Chatter Boxes

Matthew and Meredith had a very cute conversation this afternoon :) Meredith found her voice today and "talked" more than I've ever heard her talk before; she really had a lot to say-too precious!

A Babe in Toyland

Meredith is really into her toys these days and just loves to play with them (and when I say play I mean eat)

I wish they had Bumbo trays when Matthew was a baby-they are great!

The doll that she is holding is her favorite toy; she gets a huge grin on her face every time I hand it to her.

I would have to say that her all time favorite toy is her hands :)

I think it is so cute that when she isn't buckled into her bouncy seat she twists all around in a matter of minutes-she is my wiggly worm

Matthew was never into his play mat, but Meredith absolutely loves it! She gets super excited when I put her down on it-she is at such an adorable age!

Construction Fun

A few weeks ago we discovered that our dishwasher had been slowly leaking and completely destroyed the flooring in front of it, so we put in a new dishwasher and figured we could just fix the ruined flooring and be done with it-boy were we wrong! It turns out that we had replace the entire downstairs floor and it has also spurred on an entire re-model of the downstairs (Yay!) So we are in the middle of tearing up the old floor and putting down an environmentally friendly bamboo floor, which looks really nice so far, and repainting everything, from cabinets to walls to molding (Thanks Nana!) Matthew has loved being a big help through the whole process and I'm just ready for the whole thing to be done! The tile in front of the fireplace has been cracked for awhile so we decided to just tear it up; Matthew helped to smash it with his hammer ;)

He then decided that the hallway would be his designated work spot.

He felt that he could get "his" work done with his leaf blower and proceeded to use it all around the house to help get the molding off of the wall-I love the mind of a three year old!

Putting in the new floor which will hopefully be finished up tomorrow (Please!)

We now have two new holes in the wall due to Matthew's "hard work". He felt so important to be a part of everything that I don't even mind :)

He decided that his table saw would be the perfect tool for the molding and spent a good 30 minutes using it on the wall-again, I just love the way his mind works at this age! :)

I'll post pictures of the finished project-I can't wait!

These two beautiful children are the best things to ever happen to me, I love them so much :)

On one of the few nice days this week, Matthew and I played with chalk. We hopscotched for the first time, which was fun. Meredith watched with fascination as we drew our masterpieces

Sibling Love

Matthew and Meredith love each other so much already. One of her favorite things is to watch him and she always laughs/smiles when he talks to her-which he does a lot. He gets so excited when she does cute stuff like roll over or play with a rattle and he truly gets concerned when she is fussy. He will tell me to feed her so she isn't fussy anymore and gets worried if she is crying for longer than he would like. He is such a good big brother :)

I think it is the sweetest thing when they hold hands.

Matthew absolutely LOVES holding Meredith. He is instantly happy to be able to have her in his arms.

As you can tell from the smiles, they are both happy to be around each other.

Matthew and I were looking for ghosts today ( one of his favorite games where we walk around with flashlights looking throughout the house and "see" different color ghosts-lots of fun :) ) and he told Meredith that she was safe from the ghosts and he would protect her so she didn't need to worry.

As you can tell from the huge grin on his face, he adores holding her (which he only does when I am right there and when I am the one to place her in his arms) She loves it too, even though it looks uncomfortable for her, she never cries when she is in his arms.

Bee Mania

Matthew is slowly becoming more fascinated by bees rather than scared of them and he now loves to watch them in his bug jar. It was cute the first time I put a bee in there for him because whenever the bee went onto the lid he would scream like the bee was going to sting him. He was even brave enough this afternoon to let the bee out all by himself!

Camping at Old Forge

We went camping at Old Forge this weekend with the kiddos. It was Meredith's first time camping and she loved it. She loves being outside, so two days straight of being outdoors was pure joy for her. My Matthew had a great time, but I knew my little outdoors man would. It was very nostalgic for me because our campsite reminded me so much of the places my Dad used to take us kids camping to when we were little. By chance we got a site with a 3 sided shelter, which really came in handy while it was raining. It was a little cold at night for my liking and we had some rain on Saturday, but overall it was a nice weekend trip.

We arrived Friday evening and Matthew helped set up the tent and then waited patiently for his favorite camping dinner-hot dogs!

My sweets and me relaxing while Matt set up camp on Friday

Miss Meredith had the best sleeping spot!

Waking up early Saturday morning

The Bean helped cook our breakfast-eggs and bacon-yum!

Yes, my son is playing with fire

Meredith all cozy taking a nap in her little seat

We checked out a beautiful trout stream in the area, Moose River. It was so calm and peaceful, I could have spent hours there

Way high! Meredith loves to be "thrown" in the air

Matthew fell asleep in the car, so Matt fished while the bean rested up

So beautiful!

Old Forge is a quaint mountain town with lots of character. We spent some time Saturday walking around checking out the shops and soaking up the rustic ambiance

Brittney and Aykut arrived Saturday just before the rain and had help from Matthew to set up their tent

Aykut and Brittney took the little man on a nature walk while the rain was light

Matthew is finally tired of me constantly taking his picture, so he will now close his eyes and stand still until I put away the camera-the little stinker

Staying dry while it rained

Aykut had this neat powder that you put in the fire to make it change different colors-like blue, purple and green. Matthew got a kick out of it

A plus for breastfeeding-you don't have to worry about bottles/formula while in the wilderness

Roasting marshmallows. The Bean wouldn't eat them, but he sure loved to roast them in the fire

I love sleeping/cuddling with my babes :)

Matthew roamed around while we packed everything up