Bunnies. Baseball. Battlestar Gallactica.

OK, so there's no Battlestar Gallactica in this post, but we have plenty of bunnies and baseball!

In Bunny news, the Easter Bunny came to our house! Miles was over the moon about the whole thing, especially finding the eggs. We had (literally) about a hundred plastic eggs, so he was busy. We were a little worried when we couldn't find one of the hard-boiled ones, but luckily it turned up by Wednesday in Miles' pirate ship!




When I say we have plenty of bunnies, that means more than just the Easter Bunny. We have enough chocolate bunnies to feed an army of munchkin chocoholics. Miles is obsessed with his candy and has finally stopped "just looking" at his basket five times a night.

Marshall whines and points at Miles' candy, but it's not winning us over! It helps that he had his first trip to the dentist on April 2. All looked good, although he'll likely inherit my "buckies", with a big gap in between his front teeth. You can catch a glimpse of his cute littles teefers in his one-year pics:



We have been quite the baseball family lately! As part of a spring break mini-trip, we did an overnight in Louisville and went to the Slugger Museum. Everyone had a great time! We saw Joey Votto's bat being made, played a little in the tee-ball batting cage, and Miles broke the rules by swinging a real bat for the picture:





Yesterday, we had a great day at Victory field for an Indians vs. Mud Hens double header. Miles kept saying that he wanted them to tie so he wouldn't have to pick, and he got his wish...sort of. We watched the Indians win the first game but left in extra innings before the Mud Hens won the second game. We started up in the rafters, but it kept us out of the sun for a little while.



After the first game, Miles insisted on conducting a mission to find his friend Eli. Luckily, we found him (with Mom and Dad Garrett, of course) sitting right behind home plate. We elbowed our way in to some empty seats near them and enjoyed the rest of the game in style! It was a great day.

Year One? Done.

My little boy is now a BIG boy! Marshall is a big one-year old.

As tended to be the theme of his first year, Marshall was sick but generally happy enough to stick his way through it for his birthday. We started the day at the doctor's office. The fun stuff - he is 50% in height. Didn't get an actual number, but the charts say that is around 29-30 inches. His weight was down to 10%...19ish pounds. Head stays tiny at 5%. If his 12-month shots weren't bad enough, the doc also said he had another ear infection and pink eye. This was after we went to MedCheck on Sunday (after a 103 fever) and they said he just had a virus...ears and eyes looked fine.

Nevertheless, he seemed in good spirits, and it just seemed depressing to spend another day at home, so we took him to the Children's Museum for a little bit as planned. Shhhhhh...Miles must NEVER know! We decided this was (and might be) the only time Marshall gets both parents to himself to do what he wants. He really enjoyed his time in Playscape and even tolerated the carousel.

We had lots of fun at his party on Saturday. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and we spent a lot of it outside.

It took Marshall a little while to get into his cake, but he got the hang of it. He was even more into it on his actual birthday, even licking the plate!

I am amazed at how big he suddenly seems. When he did this, I could hardly believe my eyes:




I can't leave big brother out of this post. Check out his genius idea to lure Peyton Manning back to the Colts:

Combover No More

Well, crap. I had this entire post written, and, thanks to the "genius" of my iPhone, I accidentally deleted it. So here goes round #2...if it seems a little rushed and flat, you'll know why.

Marshall got his first hair cut today! Why, you may ask, does this baldy need a trim?

...because he had a baby combover, that's why! He had this 4-inch lock of hair behind his ear that reminded me a lot of my Grandpa Woodling's 'do in the 80s. With that and the scruff over his ears, we figured it would be good to spruce him up a bit for his big First Birthday party this weekend.

He did a fantastic job! He only squirmed a little and didn't shed a single tear, unlike his big brother Miles' first haircut.

Marshall is a big boy in more ways than one. He is getting to be pretty good at walking with help. He wants to walk everywhere that he can - his little black Chuck Taylors are getting worn out! He's down to holding on with one hand now. Marshall also is pretty much on to big boy food now and will start to move away from bottles soon. He gets really mad when he doesn't have the same food as the rest of the family, and he insists on having a spoon or fork just like the big people.

Here he is a while back, with his walking toy:



Miles is also growing so quickly. He continues to love pre-school and is learning so much. I'm not sure if I'm just a proud mama, but I would say that he is "pre-reading" now. He recognizes simple words like "go" and can take a guess in context with the pictures as to what some words are. The other day he guessed correctly when he said, "Does that sign say Applebee's?". Now, it's true that they do have an apple on their sign, but he's only only eaten at Applebee's about twice in his life. If he had correctly guessed what the McDonald's sign said, that would be a completely less-impressive story.

He also loves to sing and dance. Here are his "moves like Jagger":



We had a fun time a few weekends ago in Lexington, celebrating cousin Natalie's baptism. Other than infecting the entire Kolb family with strep throat, it was great bonding with the cousins!

Okay, computer's getting ready to die, and I'll be damned if I lose another post. More from Marshall's birthday to come!

Snippets

Marshall is growing by the minute! He's now 11 months old and is really developing a fun personality. He's getting really playful and can get around like a champ by crawling or cruising along the couch. He's shoveling as much food in as we give him and pretty much eats whatever we do. He thinks his brother is hilarious and loves waving to him when he goes on buggy rides at school.

Check out the fun he had at Monkey Joe's last week:



Speaking of hilarious brothers, here are some Miles story snippets:

Me: "Miles, how did you get so big?"
Miles: "Because I growed up and had all my birthdays!"

Miles (while watching the Butler/Valpo basketball game): "He's not wearing any shirt!"
Me: "Yeah, crazy frat boys. Are you going to be a crazy frat boy like that when you're in college?"
Miles: "Noooo..."
Me: "Are you going to be in the band?"
Miles: "Yep." (Thinking...) "No, I'm not going to be in the band, I'm going to be a football player!"
Lord help us...

During bedtime prayers: "Mommy, I'm turning to the wall, but I still love you and I still think you're pretty."

Me: "Do you want to wear your overalls tomorrow? Grammy got them for you and she would love to see you wearing them."
Miles: "Those big pants? I'll look like Steve Urkel!"

Me: "Tell Daddy what you told me about Bible Time today."
Miles: "I don't remember..."
Me: "What happen with the jailors? When the locks fell off? The earth..."
Miles: "There was an erf-queek."
Daddy: "An earthquake? What happened?"
Miles (paraphrased): "Well, the Cat in the Hat is inside the earf, and he kept turning this ham machine and it made a queeking sound, and that was an earf-queek."

Miles, out of the blue: "Mommy. Daddy doesn't listen to you."
Me: "I know! You're right."
Miles: "I listen to you. Marshall listens to you. But Daddy doesn't listen to you."

Brothers!

My Funny Valentine, Sweet Grumpy Valentine

Oh, how times have changed.

I like to think I've been a low maintenance wife when it comes to Hallmark holidays. I've enjoyed some wonderful gifts, some candlelit dinners, some fancy chocolates...

But as nice as all of those were, they still weren't as lovely as the first Valentine's Day with three Valentines. I got a nice bouquet of flowers, yet that's a monthly occurence in our house (isn't he the best?). We had nice sit-down meal as a family...of Applebee's takeout ($5 after tip, minus gift card). Jason and I enjoyed some quality time together, snuggled on the couch watching Butler basketball (I fell asleep at 9:00).

It was not overly exciting, but it was just a good day to remind me of how lucky I am to have my Valentines. Marshall was pretty grumpy most of the morning and evening. I couldn't manage a very good picture of him in his Snoopy shirt, but it's the same one Miles wore.

Miles was his normal goofy self. My favorite story of the day...

I've been trying to teach Miles that, unless the person knows you're being funny, it's rude to stick out your tongue at someone. When he did that during Valentine's dinner, I gave him the evil eye. He immediately said, "Sorry. I meant to stick out my bottom and shake my booty instead." Yeah...cuz that's better. :-)

In long overdue video news, check out the boys' new YouTube channel.

What's Happenin'

I hate to take the tone of the cheesy family newsletter, but, well, that's just what cha gotta do when you only blog once a month. Here goes...

Marshall is getting to be such a big boy! As always, he's pretty darn smiley, even when the poor kid gets pink eye and an ear infection and teething at the same time!

He now has two "vampire" teeth poking through on top - looks like they aren't the front teeth but the ones on either side. Good thing, because he's been eating all kinds of big boy food! Other than cereal, he's pretty much off the baby food and eats whatever we eat. He eats chicken, black beans, Cheerios (of course), and many other things, but his favorite is spaghetti sauce!




Marshall is also babbling a lot. He has what seems to be a pretty good handle on "dada", although he did look at the TV the other day and call Mitt Romney his dada. Hmmmmm...

He's cruising pretty well along furniture and enjoys "walking" while holding both hands. Here's a video of both...and a close call of a potential wipe out!

Miles has been continuing to do very well at pre-school. The latest news is that he has "two girlfriends and one boyfriend": Scarlett, Maleah, and Collin. Thankfully, Scarlett is back in his good graces, I guess after coloring me a picture at school (always suck up to the mom...works every time). At once point in time, they had apparently broken up because, according to Miles, she "told too many stories."

Miles has about 50 toys from Christmas that he hasn't touched more than once, but he's really been enjoying his Transformers. He's also been doing lots of imagination play, especially when it comes to Super Heroes. We spent the better part of tonight, includiing our trip to Jimmy John's, pretending to be Batman (Miles), Robin (Marshall), and Wonder Woman (Mommy). Luckily I didn't have to literally dress the part because, as Miles says, "Wonder Woman doesn't wear a shirt - she just wears underwear." OoooK.

Miles' biggest Big Boy Change is that he's now taking swimming lessons at the Y. He has been truly fantastic! My goal by the end of the 7 weeks was simply for him to be in the water without me. By his second lesson, he had already jumped in by himself and gone under water. Last week (only lesson #3), I didn't have to get in the water at all with him. Then again, it helps that he has private instruction, being the only one who signed up for the group class!

Jason and I have been keeping busy with work and trying to take in as much of the Indy Super Bowl hype as we can. We went downtown last weekend to check out the Super Bowl village and will probably get down there tomorrow for a little bit. The fates have been shining down on our fair city with temperatures in the 50s all week...if only we could avoid the rain tomorrow. It has been so fun watching Indy being painted in such a great light at the national (and sometimes world) level!



P.S. Happy 60th (or 120th) birthday, Pops! Yep, Papa is so special that he gets to celebrate two birthdays every year!

12 Days

So, today is Epiphany...which means I am within the 12 Days of Christmas period. Which means I can still have a Christmas post without technically being late. Which means I'll take the lazy way out and use the tired 12 days of Christmas theme. Which means I won't even fill in each day with clever replacements.

On the first day of the Christmas season, my true love gave to me...a niece born in Kentucky! Natalie Grace - 6 lbs 15 ounces on December 16.



On the second day of the Christmas season, my true love gave to me...two cozy gloves.
Grandpa, Granny, and Aunt Ashley came up on December 23, and Miles got a big boy treat of staying with them overnight in their "downtown hotel". He had lots of fun watching Alvin and the Chipmunks at the movies and taking a late night carriage ride around the circle and throughout downtown. He looked super handsome in his Spiderman hat mittens set:






On the third day...
We continued our Christmas Eve traditions. Gpa, Gran, & Ash joined us for church and then we went out to eat...classed it up with Ruby Tuesday this year instead of the Pondo. Our little family then opened a few gifts, set out cookies for Santa, and sprinkled reindeer food.

On the fourth day...four walling (curse) words.
Christmas! Miles was ecstatic about his Hot Wheels Wall Track (not so ecstatic - Daddy, after ripping off a piece of dry wall). Marshall's favorite Santa gift was his Little People airplane. The boys also had the pleasure of seeing all of their grandparents at some point. We are blessed!

On the fifth day of the Christmas season, my true love gave to me...five minutes of peace!
By the time Tuesday the 27th rolled around, we were all happy to go our separate ways for a little while. I went to the office, and Jason dropped the boys off at day care so he could get some work done as well.

On the sixth day...
We used our new Deluxe Children's Museum membership on Wednesday the 28th and took Grammy with us. Miles like showing her the Pirates and Bumble Bee. Marshall was actually big enough to crawl around the baby area!

On the seventh day...
Jason and I intended to have a date day, and the boys went to day care again. We went shopping but struck out. Jason was hoping to buy David and Hilary a Christmas Story leg lamp, but the four Walgreens we stopped at were all out. Ah, romance!

On the eighth day, my true love gave to me...eight hours of sleeping.
Friday was another work day for me, so Jason was going to have a guy's day with the boys. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Miles ended up sleeping all morning and went to bed early. He had a fever but didn't complain about anything other than being tired. Thanks again, day care.

On the ninth day, my true love gave to me...nine ladies dancing.
OK, so I'm sure we saw at least nine ladies dancing on New Years' Eve. Granny graciously offered to babysit, so we went out on the town for a big night in Louisville with David & Hilary.

On the tenth day...
I'm trying to forget the tenth day. Too much New Years' Eve fun to make for a good day for me....

On the eleventh day...
We celebrated the typical New Years Day on January 2. It was a great family day of sleeping in, snuggling in the bed, watching the Rose Bowl parade in our jammies, and just spending a nice day at home!

On the twelfth day...
On January 3, Marshall had his 9 month well-baby visit. It was nice to actually visit the doctor for a non-sick reason lately! Marshall was (drummers drumming drumroll, please)........28 inches (50%) and 18lbs, 5 ounces (20%). The doc said the dip in weight is normal for nursing babies, but we're using it as a good excuse to let him eat even more "regular people" food. He's eaten spaghetti and even had a little of Miles' grilled cheese last night.

Whew! Merry Christmas!!