Polka dots and Tutus

A friend of ours turned one last week and Margaret Mary was thrilled and excited ("exci-ed") to go to her birthday party. The theme was polka dots and tutus which was super cute.

MM loved wearing her tutu, and for the next couple of days after the party, insisted that she wear hers everywhere (see last pic). Jason was out of town, so a friend came to pick us up. We put all the kids in the back seat, which was really special to see because both of us moms have gone through infertility. We rejoiced with having her back seat full of blessings!



When we got to the party, MM had a great time playing with her friend Ava. Ava is so sweet to her. SHe holds her hand, plays with her, shares her dolls, etc. MM is starting to really love all of her friends and is constantly begging for playdates by saying "friend, fun, play!" Even when the playdates consist of screaming and hogging toys, she still throws a fit when her "fiend" has to leave.




Here is MM the next day pushing her lawnmower, "momo" down the street in her tutu.

Papa Love

MM's favorite place to fall asleep is on Jason's chest. She can go to sleep by herself, but Jason and MM both treasure their cuddle time so much that when Jason is home, this is how she wants to sleep. Yesterday when Jason was at work, she wanted to go to sleep with her baby doll. When I gave it to her she pulled it right on top of her chest and went to sleep. Too cute. She also always asks to sleep with papa's blanket (the one I made him out of his old t-shirts) during her naps. MM loves her some papa.



As for Henry, this is how he sleeps:



Henry loves him some mama!

Some sweet pics...

MM and papa are making their mad face! Henry is staring at the ceiling fan. :)

"hi!"

MM gives a big energetic "HI!" to everyone she sees. I want to punch all the people who dont say hi back. She is VERY outgoing.

Falling in Love with Eachother...

The past few weeks, Margaret Mary and Henry have become infatuated with eachother. Henry coos, smiles and waves his arms each time he sees her, and she imitates his coos and smiles every time she sees him. There are times when Henry is fussy, and as soon as he sees her he stops crying and cracks up. It is really sweet to watch their relationship grow. Each time we leave the house, she always asks if Henry is coming too. :)

All she wants to do is dance...

she must have my dancing genes...the girl LOVES to sing and dance. You can see that Henry might have it in him as well. He laughs the hardest when i sing and dance for him. i dont know if that is a good thing or a bad thing...



sorry no caps...typing while nursing...

All about Henry

Henry had his four month check up last month. This weekend he will be five months! it goes too fast. Last month He weighed in at 16 pounds 5 ounces (75%), was 25 3/4 long (80%), and has a head cir. of 44 1/2 cm (92%)! He is a very alert baby (which makes it super hard to put him to sleep), can roll all over the place and is almost crawling! He reaches for everything and has started teething, which makes him pretty cranky sometimes. He is still our goofball and he loves loves loves his big sister. He still loves to talk!

The Past Couple of Days...

Margaret Mary has been loving the Ellaroo sling a friend gave us. She asks to get in the sling and then will bring me this one (we have several different slings). I love the pic of her blowing a kiss. I was asking her to give ME a kiss, but she had her own idea in mind.




MM LOVES to color and is getting really good at it. At first she would just scribble a little bit and then be done, but now she fills the whole page with circles and scribbles.



I've found a new way to hold her hair back: pigtails! This is MM showing you her goofy face.



MM also has been arranging a little audience for herself when she plays the piano!

My Sweet Boy

Henry (almost four months old!) sleeps most of the day, gives BIG smiles to anyone who smiles at him, laughs belly laughs when I sing and dance for him and is just downright goofy. We love him so much. He still is not a fan of the carseat and cries a lot in it. If I sit in the backseat and dance and sing for him, he will stop crying and laughing hard. It is funny to see him go from crying hysterically to laughing hyterically and then back to crying hysterically when I stop.

Piano

I almost forgot this in my last post.

MM still loves the piano. She will climb up on the bench, ask for a book (she wont play unless one is up there) and then play and sing her heart out. She sings songs all day long. The other day she sang one about "hot cookie," hehe, but she will sing about anything: bowls, dogs, mama, Hen-yay, papa, horsies, etc.

Margaret Mary Update

So, I've said many times how adorable this age is (she is now 20 months), and each day Margaret Mary does even more! I want to fill you in on a few recent happenings...

First, Margaret Mary's little prayer life. She LOVES praying to Jesus, dressing up like Mary, singing out of prayerbooks, putting as many rosaries around her neck as she can find, and kneeling. The other day I asked her if she would pray with me. She got a big smile on her face, turned toward our altar, got on her knees and held her little hands together until I said "amen," to which she echoed "amen!"




Second, her tastes. I'll start with her hair. It is getting sooo long that we have to pull it up in a side ponytail to keep it out of her face. I refuse to cut her bangs! We need to buy more clips, but she pulls them out and therefore we lose them soo easily. She gets really frustrated when her hair is in her face and she will ask for a "bow." I'll go get one, and she will fuss a little and say "ouch ouch medicine (one of her favorite word combinations)until I'm done. She will then look in the mirror, give herself a big cheesy smile and make goofy faces until I put her down. Silly Girl. Speaking of "ouch," we bought her some footed pajamas the other day. She was SOOOO excited and insisted that I change her into them for her nap. As soon as they were on, she started pointing to her feet and saying "ouch ouch medicine." I knew it would just take her a while to get used to the feeling, so I tried everything to distract her but she held her ground. The footed part of the pajamas were ouch and she wanted them off. I eventually cut the feet off and she was happy. In the picture below, she is telling me how "soft" her pajamas are. :) She also likes this pair a lot (I think they are kinda ugly) because they have shoes on them.



Last, Margaret Mary LOVES "Hen-yay" and is really starting to play with him. When he is on the floor, she wants to lay down beside him and play with his toys. She will put her face right up to his face and yell "hey baby" or just say "Hen-yay" over and over again with different intontations. When Henry is fussing and I can't get to him at the minute, she will go up to him, pat his belly and shush him. So cute. She also likes to help a lot. We only use a paci with Henry at night time and when they are both playing on the bed, she will find his paci, put it in his mouth, look up proudly and say "help!" as in "I helped!" Today she asked if she could help me breastfeed Henry! Here they are reading a book together.



We love, love, love our little Margaret Mary

Outside With Margaret Mary

MM loves playing "ou-side." When you ask her what she wants to do, she always says "go car." Sometimes she even says "go car" in her sleep!

MM and her Horsey

MM loves to add "y" to lots of words. Help has become "helpey," up has become "upey" and so on. It is so cute. Today, Margaret Mary wanted to wear her "horsey," which is a sweater that my memaw made me when I was a little girl. It is knit and on the arm is a horse, complete with a flowing mane. It was obviously made in the 80's, but MM LOVES it. Sorry for the blurry pics, but MM refuses to sit still for the camera these days.

Ball!!!

MM is at a really cute age. She is able to express so much. The other day she drew a "ball" for the first time and was sooooo proud of herself. She wasn't able to duplicate it, but it makes me wonder if she has inherited her father's amazing drawing skills! She loves coloring and is really good at helping me pick up all the crayons when she is done. So far, she knows yellow, purple and blue.

Henry Rolls!

Our New Stroller

Jason and I bought a used double jogging stroller so I can go out for some runs a couple times a week. I love it, MM loves it, and Henry will put up with it for about 20 minutes. Getting them in their jackets is a battle sometimes, but they look so cute in them. We think that Henry looks like the younger brother from "The Christmas Story" who cants move because he has on so many jackets! I love the pic of them laying on the floor together. I was taking a pic of how funny Henry looked, and MM started laying on the floor imitating Henry. She does this alot: imitating his sounds, how he stuffs his fingers in his mouth, how he plays on Mama, it is amazing how observant MM is!

In the Kitchen with MM

(Sorry the pics are so large. I am having a hard time finding a way to post pics taken on my phone to the blog. Dad- do you know how can I get pics from my phone onto my desktop?)

Today Margaret Mary and I made cookies for Jason and his friends. I was in a big hurry and was debating on whether I should make them fast and get it done or let MM help me and who knows what could happen with that. I decided to let her help and we had a ball! I measured everything out and she dumped everything in the right bowl. She helped me stir and make the dough into balls with our hands. You can even see her stealing choc chips out of the bowl in one of the pics! We had such a good time and I was glad that I didn't miss the opportunity to have this quality time with her.

Stories

Margaret Mary's growing ability to express her thoughts is amazing. She is constantly telling stories, aka, retelling us past events using the words she knows. For example, everytime we go out and swing, she points to the tree where Jason threw the rope up in the tree to hang up the swing and says "papa!" Or if I get her a cup at breakfast, she will tell Jason "mama, cup" (aka "mommy got me the cup." You have to know the context to get her stories, but it is still amazing.

The other day the neighbors' puppies came up and knocked Margaret Mary off her bike. She was screaming, the dogs were on top of her, Jason was beating the dogs, it was quite an event. (Dont worry, she is fine). Later on that day, she was talking and re-told us the story using her words. "Dog," then she pants like a dog, "bike, ouch, papa," (then she hits her hand, imitating Jason hitting the dogs). Jason and I were stunned. Our little girl is growing up!

P.S

The first time Margaret Mary held an ornament, she got super excited, yelled "ball!!!!," put the ornament over head and threw it. Needless to say, it shattered all over the kitchen floor. It happened so fast, we didn't have time to say no or to stop her. But it is def one of our favorite Christmas memories so far.

Ornaments

One Christmas tradition we took from Jason's mom is to buy an ornament for each person in the family each year. We went shopping the day after Christmas (to get all the ornaments on sale) and picked ours out. Jason picked out an overalls ornament to celebrate the birth of his baby boy, I got a pearl snowflake (because who doesn't love pearls!), and we picked out a music symbol ornament for Margaret Mary. We were going to let MM pick our her own ornament, but within two minutes, she had about 15 ornaments dangling from her wrist like bracelets! For Henry, we used a sweet ornament that a friend gave us around the time of Henry's birth that said "baby's first Christmas."



When we got home and were going through all of the old ornaments Jason's mom had gotten him each Christmas, Margaret Mary was mesmorized. As we unwrapped each ornament, she would ohhh and ahhh. It was really sweet and I was so happy that I got to catch her excitement on video.



Since then, it has been a fight to keep Margaret Mary from taking the ornaments off of the tree to play with them. She is in this stage where she is constantly testing her boundaries and Jason and I are still unsure about what her bounderies are! For example, we will tell her not to take the ornament off of the tree, so she will start swinging the ornament all around on the tree. We tell her to stop swinging the ornament, and she startes kissing the ornament and putting her tongue on it. We tell her to stop licking the ornament, that they are for touching gently. We want her to be able to touch the ornaments because many of them have doors that open, etc. She then starts banging two ornaments that are close to eachother together, to which we tell her to stop. She is good about obeying, but she always finds ways to do something else slightly outside the boundary that we just set for her. After five minutes of saying no to all the other ways she has found to play with the ornaments, while keeping them on the tree, while not banging them, etc, Jason and I are left exhausted wondering what IS okay for her to do and how much playing the ornmanets can take. Having kids is very challenging!

Merry Christmas!

This year, we stayed home for Christmas. With two kids under two and a carseat hating baby, the idea of traveling to North Carolina was too much. We really missed seeing family and the Christmas party but it was so nice to start our own traditions and relax. Christmas eve we went to a friend's party and stayed for an hour or two before MM got so hyper we had to leave. We love that she can stay up late now and that we don't have to be home by her bedtime. Henry had a hard time at the party (so much stimulation), so we were home and in bed by 9:30. Christmas day was really sweet. We woke up at about 6ish, and kept the kids in bed till Jason had lit the candles in the living room around our Sacred Heart picture. When he was done we got the kids up and took them to our altar where there was a present wrapped waiting for them. Margaret Mary was really excited and kept on saying "you you you!" ( by which she means "me me me!"). We said a little prayer and let her open the present and inside was a little baby Jesus! Margaret Mary loved it so much! She held baby Jesus in her arms, nursed him and then pointed to his diaper and said that he had a "yuck." So cute. We sang some Christmas carols and she sang with us in her own little jibberish. When we stopped she begged for more. We love our daughter's sweet heart, her love for the baby Jesus, and her love for music.





We then opened presents and she loved all them! Her favorite was in her stocking, two containers of puffs, her favorite snack. We don't buy them often because they are so expensive and she goes through them soooo fast. Margaret Mary opened them both up and had one hand in one and one hand in the other. She then preceeded to dump both containers on the floor in a massive pile.




Henry just sat and watched the excitement for a little while, then got really overstimulated, cried and then passed out. Here he is durring one of his better moments.



The rest of the day was filled with eating peanut butter balls, decorating the Christmas tree (Catholics celebrate Christmas for 12 days, starting with the 25th), Mass, and a big ol' dinner where we cooked our first ham. We think that everyone on the West side got a dirt bike for Christmas because every two seconds we would hear them roaring by outside our house. We ended the day with a walk around the neighborhood in our new (used, but new to us) double jogging stroller. Some neighbors saw us walking, came up to say hi (yes they were wasted), and called my sling a "pooch pouch." Jason and I couldn't stop laughing. Gotta love the west side. :)

Pictures from My Parents Visit

So most of you have already seen these beautiful pics of my children, but I thought I'd post them on here for those who don't keep up with facebook. Thanks Morgan for capturing my children so well! In these pics, MM is 19 months old and Henry is 3 months old.