Life with the Wallis Family: Look Who's One (and 27 and almost 4)!!!

Hard to believe this little guy is ONE YEAR OLD! Since his actual birthday was on a Tuesday, we had a very laid back celebration at Jason's Deli with YiaYia and Papou.

The proud, big (almost-four) sister.

The people at Jason's are always so nice to us when we show up - you'd think they'd glare and spit with the way our children run around, dump food, drinks, etc. each and every time we're there. They even offered to take a family picture for us.

Bath time has been a bit of a challenge for us lately. Maverick only wants to stand which results in LOTS of splashing as he slips and slides and then this one HATES water on her head. We're trying to make it fun...

Getting to sleep has become a bit of a challenge as well since it's staying lighter longer and one of her walls has a big double sliding door which lets in tons of sunlight. It's pretty typical to find her in all sorts of sleeping positions when we check on her before we head to bed.

Friday morning we headed to the pediatrician's office for the big one-year appointment. He measured just over 30 inches (50th percentile) and weighed in at 21 lbs. 2 oz. (25th percentile) so at least he's staying consistent. The poor little guy has another ear infection so it was doubly no fun to get three shots on top of everything else. And here's the last monthly shot. I may try once more to get this one - he doesn't wear too many onesies these days so it's an extra effort to take this picture - not to mention the fact that he hates staying still for any length of time!

After the doctor's appointment, we headed out to the airport to pick up Auntie Kate. After a quick trip to the pharmacy we headed out to the IMA since the day was so sunny!

I'm pretty sure we didn't see half of what they've got outside but it was rough holding a 20-pound kid and trying to convince a 34-pound kid to walk because she's a "big girl."

Posing with Auntie.

Someone rode by on a Gator - Phoebe HATES loud, unexpected noises. Auntie laughed at/with the kids a lot while she was in town. I'm glad our family brings her such joy!

Sibling love.

Lots of people were out with cameras and sketch books - it was so very pretty and definitely Spring!

See all the fish in the water? We needed Daddy!

Supervised sibling love.

Unsupervised.

We headed inside since it had been years since Katie or I had been to the museum. Definitely not much for kiddos but we made the most of it and hit the highlights. We did do a lot of head scratching.

Maverick is one!

Phoebe is (almost) four!

And next year she'll be five (which she tells us a lot!).

We ended our visit with a stop at the L-O-V-E structure. There was a line of people waiting to pose but we finally got a turn!

Saturday morning we decided to try an Easter Egg Hunt. We will NOT come back to this one as it was a complete disaster. The registration line was a mile long and then once the 0-4 year olds were done hunting with a 10-egg limit per person, there were no eggs left for the older kids. Luckily we fell into the first round of hunters otherwise we'd have left with no eggs - and that would have been hard to explain to a 3 year old.

After finishing up some birthday shopping, we headed to YiaYia and Papou's. Uncle Steve and Bevin were there. Bubbles were first on the agenda.

And after dinner, we got down to celebrating birthdays for Maverick, Auntie Kate and Phoebe.

Phoebe wrote out "Mary Katharine Rousopoulos" all by herself. She's so stinkin' smart!

So...as we're still working on teaching Phoebe the real reason we celebrate Easter, I found a recipe for resurrection rolls on Pinterest. The whole concept was to compare Jesus to the marshmallow, the melted butter to the oil and the cinnamon sugar to the spices they used when they buried Him in the tomb (crescent rolls). Then He was supposed to rise again (aka - the disappearing marshmallow). Well, I didn't have such luck. Auntie nabbed one marshmallow out after they came out and when I gave it to Phoebe on a plate with some cut up sausage (the girl can still put away some sausage) - I asked her what happened to Jesus and she said, "Did He turn into the sausage!?" - Lesson learned - theological lessons should not be taught with food...at least not with three year olds...

My cute kids with their Auntie before church on Sunday morning.

LOVE Maverick's face in this one - he belongs to Ryan, no doubt about it!

After attempting to celebrate our Risen Savior at church with both kids in tow (at one point, I saw people at least three rows up shaking with laughter at Maverick's incessant growling) - we headed back to YiaYia and Papou's for Easter lunch.

Uncle Steve and his girlfriend Bevin in front of YiaYia's Easter tree.

Daddy attempting to teach Phoebe addition and subtraction with her new cash register from YiaYia and Papou.

Bevin did some serious grocery shopping while Uncle Steve did some colorful fishing with Maverick.

Everyone got in on the baby swing action.

Phoebe got another Easter Egg Hunt all to herself and had a blast. In fact, she had us re-hide the eggs on several occasions throughout the day.

Playing on the swing set.

Amoxicillin does not agree with Maverick and his diapers - we had a blow out before lunch time and had to change into our back-up outfit. Good thing as this guy was a mess after lunch. He devoured the green bean casserole and strawberries but still isn't interested in drinking milk. He's also still not walking 100% - he takes a good 5-6 steps before falling so he's definitely on his way.