Tulip Festival

On Tuesday Hayden and I went to the Skagit Valley Tulip festival with some of the other moms and kids from our PEPS Group (yes, we are still meeting regularly after almost 2 years!).


It's about an hour and a half drive away, so we left early and packed a picnic lunch. It was a beautifully sunny day, and perfect temperatures—around 67°-72°F. Because of the long, cold winter, the tulips are making a later appearance than normal, but we still had plenty of colorful fields to admire at Tulip Town.


Hayden loved the Windmill (anything that spins!)


He wasn't so thrilled about Mommy trying to take so many pictures of him! It was actually quite challenging to get any photos more than an arm's length away, because he wanted to hold my hand or run in the opposite direction. He isn't quite old enough to understand the whole "look at the camera and smile" concept. But the nice thing about going with other moms is that we all had our cameras and could get photos of each other with our kids.




The tulip fields were planted in rows that were like big speed bumps. It was a bit of a challenge for the kids to walk around, but they actually thought it was pretty fun. Hayden kept saying "bumpy".



After we "tortured" our kids with a lengthy photo shoot in the tulip fields, we went on a quick little Tractor Ride to the end of the field and back. Hayden LOVED it!




It was a fun, but exhausting excursion. Hayden even slept in the car for about a half hour on the way home. (That makes at total of 3 times sleeping in the car since he was about 6 months old!) We got home around 3pm and Hayden luckily took a 2 hour nap, and I napped for some of that time too! It's days like this that make me wonder how the heck I'm going to handle TWO kids!?! Yikes! :)

UW Cherry Blossoms

It has become an annual tradition for our family to visit the University of Washington campus when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. We had the most perfect weather on Sunday for a wonderful morning in "The Quad" followed by a picnic lunch. Hayden did not like climbing in the trees, but he sure loved running all over and climbing on the brick steps. It was really fun to play with our digital SLR camera. We took hundreds of photos, but it would take too long to post them (and view them!), so here are a few select photos from the day:

Flashback:
2008

2007

Easter 2009

Last weekend we celebrated Easter with a neighborhood Easter Festival held at the park near our house. The weather didn't cooperate very well, so it was a soggy egg hunt, but I can hardly recall a sunny Seattle Easter so I guess it's to be expected. The egg hunt was divided by age group and Hayden was in the birth to Pre-Kindergarden age. The grass was covered in colorful eggs, and the minute the countdown hit 1, the frenzy began! Must have been a couple hundred people!



I was surprised that Hayden caught on to the concept of picking up the eggs and putting them into the basket pretty quickly. Enough to get 6 eggs! Which is remarkable, considering the whole hunt lasted about 2 minutes.


Some were filled with stickers, others with candy. Yes, I did let Hayden eat candy! Just not the bubble gum.


My nephew Jude got the Golden Egg -- redeemable for a special prize, a stuffed Easter Bunny!


There was also an Easter Bunny photo area, which Hayden wasn't super thrilled about.


He loved bouncing on the OUTSIDE of the bouncy house, but when he went inside he froze and whined for "MOMMY!!"


The carnival games were better for the older kids, although Hayden did like throwing the bowling ball at the bunny pins. And even more, he enjoyed the super bouncy ball reward he got for knocking down 2 pins!


He also enjoyed petting the animals. There were ducks, bunnies, goats, chickens, and a miniature donkey. The donkey was noisy so Hayden got to hear a real donkey noise and now makes good "HEE-HAW" sounds when you ask him what the donkey says.




On Sunday, Hayden and I stayed home from church because Hayden's cough and cold seemed to be getting worse. After he took a good nap, we went over to Grandma Doris and Grandpa Jim's house for a delicious Easter Dinner with the whole Lott family. We were all commenting at how their house is starting to feel kind of crowded with all these grandkids (4 grandsons), and 2 grand-daughters on the way!

The rest of this week has been pretty tough. Hayden's cold progressed into an ear infection and I can't help but worry that all the time in the soggy weather wasn't the best for him. On Wednesday night, he was awake crying on and off from 12:30am - 4:30am. I brought him in our room, but with him tossing and moaning, I don't think either of us got much sleep at all (Phil even slept on the couch). I took him to the doctor on Thursday and she confirmed he has his first ear infection. He started antibiotics and already seems to be doing better. Still not much of an appetite, but he's sleeping better and not quite as crabby as earlier this week. Praying for a quick recovery, and that the tickle Phil and I are starting to feel in our throats doesn't progress into colds for us, too.

Happy Easter

Spring Weekend

It's hard to believe that just Friday morning there was an inch of new snow on the ground, and two days later, the temperature is in the high 60s. Maybe even reached 70 today.

To enjoy this first glimpse of Spring weather, Phil and I took Hayden to the Woodland Park Zoo! My aunt gave us a membership for Christmas, and today was the first day we used it. Can't wait to come back more. Hayden had a lot of fun! Phil carried him in the Kelty backpack so he could see everything better, and that turned out to be a great way to do it. The weather was perfect and most of the animals were out and enjoying the nice day.

The highlights were the elephants, brown bears, and tiger. One of the elephants took a giant dump as we were watching them, so Hayden kept saying "poopy" after that! The 2 brown bears got into a wrestling brawl and that was very exciting to watch. The tiger was pacing all over and growling and roaring a few times. It was quite a show! I had a lot of fun using our new camera. Here are some photos:

Riding the carousel

Walking with Mommy

Watching the elephants

Wearing Mommy's sunglasses

Looking at the birds in the tropical rainforest house

On Saturday evening, we also went to the park near our house we call the "WOW" park. There are 3 bulldozers, a road roller, and a digger in the construction area that haven't been used all winter. We let Hayden get up close and he just kept saying "WOW!". He LOVES construction vehicles.



The park also has a beautiful new path around a water retention pond, with a waterfall and bridge. Hayden liked the waterfall.


He also really enjoys pushing his stroller.


Yay for nice weather! Thank you, sun, for making a much-needed appearance this weekend.

First Look at Brooklyn Nicole

We have confirmation that Baby Lott #2 is indeed a girl! We also decided to go ahead and announce that her name is going to be...

Brooklyn Nicole Lott

Nicole is my older sister's name, and Brooklyn is a name we just like that also nicely fits the family trend of Jacquelyn (my full name), Judith Lynn (Mom), and Evelyn (maternal grandma). With Hayden, we honestly didn't decide on his name until a few minutes after he was born. We liked both Hayden and Isaac and wanted to 'meet' him to see what we felt like his name should be. But this time, Phil and I both love the name Brooklyn and don't have any other names we both love as much. So there it is. Our niece, who is due mid-June, is going to be named Madison, so I guess there's a bit of a New York theme (or just geographical, if you're thinking of Madison, WI) in the Lott family!

At our UltraSound appointment, there was extra time so the technician asked if she could practice a new 4D system on us. It was a little creepy because they looks so alien-ish at this stage, but also cool to see such a more realistic view of the baby. See this short little video:



Here are some standard UltraSound pictures of her profile:


And of her forearms and fists over her face:


Brooklyn and Hayden are going to have to share a bedroom until we can upgrade our house to a 3+ Bedroom (technically, ours is 3 bedrooms, but the 1st floor bedroom would be a terrible baby room because it is so far from the 3rd floor bedrooms, it's cold and has an outside entrance. It is also needed for my office). So, ideally, we would eventually get a 3 bedroom + den or something that could accommodate a work area for me. But that is just a fantasy right now. We have to make do with what we have.

Hayden's room is very small as it is, so we need to get creative with the layout. I think the best plan is to try to move him to a toddler bed for his 2nd birthday. A toddler bed uses the same size mattress as a crib, so it won't last too long with his growing rate, but I don't think a twin bed + crib would work in his room. And I hope that by transitioning him to the toddler bed for his 2nd birthday, he'll have time to adjust to it before Brooklyn moves in and "takes his crib". She'll be in a bassinet in our room for the first couple months anyway, so that will give him more time, too. I just don't want Hayden to feel like Brooklyn is booting him out of his crib and taking over his room.

We're also going to re-paint the blue accent wall to a more gender-neutral light green. I got some cute green, pink, and brown bedding at Target for Brooklyn:


I need to find Hayden some cute trucks bedding for his new bed, hopefully with some green in there to tie it together. I really liked this line from Pottery Barn Kids:


But of course it is discontinued, and it never came in Toddler size anyway (just twin and +). But I'm basically looking for something similar. Well, also cheaper ;)

Update: That PBK line IS still available in the Baby line, so I went ahead and ordered the fitted sheets, quilt, and pillow sham. Yay!!