Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Greyden's First Haircut

This post was a long time coming. And not because I waited forever before posting. It was a long time coming because the kid was in desperate need of a haircut. Remember this picture from Easter?


That was 4 weeks before the actual cut. Here's a more recent one:



Yeah, it was getting really bad. Once it got to the point where I had to assure his Daycare Teachers that no, we were not trying to grow his hair into a mullet, I realized we needed to get off our asses and just do it. So on April 25th, Daddy and Mommy finally got it together and took him to Great Clips. He did pretty good. Better than I expected anyway. I have no idea how the girl managed to cut it with Greyden dodging her every move, but she did a great job. AND she managed to clean up around his ears with clippers. 



It starts. So we whip out the paci....

....which helps a little.


Why do I feel like he's glaring at me?

Once we busted out the truck videos on youtube, he calmed down a bit.
  






All in all, he wasn't thrilled with the whole experience. Probably because mommy ate the Dum-Dum sucker at the end. I didn't want him to ruin his appetite for dinner. Someone has to be responsible, right?

Just so you don't feel too sorry for him missing out on his sucker, here is a picture of Greyden and his first Oreo. (He was up from 11pm until 1am that night, so I can safely say it was also his last Oreo.) He looks like a such a big boy with his new haircut!



Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Easter




Since I'm already so far behind, I might as well throw a few Easter pictures out there. Since I didn't even come close to celebrating Easter with Greyden last year, this year I went all out. And not only that, I went all out for my niece Adelaide too, since we were heading to Indiana to my sister and brother-in-laws house for the weekend.

If you'll remember, this was the extent of Greyden's Easter Bunny pictures last year:



See? There's a bunny next to him. Although I am now noticing it's the same color as the couch and kind of hard to see. This year we actually got some taken. Fine, it was just because we happened to be in Walmart and the rabbit walked by on his way to the set. Had we not seen the bunny, he wouldn't have had any this year either. He refused to go anywhere near the bunny on his own (yet was not shy about taking the bunny's candy):

This is Greyden's "Hell No" face.

He relaxed a little when the candy bucket magically appeared.

Although he was obviously still a little leery of the rabbit.

This is the best we could do for a "sit on the bunny's lap" pose.

And out of all of those, one turned out semi-decent. Although he is obviously trying to get away.
  
As for his Easter basket, this was it last year: 




Yes, there is no picture. Because there wasn't one. Poor kid.  So to make up for it, this was Greyden's Easter basket this year:





And, since I was in total Rock Star mode, I made one for Addie too! (Which is a good thing, since Addie's mom was pulling a "Non-Rock Star Leah" from last year).  
  


I even went so far as to fill and hide plastic Easter eggs for him. (We drew the line at dying our own). I totally didn't think he'd catch on to the whole Easter egg hunt thing, so I filled them with puffs, goldfish, yogurt melts, and M&Ms. Oh, how I underestimate the kid. He definitely caught on. He even caught on to the fact that the M&M filled eggs made a different sound than the other ones and proceeded to shake every egg he found, rejecting the ones that didn't rattle loudly enough. Eventually I had to start pre-hunting them just so I could replace the M&Ms with cheese cubes before he demolished an entire bag of M&Ms.



His first Easter egg.

Filled with the disappointing yogurt melts.


I look like I'm trying to help him, but to be honest, I was after those M&Ms too.

Two at once! Must have been loud rattlers.

I just love his hair in this picture. We've since gotten him a much needed haircut. Pictures to come, so be sure to check back in 2014.

Checking to see if there are M&Ms inside before bothering with touching it.

Even baby Addie got in on the action. She had a great time dumping all of the eggs out.

Found his Easter basket!

Skipping the flashcards.....

.....and going right for the Peeps. My kind of kid.
He got bubbles in his basket too!



So did Addie, although she wasn't nearly as thrilled about them.

She also appeared to be slightly nervous about the whole Easter basket thing.
Greyden looks like he's being nice and helping Addie with her eggs. In reality, he's shaking them to make sure he got all of the M&M ones before Addie gets to them.


The greatest part about having babies is being able to put bunny ears on them.

Of course she ate them eventually.













Saturday, May 5, 2012

28 Weeks!


As I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I'm pregnant at all, I realized this morning that I'm just shy of 30 weeks! Holy cow. 30 weeks. That means I only have 10 weeks left. And if you've noticed that the title of this post is 28 weeks, and I'm saying I'm 30 weeks, then you'll realize that I've made about as much progress on my blog as Kevin and I have made on the preparations for baby. Meaning we've done pretty much nothing lately. Well, not exactly nothing. We've had a few weekends that would have been perfect for working on the nursery. So we didn't. Instead we took a Babymoon to Traverse City! Okay, it's not exactly the tropical vacation I had been envisioning, but apparently neither Kevin nor I have the gumption (this is fancy-talk for we're both really lazy) to plan something so extravagant (meaning it involves an airplane). At the same time, my deadline due date is looming, so we figured we really needed to take a vacation quickly. After all, I've been told (oddly enough by both sets of grandparents, over and over and over) that it's easier to find a sitter for one 18-month old than it is to find a sitter for one 18-month old + one newborn. On top of that issue, suddenly and without warning (okay, I may have knew it was coming, I just didn't pay attention), I was in my 3rd trimester. While we could have still planned our quick tropical getaway, the thought of something happening and me delivering Baby Girl in a Jamaican hospital was enough to scrap any ideas we had. Being crammed on a plane didn't exactly sound too enticing either. So we did what every other Michigander does when it's time to go on vacation. We headed Up North!


Luckily Kevin's parents were able to watch Greyden at the last minute or else our Babymoon would have turned into the Hockenberry Family Vacation, which, while it sounds fun, was NOT the intent of this little endeavor. (The actual intent was for Kevin and I to get away ALONE and have wild and crazy sleep, but that's beside the point.) We dropped Junior off at Nana and Papa's and headed toward Traverse for the weekend. Of course the drive up there took us a little while longer than normal, since my dear husband had to stop at Every. Single. Seasonal. Road along the way. This would have been fine had we been in his Jeep and not my Expedition. This was one of the wider roads he found:







I sucked it up quite nicely if I do say so myself. Meaning I only bitched a little. The slight detours were totally worth it though, when we'd get to the end of one of the roads and come out on these views of Lake Michigan and the sand dunes:









Or, better yet, this view:




*Sigh* I love light houses. I definitely live in the right state.


Once we had hit every seasonal road on the Northwest side of the state, we finally rolled into Traverse. Kevin had booked us at the Tamarack Lodge, which is a condo resort. He also booked the Penthouse. Only the best for me he said. Here are some views of our room.









And the view from our balcony:







Have I mentioned how much I love Michigan???


In my opinion, early Spring is the perfect time to visit Traverse City. Yes, it's still a bit cold, but none of the touristy stuff is open yet and it's pretty dead. Perfect. Our first morning there we got up early to watch the sunset and get a jump on our day. HAHAHA! Okay, who am I kidding? We slept in until 9. It was heaven. But after that, we jumped into the car and drove up Old Mission peninsula. It was a gorgeous drive with this little gem at the end of it:






The view from the lighthouse:




On our way back down the peninsula, we happened upon this other little gem:



Yes, that's a winery. Yes, I'm pregnant. My excuse is that it had a stunning view that I just had to see for myself.




And of course you can't just drive into a winery without doing a wine tasting. It would be rude! So we tasted. Unfortunately all I got was the first tiny sip. Kevin got to polish off the goods. Did you know there are 7 wineries on the peninsula? How convenient. We might have done more than one tasting on our little trip. Okay, fine. We did 3. And yes, I got some really weird looks from the employees and other tasters alike. But when it comes to wine, you suck it up and do what you have to do.


Kevin at Black Star Farms winery.


Me holding Kevin's glass at Black Star Farms. I like to pretend.


Both of us pretending to know what we're doing when performing a wine tasting.
After our jaunt around Old Mission, we headed West to the Leelanau Peninsula. Our first stop? Art's Tavern in Glen Arbor for lunch. I had the best burger ever. Morel burger? Yes, please!








After that, we (Kevin) found some more seasonal roads. Again, with views like this, I can't complain.






And with a wife like THIS, Kevin can't complain:




And who'd have guessed it? There are about 50 more wineries around the Leelanau Peninsula! Oh darn. We were good though, I only made Kevin stop at Leelanau Cellars, since I adore their Winter White. And, bonus, they just happened to give unlimited tastings.






So that wraps up my weekend of sin. Yes, that's what Kevin calls it. All because of a couple  four lousy wine tastings. In one day. And a burger that was cooked only to medium. And possibly because we sat in the hot tub in the room both nights too. I'm pretty sure those are both in the Pregnancy No-No manual.


Since the belly shot of me on the beach doesn't exactly count (since you can't see the true size of my fatness, and isn't that the point?), here are a couple more that were taken the day after we got home. Yes, it's a Monday and I'm actually dressed. I mean, I'm actually dressed up. I had to accompany my dad to his cousin's funeral.





Maybe by the time I'm 35 weeks, I'll get those 30 week shots up too. But I wouldn't hold your breath. We'll probably be too busy *coughcough* working on the nursery to take them.