Moving Day!!

I promise this is the last time I am moving.  I am officially fed up with Blogger.  It messes up when I try to post comments, and it has frustrated me one too many times.  So we are up and moving to Wordpress.

Please update your blogrolls to:

lifewithcheeks.wordpress.com

Thanks!!!
Jaime :)

17 months old!!

Dear Cheeks -

Where does the time go???  I cannot believe you are 17 months old today.  I just said to your mama yesterday, "how did he go from being so tiny and baby-ish to being a full-blown toddler????"  You are the light of our lives and I just don't even remember life without you.  The highlights of my days are playing with you, seeing how much you develop over the days/weeks/months, and getting your hugs and kisses!  You give the most adorable kisses - you open your mouth so big, lean into whatever you are kissing, and go "AHH".  Adorable!!!  Here are your stats for now:

1.  Walking like a champ!!

2.  You LOVE Elmo and Cookie monster!  Really, anything with Sesame Street is a favorite of yours now - books, toys, etc.

3.  Your vocabulary consists of:
           Car  (Everything with wheels is a car in your eyes)
           Mom-Mom  (what you call your mama right now)
           Cookie (sounds like COO-KEH - said in reference to Cookie Monster)
           All Done
           Again (When you want me to read you a book again)

4.  You HATE vegetables.  Mama and I try to hide some in your food, but 9 times out of 10 now, you are finding them and spitting them out!  You are one smart cookie.

5.  Your favorite foods are:
        Blueberry muffins
        Spinach and Cheese Ravioli (one of the only veggies we can get into you!!!)
        PB & J Sandwiches
        Grilled Cheese
        Honey Goldfish

6.  You are drinking out of a straw now.  We have dumped the sippy cups that leak everywhere and you are doing fantastic with your straw cups!

7.  You are very affectionate with your stuffed animals (Elmo and Cookie Monster in particular) and like to carry them around and give them hugs and kisses.

8.  You are learning how to swim!  Once you stop crying, you do fantastic at your lessons!  I think we have a future Olympian on our hands :)

9.  You really enjoy bedtime, and rarely cry when it's time to go to bed.  When I say "let's go upstairs!", you come running, crawl up on your own, and head into the bathroom to get your toothbrush.  It really is quite adorable.

10.  You've started really picking out the books you want me to read to you at bedtime.  Some of your favorites are:
         A tiny car book
         Brown Bear Brown Bear - What do You Hear?
         Sesame Street - Opposites
         The cover of the Seseame Streeth 40th Anniversary book
         Race Cars Race Cars
         10 Little Lady Bugs
         Good Night Moon 1-2-3
         How Do I Love You?

11.  You are starting to recognize objects in books!  When I ask you to point out the moon you do.  You can also point out the "Red Baloon". 

12.  You finally love going to play at the Y - you cry when you have to leave now, instead of crying because you have to go.

13.  The terrible twos have hit early.  When you don't get what you want, you are on the floor having a full blown temper tantrum.  Looking forward to you experiencing this with your own children one day :)

These past 17 months have been amazing.  I cannot wait to see what the next 17 have in store for us.

        
          

Just keep swimming...just keep swimming...

Dear Cheeks,

I am so proud of you!  Tonight will be your fourth swimming lesson, and you are doing fantastic!!  You do cry quite a bit, and even try to push away your teacher sometimes, but do everything your supposed to do.  You grip onto the wall.  When launched, you make it to the wall, grip on, and pull up.  So so so proud.  I can't imagine what you are going to be doing at the end of the six week course!

Here is a video of you doing your thing:

Trouble Posting Comments?

For some reason, I can't comment on anyone's page :(

Amanda - I tried to comment to you ,but it wouldn't let me.  Are you on FB?

Vacation-a-Go-Go

What a fantstic vacation.  I was very nervous about Cheeks in the car for so long, but he did amazing.  I'll break it down by day:

Friday 7/8
Doc and I couldn't sleep.  We decided to load up the car, and head out at 11:15pm.  We wake up the Cheek-meister and get on the road.  We had hoped he'd fall straight back to sleep, but nope - he was WIIIIIDE awake.  This was us at 3:30am at a random gas station in SC:

Saturday 7/9
We continued our drive and made it up to Alexandria, VA.  The drive really was nice - and we saw deer on the side of the road!!  We got a pet friendly hotel and Sophie and Harley did fantastic.  Cheeks was SO SO SO excited to be free of the car seat.  He was running around the room like a mad man.  At 6:00pm, all three of us konked out.

Sunday 7/10
We woke up bright and early (around 5 or 6ish) and grabbed some free continental breakfast downstairs.  We sedated the animals (they were so much less stressed this way) and we got on the road around 7:30 or so.  We decided we were SOOO close to Washington D.C., we needed to stop and visit the White House.  So we did!! 

We then continued our drive stopping for lunch in NJ where Cheeks learned how to use a straw (finally)!

After a long drive, we made it to Upstate NY!  Cheeks was so excited to see his Grandma and Grandpa and his Great Aunt and Great Uncle!!

Monday 7/11
Monday was a relaxing day.  We went down to Water Street Market and Downtown New Paltz.  It's such a quaint little town.  We enjoyed looking in the shops and had some lunch at a local restaurant. 

Tuesday 7/12
Of course the week that we go up to NY, it has to be in the midst of a heat wave!!!  We decided it was probably too hot to take Cheeks into the city, so he spent the day with Grandma and his Great Aunt.  Doc, my dad, and me went into NYC.  We had such a good time.  And we met Twist from the Frest Beat Band (those of you with kids probably know who I'm talking about!)  We were just walking down the street and Doc recognized him (out of costume).  He was SO nice.  Stopped and chatted for a few minutes and took his pic with us (this one was a pic of the pic on my dad's camera):

We had a pastrami sandwich at the Carnegie Deli, went to FAO Schwarz, the Apple Store, and to the top of the Empire State Building:

By the end of the day we were exhausted and missing Cheeks.  We went back to my Aunt and Uncle's, enjoyed some great Italian food, and crashed!

Wednesday 7/13
Wednesday was Catskills day.  We went up into the mountains to a little town called Phonecia.  There was a super cute store called the Eggs Nest where Cheeks got a drum - he loves to bang on it!  We walked around, let cheeks walk out of his stroller, and enjoyed lunch on a river in Kingston on the way home.  That night, Cheeks enjoyed a HUGE NY cookie while sitting in his cousin's coon skin cap watching the Fresh Beat Band:

Thursday 7/14
We just stayed around the house on Thursday.  We played outside, got some great pics, and Cheeks played with his new cousin!  It was a perfect day.

That night, we met my cousin for dinner.  We got this fun pic of the four of us:

Friday 7/15
We took Cheeks to a petting farm this day!  He loved looking at and petting the animals.  He was particularly smitten with the pigs:

Saturday and Sunday 7/16 and 7/17
These two days took up the drive back to FL.  We stopped overnight in Florence, South Carolina.  Cheeks had a ball running up and down the corridor in the motel back and forth between grandma and grandpas and our room.  He had a ball.  After a goodnight's sleep, we drove back home the next day and our vacation was over.

We had a really nice, good, relaxing time.  I am glad to be home, but wish we were still on vacation!  Next trip is coming up in about a month - a weekend at Universal Studios.  This should be an easier trip on us as it's only about 25 minutes away from home :)

Much needed vacation...coming right up!

Doc and I are gearing up to take our first *major* road trip with Cheeks (and together as a matter of fact).  We are driving from Central FL to Upstate NY!  We are very excited - and slightly nervous.  We are going to have a carful:  Doc, Cheeks, me, Harley (our dog), and Sophia (our cat - or soon to be ex-cat).  We were going to leave Harley here with a friend - but once she went and busted up her knee, we decided it's best she come along with us so we can keep an eye on her activity levels.  I don't want to - but because of the amount of space we have, and the lack of attention they have gotten lately - we have decided to find new homes for a couple of our kitties.  Sophia is going to a fantastic home - a friend of my Aunt and Uncles.  They love cats and are very excited to have her.  I hope we are making the right decision - I believe Sophie will be happier.

So we leave at 3:00am tomorrow.  I am nervous about Cheeks being in the car for so long.  We are breaking up the trip into two days - so hopefully it won't be too bad for him.  Between all the Fresh Beat Band episodes we downloaded to the iPad, the toy cars, the coloring books/paper, and books for him to look through, we SHOULD be good - fingers crossed!!

I cannot wait to get away and enjoy nature for a bit.  Upstate New York is beautiful - and this time of year is so much more pleasant up there than it is down here.  I'm excited for Cheeks to experience soft grass instead of the "cut your skin" blades of grass we have in FL.  Chasing lightening bugs is definitely on the agenda - as is a trip into the city with our family. 

Now - if the work day would just be over, vacation can START :) :)

Seriously?????

I am so frustrated and enraged with what has happened with the Casey Anthony trial.  Seriously???  I can tell you with complete certainty that my car does not have cloroform in it.  I have never researched "neck breaking" and "how to make cloroform".  I don't let someone take my child, lie about it, and then go out partying for 31 days.  I don't lie about where I work.  You cannot tell me that she did not murder her child.  Not Guilty.  REALLY?????? 

To me, there was plenty of physical evidence in this case.  More so than the Scott Peterson trial - and even he was found guilty (rightly so I believe).  It is infuriating to me that a mother can get away with this.  Perhaps it's because I have a son of my own that I am so enraged by the outcome of this trial.  If Cheeks is out of my sight for a few seconds I am worrying about him.  You cannot tell me that she didn't do something to that child - not the way she was out living it up for 31 days.  This was not an accident.  If this was an accident, 9-1-1 would have been called 31 days before they were.  If this was an accident, duct tape would not be on that child's skull.  THIS WOMAN GOT AWAY WITH MURDER. 

This, to me, was a miscarriage of justice.  This is an instance where, to me, the justice system has screwed up.  This, to me, is....infuriating.