My Frog Prince!

My Aunt Donna is in town from Raleigh this week with some friends. Mom, Kingston and I went to their cottage yesterday for a visit. Aunt Donna has met Kingston once and that was about a year ago so needless to say, he has changed quite a bit since then! Pictures were taken at our reunion but I'll have to post them when they are emailed to me.

Aunt Donna and my late Uncle Tom are artists. Good ones. Awesome ones. I remember being in awe of their art supplies, paper, yarns, material, paints and such when I was little. They could do it all-paint, sew, create. I am so proud of their work and feel lucky that we have a few of their pieces in our house.

Aunt Donna and Uncle Tom had a "thing" for frogs. The house they lived in was called "Frog Hollow" and it was decorated with beautiful art and lots of handmade frogs. I must admit I don't really know where the fascination with frogs came from but every time I think of frogs, I think of them. When we visited with Aunt Donna last April she asked me if she could paint Kingston a frog. I was so excited and agreed to it immediately!

And now, without further ado, I present Kingston's frog painting:

Aunt Donna named it but I can't remember what she called it and I won't go look right now since it is hanging over Kingston's crib and he is currently sleeping in said crib!

We hung it up tonight and Kingston immediately wanted to get in his crib and get a closer look.

He loves his new frog painting. It will hang on his bedroom wall for years and years to come. Thanks, Aunt Donna. What a special gift! I hope Kingston has at least a small bit of creativity handed down from my King genes!

Go Heels!

First off, we are so excited that the UNC Tarheels are going to the Final Four!!! Go Heels! Kingston wore his nearly too small UNC T-shirt for one of it's final times. He is growing like a weed! I couldn't get over how cute he looked in his shorts and T-shirt. Bring on the warm weather!

We also like to play with parts of the vacuum. But that's another story.

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Kingston got a new toy from one of our faithful blog readers, who happens to be one of Nana's really good friends. Thanks, Mrs. Kathy! Kingston has already cut the backyard! He at first thought it was a ride-on. . .

but he figured out how to make it work!

I like a man who isn't afraid of a lawnmower. Especially one who looks really cute using it!

Plea Answered!

Just as I suspected, the belt came from a friend who is equally as obsessed-no, maybe more obsessed-with MamaBargains as I am. Perhaps she is more obsessed because I never even saw the belts come up. Thanks, Ashley! We really appreciate you thinking of Kingston. He is, as we speak, as I type, walking around and around the living room with one end in his mouth with the rest dangling in front of him. Good times.

On another note, Kingston had his best day yet at Ms. Cindy's today! He screamed when I left this morning but he apparently settled down and had a big day playing, eating and napping. She even had to wake him up from his nap! She heard him say "uh-oh", "Able" and "book" throughout the day as he jabbered away without his pacifier in his mouth. (We are trying to limit his paci-time) Hooray! I'm so proud of him.

Makes me not worry so much about leaving him for the other 2 days this week while I'm in the Big City. Did I mention I'm going to NYC this week? Oh. OK.

Lunch, Free Stuff and A Fun Surprise

Since so many people have commented and wondered what Kingston eats for lunch, I thought I would finally share that bit of information with everyone. Just kidding. Not only do I mostly get 0-2 comments on most of my posts (thanks, Mom!), but NO ONE has ever asked me what Kingston eats for lunch.

I got Kingston's lunch plate ready for him while he was napping on Monday so that it was ready for him when he got up. It looked photogenic, so I took a quick shot of it. On Monday, Kingston had leftover ham from the Hardy Party, cheddar cheese, grapes, and Veggie Booty. Looks like a lot of food! Even Nigel was amazed at the sheer quantity of food on Kingston's plate.

This is what things looked like after Kingston was "all done!" (Insert baby sign language sign here!)

He ate a lot! So there you have it. For all of you who were wondering. All none of you. Great.

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Remember when I said I was signing up for all sorts of free stuff online? Yeah. Well, I had forgotten that I had registered to get a free Fruit Roll-up. When is the last time you ate colored sugar smeared on a piece of plastic Fruit Roll-ups? Their latest ploy to get you to buy the silly, sugary snack is to print stuff on them. Like a happy birthday wish, personalized to your kid. So when I signed up for the free sample, they asked what my kid's name is. I thought we would get a personalized sample.

Unless someone changed Kingston's name to Todd (and then I would have to change my whole blog set-up), they just send out a generic version and hope that you have a kid named Todd.

Don't worry. I ate the Fruit Roll-up before Kingston could even notice that it had some other kid's name on it.

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I know I have mentioned several times before how much I love Brooke Mayo and her photography. Well, I love her even more now! Kingston and I went to the mailbox this afternoon (thanks for Kingston's birthday card, Missy!) and found a cute little package addressed to me. I LOVE getting mail, and especially packages.

Here is what was inside:

Man, that Brooke is one special girl. Kingston and I are now the proud owners of a bunch of play date scheduling cards AND a cute case to store them in. The cards have one of the pictures Brooke took on the front with my phone number and email on the back with a space to write in play date information. What a cute idea! Thank you so much Brooke! You're the best!

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Tomorrow begins our 3 days of chaos. Lots of stuff going on. I'll try to keep you updated as things go along!