a hundred times a day

is how much we hear this song. between quinn singing this song all the time and hearing on tv when he watches a couple of thomas episodes after nap time, pretty much everyone in our house knows this song by heart. sometimes i walk around the house humming it and don't even realize it.

(ignore the fact that he's playing with his diaper the whole time)

and for those of you who don't live with a thomas-obsessed 2 year old, here are the actual words to the song. and yep, i typed these by heart, singing along as i wrote it out :)

thomas, he's the cheeky one

james is vain but lots of fun

percy pulls the mail on time

gordon thunders down the line

emily really knows her stuff

henry toots and huffs and puffs

edward wants to help and share

toby, well let's say he's square!

they're 2, they're 4, they're 6, they're 8

shunting trucks and hauling freight

red and green and brown and blue

they're the really useful crew

all with different roles to play

round tidmouth sheds and far away

down the hills and round the bend

thomas and his friends

just a normal day...

with my little cuties :)

a little singing to start the day

that's one of quinn's favorite songs right now. if you don't know it, these are the actual words:

i may never march in the infantry,
ride in the cavalry,
shoot the artillery
i may never zoom over the enemy
but i'm in the Lord's army! yes sir!

his version is slightly different...

8 months

it's hard to believe our baby girl is 8 months old! she's now crawling all over the place. she loves to follow quinn around and he has fun taking her "to the benture" (on adventures) around the house. and let me tell you, she gets into EVERYTHING! just like her brother, she makes a break to try to get into bella's food and water anytime she's nearby. she likes to pull on plants and play in the dirt. and for some reason she loves to carry around baby wipes, cleaning the floors as she crawls around the house. i'm not complaining about that one! she has recently learned how to crawl up steps and just in the past couple of days she's started trying to stand up from her hands and knees, though she has yet to actually stand upright without holding on.

caroline has started babbling and even saying some words - "mama" (her first word!), "dada", "buh buh" sometimes for bye bye, and my dad claims that she said "hi, papa" several times today. it seemed like just overnight she went from just screeching and not even trying to babble to saying words intentionally. her favorite sound, though, is pretty funny. when she gets excited she will bounce up and down, smile and scrunch up her nose, and breathe really hard and fast out of her nose. if you do it back to her she gets even more excited and does it even louder. she thinks she's pretty funny!

last weekend she waved goodbye for the first time to grammy and grandpa. and when she's tired she does this goofy wave where she holds her left arm up, waves her hand, and then dives over sideways with her whole body. that's actually one way you know she's sleepy and delirious and ready for a nap or bedtime. she's pretty predictable when it comes to wanting to go to sleep - first her eyes start to look tired, she she does the waving/diving sideways business, then she starts rubbing her face on your shoulder when you're holding her. if you catch the signs and put her to bed, she's a happy camper.

miss caroline is eating 2-3 solid meals/day and so far has liked everything she's tried. she eats oatmeal, nectarines, pears, peas, green beans, bananas, peaches, prunes, apples, sweet potatoes, and avocados. she's started eating puffs and loves them, which also means that she's highly frustrated by them because she isn't very good at getting them in her mouth yet. if i put a handful on the table in front of her, she goes after them with both hands until she has two fists full of puffs. then she starts sucking on her hands, trying to get them out. sometimes she gets lucky, but most of the time she just gets frustrated! 

one thing that has not changed is that she continues to be super clingy and have quite a bit of stranger anxiety. last sunday she moved up to a new class at church. when we left, she was playing happily on the floor and we were hopeful that she would enjoy being with the older kids (8-12 months instead of the newborns) and would actually be happy. however, about halfway through the sermon a message popped up on the screen..."will the parents of the child with number 6DC please come to the nursery". of course we were 6DC. so unfortunately the new class was not any better. but we'll keep trying and hopefully someday she'll be able to survive a whole church service without us. :)

our baby girl is such a happy, playful, snuggly, sweet girl. she loves her big brother and they giggle constantly when they play together. she's curious and she loves to chase bella. she's still a great sleeper: she takes 2 naps/day of about 3 hours total and sleeps about 11 hours at night. sweet caroline is such a blessing to our family and we love her so very much!!

happy 8 month birthday, caroline. we love you!

and, just for fun, here's Quinn at 8 months. you'll notice one major similarity...

one hour too long

last weekend we made the drive through the nothing-ness that is west texas to meet up with the cooks and darnells in santa fe. it was a quick weekend, but totally worth it to spend time with some of our favorite people!

almost a year later, and quinn still likes hanging out with leila 

snuggles!

on saturday, scott and alexis had to take some things to the governor so we got to tag along. i thought that we would just be taking a quick tour of the governor's mansion and maybe meet her quickly. we were taking pictures on the front porch and i hear the door open behind me....and out she walks! she was so friendly and welcoming and gave us a personal tour of the WHOLE house. including her closet, which is awesome by the way!

she held quinn's hand as she showed us her private patio behind the house

beautiful view of the mountains...i totally know why she loves to sneak out to this patio! the view is amazing!

yep, that's our son riding the buffalo statue at the governor's mansion. why? she thought it would be fun. and we do what she says! :)

this was possibly the most amazing part of it all. she just scooped caroline up from john's arms at one point and walked around the house holding her. the amazing part: caroline did not cry at all! she usually does NOT like strangers taking her from us like that, but she was perfectly happy. even though i was glad she didn't cry, i was really more worried that she would spit up all over her. how embarrassing. but she was a perfect angel, thankfully for all of us!

seriously, can i just repeat how cool of an experience that was and how gracious governor susana martinez was? she walked around the house with us like we were old friends and told us all kinds of stories about her experiences.  she took us to her closet and asked our opinion of purses and the decor in the mansion. i mean, really? she had never met us! we now know exactly why scott and alexis talk so highly of her and we would gladly vote for her should she ever run for president!

the rest of the time was spent relaxing, eating, and playing. bella and leila finally decided they want to be friends again.

sunday morning we started the long drive back home. on the way there and back, quinn and caroline both did great except for about the last hour. i don't blame them, though. i was pretty ready to get out of the car at that point, too!

dinner "picnic" so we could have a little stretch break

these last two pictures crack me up. it's such a great representation of their relationship. c was sitting in my lap after eating and they started just cracking up at each other. for several minutes all they did was look at each other and laugh!

in this one i picture her saying, "what's up, bro?". maybe it's because it's late and i'm tired, but that was really funny to me. :)

we finally made it home around 11pm that night and all crashed. it was a long weekend, but we wouldn't have missed it!

the end of an era

we debated for months about the details of last saturday. where would it happen? when would it happen? what would it look like? would it even happen at all?

finally i had to make an executive decision. it was happening!

quinn was getting a haircut.

the awesome craziness and adorable ringlets of quinn's hair had finally gotten a little out of control. some people might say it's been out of control for a while. although john would tell you it was still pretty awesome. if it were up to him, i'm not sure quinn would ever get a haircut.

here are some before pics of the gravity-defying mullet:

since it was his first haircut (and i had no idea how to even start taming that hair) we took him to a place that only does haircuts for children. he got to sit in a little car and even watch an episode of thomas the train while the lady cut his hair. i'm pretty sure he didn't even know she was doing anything, he was so distracted!

here's the first cut. right before that was my favorite moment of the whole experience. she was asking me how we wanted it cut and she held out one of his curls to the side. and it stayed. hence the gravity defying description above! she goes, "well, THAT has to go!". i looked at john and thought he was going to cry!

and here's the final result! not nearly as unique, gravity defying, or amazing, but a little more under control and appropriate for a 2 year old i suppose.

most importantly, we all survived. and 2/3 of us survived the first haircut without tears. i'll let you guess who that 1/3 was. :)

2 1/2 years

on friday, our sweet little (or not so little, now) boy was officially  2 1/2. it's been a while since i did a monthly update on him and there are a few things i wanted to write down so that we can remember them.

quinn is really funny and makes us laugh constantly. he has a funny deep voice that he uses to tell details of a story that are especially important. he likes to sing songs in goofy voices. even if he starts out singing the song normally, by the end he's changing up the words and singing in silly voices. lately, his new thing is trying to trick us to be funny. he will say something in a way we can't understand or hide the seatbelt when we're trying to buckle him in, only to crack up laughing and declare "i'm tricking you, mommy!". he definitely thinks he's pretty funny!

his imagination has really taken off and he is starting to do pretend play a lot more. he still loves to play with his train table and will play up there for at least 30 minutes at a time on his own. now, though, he narrates stories...i hear all about percy delivering the mail, engines heading to tidmouth sheds, engines helping other engines, engines crashing, and sir topham hatt giving orders to the engines. he does the same thing when he's playing with cars and trucks. and the cars and trucks are constantly going "UP a hill annnnd DOWN a hill", and "around the bend". he likes to play ice cream store and he serves up some delicious ice cream for us. his specialty is a chocolate cone! he also LOVES puzzles and has several puzzles that he can do all on his own.

quinn absolutely loves to swim. with or without his floatie on he will jump in, go under water, and start trying to kick back to the wall. other than jumping in from the side or going down the big slide, his favorite thing is for us to throw him really high in the air back and forth. he splashes down in the water and we scoop him up. sometimes he gets a face/mouth full of water on accident, but that never stops him from coming up laughing!

being 2 definitely has its frustrations, but the most challenging thing right now is keeping him in bed at night. i think the main problem is that he is a total night owl. clearly he comes by it honestly because it's after midnight and john and i are both still up! we start the bedtime routine around 8:30 every night and he's usually not asleep until around 11. we've tried EVERYTHING to keep him in his room and motivate him to go to bed with minimal success. i really think it's just going to take time. i'm ok with that. most nights. :)

quinn is doing a great job with his manners and the majority of the time will say "thank you" or "i'm sorry" (most often to caroline for accidentally hitting/knocking her over or for taking a toy) on his own without prompting from us. he does still often need reminders for "please". the past few weeks we have been starting potty training. he's doing great and really getting the hang of it! in the next few weeks we will probably try a few days in a row of going cold turkey - no diaper!! i'm excited but also a little nervous about that next step!

most of the time, quinn is just such a sweet boy. he loves to give hugs and kisses and snuggle. he loves his sister and always wants to be the first in her room when she wakes up from a nap. in the car he will play with her, talk to her, and do things to make her laugh. and he likes to show her things and teach her how things work. when we leave he will run to the door, yell "i love ya!", and blow kisses until we're out of sight. and, can i just say, that makes it so much harder to leave him!

quinn is starting preschool 2 days/week this fall and i have such mixed emotions about it. i know it will be great for him and he will love it. he constantly talks about "going to cool with will!!". (will is our neighbor and quinn's bff who will be in the same preschool class with him.) but even though i know it will be a great thing, i will miss him! and it's just another reminder of how my baby boy is growing up too fast. he's quickly transformed from a toddler to a little boy right before our eyes. and even though that's difficult, i'm so proud and so in love with the boy he's becoming.

happy half birthday to our sweet boy! mommy, daddy, and caroline love you so much.