Happy 2 Years Talis

Last week on Wednesday Talis had his 2nd birthday. I've been putting off writing about it because I felt like as soon as I did it made it official. It made it a little to real that my sweet boy was growing up and I'm not quite ready for it. Not a day has gone by the past two years were I don't think to myself (or out loud) "Man he is just the cutest kid!" I'm one lucky mom to be able to have him as mine. I love that boy more than he'll ever know.

We just had a small get together at our house with family this year and it was perfect. Laid back and no fuss. Poor kid woke up from his nap the day before with a fever. The kid always gets fevers on holidays and celebrations....what's up with that? He scored on the toys he got this year and deservedly so. The kid deserves the world but he settled for a watermelon cake and good company. And he loved every bit of it.

Talis,
Happy birthday my sweet T, my mowgli bear, my baby T, you changed my world two years ago and every day since has been a fun adventure with you in it. I love you, you are the funnest two year old I know.
Love mom & dad

best of buds

I tend to not worry about updating my blog soon after having a baby. Which is why I haven't. We had Miles, brought him home, did a quick post about having him, and that was that. I've been busy with life as a mom of two (two boys at that) and life has a way sometimes of making you forget about writing about it and just focus on living it. So here I am about 10 weeks later with a newborn that is no longer my newborn and my Talis who seems to be growing faster than I can keep up with. Best news to report, these two are quickly becoming the best of buds...

Miles

Two weeks ago from today we welcomed the newest addition to our family, Miles Copelin Reynolds. We are all pretty smitten with him especially his big brother Talis who can't seem to get enough of his sweet little brother. Life with two darling little boys is pretty amazing :)

the comfort of routines

We've been falling into a pretty steady routine these days. I never thought I would think this or say this but...I have come to realize that I am a routine kind-of girl. I thrive off routine and while I do enjoy spontaneity and the unexpected, there's something strangely comforting about a routine.

Every morning I wake to Talis waking up in his crib. I always find him in his crib with his hair in his face and a look like "what took you so long mom?". We head downstairs and I prepare him breakfast while he let's me know in his high chair that he is not feeling patient and he wants his breakfast like 10 minutes ago. We start eating our breakfast of oatmeal, or peanut butter toast and milk, or pancakes, or eggs and turkey bacon (we tend to rotate the same things for breakfast) and it's as if half way through eating breakfast we both decide to be happy and that we are suddenly morning people (although we both are not). Then we clean up and take our sweet time to get ready for the day, usually not getting dressed and doing our hair until an hour or two before nap time around 12 or 1. We fill our day with toys, dancing, cartoons, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, walks around the neighborhood, and the occasional cleaning of the house (I feel guilty even for typing that but hey, it's the truth) until around 4 o clock when we both sit on the bench right next to the upstairs window and wait for DJ's work truck to pull into our cul de sac. In which we both jump and shout for joy and press our faces up against the window and wave to dad because I've come to accept that him and Talis are the real fun in this house and I'm just lucky to have them both. We play together as a family until dinner time rolls around. After our bellies are full DJ and I take turns, while one of us relaxes or cleans up dinner the other gives Talis a bath and gets him in his pj's and brushes his teeth. Then we all gather at the foot of our bed and say family prayer in which Talis crosses his arms and scrunches up his eyes and buries his face into the bed while one of us says the prayer in which he usually starts to rub our back while we pray and if we are taking too long for his liking then he starts to wiggle around and try to get us to look at him. Then he kisses us both and climbs into our bed making sure to get some jumps in. Then we all lay down and put on a movie. Lately it's been Rio or Finding Nemo and we'll all cuddle until he falls asleep. Then we creep back downstairs and DJ and I will hang out before we head back upstairs and move Talis from our bed to his crib. Every night it's the same or close to it. And I love it. Especially when any day now we'll be adding a newborn to the mix and all the unpredictability and flexibility required for that, I am soaking in every bit of routine now while I can.

V day

Hope you had a happy day full of love yesterday! Valentines Day is my second favorite holiday (with Halloween being my first) and we milked the whole day by filling it with endless smooches, card making, present giving, snuggling, and a sugar induced coma come seven o'clock that night. what can I say, we love love over here at the Reynolds house!

(forgive the nose trimmer gift. Talis broke DJ's a while ago so it was more of like a long over due replacement gift)

(we ran into good friends getting supplies for sugar cookie making and Talis and Brazia greeted each other with some Valentines smooches)

(pan 1/5 of sugar cookies, I never want to eat a sugar cookie again....)

Thanks for the flowers my love!

xoxo

Conquering the Day

Yesterday I got to watch my friend's little newborn girl all day. She thinks I was doing her a favor but she was the one doing me the favor. I'm so nervous about soon juggling two kids that it was a good practice run for me. And I have to say I am impressed with how I did. Not only did I get Talis dressed for the day before ten o'clock (it's the small victories people) but I also showered, got kind of ready for the day, kept the house clean (major victory since I stayed up till midnight the night before cleaning), took them both on a walk to the park, and made a really delicious dinner which required the grill and some prep work. Oh and did I mention that I somehow managed to have them both napping at the same time?! There's hope for me yet. It was a good practice run for what's to come in the next two months but until then I'm taking every chance to nap I can. I may of exceeded my own expectations of being able to handle both a toddler and newborn but by three o'clock I was exhausted. There's no downtime with two littles. So if you need me I'll most likely be snuggled up in bed napping.

Birthday weekender

We got the honor of celebrating DJ's birth this weekend! In my opinion getting to spoil your lover on their special day is just as good as getting spoiled on your special day...almost. DJ's birthday fell on a Saturday this year. So I snuck out of bed early Saturday morning to cook him breakfast in bed and to get together the little gift I had planned for him which proved to be harder then I anticipated since the helium tank I got the night before ended up being completely empty and Talis had the attitude of "it's my party I can cry if I want to." And just when I was about to loose my mind with a crying clingy toddler and breakfast slowly burning on the stove DJ came downstairs. I guess he missed the note I left by him telling him to stay in bed until I came and got him. He must have seen right through my attempted facial expression of "it's cool, I can handle all this chaos right now" and smiled and brought Talis back upstairs with him so I could salvage what was left of my birthday morning surprise for him. He's so sweet. He not only played along (he knows how down I get when my surprises don't work out) but he kept gushing about how much he enjoyed his gift of special messages from friends and family I gathered of why they love him so much. We spent the rest of the day going to a movie, getting free birthday food at Joe's Farm Grill, and relaxing. And when I say relaxing I really mean me because when we came home from lunch I was exhausted and birthday boy let me take a three hour nap while he played outside with Talis. I'm telling ya, he is the best. Happy birthday DJ, we sure are glad you were born.

And then we finished our birthday weekender by watching the Ravens win the SuperBowl. DJ was one happy camper this weekend and he sure deserved every bit of it.