Swim Lessons

Maggie has her last swim lesson on July 4 and I'm thinking about putting her back in again. She's made great strides but I think another block of lessons would be beneficial. Right now she's the only girl in her class of four boys and it's hilarious to watch her swim, compared to the boys. The boys thrash around like wild animals, splashing water everywhere, and then Maggie gracefully kicks one leg at a time and gently pushes her arms through the water. It could not be more night and day!
Here's Maggie with one of her best buds, Caleb. They are hilarious and sweet together. We had Caleb and his family over for dinner together last night and Maggie's room was COMPLETELY trashed by both of them in 0.2 seconds. Thank goodness it cleans up easily!

Cuteness!
I love how Maggie has her hand on Caleb's arm in this photo:

And, finally...

Here's the last photo I'll post of the wedding. As you can see, it's just a wide shot of the reception. I didn't get a great photo of the bride with her bouquet, and the flowers at the ceremony were basically just flowering branches in a glass vase, but I always like to see what the flowers look like in the context of the room. So, here it is!

I just returned with two sleepy kids (it's 10:30 pm) from their Uncle Blake and (now) Aunt Jenny's wedding where Maggie was the flower girl, so I'll be posting photos from THAT wedding soon, too! Maggie was a spectacular flower girl and Finn was a perfect angel the whole time. They honestly were sweet and happy all day and it was a looooong day as we started wedding activities at 2pm today. Congratulations, Blake and Jenny!

A little Finn to break up the floral monotony

I thought I should post a few photos of Finn to break up the wedding photos. He is the sweetest baby. I wish you all could hang out with him for a few hours. He's so bright-eyed and he'll just coo at you for as long as you talk to him. He also makes some funny and cute faces, and you can see him making one below. He does something funny with his mouth and I just literally want to take a bite out of him, he's so cute. Is that weird?
Here he is, just hanging out in our living room. What's that? You say you want me to give him lots of kisses for you? Okay, consider it done!

Orchids, orchids, orchids!

Here are the tall arrangements that were on the other half of the tables. I don't know how tall they were but the vases alone were almost 2 feet tall. These arrangements were all orchids with the exception of a few strategic leaves placed to cover the floral foam. I thought all the white and green flowers looked pretty on the brown linens.

I QUIT! Not really...

Here is a photo of what half of the reception centerpieces looked like. I love the leaf wrapped around the inside of the vase. It's hard to tell the scale but I guess they're about 7 inches at the widest point and about a foot tall?
My friends Tiffany, Rachel and Amber helped me at this wedding and not only are they all very talented and hard working, but we had so much fun. Every wedding I do I say it's my last and I really meant it leading up to this wedding but halfway through I decided (like always) that I still want to keep doing flowers. I think I've finally figured out a few things that I need to do to make it worthwhile and not so stressful!

Wedding Flowers

I had my biggest and best wedding this past weekend. The bride was so much fun to work with and I loved doing the flowers. She had a few things that were definites for her but also gave me a lot of leeway. Anyway, I'll be posting a flower photo a day for the next few days to show you what it looked like.
Here's a bridesmaid with her bouquet:

First Day of School

The back of her lunch box says, "You are cherry cute." I think that pretty much sums up this photo.

School's In For Summer

Thanks to the help of our friend, Jill R., we have enrolled Maggie in preschool! Maggie loves it and it has done wonders for her behavior. Her teacher, Miss Heather, is a complete stickler for manners and requires Maggie to say, "yes, ma'am," whenever anything is asked of her, as well as always addressing adults before you speak to them, and lots of other rules. Maggie goes two days a week from 9:30am-4 pm, so it's quite a long day. Miss Heather is from Australia and also happens to be blind. Another student is blind, also, and I'm really enthused that Maggie is going to be around people who are different from her. Being from Australia, Miss Heather has a beautiful accent and around our house we love to say her name with our (fake) Australian accents. Today Maggie came home saying, "Pig you potton" over and over again. I asked her what that means and she said, "It means 'You're finished.'" As she repeated it over and over it slowly dawned on me what she was actually saying. Anyone figure it out yet?
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"Beg your pardon"! Now go back and try saying "pig you potton" with an Australian accent and it just about makes sense. But clearly Maggie didn't know what "pig you potton" or "beg your pardon" means! Grant and I were laughing so hard when we figured that one out!

Growing Up

Here are my two cuties hanging out in the kitchen! I guess Maggie's so blissed out from holding her brother that she can't even open her eyes. Is it just me or is Finn looking so much older and bigger all of a sudden?!

Lately Maggie and I have had some grown-up conversations. I was putting her baby bedding together to take to a local crisis pregnancy center and she became upset because she didn't want to part with it. I explained to her that there were women who couldn't afford to buy sheets and blankets for their babies and that we could give them her baby bedding so another baby would have a nice place to sleep. She thought about it for a minute and asked me, "Would it help if I gave them some of MY money from my piggy bank?" It just about broke my heart seeing the compassion she had and wanting to help a little baby and mama. I can't tell you how proud it made me.

Later that week we were driving around downtown and she saw a homeless person. She said, "Why is that guy standing out there with a piece of cardboard?" I told her that he was homeless and that his sign said, "Please help." Of course she needed more information, so she kept asking questions, like, "Why is he homeless?" "Where does he park his car?" and "Why doesn't he stay with his friends?" I'm sure every parent has gone through this at some point, but it was just so interesting to me to hear her questions and see the thought process she was going through. She wanted to help him, too, and I struggled with my own reservations and also wanting to teach her empathy and generosity. Because we were getting onto the interstate as she was asking all this, we weren't physically able to give any money to him, but I'm not sure what to do the next time this comes up. I don't generally give money to people on the street, but I feel like that sends a bad message to Maggie. Sheesh...this parenting business is tough!

Before it gets too heavy I'll tell you something funny. We keep a log of Finn's feedings so we can keep track of his formula/supplements and nursing. In the middle of the night I don't want to have to write something down in the dark so I've been keeping a log on my iPhone. Unfortunately, sometimes I get up in the morning and look at what I've entered and it makes absolutely no sense. One night I remember thinking, "I've got to put this in my phone so I remember it tomorrow," and when I looked at it in the morning this is what it said:

1:58 a follower nurse.

What on earth does that mean?! I hope it wasn't too important because I've stumped myself! Another night I entered:

m/2 weeks nhgsgujgho.

So, in short, it's not a perfect system.

Finn update

Sometimes Finn likes to smile a little smile:
Pretty cute, right?
And then some other times, he likes to smile a HUGE smile:
We'll take either type of smile!

Lately we have a lot to smile about - we had another appointment with Finn's geneticist, Dr. Summar, this past Tuesday, and we learned several things. First of all, Finn gained ANOTHER POUND in the last two weeks. At this rate he'll be 20 pounds in a few weeks! More surprisingly, he grew two inches in two weeks. I think they just didn't get him stretched out good enough previously, but Grant swears he looks two inches longer. I promise I'm not putting Miracle Gro in his bottle! Secondly, Dr. Summar said that Finn is doing so well that he is confident he would tolerate a virus well. So on that note, he cleared us to put Finn and Maggie in the nursery at the YMCA! I thought Finn might be a year old before that happened so I'm ecstatic. We went back for the first time this afternoon and one of our favorite nursery workers, Miss Gail, got teary-eyed when she saw us. I've decided I'll do my best to go at non-peak nursery hours in the hopes that it'll cut down on germs, so look for us there around 12-1 pm! Hopefully we'll get to see some of our other favorite childcare workers in the next few weeks. And finally, Dr. Summar told us we were one of his favorite families and that Finn is one of his favorite patients. He assured me he doesn't say that to all of his families. I think part of the reason he likes us so much is that Finn is doing so well and it makes him feel like he's doing a good job (which he is!). I'm such a teacher's pet - I LOVE being a favorite!

A Southern Accident

We had a great time this weekend with my family - on Saturday we celebrated my brother, Spencer's 12th birthday, and on Sunday we celebrated Grant, my step-father and my sister-in-law Kajsa's birthdays. Here are a few photos from Sunday:

Maggie wearing her Hello Kitty movie star sunglasses with her Uncle Chris:

Me and Maggie at "Poppy's Place", a spot where Poppy takes the grandkids to throw rocks in the creek:

Maggie and her cousin, Jack, at Poppy's Place. It's a miracle that they didn't accidentally push one another into the creek.
And last, a photo of my beautiful boy sleeping:

Maggie's nearly-two-year-old cousin Jack speaks with a cute southern accent, turning one-syllable words like "more" and "down" into two-syllable words. At lunch today Maggie was talking in a fake Southern accent saying "hay-elp" (help) and we said, "You sound like Jack! You have a southern accent!" She immediately said, "I do not have a southern accident!"

PS-Thanks for the great photos, Mimi and Poppy!