Construction woes and giggles

Kyle's fascination with tractors has been ongoing since he was old enough to point and grunt "oo, oo, oooo" whenever he saw one. Our neighborhood is pretty much a construction zone with houses going up on all sides of us. Since moving in to this house Kyle has spent countless hours like this:

Both kids are very heavy sleepers (thank you Jesus!) so the various crashes, bangs and seemingly endless cacophony of living in a construction zone rarely disrupts nap time. Except for today. I have no idea what was so different about the sounds eminating from the new house next door, but Kyle would not go to sleep. Not even for a nano-second. Most of us know what if feels like to be sleep deprived, but maybe you've never thought of what it may look like. Until now. By 5:00 Kyle was bouncing rapidly between every emotion nameable including whiny and completely distraught/inconsolable to giddy. One second he was throwing himself on the floor to bury his face in his Bobo and the next he was doing things like this:

 

and then there was this:

That would be a pajama shirt on his legs and pajama pants on his head. Of course this was one of the nights when Daddy had a meeting after work and so needless to say by 8:00 both kids were in their pajamas and we were cruising the streets in the Pilot. It worked like a charm and within half an hour we were all back home, the itty bitties both off in dream land.

A tea party

Nothing witty or funny to say here, just sharing a simple moment on Livesay Lane.

Spring, where art thou?

Spring-like days have been few and far, far between this year, and so when the sun peaked out and the thermometer climbed up into the 70s today, we celebrated! A perfect day for the debut of shorts and sweet little baby sun hats

What could be better for a little boy than a yard completely devoid of grass but filled to the brim with dirt, glorious dirty dirt just perfect for scyooping?!?!! Kyle doesn't realize how lucky he is to have a Nana that never throws anything away. See those trucks? They are heavy duty, real metal trucks the Travis used to play with as a little man. I have no idea where Nana keeps all of the stuff she has, but I've learned that she has an endless supply of treasures hoarded stored away, and you just never know when something wonderful is going to appear. It just so happens that another one of these wonderful surprises brought out from storage is responsible for my basement continuously being in this state:

Oh, this may not seem so bad, but this is just the beginning. The choo-choos and tracks have just been liberated from their storage container and the state of this room within 30 minutes is far too shocking to share with you today.

With Emily supervising, Papa came over to help Travis hang the shutters on the front windows.

The next project for the two Mr. Livesays to tackle? A big, beautiful porch across the front of the house, I can't wait!

Being so cute is truly taxing work, isn't it Emmie? See that Newcastle on the step? Having learned a lesson from when Kyle was 1 we are determined to postpone Emily's introduction to the warm weather beverage of choice on Livesay Lane, as having too many pictures like this floating around just wouldn't be good for our reputation:

The Party

As long as the itty bitties are, well, itty bitty, we will probably have one joint birthday party for Kyle and Emily. Partly to help mama keep her sanity semi-intact, and partly as a favor to our family and friends. Being the intelligent mother that I am, I do realize that eventually this plan will not work indefinitely, and that the day will come when Kyle will not want to share his birfday,  not even with his Elowee.

Both of the kids were sleeping as all of the guest arrived, and one by one Daddy went to wake up the littles. I wish I had captured the moments on film, but alas you will just have to relive the moment in your imagination. Kyle was first, and as he rounded the corner, bobo in hand, he was less than excited to see a room full of people when all he usually wants is to cuddle with mom or dad upon waking from his nap. It took a few minutes for the scene to set in, but once he spied the balloons and presents, he was all smiles.

Emily took a little longer to warm up to the crowd. Holding onto daddy's fingers as she walked down the hall, she rounded the corner, stopped, eyes became huge and then .....tears. I think she was so upset because she realized that Daddy hadn't put on her special birthday outfit that Mama and Grannie had been working so hard to finish. Off we went back to her bedroom for a quick wardrobe change. Re-emerging as a little princess:

 There were still some tears until she spied all the pretty presents

and then she was all smiles!

Friends, family, food, balloons, presents, and of course, cake!

 Obviously that purple frosting was just too tempting

 Happy Birthday Emmie!

Happy Birthday Ky!

Emily had a similar response to her 1st birthday cake as Kyle did to his ~ bewilderment. Even the tempting pink frosting didn't evoke the usual baby-sees-cake-baby-grabs-handfuls-of-cake-and-shoves-in-face response. Being the ever helpful big brother that he is, Kyle decided to show Emily exactly what one does when faced with a delicious chunk of sugary goodness by offering to "eat her"

There were tons of gifts to celebrate the day, and in the end obvious favorites had emerged

The perfect ending to a perfect day? The post-sugar-high-sugar-coma-crash. Good night everyone!

Happy Birthday Emmie!

Dearest Emily,

Every day I am amazed at how quickly you are changing from the tiny baby girl that entered our lives at 12:20 p.m. one year ago today.

Your first year has been full of first moments, joyful memories and countless giggles and smiles. You are precious and beautiful, slow to anger but quick to laugh. You adore your big brother and are patient and tolerant of his too rough hugs and kisses, and even seem to enjoy the wrestling matches he randomly attempts to engage you in.

You love to laugh and are easy to console when you cry. Your biggest smiles seem to reserved for your daddy, and I do believe your favorite part of the day just may be when he walks in the door every evening. You are well on your way to being Daddy's girl!

 Most mornings I walk in to your room to find you playing in your crib, and you greet me with a beaming smile and a whispered "Hi!" You are curious and not afraid to explore, and even though you are not walking on your own yet, I believe you are holding out on us because you enjoy being held and cuddled and aren't quite ready to leave the comfort of being carried behind quite yet. I'll let you in on a little secret, we still carry Kyle around all the time because we aren't quite ready to leave the comfort of being needed behind quite yet.

One of the memories I will always cherish about you comes from our night time routine. Since you were about 5 or 6 months old you have loved being tipped over backwards. It has always made you belly laugh when you are tipped upside down and daddy tap, tap, taps you under your chin. Every night I rock you in your room as you drink a bottle before bed, and one night when you were about 10 months old you had just finished your bottle and you turned to me, buried your head in my shoulder to snuggle for a bit, and then looked up at me with a twinkle in your eye. You put your little hands on my chest and shoved backwards, arching your back until you were upside down. I held you like that for a little while until you tried to sit up, only to have you repeat the process as many times as I would let you. From that night on, this is the game we play every night before you go to bed.

Something else we'll always remember about you as a baby, your love for socks. Any sock will do, and often times if you were upset just the sight of a sock across the room was enough to calm you and make you smile.

Happy birthday my precious Emily, today we celebrate you!

 1 month

 2 months

 3 months

 4 months

 5 months

 6 months

 7 months

 

8 months

 9 months

 10 months

 11 months

1 year

No matter how old you are, you will always be my darling baby girl, and I promise that you will never be too big to crawl into my lap for a snuggle and a cuddle.

Cuteness

Nothing newsworthy to report, but there has been a ton of cuteness happening lately.

That's all.