Really a big girl - yay!

As of today, Molly has been wearing her big girl undies for two days! She kept her training pants dry for three straight days, so on Sunday night we gave her her new undies - she got Hello Kitty, Jessie (Toy Story), and Princess and the Frog. (Well, she really stayed dry for four days, but one day we had to drive to Baltimore to pick up Nana, and so she was in the van for almost five hours, and she wore a diaper for that, and that shouldn't count.) And, she has kept her panties dry since she's been wearing them - yay!

Molly is so proud to be a big girl! I am so proud of her, and so excited that potty training has been relatively painless this time. (Although I'm sure that we are still a long way from being accident-free all the time.) I don't think I would have chosen this particular time to work on potty training, with moving and everything else that is happening, but I am glad to take it, if this is when she wants to do it - she made it so easy for me!

Miss Molly is 3!

Happy, happy third birthday to Miss Molly!

This year was the first that Molly knew what to expect - so she was really excited for her birthday! She had planned the menu for the whole day, and made her requests for cake decorations, and made a list of the presents she would like. When she got up in the morning, she was so excited to come down and find the kitchen already decorated in pink streamers and balloons - and a Hello Kitty balloon!

We had blueberry pancakes and smoothies for breakfast. Molly's pancakes were shaped like the number 3 and the letter M. (Shaped pancakes are a lot harder when they have blueberries in them, FYI.) She loved her breakfast!

Showing off her finger number 3, and her pancake number 3

Mmmm, blueberry, strawberry and yogurt smoothie!

The kids went to the park with Nana before lunch, and then we had Molly's favorite lunch: mac 'n cheese with peas. Both kids took a great nap (yay!) which gave us time to get ready for more celebration. Bobbi joined us in the afternoon, and Daddy came home after work to celebrate with us. We had "noodles and white sauce" for Molly's birthday dinner, and then had presents and cake and ice cream.

Molly has been asking to have Hello Kitty for her birthday for several months. I was so glad to be able to borrow this cool pan so I could make just what she wanted! It ended up requiring the help of both Bobbi and Nana to get the fondant on, but we all had a good laugh working on it. Molly loved it!

So excited for her cake!

I was surprised that Molly knew just what to do with those candles this year. I guess she's not a baby anymore!

And she blew them all out by herself!

I forgot to take a wide-angle picture of Molly with all her decorations - you'll just have to imagine lots of pink streamers and all those pink balloons behind her. =)

It was so special to be able to celebrate Molly's birthday with both Nana and Bobbi!

Molly got a bitty baby from Bobbi!

And LOTS of fun accessories!

Opening more presents

We had so much fun celebrating Molly today! She is so grown-up and fun. I loved watching her enjoy her birthday today. She had enough expectations to realize what was going on and enjoy it, but was still so surprised and delighted when she received the things that she asked for. I don't know if birthdays get any better than that! Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

Elijah...

Just got home after I tidied up a bit. He said, "Wow! It's neat-o daddy! Its...well...as clean as I wanted it to be."

So glad I could meet his expectations...

:)

June means strawberries!

Twice in the past two weeks, Bobbi and Papa have given us some fresh, local strawberries grown on their friends' Lancaster County farm. Hooray for strawberries! We all love them around here, and they just don't get any better than this.

She emptied her bowl before I could get a picture! Yummo!

Baby update - 31 weeks

The weeks seem to be flying by as we wait to know for sure if we are really and truly moving ... in only 9 days. Yikes! Despite the moving question, and potty-training, and the traveling that Patrick has and will be doing this month, and the kids' birthdays coming up, and all the craziness, the wee bairn (aka baby boy) is growing and developing and seems to be well and healthy. I had my glucose test a few weeks ago, which came back normal (hooray!) and the blood tests done again. The Rh antibodies test was negative (yay) but my iron was still low, so they actually increased my dose. I was very much hoping to be able to quit taking the iron, but it isn't the worst thing in the world. It's just a lot to remember - twice a day, not with the prenatal vitamin, but with food, but not with dairy, which inhibits the body's ability to absorb the iron ... Anyway, I got my regularly scheduled RhoGAM shot two weeks ago, and was only sore for a couple of days. Yuck. I think that was my 7th dose over the past 5 pregnancies? Maybe this time the wee bairn will be Rh negative and I won't have to do it again after he is born. =) Now we are back to the quick, boring appointments - every 2 weeks for now.

According to the baby development book, the wee bairn is now approximately 16-17 inches long, 3-4 pounds, and almost a skinny little version of his full-term self! He is still very active whenever I am not, and pretty still during the day while I am busy. Soon he will start to run out room for all this activity, but we are enjoying feeling his big crazy wiggles for now. Molly is not at all sure she wants to be able to feel the baby move, and usually frowns on him if he happens to move when she is snuggled with me. But the rest of us think it's great. =)

Patrick and I went on a tour of the hospital where I'll be delivering, just so we know where to go and what to do when it's time. I think it's crazy that we have had to do this with each baby - learning all over again at a different place with different procedures. I should get a job writing reviews of maternity wards around the country. (Queen size beds in the maternity ward, people. Dads DO NOT like those horrible fold-out chairs!) I'm glad to have that done, though. Now we just have to map out the best route from the new house to the hospital. Of course, we don't want to have to use any of this just yet - hopefully we'll have more than 10 days after the move before the baby comes this time.

(Almost) a big girl!

This weekend we planned to use our three-day weekend to go to Pittsburgh to visit friends and family while I can still travel. Then Molly decided to fuss all night long for a couple of nights (for no apparent reason) and then she woke up with a fever on Thursday morning. Not wanting to infect any of the pregnant mamas or new babies in the waiting room at my prenatal checkup, Patrick kept the kids outside - they went for a walk and played around, and then Molly fell up a cement step and cut the inside of her mouth, and skinned her chin and her shin, and bled all over Daddy. The nurse who was supposed to be taking my blood pressure and getting my Rhogam shot got to clean her up and get her some ice and a bandaid. It was a rough day to be Molly.

Anyway, by Friday Molly was over her fever but certainly had a cold and a cough. On Saturday morning, Patrick and I had to make the unfortunate call that she was not well enough to go anywhere, and certainly should go nowhere near my fragile little grandma at the nursing home. So the boys went to Pittsburgh and Molly and I stayed home, both of us heartbroken not to be able to go.

Molly and I have been talking about getting serious about potty training, and we were planning to start on Tuesday - after Elijah finished preschool, and we got back from our trip to the 'Burgh. Since we were going to be stuck at home for the whole weekend anyway, we decided to go for it.

Molly has been wearing her training pants whenever she's awake since Saturday morning, and went a full two and a half days before having an accident!! WOW! We offered her the same deal as we did Elijah - keep your training pants dry for three days in a row and you get to go pick out some big kid undies. I thought she might just pull off a crazy straight-to-panties victory today, but the streak ended around 10 am this morning when she was too involved in solving a train-track related problem and didn't make it to the potty on time. Still, she's obviously been ready for this for a while, and she's doing an amazing job. I'm so glad we waited until she was ready and excited to do it, and that we had this weekend to just focus on Molly and the potty. Molly has been proudly telling people on the phone that she is "almost" a big girl, since Daddy always tells her that she will be a big girl when she doesn't wear diapers anymore. She really is getting to be such a big girl!

Last day of school

Today was Elijah's last day of school. Wow! I can't believe that he's done with a whole year already! He loved both of his schools this year, and made the transition from one to the other pretty easily. He has grown up so much and learned a lot. He's made a lot of progress in his scissor skills, figured out the calendar, learned about patterns, memorized rhymes and songs, and learned a ton about animals. He also enjoyed taking soccer and gymnastics at school. Elijah was very blessed to have a great teacher who really knew him as an individual and cared about his development. He is both sad that school is ending, and excited for summer! On Tuesday, we all got to go to Elijah's end of the year party (with his whole school) at the park. It was so fun!

One of the big things that I was hoping for him to get out of his preschool experience was a good friendship. Elijah is not at all shy - but he's usually happy doing things on his own, totally absorbed in WHAT he's doing, and not too concerned about WHO is there (or not) to do things with him. He has a great time playing one-on-one with friends and cousins when we see them, but he doesn't need a friend to play with to be content. I love his self-sufficiency and his focus, but I also wanted him to experience the joy of a great friendship! And, just in the last month of school, Elijah suddenly had a best friend! Just like Elijah, she is the oldest kid in her family and very curious about the world. (And, strangely, almost as tall as he is - the only one in his class at his eye level.) They get along so well and love to do the same kinds of things. We are so thankful for her, and hope we can get them together often during the summer.

Best friends.

More pictures with Cam & Amanda

Hey look, I found some more pictures!

So glad we got this one, even with Elijah's awesome silly face.

Crazy blanket monsters

Beautiful kid pictures

Amanda sent me these beautiful pictures of the kids, taken on Sunday when they came up to visit. The kiddos are hot and sweaty - we had so much fun playing outside, but it was humid - but the photos are fantastic anyway. =)

Love them!

A fun visit

On Sunday we had a wonderful visit with my brother Cameron and his wife Amanda. They came up from Virginia for the day - we didn't do anything exciting, but we had such a good time just spending time together and catching up. The kids were very excited to have Uncle Cameron and Aunt Amanda here to visit, and played hard all day. I'm not sure who got more worn out by the end of the day, but everyone sure had fun! Patrick made really yummy burgers stuffed with cheese for lunch and we all ate until we were stuffed! We're really glad that we could spend some time together before Cam & Amanda move to Japan this summer!

Playing with chalk - love those chalky jeans!
(It was really humid, and the kids got pretty sweaty playing outside.)

Loving Uncle Cameron

Elijah reading for everyone.