Weekend in Tampa (Sunday)

Sunday was a great day all around!  I went to Starbucks (by myself!) and got my favorite drink ever--salted caramel hot chocolate.  Perfect for an 85 degree day in Tampa.  Ha!  Danielle's shower was at 2 in the afternoon at her sister Candace's house, so I had time to get a pedicure (by myself!).  I think the part of being a Mom that is hardest for me to get used to is just never having any time to myself.  I really like to be by myself (or at least I used to--I've kind of forgotten what that's like).  It kind of reminds me of being on the ship during deployment--zero alone time!  Except that was for six months and this is forever.  (:  Big thanks to the Duci family for watching Ben so that I could grab a few hours to go out by myself.

After an awesome pedicure, I went back to Candace's house to help with any last-minute preps for the shower.  Danielle has a lot of people who love her--there were about 40 women (plus Ben) there to celebrate her and her first baby!  We all had a great time and ate wonderful food and delicious cake.  The best present was Renee's scrapbook of the first three years of Danielle's life.  Everyone had tears in their eyes when she opened that present.  It's good to know that I have 30 years or so to finish my boys' books because that's about how long it'll take.

This cake tasted even better than it looked!

Frank LOVES the Yankees!

Hard to believe that we've been friends for over 15 years!  Love you, Danielle!

Weekend in Tampa (Friday & Saturday)

Ben and I headed to Tampa last weekend for Danielle's baby shower.  She's having a little boy in January and we couldn't be more thrilled for her!  We stayed with Danielle's mom and dad out in the 'burbs but we did plenty of hanging out with Brad and Danielle and Brad's family at their fabulous townhouse in the Hyde Park neighborhood of south Tampa.  Ben was a really good baby the whole time--he slept on all the plane flights and he made sure to be suitably adorable at all other times.  He took a great nap on Saturday.  So great, in fact, that I ran out (by myself) to Anthropologie and Pottery Barn Kids (two of my favorite stores).  It was so wonderful to shop kid-free!

Danielle and Brad hosted a casual barbecue at their house on Saturday afternoon.  Danielle's parents, Renee and Frank, and her sister Erica were there, as well as Brad's sister Lauren, her husband Adam, and their 8-month-old, Cullen.  Rounding out the group were Brad's mom and stepdad and dad and stepmom.  Whew!

Danielle is going to be a great mommy!

Soon-to-be grandma Renee!

Soon-to-be Aunt Erica!

I'll put shower pictures on tomorrow--Blogger is being a pain-in-the-rear with picture uploading right now so I'm a little frustrated!  (Plus, naptime is almost over, so there goes my blogging window of opportunity.)

While Mom was away....

Dan and Daddy sure did play!  Dan is going to think that I am the most boring mom ever because we never do any of this fun stuff, but I'm glad that he had a great time with Zach while I was in Tampa with Ben.  They took long walks to the dirt pile in the back of the neighborhood (the construction zone), went to the playground several times, and found a fall festival with a train ride, fire trucks, and ponies.  I think Zach's goal was to get him so tired every day that he collapsed after dinner.  Mission accomplished!

 

 

Just hangin' around

Today was a pretty normal Tuesday--gymnastics for Dan this morning, laying around for Ben all day, playground this afternoon with some neighbors.  Zach is flying late tonight so he was home this morning, which was nice because he was in Savannah all weekend so we hadn't seen him since Friday morning.

As you can see, Dan still loves gymnastics.  He's really started to enjoying hanging--on the bars and on the rings.  He also likes when I bring his feet up and flip him around, but he can't do that on his own just yet.   Sorry the videos are so shaky--I was carrying Ben with my left arm and trying to video with my right!

Ben is turning into quite the chubby Buddha:

Pretty sure Ben is sticking out his tongue at his big brother:

Quite the reader

While I was making dinner last night, Dan read a book to Ben.  He read him "Goldbug" which is what he called Richard Scarry's Car and Trucks and Things that Go.  (There's a little bug named Goldbug that's hidden on every page and Dan knows exactly where he is.  On all 67 pages.)  He loves this book and apparently Ben does too, because they were both quiet and entertained for a good 20 minutes.  Heaven for me!

Punkin Patch

It's hard to believe that we've lived here over a year, but since this is our second trip to the pumpkin patch at Mike's Farm, I guess the calendar doesn't lie.  Things have changed quite a bit in that year--Dan is so big and tall and always on the go, and Ben wasn't even a glimmer in our eyes last year.  (:  We had a great time again this year, picking out pumpkins, but Dan's favorite thing was the hayride out to the field.  All week long, he talked about "going to the punkin patch to wide the twactor."  Well, that's just what we did!  We also picked out two pumpkins, one big and one little, and bought some fudge from the shop, and just had a really nice time on our 80 degree fall day!  Next year, we'll have two guys to chase after, so that should be even more fun....

Someone was ready to go home by this point:

Bouncin' Man Dan

After being stuck in the house for two days this week (25 inches of rain in 48 hours make it hard to go anywhere), it was so nice to see the sun yesterday and today!  I think it took that much rain to wash away the high temperatures and crazy humidity that we've had since June.  Today was gorgeous--crisp and clear and fall-like, finally, so we headed down to Wilmington for Riverfest.  I think there were pirate-themed activities (flotilla at dusk, boat rides, etc.) but I mostly saw fried foods and vendors selling homemade crafts.  And many, many people who looked like they should be on an episode of What Not to Wear.

Luckily, I was wearing Ben in the front-pack, so no one could really see my ill-fitting, post-pregnancy clothes.  Ha!  Dan rode in the stroller, but he wanted to "Walk! WALK!" everywhere.  When we got to the kids' area, we let him walk around a little (with Zach supervising) while I found a quiet bench to feed Ben.  Zach and Dan looked at the fire engine and a few other things until Dan was brave enough to go in the bouncy pit by himself.  As you can see, his shyness wore off quickly: