighting issues, the colors are darker and tend towards more browns than yellow/tan. I'm really liking it! I've now finished almost the whole page under the bottle top on the left, and finally getting into the blue cabinet on the bottom. So, since I'm enjoying making it so much, I'm not pulling up my computer at night much! Plus, since the apps on my new iPhone are so fantastic I can do almost anything from my phone and barely need the computer. I'll try to get the July 4th trip photos up here soon, so I don't end up weeks behind again!

Henry is 15 months old

Today Henry turned 15 months old...and it turned out to be a pretty big day, as he took his first solo steps tonight! This video wasn't the first couple of steps (I actually missed those, as my back was to Henry as he walked away from Evan and towards me), or even the next couple, as we had him take a few more while we tried to get a video. Finally, even though he was obviously tired, we got him to walk towards me!

In the past week or so we've seen some really big advances in Henry's development. He now has about 6 words (mama, dada, wow, hi, and his new ones of nana (for banana) and again, which he knows the meaning of but can't really say). He can climb on pretty much every piece of furniture we have, both up and down. He even got down from his high chair all by himself tonight. He can point at what he wants, and understands our instructions to him much better than he used to. While at the OBX last week, we noticed two new bottom teeth, getting him up to 8 total. He's been hitting some of these major milestones (walking, talking) much later than Natalie, so we're happy to see that it's his time!

Since Natalie has been with her grandparents the past 6 days, we've had a lot of great solo-Henry time. I of course took the opportunity to take some cute pics

(this was taken while we were making music one evening)

He came home from Essie's in this sailor outfit last week, and I HAD to get photos to embarrass him with later in life

We then discovered a super-fun new game

Pool party

The last weekend in June was Natalie's friend Gemma's birthday pool party. We took the kids over to our pool for some swimming, sandwiches, and cupcakes. The kids had a great time! And for the first time this year we remembered to bring over our float for Henry to ride around in. He liked it for about the first 20 minutes, but then didn't want to be in it anymore. However, in that 20 minutes we all had fun pushing him around!

 And Henry had fun pushing himself around too!

Natalie and Gemma had a good time together too, as always!

June trip to the National Zoo

As I mentioned previously, Evan got us a family membership to the Smithsonian National Zoo. To make the most of that membership, on a nice weekend in June we decided to take the kids again. The weather was pretty perfect - not too hot or humid and fairly cloudy, so no bright sun to deal with.

We started off at the kids zoo area, where both kids enjoyed watching the donkeys & goats

Another big hit were the prairie dogs, as the kids could get very close to them.

Then some turtles and monkeys

while on our way to the biggest hit of the day: the large cats! The tigers weren't very exciting, but the zoo currently has 7 lion cubs from 2 mommas, and all 9 lions were out! The cubs enjoyed playing by the water

 while moms watched from above

And more zoo animals: organutans, elephant, and even a giant panda!

Henry's favorite exhibit was the small mammal house, as the windows were very large so he could see all of the animals very easily.

 My favorite small mammal was the golden tamarin, which is extremely endangered. The National Zoo actually has quite a few of them, and they're trying to breed more.

Happy family after a day at the zoo!