Got her!

She's walking more and more everday!

Super Saturday

To celebrate Mommy's birthday on Saturday, we had a jam-packed day that started off with Mommy running the Moorestown Rotary 8K.  Even though the weather was nice last year for this race, I think this year was the best weather we've had so far.

I had a good race and enjoyed running through Moorestown's fancy neighborhoods on a pretty summery morning. Meanwhile, the kiddies hung out with Daddy while munching on snacks and cheering on the runners. They even caught up with Mommy near the finish - what a boost to see these little munchkins!

After the race, Sean helped me out with the post-race refreshments, of course:

After stopping home for a short while, we took the babies to the Philadelphia Zoo! Right away we saw monkeys and a variety of small mammals, including this little guy:

Our friends Erin and Demetri came along and we sure appreciated the extra hands and eyes looking out for the Sooy Babies. Sean wanted to see everything at once while Clare was happy to look at one exhibit for a nice long while. For example, she was very interested in studying the blue-eyed lemurs - I guess our blue-eyed baby felt a kinship :-)

We also saw tortoises:

And visited the reptile house - so many snakes!

Clare liked watching the orangutans play - when we asked her if she wanted to stay with the monkeys, she emphatically nodded her head to say "yes!"

Sean got to brush the wool of some freshly shorn sheep:

Clare caught a short nap while Sean watched the otters play.  He loved watching the otters swim and chase their toys in the water, although he repeatedly told me, "these are not otters, Mommy - these are seals. Otters are sharks!" Oh well, agree to disagree, I guess.

We watched this red panda have lunch:

Sean wanted to get into the hippo exhibit:

We watched the giraffes and zebras hanging out in the sun:

Sean needed a better view of the bears and Daddy was happy to oblige:

After seeing the flamingos and penguins, we got to see the kangaroos being fed big hunks of lettuce. We even saw a little baby joey sticking out of  his mom's pouch!

After a long day with no nap for Sean, we should have left when we were done, but Mommy had a hankering for ice cream. So we also got some for Sean and he literally had a melt-down about his ice cream melting.  Needless to say, after about 2 minutes in the car, he fell fast asleep :-)

Big Boy Bed

Monday night we put the kids to bed and everything seemed normal but then Thom John heard something - or someone? -moving upstairs. Then he heard a door shut. Sean had climbed out of his crib! We put him back and explained that climbing out was dangerous and we'd like him to stay in his crib. A few minutes later, we heard Sean giggling and Baby Clare squawking on the monitor.  We went upstairs again to find that Sean had climbed out his crib again and into Baby Clare's crib! As Sean told Thom John, "I got out of my crib. I'm doing all kinds of tricks tonight, Daddy! I climbing out of my crib, I talking a lot."

To avoid playing games with Sean all week, Mommy gathered her two helpers after daycare on Tuesday and changed Sean's crib into a big-boy bed...



The "before" shot:

Helper #1 got out the wrench:

Helper #2 played "farm" in the hall:

Helper #1 decided he needed a break:

Helper #2 joined him:

Eventually we got back to work and finished the transition from crib to big-boy bed.  

On the first night, Tuesday, bedtime took extra long - extra books, extra songs, but eventually Sean settled down for the night.  On Wednesday night, he didn't want any extra stories or songs and ended up reading quietly by himself until he was ready to get tucked in. (He only hopped out of bed a couple of times that we know of.) 

Tonight - the third night - was a little rocky, with Sean saying he wanted his crib bars back, but he ended up settling down to sleep on his own.  So far it's the mornings that have been the major adjustment for us since Sean decided that "when the sun comes up, it's morning time and it's wake up time." Sounds like Mommy should go get some black-out curtains for the kids' room :-)

Memorial Day Weekend

What a hot, sunny Memorial Day weekend we had! On Sunday, we took the Sooy Babies to the beach. We spent the morning at the "real big playground" near Mama Jackie's house - crawling through tunnels, sliding down slides, and riding dinosaurs.

After the park we had lunch and then hit the beach - playing in the sand (Sean), splashing in the water (Clare), chasing seagulls (Sean), and snoozing on a towel (Clare).

On Monday, we cooled off with at-home splash day fun:

The kids had fun playing with the cool water, their buckets, and shaving cream!

And to cap off our 3-day weekend, Sean decided he's ready for a big-boy bed and climbed out of his crib! Oh boy!

First steps!!!!

Baby Clare took her first steps today! She spent the afternoon at daycare sporadically taking a couple of steps at a time. When I came to pick her up, she was taking two more steps! She took a few more at home and now we have the whole long weekend to practice more walking -- and to try to capture her walking on video! :-)

Fort Sumter

Shortly after arriving in Charleston, we took a ferry over to see Fort Sumter.

While Daddy and Clare explored the museum, Sean and I looked out at all the boats in the harbor and spotted a new friend:

Sean loved the ferry ride - Thom John took Sean out on the deck to look around while I stayed inside with Baby Clare. She snoozed while I listed to the informative narrative playing over the loudspeakers.

Arriving at the fort:

Looking across the harbor at Sullivan's Island:

After arriving at the fort, we listened to a brief lecture by a park ranger and then we were set loose to explore the fort. Sean liked climbing all the stairs to get to the top of the fort, which was really, really windy!! When it was Mommy's turn to take Sean up to the top, Sean gleefully whispered that we were hiding from Daddy and that he would never find us. As soon as we got to the top, Sean shouted, "HI DADDY!" he was so pleased to have "surprised" Daddy.

While Sean and Daddy went off to explore again, Clare practiced her cruising along the walls of the fort...