So, after a great lunch and a fun visit with the firetruck, we headed back to Liz and Patrick’s house to let these two boys “nap”…yea, that didn’t happen for one of them at least!

They sure had fun playing with each other though!

Sweet Henry is 15 months old.  It kind of surprised me what a difference there was between Henry and Maxwell in many ways – mainly mobility!  Maxwell is running with the best of them while Henry is still toddling around a little unsteady.  That didn’t stop him from making sure Maxwell didn’t steal his toys though!

After nap-time we went over to see our other friends, William and Garman, and their brand new baby girl Kline.  Such a sweet little baby.  We hung out in their awesome backyard and enjoyed the pretty weather.

Maxwell and Henry had fun exploring…

I guess Maxwell was exploring what it felt like to fall on the rocks!

Henry was such a big help when Maxwell started stacking the shuffleboard discs…

Quite the team, these two!

William and Garman have two labs and they were having a great time following Maxwell around and snatching crackers out of his hand…

Despite what this picture implies…

Maxwell was really not too fond of dogs by the time the weekend was over.  Between William and Garman’s dogs and Patrick and Liz’s dog, he had enough of these pooches sniffing all over him.  Every time one would come near him, he’d just start yelling “mama!” and stick his arms up in the air.  Don’t worry – I scooped him up as fast as I could each time.  Guess he’s just like his Momma – I think dogs are great to look at from a distance!

Henry loves dogs, especially his dog, Shadow.  Of course, his mom is a vet so you’d hope he’d be an animal lover!

It was a fantastic afternoon and I’m so glad these 3 guys got the chance to catch up and meet all the respective babies…

Check out that baby yawn that Kline is giving us!  Guess we wore her out!

One more because I think it’s funny…

Maxwell clearly wants down and his face is cracking me up and Henry is clearly way more interested in baby Kline than smiling for the camera!

That night we left the babies with a sitter and had a really good dinner at Floataway Cafe.  Cool atmosphere, great food and impeccable company!

Of course, we had to actually get out of the house before we could have that lovely dinner and, well, let’s just say that didn’t go so well.  I’m going to tell the whole story because I want to remember and would love to see if anyone has advice.  If you’ve been reading a while, you know that Maxwell has a history of not sleeping well outside of our house. (mentioned here, here, here, here and here)   The only place he will sleep outside of our house is my parent’s house in Naples…strange.  Every other place – hotels, Robert’s parents, friend’s houses – he screams bloody murder when we try to put him to bed.  Now, I can do a “cry it out” with the best of them but this is different.  For one, he has a tendency to cry so hard and work himself up so much that he throws up.  Second, this isn’t a normal “cry it out” situation because he NEVER cries at home when going to sleep.  So, we put him in the pack-n-play Saturday night (mind you, we had 3 of his stuffed animals and his sleep machine to try and make it soothing) and he immediately started wailing.  We waited and listened to him go ballistic for about 15 minutes and then Robert went in to calm him down.  He did calm down but as soon as Robert put him back down, he started wailing again.  We finally just had to leave for dinner with him screaming his head off (and me in tears) with a promise by the sitter that she could handle it.  About 20 minutes into dinner we got a text from the sitter saying that she had gotten him up, he had a stinker diaper and he threw up but he was finally asleep in her arms.  That poor, sweet baby boy.  And that wonderful, sweet sitter!  She got him back in the pack-n-play and he, thankfully, slept all night.  He was a cranky mess the next day though because of the missed sleep.

Does anyone have suggestions of what we can do to get him to sleep outside of the house?  We feel like we’re trapped at home and can’t travel with him anywhere until he outgrows this!

Despite the sleeping issues it was still a super fun weekend visiting some old friends…and meeting some new little friends!  🙂  Let’s do it again soon! (and by soon I mean once Maxwell starts sleeping outside of the house!)

Hello all!  I am back in B’ham after a super fun, 4 day trip to the city.  It was great to be back in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan.  The reason for our trip was the wedding of my friend, Alicia.  But, we packed in lots of other fun things in addition to the awesome wedding.  I flew up *very* early Friday morning and spent the day in the office.  It’s always good to catch up with my co-workers and be in the office…and remind me that I love working from home!  🙂  Friday night meant sushi from my very favorite place EVER.  Tenzan.  It’s nothing fancy – decidedly un-fancy actually – but melt in your mouth delicious.

Yes, I was so excited about this sushi I took a picture of it.  And, yes, I ate all of that.

I was supposed to meet my friend there for dinner but she had to cancel so I just enjoyed a night walking through Saks and then eating sushi in my hotel while watching the Whitney Houston special on Dateline.  What?  I can’t have a crazy quintessential NY night every night, can I?  🙂

Robert flew up to meet me on Saturday.  We met up with my friend, Lyndsay, grabbed lunch at PJ Clarke’s, and then spent the day shopping.  We even got Maxwell a little souvenir to take home with us!

La mia prima Ferrari!  Vroom vroom!

That night we met up with our friends, Samantha, Ryan, Katie and Matt at the coolest new bar.  Jimmy at the James Hotel.  David Burke has a new restaurant in this hotel that is on my list to try next trip up!

We then had dinner at Caffe Falai that included incredible hand made pasta.

After dinner, Robert, Lyndsay and I went to the welcome party for Alicia’s wedding.  It was downtown at the Wooly in the Woolworth building.  It was a place I had never been to before and apparently only opens for special events.  It was definitely a cool space.

Lyndsay and I with the bride to be in the middle!

Sunday we had brunch at Friend of a Farmer and then headed to Soho because I wanted to go into C. Wonder.  Have you heard of C. Wonder?  It was started by Chris Burch (former husband of Tory) and it’s fantastic.  Home accessories, jewelry, apparel….a true lifestyle brand (in a very Tory-esque fashion I might add!)  The store was just as cool as I expected and I kinda wanted to move into it.  No, not kinda.  Definitely wanted to move in.

The wedding was on Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn Heights and it was lovely.

The reception followed at Bridgewaters in downtown Manhattan.  It was a great venue with incredible views of the Brooklyn Bridge.  We danced the night away (possibly including a little faux tap dance by yours truly. I can buffalo with the best of em!) and celebrated the happy couple!  So fun!  Congrats to Alicia and Bill!

I had the best date there!  🙂

I loved getting to see so many sweet friends – Lyndsay, Katie, Sam, Kady, Jane, Elana, Alicia, and many more.  The best part of the whole trip though?  Getting home yesterday afternoon to see this cool dude…

Oh, man.  I cannot tell you how much I missed him.  Not seeing his smiling face for 3.5 whole days just about did me in!  But, knowing that he was home having a BLAST with Ms. Susan made it all ok.

You better believe I gave him lots of extra snuggles last night.

So, that was our trip…as documented by my iphone and in probably more detail that you cared to know!  See you tomorrow!

We took Maxwell to the beach while in Naples two weeks ago.  We were all ready for a fun day playing in the sand…

and things seem to go well at first…

but it ultimately ended like this.

Not a fan of the beach apparently.  We weren’t going to be deterred though and tried again the next day.  After a little time on my lap getting used to everything, Maxwell finally ventured onto a towel…

and started to play with the sand…

We then played with the sand a little closer to the water…

and then, with one little finger still holding on, he ventured even closer to the water…

and, then, success!

I didn’t get pictures of it but he ended up letting the waves wash over his feet and loved it!

After the beach we hopped in the pool and, well, it was no competition for favorite.  Somebody get this boy some floaties!  Beach Pool baby, beach pool baby, out in the sun!