Taxes and Puddles

Today was tax day at the Wynne household.  We had hoped to knock them out during Rhys' nap, but a few tax complexities combined with a short nap meant we still had more work to do even after Rhys woke up.

We knew our only shot to keep going was to bring out the big gun of distraction...the iPad...

Elliott likes the iPad too as it means that Rhys isn't torturing him for a minute.

Powerful as it may be, even the iPad is limited in its ability to hold Rhys' attention.  So, before too long we had to head outside to burn off some energy.  Luckily, it was raining.  Yes, I did say luckily.  Because, rain = puddles!

After some good play time, we came home for a bath, some pizza and an early bedtime (because Brian and I were quite tired).

P.S. Are we the only people who still do our taxes completely manually?  Probably.  We do like to make things harder than they need to be sometimes...

Aloha

We went to Kauai four weeks ago.  It feels like four years.

It was a nice vacation.  Was it like a vacation pre-Rhys?  Nope.  Did I feel as rested as I would have liked to when we got back?  Nope.  But it was still nice.  And it was very fun experiencing it all through Rhys' eyes.

Rhys' favorite parts of the trip had nothing to do with Hawaii.

1.  The special bag.

We bought this bag for Rhys hoping it'd help keep him focused at the airport.  It worked great.  He LOVED it.  Here he is boarding the airplane with it.

2.  The shuttle bus

Rhys absolutely loved the rental car shuttle buses.  Loved, loved, loved them.  I think it's safe to say they left a bigger impression on him than the airplane.  Not a great pic, but documentation nonetheless of one of our the shuttle bus rides.

3.  Debra

Rhys has a special love in his heart for Katie's partner, Debra.  Getting to hang out with her every day was pretty awesome for him.

4.  The excavator

The house next door to the one we rented had to have some septic work done.  The adults were not too happy about the situation.  Rhys thought it was awesome because it allowed him an up close and personal view of an excavator at work.

And, now, some pictures of the actual vacation.

Rhys did great on the plane.  We had no issues and he even settled down enough to nap when we told him it was time.

We had one really fantastic day at the beach.  It started off a little cloudy but it cleared up quickly. 

Man on a mission.  I've got sand castles to build, mom!

While a warm day, the water was still quite cool in spots.  Rhys and Dada, though, braved it and had a ton of fun.

I braved it long enough for the photo opp.

Oh, yeah, I'm pregnant.  We're a little less focused on that than the first time around.  I think is only our second official belly shot of the whole pregnancy.  (22ish weeks for the record.)

Me and my little man.

We are blessed to have enjoyed such a lovely trip together.

We did our part

So you may have heard the Seahawks won the Superbowl.  Kind of a big deal and I want you to know we did our part.  We wore the gear, drank (root) beer, ate chips and sat on the couch.  We were good Americans.

Brian's shirt is a relic from the mid-80's.  Pretty cool how appropriate it was for the game.

I am a bandwagoner.  Brian bought me this shirt the day before the big game.  Luckily it fit over the baby bump.

Rhys has faithfully worn his shirt throughout the season.  I'm pretty sure the Hawks owe their victory to him and his support.

 

Teapot

Rhys' rendition of I'm a Little Teapot.

It doesn't get much cuter than this.

It's a...

For the last several weeks, whenever we asked Rhys if he thinks he's getting a brother or sister, he would inevitably respond sister.  It didn't matter the order of the options either - brother/sister, sister/brother - he always said sister.  A friend of Brian's suggested that to really test him we should throw in another really enticing option like, say, a puppy!  So, we tried that...

Me:  Rhys are you getting a sister, brother or puppy?

Rhys:  A puppy!!

Since we laughed so hard at his response, going forward he'd always answer puppy even if we didn't offer that as an option.  (He's quite a ham.)

And, it turns out, he was right on both accounts!

We had our anatomy ultrasound this morning and found out that, in fact, we are having a girl.  Before we got to that part of the scan, though, the technician measured one of her little feet and said "you'll notice that the foot is about as long as the femur, so it looks like you're having a puppy!"  It cracked me up when she said that.

All looks well with our little one.  The scan was very comprehensive.  The tech took all kinds of measurements, looked at her brain and heart, other internal organs and probably other stuff that we didn't even realize.  We are grateful that everything is progressing right on track.

We are excited to meet our little puppy girl around May 25th!

 

Mr. Independent

Rhys' language skills continue to explode.  It is an awesome process to witness.  It would be even more awesome if his favorite phrase wasn't "no, no, no, no, no!"  Seriously, this kid's independence and assertiveness have reached new levels and boy can it get frustrating.

Parenting has improved my patience by leaps and bounds, but I still have work to do...and Rhys is doing everything he can to help me.  Getting him to do things, from putting on his socks and shoes to walking the direction I ask, takes a ridiculous amount of coaxing which, frankly, gets really annoying.  What's worse, though, is if we make the mistake of doing something that he wants to do.  He wants to do EVERYTHING we do - making coffee, cooking dinner, vacuuming, etc. - and if we do it without letting him help?  Lord help us.  The other morning he sobbed for 20 minutes straight because we got started on the coffee and smoothies without him.  Sometimes when we ask if he wants to help with something he says "no."  Forgetting that we are dealing with an irrational two year-old we foolishly move forward without him and, again, Lord help us.  Of course he didn't actually mean "no" he just said it because it's his favorite word!

One of his favorite tasks of late is peeling oranges.  We've had lots of satsumas around lately and boy does he love them.  So, though I find his independence exceedingly annoying and frustrating at times, I am proud enough of it to take a two minute video of him peeling a freakin' orange.  Enjoy!  (Don't worry, I edited it down to 60 seconds).

P.S. "See Rhys" means show me the picture or video of me that you're taking.  In addition to being very independent, he's rather narcissistic as well.  And, yes, he always speaks in the third person. 

Rhys Turns Two - The Party

This post is long overdue, but the blog would be remiss to not include a little something about Rhys' second birthday party.

As with his first birthday, we celebrated with family at our house.  It's small, but we made it work.  And, when it got too crowded, we just went outside for some play time.  

Rhys received many fun presents, but mostly he enjoyed having all of his favorite people in one place.  My favorite aspect of the party was the awesome cake that Brian made.  Cake creations are one of Brian's hidden talents.  Over the years he's made me many delicious and creative cakes and this year Rhys got one too.  Given Rhys' love of the outdoors, Brian went with that theme and came up with this:

The "lake" is blue jello and that's a yellow submarine getting ready to submerge.

Still to this day, when Rhys sees the truck that was climbing the mountain he says/sings, "Happy Birthday, Rhys."  It's really stinkin' cute.

The trees are frosting creations hand-crafted by Brian.

 Brian never uses any sort of template or pattern, he just dreams up an idea and makes it a reality.  It's pretty cool.

The other particularly noteworthy part of Rhys' party was the announcement that he is going to be a big brother.  Papa helped Rhys unwrap his "Big Brother" t-shirt and it got *awfully* quiet in the room when everyone saw it.  We found it pretty funny.   

All in all, a most excellent second birthday party.