Daddy is so fun!!

Here are just a couple of pics so far from when Brian first got home. We didn't get a lot of good ones because it was so crazy of course. We leave tonight for the lake in Indiana so we'll get a lot up there I'm sure.
Ian is so absolutely excited to have Daddy home. When he first saw Brian he was so excited he was shaking and he ran up and jumped on him. He crawls all over him and wants to play with him constantly. It's like Brian never left. Daddy gave him a bath last night, put him to bed, fed him lunch today, changed lots of diapers and Ian loves it all. Ha! And Daddy has even been subjected to the Fisher Price videos that Ian watches over and over and over and over (see the third picture).
Alexis is a little young to really get it but she's perfectly content to have Daddy hold her or feed her or change her diapers too.


More to come....

Happy Birthday to Me!

I got the best birthday present ever today....Brian is home!! I'll put pictures up later but I just wanted to let everyone know that he's home. I went up to Detroit to get him and when we got home Ian was sooo excited. I put away the Flat Daddy picture this morning so he's been wondering all day where Daddy went and now he's ecstatic to have the real Daddy to play with. And of course Miss Alexis was all smiles...another person around the house to give her lots of love and attention...what could be better? Ok, gotta go...look for pictures soon!

Keeping busy til Daddy comes...

Ok, I said the next post would be of Daddy getting home...but he's not home yet so we have been keeping ourselves very busy to pass the time. On Saturday the kids and I went to the Lucas County Fair here in Maumee. We don't have a lot of pictures because basically it was not such a great fair. I knew it wouldn't be because city people don't know how to throw a fair. It's much better to go to the one out in the sticks where Mommy grew up...country people know how to do it right so we'll go to the Fulton County one at the end of August. But, oh well...it got us out of the house for a few hours and the kids got to see a few animals and ride around in the wagon which is always a good time. Ian's favorite thing was the lawn mower races which were pretty funny to watch so we got a picture of that.




On Sunday, the Toledo Zoo had a special event for kids sponsored by Fisher Price so we went with Grandma Sheila and Grandpa Tom. All the animals in the Children's Zoo were around and Ian got to pet lots of goats.

They also had a huge tent set up with every Fisher Price toy you could imagine out for the kids to play with. All those toys and what does Ian play with? Only the cars. He went around from table to table and gathered anything with four wheels then sat and played with those. At least he wasn't interested in the doll houses or makeup sets I guess.

Today we spent all day at home playing inside to keep cool. Tomorrow we are going to try the Wood County fair down in Bowling Green which I've never been to before so we'll see how good they are about fairs down there. Then hopefully our next bit of excitement will be Daddy's return. Til then....

Mmm...ice cream....

These pictures are from a trip to the Zoo several months ago but I don't have any new exciting pictures and I just got these from my mom so they're getting posted. It was the first time I'd really given Ian an ice cream cone to eat himself so obviously it was a little messy, but very cute.

The next post I put up will be pics of Daddy when he gets home in a few days!! Yeah!!

A Very Murray Weekend

This past Saturday we drove to Pittsburgh and got to meet Ian and Alexis' new cousin, Lahna. Uncle Mike, Aunt Meghan, Reese and Lahna were up from Florida and Grandma and Grandpa Murray and Aunt Kelly came down from Rochester. It was pretty funny to have all four cousins (all under age 2 of course) together at once. Getting pictures was a little difficult but we managed to get a few...and a couple of videos too. Ian had so much fun playing with his cousin Reese and especially with his Uncle Mike, who he kept calling Daddy (well, he was close I guess). It'll be fun to get them all together again soon.

Ian, Alexis and Reese at the playground:

Reese giving Alexis a hug and pushing her stroller:

Reese and Ian on the jungle gym: Grandpa Pat and Alexis:

Ian being pushed on the swing by Aunt Meghan:

Uncle Mike and Ian:

Aunt Kelly and Alexis: Reese, Lahna, Alexis and Ian:

5 years ago today....

Happy Anniversary, B! See you in a couple of weeks!!!

Our Fun-Filled Fourth

We had a great 4th of July weekend starting on Thursday with a festival and fireworks here in Maumee. We are so lucky to live right uptown where we can walk to everything so we got the kids in the wagon and headed a few blocks up to listen to some music and hang out. Of course I didn't take the camera but it was hilarious to watch Ian dancing with his cousin Abby and all the other neighborhood kids. The kids were pretty tired by the time the fireworks started so we walked back home and got them in bed but fortunately we are only a few blocks from the river where they shoot off the fireworks so my parents and I just watched them from our deck. It was perfect! I did get this picture of Alexis in one of her cute patriotic dresses: On Friday we headed up to the lake in Indiana. Again, Ian did not want to get out of the water and he got more and more adventerous. He discovered that being dunked underwater is absolutely hilarious and wanted to do it over and over and over. My arms got a pretty good workout! You can't really hear him in this video, but when he wanted to do it again he would say, "two, two!" (as in one,TWO,three, go!)

He had fun floating on this blue floaty thing again, but found that it was also fun to climb off of it and float around with mommy so we worked on kicking his feet and paddling his arms.

He also found an admirer. One of our neighbors, Eva, came over to play with him a lot and kept telling him how cute he was. Ha!Alexis spent most of her time hanging out in the shade:

But, she also got into the water and really liked it! She floated on this yellow square for a while and then swam around with mommy and loved to kick her feet in the water.

We also had a lot of fun out of the water (when Ian finally got dragged away from it). There are several bikes at the cottage and one of them has a child seat on the back so I took Ian for a ride around one of the smaller lakes nearby. He had a blast doing that! We also saw two parades...a small one on land with old cars, decked out golf carts and lots of other fun stuff, plus a boat parade! Ian also loved playing with his cousins Andrew and Lindsay.

And since we knew Ian would be asleep by the time the fireworks happened on Saturday night we got out some sparklers and had a good time with those.

It was a wonderful 4th of July weekend and we are so excited that the next time we go to the lake it will be in a few weeks when Daddy is home!!