Easter Eggs and Giggling - A Few Firsts

We had a really nice morning today. Daniel participated in his first Easter Egg Hunt and Christohper giggled. I know the Easter Egg hunt video is a bit longer than the average one, but you get to see the whole thing. After we quit the video Daniel found the ball featured in the other video and lost all interest in eggs. He did, however, discover tetherball which was very exciting for both Boppa and Daniel. I'm not sure who had a harder time going home when the party was over.

So I made a novice parent mistake at the Easter Egg Hunt today. I put 'grass' in Daniel's basket. It is already all over our house and Easter is not until next weekend! That stuff has a way of growing exponentially.

Bouncing the Ball and Waving

Here is a cute one of Christopher cooing and waving ;)

Daniel thought this game was the best. He was so excited to see the ball bounce.

The Science of Dinnertime

The minutes leading up to dinner are usually quite chaotic at my house. It usually involves me trying to put something together quickly, Daniel crying because I won't let him have snacks from the pantry, and Christopher crying just because everyone else is stressed out, and Matt just getting home from work. I probably need to learn more make-ahead recipes because whenever dinner finally gets to the table, it's rarely hot. Well tonight I thought I was really smart, so when dinner was going to be ready in 20 minutes, I sent Daniel and Matt out for a stroll to drop off the Easter eggs for our nieghborhood hunt this weekend. I thought I had the perfect plan. Daniel would be occupied right up until dinner was served, and they would get an errand done for me in the meantime. Well, I finished cooking dinner and had half of it on the plates, but Matt and Daniel weren't back. I peeked out the window to find them two doors down chatting with the neighbors. I went out and called them home for dinner. That was 20 minutes ago, and they are still not here. They are not at the neighbors either, and our asparagus is now mush and the sweet potatoes are cold. This is what happens when I try to think :)

ABC Induced Falling

Daniel has been practicing his ABCs recently, so we thought that it might be time to record it for the history books. Little did we know that saying the ABCs for the camera would cause him to forget how to remain upright. Although the second one has a kind of big crash, Daniel was ok. We did not even need the boo-boo bunny :)

Count Reads Spoon

A couple days ago, Matt had Count read the book "Spoon" to Daniel. Well, every morning since then Daniel has adamantly requested that it happen again. This is just a little snippet, but you should get the idea. I think it's pretty funny when Daniel gives Matt Count after he turns the page as if to say, "Don't forget that Count is reading the story." Sorry that Daniel is muffled by the sippy cup.

Great Big Sea

Life at the Lee House

Count is one of our favorites these days.
Look what Dad found in the office.

What a face!

Chillin on St. Patty's Day!

Breakfast time.

Getting ready to play outside.

Daniel was helping clean out the clothes.

Christopher's Video Debut

Daniel Video Archives

Here are a couple videos of Daniel. One is of him playing in the kitchen sink in November, and the other is from him playing with Matt over the holidays. I apologize for the lack of video content in the past few months. Our Flip and computer quit working together. We finally bit the bullet today and purchased a new computer!

Christopher's New Moves

This kid's smile is really hilarious.
A more serious look.

He was not so sure about the Bumbo. Being vertical is a bit strange.

Look Mom I'm flying!

Christohper continues to be a very good baby. He is pretty easygoing and is a great sleeper. He has been waking up once during the night to eat, and his night is from 7 pm until 7 am. Last night he slept from 8 pm until 5 am! The one complaint right now is that he is really struggling with taking a bottle from Matt which has been a huge source of stress for all of us. We are working through it. Hopefully he will come around soon.

Coupons

So I've started clipping and printing coupons. It's becoming an obsession, but it feels so good to see the bottom of my bill say "You saved $38 today." I regularly have $30 to $40 off our grocery bill. It's great! I'm not stockpiling or doing anything crazy like that yet, but I won't buy diapers without at least two coupons and a sale. If I had only started doing this two years ago, just think how much I could have saved. At $4 or more a purchase, we are talking about a lot of money. I also follow a few couponing sites like The Grocery Game, Hip 2 Save, and Baby Cheapskate.

Today I found a coupon and sale that was not recommended by any of the sites on Palermo's frozen pizza. My favorite grocery store Metcalfe's Sentry has double coupon day on Wednesday and Saturday. This week the pizza's are buy one for $6.50 get one free. Here there is a $1 off two pizzas coupon. The amazing thing with the coupon is that it is good all year and there is no print limit. That's only $2.25 each for premium frozen pizzas! If I could only find a deal like this for Pampers or Cheerios! I think I might be ready for the challeng of working again as I am fulfilling my logical needs with couponing.

Big Humongous!

Daniel has started proclaiming that many of his creations or things are big humongous or big heavy. For instance, tonight he stacked two bottles and put them on the kitchen table. The tower was at least a foot taller than him. He threw his hands up in the air and proclaimed, "Big humongous!" Then there was the other day when I had just unloaded the groceries onto the island in the kitchen. Well, Daniel absolutely loves milk. He saw the gallon of milk sitting there and decided he needed to have some. Toddler + elevated gallon of milk = big mess, so I ran across the kitchen yelling to prevent the damage. I got there just in time to keep the milk from falling on his foot, but just before it hit the ground. He looked at me and said, "Milk big heavy mommy." It is amazing the things that get a toddler excited, and I mean really joyfully excited, not kicking and screaming excited. Those things can be amazing, too, but in a different way.

Family Trip to Florida

They are called family trips for a reason. Boy! It's a lot of work taking two little ones on vacation is a lot of work. I'm really glad we went, but now I have a different perspective of what it takes to travel these days. Our first three days were warm enough to get wet, but after that it was too chilly and windy. We headed to the Miami Metrozoo one day and just relaxed the other. It was great to see Matt's family down there, too. The cousins were wonderful with the boys. It really would have been way too much work without the two nights at their house.

Daniel climbing on a frog at the zoo.

Daniel kissing Christopher. Christopher fearing for the wetness coming his way.

Daniel loves swimming!

Hanging out at the marina after breakfast. Good thing we had those sweatshirts!

Christopher is really good at smiling these days.

Coloring at the buffet. Only a little bit got on the chairs.

Daniel playing at Frank J. McDonough Park named after his late great grandfather. There were about 7 3 year-old boys at the park that day. No girls showed up. I think he was throwing a ball in this picture. He has quite the arm.

Hanging out in the fire truck.
Daniel likes to do everything that we do these days including putting away the luggage. He carried this "pack pack" all the way down to the storage area.