Mimi's Cafe

This past Valentine's Day Maggie stayed the night with her Mimi and Poppy. There's an actual restaurant called "Mimi's Cafe" that we ate at with Grant's parents in TX, and ever since we ate there, Maggie and Mimi have talked about having their own "Mimi's Cafe." On Valentine's weekend Maggie and Mimi finally got to do it! Here are some photos:
With the menu:
Poring over the menu:

Finn almost smiling

Finn has turned into quite a smiley guy. It's hard to snap a photo though b/c if I put my face behind a camera then he quits smiling. Here's the best I've got right now:
He's also such a cat-napper. Today he has taken 4 naps, averaging 45 minutes each. However, he's asleep right now and has been for almost two hours. Unfortunately, we were supposed to have a playdate with friends an hour ago but I just can't bear to wake him up when he's finally taking a long nap. How inconvenient of him!
You know, the more I look at the photo, the more I wonder why I'm posting it! His "almost" smile looks almost like a sneer and he's wearing a bib covered in spit up! Well, nobody can accuse me of whitewashing my family life - and trust me, it gets a lot funkier than this!

Messes, Chocolate Mustaches, and Swim Lessons

I thought it might be funny to show you what Maggie's room often looks like after her rest time. I've tried to get her to just stay in bed and quietly read but that never seems to happen. It takes 5 minutes to clean it up even when it looks like a disaster and as long as she's quiet, I really don't mind! If you look closely you can see that she's fallen asleep on her bed.
I just can't get enough photos of Maggie with various types of chocolate mustaches. So here's one of her with a nutella toast mustache.
Maggie had her first swim lesson this morning. I had high hopes for how much fun this would be and let me just say that it far exceeded my expectations. I had a huge smile on my face the whole time and so did Maggie! Grant got some really cute photos so I can't wait to post them on here. My favorite quote from this morning came not from Maggie, though, but from her friend Caleb. The water was a little chilly and Caleb is so lean that he didn't have much fat on his body to keep him warm, so his teeth were chattering. After a few minutes he turned to his mom and said, "What are my teeth doing?!" He had never experienced that before and I just thought it was so cute of him!

A Good Day

Here's the latest of our cutie pie:
We took him to church for the first time today and it was a big success. Everyone admired him from a safe distance and no one tried to touch him :) He even came up with us to take communion. It was wonderful to take him and show him off to some of the many people who prayed for him. A few people even got teary-eyed at seeing him which made me feel a bit weepy, too. I feel like he's our church's little miracle baby (well, more than just our church - everyone who was praying for him around the world), and I think a lot of other people feel the same way.

Yesterday we were all out for coffee and Maggie asked for a taste of my Cuban coffee. I gave her a tiny sip and she said, "It's like hot chocolate, but with coffee, but even better!" That's my girl!

I have to tell you of a little love affair that's brewing. Finn adores his big sister, despite all the little pinches and times she "accidentally" almost sits on his head. When he hears her voice he starts looking for her and she gets way more smiles than the rest of us. I just love it.

Maggie's Big Kid Room (finally)

So a million years ago I said I would post some photos of Maggie's big kid room and here they are, finally. You can't really tell the paint color well but it's a light apple green. Her bedding has birds all over it and so I made the "art" above the bed to go with it. I made it a few days before Finn was born so I couldn't quite maneuver it the way I needed to, thus the line the birds are standing on is crooked. Maggie's bed is on loan from our friends the Duprees. Before Maggie slept on it, Emme Dupree (age 10) had it, and before Emme slept on it, her mom Tiffany (my age) slept on it, and before Tiffany slept on it it was in a brothel in Texas. So it has a long and colorful past.

Maggie's dresser also has a long history. It belonged to my grandmother and before that it was in my mom and aunt's room when they were children. My mom told me that she was so excited when they bought it as a child that she remembers sketching it in her journal. I thought that was pretty cute. Her toy bin is just from IKEA :)

Clear!

Lately Maggie has started "helping" us at intersections. When she thinks it's time for us to go she yells, "CLEAR!" Unfortunately, it's only accurate about 50% of the time, making her a fairly unreliable source. When we don't go she gets a little upset with us and says, "We're going to be stuck here forever!" I'm getting some insight into how she perceives driving with me. I'm thinking maybe I should practice more patience (and definitely talk less about traffic, other drivers, etc. while she's in the car).

Last weekend Grant was in LA for a work project and so I was faced with my first extended time at home alone with both kids. What did I do? I headed straight for my mom and step-dad's house! He left Thursday morning and so I was over there by Thursday evening. My mom and step-dad both work and had tickets for the symphony on Friday night so we were alone most of Friday. Finn was pretty fussy and just wanted to be held most of the day and I've been having a lot of back pain, so by the end of the day I was in tears and completely worn out. Thank goodness my brother-in-law, Blake, came over and helped with dinner and bedtime, or I would have completely lost my mind. I knew it was going to be a long day so I planned as many activities as possible. Along the way I took photos with my phone's camera and sent them to Grant so he could guess where we were. I sent this one (pretty easy to figure out):
None of my parents drink coffee so my coffee intake for the weekend was shockingly low. I had to supplement with trips to Starbucks. As much as Maggie would have liked her own cup of coffee, she only got a child's hot (warm) chocolate. In line behind us was Scott Hamilton (Olympic skater!). He was surprisingly short and seemed very kind and even spoke to Maggie. In case you were wondering he got a drip coffee and some coffee cake!

We are big baby swaddlers around here. Maggie was swaddled during sleep until she was about 4 months old and we planned on doing the same thing for Finn but he's so much bigger and even stronger that he's already breaking out of his swaddle. We're now trying to wean him off of the swaddle so we wrap him up with one arm out. When he sleeps now he looks very "power to the people"!

Sneaky Sleeper

WHAT?! We are finally adjusted to Maggie not napping and then she falls asleep on her own during rest time?!

Finn is sleeping and Maggie was having rest time/quiet time and all of a sudden I realized she was being awfully quiet. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was either asleep or systematically disassembling her entire room, so I went in to check on her and this is what I saw:
I want to wake her up so she'll go to bed okay but I think if she's asleep on her own then she probably needs it. Oh well...

Hairball!

Here's a quick photo of Finn sleeping. I honestly have no idea how or why he's on his side like this.
Maggie is in "quiet time" right now in her room as naps are a thing of the past for her. She just opened her door and asked me, "Mama...if I eat hair will I get a hairball?" (I can't remember why but one day we were talking about hairballs...weird, I know, but I think it had something to do with cats.) I told her, "Ummm...yes, you definitely will get a hairball if you eat hair."
She said, "Okay, I thought so but I just forgot. Good thing I was just TASTING it then, and not EATING it." She then turned around and shut the door.

We are trying to get Maggie into preschool for the fall (as of now she hasn't ever gone to school or mother's day out). I was going to wait until the year before kindergarten so I could keep her home with me as long as possible, but now I think it would be really good for her so we're frantically searching for one with openings. Basically we're having no luck at all! If anyone knows of a good preschool that has some miraculous opening, please let me know! I've thought for a while that she would really love school but I guess I selfishly just wanted to keep her with me as long as possible. I think it would really help her in her interactions with other kids (remember I said she was having trouble in the nursery at church?). She has a tendency to get a little aggressive sometimes and I have tried everything I can think of, to no avail. I think being in school and watching other kids obey and interact would really help her, and I've heard from a lot of parents that it's helped their kids.

I don't have any news in Finn's world right now. His life is pretty basic: eat, sleep, poop, cry, stretch, and stare at the artwork on our walls. You know how childcare books always talk about babies preferring black and white/high contrast things over pastels? Well, I find that to be true with Finn. He could stare for ten minutes at the painting over our couch.
(By the way, one of my best friends and an amazing artist and photographer, Tiffany Dupree, painted this. If you like it, commission a painting from her or hire her to photograph your family! Go to her website here.) Also, don't mind the weird gradiation in the middle of the photograph - it's my camera phone, not the painting.

I hear him waking up so I better go get him!

Grown up

The other day Grant brought me a latte and when Maggie smelled it she said, "That smells delicious." She then sighed the saddest-sounding sigh she could muster and said, "I wish I were a grown up."

She's been talking a lot lately about how she wishes she were a grown up. I usually tell her I wish I were still a kid!

Several months ago our toilet overflowed. When I realized what was happening I said, "Maggie, RUN!" I didn't want her to be standing in the toilet water while I was trying to take care of it, and she definitely ran as fast as she could to her bedroom. She kept asking, "Is it safe to come out?" I didn't mean to traumatize her, but ever since then, about once a day she'll ask, "Is the toilet going to overflow?" Yesterday I was in the kitchen and she went to the bathroom and a minute later she ran in in a panic.

"I put too much toilet paper in! Is it going to overflow?!" she said breathlessly.

I was in the middle of feeding Finn so I told her I didn't think so but I'd come check in a minute. She disappeared again and several minutes later came back with water dripping off of her elbows and a huge grin on her face.

She said, "There was too much toilet paper in there but I fixed it! It didn't overflow!"

I KNEW what had happened but hoped for some other explanation as I asked her how she fixed it. I'm sure you've figured out by now that she "fixed" it by sticking her hands into the toilet and taking the toilet paper from the toilet to the trash can.
I was horrified since I'm a total germaphobe but we just made sure she washed off VERY thoroughly.

As far as Finn goes, he is doing great! I had an appointment with my WONDERFUL midwife this week and Finn is up to 10 lbs, 8 oz! I had a feeling he was over the 10 lb-mark but didn't think he'd be halfway to 11 lbs. He is sleeping a million times better than Maggie did at this age, too, which I'm so thankful for.
We've been told to keep Finn out of childcare and to restrict Maggie's time in childcare but I simply can not live as a hermit forever so I allow myself to go to my weekly Bible study. I keep Finn with me the whole time and Maggie goes into childcare with a small number of other kids. Anyway, she's had a very hard time in childcare since Finn's birth but I'm happy to report her adjustment at home has gotten sooo much better. Here's a photo to prove it to you: