Merry Christmas

 We hope it was a great Christmas for you and that you enjoyed our card!

 I have so many pictures from our trip but only had time tonight to resize a few. Enjoy!

 

 Mara's first ride on Spanky!

 Our family all dressed up.

 Christmas morning. Love them.

Party videos - take 2

Well, I can't get this thing to let me upload my larger videos. Here ya go:

http://youtu.be/JBzVBSj8yPA

and finally,

http://youtu.be/i0zQToB2fPM

Enjoy. 

Happy 3rd Birthday, my big girl

We celebrated Mara's 3rd birthday yesterday. Just wanted to share a few highlights of her day. I made sure to get a video of her opening Grandmom's/Pop-pop's present:

This does NOT want to load my videos of her receiving her powerwheels! ARG!!! Anyway, I will try those again soon. She had a BLAST and after about 10 or 15 minutes she really got the hang of driving it so Zack turned on the fast mode (5 mph). She loooved shoving it into high gear.

Thanks to everyone who joined us yesterday, for all your kind thoughts and generous gifts, and to all those who were thinking of her from afar. She was looking forward to her Dora party for so long and it made her day. I blinked back tears when she got out of her car on multiple occassions to give goodbye hugs and say "Thank you for coming" without me prompting!!! My little girl is so grown up! She starts the big kid class (Pre-K) today and sounds to be having a blast! She only spoke to me on the phone for like 2 seconds before she was off tracing letters!

Oh Toddler

First off, I don't have a lot of pictures to share right now because all recent ones are candidates for our Christmas card. I did take a few of Mara, though, which shows how I bribed her to take the family photos. Yes, I had to bribe because our Saturday photo session didn't turn out so well and we had to reshoot on Sunday.

 You want me to smile?

 Uh huh... well, you're gonna have to pay up.

 Cooperation!

For those of you I haven't told... we heard Mara banging around in her room after we put her to bed last night. I walk in and she's out of bed, has her toothbrush and yummy flavored toothpaste out and claims she's brushing her teeth (which we had already done). We have caught her sucking the toothpaste tube before... so I take that away, put her back to bed and return to what I was doing. A little while later... she's knocking on the door to come out... and when I open it, I've got a slick toddler staring at me. And when I say slick, I mean COVERED in Vaseline!!! We keep a tub of Vaseline in her room because she tends to get chapped cheeks and Z or I dab a miniscule amount on them for relief... but apparently leaving the tub there was a mistake. She basically has a Vaseline BEARD, ear to ear, mouth, chin, nose, hands, arms. She SHONE. I had to call Z to come see and I did my best to wipe her down with a wet washcloth. Poor kid had faceprints in her pillow and on some of her stuffed animals. When we asked her why she did that, she stone faced told us "my face hurt, and now it doesn't." Needless to say, the tub of Vaseline was promptly removed and her room investigated for any other liquids/creams/ink/anything-that-could-make-a-mess.

Our other, uh, incident, occurred last night after Z finished bathing her - she was spic and span clean and I was petting Arson at the top of the stairs, checking his legs because he's been chewing them and checking his belly for any irritation. Mara stoops down and is talking to him and proceeds to poke his penis! Arson's eyes popped out of his head like WHAT THE HECK? I told Mara that was yucky and she needed to go wash her finger immediately! I told her we don't touch that, and Z was saying "we don't touch that on anybody but ourselves, and even then only when wiping." She looked utterly confused as Z sanitized her hand and she stated, "but I don't have a penis." Sigh. You're right honey, I told her. Girls have vaginas. "Yup, bahginas. Girls have bahginas" she said. Then she proceeded to list who in the family has what.

Isaac 6 months

Hard to believe it's been 6 months since little man entered our lives! On November 20th, he was 13 pounds 9 ounces (< 3% for weight), 25.3 inches long (12%) and 42.4 cm head circumference (19%). I tried to find Mara's comparable stats at that age but couldn't locate her sheet easily. Sorry! So in 6 months, Isaac has gained 7 pounds 7 ounces in weight, 5.3 inches in height, and 9.5 cm in head circumference.

 It's a contest for who has more hair...

He says lots of vowels and has gotten out plenty of "dadadadada's." We're still working on the mamama sound...

He seems so frustrated that he can't go anywhere by himself, yet. He is wiggling and wiggling on his belly, so I doubt crawling will be TOO far off. He loves watching his older sister do anything and everything. Just watching her breathe reduces him to bashful smiles and giggles. When she hugs him, he sometimes squeals in delight.

 

 

 He gets way higher than this picture, but he was about to start crying. I was lucky to get these few 6 month shots before we left for the doctor, where he got 3 shots, poor man.

 

  We had a great Thanksgiving with the Dardens and here's a family shot:

Mara enjoyed Cherry's huge bathtub!

I have pictures from Mara attending Blake's 3rd birthday party in Colfax (near Greensboro), playing with Olen Ray, my friend Heidi's little man, and pics of Elam, Ocie Belle and Isaac together. But it's almost 10 pm on a weeknight and I've gotta get my beauty rest.

My favorite Mara quote from today, while I hugged and squeezed her - "We got in love."

I also asked her on the phone at lunchtime if she told everyone she had adventures (aka treks through the woods with Grahampa) over Thanksgiving. She goes "Hold on a second, okay? Heyyyyyy, I had ADVENTURES!" she screamed to the classroom.

Musings

Today, 2 or 3 people at daycare commented on how Mara had dressed herself and did such a good job... because she was wearing polka dot pants, a striped shirt, and sandals. How much longer do you think I can get away with the fact that IIIII dressed her and was simply out of clean matching clothes? Granted, she chose the sandals... but the rest of it was me. Am I a bad mother?

We enjoyed a visit from the Long family last weekend. Eight kids is a lot to fathom! But they were wonderful and made me wish that we had more family, any relation of family, closer to us so that my kids could play with cousins, second cousins, third cousins, etc.

Little Isaac cut a tooth today! He has been off for about a week now, waking about 3x a night to eat but not eating very well and we're all exhausted from our midnight rendezvous. I was stoked to finally discover a bottom tooth cutting this morning as it's justification for my baggy eyes and caffeine IV drip all week. This was our trip to the park on Sunday - Mara is off playing with Daddy somewhere and Mr. I-won't-sleep-at-night-but-will-pass-out-in-this-awkward-position was content to be jostled around the playground. SIGH!

He also learned to stick out his tongue the other day. It cracked me up! He would sort of do this blowing raspberries, but now it was a very deliberate tongue face. The reason I do not have any pictures of Mara here is because I'll ask to take her picture and she thinks about it and says no. She wouldn't come behind his head here for me to get them both in, but you can see her ARM.

 This was me, trying to keep teething baby happy on the bathroom mat (which he loves b/c it's so fuzzy) and he totally stole and ate the back page of my L.L.Bean catalogue.

So, since I'm on my lunch break here at work, I'll make this quick.

Recent Mara musings:

• When discussing the recent TINY amount of snowflakes that fell the other evening (you had to be in front of the floodlight outside at night to really see them) - "It was snowflaking!"
• Humming this morning on the way to daycare and moving her jaw side to side (I had to look in the mirror as she instructed so I could see) - she randomly states "My teeth are getting exercise!"
• When playing on the school playground with her new best buddy Wyatt and a girl friend asked to hold her hand - "I can't hold your hand because I'm holding hands with Wyatt" - which she and Wyatt did a LOT that day.
• I accidentally left Pooh Bear at daycare yesterday and told her that he was going to play with all the toys all night. She started to cry (no tears) but said "I'm crying because I really miss Pooh Bear. I'll have to choose another lovey." So we went upstairs to choose a pink elephant lovey and she states "We should call her Ella."
• She saw me preparing a bagel thin and asked "Why is there a hole in the middle?" - I had to google it!
• She now comes out of her bedroom all by herself in the mornings, and after we put her to bed. I hear someone struggling with the door, so I go to the base of the stairs to watch and she comes out and says "I'm gonna try to poop" and sure enough, she goes. She used to just call for us from her bed. She's growing up!
• She is also starting to get good at counting... and her learning method? Counting her poops. Yup. "Mommy, I made THREE poops, so I get THREE yogurt drops!" Hahaha.
• She also totally gets when I'm making jokes. I asked her what she did on the playground the other day and she said "I played." I said oh how I wish I could play at work. Do you want to go to work and I'll go to school? She BURST out laughing "HAHAHAHAHA" This kid makes me smile.

State Fair Videos

This was the choo choo train that she rode last year with me. This year, she hopped on it all by herself! I think she rode this maybe 3-4 times. By herself, with me, and with Daddy. After she got off this... she saw the fast caterpillar roller coaster and declared, "I want to go on the FAST one!"

Yes, I was a nervous wreck... thinking she'd want to get off as soon as she got on. But she was very brave! She told me she whined a lot (and Zack confirmed it) but she didn't cry. Brave brave girl. She wasn't technically tall enough for most of these rides... but Zack carried her past the measuring lines, and she seemed more mature than a lot of the kids there, so on she went!

And finally, here's the ladybug ride - I only got her at the end when she was very worried about sliding on the seat. She got in a different lady bug originally, had to pee pee, so they let us off to go pee pee and then she had to get back in line afterwards. She was good until she slipped out to the edge and Zack was yelling at her to hold onto the front. I didn't get a video of Zack and Mara in a spinning dragon ride. I think you can tell, she had an AMAZING time.

I do have pictures on my main camera, but I had to empty my phone card tonight so you get these. :)

Isaac 5 Months

5 months ALREADY???? Where is the time going?!

Here's the comparison.

 

 

 At least we can tell they were both obsessed with their feet at 5 months.

Isaac is starting to get destructive with his hanging toys. He loves to blow raspberries. He is hoovering some bottles (7-8 ounces in each). He loves when I float him around in the bathtub and he kicks and splashes and makes happy faces. He enjoys reading books (looking at the pages) and just seems so much bigger now!

Happy kids.

 Is it just me or do they make similar faces? Hehehe.

I wonder where they get all these funny faces from??!

 

 He is my handsome little man.

 And does this melt your heart?

 Sure makes him happy. :-D

Some catching up to do

I forgot to post these the last time:

 

 

My attempt at a picture with the camera propped on the car. You can sorta make out Zack and Mara in the background messing with the bushes or mulch or something. I love the little jacket with the ears.

And I had mentioned that Mara was invited to Anissa's 3rd birthday party at a place called The Little Gym. We packed the whole family up and hit the town. of Cary.

Anissa is one of Mara's good friends at daycare. Sophia (another daycare friend) is pointing at Anissa in that picture. The gym staff had the kids bake an imaginary cake and throw in whatever they wanted to (Mara chose to throw in pretend ice) and they stirred it up with their hands, baked it in an imaginary oven, ate it, etc. I think at first Mara was a little confused and shy (and mega-constipated).

 Her really good friend Alexis (Lexi) is sitting in her Mommy's lap.

They then each got a scarf that was a pretend butterfly that only came alive and active if it ate peanut butter. So they all danced to a peanut butter butterfly song and helped the butterflies dance, twirl, run, lay on the ground, etc.

 I did hear one parent wonder why they did exercise before sugary sweets and not the other way around.

 The song was long enough, though, that Mara really got into it and was zooming around with her flying butterfly.

 They did get some free choice time to play around on the gym equipment.

 Do you see a future gymnast? Maybe!

 What you don't see in these pictures is her being toted off the the bathroom attempting to poop, or bent over uncomfortably and making faces because her bottom hurt. But all in all, she had a great time. They got to lay on this blow up mattress while it was being blown up.

 Leave it to our kid to be different and the one facing the other way.

 They then got to bounce and somersault and run down the air mattress (for lack of a better term?)

 

 

 There were snacks and drinks and cake. Mara mostly ate pineapple or strawberries, I can't remember which. She sat right next to her good friend. And you can see what I was toting around the whole time. Big-ol-baby-boy and my camera.

 Mara liked that the party was Dora-themed and commented on the characters on the table covering.

 Anissa's Mom had them all line up for a group shot. It's sorta' obvious who is on the uhhh, smaller side? Granted, Anissa just turned 3 and Sophia to the right is probably 3 1/2 and I don't know the ages of the other kids.

 Mara got a hand stamp on the way out - a smiley sunshine. She asked for another stamp when it wore off the next day and I said I didn't have a sunshine stamp. She forgot about it soon afterwards or I would have given her one of my other stamps.

 She was so thrilled with her goody bag and would take things in and then put them all away in her bag and keep track of where everything was. She got bubbles, Dora playing cards, Dora bouncy ball, some stickers, and 2 plastic neon orange rings. They were all her little treasures.

 And Zack was a good sport about everything. Thanks, honey!

Oh, I wanted to post some pictures of the family collage that I made for daycare. I chose to make a butterfly that had wings that opened. Pretty awesome, right? I had a great time making it. Mara helped by putting the Dora stickers on the pictures and/or butterfly.