More Harrison!

Last night, Brian and I were able to sneak away for a quick trip to Rex Hospital to visit with Blaine and Liz and meet that sweet baby Harrison. As we were walking up, we both laughed and said it was nice to be coming to the hospital just to visit and not be coming on 'business'. I thought that it was also nice to be able to walk up and not waddle up - ha!

Harrison is a handsome young fellow; Liz and Blaine have done well and have a beautiful family. We really look forward to lots of years of play dates, ball games, maybe some dates with our girls and their boys (??)... lots of fun in our future!

Welcome Harrison Carter Swaringen!

Harrison Carter Swaringen - June 20, 2011

6.30 am - 8 pounds, 9 ounces

Whitley Ann was so excited to hear of Harrison's arrival!

Mini-Blaine and Mini-Brian in full effect!

Riding the trucks; this reminds me of that picture of two little boys that says,

"You been farming long?".

Future THS employees??

Lalon cooking; guess she thought she better figure out how to get food on the table since I burnt the bacon this morning while talking to Blaine about baby Harrison!

This morning at 6.30 am, the world was blessed with the arrival of an 8 pound, 9 ounce Harrison Carter Swaringen. We are so happy for the Swaringen family that Harrison has finally made his debut (6 days late at that!) and that he and Liz are both doing well.

Carson is spending part of the day with us while his Grandma Maureen runs some errands before she and Carson head to the hospital to meet his new baby brother.

The kids have been having a lot of fun this morning from riding trucks to working with tools and so far, no fights!

We can't wait to meet Harrison - Congratulations again Blaine and Liz on a beautiful family!

We're going on a trip!

A picture I found online of the resort where we'll be staying.

I can't believe I'm even typing this entry... Brian and I are going on a real vacation, 7 nights, without any children - holy moly!! Now, I love all of my children dearly, but the prospect of a child-free vacation (and a week of it on top of that!), simply blows my mind.

We hadn't anticipated or were even looking for a trip this year, knowing it would most likely be next Spring or Fall before we ventured out on this kind of vacation, but our good friend Autumne told us about a Caribbean deal she and Blake were thinking about and before I knew it the wheels were in motion and as of this morning we are officially BOOKED! This will be our first real vacation of this nature by ourselves since our honeymoon, although we did take a pretty swanky trip to Italy with Gwen and Amanda maybe 5 years ago that was simply amazing.

At the end of July, we'll be spending a glorious week in sunny St. Thomas with our good friends Autumne, Blake, JP and Laura at an all-inclusive resort. Blake and Autumne went to St. Thomas last summer and know all the "places" to go and Blake has even contacted the "Captain" for a personal boat ride.

Now... to start the starvation diet as again, I had not anticipated being in a real bathing suit this quickly after having Whitley Ann and I'm pretty sure my "mom suit" just isn't going to cut it on a tropical island - ha!

Updates of the week

It has been a big week here at the Higgins' home as far as child development goes!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Whitley Ann's goal this month is to roll over. Well, she's not rolling over completely, but she consistently will roll to her side. She also consistently gets distracted by her hands and fingers being so close to her mouth in the process and sucks on them for a while forgetting what she was doing to get in that position! She is definitely Brian's with his attention span - ha! She's also continuing her awesome sleep record going down around 9pm +/- and waking up around 6am +/-; one morning she made it almost to 7am - wow!

Naylor has been wearing big boy underwear for a week now and in the entire week, we've only had 1 pee accident. AWESOME!! I'm so proud of him! Now, we've been trying to work on the poop part, as he has not gotten that piece down quite as well. However, this morning he came up to me and told me he needed to 'stinky in the potty', I sent him to the bathroom and he did his thing - HOORAY!! He got a prize of a whistle for doing that business. Now, we're not consistent with that yet, but making progress and I couldn't be any happier or more proud of him. He's funny though, this morning he told me he didn't 'want to wear his underwear', he wanted his 'penis in his pants' - what?! I don't know where that came from, but I got his underwear on him as we aren't a 'commando' family - jeez!

No reports on Lalon other than she's gone through the week injury free, which is always great news!

Our little family.

Tonight after baths, we were all hanging out in Whitley Ann's room doing puzzles, reading books and drawing to wind down before bed. Brian and Naylor were drawing all kinds of stuff: stars, hearts, moon, elephants, lions and then they drew our family. Here's the picture; they even included Kitty! I thought it was too cute not to share and I believe Lalon is depicted the most accurately - or at least her hair is - I'll let you decide who is who - ha!

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

I have recently become an avid fan and user of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Let me just say, if you have folks in your life and home (young and old) that tend to be messy, this cleaning tool is for you! I personally have been impressed (and very grateful!) for it's amazing abilities to clean hardwood floors.

Over the past 3 weeks I have used them to get blue Sharpie marks off of a laptop and hardwood floors as well as almost black hair dye (not mine) off of hardwood floors. Simply AMAZING!

Miscellaneous kid stuff

Being silly as usual.

Family pic and everyone's looking - wahoo!

3 little monkeys

Giving hugs!

Whitley Ann just being cute; she's the best at this!

Lalon and Naylor playing in the ottoman and pretending to take a nap.

Lalon and Naylor playing in the box - funny how kids are entertained by the 'freebies' more than their toys sometimes!

Naylor pretending to sleep in the box.

Naylor had a wipe and was 'cleaning' the house;

I didn't think the place was that big of a mess!

Here's just a general report on the kiddos as well as some fun pictures over the past week or so...

Whitley Ann:

• She just turned 3 months last week and is doing great!
• She's sleeping through the night; generally from about 9pm until 6 am = AWESOME!
• We're working more and more on our tummy time and she has great head control
• Our goal for the month is to learn to roll over - more tummy time will help this along.

Naylor:

• Just finished up his school for the year and he had a great time; I know he's going to miss it this summer.
• We're potty training full speed ahead! He had been working on it over the past month, but we've been travelling or having folks here which causes lots of distractions, so it wasn't wholeheartedly. However, for the past 3 days he's worn big boy underwear during the day with only 2 accidents total - WAHOO!! At night he's wearing pull-ups, which we refer to as 'big boy underwear for bed' because of course he's a big boy using 'no more diapers'. This is awesome, we're not totally there, but he's got a really great start - we're almost 100% with the pee, it's the poop we need to work on.

Lalon:

• It's not something to brag about, but actually a milestone the pediatrician looks for, so I'll celebrate it here on this blog as we don't celebrate it in person... Tantrums. Oh yes, that sweet smile and innocent face can throw the biggest tantrum you've ever seen. So, we're working on it and she's realizing they aren't getting her all the attention she's wanting.
• She's climbing on things and attempting to jump off, which is kind of okay, except she just jumps with no concern for where's she jumping. Luckily, Brian or I have been nearby to catch her before she's seriously hurt herself - seemingly no fear in this one...

Whitley Ann's 3 month photo proofs

Proofs are up for viewing of the next week or so...

www.MichelleStudios.com

click "client slideshow" and the password is: whitley (case sensitive)

I thought these turned out great - she has some really cute and funny expressions in these - now to narrow down which ones we're going to purchase... oh boy!

Naylor's last day of school / Field Day!

Enjoying his ice cream treat while listening to the music!

Mommy and Naylor with his rocket face painting.

This past Friday was Naylor's last day of school where they held a "Field Day" that morning. They had asked for several parent volunteers and since Grammy was still in town, she kept the girls so I could join Naylor on the fun.

It was HOT, but fun for the kids (and fun to watch). In my head I kept thinking 'field day' like I had in elementary school, you know, tire races, sack races, kickball games, tug of war.... it wasn't until we got there and I looked around that I realized, "oh yeah, these are 2 yr olds". So none of the fun I remembered, but they had a cornhole game, bubble machine, bounce house, horseshoes (plastic of course), a man singing songs, painting station, a face painter and an ice cream truck!

Naylor did have a lot of fun and chose a rocket for his face painting which he then kept saying, "3-2-1, BLASTOFF!". I'm glad I was able to go and see him in this setting. He wasn't quite ready to go when I was, so he stayed for pizza lunch and the remainder of his school day, while I came home to help with the girls and take a quick nap!

Naylor surely has loved Ms. Starr and Ms. Debra as well as his buddies Jack and Liam; he will randomly ask about them or announce that they are big boys and girls. We're looking forward to next Fall when Naylor will move up to Ms. Selena's class and Lalon will join the ranks of Ms. Starr's class!

Whitley Ann's Infant Baptism

Last Sunday, June 5, 2011, Brian and I had Whitley Ann baptized at Hopewell United Methodist Church in Newton Grove, NC. This is the church that I grew up in, Brian and I were married and both Naylor and Lalon were baptized; seemed only fitting that Whitley Ann join as well.

We were so blessed to have all of our immediate family and almost all of our extended family, along with some very close friends in attendance. Pastor Carol Whitley Dean presided over the event and did a wonderful job on the service. Whitley Ann did great too and just smiled; she got a bit fussy at the end, but that was more because we were interrupting her nap! We were all able to gather and have lunch afterwards in the Fellowship Hall at the church which was really nice. It was so fun seeing our kids playing around with all of their cousins - I love seeing that!

I have tons of great pictures, but again I'll try to make a slideshow or collage to capture everything.

A house full of family!

The past two weeks have been filled with family, food, fun, games, movies, some chaos and not a lot of sleep - ha!

All of Brian's family came for a visit and to be a part of Whitley Ann's infant baptism, so we got in a lot of family fun. Grandpa, Grandma T and Aunt Kerri were coming for their usual summer visit (we get to see them usually in early June and then again at Christmas) and Grammy came for her summer visit as well to coincide with the baptism. Over the weekend, we were really having some fun with Aunt Amanda, Uncle Kevin, Grandma Reba, Uncle Tim, Aunt Lynne and cousin Autumn making appearances too!

We really did have a lot of fun and the kids did really well with the "invaders" (not really negative, troublesome invaders, but a bunch of folks in their house and not sticking as strictly to their routines). After this past Christmas, I threatened to never let anyone back in because Naylor was so out of sorts for well over a week after all the ruckus, but he did much better this time and just got a little out of sorts.

As is written in grandparent handbooks (there must be one because all of the grandparents do it), the children were showered with lots of fun toys, outfits, gadgets and treats. They LOVED it! And Whitley Ann enjoyed all the loving and holding she smuggled out of everyone while they were here too; it was the first time she had met her Grandpa, Grandma T and Aunt Kerri.

We had lots of fun doing 'nothing' together, just playing in the backyard and pool with the kids in the afternoons then cards or movies after dinner. And I was eager to put Grandpa to work on my to-do list, little did I know that Brian has figured out my Grandpa assignments and had made a list of his own - ha!

Grandpa is definitely Naylor's "watermelon" buddy and has even asked for 'grandpa's watermelon' since they've been gone. Aunt Kerri gets the babysitter and diaper changing champ award for her time with all of them, but especially Whitley Ann. And Lalon in true Lalon fashion has snowed them all with her smile and charm. Naylor was really upset when Aunt Kerri left as I made the rookie mistake of saying she was leaving on an airplane and then Naylor wanted to desperately go with her... I told him we'd have to get a ticket, not a good diversion, but it worked temporarily. Since then, every time he hears an airplane outside, he says that Aunt Kerri and Grammy are on it. Grammy got in some good time with the kids individually too, as this past week she'd watch them in shifts as I'd take one or two out to do 'something' or to an appointment; it was a great opportunity for both of us to get some one on one time with each kid.

I have LOTS of pictures, so I'm going to try to create a slideshow or some kind of link so I can get more of them on here at once... maybe by next week I'll have that done!

Happy Anniversary!

A picture I found from our 1 year anniversary at Buddy's bar at Wrightsville Beach, NC

Picture our waiter took at our 7 year anniversary dinner at Sullivan's, downtown Raleigh, NC

Robin and Brian

7 years 0f marriage; 10 years together!

The last week and a half has been busy with family visits and lots of fun, so I'm a little behind on my posting, but hoping to catch up over the weekend.

Last Sunday, June 5th, Brian and I celebrated 7 great years of marriage. It was an extra special day, as it was the day that we had Whitley Ann baptized at the same church we were married; more on that later.

After a big day, we left the kids with the grandparents and Brian and I scooted out to a super nice dinner at Sullivan's and stayed for a leisurely drink.

It really was a perfect day and I'm looking forward to many more!