Happy Easter

I'm sleepy tonight, so this is going to be a huge picture blog plus a video. And whatever writing ensues will probably sound a bit drab if it makes sense at all. It would have all been pictures except for some unexplainable reason, some of our Easter pictures got lost after we downloaded them, so I had to post a video instead. Sadly, we completely lost the cute Easter basket pics. But perhaps I should begin at the beginning, which was last Sunday afternoon.

We decided to pack a picnic supper and explore. The first state park we went to was closed b/c all the trails were flooded...in the middle of a drought. So, we went to another place I have wanted to check out on the hunch that it might have a nice paved running trail. It was even better than I expected! Miles of paved trails through woods, past lakes, branching off in places. The joy! Now we have a gorgeous place to jog with that double jogger!

Rhianwen proving she can multi-task by eating her supper and throwing rocks over a log.

Watching the sun set over the lake (she deigned to turn around for us to snap this pic).

The first 2 days of the week were basically spent reading Where in the World Is Henry, a fascinating book examining the concepts of state, country, continent, universe etc. while including children and a lion. This book was confiscated by mommy a couple of months ago b/c mommy was going to go insane if she had to read it one more time. Well, mommy decided it was time to pull it out again, and thus 2 days of reading resulted. It has now resumed its hiding place...to be pulled out some other time.

There's Henry!

Rhianwen did manage to take a few breaks from the book. Here she is helping mommy file some things.

"Well, if you ask me, PSNC Energy should just go under Gas and not have it's own separate folder."

Rhianwen got a cute Easter card from Grandpa and Grandma Nanny Kim. Here she is pointing at the Easter Eggs and Chicks.

"How's my mommy-look?"

Wednesday, playgroup had a little Easter Egg hunt, and this is where Rhianwen experienced her first foil-covered chocolate Easter egg. Yum!

One of Rhianwen's friends came over for most of the day on Thursday, and they had lots of fun although sharing the swing was a bit difficult.

Rhi's friend about to dance to the radio. (I'm trying to keep her anonymous which is why you can't see much of her ;0)

Last Sunday we took some pictures to send to the grandparents and great grandparents. This one reminds me of an illustration you would see in Eloise Wilkin books.


This is the one we sent with Happy Easter written on the bottom via Shutterfly (I should let them pay me for this ad).


We took some this morning before we went to church, but the morning sun was shining a little too brightly, so it's hard to see how CUTE Rhianwen's dress was. Oh, she was so adorable!


I've always made fun of hollow chocolate Easter bunnies until I thought about Rhianwen's Easter basket. Then I decided, hollow bunnies are a fabulous idea! Big bunny, not as much chocolate overdose...brilliant! So, Rhianwen got one along with 2 little eggs with a piece of Gusher candy in each. She ate the ears off, then we hid it for later enjoyment. We also hid Easter eggs in the yard, some with special Gusher candy pieces.

After we found all of the eggs, we dyed some real ones. The first one ended up dropped and cracking, but we'll eat it anyway.

Rhianwen doing a great job.


The finished product.

We ended the day with a fun Easter dinner at Mary, Brian, and Hannah's house. It was delicious, mommy ate way too much and felt fat for it, and we had fun enjoying each other's company to the point that a last minute picture was taken of Rhianwen and Hannah playing before we called it a night.



Once back at home, Rhianwen got to say "Hi" and "Easter Egg" to Grandpa and Grandma Nanny Kim who had called to chat with us and who probably thought she'd be in bed. Wednesday, we'll be dropping Rhianwen off at their house and then going to FL on Thursday for Wally's brother's wedding. This will be the first time that Rhianwen spends an extended period of time without us. I just hope she'll do well and enjoy being with Grandpa and Grandma Nanny Kim!

Clemson Beat Duke!

Although Clemson lost the ACC championship game to UNC, they got there by beating Duke (something more important in Wally's book). He took this video of Rhianwen after the win. Yes, it is a long shameless Clemson pep rally, but so cute!

We have been loving the warm spring weather and longer afternoons. I finally can take walks with Wally again after he gets home from work. We bought some sunglasses for Rhianwen at Target the other week, and she's enjoyed wearing them. I think the eye pieces are set a teeny bit too close together for her eyes, but they are cute anyway!

Sporting her new shades.

Here is a picture of Rhianwen throwing things into the creek from the bridge. Now you know what a terrifying drop it is (on both sides)!




This week Rhianwen showed new climbing skills all over the place. She climbed all kinds of ladders at different playgrounds, one even 10 feet tall and convoluted. I only let her do that one once b/c it was a little too high for me to spot her from the ground. Scary! At that playground, a mom asked me if her name meant "Daredevil" b/c she did all of the highest scariest things! I told her, nope, that she just took after her daddy. This pic shows her in our backyard climbing the circles up the side of her slide.

Climbing to the top, but then what?

We went to a HUGE consignment sale (like 600 sellers) and got a few new toys, books, and clothes for Rhianwen and Baby T. She loves her new cars and "men", and I'm so excited b/c it's something I've been wanting to get her for a long time.

Pushing her cars around.

We bought a HUGE jug of bubbles a while back but have never opened them. The outside of the jug had promises of a wand included inside, but upon opening, no wand could be seen. I guess they forgot to tell us that it was invisible, so Wally made a wand out of a coat hanger that we got from the consignment sale, and it actually worked quite well.

This is about the sloppiest my child looks, it was the 2nd or 3rd outfit of the day, and I was lazy and didn't do the snaps or anything. But it's perfect for outside play!

Great Grandma has recently had hip replacement surgery and is now recovering at a nursing home, where she is receiving physical therapy 6 days a week. So, I decided to take some pics of Rhianwen to send her. I just couldn't resist putting one up on the blog. Rhianwen is such a cutie!

Peeking around the camera for a look at mommy.

In more funniness, we have been taking stock of baby stuff and painting Baby T.'s room. (We got the exact double jogger we wanted off of craigslist for cheaper than the cheapest stroller we had found at the store! We are SO excited.) Anyway, this has been a time of rediscovery for Rhianwen. Here she found that her old infant car seat was quite the stylish lounge chair. Of course, a chat on the phone was a must. Here she had used daddy's cell phone to call our house number (unintentionally), and she is talking to daddy on the phone.


In a way, I feel like this pic sums up her life right now...sitting in her infant seat but using a cell phone. She is still such a little oo, but growing and maturing so quickly. I was just thinking the other day, we raise our children and encourage them to be self-sufficient and caring, but then I was wondering if there was ever a time when we didn't need our moms and dads/older and wiser people. When put that way, it sounds like a rhetorical question. But it seems funny to me that I still need my mom and dad even though I am grown and out of the house! I suppose I could live without them, but there would be a void. It's not that Wally and I don't operate as a separate household, but we value the years of experience, the wisdom, and the support we still get from our parents. So I've decided, that I should stop thinking, "When is she going to be more self-sufficient?" Because, really, I hope she will always know she can come to us to ask for advice, support, and love.

Oh, how could I forget?! I published the post and remembered, this week was Rhianwen's first bloody nose. I mean gushing. She was riding on daddy's leg and bounced off of him and into the floor. Boy was that a sad sight to see. She didn't seem to mind the blood, but hated all of the attention we were giving to her nose.

Dankoo

Toddler life is so hard to keep up with! The week just flies by with much fun, cuteness, and sweetness (along with some not so fun temper tantrums), and I get to the end and think, "What happened?"

Well, one major thing that happened is that Aunt Clara and Uncle Brooks got engaged! A lot of people have been slipping up calling Mr. Brooks "Uncle Brooks", but now, it'll be true :) We are very excited, and they said not to worry, they wouldn't schedule their wedding for July, so hopefully Baby T. will come along and be able to enjoy the festivities of their wedding in the fall.

Yes, unfortunately it is still Baby T. The strange thing is, I had this dream that convinced me that the name had to be the more traditional one that Wally liked. I was SO convinced, but I decided to tell Wally later since I woke up around 3am with this revelation! Then, the same morning at breakfast, Wally said, "You know, I've been thinking about the names, and I really like the Celtic one and its meaning and how it seems to kind of match or go along with Wallace (ie. the middle name)." So, we are still at an impasse. Sigh! My mom is about to go crazy wondering what it's going to be, and she's just started calling him by the traditional name for peace of mind.

One of the reasons why I have problems remembering what happened is that by the time I find the camera, get it on, and ready, Rhianwen has moved on to other things than what I had wanted a picture of. For example, in the picture below, Rhi was spending a good 5 minutes trying to get her shoes on, and I was trying to get a picture of her sitting patiently on the floor with the shoe halfway on a pj'ed foot, but instead got a picture of her bringing the shoes to me!

She does look so cute though.

Spring has arrived, and we have had a lot of fun outside despite the wetness, for which we are very grateful. Our creek is now really a creek, and Rhianwen loves going out there to throw sweet-gum balls, sticks, berries, dirt etc. down into the water. The bigger the splash, the better. She loves to sit on my lap and lean way over and look down at the rocks and flowing water. We even saw a big crawdad the other day traveling upstream. Our hawk was trying to eat him, I think, b/c we saw the hawk diving into the creek, but I guess either he got another one, or this one escaped. Another enjoyment are flowers. Lots of violets have sprung up around Rhianwen's slide, and she will pick them and bring them to me. She also loves throwing the spent pansy blooms that I remove into the watering can. And of course, playing in any standing water is fun along with digging up dirt and mud. We get quite messy now. Rhianwen and daddy planted a bunch of vegetable seeds the other night, and they are waiting to see some sprouts. It'll be fun in the summer to go picking with her.

In devotions, we rediscovered the Wiseman/Foolishman Song, which Rhianwen affectionately calls, "Sing Rain". She loves that it has motions to go along with the words. We tried getting a video, but as with most toddlers, she was more in the mood for finding a book for mommy to read than for doing what we wanted to do :) Hence, the song is a little abbreviated, oh, and mommy needs to pay attention to the words.

We have been considering getting Rhianwen a "realish" looking babydoll and stroller later on this year for when Baby T arrives so that she has something she can nurture, but she finds plenty of her own toys to do this with now. As you know, Snowbear reigns supreme in this area to the point that we have put a diaper on Snowbear at bedtime a few nights this week per Rhianwen's request. But she has also found that "the man" is fun to rock in the LaZBoy, and today she was tucking him under her arm to rock.

"The Man".

I've read that the average 2 year old learns 20 new words a day. She's not 2, but she certainly can repeat almost anything we say, and many words are staying in her vocabulary. She also will speak in paragraphs, though most of the time it's toddler language that makes no sense to us. She got really excited about helping daddy work on his truck this past weekend, and was talking up a storm to him while doing it, but alas, we could not interpret her monologue. I'm a little sad that I am not fluent in some foreign language, so that she could benefit from her natural ability to pick up words without effort. We still can't get our minds around preschool for 2 year olds though, so for now it will be the English language with a few Spanish words mixed in. Maybe we should look into tv shows, I just find the glazed transfixed look a little creepy.

Oh, I almost forgot the title of this post. Rhianwen is learning to say "Thank you"/"Dankoo". It's so pleasant to hear!

Big Girl Bed, Pretend, and Baby T Names....not to be

Last weekend we got a "big girl" bed for Rhianwen. We were SO excited about it b/c it was a trundle bed, only $175 on Craigslist, barely used, solid wood, AND made in the USA! Plus when Wally got there, they took $25 off b/c it had a chip on part of the wood. We took Rhianwen to try out mattresses at the Original Mattress Factory and got 2, one for the trundle and one for the top. We figured, if we don't use the trundle enough, we can always use the extra mattress for the next bed! Then, we went to Target to get FUN monkey sheets. We salvaged an old flat hardish pillow from daddy's childhood (personally, I feel great about this b/c imagining my baby on a nice fluffy feather pillow just makes me worry about suffocation) and a cute comforter from mommy's childhood, got a safety rail, and have yet to get a mattress cover (hopefully tomorrow!). Rhianwen was super excited about the whole thing. We let her play on it for a week so she could get used to it and talked it up big about her sleeping in it soon.

Her new bed including fun monkey sheets (see pillow).

Since daddy had such a busy week, we waited until yesterday to try to get her to sleep in it when she could experience normalcy in the usual bedtime ritual with both mommy AND daddy there. Rhianwen cried like she does when we stay at an unusual place, and daddy had to go back in and redo the "Jesus Loves Me" song and had to pray again, but after that she calmed down, rolled around for a little, and went to sleep. She slept until about 5:30am when she woke up for a minute and called for mommy, but we didn't go in, and she went right back to sleep. When she woke up for real at 7am, the first thing she said was, "Monkeys!"(referring to her fun sheets). And she went on rolling around and talking happily until she decided she wanted "Ceyal" aka cereal. We both went in there and celebrated with her, took some pics, and got breakfast. What a good girl she is!

Happy to see all the fuss we're making about it.

Today, we put her down for a nap, and she took a whole hour to go to sleep, BUT she stayed in her bed the entire time and just had a good ole time by herself!!!! Shocking! Tonight, she pretty much went right down with just a little bit of a fuss at the end. But much better than last night. Soon it'll be time to get the crib out of her room! She really amazes me sometimes.

Pretending has been a new fun thing for Rhianwen recently. She continues to find new things to do with Snowbear, like putting her in the highchair and trying to strap her in.

"How's that?"

I've also let Rhianwen keep her yogurt container and spoon after her afternoon snack so that she can pretend to feed Snowbear, her dolls, rocking horse etc.

Feeding her dollies.

Saturday, we sampled some double joggers in preparation for the upcoming arrival. It'll be a hard decision. The 2 we looked at had different features, and we wish we could find one that had all of them for an affordable price. Well, we will see, but Rhianwen enjoyed getting to try them out.

As far as names go, I have some definite NO ways! I mean, when you get a book from the library called 55,000+ names, you don't really expect to find suggestions like J, J., Demon, and Suck Chin. But, there you go. They were in there; I guess they were just desperate to hit the record number of names so that when you peruse the shelf you think, "Hm, well here is one with 20,000 names, oh, no, wait, here is one with 33,000. AH HA! Here is one with 55,000, might as well go with the book with the most options." Sucker! At least I didn't buy it. That being said, I did find some options, and we have narrowed it down to 2 names, one more traditional and one Celtic. But we are split on which to choose. The middle name will definitely be Wallace b/c I love that it comes from William Wallace (Braveheart) who is in Wally's family line. It's just TOO cool a connection to ignore. But Wally flatly refused to have a IV (he is Hugh Wallace T. the III) b/c he lived with the other 2 in the same house and it got very confusing. Don't know what will convince me one way or the other, but I really want to pin it down so I can think of baby T as that name. It'll give him a whole perceived personality (don't know if that is good or bad, but that is how I am with names). Names just give me a feeling when I hear them. Like Demon...well, that gives me the feeling of calling on the name of Jesus...that's not so bad, but...um, well...you know, Demon kind of gives you a creepy feeling in the back of your spine.