Happy...

Yesterday Sophia had her one-year orthopedist appointment to check on her hips. She has to go once a year until she's twelve basically. Since we left the appointment a little late we went ahead and drove over to the Divinity School to wait for Matthew to get off work. The kids played on the playground in the grad student housing area and then we went over the grassy area in the quad to relax in the shade.

Sophia and I were just chilling in the grass while Elijah raced up and down the walkways. A woman was walking by and she stopped to talk to me. She said, "Your kids are so happy!" I kind of just laughed and said, "Yeah, I guess so." As she walked away I couldn't help but think that her statement was sort of odd. I mean, they're five and one, of course they're happy. But then I realized that happiness isn't always a given. Not in kids and especially not adults.

But yeah, generally my kids are happy, and I'm happy. We're a happy family. We may not have much by the world's standards, we don't drive a new car, we don't live in a big house, we don't have fancy cell phones (or much money in the bank, ha!). But we're happy. Because we take joy in the little things. The kids slept in until 7:30 this morning, which is late for them, that made me happy! Sophia's hips are still looking good and she is likely to fine for the rest of her life, you'd better believe that made me happy. And our big summer vacation is just twenty-five days away and that makes me very happy!

Under pressure...

Why? Well, I have a very important engagement coming up. I've been asked to teach a class in a few days and I'm so nervous. For one, it's a very important topic, the Bible, who wants to get that wrong? Second of all I have a very tough crowd, they're likely to be pretty critical of my undeveloped teaching skills. In fact I'm pretty sure someone will end up in tears... most likely me.

Yes, I'm teaching children's church. And I'm so scared! Everyone keeps laughing at me when I tell them I'm nervous about teaching a class of 3-5 year olds, one of which will be mine. But am I. Everyone tells me that if I can teach Kindergarten to my own kid, one short Bible lesson and a craft should be easy. I know they're right. But I'm still scared! Anyway, Elijah has been helping me get the craft ready and he assures me it's the coolest craft ever. I hope he's right.

Wish me luck! (I have ten gold crowns to go paint, so I'm going to have to keep this short!)

Life is beautiful...

Do you ever get that feeling where you feel like everything is good? I mean, there will always be things in the back of your mind causing you stress and anxiety, but as a whole, everything else is good? That's sort of how I feel right now.

It's probably just because the sun is actually shining today, for the first time since Sunday. Or maybe it's because both my kids got good reports at the doctor yesterday, nothing like hearing that your kids are perfectly healthy to put you in a good mood. Possibly it's because as of today Sophia is completely weaned, sleeping through the night AND walking! My life just got easier and harder at the same time. Either way, it's all good. Elijah has now officially finished Kindergarten and we're just doing summer school. Now we have more time to play outside, when it's not raining.

Oh yeah, and there's that little thing called vacation looming on my horizon. As of today we've got just four weeks, twenty-eight days until we hop on that plane to Florida. Our plane is leaving at a ridiculously early time, but on the upside we can spend that whole afternoon on the beach if we want. After a day and a half in Florida we'll be driving up to Georgia to spend the week with Matthew's family. We've already got lots of fun plans like spending a few days in a cabin and lots of cook-outs by the pool. I'm excited to see everyone, including my newest nephew who I've yet to meet! I think he and Sophia will be bestest buddies, if he can keep up with her!

Anyway, it's nice to feel like everything is moving downhill of the sudden. I knew once we got past the birthdays it would feel that way. I cannot wait!

Letting things go...

I've always made a lot of jokes about how I have OCD, well, it's mostly true. I'm not sure if OCD is the correct term, but I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to certain things. Number one would be the state of cleanliness in my house. The funny thing is, I'm not a germaphobe or anything like that. I'm just a...clutterphobe. I hate junk just lying around. I don't like to see dirty dishes in the sink, cabinet doors left open, anything on the kitchen table if we're not eating off it, toys on the floor (unless someone is playing), beds unmade, clothes or shoes on the floor...um yeah now that's starting to sound bad. But seriously, I'm the one who does all the cleaning so it's not like I'm making someone else do all this work for me, I'm just working myself hard!

Anyway, when I had Elijah people always told me (messy people, yo!) that I would start to let things go once I had kids. I would get used to the mess, the toys and the clutter. Um no. I got worse! Though after having Sophia I've learned to prioritize better. Stick to my cleaning schedule instead of trying to everything on one day. Usually I end up trying to do everything on Monday, because it's the first weekday, and Friday, because I know I won't want to clean on the weekend.

Also, I'm trying hard to accept the fact that everything I do won't always be perfect. Goodness knows I've burned more meals since having two kids than I ever did before.

I really wanted to make Sophia cupcakes for her birthday. Not just any cupcakes, pretty cupcakes. The only problem was that I really suck at cake decorating, this is why Matthew always does the cakes around here. But I made them anyway. I had decided to do pink and green icing to match her party decor. When I added the pink coloring to the icing I put too much. I was going for a nice medium/light pink, and ended up with eyeball searing hot pink. I didn't have any extra white to add to it to tone it down, so I just shrugged it off and kept going. Then I painstakingly iced the cupcakes in pretty swirly patterns. Matthew even caught my concentration on camera...




When I finished I was pretty satisfied. No, they weren't perfect, but they were pretty. I set them all up on the cupcake stand I had got just for the party, picking out the thirteen prettiest and putting the best one on top for Sophia. After calling Matthew to come and admire them, and snapping a few pictures...



My perfectionism kicked in when I noticed one of the tiers on the cupcake stand was slightly crooked. So I reached over to try and bend it back just a little bit, hoping to straighten it out...and knocked the whole darn thing over. Yeah, I didn't get a picture of that. I was too busy trying to salvage the ones that weren't turned completely upside down. As it turned out, only four were completely ruined, most of their icing ended up on the table. The rest still looked okay. Normally I would have completely freaked out. If any occasion calls for complete perfection in everything, it's your baby girl's first birthday! But, I managed to not completely panic. I was able to replace all the smashed ones with the ones that had been left out the first time. They weren't as pretty as the originals, but they would do. And, the prettiest one that I saved for Sophia? It somehow survived a fall from the top and was still the prettiest.

Baby steps right?

My anniversary/Christmas/birthday/Valentine's present for the next five years...

That's what we're calling it anyway.

So after only a week without, I got a new camera on Saturday. Or I should say we got a new camera, but we all know who's going to be using it the most! We ended up with a Canon Powershot and I'm in love with it. It takes amazing picture so far. I sort of suck at taking pictures, so I'm trying to do better. We'll see.

We got it just in time too, because today is Sophia's first birthday! After we got our camera we decided to all go to the movies. My grandparents had actually sent Elijah money for his birthday for us all to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Sophia has never been in a movie theater, except an Imax when she was about a week old. I was little worried about how she would do. She sat through the first hour no problem, well she was eating popcorn that whole time. She got a little crabby so I went and stood with her in the entrance where we wouldn't bother anyone. I was still able to see the screen and she was happy just being held. After that she got sleep so I went back to sleep and she fell asleep in my lap. Elijah loved the movie so much! There were a few scenes where I thought he might get scared (the mermaids were freaky yo!) but he didn't seem to mind. He really likes suspenseful movies and bounced up and down in his seat during some of Jack's narrow escapes.

It was a really great Saturday. We're looking forward to an even better Sunday. Church this morning, and then party tonight. It's going to be so much fun! And I'll have pictures up soon.

Party time!

Sophia's first birthday is now less than twenty-four hours away! Though I would really appreciate it if she would sleep past six on her birthday.

The party may not be until tomorrow, but the preparations start today. I've got to go to the grocery store and get a cake mix and all that. I'll probably put up a bunch of decorations tonight after she goes to bed. Which means I have about twenty pink balloons to blow up. It's a tradition in my family that you get to pick your favorite meal to have on your birthday. When I was growing up my brothers and I picked schnitzel with mashed potatoes and gravy (a German dish). Yum, I want some now! Elijah always, always picks pizza. Since Sophia can't pick her favorite meal and she generally likes everything (except peas) we picked Mexican food for her. Believe or not she loves spicy taco meat (with cheese of course).

She's received a ton of presents from all the family members far and wide. It's so cute to see boxes with her name on them on the doorstep. We definitely have a theme so far with the presents that have already been seen; clothes, clothes and more clothes! There's something to be said for being the only girl in the family. Although now I have a huge temptation to go buy her some toys! I shouldn't feel bad, she plays with all of Elijah's old toys too. We did get her a really cool musical instrument set which I know she will love. Also my parents got her this big bookshelf/organizer thing for her room which is super cute. Now everything is all nice and neat.

Anyway, I'm excited. Super, super excited. I can't help but think back on Elijah's first birthday party and all the family that we had over that day. BUT I know we will see everyone soon (in one month!) and that everyone with be with us in spirit.

Also, we're getting a new camera today! We went last night and picked one out, but it was out of stock. They were supposed to get a bunch in last night, so Matthew is going back to get it today. I can't wait! One week without a camera is to long. Also, I'm really excited about the one we picked, it's a Canon Powershot and I think it's going to be really good.

Yay!

Due date...

Can you believe that one year ago today was Sophia's due date? It feels like ten years ago, and at the same time, ten minutes ago. I guess that's life sometimes. I'm definitely feeling the baby fever, not that I'm ready for another one! One of my good friends from church just had her baby boy! I'm so excited and I can't wait to meet him. Although I realized it might really depress me, because I gave her a bunch of Elijah's old clothes. It will be weird to see a new baby in my baby's clothes. Especially considering my baby is FIVE. And I should probably stop calling my baby, huh?


Sophia is still my baby. But there are days when she seems more like a toddler. Scratch that, there are days when she seems like a sixteen year old. She is so stubborn and determined. I'm glad though. I feel like she's never going to let anyone push her around, and I think that's a good thing.


So, this time last year I was about 35 pounds heavier, most of it around the middle, if you can believe that. If you're my friend on Facebook you should go look at my last belly shot I posted. It is, to put it simply, quite horrifying. My big nine pound girl. We waited so long for her! I feel like I sometimes sound like we had issues getting pregnant by the way I talk about how long we wanted her. But life was never just quite stable enough for us to feel comfortable having another baby. After we moved here in summer of 2009 we said, let's wait a year to get on our feet and then we'll, think about having a second baby. Which means we should have been having our second one around this time. Instead we got pregnant right away, purely by accident. It was sort of Gods way of saying to us, "No, you're good, you're going to stay here a while, so you might as well have another one." Seriously. That's what it seemed like to me. Still, four years is long time to wait.

And now here we are.

Wednesday Random...blahs...

It's starting to feel less like randomness and more like random-blahs. So I'm changing the name, officially, at least for today...

• I had to clean my kitchen today, like, really clean it, from top to bottom. Not fun. Icky. Blah.


• Last night I had a dream that I got my hair cut by a friend, a friend who doesn't know how to cut hair. Interestingly enough it turned out cute. Maybe I need to enlist an amature hairdresser...or not.


• You know what else I dreamed about? Cupcakes, presents, and party decorations. It's four days until my baby girl's first birthday and I'm going CRAZY! On Monday the box of party supplies I ordered arrived. I didn't go crazy, just a few plates and cups and some streamers and balloons. We're doing monkeys with pink and green accents. It's going to be soooo cute. I also had a tiny splurge (oh nevermind I had a coupon so it was a whole seven bucks) and bought one of those pretty metal cupcake stands since we're doing cupcakes instead of cake. I justified it easily, because with a girl in the house I'm sure we'll have more cupcake parties!


• So, the dream came from the fact that I laid awake in bed last night (I drank a coke right before bed, big mistake!) and was envisioning different icing combos for the cupcakes. Let me spell it out....I have pink and yellow cupcake papers, bright colors, and I'm doing pink and green icing. Sooo I'm thinking the pink frosting with the yellow papers and the green frosting with the pink papers. OR do I leave out the yellow because it's not really part of my color scheme and do all pink papers with green icing. AND THEN do I do polka dots in a contrasting color on top of the icing? Because I can't decide....and I totally should have never been allowed to have a girl!


• And yes my husband thinks I'm insane...


• I painted her toenails again on Monday, with a Barbie pink nail polish that I bought just for her. I think I need help.


• Hey, I'm not the one who bought her a tiara and a purse for her birthday! (I'm looking at you Mom!)


• As for Elijah, well, we're officially on summer break, and by that I mean we're doing summer school.


• Too bad it looks like February outside. I decided yesterday that I really need rainboots, though I usually like to make fun of people for wearing them...I need some. My feet were soaked by the time I got home yesterday from running errands and mom's group. Blah. I guess I'll start trolling the clearance racks for a pair.


• So in other bad news, besides the weather, I broke my camera on Sunday before church. You know, the one I just got for my birthday in March? Yeah, that one. Lovely 'eh? I swear I have rotten luck some days. I seriously cried when I broke it. Sooo stupid. But we got pics of the baptism anyway, so yay. And Matthew gets paid tonight so we're just going to go out and buy a new one. Something we hardly ever do, but it's totally necessary because of Sophia's upcoming birthday.


• I'm doubly excited for her birthday. For one, well, um, it's her birthday! And two, it's exactly one month from her birthday that we leave for GA/FL and I'm getting really excited. Wait? Wasn't I excited before? Yeah, I was, but now I'm MORE excited.


• Almost as excited as I am for Sophia's birthday. Mainly because she's getting so much cute clothing...and nothing makes me more excited than seeing my baby girl looking cute.


• Yeah yeah, I should have never been allowed to have a girl.


• Ugh, I skipped breakfast this morning as usual. Now it's not even eleven and I'm starving. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch.


• Blah.


• Is it June 22nd yet?

Update...

I came home from my mom's group about an hour ago and anxiously checked Facebook for an update on Lily. Turns out Julie had posted three hours ago that Lily was out of surgery and that everything went great! She said it went "better than best case" and better than they'd even been told was possible. Amazing news!

Thanks to everyone who said a prayer for Lily!

Stop!

Whatever it is you're doing right now, and do me one big, huge, giant favor. In fact, I'm going to sort of demand you do exactly as I say right now. It's pretty simple, I promise, you just have to follow two easy steps...

First I want you to look at this cute baby girl...

Pretty cute, huh? This is Lily, and the rest of step one is to remember her cute little face and her name.

Step two, might be a little trickier for some. I want you to pray for her.

You see, Lily is having surgery tomorrow, a pretty serious surgery to remove a mass from her lung. I know that not everyone believes that there is someone out there listening to us when we pray, but I know, and Lily's mommy knows that there is someone out there listening. And he is God who answers our prayers. So just think of her tomorrow, and when you think of her, say a prayer.

Say a prayer for her mommy Julie, her daddy Jeff and her big sister Grace. Say a prayer for all the doctors and nurses who are going to be taking care of her over the course of her stay. Say a prayer that everything goes according to plan and that everything is "best case scenario".

Not too hard right? Now do it!!!

If you want to read more about Lily and her surgery you can go to Julie's blog here.

Just another sign...

that I am getting old! Because I am so tired this morning! All we did was have a little family party for our five year old and Matthew and I were both exhausted last night!

I had been doing a little bit of party preparation since Tuesday night when I hung streamers, balloons and wrapped presents. Yesterday I wrapped more presents, baked a cake, cleaned the house and got everything else set up for the party. As soon as Matthew got home from work at five he started decorating the cake (if you haven't seen the pics, go see them, it's amazing!) and I made pizza (from scratch yo!). I can't believe that we used to have at least seven more adults and a few kids for his previous birthday parties, it must have been a lot of work!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Sophia was a little on the crabby side for the whole party. I jokingly said she didn't like not being the center of attention, and I'm afraid that might be a little bit true. Lucky for her the rest of the month is all about her! She didn't even make it to the cake, after Elijah took his new bike for a ride I fed her some yogurt and she went straight to bed. The rest of us had cake, the grownups had a much-needed cup of coffee and Elijah read us one of his new books. Both the kids slept in today and so far we haven't accomplished much of anything.

Definitely getting old, my back hurts.

PS, on May 23 someone is going to need to come over and rescue me, I'm pretty sure I'll be buried under piles of streamers and wrapping paper!

My turn...

As a good 95% of my Facebook and bloggy friends are fellow May '06 mommies, there have been ten days of birthdays so far. It's pretty crazy to be a part of that group, and every year, one by one, all of our little babies get a year older. So I've already read a few posts by my friends reflecting back on their five year old, now it's my turn.

As usual, when I try to write one of these posts I can't seem to think of what I want to say. I can walk around all day "writing" in my head, and then when I sit down to the computer, I go completely blank. I guess there's always the danger of getting overly sentimental and end up crying over a stupid blog post. Totally not my style, but stranger things have happened.

I've found myself reflecting over the past few days, not only about the last five years of Elijah's life and how much he's changed, but on myself and how five years of being a mommy has changed me. It's sort of even hard for me to remember what life was like before I was a mommy. I suppose I did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I could eat, shower, read, nap, whenever. I didn't have to wait for someone to take a nap, I didn't have to fix anyone elses lunch, wipe their behind, give them a bath or help them get dressed. More than that I was certainly never personally responsible for another human being's happiness and total well-being. I've never had it be my number one priority to make sure someone feels 100% loved and safe every single day. It's pretty crazy, and hard. Most of these things take up my entire day, especially now that it's all x2. And instead of the responsibilities lessening, they're growing exponentially. For the past two years I've been responsible for a child's education, his entire academic future. And as equally important, his spiritual education. No wonder I'm so tired at the end of the day!

After pondering all those things, I had to sit back and look objectively and the job I've been doing. Am I good mommy? Did I do it right? Sometimes it feels too easy to screw up and not do a good job. Sometimes it feels like I can never do enough, never give enough of myself. Sometime I'm selfish and don't want to be mommy for just five minutes. So how can you tell if you're doing a good job or not?

I guess you can look at my kid, and I have to admit, he's pretty awesome. He's smart, sweet and one-of-a-kind, and if you're just going off of that...I guess I've done a pretty good job.

A whole lotta crazy...

Do you ever feel like there is just so much going on in your life, good things, crazy things, busy things, happy things, maybe a few sad things, and it just gets to be so much you just have sit down rub some peas in your hair?

Wait...what?

Well, apparently Sophia does. Are we stressing her out or somthing, why does she feel the need to rub mashed up peas in her hair? Oh wait, she hates peas, I forgot. Apparently she was trying to make sure I go the message to never feed her peas again. Point taken.

And oh yes, you'd better believe that Matthew gave her a bath after this, because I played the "Mother's Day" card.

And yeah, I have to admit, that's sort of how I feel lately. A little crazed. Maybe rubbing peas in your hair alieveates this a little, I've never tried. Goodness knows I end up with enough food in my hair when I'm not trying!

Why do I feel a little crazed? There's just a lot going on the next few weeks. I don't need to list them again do I (birthday, baptism, birthday, not to mention about three doctor's appointments). Crazy. I got all the stuff for Elijah's cake on Saturday, came home, and then proceeded to have a panic attack because I forgot to ask him what he wanted for his birthday dinner. What kind of mother am I?! And then I calmed down when I realized that I had all the stuff to make pizza, so we're cool. There's no way he'll ask for anything else. Matthew and I had a party planning meeting last night after dinner (lol), where we talked cake strategy. Did I mention cakes are kind of a big deal around here? They're always home made (ehh from the box at least) and hand decorated by the Master Cake Decorator, Matthew. Seriously, he can decorate a mean cake. We've got our plan down for an awesome Star Wars one this year, it should be awesome!

Going to try and keep the peas out of my hair and remain calm.

Sappy...

That's how I'm feeling today. It doesn't help that I have both my babies' birthdays coming up in the next few weeks or that it's Mother's day this weekend.


I'm trying to decide which birthday I'm going to be the most emotional over. Sophia is turning one, which is pretty big. This time last year she wasn't even in this world. She was just a giant baby inside my tummy, kicking the crap out of my ribs and causing me to get up every five seconds to pee. And now here she is. A little person. Not even a baby baby anymore, but she's crossing the bridge to toddler baby. She's trying to walk which both excites me and freaks me out. I don't know why, Elijah walked at ten months or so and all I remember feeling was excitement. I guess with your second you're so much more aware of how fast it's going. I can look at Elijah and easily remember him at this age and then do a double take when I realize he's not that baby any more, not even close. All in all I'm excited for Sophia's birthday, not sad. I'm excited to see her walk, I can't wait to see her run and play with her brother and cousins this summer. I can't wait until she's old enough to sit at the table and color while Elijah does school so I'm not having to constantly steal his pencil back from her. It will be fun to watch he grow up. Just not too fast!

As for Elijah, well, I think I might be having a harder time with him getting older. Probably because he's just so old. He's going to be five. FIVE! That's half a decade. I remember being five! Sometimes I stop and wonder which things he will remember when he's an adult. I guess that's what being a parent is all about. Making sure that when your child as an adult remembers their childhood, their memories are of nothing but happiness. So yeah, definitely a little more emotional about him turning five. I drove past our local Elementary school, just around the corner and saw a big sign for Kindergarten registration. Is it sad that I felt so relieved I didn't have to go through that? Obviously my number one reason for homeschooling is not so I can have him around me all the time, but I don't know, sometimes I feel like it's a perk. (Yes, and sometimes it's a curse!) Plus, since he's homeschooled, we'll be starting first grade next fall, not Kindergarten. WHAT?! Yes, it's crazy. He is such a good student though. I know I'm really lucky. He loves school and loves to learn.

I guess that's one good thing about having a big kid. Sometime they can be complete pains, talking back and not obeying. But occasionally, they go and do something that makes you really, really proud. And there's nothing like feeling you've done a good job with your kid, as a parent. I've mentioned that we go to a weekly Mom's group at our church. Elijah is one of the oldest kids there, most are 2-3, and babies. One of the moms told me the other day how wonderful she thought he was and I could have just exploded. I've been told this before, but I never get tired of hearing it. It sounds silly, but at our church I think Elijah has more friends than I do! All the adults love him as well as the kids.

*sigh*

Okay, I warned you and told you I was feeling sappy.

Sophia is getting baptised Sunday after next so that brings up a lot of emotions as well. Elijah was baptised a little older, when he was about two and a half. It's important to us. Promising to raise your child up in the church and teaching them about your faith. At the time they're so little it hardly seems challenging, but as they get older it gets a lot more interesting. I though this Easter was particularly great because Elijah could finally understand just what the cross meant to us, as much as a four year old can. Little by little he's learning, and it's fun to watch.

Anyway, my little birthday monkey is waking up after sleeping in super late, because she was up a bunch last night ugghhhh...

This is how I roll...

There used to be a time in my life where I never left the house without my hair being perfectly styled and hairsprayed into submission. Back then it was shorter, redder, with a couple other colors mixed it. It was fabulous. My outfits were always cute, new and more importantly, clean. My shoes, well, they were higher, at 5'3" I was never a fan of anything with a flat sole. Oh and I used to tan too. Basically, I used to be pretty high-maintenance. Key word, used to be.

Then I had a baby, that baby's name was Elijah, and he changed everything. The high-heel shoes were out, at least for a little while. We used to live in an apartment building set up on a hill that you had to walk up a flight of stairs just to get to it, and then we lived on the second floor. Somewhere in between sleepless nights and teething, my hair grew out...brown. My clothes? Well, they were still cute, once I could fit back into them six months later or so, but I don't think they've been clean since.

Eventually, as he got older I started to become a little high-maintenance again. Starting coloring my hair and wearing heels and stuff. Then guess what happened? I had another baby. Here we go again. This was problematic for two reasons. One, when you have baby, especially a second baby, the amount of time you have to get yourself ready is about 2.5 minutes. Which is really not enough to straighten your hair, apply make-up and put together a cute outfit. Two, I had a girl this time. Which meant suddenly I cared much less about my shoes matching my outfit and more about her shoes matching her outfit!

Don't get me wrong, I'm still fairly high-maintenance. On Sundays I get up earlier than everyone else so I can have more than 2.5 minutes to get ready. Sometimes I even straighten my hair. I still try to not leave the house without just a little make-up.

Yesterday I had to run to Walmart for a few things. It was icky and rainy out so I just threw on a fleece jacket and some flip-flops (over my Star Wars t-shirt and black "jeggings", don't hate!). My hair was a frizzy, poofy mess and I didn't even put on chapstick. Yeah, I know it's only Walmart, but this was a new low even for me. And yes, I walked through puddles in the parking lot in my flip flops I think this is a Southern thing, but I'm not sure. But you'd better believe Sophia was as cute as can be. Her outfit was adorable more than dorky. Of course, she really didn't have to worry about her hair.

Witness the de-evolution of a woman becoming a mother.

Wednesday Randomness...

It's Wednesday again? Already? What?

This leads me to my first randomness...

• Today is one week until Elijah's fifth birthday! I'm so excited, but now panicked. We haven't done a thing in preparation for his party. I guess there's not that much to be done, since we're just having a small party with the four of us. But we still need to go get his present and get a few things for the party. We're just going with one "big" present this year and of course, a Star Wars theme!


• It's hard to believe that this time last year I was hugely (and I mean HUGELY) pregnant. My mom was flying in for Elijah's birthday and Sophia's birth. I was so done. Overdone. In fact the day we came home from the hospital was probably the happiest day of my life for two reasons. One, I finally had my baby girl and two, I wasn't pregnant anymore!


• I've been looking forward to May for so many reasons and I'm so happy it's here. I think May will always be my favorite month. The weather has been so nice (err, it's rainy today though). Sunday is Mother's Day, next Wednesday is Elijah's birthday, Sophia is getting baptised on the 15th and the Sunday after that is her first birthday! Crazy right? Oh and on her birthday we will officially be one month away from the big summer vacation!


• Speaking of Sophia, she is sleeping so great lately (knock on wood!) At the advice of another mommy friend I started giving her yogurt before bed instead of nursing her. She goes to bed around 7:30, about an hour after we've had dinner, so I always figured she couldn't possibly still be hungry. I went to the store and found the yogurt with the most calories in it (Stoneyfield whole milk yogurt, a whopping 200+ calories per serving) and she gets a bowl of that every night before bed. Let me tell you she loves that stuff. And even I have to admit it is tasty, and I don't even like yogurt! The first couple of nights she still woke habitually a few times, but went back to sleep after a tiny bit of fussing. Lately she's been sleeping from 7:30-5:30 a.m. I usually do have to nurse her then and she's back to sleep until 7:00. So nice!


• The kids and I made a trip to the bookstore yesterday before Mom's group. I've been picking a few things here and there for Sophia's birthday and decided to get her a book of her own. Most of hers are hand-me-downs from Elijah, or books they share. I decided she needed something girly! I ended up with a couple of Disney princess books and had to pick which one was best for her. Guess what I went with? Sleeping Beauty! (Though Princess Jasmine was always my favorite!) I also picked up a huge first grade workbook for Elijah to go through over the summer.


• Matthew started working full-time at the library yesterday. It's so nice that he can just come home and be home with us, instead of having to spend his evenings studying non-stop.

I guess that's all for now. Looking forward to a quiet day at home after being gone almost all day yesterday. Hopefully I'll have a chance to sit down and do some editing on my book. I've got one chapter completely done already! Now if I can only do the rest!

Well this is new...

I just got back from our weekly Mom's group at church. Since the kids and I were sick so long I have been in three weeks. Elijah and I both have really missed it! Today they were starting something new, instead of having an indoors Bible study with daycare, they are doing a more laid back outdoor picnic on Tuesday.

Can I just say? Sooo much fun! Not only did I get to hang out with good friends and their little ones that I haven't seen in a while, I met a lot of new people too. It kind of hit me while I was sitting there just how nice it is to have friends. I mean, I've had friends before, I guess. But this is the first time since I was in Cosmetology school that I've had a group of friends to get together with.

Hello, five year old photographer!

Elijah might have even had more fun than I did. I hardly saw him the whole time, because he spent most of the day on the playground. He's the oldest kid there and all the littler kids really seem to like playing with him. Sophia had a blast too. She shared everyone's lunches and snacks, whether they wanted her to or not! She's knocked out now, hopefully she'll stay that way!