We had a very busy weekend. Drove down to
Alan’s parents yesterday so Alan could help his dad home from
the hospital. Lex and I and Grammy Lynn dyed Easter eggs. I
wasn’t sure what to expect, but Lex loved it! He also was super
eager to eat one, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what they
really were :) I made him wait until Alan got home (so they
could dry) and he kept running to the door to check if daddy is
here yet. “Oh, I think daddy is here now!” he said about a
thousand times. When Alan got back he peeled an egg for Lex,
who proceeded to poke at it, look a bit confused, then flat out
reject it. That was the reation I was expecting.

As I said in an earlier post, I made them
little Easter baskets. Alan and I went to bed wondering how Lex
would react when he saw it. Would he bring it in to our room
with a “and you got an Easter basket!” type comment? Or would
he sit down and play in his room for awhile (thus allowing us a
bit more sleep)? What really happened was he woke up at 4am
(very dark) and crawled in bed with us, thus completely missing
the basket all together. I got up with Eve at 6:30 and when Lex
woke up 1/2 hr later I said something about a little Easter
surprise in their room and we went to find it. Lex liked the
little toys and books I put in it. Eve was intrigued by hers,
but she really didn’t like the feel of the fake grass. Each
time she reached for something the grass would brush her hand
and she’d pull back. I ended up taking everything out of the
basket for her :) She learned the sign for bunny this week and
has been pointing out bunnies everywhere, conveniently we have
a lot of bunnies around these days!

After showers and breakfast I hid the eggs for them. They
seemed to enjoy the little Easter egg hunt well enough. When
they found them all (I cheated a bit for Eve ;) ) I asked if we
should do it again and Lex said no. So that was the end of
that. He put them back in the egg carton and back in the
fridge. (Here are two movies of their egg hunt. I didn’t want
the file to get too big to upload, so I broke it into two
parts.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEXbBGVFOb0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRM6TPpaVbE]

This afternoon we went to visit my grandparents. Grandma
is just home from the hospital after having knee surgery so I
thought it best to bring small kids and a bunch of little toys
over to make her walking even more precarious :) We had fun,
though it was a short visit because Lex didn’t take a nap and
Eve was ready for her evening nap. Around this house there’s
always someone who’s tired!

Anyway,
hope the rest of you had a wonderful, sunny Easter. I’ve been
telling the kids that Easter is to celebrate spring and new
growth and new life, all the while looking out the window and
hoping that someday we’ll actually see spring and new growth!
Someday.

I added a few new videos over in the
YouTube bar. These are from the past few weeks. “Thank you
mema” is Lex and our daycare girl playing with the Easter
basket we got from Mema and G’Tom. It was a huge hit :) “Jump
baby jump” is Eve on the trampoline. She crawled over, climbed
up, and started jumping all by herself. She was so proud, and
funny. “Falling baby” is a short movie at Eve at our local
science museum. She was standing on a stool and banging on an
air cannon and LOVING it! I let go of her for a second to make
a little movie, she spun around to grab me (as she tends to do)
and the rest you can see for yourself. “Running in puddles” is
Lex and our daycare girl. They are cute in their little pink
and blue outfits. “Self feeding” is pretty obvious. It was last
week sometime and Eve’s first attempt at feeding herself. She
seems to be a natural :) And finally, “Baby fight” is the two
of them (with help from daddy) wrestling. Alan calls it KungFu
Baby and has been doing it since Eve was born. Actually, when
Lex was a baby he was the KungFu Baby and attacked me! Just
before this video Lex ran up to Alan and said “wanna have a
baby fight!” :) So they did. Silly family. Last, but not least,
is a video of Eve not attempting to walk. She was doing good
walking between Alan and I one day, so I turned on the camera.
She apparently did not want to perform on demand :) It’s a
funny video anyway. Enjoy!

Who needs sand when you have rice
and Cheerios. The rice was quite successful (messy, but good),
but when I threw in the Cheerios the younger two thought I was
offering up a hefty snack!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yU-TpUw5qU]

Happy Spring!

Lex and Eve got a lovely
Easter basket in the mail this morning (thanks Mema!), with a
very popular stuffed bunny. Lex and I went grocery shopping
tonight and bunny came along. I learned that bunnies do not eat
blueberry bagels, but they do like bunny food (which we looked
for at every store). When we were getting out of the car at the
last stop we had the following exchange:

Lex: “The bunny says ribbit, ribbit.”
Me:
“Actually frogs say ribbit, bunnies don’t really say anything.”

Lex: “Oh no mommy! I need a frog! We need to buy a
frog at the store!”

He cracks me up. I
said we’d try, but I coudn’t find any frogs at the grocery
store. I was, of course, looking in the toy areas, not the food
areas ;)

In a moment of bad momminess (I was tired
and she was begging) I gave Eve a peanut butter cracker. One of
those sandwich crackers with a barely there layer of probably
fake peanut butter in the middle. While the general guideline
is to wait until a child is at least one year old before
introducing peanut butter, I figured she would be ok since we
have no food allergies on either side of the family, Lex has
had no reactions to anything and Eve so far has had no reaction
to any foods either. Ten minutes later she looked like
this:

The rash didn’t seem to bother her,
but I felt awful! I put them both in the tub (bath time anyway)
and washed her face really well, all the while mentally
preparing myself for a trip to the ER. Luckily it cleared up
quickly and was barely noticeable an hour later and completely
gone when I put her to bed 1.5hrs after the cracker incident.

I emailed Dr. Shu, our old
pedi, because she is a fantastic pedi and uses email
religiously. She said it could most definitely be a nut allergy
and said to get in touch with the pedi on call tonight to see
what we should. Conveniently the pedi on call is Eve’s regular
doctor so we had a nice chat. She said to not worry about it
for now, since the rash is gone and Eve is sleeping comfortably
with no swelling or breathing problems. We will discuss more at
her 1yr check up in a few weeks and we may have her tested for
nut allergies. Obviously I will not be giving her peanut butter
again in the near future. I feel so guilty. I know, logically,
that she would have had the same reaction had I waited two more
weeks, but emotionally the guilt is still there. I also HOPE
HOPE HOPE it was a fluke and she doesn’t really have a nut
allergy because peanut butter is a staple in this house. If she
does, it must not be too sensitive because she’s spent her
whole life, including in utero, around the stuff.

Anyway, let’s all hope she has no allergies
and it was just a strange and random coincidence :)

How I wish I had caught this whole thing
on video. We were eating dinner and Lex grabbed his napkin.
Then he said, “can you spell napkin?” and jumped down from his
chair and ran over to the fridge. I wasn’t sure what he was
doing (and, to be honest, only half paying attention) but when
he got n-a-p on the fridge I decided it was time to grab the
camera. This is a word he’s never spelled before, that I’m
aware of anyway, and you can hear him sounding it out as he
goes. I’m so impressed and proud of him!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FawMk3YX0k]

The video is 2:30 and, as usual,
half or so is him congratulating himself
:)

Alan came home for lunch and stayed with
the kids so I could run some “business hours only” errands. It
was great! There’s not much I love more than hopping in the car
on a beautiful sunny day and just going! Doesn’t really matter
much where. I have great daycare kids and it will be nice to
get us all outside more as the weather warms up, but I
definitely miss the ability to hop in the car and go, even with
my own kids (they both love rides in the car). There’s
something about the freedom of summer that will be missed this
year.

I made Chocolate
Mint Sandwich cookies this weekend. Sooo yummy! I
occaisionally get to sit down for 5 minutes around lunch time,
after the toddlers are in bed and when babies need
bottles/boob… so I turn on the TV and see a bit of Martha
Stewart’s show. This week was cookie week to promote her new
cookie cookbook. I saw her making these and had to try it
myself. Alan teased me, but he sure did like the outcome! I’m
going to freeze most of them (except what I gave away to
parents on Friday and party people today) and have them at
Eve’s party. Yummy!