The Easter Bunny has come to town!

Another holiday has come and gone at lightning speed and once again our house is left looking like a ToysRus that got caught up in the storms a few weeks ago! Don't get me wrong - I enjoy every minute of it. There is nothing more exciting than seeing the joy that comes to your little ones faces when they see what the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus has left for them. Of course now I have double the joy, which to my husband only means I now spend twice as much :-P With that said both boys definitely did not wake up to empty baskets! Greyson got plenty of coloring books, Cars figures, bubbles and of course a chocolate rabbit. Rylan got a plush soccer ball, lots of books, a stuffed Peter Rabbit and a Sophie teething toy.

Unfortunately Rylan slept through the egg hunt that afternoon, but I am sure he will give Greyson a run for his money next year! Greyson surely wasn't complaining that he got all that he got all the eggs to himself one last time. Once he figured out that they were filled with jelly beans he started popping them open as he found them. Everyone knows jelly beans and dirt go good together!

We were lucky enough to have Mimi and Papa Jones join us for the weekend, which means lots of spoiling for everyone! Greyson loaded up on ice cream, Rylan had lots of extra arms to hold him, daddy got the house to himself for a few hours and even mommy got pampered with a nice dinner and some shopping!

Now that Easter is over I finally have a small break in all the planning and prepping for any holidays for a while. Next up is Mother's Day - I think it will be someone else's turn to do the planning for a change!

A silent 2 year old is never a good thing!

Some of you out there are already nodding your head. If you are a mom, then you know that while the constant noise your children can exhaust you to no end, it is the silence that is terrifying. For those of you who don't have kids I will explain: when your child is making noise then you can hear everything they are doing, especially when it is a child like Greyson who usually announces everything he is doing. That usually turns out to be most helpful in avoiding a lot bad situations. Unfortunately today it did not...

I went upstairs to feed Rylan. As always I told Greyson what I was doing and he elected to stay downstairs. At the time he was playing with his Chuck the Truck, which is an extremely loud toy and can be heard from anywhere in the house. As I was finishing up with Rylan I noticed that things all of sudden got very quiet downstairs. I yelled several times to ask Greyson what he was doing and finally I got an answer that sounded something like "I poop." I was very excited by this response as we have been trying to get him back  into the habit of telling us when he needs a clean diaper (a prelude to potty training). I told him to come upstairs and I would change his diaper. When he arrived at the top of the stairs I immediately could tell something wasn't right. It wasn't until he got closer that I realized it was his hands - they were covered in poop! No ladies and gentlemen, you can't make this stuff up! At first I panicked thinking he had attempted to eat it, but I never could find any evidence of such and when I asked him he said "I not eat it," so I took that as a good sign. I am still not quite sure what he was trying to do. Best I can figure he was simply trying to pull his diaper down himself and failed miserably.

Because of the clean up that this entailed I didn't exactly have any time to take pictures of the blessed event (I know you all are so disappointed). However, I did feel that those of you who didn't have to clean the poop off his hands might find it a funny story, so I felt compelled to share! Hopefully you got a chuckle out of it and aren't rethinking your dinner plans :-)

The First Supper

Yes folks, it is that time already. Time to introduce Rylan to the world of solid foods. At 19 weeks (which is almost exactly when Greyson started) we decided to go ahead and give the rice cereal a shot. Which of course means that Rylan now needs a place at the table. Lucky for us, Greyson has pretty much outgrown his high chair and is ready to move on to a booster seat anyways. So, on this past Saturday, once all the crazy weather had passed through, we set out in search of a booster seat for Greyson. Greyson is excited these days about anything that we say is "new" or is exclusively his or is something for a "big boy," so while he didn't really understand what we were buying he was very excited. We managed to find a reasonably priced one at Buy Buy Baby that seemed to have lots of straps to harness the 2 year old and the seat down (if any of you have ever had the luxury of dining with Greyson, then you know how important all of these straps are).

We began the set up/rearrangement of the seating in the dining room as soon as we got home. Greyson was more than thrilled with his new chair and demanded we have dinner immediately. Steven and I weren't hungry yet, but we fixed him and plate and decided to go ahead and take a shot at feeding Rylan his first bowl of rice cereal. Everything started out pretty much as expected: the confused look on his face when we strapped him in the high chair, rice and milk running down his chin. What we weren't prepared for was the screaming fit he would break in to about 5 bites in. Rylan has always been a lot crankier a baby than Greyson ever was, so in a way we should have expected it. By the time we surrendered we weren't really sure if he ever actually consumed any of the cereal or not.

Since the whole first attempt felt like a complete failure, we decided to give in another shot Sunday evening. This time we strapped him into his bouncer thinking this would at least help him to swallow a little easier. This method proved a lot more successful - well until he choked on a bite and spit up everything he ate.  Luckily I got him to finish the second half of the bowl of cereal so he did actually end up eating something (and with a smile on his face I might add - see video below). So despite the rough start, we are gradually making progress. I am sure he will be shoveling food in like his big brother in no time!

Our trip to "Dillon, TX"

As most of you know, last Thursday the 4 of us got on a plane and took off to the great state of Texas. Normally this would mean we are going to Houston for a visit with Steven's parents. While our plane did land in Houston, that is not where our trip ended. We then boarded a second flight set to land at the great Midland/Odessa International Airport. The great majority of you have probably never heard of Odessa, TX before, but you probably have heard of the town Dillon in the popular television show Friday Night Lights. Well, while the show is not filmed there, it is based on the high school football team in Odessa, TX. Pretty cool, right!?

Anyways, the reason we were flying to Odessa instead of Houston this time was because one of Steven's aunts was getting married! Yay! The bad news, our happy family of 4 got to sleep in a single hotel room for 3 nights. I was definitely nervous about this whole scenario considering Rylan hasn't been much of a consistant sleeper, and I was right to be nervous, but I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Our first night there Rylan was up every few hours either needing his pacifier or wanting to eat. Our second night there he woke up at 3 am with a horrendous cough and we had to call the on call doctor for the pediatrician office to learn that Rylan had caught croup (no doubt from one of the oh so sanitary airports/planes we had been in). Even though he went back to sleep, the paranoid mom in me was awake the rest of the night making sure he was breathing ok. The 3rd night there Rylan was up once again at 3 am and refused to go back to sleep unless we were holding him. The good news out of all of this was that Greyson slept through every bit of it all 3 nights! Now none of us could have known that Rylan was going to get sick - that was was just pure bad luck, but by the time we were headed to the airport on Sunday we didn't have much energy left and all we wanted to be home!

As if that wasn't rough enough, our attempt to try and get home was quite the experience as well. Our flight that was supposed to leave Odessa at 10:25 am was cancelled due to some screen in the cock pit being broken. We were then quickly rebooked to a different airline that was boarding immediately, which basically meant that they did not have time to switch our luggage. While I wasn't happy about leaving our luggage behind, we either had to jump on this flight or sit around the airport for 3 hours for the next one. Long story short, we arrived back in Charlotte around 6 pm and speant another 2 hours talking to 3 different airlines before our luggage was located! All in all we were just glad to be home and to have all of our belongings with us, but we were 4 very exhausted and cranky McCormicks by the time we got home that evening!

Okay, so after reading all of that I am sure you are thinking that the trip was a complete disaster. While we were short on sleep and patience after all of it, we did enjoy our visit while we were there. The wedding was wonderful and we got see/meet lots of family members and show off our 2 adorable little boys. Greyson had a blast swimming in the hotel pool and playing on the playground. And since we were going to be flying on my birthday, Steven's parents threw me a small impromptu birthday party at the hotel. So, while we are not ready to pack our bags and jump on a plane again any time soon, we did have a great time with everyone while we were there!

Rylan - 4 months old

So I am a week behind getting to write this, but last week was really crazy trying to get ready to go out of town!

Rylan had his 4 month check up last Monday. He weighed 14 pound 5.5 ounces and is 26 inches long, so he gained 2.5 pounds over the last 2 months! Other than gaining lots of cute baby rolls, Rylan has really started to show his voice more and more. I am convinced that he is trying to out do his brother Greyson already cause he has become the loudest baby I have ever met. There are times he even sounds like what I can only describe as a screech owl! Loudness aside, I still love every minute of the conversations we have.

We also discovered very early on that Rylan is a very ticklish baby. It all started accidentally when we were undressing him one night. Every time we pulled his arms out of the sleeves he would let out a very small giggle. It took a few days, but eventually we figured out that it was the under part of his arm that was ticklish. It has now progressed to his neck, belly and feet as well, and that sweet little giggle has turned into a full belly laugh.

Very much unlike his brother, Rylan is already very much into the teething process. He began drooling and chewing on his hands at 2 months old, and just a few weeks ago I started being able to see the little tooth buds. No telling when they will actually pop through, but I have a feeling he will have his first tooth some time in the next month or so!

The pediatrician gave us the okay to start Rylan on solid foods. We bought a box of the rice cereal to start him off on, but  haven't tried it yet. I am sure I will have definitely have a lot to write and pictures to share when that!

Next check up: 6 months. I leave you with a few pictures I was able to snap on his 4 month birthday!

I did the unthinkable!

Okay, so I don't remember when, but a very long time ago I know I made the comment out loud that I would never put my child on one of those leash/harness things! Problem is that I formulated this opinion before I had met my 2 year old son Greyson. This turning 2 thing has brought on a whole new demand for independence which also includes not wanting to ride in the shopping cart anymore, but walk "next" to mommy while we shop. Needless to say I spend more time worrying about where he is or running over him with the cart than what I went in the store for. While we were out one day I noticed a little boy with this cute puppy dog backpack on while he was running around one of those play areas at the mall. As they got ready to leave she pulled out this leash and hooked it to the backpack and off they went. At first I wanted to cringe, but then a small part of me thought that it wasn't such a bad idea. The child was happy because he was getting to walk by himself so to speak and the mom was worry free cause her child was attached to her. This sparked me to investigate further. I checked out the different styles that were out there and came across this adorable monkey version at Target. It looks just like a monkey is hanging on your child's back with 2 clips across the front and then there are two places where you can clip the leash (aka: tail) on. I was still reluctant to buy it as I wasn't convinced that this was the only answer to my problem. Weeks went by and I still found my mind wandering back to the monkey, so yesterday while we were grocery shopping I showed the monkey to Greyson. Immediately he tells me "mommy I like it." Which is always a good sign, but let's face it - all he sees is a stuffed monkey and he might change his mind once I put it on him. Well I broke down and bought the thing figuring I would take it home, try it on him around the house and decide if I thought it was a keeper. Greyson was more than thrilled with the purchase hugging the box all the way out of the store. When we got home I took it out and hooked it on him and we began parading around the house. Saying that Greyson was happy with his monkey backpack would be a huge understatement. He refused to take it off and when I stopped walking around with him he kept saying "mommy pull" and would hand me the leash! Haha! Anyways, we haven't gotten to take it on a shopping trip yet, but it seems like this might actually be a good purchase. And for those of you out there that are reading this who are still anti leash, I extend the invitation for you to take Greyson grocery shopping with you just once and see if you change your mind :-)