Saturday we met GramZ & Grandpa, the Sullivan’s, the Finn’s and the Lazarro’s at Belmont Park for a day of fun! While no one went home rich, we certainly had a fantastic time and look forward to doing it again soon!

It was GREAT to see everyone!

From left to right: Danny, Andrea, Tara, Kathy, Shawn, Melissa, Jeff, Kristin, Chris & Shane

Uncle Jay studying the horses!
Daddy chatting away!
Shane and GramZ:
And he’s off!
I’ve got another picture or two from the day, but we’ll save them for later in the week!

More pictures from our trip to Belmont Park tomorrow, but I just couldn’t wait to share pictures of Shane with his future wife, Miss Tara!
Look how he looks at her!!
They both have wonky expressions in this last one, but it shows just how cute they were together all day!

1). TODAY is Chris’s birthday! FINALLY!!! Once today is over he’ll start the countdown for next year for a day or two and then we won’t have to hear anything about his birthday for another 3 months or so!!! Yippee!! See above for his dedicated “birthday post”!

2). We’re finally going to get the floors in our kitchen and computer room replaced!! Thank God! Our current floors are being held together (and held down) with masking tape - they’re THAT bad. And our poor little boy has tripped over this horrible flooring, not once - but twice. For sure it had to go. We’ve chosen a new vinyl floor that has the look of tile. With the unlevel surface we have in our kitchen, vinyl is pretty much our only option right now. Well, that or carpeting! We hope to have the new floors installed within the next 2 weeks, just in time for our Florida house guests and annual summer BBQ!

3). We’re off to Belmont tomorrow! For those not in the know (which would pretty much be anyone not currently living, or having ever lived, in NY, Belmont is a (very nice) horse track in Long Island. We’re meeting up with some family and friends and will spend the afternoon, out back behind the grandstand , on the lovely grounds of Belmont park! There will be lots of other kids there Shane’s age to play with, so everyone should have a great time! We’ve very much been looking forward to it!

4). Shane LOVES to throw out garbage. If you have something that has to go into the garbage can, Shane will be more than happy to help you out and do it for you! He runs into the kitchen and opens up the lid to the garbage can VERY carefully! He then, very gently, places his garbage inside of the garbage can, closes the lid, and turns and runs out of the kitchen with a huge smile on his face! He runs right over to us and gives us each a “high five” for a job well done! SOOOOO cute!!!

5). New flooring means new photographs to print BIG and hang, right?!?! Shhh, don’t tell Chris! ***Wonder which images I’ll choose!***

Not sure if anyone knows this, but if you click on any of the pictures in the blog, they’ll pop up bigger for you. You can then just hit your “back” button to return to the blog.

I’m a BIG fan of BIG images! Colors pop more, details are more precise - they’re just yummier! So I always save my files at a high resolution, Blogger just limits the size I can post - but you can still click on it to make it larger!

***and sometimes you can even click again to make it larger still!!!***

“Na-Na Na-Na Na-Na”

” Just kidding, Kylee! I love you!”
“And I love you, too, Zoe!”

Notice, too, the staining from his orange popsicle around his mouth and on his shirt. Nice. . .

Cute story.

When Shane was an infant, every night before his bath we would get him undressed and while taking off his diaper I’d keep saying “We’re going to find your hiney!” and “Where is Shaney’s hiney?” and once the diaper was off, we’d playfully slap his bottom and go take a bath.

Now that Shane’s a toddler, we get him undressed, take of his diaper and ask him where his hiney is. He now reaches behind and slaps his own little hiney - seriously the cutest thing ever.

Until this weekend.

Late Sunday morning we were all getting ready to go next door to celebrate Brooke’s 9th birthday. Shane and I were playing in the playroom as Chris was getting ready to get into the shower. On his way into the bathoom, I caught Shane looking at Chris. So I said to Shane “Where’s Daddy’s hiney?”, much to my surprise he ran over to Chris and slapped his hiney! He then turned and ran back to me laughing with a huge smile on his face!

Of course I thought this was the funniest thing in the world and I think I asked Shane 3 or 4 more times where Daddy’s hiney was, and sure enough, each time he ran into the bathroom to slap Daddy’s hiney!!!

Mommy can be so mature sometimes!

We have a new header on the blog!

This is what I spent my time doing last night, instead of cleaning the house like I should’ve been doing.

That is also why this is the only post there will be today!

We were starting our 1st family vacation at Wildwood!

Only another 12-14 months until Ocean City, MD!!!!!

A lot of really great blogs that I visit do something similar to what I’m calling “5 On Friday”.

Essentially, it’s 5 little “tidbits” from our week. Things that happened, things that were said, memories we want to keep.

I’ll be posting “5 On Friday” every Friday from here on out. Hope you enjoy!

1). Shane’s favorite new word is still “garage” (only he pronounces it without the “ga”). Every day after daycare when I reach up to hit the button on the garage door opener a little tantrum erupts from behind me. I turn around and Shane is reaching for the button to. Yelling “door” “rage” the entire time. Apparently he wants to press the button, the magical button, that opens the garage door. Once I pull the car into the garage and we’re all safely inside (can’t you just imagine Shane closing the door ON the car??) I hand him the remote. He gets a huge smile on his face and proceeds to hit the button that closes the garage door. He continue to yell “rage” until I get him out of the car and into the house. Good times!

2). Chris has started the annual countdown to his birthday. Ok, so really he started it about 3 months ago, but now that he’s down to one week it’s become serious business. Chris’s birthday takes top priority in our house! Every year! The celebration lasts at least a month!

3). Shane loves running around in his diaper (funny, because his father loves to do the same thing!) He gets out of bed in the morning and if he slept with some kind of shorts/pants on, they’re off. Immediately. Usually before he even eats breakfast. And when we get home from daycare in the afternoon, not long after he’s eaten his dinner, they come off again. School ought to be a real hoot with this kid!

4). Shane wants to go “bye bye” all the time. He sees a door and he wants to exit it. He loves to stand at the door that goes out into the “rage” and tug on the door knob. He also loves to do this first thing in the morning. How exactly do you explain to a 2 year old that Mommy and Daddy need to have their morning coffee before they’re even capable of walking out that door? Also, how do explain that everyone needs to keep their pants on once we actually do walk through it?

5). I think my son has a foot fettish. Honestly. He has this thing about taking off my shoes, getting down on the ground and SMELLING my feet! And trust me when I say that I don’t have very nice smelling feet. He’ll do this 2 or 3 times in a row and each time he “comes up for air” he has this look about him as if he’d just seen Santa Claus. It truly is the funniest thing.

Shane’s sporting his new swimwear in this shot. Looks so determined, doesn’t he?? Like he’s REALLY concentrating on where that little foot will land next!

On a side note, our poor little boy has an AWFUL rash on his inner thigh. He’s had a bout of diarrhea the last few days, which has led to this diaper rash. It actually doesn’t look all that red or painful, but once he sat down in the bath last night, the poor thing grabbed his thighs, started screaming and jumped right up out of that water. And this from a kid who LOVES his bath. Broke my heart. He didn’t even want me to touch him to put on any powder or ointment. He seems a little better today, but his thigh is still pretty red. Needless to say, I’m terrified to try to give him a bath tonight! Fingers crossed that he’s feeling better soon!!

Just a few, quick pictures for today. Busy weekend and today we were all up at 5:30am. Chris had to leave for work at 6 (he’s working a double today) and I was up because Shane was up!! After a quick and unhappy daycare drop off (Daddy usually does those) - we’re all finally where we’re supposed to be for the day!

The Three Amigos! Excuse the slight blur on this one - it was too damn cute to not post:
No, Kylee. It’s MY popsicle!!!
Until next time . . .

Happy Father’s Day, Chris! You truly are the world’s greatest dad (and husband)! Shane and I are the luckiest people on earth. . . we love you!

This is one of my new “Daddy and Shane” favorites! Leave a comment and let me know if you prefer it in color or in black and white!

Two posts in one day?!?! Two posts in one day with pictures?!!? I know, I know - but it is Friday afterall! And this one is just too cute to not share!

Let me set the scene:

It’s about 6:45pm on Sunday - just a few minutes before bathtime. Shane is BANGING on the door of the fridge because he desperately wants another yogurt - this would make 4 for the day. I approach Shane in the kitchen and I know, well before I even reach him, that his diaper needs changing!! It was THAT bad!

So we change him. And we don’t see the point of putting a new diaper on when he’ll be in the tub in 10-15 minutes. So we decide we’ll risk it and let him run around naked for the last few minutes of the day.

Our son doesn’t forget things. They say toddlers are easily distracted, but not our boy! The second he’s off the changing table, he’s right back at the fridge! So we give in and give him his 4th yogurt (feel free to buy stock in Yo-Baby, I promise you it will be money well invested!)

Two minutes later, this is what we find:

I had mentioned in a post earlier this week that we all had a fantastic time in the sprinkler this past weekend!

Here’s some proof! I just adore the looks on both of their faces!!!