The Kiddos and the Month of May

Eli is going to be 2 pretty soon! How did that happen? He sure is growing up fast, he has always been a big talker but recently, his vocabulary and sentence structure is noticably advancing every day. I read on BabyCenter.com that kids this age can learn up to 10 new words a day, I definitely notice this in Eli's case. It's crazy how quickly toddlers grow and change all the time. It's neat to watch but also sad, where did my baby go!? Oh wait, I have another baby so it's ok. But no, she's 8-months-old already! She'll be a toddler soon, too. I can't handle it! Anyway Here's some pictures of the kids lately.

Jason and I, while in the same room, were not really paying attention to Eli. Then we looked over and this is what we saw, he had put the Bumbo on the couch all by himself, stole Kyah's bink, found these glasses somewhere and was watching tv just like this.

Daddy taking a nap. Kyah obviously wasn't tired.

First time in the high chair.

I've been a big advocate of glass bottles... until I realized that babies can hold their own bottle, thus making my life much easier, when their bottles are plastic. So I swtiched to plastic... I know, way to stick to my guns : (

Someone traded in her bink for her thumb!

She finally learned how to sit up on her own at 7 1/2 months. A little behind the norm but I'm just relieved she can finally do it, another thing that makes life easier!

And she became mobile... not quite crawling but rolling and scooting all over the place.

In May, both of the kids got the stomach bug... TWICE! Jason and I got it the first time around, it took us all about a week to fully recover and the very next week, the kids got it again! It was much worse the second time around. Eli pretty much didn't move from this spot on the couch for 48 straight hours. Poor guy... I was terrified that I was going to get it again, too, but fortunately I didn't. The hardest part about motherhood, in my opinion, is that you can never call in sick! If my kids get sick I can take care of them, but if I'm sick, too, then it's really hard and I feel sorry for myself.

He threw up on all his "bees" (Eli's term for blanky), so I had to give him one of Kyah's.

New Cars sippy cups! YAY

Kyah got her own sippy cup to try out, too. 

Eli decided to empty out his entire bucket of toys for "Loo Loo" (his name for Kyah). What a sweet big brother. I'm pretty sure most of the toys at the bottom of that bucket have never seen the light of day... He only wants to play with a ball of some sort.

Now that Kyah's mobile, if I take my eye off her for a minute, there's no tellin' where she'll go!

Kyah's turn with the tummy bug. Eli never had stomach flu when he was a baby and now she's already had it twice! Poor thing.

Magic City Mudder:

When I was at the gym back in February, I saw an advertisement for a muddy 5k. I grabbed the brochure and threw it in my bag without paying much attention to it. Later that night I handed it to Jason and said we should do it as a fun couples activity. He didn't pay any attention to the brochure either and just went to the website and signed us up. As the race approached, we went to the website and there was a video we watched of footage from past races, it suddenly dawned on us that we had signed ourselves up for a pretty intense race. Jason said it was going to be like a Tough Mudder, which I've heard about and am terrified of! Anyway, I was really scared but we went to the race and according to the officials, in comparison to a Tough Mudder, this race had the same number of obstacles, but was only half the distance. So, not a Tough Mudder, thankfully! It was really hard though. It wasn't like running a 5k on flat land, it was more like running up a mountain, on rocky dirt trails, with a bunch of obstacles and muddy lakes you had to wade through. I had just gotten over the stomach flu and not to mention, I've been pregnant and or nursing for almost 3 years, plus taking care of two babies all the time doesn't allow me to work out that much (I know I said I go to the gym, but Eli cries and the nursery workers come and get me after only 20 minutes all the time). So, needless to say, I'm certainly not at my physical peak, and yes, I was a pathetic site. I did finish though, in over an hour! Jason stayed with me the whole time but I think I was painstakingly slow for him... he runs every day though! Anyway, this race has inspired me to get back into fighting shape and run a real Tough Mudder... not this cheap knock off ; ) We'll see if that actually happens!

I wish you could see just how muddy we actually are. The picture just doesn't do it justice.

Kyah-Lynn can ride in the grocery cart now! What a big girl :)

She's in the stage where she LOVES the shopping cart because it's new and different to her, while Eli's in the stage where he hates it and cries (kicks/screams, same difference?) every time I put him in it. But at Costco they can sit next to each other in the cart, and it makes them both happy!

Kyah HATES snuggles! You know how a baby falls asleep while you feed them? Well, if I don't lay her down immediately after she's done eating, and try to sneak in a few minutes of snuggle time, she wakes up screaming her head off like I have seriously violated her. It's ridiculous. She's such a girl. But on this particular occasion, I finished feeding her and tried to snuggle her a bit, and she actually let me! It was the best! Look how cute she is? I made Jason take a picture (while I pretended to sleep) to document the rare occasion. 

Playing "Shoop." His favorite activity.

That's May!

New Orleans

Jason and his friend (except I really refer to him as his boyfriend) Brent, both turn 30 this year! So, Tara (Brent's wife), thought it would be fun to surprise them both with a trip/joint birthday celebration. We managed to plan most of the trip without telling them about it, but we both eventually caved and told them. They were so excited! Jason and Brent have a serious "bromance." I sometimes feel threatened... just kidding. Anyway, Since they live in Texas and we're here in Alabama, there aren't many vacation hot spots between us besides New Orleans, it's pretty much the only place we could think of to go that wouldn't require plane tickets. In May Jason got a couple of weeks off of school between the end of Spring semester and the beginning of Summer semester, so it was the perfect time to make the trip. We had so much fun! New Orleans is kind of a ridiculous place for young Mormon families with 4 kids under the age of 2 to go... but we just embraced it and enjoyed every minute! 

Jason and Brent woke up early and played racquet ball everyday, we also went to the park so they could throw the football, hit pop flies, etc... all the stuff boys love to do but never have enough time for.  The rest of the trip seemed to revolve around food. There's just so many unique foods that New Orleans is famous for. Of course we had to try everything! Anyway, here are the pics:

 

 Eli liked Tucker's cowboy boots.

Unfortunately this was our only trip to the pool. It rained most of our trip.

 Eli was kind of a wuss, last year he loved the pool but this year he was scared and wouldn't get in. Every time we tried to put him in he cried.

Daddy and baby bug, she loved the water!

 Tucker trying to show Eli the ropes... Eli did eventually get in and has since mastered all fear of water. He dives in when I'm not even watching! It's scary.

Ha ha! Fearless!

 The famous Cafe Du Monde. All tourists must go here to eat beignets. Except, we realized you can get way tastier beignets at other (less touristy) places.

These were still really good though!

 Kyah-Lynn and Austen loved their beignets!

YUMMY!

 Boiled crawfish. Also, YUMMY! You maybe have to be an adventurous eater to enjoy some of the food in New Orleans.

We had no idea how to eat a crawfish, so this guy was nice enough to give us a quick tutorial. 

Atta girl!

We did a horse-drawn carriage and cemetery tour:

 The cemeteries are all above ground because New Orleans is technically below sea level. They are pretty neat and definitely have some creepy stories. For instance, the one above on the left had all these XXX marks on it and random stuff left there as "offerings." I guess the tomb belongs to a Pagan Goddess or something? Our tour guide told a lot of crazy ghost stories, he kept saying "We have ghosts in this town like termites, it's ridiculous!" Ha ha. He literally said it 5 times throughout the tour, we couldn't get over it. Maybe you had to be there?

 Look alive kids! Is it even possible to get a decent family picture with young children?

We thought if the carriage went down Bourbon street then we could say we'd been there without actually having to "go" there.

 It was a little bit shocking!

 Kyah's got her thumb in her mouth! In fact, she has now almost completely converted from her binky.

 Irene's for dinner. Our carriage tour guide recommended this place and I'll admit it was good but honestly, don't take children there.

 Teri, if you read this blog, Jason took this picture for you. Apparently this is your favorite place? And PS, Dale's gumbo was not matched on this trip!

A pretty site that I don't remember the name of.

The boys loved this fire truck!

 The next day we at breakfast at the Ruby Slipper, it was so good! 

The food!

 Sometimes maybe, just maybe, I put some Coke in Eli's sippy cup in order for me to enjoy my dining experiences. Tucker saw Eli drinking Coke and wanted some, too, so I let him him borrow Eli's cup for a little while. Brent was not too happy that I used my bad parenting tactics on his child... but Tucker really liked the Coke! Maybe they were both a little bit hyper later...

Not happy.

Look at Tucker in the corner downing every last drop of that coke! It's a little bit funny, right?

 City Park was an awesome place! They had a little amusement park for kids and huge open grass areas where Jason and Brent got to play catch. Unfortunately, it started pouring rain so we weren't able to stay as long as we would have liked, but the time we did get to spen was a lot of fun.

That's pretty cute!

 Kyah doesn't like baby Mum-Mums, but if we give her a packet of them unopened, she will chew on them all day. And this particular day, she chewed on this packet for at least 5 hours.

 Enjoying another fire truck! Eli didn't want to leave this truck, every time we tried to move on to a different thing, he cried to go back to the truck.

I haven't actually been on a big slide like that since I was little. It was kind of scary!

 Notice she's still got her Mum-Mums packet!

Playing baseball in the rain.

I have to say traveling with Tucker was awesome. I want to borrow him for all of our trips! He and Eli played so well together, it made our jobs as parents a piece of cake!

 Oysters on the half shell.

The little ladies.

 I gave Kyah some of the bread from my Po-Boy, she loved it and as you can see, made quite a big mess!

As I said, these boys played great together. We were all just hanging out in the hotel room and we look over and saw they had both climbed in the stroller all by themselves!

That's all! It was such a fun trip, we ate so much food the whole drive home Jason and I kept talking about how much we needed to go on a diet the next day... unfortunately, of fortunately (depending on how you look at it) we were all greeted with an awful case of the stomach bug the day after we got home! Not only did we forget about going on a diet, I am proud to say that after 7 months, I finally reached, actually no, I exceeded my pre-pregnancy weight! Well, for like a week until I gained it all back. Ha, but still!