Trains at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens

Over all, she's a pretty good kid

Smooth(ie)

Cool pose

The nephew does Nashville (or, when it's been a month since the visit, just post the pictures with captions)

Soon after the Georgia crowd arrived, we picked up
the kids from daycare and went to a park.  Oliver wanted
to sit in each and every swing. 

Maddox enjoyed strolling more than swinging.

The kids fed the ducks.  Laura and I checked out their haircuts.

Oliver loved taking pictures of Maddox...and then showing him the pictures.

The porch swing continues to come in handy with little people.

We spent the better part of one morning out there keeping everyone happy.

Maddox was not sure what to think of his Uncle Wes.  And at moments,
I'm not sure Wes was sure of what to think of Maddox!
(Don't worry, buddy.  It took him six months to warm up to his own kids!)

Mommy and baby enjoyed a swing after Oliver's soccer game.

Four

Several weeks ago, I became a mom to a four-year-old.  Oliver had really been looking forward to his birthday.  There were several things leading up to it -- he started soccer, for example -- and so it really only got talked about for a few days before.  Unlike last year, Oliver seemed to understand a little better what it meant to have a birthday.  He has also been to a lot of birthday parties recently, though, ones at inflatable bounce houses and indoor play spaces, so his idea of a birthday is actually a birthday party, and one that is fairly grandiose for what usually happens around our house.

On the day of his birthday, he wore his four shirt -- which has room for him to grow.  We took pictures, and he went off to school.  I ran errands in the morning, then picked him up for lunch, and we had a mom-son meal in the lunchroom at my office space.  Faculty and friends came by and wished him a happy birthday.  He went back to school for nap, after which time he shared cupcakes I'd taken with his friends for snack.

After school, I picked him and Emme up the stroller with balloons tied to it.  Oliver thought it was great.  We even walked by the daycare so his friends could see.  We got home to find Grammy Kay already there.  Dinner was macaroni and cheese, fruit, applesauce, with a cookies-and-cream ice cream cake for dinner.  Oliver had been saying for a week that he wanted Cookie Monster (sometimes Elmo) and Snow White on his cake.  I genuinely have no idea how he even knows who Snow White is. But I went with it, found pictures of each online, printed them off, and added them to his cake.

We sang, he blew out the candles, we all ate, and he was soon ready for presents.  He got a new baseball cap from Grammy Kay (the old one having been "retired" because it smelled so bad, something repeated cleanings could not longer remedy) and a book with edible worms from his Gandpa John.  He got a very cool card from his Uncle George and Aunt Karen.  It had a birthday cake inside.  When he blew in a special place, the candles blew out and the card sang "Happy Birthday to You."  It was a big hit with both him and Emme.  He got his first big-boy Legos from his Uncle Adam, Aunt Jennifer, and cousins Dylan and Reece.  "Emme" gave him a fire truck. And from mom and dad he got a LeapPad 2 (like an iPad for kids, but cheaper, more durable, and no web surfing).  I had it already loaded, ready to go, and he's used it a lot since.

After dinner and a bath, Oliver got measured in the closet, where we've marked his growth since his first birthday.  I can't remember exactly, but he's grown about three inches since last year.  He's four years old in size 5/6 clothes (with some room to grow into them over the course of the winter).

It wasn't at a bounce house or a play space, but Oliver clearly loved his birthday.  He keeps asking when he's going to turn five and seems really disappointed to hear it's almost a full year from now.  I think this age might be my favorite for birthdays.  It doesn't take a whole lot (of money at least) for them to get really excited, and they just enjoy it so thoroughly without the letdown afterward of life returning to normal.

Thomas comes to town

A few weeks ago, we took the kids to the Tennessee Central Railway Museum for A Day Out with Thomas.  Oliver isn't way into Thomas, since we don't watch the shows or movies and don't have the toys.  He mostly knows Thomas from playing with toys at my parents house (and my mom does know all the names) and from a book his other grandmother gave him last Christmas.  When we went to Chicago, Oliver thought riding on the El was wonderful, and he thought the announcements at each stop were Thomas talking to him.

I got these tickets a few weeks before the event, and Oliver was very excited about going. We got there just in time to climb aboard the very last car on our train, where we sat for about 20 minutes before leaving on a 20 minute out-and-back train ride.  Oliver was disappointed to realize that this train didn't talk to him and that he was going to get off the very same place he got on it.  I guess he needs more authenticity in his travel.

After our brief spin, we went up to the front of the train to see Thomas himself.  There was a very long line to stand on a platform right in front of him and have the kid's picture taken.  Instead, we let Oliver climb on Wes's neck and just look at him while Oliver complained, once again, that Thomas would not talk to him.

We wandered around briefly to the other activities and let Ollie pick out a floor puzzle to take home (which he did, pretty much by himself, very quickly).  It was a fun random outing but not something we'd go back for.  I have since checked Amtrak's website to see if we could take the train down to my parent's house or out to Savannah at some point, just to add some excitement to the travel, but as it turns out, there's not passenger train station in Nashville!