Funny Maggie Sayings

I've got so many funny Maggie sayings that I thought I'd devote a whole post to them.

First of all, Maggie calls Finn "bruddy" which is a combination of "brother" and "buddy." Super cute.

Tonight while we were driving Maggie said, "I'm having some refreshments. That's a fancy word for snack!"
We said, "That's great, Maggie!"
She said, "Yep. I'm having some nose refreshments!"
We laughed, thinking, "Isn't she silly?!"
A few minutes later she said, "I'm fishing for some nose refreshments!"
Um. Does that mean what I think it means?
Yep. "Nose refreshments" = "boogers".
Also, "nose refreshments" = "not so fancy after all".

The rest of the stories are all Christmas-related, FYI.

Christmas Eve Maggie woke up around 4:30am and came into our room. I was afraid she'd realize it was Christmas morning and be unable to go back to sleep so I helped her as quickly as possible and Grant put her back in bed. Then, Christmas morning, Maggie was looking at her stocking and pulling out the Hello Kitty slippers that peeked over the top, and she said, "I saw these stockings last night when I got up but I tried not to look at them because I wanted it to be a surprise!" I'm so impressed by her self-control. I'm pretty sure she didn't learn that from me.

Earlier in December Maggie and I were shopping and found ourselves surrounded by Christmas lingerie. You know the type - red, gauzy, with white faux fur. Maggie pointed right at one and said, "OH! That's for mamas who want to look like Santa!"

We were listening to Christmas music and one of my favorite songs came on, "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm". Maggie said, "Wait a second. What did that song say?"
We said, "It said, 'I've got my love to keep me warm."
Maggie said, "Hmmm...I don't think that'll keep her very warm."

Enjoy!

Christmas visitors, Part II

We went to Opryland Hotel on their last night in Nashville, my favorite Christmas-y place to go. Grant generously calls it my "one lapse of good taste." Thanks, honey.
We had a terrible time.
Terrible, and miserable.
Yeah, right! What's the only thing as wonderful as besotted grandparents? Besotted grandkids!
Finn: "Oh, Grandpa, you're so hilarious."
Finn: "Wait. Could you explain that joke again?"
This is pretty much how adorable Finn is all day:
And the same for this cutie, posing with Grandpa and her scarecrow painting (which she did all by herself!):
Here are Carol and Maggie in the midst of the Christmas present extravaganza:
Here's a funny story about the dolls. Carol wanted to buy Maggie a girl doll from American Girl Dolls but the only ones with hair (aside from the big, historical ones) were the twins. Well, Carol didn't think Maggie really needed two more dolls, so she asked some teacher friends if anyone would want to go in with her and she (Carol) would get the girl and the other person would get the boy. Apparently her friends were shocked that she would consider "breaking up" the twins. As if they're real twins! I guess the pressure got to Carol because Maggie now has a complete set of twins, and has named them "Ella" and "Peter".

I have the best in-laws and we had tons of fun while they were here. Ahh! So lucky!

Christmas visitors, Part I

One day several weeks ago I received a very exciting phone call when my college roommate and one of my best friends, Christin, called to say she and her family would be passing through Nashville on December 21 on their way to Atlanta for Christmas. At approximately the same time on that same day Grant received a phone call from his parents saying they would be coming to visit us, also on December 21! Both parties wouldn't be staying long - about 20 hours for Christin and her family and about 48 hours for Grant's parents. So we had a brief and wonderful time with lots of visitors!

Christin and Kevin had an adorable little baby, Jude, in June, about three months after Finn was born and while they were here we got to have the boys together for the first time. Christin and I have already decided that they'll be best friends and go to Samford (our alma mater) together and room together. Their dads had something to say about this but we'll just see what happens...
We had so much fun and the boys are off to a great start on best-friendhood. Here they are in the morning, sitting in bed together.
Seriously, does it get any cuter than this?! I don't think so. They were very affectionate with each other, a sign that they are destined for a long-lasting friendship.
And my favorite:
Christin, Kevin and baby Jude stayed with us and Grant's parents stayed with Grant's brother and his wife (Blake & Jenny). The night that Christin was here we put the babies to bed and his parents stayed home with them so we could go out for an adults-only dinner. We had so much fun. Why do they have to live so far away?!

We also celebrated Christmas with Grant's family while they were here. By the time they arrived I had virtually all of our presents wrapped and under the tree, and when the Howards arrived our present count doubled or tripled. I'll be posting about this tomorrow so that this post isn't jumbo-sized.

Happy Birthday, Dear Maggie

In my official HowardYouDoing tradition, here are photos from Maggie's birthday party about two months late.
It was Candyland-themed so I did my best re-creation of the game board for the cake:
Maggie and I had fun leading up to the party making giant candies and gingerbread men to decorate the house. I challenged myself to not make it a total sugar-fest so the goodie pails below had candy rings and candy necklaces, stickers that look like candy, gingerbread man cookie cutters, and play dough.
I made about five giant paintings of candy/sweets to hang up in the backyard. You can see the lollipop and gumdrop ones behind my sister-in-law, Kajsa, and Finn, below. I made one that was a swirly hard candy (like a peppermint) and we had the kids lick gummy lifesavers and try to stick them on the center of the candy, a la Pin-The-Tale-On-The-Donkey. Maggie could see through the blindfold but I wasn't sure about it until later. Oh well. We also had a peanut-shelling contest (because of Peanut Acres on the Candyland game board) and it was pretty funny to see all the little kids trying to shell the peanuts. Let's face it: no one was too fast. Here's the birthday girl with my mom, making approximately 10 gallons of bacon & corn chowder.We borrowed Maggie's Uncle Blake & Aunt Jenny's bean bag toss. They had their last initial painted on them, which, conveniently, is OUR last initial. You can also see my cotton candy painting (Grant said, "Why did you paint a blue cloud on a stick?"). I never claimed to be a great artist.
We just had a great time! We (and Maggie, especially) are so lucky to have such lovely friends. And as a side note, we have a new deck! It was just finished yesterday, but wouldn't it have been nice to have back in October for Maggie's birthday?! Well, there's always next year.

Early December update

We are deep in the throes of Christmas around here. Maggie wrote her letter to Santa and we mailed it in the giant Santa mailbox at Macy's. She was pretty excited about that. Here she is giving a thumbs up to her Santa letter.I don't know if you can read the letter so I'll type out what she wrote:
"Dear Santa,
Hi, I'm Maggie. I wanted to tell you that I have been a very good girl this year. Can I please have bride and groom barbies, some wedgits, more art project things, smelling stickers (orange, apple, and other fruits), lip gloss, and lipstick? Thank you and please have a wonderful Christmas this year.
Love,
Maggie"

If I could write a follow-up letter to Santa it would say:
"Dear Santa,
Yes, Maggie has been a very good girl this year. Please ignore her request for Barbies, or ANY dolls for that matter. Her dolls have taken over our house.
Enjoy the cookies we'll be leaving out for you and make sure your reindeer eat our reindeer food.
Love,
Courtney"

We had my dad and brother, Spencer, over for dinner two nights ago and my dad mentioned something and said it was cheap. Maggie bolted upright and said, "MOM! You LOVE cheap things!!!!!" We cracked up - and she's sort-of right. I LOVE a good deal!

Maggie said something else funny the other day, but I don't know if it'll come across as hilarious in writing. She walked up to me and Grant and said, "I realized that this shoe was different from that shoe and I said to myself, 'That's not right!'" It just cracked us up to hear this little 4-year-old say, "I said to myself"!

Here's our other little sweetie, sleeping in the sling on a walk a few weeks ago on a really nice day.
We had another appointment with our beloved geneticist, Dr. Summar, this week. We thought it would be our last appointment with him before he moved to DC but while we were there he said he would be here the second week of January and would we mind coming back in then so he could see us one last time? We said, "OF COURSE!" Maggie and I made some homemade toffee for him, Finn's nutritionist, and his nurse practitioner, all of whom we just adore. At this last appointment Dr. Summar had someone shadowing him (maybe a med student? or maybe an undergrad?) and when he walked into the exam room he told this young woman to get comfortable. He said, "This family and I are really close so we always talk for a while." I just thought that was the sweetest thing to say! As far as Finn's health goes, his developmental and neurological exams show that he's developing normally and his head circumference has increased, which means that his brain is growing (yay, brain!). Unfortunately he hasn't gained any weight or grown lengthwise for the last two months so they're going to be keeping a close eye on that. Meanwhile I'm trying to feed him as much as he will eat and trying not to freak out about it. His team definitely wasn't freaked out but it's hard for me not to feel anxious. He is very, very happy most of the time so obviously he's not starving or he'd be a lot more fussy. Also, he's had a cold for the better part of the last two months so they suspect that contributed to suppressing his appetite.

He's getting really, really close to crawling and loves to get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. His teeth also seem to be so close to coming in. They haven't broken through the gums yet but I can see them right there and they're really red. He LOVES giving lots of kisses and hugs (although to the untrained eye his kisses may look like he's trying to suck on our faces).

I'll leave you with a funny Maggie photo. Do you remember the elf costume I made her last year? Well, it still fits but is WAY shorter and she puts it on at least once a day. We went to a party a few weeks ago and she said, "I want to be fancy at this party. I better wear my elf hat." Here she is wearing the elf hat and doing her "how's my style?" pose:

Need some gas?

When I was little we used to take these epic bike rides from our house to a restaurant (D'lights anyone? I don't know if I'm even spelling that correctly but it was such a long time ago I don't have much memory of the spelling). Our whole family would ride a mile or two (seemed like ten!), eat dinner, maybe get ice cream, and then ride back home. It was so much fun. Sometimes after dinner when riding up a big hill we'd get tired and Dad would come up beside us and "give us some gas", meaning he would ride alongside us and push us up the hill. My dad was so strong, he could totally beat up your dad! :) Anyway, now that Maggie's riding her big kid bike (with training wheels, but still) we've been taking lots of bike rides and having lots of fun doing it. My favorite part is when she asks for gas and I get to push her up a hill. Maybe one day she'll remember me as being really strong! The other day we were riding bikes at Radnor Lake with Maggie's friend Caleb and they got pretty far ahead of us. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I saw Maggie hop off her bike and run ahead to Caleb and then push him up the hill. I asked her later what she was doing and she said, "That hill was so big so I decided to give him some gas!" I'm glad she's spreading that "gas" concept around the world!

Here's Maggie and Caleb in our backyard. For some reason they wanted to ride the slide in each others' laps. Pretty funny.

Fall

(Here's Finn with his Uncle Jim, visiting for a few days last month.)
So I know it's been several weeks since my last post, as my sister Lindsay keeps reminding me, and I'm sorry about that. I just haven't felt like blogging lately. Here's the news from our family:
We've been sick.
We've been sick again
Some of us are still sick.
Sickness is not fun.

There you have it! See why I haven't had much to say lately?

We're having a fantastic fall so far, spending as much time as possible outside. My parents won't believe me but it turns out I LOVE raking leaves. It's nice to look and see what progress you've made, plus it's good exercise! We went to the PumpkinFest in downtown Franklin on Halloween and had a great time. There were some dancers performing an Irish dance and ever since Maggie has been treating us to her own interpretation of Irish dancing. She also got her face painted with the Very Hungry Caterpillar since she was going to see a production of that book later in the day with her Mimi and Poppy. We ran into about a million people we knew which was lots of fun, and we were glad to see her friend Cole and his parents, Marc and Elise (the couple responsible for introducing me and Grant).
Finn had lots of fun, too.
He actually did wake up later that night for his first trick-or-treating experience. He didn't get any candy but I still think he had a good time.
Maggie had been asking for a doctor costume since the minute Halloween was over last year. At least a month before Halloween this year we had bought her a cute doctor costume.
On Halloween morning as we were getting her dressed she decided that the pants didn't feel right, and she would be unable to wear them. I tried everything I could think of to make them feel right but in the end she just couldn't get past it so I put her in a leotard and tutu and decided she would be a ballerina for Halloween.

She went trick-or-treating that night and had a great time but the most fun she had was later, back at the house, handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. As soon as she heard a knock at the door she bolted over and handed out exactly one piece per kid (I don't know who told her to be so stingy!). Grant and I had decided ahead of time that we'd let her stay up late and eat as much candy as she wanted (within reason) with the expectation that we'd throw it out the next day. Honestly, I thought that would be better than having it lying around for weeks and weeks. She had LOTS of fun until she threw up. Then we decided that she'd had enough and cut her off. Aren't we great parents? At least it was only a tiny little throw up.

Finn is doing great as usual. He pretty much charms the pants off anyone he meets. He'll check a new person out for a minute and then give them the sweetest, biggest smile and just keep grinning as long as he has their attention. When I go in to get him from a nap I just pick him up and squeeze him and he squeezes me back. We just feel so lucky to have him, both for everything he went through in his first weeks, and also just because he is the best baby ever.
I'll leave you with a quick Maggie story. We saw an armored truck the other day so I told Maggie all about it. Here is our conversation immediately following the explanation:
Maggie: So you're saying that truck is full of money?
Courtney: Yes.
M: And the person in there just drives around all day in a truck full of money and goes into different shops and restaurants?
C: Pretty much.
M: That's actually the greatest job I've ever heard of.
(This is verbatim our conversation - I actually pulled over to write it down.)

Discipline

Maggie has gotten into a spectacularly messy stage. If I have my back turned for 5 minutes she'll get into something crazy. This morning she scattered unpopped popcorn kernels on the floor, one at a time. Then, this afternoon (get ready) she wiped her snot all over one of my lamps. Yes, you read that correctly. I have three words: What. On. Earth? I think it's probably an attention-seeking behavior and it's been successful so far. Anyone have any good tips for this? It's literally impossible to keep my eye on her 24 hours a day.

All of that is to say that when Grant got home from work he had the unpleasant task of spanking her awaiting him. (My spanks are lightweights. If she's really naughty it's up to Grant. Bad, I know.) Tonight after he spanked her he was giving her the usual spiel about why she was spanked and that part of the reason why he spanked her was because he loves her so much. She said, "What?! That is no way to show someone you love them!!!!!"

I love how she looks a little maniacal in this photo, but she was really being very sweet. By the way, we accidentally did some "team dressing" today - Maggie's dress is hot pink and navy stripes and Finn's is red and navy striped. Go Team Howard!
He was just ready for a nap, as you can see!

Late October update

I help out with the flowers at church once every 6 weeks or so (I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest flower lady by, oh, at least 20 years), and this past Saturday it was my turn to do the arrangements. I took Maggie with me and several times I mentioned something about the sanctuary ("Maggie, let's just do the flowers in the sanctuary"). About halfway through Maggie and I had to walk from the Abbey House down the hall back to the sanctuary and Maggie said, "Mama? Can I stop off at the potty on the way to the February?"

Here's Maggie in her cool bat 3-D glasses sent to her by Uncle Steve & Uncle James. She likes to wear them around the house and loves that everything is red with one eye and blue with the other eye.
We've been riding bikes a lot lately. It's simultaneously one of the most fun and most irritating things we do. Once she gets going and gets comfortable on the bike it's great and so much fun, but it takes her a good 5-15 minutes to even want to peddle. She prefers to go uphill because it's faster going downhill (boy does she have a lot to learn!), and her best riding partner is her friend Caleb because she always wants to be first so she'll go speedily enough to keep up with him. When she's scared she says, "Get me Get me Get me!" over and over again. I'm embarrassed to admit it drives me batty! I love riding my bike and I just want her to have fun and it's so hard to be patient and allow her to enjoy it on her own time frame. Patience, patience...a state I have been striving for, oh, forever.

We've all had some kind of cough/sniffle/24-hour fever viral cold the past two weeks and Maggie turned that into her first ever ear infection. It was pretty mild and we didn't even have to treat with antibiotics but I'm so glad she's gone 4 years without getting one.

Finn is also doing great. He had an appointment with his geneticist, Dr. Summar, last Tuesday and it was wonderful, as usual. They even let us skip the blood draws this time because he's been so stable. We talked to Dr. Summar about his moving to Washington DC and mentioned that our only saving grace is that we'll get to see Dr. Lanpher (our second favorite dr) and he said, "Ummm...about Dr. Lanpher. I'm actually recruiting him to come to DC, too." Of course he assured us that the next guy down the totem pole is great and a genius, but we're pretty bummed. Honestly, Finn is doing so well now that we're not worried about it at all but Dr. Summar and Dr. Lanpher feel like a major security blanket for us and we have so much trust in them. Then I said we were glad our favorite nurse practitioner, Natalie, wasn't going to be moving and they sort of looked at each other in a weird way. Apparently he's working on recruiting her, too. I guess Vanderbilt needs to get their act together! Dr. Summar did say that once Finn is 2 or 3 he'll get down to 1-2 appointments a year and that theoretically we could just come to see him in DC for those. That actually sounds like a great idea to me, and even do-able. Dr. Summar also took some photos of Finn and asked if he could use them in a talk sometime (I think I've mentioned it but apparently he travels the world lecturing/teaching about organic acid disorders - sounds pretty thrilling, doesn't it?!). Let's just say it's a mutual admiration society at all of Finn's appointments (pulling me out of the equation - we all love them and they all love Finn!). Anyway, blah blah blah, medical stuff...

Here he is sucking on his bottom lip. I don't know why but this is one of my favorite faces he makes.
In more fun news Finn is doing great with solids and is up to rice cereal, apples, several types of squash, sweet potatoes, and I'm making pears for him this week. His weight was actually only a few ounces higher than it was 5 weeks ago which is a big change from his first 6 months when he was gaining at least a pound a month! Now he's about 39 percentile for height and about 44 percentile for weight. Not such a big guy any more (but he looks just right to me). He also sits really well by himself and is starting to balance himself on his hands and knees with his tummy off of the ground.

Ahhh! So smiley! What a lovebug.

Happy Happy Happy

Well, Maggie is four! I can't believe I have a four-year-old child! When I think about my life three years and 364 days ago it brings me to tears. The year after losing Elle I was depressed, terrified, lost, and anxious, and I barely dared to hope that Maggie would be born healthy and alive. Unless you've been through it you can only imagine the joy and relief we felt when we heard that first cry, which, to us, was the most beautiful sound we had ever heard. I will never be "over" losing our sweet Elle but once Maggie was born I feel like we started to wake up from our nightmare. When I think about what she means to us, well, there just aren't even words.

So. We are happy for all four wonderful, hilarious, frustrating, silly, madcap, adventurous years we've had with Maggie.

In our family we celebrate birthday week as introduced to us by our friends the Duprees. Basically it's just an excuse to stretch your birthday out as long as possible. This time I'm afraid we've been celebrating birthday month! We bought Maggie a bike for her birthday (big kid bike with training wheels...it seems huge) and we gave it to her about 2 weeks ago so that she could enjoy it in the nice weather as long as possible. Then we had her birthday party last night, her actual birthday was today, and I'm sure we'll figure out a way to make it last a few more weeks!

Here are a few shots of her on her bike. She zoomed away from me so fast I could only get her from behind at first:
She attempted to go up this long hill (it's longer than it looks) and made it about halfway up. I was impressed.
Here's a close-up of her so you can see how cute she is in her helmet:
Now show me your unimpressed look, Maggie:
Now show me "surprised":
Now give me your best "je ne sais quoi" look. Work it, work it... The party was a big success and I'll post photos when I can. Thanks for all of your birthday wishes for Maggie! We just love that little girl around here.

A fun fall weekend!

This past Saturday Maggie and I met our friends Jill and Riley at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens for a fun fall day. It was "free weekend" at Cheekwood so instead of the normal $15 or so admission, we got in for free! For all of September, October, and I think November there is a scarecrow exhibit going on at Cheekwood. Community organizations and local artists make different themed scarecrows that are all over the place. Below you can see Maggie and Riley with "Crow White" and a few other scarecrows. The one at the bottom is Giselle from the Nashville Ballet and when Maggie saw it she said, "That's going to be me when I get married!" Uh...okay, Maggie. I'm just glad she wasn't creeped out by it.Then from 10-12 there was a free craft project for children where they could create their own multi-media scarecrow.
THEN (I know you're wondering how it could get ANY better!!!) we had a picnic lunch and cupcakes to celebrate Maggie's birthday with Riley since Riley will be out of town during Maggie's birthday.Oh my goodness that little girl is cute! Sorry, back on track now...Lately we've been watching the big song/dance scenes from our new favorite show, Glee. Maggie is all into choirs now and will talk all the time about the choirs she's in. She tells me she has three jobs for three different choirs (I'm thinking she's not totally clear on how choirs work). In the morning she pretends to get ready for work and talks on her toy cell phone about the choirs and what they need to do. Then throughout the day she'll change into a blue leotard and say, "Now I'm in the blue choir!" Along with changing into her "choir costumes" she's also into changing outfits multiple times a day. Today it was only 3 or 4 outfits. Yesterday it was 14. Yes. Fourteen clothes changes. It's fun to me though because she's obviously very girly but she's really into active, athletic things. I think she's the perfect mix of girly and tomboy.

Later that weekend we had fun at the playground. There's not much for Finn to do at the playground right now other than hang out in his stroller, but he's pretty good at that.
Here he looks like he's giving a fist bump and saying, "Heeeeeyyyyyy!" He is just the most affable guy!He's been sleeping through the night for about a week now so I think it's safe to say he officially sleeps through the night! He's also really enjoying eating solid food now. He's up to rice cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, and I have some acorn squash cooling in the kitchen right now, just waiting to be pureed for him. This first foray into solid food has been pretty easy as far as his Isovaleric Acidemia goes. Right now it's all normal baby foods (vegetables, baby cereal, etc.) and the only real difference is that he can only have one serving of sweet potatoes per day because that's got more protein in it than some of the other veggies.

Work outing

Here is something I've noticed about having another baby: you can't be as uptight about things like clothing/appearances/etc. You can see this point illustrated by the photo below where Finn is wearing a Thanksgiving bib. He's been wearing it since he was born in March so now that it's October it's actually somewhat seasonally appropriate. He spits up so much we go through bibs like tissues so I'll put him in any bib I can find. In this photo he's snuggling with Maggie's baby, Carol, named after Grandma Howard who gave her the baby. He's just sucking on that thumb again! I'm thinking he's working on a tooth as he's been uncharacteristically fussy the last few days and wanting to really gnaw on anything he can get in his mouth. He also has officially slept through the night (I'm talking from bedtime to morning, not 5 hours like the official definition) one time and is pretty consistently only waking up one time a night, but he doesn't eat, and he goes back to sleep quickly. I know several people whose babies slept through the night at 8 weeks or so but compared to Maggie who was over a year before she slept through the night, this really feels huge.
I love to work out and go to the Y as much as I can but I recently tried out an exercise DVD so I'd have something to do in case I couldn't make it to the YMCA. I figured I could do it while Finn napped and Maggie could either play by herself or hang out with me while I worked out (she calls it "work outing", by the way). She decided she wanted to work out with me so she went into her room and got on what she thought would be her best exercise outfit. She got her sleeping bag to put alongside my exercise mat, and then she did her best to follow the exercises. I have never had so much fun working out before. She was so cute following along and she really got into it. She did wonder why the instructor yelled "I want you to feel like you're dying!", but otherwise it was pretty good for her. Before you view her workout clothes please let me tell you that she was not inspired by MY workout clothes (shorts and shirt, nothing tight) so she kinda went out on her own here.
Here she is making up her own variation on the exercise. Sometimes she would do one or two reps and then say, "I'm done with this one." Instead of using weights she held her markers.Later that day she was hanging out with me on my bed while Finn napped. When he awoke I told her to just wait for me on the bed and that I'd be back in five minutes. I came back in with him and here's what I saw:She almost NEVER naps any more so I guess that "work outing" wore her out!