Happy Birthday Mommy!

MiniM.E. and H. played more together on Friday.  It was the first time they actually seemed to be playing together and it was adorable.

care for some tea?

more kisses over coffee

Then Saturday it was my birthday.  I spent most of the day cutting wood for a play kitchen I'm making MiniM.E. (shhh! it's a surprise!).  While I cut wood, MiniM.E. was busy wrapping presents with Gram and helping to decorate the cake.

such careful little fingers

so many sprinkles in this cup...

and they should all be on the cake!

all gone!

maybe I can spread them around...

or just eat them!

and some candles

Later in the afternoon H. came over to say good-bye.  Cutest hug ever!

Then we sang "Happy Birthday" (to MiniM.E.) and blew out the candles- THREE times.

The best birthday present I got was MiniM.E. singing "Happy Birthday" to me.  She actually tried to sing and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard in my entire life.  She was so proud of herself.

**Note: I apologize for the lack of video.  For one, MiniM.E. is really hard to record because as soon as she sees the camcorder, she runs over and says, "see baby!" because she wants to watch the videos of herself.  Whenever I DO get to record her, I don't usually have the time to upload the videos because my computer is out of space so uploading them requires that I back up other photos and videos and get them off of my computer... a project I am diligently working on in all my free time... 

Thanks for a great birthday MiniM.E.!

The Boston Children's Museum

Thursday we went with H., C., C's mom, and Gram to the Boston Children's Museum.  It was a tri-generational adventure!  We had a blast and the kids loved it even though they were a little young for most of the exhibits.

We left for nap time, the kids slept on the way and we spent the afternoon there and loved it so much we stayed until it closed!

We started at, revisited and ended at MiniM.E.'s favorite room, the bubble room.

Trying to make a bubble around us.  Fail.

At first MiniM.E. was just fascinated.

Until...

She realized she could POP the bubbles.

Mouth popping!

Head popping

"Taking shower!"

 MiniM.E. is still talking about the bubbles.  "Making bubbles museum!" "Pop bubbles head!" "Pop bubbles mouth!" "Pop bubbles ear!" "Taking shower!" (because the bubbles popped and got her all wet) "Bubbles one more time!"

MiniM.E.'s second favorite thing at the museum was the turtle exhibit that you could lie down under!  Both the kids loved seeing the turtles swim over them.  MiniM.E. kept asking to see the turtles "one more time" the whole time we were at the museum.

There was a ball room where you could roll golf balls down all sorts of ramps.

The best place for our 1 1/2 year olds was the 0-3 room.  There were books, puzzles, games, and mini furniture.

A small play area (MiniM.E. loved the steering wheel).

A teeter totter,

fun with two

and fun with one, too.

 A tiny car that H. wanted to drive all day

H. driving with his girl

Trying to sneak a kiss!

Then we played in the big kid exhibits.  When we weren't trying to pull our kids away from trampling big kids, they had lots of fun.

Dancing on the dance floor

 MiniM.E. wanted to spend the rest of the day at Peep's Water World, but she was a little too short to actually play in the water...

We pulled ourselves up in a pulley chair...

And had fun in the Blue Man Group exhibit.

The visit to the museum went much better than we all expected.  The kids were really well behaved and had a blast (every time we get in the car MiniM.E. asks if we're going to the museum).  We thought we wore them out, but both kids must have been too excited to sleep because they were both up late!

Can't wait to bring Daddy and some of our other friends back to the museum soon!

We All Scream for Ice Cream!

Or at least we scream in the car on the way there because Gram isn't in the car with us...

MiniM.E. is very attached to her Gram.  When she visits now (or when we visit her) MiniM.E. could care less about me.  She always wants "Gram do it".  Which is nice... I'm glad MiniM.E. loves my mom and I can't say I'm sad to have a little bit of a break.

BUT, it is a little frustrating when we do something without Gram and MiniM.E. has a cow.

At least ice cream is a good distraction and Friendly's was only five minutes from home.

yummy cone head sundae!

H. LOVES ice cream.  MiniM.E. would rather have a crayon.

 MiniM.E. was all about the ice cream for about 5 minutes. Then she was ready to go.  C. and I had a good time chatting anyway, and H. loved it!

First Kiss

We made it to NH Monday evening and it was nice to be in a germ-free house and just relax.  We were visiting my mom and my sister (my dad was on a business trip) and also my friend from high school, C. and her son, H.  We hadn't seen them since Christmas, and even then we only saw them for a few minutes, so we were all really looking forward to spending some time together.

Our week started out with sledding on Tuesday.  Except that it was warm out and the snow was really heavy so it was less sledding and more sticking, which MiniM.E. was NOT a fan of.  It might not have helped that she didn't have a nap.  No problem though because we chose to sled at a school playground, so there were other things for the kids to do.  Like swing.

Then we went home for a snack.

Things didn't seem to be going so well for the kids,

but they soon got over the sharing issue and made up with some hugs.

And then THIS happened!!!

first kiss!

Which is totally cute now, but will not be cute when they're twelve.

We might have encouraged it a little... because how cute is this?

oops! missed a little!

After H. went home MiniM.E. had a blast in the bath with some new bath toys.

tee-hee! baby bum!

love this smile...

and this face... 

The Evil Norovirus

Let me begin this post with an apology.

I am truly sorry that I haven't posted in weeks.  I hope you're all still out there and are anxiously awaiting my next post.  I'm also a little sad because this blog is a way for me to keep tabs on what happened in MiniM.E.'s life too.  I guess its like a journal or a diary.  Sort of.  Except that I'm putting it out there for everyone to read.  AND it's hardly about me at all.  I digress...

WARNING: the following paragraphs are a bit graphic.  If you're eating a snack right now, you should probably stop.  Or quickly scroll down to the part with the picture.

Two and a half weeks ago the norovirus hit our house.  HARD.  I'd heard stories of vomiting children and children with diarrhea and laughed along as fellow moms told horror stories of the puke they had to clean off the ceiling and the poop that seeped through two pairs of pants and a towel onto the couch, Fortunately (or unfortunately as I wasn't prepared for what happened) for me, MiniM.E. has never been a puker- maybe a couple spit-up episodes here and there.  She's had her share of poop-splosions, but I never expected what I encountered for a week after the virus hit.

MiniM.E. started with the virus by puking up all food and drink consumed over at least a 12 hour period onto my laminate kitchen floor from my arms resulting in an amazing splatter that reached the underside of the kitchen table, the stove, the fridge all cabinets and the better part of a wall.  She didn't keep anything down for 24 hours.  Though a lot of stuff came up.  On the couch, on me, on the crib, on the floor.  It was a little ridiculous.  The vomit was followed by a week of diarrhea to which I will only say that we went through more outfits than we would have in weeks, I did more laundry than I do in a month, there were several  bath-worthy occasions and in an undisclosed parking lot, there may still be a pile of poo.

In the middle of the second half of MiniM.E.'s virus I got it, then Bob got it.  Thankfully my mom came to take care of MiniM.E. while neither of us could get out of bed, but then SHE got it.  Finally we were all better enough to make a trip to NH, though it was a day later than we expected.

SO, that explains the first half of my blogging hiatus.

This is the only picture I have of MiniM.E. for at least a week.  And it's her in a pile of (clean) laundry.  Because that is all I did for what seemed like a week.