Christmas present fatigue

We've had a wonderful Christmas in TX with Grant's parents and will be here until January 2, so I probably won't post photos until we get home, but I wanted to share a few funny stories from Texas!

Grant's mom, Carol, has an ornament with a photograph of each of her boys for every year of their childhood. She's started the tradition with Maggie, too. Well, Maggie has had a lot of fun this year looking at all the photos of Grant as a little kid. The other night he was putting her to bed and she said, "Daddy, I always thought you were a cutie when you were a little boy but now I KNOW that you were! And you're still a cutie!" She took her favorite ornament off of Carol's main tree and put it on a little tree in our bedroom so she could look at "little boy" Daddy whenever she wanted.

That same night she said, "Daddy, tonight I want you to sing me a song that Grandma used to sing to you when you were a little boy, and I need to have never heard it before."

Maggie's TX and CA relatives went crazy this year with presents for Maggie. Her two uncles in California sent several boxes full of gifts before we arrived, and two more arrived after we were here! On Christmas Day we were almost done opening presents and Maggie disappeared. I went into the room we're staying in and she was in bed. She said, "Mama, don't wake me up! I'm pretending to be asleep!" I said, "Maggie, you still have three more presents to open. Don't you want to come open them?" She said, "That's okay, Mama, you can open them for me." I've never heard of a kid who quits opening presents before she's done! I guess she was suffering from Christmas present fatigue. (No one really feels sorry for her for this!)

The other night as I was putting her to bed (seems she has her funniest moments at bedtime lately) she said, "Mama, I miss nursing." (She's three and hasn't nursed in two years, for Pete's sake!) I told her I was sorry but that she was a big girl now, blah blah blah. She said, "Do you think I can nurse again when we get to heaven?"

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and check back next week for photos!

Roman soldiers

A snippet of conversation from our ride home from "Walk Through Bethlehem" (a Christmas event recreating Bethlehem at Christ's birth) tonight:

Maggie: Why were those Roman soldiers so mean? Why did they eat people?
Grant: They don't eat people. People don't eat people.
Maggie: Caleb does.
Me: When have you ever seen Caleb eat a person?
Maggie: I meant a different Caleb.
Me: When have you seen a different Caleb eat a person?
Maggie: (scoffs) Like, a million times.

Right this minute she's running around, pretending to be a Roman soldier and eating people. I guess our conversation didn't really sink in.

Sleeping cutie

I know I probably shouldn't take photos of Maggie when she's sleeping (because it might wake her up) but I can't help myself. She just looks so sweet!Did I mention we've been decorated for Christmas since about two weeks before Thanksgiving?! Maggie and I had to go to Lowe's and while we were there Maggie spotted the 12' inflatable Holy Family. She immediately became smitten with baby Jesus and didn't want to go anywhere else in the store. I think she could have stood there for an hour just looking at baby Jesus. I finally convinced her to go home by reminding her that we had our own baby Jesus in our nativity scene at home. I told her we'd get it out of storage soon. For the next two days it was all she could talk about. Immediately upon waking, multiple times, she would ask if it was time to get baby Jesus out. Finally we gave in and Grant brought in the Christmas decorations. We got out the nativity scene and Grant decided to leave the boxes inside since we knew we'd be decorating soon. After looking at them for about an hour we decided we might as well go ahead and decorate our whole house. It was kind of embarrassing for about two weeks when anyone came over, but then it was nice to already be decorated when Thanksgiving was over! Maggie is still over the moon about baby Jesus and although she knows the nativity scene is for decoration, not playing, she is allowed to hold him once a day. If we go anywhere that has a nativity scene out Maggie gasps loudly and then says, "Baby JESUS!" with so much joy. It just makes me happy.
I love Christmas so much that my family calls me the Christmas elf. I honestly didn't think Christmas could be any more fun but this is shaping up to be my most fun Christmas ever. We took Maggie to Opryland Hotel and she LOVED all the decorations (although we didn't love paying $20 for parking!). More importantly, she's finally old enough to have a good grasp of the Christmas story. Plus, it's really fun to hear her retell it ("There are these three guys and they had presents for baby Jesus..."). Maggie is definitely my mini-elf!

Maggie's first dentist visit!

Maggie had her first cleaning (actually not her first visit to the dentist, but the first time she had her teeth cleaned). I was a little nervous about how she would do but she did great! She didn't love the way the toothpaste felt or tasted, and she wouldn't really let the dentist examine her teeth, but she sat still for the entire cleaning! She thought it was really silly that we both had to wear bibs while we were in the chair. She also charmed the pants off of all the dental assistants, receptionists, and other hygienists - they tried to take her home with them.Here she is with our wonderful hygienist, Miss Shelley! Maggie LOVES Miss Shelley and we talk about her a lot - as in, "Maggie, Miss Shelley really wants you to brush your teeth so you don't get any sugar bugs." We just have to invoke Miss Shelley's name to get Maggie to do anything teeth-related.
The other day Maggie was trying to get Grant to do something with her and he told her he would in five minutes. She waited patiently for three minutes, couldn't stand it any more, and went back in his office. She said, "Daddy, I know this is rude but could you please come with me right now?!" What do you think he did? :)

Maggie and I love to paint her toenails/fingernails. Her favorite style is to paint her left hand and left foot with hot pink nail polish, and her right hand and right foot with light pink nail polish. I'm pretty sure this is all the rage in Europe or something :) Anyway, when we were painting her nails the other day she said, "These nails are so pink. They're pinkernails!"

Why does a cow have four nursies?

Yesterday Maggie and I were in the car and she said, "Mama, why do cows have one...two...three...four nursies?" (She meant a cow's udder.) I said, "I think maybe it's because sometimes they have more than one baby cow and if they have more nursies then they can nurse more baby cows." She said, "Cows have four nursies. That is just unbelievable." Later that night I was telling Erin about this conversation and Maggie interrupted and said, "I'm SERIOUS. It's UN-BE-LIEVABLE."

Two nights ago I made salmon for dinner and when Maggie saw it she said, "Pink fish? Awesome."

Here are some photos from the Greek Festival back in September. There were llamas, donkeys, a HUGE pig, a calf, a pony, and a goat. I'm not sure if they were Greek animals or not :)

Maggie's birthday - belated!

Well, Maggie's third birthday was October 12th so here are (a month later!) some photos from her birthday party. We had so much fun. We decided to have a butterfly-themed party but since Maggie has a lot of boy friends we didn't know if they would think it was too girly, so we decided to have some bumblebee things for the boys. If you asked Maggie what kind of birthday party she was having she would say, "Bumblebees for the boys and butterflies for the girls." We gave out pink butterfly wings to all the girls to wear for the party and the boys were given...nothing to wear. Sorry, boys! I couldn't find any bumblebee wings for them! Anyway, here are a few photos:
Here are all the kids eating birthday cake. I made a really cute butterfly cake but someone (not naming names) didn't get a photo. You can see the bumblebee cupcakes below.
Here is Maggie with her friends Ivey, Caleb and Georgie. Georgie has on her butterfly wings but the other girls don't seem to be wearing theirs!
And here is Maggie with her friend Ben. When the two of them are out together they are sometimes mistaken for siblings because of their similar hair/eye color and overall cuteness:) Maggie simultaneously loves him and loves to torment him. Sigh.
We had such a fun time. It was Maggie's first birthday with as many kids as adults, so that feels like a benchmark birthday to me! I'm so thankful for the last three wonderful years with her precious life.

Baby's first photo

Here is a photo of the new baby from our ultrasound two weeks ago. For those of you who think all ultrasound photos look like blobs, I'm sorry, but hopefully you can at least tell that the part of the picture that looks like a double string of pearls is actually his spine! He's lying with his back up, his head is sort of tucked in, on the right side, and on the left side you can see one of his legs, bent.
Don't worry; you don't need to tell me he looks cute or anything; I know it's kind of hard to see what's what!

Downhill Sleeping

About three weeks ago, on a rainy afternoon, I went into Maggie's room after her nap, put my hand on the top of her dresser, and was surprised to feel a puddle there. I looked up and sure enough, water was leaking from the ceiling. The next day we asked our contractor to look at it (we were in the middle of a remodeling project so he happened to be there) and as he poked it with a stick a huge chunk of the ceiling fell onto the dresser. It couldn't be fixed right away because a) it needed to stop raining first, and b) the leaky roof causing the problem needed to be fixed before the ceiling could be fixed. So rather than have her sleep in a room with a holey ceiling we decided to pull her mattress onto the floor in our room. Needless to say, none of us slept well for the two weeks she was in there, but it was really fun to be with her when she awoke every morning. Our favorite thing, however, was checking on her when we went to bed at night. Without fail she would be in some crazy position, and many times we found her on the cold, hardwood floors, face down, with her shirt pulled up to her neck. One night I went in and she was sleeping like this:
I'm not sure if you can tell but her lower body is on the mattress and her upper body is on the floor, so she basically was sleeping on a lumpy downhill slope. I can not imagine how she was able to sleep like this. I put her back on her mattress, all on one level :) She's back in her own room now and we're all sleeping ten times better!

Here are a few of the funny things she's said lately. This past weekend I had a women's retreat for my church and I told her I would be at a meeting. She said, "No. Girls don't go to meetings!" Ummm...maybe I should try to expose her to some high-powered female executives.

Today we drove past the church where Grant and I were married and I pointed it out to Maggie. I said, "Isn't it so pretty?" She agreed and said, "It's so pretty it almost makes me want to cry!"

I mentioned that we were having some construction at our house. There's no way Maggie could have missed it, given that our house has been turned upside down for the last month, but I've been very surprised at how much detail she's soaked in. I've overheard her telling people, "We love our new cabinets! The pantry is great!" I've also heard her saying, "We have white subway tile in our shower now!" She really doesn't miss a thing!

It's a....

BOY!
Yep, we had our ultrasound last night and we're having a boy! Grant was asking the technician if the baby was in a good position to see what the gender is and the technician said, "Yep...you're going to find out! Do you see what this is?" And I saw what he was pointing to and I said, "Yep; I've never seen that in any of my other ultrasounds. It's a boy!"
Grant then said, "I know you can't be 100% but how sure are you it's a boy?" The technician said, "Oh, I'm 110% sure. He's definitely a boy. He's showing off!"
He was all curled up so we couldn't see his face but he sure didn't mind giving us a good view of his boy parts! (Just like a boy, right?!)
We're still kind of in shock, although I felt pretty sure it was a boy. We feel like we have the girl stuff pretty well figured out so we're trying to wrap our brains around what it will mean to have a boy. When we realize it was a boy my mind flashed forward many years and thought, "I'm going to be going to sporting events!" This was quickly followed by, "I get to redo the nursery!" because if it was another girl we were just going to keep Maggie's bedding since she's moving into her new "big kid" room. So now you have a glimpse into my shocked brain last night!
Crazy. I can't believe we're having a boy!

The Philosopher

Maggie has become very philosophical lately. If something happens that isn't great and I say something like, "Oh, no!" she'll look at me very Zen-like and say, "That's okay, mama. Sometimes things just happen as easy as they are." I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that means. I think she knows...
I've written before about how she is "spirited" and part of that is that she's very intense and goes from complete contentment to complete devastation in LITERALLY one second. We call it "freaking out" and when she starts doing this we say, "Maggie, freaking out is not okay." We help her calm down and when she's calm we help her apologize and so now sometimes she'll apologize without any prompting. Yesterday this all happened and she said, "Daddy, I'm sorry for freaking out." We think it's kind of funny (not the freaking out but the apology part).
I have no idea why but about six months ago I taught Maggie what Jazz Hands are. We didn't talk about it again for about 5 months, and then about one month ago Maggie randomly started doing (and saying!) "JAZZ HANDS!" I'd love to get it on video...

Pumpkin pancakes

I've been making pumpkin bread semi-regularly now that it's actually fall and my only problem is that I always have a little bit of pumpkin puree left over. Fortunately we have an amazing recipe for pumpkin pancakes that calls for 6 Tbl of pumpkin puree. We love this recipe so much (lately we've been making them about twice a week!) and several people have asked for the recipe so I thought I'd post it here for everyone. I think they taste like a pancake version of pumpkin bread with yummy fall spices.

Pumpkin Pancakes
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbl sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 pinch clove
1 cup milk
6 Tbl pumpkin puree
2 Tbl butter, melted
1 egg

Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl combine milk, pumpkin, butter and egg. Combine wet and dry ingredients and cook in a skillet or on a griddle.

You will love these! They are the perfect fall breakfast.

Joy

Maggie has these sunglasses that her grandpa sent her and she loves to wear them. On Saturday we went to Target and on the way out I handed them to her as I was putting on mine. She put them on and we walked a few steps out to the parking lot when she asked me, "Mama, can I take my sunglasses off? I want to see the world. The world of joy!"
Of course I said yes (once I quit laughing) and she took a few minutes to enjoy the sunset. And then I made her take this picture in the parking lot to document the moment:

Mama, you look like a mermaid...except for your butt!

I know I just added that last post but I'm adding another one because I just read something so funny! The title of this post is a direct quote so if it piques your interest or you just need a good laugh go to this link:

Ben & Birdy

Random things

Okay, I'm pretty sure I've never said anything remotely political on here before but I can't help but share this incident that occurred tonight at Whole Foods. There was a woman named Sophie stationed outside Whole Foods helping people register to vote. I had to change my address since we've moved since the last election, so Sophie gave me the form to fill out and she, Maggie and I had a bit of a conversation while I was there. We left to eat dinner with Grant, then came back about 30 minutes later as this normal-looking guy walked by Sophie and said, "Who are you voting for?" She said she couldn't say as she was required to be non-partisan while on the job. He said, loudly, "Vote for the hottie!" I was standing about 5 feet away and although I assumed he was talking about Sarah Palin, I couldn't resist saying, "Oh, you think Obama is a hottie?" He's still walking away but he looks over his shoulder and says, "NO! I think Obama is a Muslim!" I said (mostly to Sophie), "I think you're pretty ignorant!" But I secretly hope he heard me, although I'm sure it wouldn't have made an impact on him. I hope he's not registered to vote.

And now back to our regularly scheduled content:

I recently made a playlist of fun music for Maggie and I to listen to in the car and one of the songs on there is Harry Connick, Jr singing "Oompa Loompa" from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Yesterday Maggie wouldn't take a nap but was still having "rest time" alone in her room and I heard her make her own version of the song, singing, "Oompa loompa doopety doo I've got the joy of the Lord" Not bad, huh? :)

She is as excited as ever about our new baby and already loves to kiss my tummy and tell people, "Our baby is sooooo cuuuuuuute!" Many mornings the first words out of her mouth are, "How big is our baby today?!" Check back in about 5 months to see if she still thinks our baby is so wonderful!

And in VERY exciting news, I am going to have a new sister-in-law! Grant's brother, Blake, and his longtime girlfriend, Jenny, got engaged on Wednesday (strangely enough, 7 years to the date after Grant and I got engaged!). They are probably going to be getting married in the spring so if y'all see me eating a cupcake after the baby is born just remind me that I have a wedding to go to soon. Anyway, we're very excited and happy for them! They're in Florida right now for Jenny's brother's wedding but I'd love to post a picture of them and the ring as soon as they get back! Congratulations Blake and Jenny!

Maggie's news

Maggie has some news she wanted to share with everyone:
Yep, we're expecting a new baby! My due date is March 31 so I'm 14 weeks (3 1/2 months) pregnant! I know this photo of Maggie isn't really that great but she was so excited we could hardly get her to stand still for a photo.

We plan on finding out the baby's gender so hopefully we'll have another announcement in a few weeks.

From about the start of the second month to about a week ago I was feeling sick 24/7 but now I'm only feeling sick if I let myself get really hungry. I'm really glad to now be in the "golden" second trimester! We'll keep you posted...

Love that profile!

When I was pregnant with Maggie I had my ultrasound about halfway through (like many pregnant women) and we got the cutest, clearest photo of her profile and in it we could tell she had a little bit of a turned-up nose. Of course I instantly fell in love with it and couldn't wait to see it in person and when she was born it looked exactly like it did in the ultrasound. To this day I still love that little turned-up nose.

For your profile-viewing pleasure...

Goin' to the chapel...er...ranch

My sister-in-law, Kajsa, just sent me some of the photos from her wedding and I couldn't resist posting one of them here.

I know I'm biased but I think she is one of the cutest flower girls I've ever seen :)

It's Spanish!

The other night we were having dinner at my sister Erin's house. Maggie has lately been having a hard time restraining from "potty talk", and when Grant took her outside to wave goodbye to my grandma who was leaving, Maggie started waving and saying, "Good-bye, good-bye! Poopy! Poop!" Grant said, "Maggie, that was not an okay thing to say!" Maggie turned to him and said, "But Daddy, it's Spanish!"

She's really into foreign languages lately :) She'll say to me, "Do you want to hear me say some French words?" When I say, "ok" she'll say, "Blah blah tookay a la la gok"

I think she may also be showing some signs of OCD (like I have - self-diagnosed of course). She's always been really particular about things like her blankets being pulled up exactly to the crook of her knee and no higher or lower, or how she likes to get in on my side of the car (she calls it the "girls' side"). However, she has lately been using it to procrastinate going to bed. We'll do her whole bedtime routine and then finally get out of her room and two minutes later she'll run into the living room, crying because her library books aren't all stacked up on the table, or Bitty Baby's head isn't turned the right way in her doll-sized car stroller. So now we have this thing where we go through her room every night before bed and make sure it's tidy and just the way she likes it - which is good in that at least she goes to bed with a clean room every night! Honestly, though, I don't really think she has OCD but it does make me laugh how specific she is about some things.

The other day she said, "Can you tell me the story about the time we went to the big box store and got a big box on our car and we drove home and it made a funny noise the whole time?" I was stumped (I didn't remember going to a box store!) and after a few minutes Grant figured it out. She meant her 2nd birthday (almost a year ago) when we went to Toys 'R Us and bought her playground which came in a big box that we put on the top of our car (and it did make a funny noise while we were driving home). I just can't believe that she would remember that small event almost a year ago that we haven't talked about since it happened. Anyway, I just thought it was crazy and wish I had such a good memory!

We're going to go to the Greek "festibal" (as Maggie calls it) so maybe I'll have some photos of that to post later!

What to eat, what to eat...

Grant and I were just sitting at the kitchen table when we heard Maggie walk over to our pantry. She opened the curtains (yes, our pantry has curtains) and said, "Hmmm...what shall I have? Whaaaat shall I have?!" She decided on some applesauce, sat down, and said, "Now I'm going to eat this like a bear (meaning without a spoon)."

A few minutes ago she was playing with her dolls and stuffed animals and putting them down for a nap. After several minutes went by she came out of her room and we asked her how it went. She said, "Not good. They keep getting out of their bed. I'm getting really frustrated." Wonder where she's ever heard that! She asked us to go back in with her and help her get them to bed. I said, "Which one is the ringleader?" and she said, "Baby Krista. She's the only one with legs."

Banana bread face

One day several months ago Maggie and Grant were enjoying a piece of banana bread when Maggie asked Grant, "Daddy, do you want to see my banana bread face?" How could he say no? She then proceeded to make the face you see in the photo below. This photo is another from my mom's birthday and my favorite part is Grant making the same face off to the side.
We've been watching a lot of the Olympics and have let Maggie watch some with us. The other day we were watching one of the swimming races and I told her we were hoping USA would win. This led to an interesting conversation (ever tried to explain what countries are to a 2-year-old?) but I think Maggie got the gist of it. She said, "Are we the same country as Texas and California?"

We've also had a lot of fun watching the gymnastics part. She's taken gymnastics classes (Mommy & Me gymnastics, but still) since she was about 1 and so she knows about somersaults, cartwheels, balance beams, bars, etc., and loved to see the women (girls?) flying through the air. I just never imagined I'd have so much fun watching the Olympics with Maggie at such a young age! It's great!

S

Maggie's first concert

We were with my mom for her birthday on Sunday and Grant and Maggie disappeared into the living room. After a little while Maggie and Grant reappeared and Maggie said, "Could you please come in here for a minute, everyone?" So we all dutifully shuffled in and Maggie proceeded to perform her very first concert for us. She then plunked some random notes (random notes but with the right meter) while she sang, perfectly in tune, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." We loved it!
Maggie with her sweet Uncle Jim on the piano bench.

Big Bird gets a lesson on breastfeeding

I just saw this really sweet video of Big Bird learning about breastfeeding. It's very tasteful and even P.C., in my opinion, so watch it here if you're into that kind of thing :) (Mike - just skip this one and you'll still sleep well tonight.)

How to help your grieving friend

All right, I know this will seem random because...it is kind of random. I just read this post on someone else's blog (someone I don't even know) and I thought it was so insightful that I wanted to post a link to it here.

After losing our first daughter, Elle, I feel much better equipped to deal with grieving people than I did before, only because I know what was helpful or not helpful to me and Grant. I've had so many people ask me for advice on how to help their grieving friends and I thought this was extremely on point and such good advice. It was written by a mother of a stillborn daughter but I think it basically applies to someone grieving the loss of ANY loved one. I'm also going to link to it over in my sidebar, for future reference.

(FYI- there is a short, first section and then about 10 more short sections following it and I think they are all excellent, but you have to click on each one to read it.)

Wedding flowers

Yesterday, after the wedding I was working on, I had some flowers left over. I put some in the living room, some on our table, some in the kitchen, and a few on the bathroom countertop. Maggie walked into the bathroom, gasped with surprise, and said, "I didn't know there were supposed to be flowers in the bathroom! They're beautiful!"

Earlier that day she and Grant came to visit me at the church where I was arranging the flowers. Maggie said, "Are the brides just going to walk in here and say 'Look at all these beautiful flowers? Who made all of these?'"

It's nice to have a daughter who appreciates my work:)

Here's the deal

Yesterday and today Grant kept Maggie while I did flowers for a wedding (I'll post photos as soon as I'm able). Maggie wanted to watch a movie but Grant was wanting to play with her so she got very frustrated. She said in a shockingly calm voice, "Hey, Daddy, do you know what's the deal? I need to watch a movie and you're not being nice to me today." He wasn't swayed...good for him:)

Here's another photo from our TX trip. We went to visit our good friends, the Bakers, who live in Temple, about an hour from Ft. Worth. Maggie LOVED getting to play with their three kids and their youngest, Esther, gave Maggie a run for her money in the feisty department. I loved it!

Big kid bed drama

Last night Maggie and I were reading "Dinnertime: Zoo Animals" for her bedtime story and the photos showed an animal eating hay. I asked, "Maggie, do you eat hay?" And she said, "No, mama, I only eat gentleman food." I'm not sure exactly what gentleman food is but I like the sound of it!

Now that Maggie is in her "big kid bed" we've had a little trouble keeping her in her bed. Sometimes it's sweet, like when she crawls in bed with us in the mornings for a good snuggle, but sometimes it's bad, like when she came into our room about five times throughout the night (starting at 9am and ending at 6am). It really doesn't bother me that much during the night for some reason (although I know it would over a long period of time) because I remember when our friends' kids went through this stage and it seemed like such a big kid thing to do, and I just smile to think that Maggie is old enough to do this! We're trying to nip it in the bud so last night we promised her a small ice cream if she stayed in bed all night and it worked!

Two nights ago Grant put Maggie to bed alone because I was getting my hair cut. About 15 minutes after he put her to bed she walked noiselessly into the living room where he was watching tv and said, "Daddy. I was just crying about you. I..." (imagine shuddering sobs) "...forgot...sniff...to tell you something." Grant picked her up and asked what she forgot to tell him and she said (basically as if it were one long word), "Good night sleep tight don't let the bed bugs bite but if they do pick up your shoe and hit them 'til they're black and blue."

And now here are a few more photos from our TX trip of Maggie playing in the backyard sprinklers:

More TX photos

Maggie had a lot of fun in TX helping Grandma cook and loved any excuse to use the step stool. We also had a breakfast tea party last Sunday before church with myself, Maggie, Grandma and Grandmama (Grant's maternal grandmother). It was very elegant with food on toothpicks, cheese on crackers, and "white tea" (a.k.a. milk) as well as lots and lots of scarf accessories. The adults had coffee in our tiny teacups and Maggie took her white tea with cream and sugar. Grandma set the rules first: we must be very polite, always saying "please" and "thank you" and when we want something we must say, "Could you please pass the sugar?" Maggie was very careful to follow all the rules even into the afternoon, asking me at lunch if I could please pass her the crackers.
Here are lots (but not all) of Grant's family on his dad's side. This photo has his immediate family plus his paternal grandmother, two aunts, two uncles and six cousins (five of whom are siblings from one family). We enjoyed seeing them and Maggie loved hanging out with her "big" cousins.

Howdy from Tennessee!

All of the Howards are back in Nashville! Grant returned last Sunday (the 13th I think) but Maggie and I just flew home today and although we had so much fun we were really missing Grant.

Without further ado (and with way too much build-up since I haven't blogged in so long), here are the photos of what Maggie did in TX that I had previously only seen in movies:
I don't know if you can tell but the empty soap bottle is in the bottom left corner. This just reinforces the aphorism that if a child is quiet for more than one minute, he or she is probably up to no good! In order to clean it up I had to scoop handfuls out and put them into the bathtub. On the plus side, the sink is now really clean.

I have some more photos and stories to tell so I hope to put them on gradually over the next few days! Now that we're home I hope to catch up with all of you in Nashville very soon!

Howdy from Texas!

We are safe and sound in Texas with Grant's parents and we survived the looong car trip with no potty-related accidents and not even any extraneous potty stops. My mom, Carol and I had all bought little surprises for Maggie for the trip and I wrapped every one of them in wrapping paper. For every 15 minutes that she behaved I gave her a sticker to put on a chart I made, and then for every 3 stars she got to open one of her surprises. Overall the system worked smashingly and I'm suffering only slightly from the guilt of the bribing mother.

On our road trip Maggie regaled us with fascinating stories of things she did with her imaginary friend, Pepin, and her imaginary sister, Melia, and at the end of one such story she ended it by saying, "And that's the deal!"

I got to sleep until 9am today and until about 8am yesterday, thanks to my early-rising husband and mother-in-law. I could have slept longer...either there's something wrong with me or I'm chronically sleep-deprived and catching up on it! We've been going to the pool, playing in the sprinklers, and eating way too many of Carol's famous cookies.

I have a very funny photo to share with you so please check back soon for it! Let's just say Maggie did something that I thought only happened in movies...

Hi, God.

You know how most pictures depicting God show an old man with white hair and a long white beard? Well, there's a man who goes for a daily walk down our street who has white hair and a long white beard and the other day he happened to walk by as Grant and Maggie were sitting on the front porch and Maggie said, "That guy looks like God! Can you say hi to him, dad?" Maggie was really intrigued by his walking stick, too.

This morning I was reading a blog by one of my favorite writers, Catherine Newman, and I read a paragraph of it out loud to Grant and Maggie. Maggie listened quietly and then said, "Do you want to hear my computer and the things that it says?" And then she ran into Grant's office to get "her" computer keyboard (the one she's playing on in the photo below) and brought it into the kitchen to "read" things from it to us.

Maggie LOVES weddings and went through a kick where she watched my wedding DVD daily. For the past few weeks she's been saying she's going to get married and she's going to have a baby in her belly. I say, "After you get married you can have a baby in your belly" but she corrects me and says, "No, WHEN I get married I'll have a baby in my belly." And we have a whole conversation about it but she's still pretty insistent. Good thing that's a long time from now :)

Well rounded

We really want Maggie to be a well-rounded girl and that's why we're pushing both ballet AND computer science on her :)In other news, Maggie has now had her first full day in a "big kid" bed. Since she kept climbing out of her crib we thought it must be time! Her crib converted into a toddler bed so she'll be in that until we bump up to a twin bed. I'm just excited about the thought of new linens and redoing her room! The other day I had put her down for a nap and then lay down myself (a rare occurance) but I kept hearing weird things like a lone note from her little piano and a few little knocks and bangs. After thirty minutes I got up to check on her and I noticed that light was shining out from under her door so I decided to go in and see what was going on. I opened the door and saw total mayhem. Her laundry hamper was knocked over, books and dolls were strewn everywhere and she was standing in front of her chair, reading a book that was resting in the seat. She looked up very casually and said, "Oh, hey, mom." Although I tried to get her to take a nap after that she never would fall asleep.

South Dakota wedding photos

Here are some photos, finally! There are tons better from the wedding photographer but I'm guessing it'll be a while before I can put them on here... We somehow managed to escape without taking a picture of Maggie wearing her wreath of flowers in her hair. It doubled the cuteness factor :)

Let's set the scene with a photo of the ceremony location on Kajsa's family's ranch. (By the way, her name is Swedish and is pronounced "Kye-zuh.") Here's Chris, gazing at the stage before everything was all set up for the wedding. Everything in South Dakota was very...vast. It was really pretty, especially where their ranch was located.

Now I think we need to see the bride and groom:
Now here are Benton and Chris. Check out the boutonnieres (I made them along with help from my mom and Erin.) They were wheat and hypericum berries. I think they turned out really cool but I wish Chris' was on straight!

Here's Maggie eating a strawberry at the reception. While in South Dakota we also ate beef, beef, and more beef :)

It was pretty bright out there! I got a little sunburned that day. Thank goodness I put sunscreen on Maggie.

Me and my mom and sissies! I promise we were all fully clothed.
Cracking up at my mom's best friend, Ruth. I like this picture and wish she were in it. By the way, everyone in the bridal party was required to dance. If you know me at all you know how torturous this was. It felt like junior high all over again!
We saw a lot of animals in South Dakota and we city folk were mighty impressed by the chickens, horses, cows, pheasant, and deer.
Gorgeous even when she's making a goofy face. If I do say so.

Anyone still there?!

We made it back safely from my brother's wedding in South Dakota and I can't wait to post pictures of Maggie in all her flower girl glory, but it'll be a couple of days before that happens. The wedding was fun and it was cool to see South Dakota. We saw so many animals -wild pheasant, miniature horses, and lots and lots of cows. Maggie did great on the trip except for some sleep issues (it's always the sleep issues with her!). The first two legs (of three) of our trip were on a very small prop plane and it was extremely turbulent. About ten minutes before we landed Maggie started crying a really sad cry. She couldn't tell us why she was crying but at one point said her throat was starting to hurt. This went on for several minutes and the next thing I knew, she had vomited EVERYWHERE. Unfortunately we still had several minutes on the plane and I couldn't get the sick bag to her mouth fast enough, so I was furiously trying to clean her, clean the seat/wall/floor before we deplaned. Fortunately I had a change of clothes for her so I carried her off the plane in just her pull-up and gave her a sponge bath in the airport bathroom. She was a different kid after that - happy and energetic. I'm guessing she felt a lot better after the vomiting!

In completely unrelated news, I signed up for an Edy's (Dreyer's) Ice Cream contest. Each summer they give out 1,500 ice cream block parties where they provide all the ice cream. I signed up (I will sign up for any freebie or contest :) and yesterday I got an e-mail saying I was a grand prize winner! Apparently I'll receive a letter this week telling me the date of my party and I'm just hoping it won't be the first half of July when we'll be in TX with Grant's parents. Anyway, I can't believe I won!

Hope to put some photos up soon so check back!

ABCs

You know how all parents get in the habit of spelling things to other adults so their kids won't know what they're talking about? Well lately Maggie has started saying things like, "Daddy, could you get me the DIITP? And mama, let's go to the MUBC." It makes me laugh.

As an update to my "spirited child" post, I am happy to report that the book I mentioned has been EXTREMELY helpful and scarily accurate in its description of Maggie as a "spirited child." We've been having a great week, Maggie-wise, despite the fact that we had little to no electricity (sounds weird but we were having a "phase-out" of our electricity so over time less and less things in our house had electricity) from Friday night through Monday afternoon, and no air conditioning for that same time period. Thankfully, everything is fixed now!

Have I mentioned how amazing Maggie's memory is? It's really crazy. The other day we drove by an exotic fish/aquatic store and Maggie said, "I went there with Poppy." I told Poppy about that and he said it had been at least a year since they went there, meaning she couldn't have been much older than 1 1/2 and yet she remembered it! And a few weeks ago we drove by Vanderbilt Hospital (where her cousin, Jack, was born) and she said, "That's where we went the day Jack was born." Jack is 8 months old now and we hadn't been by there with her since he was born! Hopefully she'll keep up this sharp memory as she gets older b/c it'll definitely be helpful with studying!

Helvetica

I just looked at our queue on Netflix and I saw this gem selected as one of Grant's picks. The name of the movie is "Helvetica" and here is the description:

We use it every day on our computers, we see it on street signs -- and we take it for granted. Now, Gary Hustwit's unique documentary introduces us to Helvetica, whose readability has made it the most popular font in the world. Interviews with designers and artists offer insight into the development, use and universal acceptance of Helvetica as the typeface of choice for everything from writing letters to creating corporate logos.

Wow. Doesn't that sound exciting? Want to come over when we watch it?

To be honest I just watched the trailer for it and it kind of does look interesting, but that description just sounds awful to me. Grant and I have an "every other one" strategy for our movies on Netflix and while he often picks dry, esoteric documentaries or foreign films (some of which I like), I myself have been know to pick soppy, cliched chick flicks (some of which he likes). So I'd say it's a pretty fair trade :)

You'll be glad there's no photo for this one.

Today we were hanging out with my brother, Chris, and Maggie was, um...picking her nose.

The following is an excerpt from their conversation:
Chris: Are you digging for gold?
Maggie: Nope! I'm digging for boogers!

Isn't the shamelessness of two year olds remarkable?!

We have had a few very difficult days lately and I feel we are finally being hit with the so-called "Terrible Twos." Today Maggie was so sweet, obedient and great, but the last few days were doozies. She's so smart, so spunky, so opinionated and so energetic, but the flip side of all that is that she can be EXTREMELY strong-willed. To give you an idea how desperate we are I'll tell you the book we just ordered on Amazon.com: Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent and Energetic. I've heard good things about it; we'll see if it helps.

Cousins (and Poppy)

Here are some cute photos also from Mother's Day. In the first one it looks like Maggie is entertaining two members of her fan club. Jack's expression is priceless (so was his outfit - it was from a collection at Janie and Jack called "Gentlemen on the Green"). If you could see better you could tell that his visor, shoes, and shorts all matched and coordinated with his shirt. It just made me smile to see him!
I thought this one was so cute, too.

Maggie also has a new friend, Pepin. Pepin shows up in many of my conversations with Maggie, sometimes as the hero and sometimes as the villain. Today Maggie said that Pepin was her husband, but earlier this morning she referred to Pepin as female and said that she made Maggie get sick. As you probably figured out Pepin is Maggie's new imaginary friend. I'm not sure why she chose to name him/her "Pepin" but the only place we've heard the word Pepin is in the preschool version of the "Little House on the Prairie" stories that we read a few months ago. In those books Pepin is mentioned once or twice as the town in Wisconsin that the Ingalls lived in before they moved out west. Maggie must have just liked the way the word sounded.

This morning Maggie asked me, "Is my daddy your husband?" I said yes and that's when she told me that Pepin was her husband. I thought it was a pretty intelligent question for her to ask me though.

In other news, as of tomorrow my baby sister is a DOCTOR!!! This is my sister who decided at about age eight that when she grew up she wanted to be a pediatric oncologist. Well, she dropped the oncology part but has decided to specialize in pediatrics. I mean, who actually follows the career plans they make as a child?! If we all followed our childhood career plans there would be a lot more firemen and astronauts. Anyway, I'm so proud of Lindsay and her husband Jim (who will also be a doctor in two years) and all the hard work they've done. Congratulations, Dr. Lindsay! (Okay, so no one will call her Dr. Lindsay but I don't want to put her last name on the internet without her permission, so you get the idea...)

Coffee's ready!

Our coffee pot beeps when it's finished brewing and Maggie loves to announce that the coffee is ready (maybe she detects an improvement in our moods after drinking that first cup?). This morning we had Blake (Grant's brother) over for breakfast and Grant accidentally burned a pancake. The smoke detector started beeping its extremely loud signal and Maggie said, "Coffee's ready!" It made us laugh.

Here's a photo from Mother's Day that I didn't even want to take but it turned out pretty cute! My favorite part is Jack's milk belly - actually he had just eaten dinner (peas and prunes) and you can definitely tell!

Miley Cyrus

If you're not totally tired of hearing about Miley Cyrus' scandalous Vanity Fair photo, check out this very short article. It hits the nail on the head, in my opinion.

My Little Flower

Here's Maggie in our new flower bed! I promise it looks better than it seems in this photo. Because it's from an angle the plants look like they have gaping holes in between them but straight on it looks good, I promise. We're also going to be planting some hydrangea bushes behind these two rows of plants. We had a huge storm a few nights ago and it knocked a lot of leaves and debris into the bed. Okay, okay, enough disclaimers.

It appears we have proof that some of the nice things we do have been rubbing off on Maggie (not just my Valley Girl talk). Right after Erin and Jim and Jack were left our house the other day Maggie turned to Grant and said, "They are so nice." And the other day when Erin and I were driving around in her car with both kids in the back we overheard Maggie quietly telling Jack, "I love you, Jack. I'm so glad you're my cousin. Thank you for being my cousin." If that's not sweet, then I don't know what is!

UPDATE: I just went to Erin's blog and noticed that she posted this exact same story today and I didn't even know it! And the funny thing is, this happened almost two weeks ago! I guess we are sharing a brain!

Worms!

Yesterday Grant and I were working on our new flower bed and Maggie was playing around in the dirt. She disappeared for a few minutes over to the hose, methodically washing a rubber band she found. All of a sudden we heard her screaming at the top of her lungs and then she shouted, "A worm! A worm! A worm!" Grant asked what was wrong and she said, "A worm! It's... looking at my shoe!" She was frozen in fear by, yes, a worm, 12 inches from where she stood.

Today, Mother's Day, has been a great day for me. Grant let me sleep in as late as I wanted and he and Maggie brought me flowers and a card in bed and then cooked a big, gorgeous breakfast. Maggie's favorite color is, of course, pink and she loves Mickey Mouse. She picked out my card for me and happened to find one that was pink WITH Mickey Mouse on it. Of course she had to have that one. When she came in with Grant he prompted her with "What do you want to say to mama?" of course thinking she would say Happy Mother's Day. Instead she said, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

One of the kids across the street is named Manuel but Maggie has trouble pronouncing it. His sister's name is Wendy so Maggie has kind-of combined their names into one. She calls him, "Winmell" which sounds like "windmill". She'll shout across the street, "Winmell! Can you come over and play?!" Manuel also is quite a character. He is 7 and is absolutely adorable. The other day he came over for a little bit and was telling us very long stories about how his cousin and sister (ages 6 and 8) have been fighting all the time lately and also that his mom is pregnant but his dad doesn't know yet. D'oh! I guess his parents haven't taught him yet that some things are private :)

Hope all you moms are having a great mother's day! I know I am!

I heart birds

Is it just me or is this cake plate one of the cutest things you've ever seen?! I want one so badly but they are sold out!!!!! Sad...

Freepeats.org

For the moms and dads of babies through preschoolers:

Freepeats just opened in Nashville! If you're familiar with freecycle.org, it's very similar to that but specific to baby/child stuff. Basically it's a website where you can offer up baby or child things that your child has outgrown (like highchairs, toys, clothes, etc.) or doesn't need (like unopened formula cans or formula coupons if you're breastfeeding), and in return, you can post a request for things you need. If someone has it and wants to part with it, it's yours! You can also look at the things people are offering up for grabs and see if any of it is what you want. It's free if you sign up within its first month of existence (I think today, May 1, is the first day for the Nashville forum), and if you miss that window it's around $5 for a lifetime membership.

I just checked out the Nashville forum and there aren't that many things listed yet but that's not surprising given that it's the first day. I signed up and can't wait to see what things I can get rid of and also what I can get for FREE!

(They are open in lots of other cities, too, so if you're in, say, Seattle, or Atlanta, I know they have forums for those cities, too.)

Anyway, I hope you join, get some cool stuff, and get rid of some cool stuff your kids don't need any more!

Yay!

We're getting an Urban Outfitters!

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080430/BUSINESS01/804300400/1003/news01

MC Howard

Maggie's name is Maggie Claire Howard so we think it's really funny to call her MC Howard (M C like her initials and MC like a dj, get it?). We especially think it's funny to call her this when she puts on head phones. This is on the floor in Grant's office.

Maggie has picked up on some "grown-up" things that we say and is repeating them. Here are a few of our favorites:

• "It sure is!" Today we went to my Grandma's house and Maggie was looking for Grammy's cat, Missy. Grandma/Grammy said she thought Missy was in the living room. Maggie looked in that room and said, "She sure IS in here!"

• "Can you believe it?" She'll say things like, "I don't want to eat cereal for breakfast. Can you believe it?"

• This last one she said when we were with family the other day. She gets so excited in large gatherings of people she knows and she was just running around, giggling, and every few minutes she'd exclaim, "You're all so cute I just want to eat you up!"
  

She also has a book she likes to read called "Popcorn." It's actually one of Grant's books from when he was little. There's one very specific line from this book that Maggie likes to quote, from memory, every couple of days. She'll say, "'I don't care if I never see another piece of popcorn in my life,' said Buster." It just cracks me up that she also quotes the "said Buster" part of that line! It must have made a big impact on her somehow.

Cole & Maggie

We had our friends Marc and Elise and their son, Cole, over for dinner a few weeks ago. Cole is at an age now where he and Maggie can play together pretty well (he's about a year younger than her). They are very sweet together and love giving each other hugs and kisses. They're both in pajamas here and I thought it would be fun to put them to bed together in Maggie's crib but I know that would not turn out well... they'd either play and never fall asleep, or they'd be cranky about sharing a bed with someone else.

Dress #4 (Final dress...for now!)

This one is my favorite! Like I said before, she was having so much fun twirling around in her dress that it was hard to get a good shot.

I actually kind of like the motion of this shot...

Dress #3

This one is from Carol (Grandma Howard to Maggie). I love comfy play dresses, too!

Dress #2

Here's the second one! I think it looks almost like a baptismal gown. This one is Uncle Steve's favorite. The shoes are the ones she squealed over that Grandma Howard sent her. In other news, Maggie hit ANOTHER milestone yesterday (all right, this one may not go in the baby book): laughing until she cried!

A dress a day!

Maggie has lately been getting these wonderful packages in the mail from her Uncles Steve and James and her Grandma and Grandpa Howard. They're full of fun things like dresses, pajamas, and shoes! In fact, when Maggie saw that she had a new pair of shoes she actually squealed with delight. She is such a girl. So that her generous patrons (ha ha) can see their gifts on her I'm going to post a picture of different dress each day for the next few days. Here is the first, a cute white dress from Steve & James. She was having so much fun trying them on that we couldn't really get her to stand still long enough for a good photo - there was too much dancing going on. Here's a full view (check out her house slippers!)

And here's a close up!

In other Maggie news, she has achieved a new milestone. Since my sister Lindsay is in town this week I was trying to get her to nap at my other sister Erin's house. Erin and Lindsay went to get lunch and I stayed behind so Maggie could nap. I was sitting downstairs, reading a nap, and I kept hearing bumps and other noises. I thought I was hearing things so I didn't get too worried. After about 30 minutes I heard the door open upstairs and my first thought was, "Someone's breaking into Erin's room!" One second later I heard Maggie, standing at the top of the stairs, saying, "Hi Mama! The sun is awake!" I was just stunned and I ran upstairs to her. I just kept asking, "What did you do? How did you do this?!" I didn't think it was possible for her to climb out of her portable crib (pack 'n play for you parents reading this) and she's never attempted to climb out of her regular crib.
I went into Erin's room and saw that Maggie had pulled some books off of Erin's bed into her pack 'n play and then climbed out of it onto Erin's bed. She had also been courteous enough to turn off her noise maker before she came out of the room.
Needless to say we did not attempt another nap at Erin's house but she did fall asleep in the car an hour later! We're now getting ready to move her into a big kid bed so that she can nap at other people's houses since the pack 'n play is out of the question. But it's an exciting transition! Hopefully she'll stay in her bed. I wouldn't be surprised to find her up in the middle of the night watching tv or getting into the pantry or having a party or something.

BANJO!

Remember how we said Maggie was into rhyming lately? Now she's into the name game song (Anna anna bo bannna banana fana fo fanna...). Yesterday she was being a little wimpy after her nap and constantly wanted me to hold her. She said, "hold me! hold me! hold me hold me bo bold me banana fanna fo fold me..." How could I say no to that?!

She always has to sleep with her pink Nalgene bottle Grant bought her for her birthday but last night we couldn't find it at bedtime. We had guests over for dinner and so we were trying to be hospitable with them but also take care of her urgent need to have her water bottle. Finally we gave up and I was alone with Maggie in her room, trying to convince her she could sleep without it, and I was succeeding. We talked about something else for a minute, I put her in the crib, turned out the light, patted her her requisite number of pats, and was walking out when she said, "Oh! It's in the dishwasher!" It took me a minute to even realize what she was talking about and then the lightbulb went on. I told her to hang on a minute and I'd get it and as I walked out of her room she hollered at me, "Don't forget to put water in it!" Good thing she reminded me :) I don't know if this story is even funny at all in the retelling but it just cracked me up when it happened.

We've found some really great kid music lately and it's been really fun to hear her singing along and also to sing it herself throughout the day. She recognizes all kinds of instruments and during a song will shout out, "HORNS!" or "BANJO!" It's so fun!

I know I haven't put any photos up in a while but I'll try to post some this weekend. I may even TAKE some new ones this weekend since my favorite little sister is coming to visit!

Happy Earth Day (tomorrow) everyone!

Chunky Monkey, Anyone?

I just wanted to make sure EVERYONE knows that Ben & Jerry's Annual Free Cone Day is coming up on April 29. I will be there, going through the line at least once. Did you know they'll let you go back through the line as many times as you want (and have the patience for?). Last year the line was long but it moved very quickly.
My favorite flavors are Oatmeal Cookie Dough and Phish Food. What are yours?