Exciting Eighteen

Meredith turned 18 months old on October 2nd. She seems to be changing every minute of everyday. She loves to talk and has added quite a few words to her repertoire over the last several weeks including “Hi Daddy/Mama/Jonah/Riley”, “I love you”, “Night Night”, “I need go potty” (she likes to go sit on the potty over and over though she never does anything), “No, No, No” (her personal favorite), “More milk”, “I stinky”, and “Bye Bye Jonah.” She will repeat any word you say so she can say several animal names and their sounds, all her grandparent’s names and other family names.

Her personality is bigger than the state of Texas! She has never met a stranger and gives hugs and kisses to everyone. But when she is mad, WATCH OUT WORLD! She has quite the temper and is not afraid to show it. She was hit with a double whammy of the Schneider/Ranson temper syndrome. At eighteen months she has already mastered the evil glare. I try so hard not to laugh but it’s really one of the cutest things to witness. 

When she’s not mad, she is one of the sweetest, happiest, funniest little girls I have ever been around. Her laugh is contagious. Her smile infectious. And her eyes captivating.

She is the true definition of a Daddy’s girl and has her brother wrapped tightly around her little finger. She loves animals and Riley of course is her favorite. She feeds him, pets him, scratches his belly, throws his toys and runs around the house looking for him everyday when she gets home from school. That probably explains why he never leaves her side.

I am totally and madly in love with her. One of my favorite times of the day with her is when we are sitting in her room in her chair before bed. It’s just the two of us and we talk about everything. I share my day with her while I hold her in my arms. She lays her head on my shoulder and gently pats my back as if she is comforting me and letting me know everything will be okay. Then before I lay her down for the night she gives me a hug and kiss and says “Night Night Mama”. She never cries when you put her to bed. Even our nanny was surprised how easy it was to put her to sleep.

Meredith loves to eat and she likes to sit and savor each bite of her food. That’s not always good for a family that tends to live in the fast lane and is always rushing around late for school, work or a sporting event. But it’s who she is and when you try to rush her you better be ready for the repercussions.

Being the second child she gets away with  A LOT. Maybe that’s normal with the second baby. You are so tired and you just want to keep them happy so you let them do things that you would have never let your firstborn do. I’m very thankful that Jonah seems to “get it” and sometimes even he says “do whatever it takes to make her happy”.

She’s a lucky little girl to have a family that loves her to the moon and back  and wants her to be “nothing but happy.”

Happy Eighteen Months! We love you! 

 

{When I think about the trials and tribulations of each phase of our children’s life, I always tell myself “It won’t be like this for long.”  People say “It’s just a phase, they will grow out of it. One day I know I will miss these phases.}

Parade of Cultures

Pictures from the Parade of Cultures at Jonah and Meredith’s school. Jonah’s class was Jamaica and Meredith’s class was Germany. The kids enjoyed making costumes and sampling foods from all the different countries. They even madepassports and visited the other countries (classrooms) and picked up souvenirs. What a great way to learn about different cultures in our world. I hope Jonah and Meredith both enjoy exploring other countries and cultures as much as Josh and I do.

Date night with my little guy

After t-ball  practice, Jonah asked me out on a date to McDonald’s. Of course I said Yes. He even offered to pay but I went ahead and picked up the tab. We enjoyed some great conversation over chicken nuggets, apple dippers and apple juice (diet coke for me). I think there will definitely be a second “date” in our future.

Don’t we make a cute couple?

Weekend at Texas State

We drove down to San Marcos this weekend to watch a Texas State game and tailgate with friends and Josh’s fraternity. We had a great time and the kids had a lot of fun spending some time with their cousins in Georgetown.

At the game with Josh. {The pledges kept bringing me drinks and each time they would get down on their knees to introduce themselves. It was sweet but it made me feel really really old.}

Four going on Fourteen

Always stuck in the middle on these roadtrips

 

Too many cheetos and too much milk

T-ball pictures

We had t-ball pictures last night and I just love this picture of the team making silly faces! Classic.

Four and a Half

We celebrate “half” birthdays at our house. I figure you get so few days that are actually your own and I love any kind of celebration so we started celebrating “half” birthday’s after Jonah was born.

Jonah turned four and half on September 21st. He didn’t feel well on his actual half birthday so we postponed it to the next night. After t-ball pictures and practice we took our little guy (Meredith stayed home with the nanny) out to dinner at Palio’s pizza cafe and had ice cream afterwards. We went to Target and let Jonah pick out “one” toy. He picked out Buzz Lightyear. He has been obsessed with Toy Story ever since TS3 came out and he went to see it with Josh at the movie theatre.

Jonah is just the most amazing little boy. He has a big personality and an even bigger heart.

He is our little sunshine!

Just because

Meredith looked so cute this morning and was in such a great mood that I couldn’t resist posting this picture of her.

Boys will be Boys

We were at the park with some friends this past weekend who happen to have all boys and the kids met twin brothers that they instantly became friends with (thanks to the bag of toy cars and trucks they brought with them). All this equipment to play on at the park and they had more fun sitting on the pavement playing with toy cars.

Texas Rangers

Josh and I were invited to a Rangers vs Yankees baseball game with my really good friend  Jennifer from college. Her family owns several seats on the front row at Texas Stadium. The seats and the views were amazing. We had a great time!

Me and Josh                                                     National Anthem

George W and Laura                                    Play Ball!

A-Rod getting ready to bat                        close up of A-Rod

 

So close to home plate                                 Nolan Ryan sitting in the Bush’s seats

 

Playing with Photos

I had some fun playing around with Photoshop using some of the pictures from t-ball practice the other night. Here are some of the shots I captured that I really liked of Jonah’s teammates.

Charlie and his dad Joe (our coach): Black and White and Vintage. I think I like the Vintage the best, especially with baseball photos.

Rylee Bleu in the outfield. She was just in her own little world out there. And another picture I took of RB while she was sitting in the dugout. She has the most amazing blue eyes. Aren’t they beautiful?

T-Ball practice

Jonah is taking t-ball this season. This is a very time consuming sport. There is practice once a week and sometimes there are up to two games a week. This is not easy on two parents that have very demanding jobs and especially when one of those parents travel every week. That parent being ME!

Jonah is actually really good. He’s a great hitter. We still need to work on his outfield skills like catching the ball with his glove but he’s been able to hit the ball several times without the tee and he’s quick. And when he puts on his Cardinals uniform and cap. Well, it’s just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. It totally makes the stress of making it to practice and the games on time worth it!

He spends a lot of time in the outfield doing this:

And this:

But when he’s batting he’s a happy little guy:

Look at that smile:

And he has a lot of fun with his team:

Park Day

When the weather finally starts turning a little bit cooler I love getting outdoors with the kids so we headed over to Towne Lake to feed the ducks and walk around the park. One of my best friend’s Shannon met us there with her two boys so we tried to take advantage and also take some cute pictures of the kids.

Labor Day – Pool Party with friends

I love Labor Day because that means a three day weekend. I wish every weekend was a three day weekend. It gives us the right amount of R&R so that we feel refreshed when we head back to work.

This year we were invited to our friends the Sipka’s for a Labor Day Pool party. Meredith is in class with their daughter Claire and Jonah plays t-ball with their son Charlie. Their dad, Joe, also happens to be their t-ball coach. Lisa and I met through my friend Kelly and her family. They were also at the party as well as another friend Angie and her family that I met through Kelly. All of the older kids play t-ball together so it was a fun group to spend the day with!

My picture taking skills were a little off that day and I didn’t get a ton of great shots. I wish I had taken more of the kids. But I was more focused on the Sangria and keeping Meredith from drowning in the pool seeing as I forgot her floaties. Meredith was also not in a sharing mood that day and decided to have a 15 minute temper tantrum over cheese puffs. Yes, cheese puffs. See picture below. She finally wore herself out on the swing after stripping down to her swim diaper. See last picture. I think that picture pretty much sums up our day.

Meredith’s favorite

Meredith’s favorite activity involves anything outdoors. This girl loves to be outside. So we spend a lot of evenings sitting outside while she plays on her slide (which is way too little for her now and we really need to invest in a swing set for her and Jonah. And yes, I just realized as I was looking at the pictures on my blog that Meredith wears this outfit A LOT! It’s a perfect outfit for when she’s playing outside and most of her pictures are of her outside so that explains it! I promise this girl has more clothes in her closet than I do but most of them I try to reserve for school or outings. I don’t want grass stains or dirt on every outfit. And at this age she tends to be a little on the messy side!

 

I remember doing this when I was little….

Piling all of my stuffed toys in the bed with me at night.

When I kissed his little forehead for the hundredth time before turning out the light I distinctly remember there only being two stuffed “friends” in the bed with Jonah – Buzz and Woody.

But when I went to check on him before turning in for the night somehow several more “friends” had made their way to his comfy bed.