Ben and Caroline's Blog

We've had a busy few weeks with a trip to the rodeo with my family, a trip to Austin to see Ben's family and celebrate Angela's baby shower, and a trip to Mexico (sans kids) to attend an amazingly fun wedding. I have a lot of great photos to upload and hope to get to that soon. I had a slight set back with nasty colds, a random stomach virus that left me and Mark standing in the waiting room at the doctor's office literally dripping in vomit that kept on coming, and of course, one case of pink eye just to keep it interesting. I'll get all the fun pictures from our trips up soon though..hopefully.

In the meantime... Mark has always loved messing with sunglasses and now that Spring is here I decided it was time he had a pair of his own. It is hilarious because I thought he would play with them but he really just likes to leave them on. Here are some pictures from this weekend playing around our house and from a trip to the bayou city art festival with my parents.

Emily's school has a special "Donuts with Dad" morning today. They all meet at 8am for breakfast and playing until the school day starts. Emily was very excited.

Meanwhile, I had a great morning planned with my extra time away from school prep and carpool line. There was plenty of time for a jog with Mark before Gymboree class followed by a playdate with some of Mark's little friends. But as I was pulling out the single jogger, Mark pushed his little car out of the garage and out to the gate all by himself. He was looking at me with those big blue eyes standing next to his car...change of plans.

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He obviously was in no hurry to be a walker but at 14 months exactly he is officially walking everywhere. Yay, Mark!

Emily still loves to sing and dance all day long and everywhere we go. Mark likes to join in the fun. They were both playing piano for us for almost 15 minutes before I filmed the clip below. It was pretty funny. I know Mark, once again, is not clothed but he manages to go through at least two pairs of pants each day for one reason or another and sometimes I just give up. It dawned on me yesterday that this is a real problem.

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Mark is walking more and more. Still not exclusively walking, but he is getting close. Here is some video of my precious boy walking.

Emily had a Valentine party at school today and the parents were invited. Here are some pictures.

Some pictures from our day.

We got home and had a special package from Daddy. Emily had no idea that strawberries could be covered in delicious chocolate. She was very excited. Thank you Ben. We love you.

I was doing some things in the front of the house with Emily and knew Mark had gone into Emily's room by himself. It was a few minutes before I checked on him. When I walked back to the hallway he was standing there with one of Emily's play stethoscopes around his neck and holding up the end piece like he was ready to go. Emily has a toy chest full of dress up items in her room. He obviously went in there, opened up the chest, dug it out and then put it on all by himself because her room was all clean before he went in there and when he was done the toy chest was partially emptied. By the time I could snap a pic he was ready to take it off, but I did manage to get this. It was so cute.

Here are a few more pictures from this week.

Beautiful day for a park visit while Emily is at school.

And one of Emily with Ben from yesterday. This is a good one.

Weekly library visit. Emily loves returning and scanning the old books and then picking out her new books for the week. She does the whole process by herself now. Meanwhile, Mark repeatedly fights his way back to the toddler computer games. I'm starting to see a trend.

Soccer fields.

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I turned on our Wii for Emily a week or so ago to see if she could play. She could not, but was interested for a few minutes before we turned it off and moved on. Mark was very interested and has been pointing at the tv in frustration ever since and I think it's because he wanted the Wii turned on.

Here he is playing baseball. Mark can stand by himself without support but doesn't do it very often. Apparently holding a wii remote is worth the effort. And yes, I know, unfortunately he is not wearing any pants...

Mark trying to make the steering wheels beep...

Emily pretending to run away from a dinosaur... Mark and I were instructed to take cover as well.

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We've been busy lately getting back into a routine with school and new activities and have also reached some exciting milestones. Mark has started taking steps. I would not say he is walking yet, because he still crawls everywhere. But, he has started letting go and stepping. The most I've seen him do is three steps at a time, but have not captured anything on camera yet. I'm sure we will get there soon though! Mark has also started saying "no" this week in addition to saying "mama" and "dada" more distinctly. He shakes his finger and says "na,na" to Mella. That was one of Emily's first words too. My sweet boy is growing up so fast!

Emily is now fully potty trained. We did the three day, no diaper program last weekend and Emily caught on by the end of the first day and we haven't turned back since. She did have accidents the first two days but she was accident free all last week even though she went to school, libraries, a new choir class, grocery stores, parks, friends' houses, restaurants, etc. I am so proud of her! I initially planned to still use diapers during naps and nighttime for a long time, but we have already dropped the nap time diaper (Emily's request) with success. Only draw back so far is Mark's new found obsession with toilets and little potties. He's not sure how to use it but must be touching one at all times. Ewww! Overall it has been so easy and made life much easier! Hooray, Emily!

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This weather is unbelievable! Think we should stay here all day.

I woke up at midnight and 2 am with Emily staring at me asking if it was time to get up yet. She finally made it to 6 am and her first question was if it was time for "lunch bunch" yet. I made the mistake of informing her yesterday that today was her first day back and that she would be staying for lunch bunch as well. We packed her lunch at 6:30 am. She marched around the house declaring it a school day and then repeatedly tried to wake Mark up in hopes that would get us to school quicker. As if I would arrive in the carpool line even a minute late.

Mark likes to climb up the steps and then go down the slide head first - superman style! Here is a video. It cuts out before end so I can spot him but you get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOGoVOEksHk