Eagle Days!

John and I started going to Eagle Days with our teacher friends the year I was pregnant with William. Eagle Days is always held the last weekend in January - so you can imagine I was very, very pregnant. Looking back, I'm not sure I would have taken me with that year. But, I don't think any of them were up to arguing with this pregnant chick (you're not gonna win, that is all I'm going to say). I think I had William four days after Eagle Days that year. We missed the actual Eagle Days last year due to the birthday, but went the following weekend with our teacher friends.

This year is was cold (11 degrees) and very windy on the river. However, this was the BEST eagle watching we've ever had. I think we saw more eagles this year than the other years combined. Very cool...although I didn't get many great pictures. First it was super cold and second the distance to where the eagles were hanging out was not ideal for our lens. But, here is what we came back with:

Eagles or penguins? Four eagles hanging out on a chunk of ice. Pelicans (? Is that what they are?) swimming around in the background.

If you look carefully in this picture at the base of the trees, you'll see a LOT of herons hanging out. By my count, there are 27 herons in this picture.

Eagles flying around and swooping in to fish - very cool!

Another eagle hanging out on an ice chunk floating in the river

The eagle roost. If you look carefully at the tree in the center of this picture, you'll see a lot of white heads. I count 24 eagles in this tree alone.

Fishing eagles, swimming pelicans (?)

William was SO cold he only stayed out with us for a few minutes before Grandma and Grandpa took him back to the car.

This year we caught the Eagle Days Presentation at the Apple Shed in Clarksville. This shed has to be the coldest place in Missouri. Metal shed uninsulated in the middle of winter. Add in a metal chair to sit on and you have one very cold behind.

Birthday with Grandma and Grandpa

We decided to celebrate William's birthday on Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa because they had to leave Sunday and Daddy needed to work on Monday. Not that William knew the difference. When he got up that morning, all his presents were sitting out and ready. After all the Christmas-ing our family did, William is a pro at opening presents and he didn't want to waste any time. However, we had people meeting us at our house to go to the Clarksville, MO Eagle Days. So we we picked one present to open and then quit so everyone would be ready to go!

William loves to open presents! (who doesn't?)

Yay! It's a puzzle....wait, haven't I already played with this? (Answer: yes! William found this in my closet a few weeks ago while I was putting away clothes. I had to sneak it away from him in order to wrap it up)
He also opened a card that came in the mail from Grandpa Heidt. William LOVED this Cars card (he hasn't seen this movie as it is rated PG, but it doesn't stop him from loving cars!). He carried this card with him everywhere that day. To the changing table, to the dinner table, EVERYWHERE!

Later that night, we went to one of our favorite restaurants: The Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

William was NOT cooperating with the camera..but I think this face is funny

Eating his dinner and hamming it up

After dinner it was time to open the rest of the presents! He loves his new "packpack" from GranGerry and Grandpa Tom!

Helping Grandpa put toys in the new backpack
Opening an Elmo card - another favorite!
Testing out the plastic food from GranGerry and Grandpa Tom - delicious!
Reading a new book with Grandma (from Grandma and Grandpa)

And then FINALLY it was time for birthday cake! Luck for me, William is pretty easy going when it comes to cake. He'll happily eat anything (not so much true about any other food lately). So, we had chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting - can you guess what Mama is craving? When we brought the cake out, William squealed "BIRTHDAY CAKE!" I'm not sure how he knew what it was, but he was positive this was a BIRTHDAY CAKE!

The chocolate-y cake
William checking out his cake. He is wearing the shirt I made for his birthday that says: WARNING: I'M TWO!!
We were getting everything set up for cake and Grandpa left to go to the bathroom quick. Unfortunately, we were quicker and William ended up having to wait for a minute for Grandpa to rejoin us. I was holding his hands so he wouldn't touch the cake when he announced "BITE!" and leaned forward to do just that. He took a bite out of the side of the cake.

We were all laughing so hard, he leaned forward and did it again. I didn't have any hands left to stop him and I was laughing so hard it didn't matter anyway!

The cake after William took a few bites
The eating of the cake and wearing of the birthday hats!
Yay! Now with chocoate ice cream (what? you thought I would pick a different flavor? Guess again)
All done and straight to the tub!
Watching videos with Grandpa on YouTube the next morning
Coloring and wearing his "packpack"
A more serious approach to the coloring. Note the plastic bag behind him. This was part of another present containing a Hotwheels rug. He liked the rug, but LOVES this plastic bag (or "other packpack") even more.
More coloring

Working, Working, Working

We've been working, working, working on house projects this weekend! We always get a lot done when Grandma and Grandpa are around, but WOW! They are hard workers. On Friday they got up early and sent Mama back to bed (Hooray!) and then tackled the installation of thresh holds for the doorways in our basement. Although it isn't a huge task, it was going to be very difficult for our one handed man to complete all by himself. When the thresh holds were done, Daddy and Grandpa started working on installing the baseboard in our family room. There are just a few things left to do before we can call this project DONE!

Here is Grandpa trying to install the thresh hold from the play room into the living room. With a little help, of course.
Measuring is always important!
Sometimes you need to measure other things too...
If you can't see it very well, you might need to get down to eye level to see what the problem is...
And, sometimes you just need to take a break and play with your toys!
The completed thresh hold (also completed:thresh hold into the toy closet)
Look! We have baseboard (the white stuff at the bottom of the wall)! Grandpa helped us put up baseboard in the living room, bedroom and closet. We sure do work Grandpa HARD!
The mirror is up in the bathroom and the towel rack is also! YAY!

A Rough Night - but YAY!

This entry should have happened on 1/23/2009

We're still working out the kinks for the Big Boy Bed. I won't bore you with the exact details until I know we have it totally worked out on our own here, but so far it isn't working more than it is. Which stinks. We had a few successes sprinkled in with a LOT of un successes. Thursday night, Grandpa and Grandma rolled in just in time for reading books and putting William down. He went down RIGHT away - a huge surprise.

Another huge surprise? He woke up every 10 minutes to 45 minutes crying. Not just whining, but sobbing for his Mama. After hauling my huge belly out of bed for the 500th time in an hour, I finally gave up and slept with him. It was NOT a good night's rest because he really was up every 10 minutes to 40 minutes for the whole night. Plus, he is a wild man sleeper. Luckily for us, Grandma sent Mama back to bed for awhile in the morning. It would have been a rough day for us without Grandma and Grandpa here today!

Happy Birthday!!

Can you believe my BABY is two years old today? I'll admit in some ways I can totally believe it. Most ways though it seems utterly impossible. Crazy even. The baby that started off two years ago looking like this:

Now looks like this:

Or this, depending on his mood:

We spent a lot of time celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa over the weekend so tonight was pretty low key. We went out for pizza at a kids place and played some arcade games. After games, we came home for cake.

Mama and her big boy
William wearing the shirt mama made him: Warning: I'm TWO!
Riding in the spaceship

Jumping in the bouncy house
Sitting in the race car (it was out of order)
Riding the Merry-go-Round
Riding the horse
Playing a NASCAR game with Daddy (PS William and Daddy were a team and Mama drove her own car in the same race. The birthday boy's team won! Nice driving!)

Dr Appointment

I'm starting to feel like I live at my doctor office. It is only going to get worse. Uneventful appointment today. Heart rate was good, pressure good, weight gain was overly good (I am an overachiever). No concerns with the exception that my DOCTOR IS SCHEDULED TO BE ON SPRING BREAK WITH HER KIDS THE WEEK I AM DUE*. Not a problem, right? Isn't this something we should have talked about sooner? My OB is totally not concerned because she is certain that I won't go to my due date with this baby (remember, she said that with William too...). So, we discussed our options and I think we have a plan that will work. Not a plan that I love, but a plan that will work.


*To be clear, my doctor deserves a vacation just like anyone else - more, in fact that some people I know. I'm just peeved because I just found out NOW about this scheduling problem. And it was after I asked her, not because she discovered the issue herself.


In other news, Grandma and Grandpa are arriving tonight for a birthday weekend celebration for the big boy. The big boy that is sleeping right now in his crib. Oh well.

Another reason to be thankful....

this would be post #3 for the day....make sure you scroll down. Although this is the only post with pictures and un crabbiness in it.

PS Yesterday was a disaster! I was in tears and decided we would go ahead and send him to college in his crib. John and talked it through and made some changes. Both the nap and BEDTIME went very well! I am so PROUD of our big boy!

PPS More details about what worked for us forthcoming. I'm not stupid enough to think we have it nailed after one good day/night. I'll talk to you about it sometime next week if we continue to do so well...