St. Pat's Weekend

The weekend before actual St. Pat's day. Mommy organized one of her favorites Stay-cation in downtown St. Louis for the St. Pat's day parade. Daddy took off Friday (Mommy's last day of maternity leave) took Bo to gym class in the morning and then went to the zoo. We walked around and looked at animals.

Went to the Puffin/Penguin house where Bo gave the penguin a high five.

We watched a special 3D Dora movie about the rain forest. Yes, that is Bo eating a cookie of course during the show.

We rode the train or cho-cho and ate lunch at the park. Probably ended up feeding the birds more than Bo. Emmy ate plenty though in between her naps in the stroller.

Went to the Children's museum and went down the slide that goes through the River Otter's all by himself, what a big boy. This is a picture of what has become our patent shot of Mommy and Bo every year in front of the Emu. The Emu was hibernating or something today though. We took it any ways. Feel free to compare last year around this time.

Then we headed down to the hotel for a nap. When everyone woke up, we ordered pizza, invited some friends down, and went swimming. With another long day tomorrow, everyone was ready for bed.

Daddy ran the 5 mile race with Bo while Mommy pushed Emmy in the stroller and ran with Gaby. As you can see, Bo doesn't remember much of the race but he finished first in his age group.

After the race, it was time for the parade. Mommy sat up front with Bo and his cousins for all the action. Daddy hung out with Emmy in the back and handing out snacks and drinks for everyone. It was very crowded but I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

It was just gorgeous out just like Emmy.

After the parade, Pa-Pa took us out to dinner. I think he enjoyed too much Irish drinks because he ordered a horse buggy ride for us back to the hotel (which was only 2 blocks). But as you can see from the video below, it topped off the weekend and I believe was Bo's highlight.

This clip is at the end after the driver rode us around downtown for 20mins. Bo kept talking to the horse. "Bye-bye horsey and thank you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB1i_Y5ehFg

Then here is one more picture of Emmy on actual St. Pat's day which was a Thursday this year. One year ago that day, Mommy and Daddy found out they were going to have her. Aren't we lucky like the Irish.

New Buzz Lifghtyear Tent/Fort bed

I am a little late in getting this out since we have had some things going on at the Woodworth household. Nothing too crazy, just normal for us I guess. Mommy went back to work 2 weeks ago so we all are adjusting. Everyone including herself of course misses having her at home all the time (yes, even Daddy).

Also, Bo transition to the big boy bed has not gone well at all. The past 4 weeks have been very rough on the family. No one is sleeping and it is showing on all of us. That is why last Thursday we went to the sleep clinic to seek their advice. Bo is suppose to get anywhere between 12-14 hours sleep a day. I think since he moved to the big boy bed he was only getting about 9 or 10 on a good day. As Mommy would say, Daddy needs that much sleep. This 9hrs would include waking up in the middle of the night several times. Mommy and Daddy would have a visitor with his lovey, blanket, and everything with him.

The doctor at the clinic told us it is absolutely critical for Bo's development to receive this sleep. You will notice his behavior slipping to the bad and his habits turning worse. The doc's suggestion based on thousands of tests/examples was to put the crib back up and put a tent over it so he cannot climb out. Prior to climbing out of the crib, his sleep habits were rock star caliber. Now we just need to get him to stay in the crib for his safety and he will sleep. So that night we came home, made a big ordeal about his big boy bed breaking, and told him that we had to take it to the store to be fixed. While it was at the store, we got him this new Buzz Lightyear Tent/fort bed. We bought some stickers to put on the outside of it, put his Toy Story sheets back on it, bought him a Buzz pillow, Buzz nightlite, and a Bo's fav a Buzz flashlight (which is really just a regular flashlight with a green light and some Buzz stickers on it. Needless to say, it was a big hit and he didn't want to leave his tent the first night. After 4 nights of this, I think it may be working too great. He is back to his old self and hardly even puts up a fight to go to bed. We are still waiting for the night where he wakes up, freaks out or refuses to sleep in it.

Emmy is sleeping in her crib now too. She goes to bed around the same as Bo and is waking up on average once in the night for a bottle and then right back to bed. We hope for her to be gaining more weight still. We are trying rice cereal with her but she is seeing the spoon and clamping up so not sure what that means. She did ok the first few nights but the past week nothing. She does not like to eat with the spoon. She just wants her bottle.

Her eczema has not gone away either. It doesn't seem to bother her but just isn't healing. The doc says we have to wait until she is 9 to 12 months before even thinking about getting her an allergy test. Until then, she will stay on the expensive formula that is non-milk and non-soy based. She is doing ok with it but still think she could be doing better. She weighed in at exactly 12lbs this morning at the doctor.

Mommy and Daddy now have their nights back or at least from 8-10ish back. So we will take what we can get right now.

Emily's new room

Here is a picture of Emily's new wall. Mommy did a great job putting it together. No, she didn't draw it but it was all her idea. The flowers were a nice touch too.
We are all very proud of it.

Here Bo imitating Emily doing her tummy time. She is doing very well with it. She rolls over from tummy to back and back to tummy. She rolled totally off the rug the other morning. She is ready to go, go, go.

Mommy had report cards last week so had to work late. Yes, we are making her work. So the kiddos hung out with Daddy and ate snacks at the island counter aka bar.

Emily eating Rice Cereal

This week we started feeding Emmy rice cereal. She loves it and doesn't complain at all. I have to admit she is taking to the new food 100% better their her older brother but it is early.

Bo is going through a phase where he wants to do everything himself. "Bo do it" as he refers to himself in the 3rd person. So we let him feed Emmy her cereal. They both loved it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4luNRELExN4

Bo and Emmy playing

Mommy and Bo have been spending a lot of time lately and one of his favorite things is to go to the Cho-Cho store. There is a store in Valley Park that has several large train tables with wooden tracks & trains to play with.

Sometimes it is hard to pull him away from there. He will stay there and play for hours. I think there are only two things that distracts him. 1) he becomes hungry and wants to eat 2) the store is located by actual train tracks and real trains occasionally go by.

Bo also likes to play with his people or guys as he refers to them. He imaginary plays, makes them stand up on the couch or table, and go for rides on the "neigh" (that is what he calls horses). As you can see below, he is also playing well with Emmy too. This is his way of letting her play with all the people.

Emmy is starting to play a lot as well. She is doing very well with her tummy time (See pic below). She also grabs the hanging monkey from her play mat and bouncy seat. We still love her hair too.