Farewell 2012

Another year in the books.  This will be the last post of 2012.  Matt and I were talking today about how fast this year went.  You know, we're going to blink and be back at Christmas time already.  That's how this year felt for me.  Crazy fast.

We had a fantastic Christmas holiday.  It was pure pandalerium here Christmas morning.  Christmas Eve we went to church and then to dinner.  We actually got to sit at church this year, albeit in the cry room.  We were about an hour early and still no chance of a seat in the church.  Oh well... there's always next year.  Dinner was enjoyable.  By the time we got home, Hannah was out for the night.  Poor thing didn't even make it to open up her Christmas jammies!  Laura was so excited, she was overflowing with energy.  She beat my mom at Checkers that night.  Emma was practicing her rolling around on the carpet.  She was trying to crawl, but she just hasn't quite figured it out yet.  \'

When Christmas morning came, they couldn't wait to get downstairs.  Santa had come, and those little girls were overjoyed.  Laura kept bringing Matt presents for him to see if they were for her.  She just wanted to open one after another.  Hannah's approach was different.  She opened one and then wanted to open the package and see it up close.  Emma really was just interested in the wrapping paper :)  Next year Christmas will be real to her.  We spent about an hour opening presents, and then we ate breakfast, which was a yummy potato, egg, bacon, cheese, mushroom back that I had prepped the day before.  Then the girls went off and played quietly for a long while.  They were so content just to play with their new toys.  We had an enjoyable afternoon.  One highlight for me was making oyster soup with Dad.  It's a Prochaska Christmas tradition, and it turned out awesome!  Then for dinner we went over to Aunt Lisa's house for dinner.  My sister and Justin were over there too.  The kids were hyper again since there was tree with present under it!  Again, they had a great time opening gifts.  Hannah would bring a gift over to Matt and I and show it to us and then promptly toss it on the ground and go get another one.  We had to gather all of Hannah's stuff up afterwards, as it was scattered everywhere!  Laura and Lisa played a ladybug game.  And then Mom, Lisa, and the girls played with their new playdoh set that made ice cream cones!  Although Christmas flew right by, we still had a nice time.  And it was certainly fun to watch the kids experience the excitement of it all.

The kids have had fun the last couple of days in our latest snow storm.  They played in the snow yesterday with Matt, and today they sledded at Chuck's house.  Hannah likes to throw snowballs, but she's not really into sledding.  Tonight the kids are watching Rapunzel.  It is Hannah's favorite right now.  Laura and Hannah fight over which movie to watch.  Laura usually wants 12 Dancing Barbie princesses or Pegasus Barbie Princess.  Although they both like Princess and the Popstar too, which we watched yesterday.  Emma loves to play on the floor and keeps trying to crawl.  It will happen soon!  She also likes to play fun games with faces.  She will repeat whatever we do.  Like if we turn our head to the side and say, "Where's Emma?" and then look at her, she will turn her head to the side.  Then she will turn back and look at us and laugh.  It's so awesome to watch her grow and develop.

We have been blessed in 2012 with healthy, happy children.  May we remember to stop and enjoy our little blessing even more often in 2013.

Twas the Night...

Twas the Night before Christmas Eve and all through our house, we are busy preparing!  We have been super busy with our holiday preparations this year.  I have baked twice now, the second time last night.  But I can't complain since I got to use my new Kitchen Aid!  Matt and I did some wrapping last night, and we have to do quite a bit tonight too.  But the house is decorated, and the kids are spilling over with excitement.  The next two days will hopefully be filled with fun memories.

On to some stories from the last several weeks.

One morning Laura and Hannah were sitting at the table eating breakfast, and one of them spotted a ladybug on the floor.  Laura was concerned that one of us would step on it and expressed to us that it was important that we be careful, "they are living creatures too."  Hannah turned to her and tersely said, "Laura, it's a bug!"  Matt and I busted out laughing and then assured Laura that were not going to kill the ladybug.  Laura is so sensitive, and Hannah is the polar opposite.

Around Thanksgiving, Laura's class was talking about the Pilgrims and the Indians and why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  Well one day she was trying to tell me a story about what she learned at school, and she asked, "Mom, who are the ones who didn't have food and some died?"  She was trying to remember the Pilgrims.  Lovely.   A little disturbing that she understands starvation, at least on a surface level.

Hannah is obsessed with Rapunzel.  Every morning I brush her hair, and she wants me to say, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."  However, she is not a fan of Flynn Rider.  She always says, "I Rapunzel and I going to mawwy Maximus."  She LOVES Maximus.  It's hilarious.

Both girls have a love affair with horses right now, probably because Laura rode a horse on a few occasions this fall.  She did really well, and so now she wants everything horse.  Jayne and Chelsea came over a few nights ago and brought the girls these big plush purses that are horses.  Well, Laura and Hannah have ridden them around the house like crazy, and the straps are already ripping off.  I'm going to have to use my 4-H sewing skills and perform some surgery.

Emma is developing and becoming sweeter every day.  She is the happiest baby ever!  She wakes up happy, and nothing phases her.  She is excited to get to school and really doesn't fuss to speak of in the evenings.  She is the biggest hugger.  When she wakes us, she gives me a hug.  Then she wants Matt, and she gives him a big hug.  Then when we get to school, she gives her teacher a hug.  Her hugs are awesome!  She also gives kisses too.  Of course they are opened mouth, slobbery kisses, but so sweet.  She is also very close to crawling.  She lunges on the floor to her stomach and then rolls all around.  She can get up on her knees once in a while, but she hasn't figured out the actual crawling motion.  It won't be long!  She is becoming quite verbal as well.  When her sisters are running or wrestling about in the living room, Emma wants to be right with them.  And she yells at them and waves her little arms.  In the morning, the girls give us a count down in the van to take off, and Emma has recently been trying to join in the yelling.  It's so cute!  She got her first tooth on 12/12/12.  It is one of her bottom teeth, and she looks awnry as ever when she wrinkles her nose and grins with it popping through.  Her first Christmas is going to be so fun!  Can't wait to watch her enjoy it :)

Merry Christmas to all!  Cherish your blessing and relax during the next two days!

Fall Events

We sure have had a fun Fall season!  Halloween was such a great time, despite the less than perfect weather for trick or treat night.  Laura was a scary vampire this year, and Hannah was Rapunzel.  I was so surprised that Hannah wanted to be Rapunzel since usually she wants to do whatever Laura does.  But she was dead set on being Rapunzel from the beginning of October, and she didn't change her mind the whole month.  I was so proud that Laura didn't want to be a princess.  All of the girls in her class were princess or fairies of sort, but Laura likes to be scary.  She's so much like Matt and likes to be different, which is probably good.  I was never that way at all as a kid.  The girls trick or treated for about an hour, and then they had about as much fun passing candy out to the kids that came to our door.  Poor little Emma was a pumpkin, (the outfit that we had in the closet that fit her).  I never put her in the costume, but her teacher at school did and took a picture.  I'm such a bad mom!

Of course next we did Laura's birthday party.  I cannot believe that I have a five year old!  Where did the time go??!  I remember bringing her home like it was yesterday.  She is maturing so fast too.  She is definitely past the toddler stage and a full blown little girl.  We had a princess party at our house this year.  We had about fifteen little princesses and fairies running around our house.  They colored unicorns on t-shirts, (which Matt drew the night before the party), got their faces painted, and opened presents and had cake of course.  It turned out really nice, and I think the girls had fun.  Laura was Ariel, and Hannah was Rapunzel.  Some of Laura's favorite things these days are her my little ponies, really horses of all sorts and her barbies and princesses.  She sets up elaborate make believe lands and role plays often.

Hannah and Emma are growing rapidly too.  Hannah is fiercely independent and extremely stubborn.    I think she defies me to see how mad I will get.  She will stand with her hands on her hips and growl and scream at the top of her lungs, "I'm mad!"  She certainly pushes us to our limits.  But at the same time she is so sweet and loving.  She adores Emma, and they play so well together.  She still likes her babies, but really she wants whatever Laura has at any given moment.  She is in the stage of wanting to do everything herself, which produces many temper tantrums.  Thankfully she is still in the snugly stage too.  I love to snuggle with her, and I don't want this time to ever end!  Emma is growing so fast too.  She is sitting up on her own, and she loves it.  I can put a basket of toys beside her, and she will play for a long time.  She is in the unloading stage.  She enjoys unloading everything out of the basket and exploring everything with her mouth.  She is my roly, poly baby, and I want this stage to go slow.  I know.  Wishful thinking!

We have enjoyed this extended Thanksgiving break.  We gorged ourselves of yummy food, watched our Buckeyes finish a perfect season and did a little shopping too.  Now we are enjoying the last day, starting our lists for Christmas and planning out our season.  We hope to get our tree in the coming weeks and get our decorations in place.  Matt already has our outside lights up and lit.  He did it last weekend when the weather was still nice.  Last year he did in the freezing rain!

As we close out 2012, hopefully we will take time to enjoy it.  And hopefully I will take time to write our holiday memories on my blog!

Happy Thanksgiving!

End of Summer

I started this post on 9/20/12, and I'm just now getting back to it!  Grrrr! Frustration.  My free time is certainly limited these days.

Well I blinked!  Summer is now over, and we are full swing into Fall.  So much has happened over the last two months.  I keep a little list of things that I want to write about in my blog, and I keep meaning to do a post.  But time is just getting away from me.  But alas, I am here writing instead of getting my beauty sleep :)

Where to start...we just got back from vacation last weekend from Hilton Head.  It was awesome again this year.  Since we went in September, it's now the off season, and it was much less crowded than last year.  We had a fantastic time.  The kids played in the pool and on the beach.  They loved exploring, finding shells, throwing back starfish, and playing in the water and sand.  We saw dolphins everyday, and Laura brought a "new" crab up to the house daily.  The hard part of vacation was unsurprisingly the travel to and from the beach.  On the way down, we stopped about fifteen times (I'm exaggerating), and it took us about fifteen hours (I'm not exaggerating).  On the way back, we decided that we just couldn't bear all of the crankiness and crying from poor little Emma, so we decided to go through the night.  We left at 8:30pm and got back at 7:30am the next morning.  We stopped once for gas, and Matt drove the whole way.  I'm still not sure how he did it, other than with a little help from 5 Hour Energy.  Other than the travel, the vacation was full of memories and relaxation.  One other huge victory....HANNAH is POTTY TRAINED!  Yes, my mom was on potty patrol and got it done.  She was doing it pretty well before we got there, but she was inconsistent.  We still had her in diapers about half the time.  But by the time the week was over, Hannah was done with diapers.  On our first day back to daycare, her teachers remarked that they wished more kids would go on vacation!

It seems all of our kids have developed by leaps and bounds over these last few months.  Laura is growing into such a little girl.  She is very health conscious....not sure where she gets that from since Matt and I are definitely not.  But she is a good example to all of us.  For example on vacation, I asked her what she wanted for lunch and she said that she just wanted a green salad.  So I made her one, and she ate the whole thing.  On Fridays when I'm home with the kids, she will eat vegetables and a bean burrito.  She will say, "I'm healthy as a pig."  She has also told me and Matt recently that we needed to exercise more.  Lovely, we're getting lectured by our 4 year old.  All that said, she is a chocoholic!  Now that, we know she gets from us.  That kid will eat chocolate like it's her job (when she's with her grandparents of course! ha ha!). 
Towards the end of the summer Laura particularly enjoyed riding a horse at our friends house.  My mom is excited that Laura is taking an interest horses.  I'm not sure how I feed about it!  Hannah was too afraid.  She says, "too big."  Both girls also enjoyed going to Jungle Jack's Landing at the zoo.  It was the first time that we have tried that, and although, there was a limited number of rides available for the them, they had a great time.  They loved riding rides.  The only one that was a little scary for them, was the big boat.  It went a little too high for them.  The other activity that they were obsessed with for a while was having a camp out.  We volunteered my dad for this activity.  But they never really did it outside; it just got cool at night too fast.  But Dad improvised, and one night they camped out in the living room.  Dad, Laura, and Hannah all slept on the the floor. 

Hannah, along with becoming potty trained, has developed a lot verbally as well.  She has a lot of funny little phrases.  For a while she was stuck on "poopy butt."  Thankfully she finally stopped saying that one.  Whenever something happens that she doesn't like, such as her shoe falling off or her dropping her toy, she says, "not again!"  And when she's leaving school, she says, "see you next time."  Although cute, she is quite the pistol.  She constantly is tattling on Laura, "Laura not sharing,"  in a very whiny voice.  Whining is the bain of my existence.  It drives me crazy.  So I'm trying not to respond to her when she whines about something.  But I know it's just a stage for her right now.  When Hannah doesn't want to do something, she just doesn't do it.  She would rather be punished and go to the quiet square, than do it.  She is very stubborn that way.  Most of the time she is super sweet though.  She LOVES her little sister.  She is constantly laying on the floor playing with her or hugging on her and giving her kisses.  I think they are going to be super close.

Our little Emma is growing like a weed!  She is six months now, and she is so happy.  She is a very content baby.  We just started her on vegetables last week.  She has had green beans and carrots so far.  She like the grean beans ok, but she does not like carrots.  She is sleeping through the night, most nights.  She is also starting to sit up.  She can't do it without someone right with her yet, but she prefers sitting to laying on the floor.  She can roll from her stomach to her back, but not the other way yet.  I don't think she sees the utitlity in rolling to her stomach!  She is adorable when she is blabbering away!  I love it, even though it sounds like she is saying dadadada.  Go figure. 

We are enjoying our Fall.  The kids are super excited for Halloween.  Laura is going to be a vampire, and Hannah I think is going to be a witch.  We'll see.  We have also been doing a lot of tailgating.  The kids have come down to several of the games with us.  They enjoy being outside and running around. 

Stages and Stories

Laura had her first sleepover!  She did so well.  She takes after her mommy!  At about midnight, she was frustrated and told the mommy there that she couldn't sleep because the older girls were being too loud.  That is so me when I was a kid!  I was always the one who slept at slumber parties, even in high school.  But overall, she did really well.  She didn't cry, and she made it through the whole night.

Laura has been into her art even more than normal lately.  She pretty much sits and draws or colors constantly.  For a four year old, she is trying some amazing things.  She likes to look at something and try to sketch it.  She also has tried drawing figures standing next to each other going away from the person watching, using depth.  She draws action figures too, such as Hannah doing a summer sault.  These are concepts that I would have never done at her age and still don't now!  But Matt says that he did all these things at her age.  So I guess she's going to be into art.  Sigh....

Work bought me an ipad, and we loaded some games on it for the girls.  Well that has been a disaster. They absolutely love it, and every time that they are playing on it, they fight.  So I have been limiting ipad time.

Emma's new thing is that she loves to hold her feet and put them in her mouth.  It's so funny.  As soon as I lay her down, she instantly grabs her feet and tries to get them to her mouth.  She is growing fast. She has really filled out in the last couple of weeks, and we went up an ounce on her bottles at daycare to 6oz.  She is a sweet baby!  She loves her sisters and is in the distracted stage.  Whenever I am trying to feed her, she stops frequently and watches Laura and Hannah play.  

We have had some major developments with Hannah too.  The pacifier is gone!  She lost it one morning, and I decided that it would stay lost this time.  I threw them away so that Matt and I would not be tempted.  She is verbally so much better since it's been gone.  She has had a few tantrums, but it has been much easier than I anticipated.

Hannah likes the songs that they sing on Nick Jr., and there is one that they do sign language to called, "What Are You Feeling?"  Hannah loves it, and whenever it comes on she dances, sings and tries to do the signs to it.  It's so cute.  I need to try to capture it on video one time.  Her favorite show is still Fresh Beat Band, which she refers to as the "Beats".

Hannah was pretending to talk on her cell phone recently, and her conversation is hilarious.  Of course she is talking to her teacher at school, Ms. Donna.  She says, "Yes.  Not again!  Chelsea?  Ok Donna.  Bye Donna."  Then she puts her phone back in her purse.  It's so cute to watch.  "Not again" is one of her favorite new phrases. 

This morning Laura found her microphone, which had been strategically hidden for awhile. She was pretty excited about it, and wanted to hook it up to the CD player and sing princess songs. I suggested she prepare a show for daddy when he got home from work. She thought this was a great idea. As we continued to discuss it, I realized quickly that she really was not interested in my input. I suggested that maybe she dance through some songs, and she told me that she was in charge of the show. She said that I could be the conductor. I asked if I had any creative liberty, and she said, "No, mom. You can be the conductor. I am in charge of making the show!" Bossy little thing! Poor Hannah will probably have to be the stage help!

Adventures

Summer is officially here!  (Although it has felt like summer for a long time now.)  Last weekend our neighborhood had their annual garage sale weekend.  So Saturday our whole gang shopped the sales.  Laura and Hannah each had their own little purse with money, and they had a blast looking for bargains.  The final collection of loot included: a McDonald's cash register, an elephant toy, a truck, a single snare drum, an entire drum set, and lots of Disney movies.

Of course there is a funny story about the drum set.  As we approached that particular sale, I saw the set sitting up front, and I tried to steer the girls towards something else.  But it wasn't long before they discovered it.  When Hannah sat down on the stool, the first thing she did was tap the drumsticks together and say "One, two, free, foe!"  So we had to buy them.  They now reside in our basement.

My dad came down on Sunday, and we cooked out for Father's day, even though we had a couple of rogue showers that day.  It was a relaxing day.

Yesterday, Laura and Hannah dressed up as super heroes.  Laura pretended to be Thor.  She said, "we are sisters.  We were born together, but now we don't like each other."  And then she and Hannah would proceed to chase each other around the living room pretending to fight.

OK, I started this post over a month ago and never got back to it.  Ugg!!!  So the 4th of July has come and gone.  The 4th of July is my favorite holiday, and we had a great time this year.  We spent the actual 4th at my sister's pool.  The girls had a blast.  They swam until they literally dropped!  Laura wears a swimvest, and this pool is extremely shallow, so she could navigate pretty well by herself, which she loved.  Hannah still needed help, but she jumped off the side into someone's arms about a zillion times.  It was a nice way to spend a 100 degree day.  On Saturday we went to the annual Prochaska 4th of July celebration.  As always, we had a wonderful time there too.  Laura caught 2 frogs, a grasshopper, and several other bugs.  When she caught the grasshopper, it spit on her and she said, "Hey, what's all that?"  It was funny.  My aunt has a dog, Lucy, who is quite calm but managed to steal Hannah's monkey shortly after we arrived.  Hannah comes crying to me saying, "Mommy, dog bite my monkey!"  Thank goodness Matt retrieved it before Lucy shredded it.  That would have been a travesty!

The girls have done many other fun things over the last several weeks.  Matt took them to see Brave.  Hannah didn't like the 3D; she buried herself in Matt's chest more than once.  But overall they enjoyed it.  Laura always enjoys movies, but this was Hannah's first one.  I think she liked it well enough.  Laura also got to go to the zoo with her class for a fieldtrip.  Although she has been to the zoo a million times, this was special since it was a fieldtrip with her friends.  I think they saw most of the main exhibits, and I think that they may have brought some small animals over for the kids to touch, but it's hard to tell by Laura's description of the day.

Emma is doing awesome too!  She is growing like a weed.  She teased us for a few days by sleeping through the night, but then it was back to her old ways.  We even got as far as she slept with Mommy for a few nights.  But I had to break that habit quickly!  She is also transitioned out of the bassinet into her crib.  (Of course, I don't have the bassinet put away yet!)  Emma talks constantly.  For a three month old, she is so loud.  It's hilarious!  I think she is just mimicking her older sisters.  She is also starting to do better traveling.  When we went to my aunt's for the 4th, it's a two hour trip, and Emma did pretty well both ways.

I have one more funny story about Laura.  She woke up one morning and told Matt that she was tired of dreaming about boo boo's (cuts or bruises).  Matt proceeded to tell her that she needs to think about happy things like princesses or unicorns before she goes to sleep.  She replied very frustrated, "Daddy!  I think about princesses all the time!"  Good to know!

We are looking forward to the rest of the summer.  We have several fun things on the calendar.  Laura is in summer camp at school, so she is doing interesting activities each week.  We have a pirate princess birthday party coming soon for which the girls are excited, and we will end the summer with a vacation to the beach.  We are driving this year, which ought to be interesting....

Weekends

We had a great weekend last week.  Saturday, we went to church, which the kids were very good, and then we had dinner at Enrico's in Dublin.  It is a little Italian restaurant, that mostly does pizza.  It is soooo good.  I've never been in there when the little, old Italian couple has been in there working.  Their daughter is the waitress.  It was fairly busy on a Saturday night, and I was a little worried that Emma would fuss, especially since she hadn't eaten since 4, and it was already about 7.  But she did really well, and let us enjoy dinner.  It was such a relaxing evening!

Sunday, we went to Josh's graduation party.  The girls had a blast!  Uncle Alan showed them his bees. (He has bee hives where he raises bees to make honey.)  And they saw baby mice, and they tried to catch bugs.  And the grand finale was that Laura caught a frog.  She loves catching frogs.  She ran up to a table of teenage girls and showed them her prize.  Hilarious!  I think one of the girls about jumped from her seat.  Last summer Laura had a bug box that she used to keep the bugs and creatures that she captured.  But at the end of summer it cracked and broke, so we have been looking for a new one this year.  I finally found one this week, but it's not as good as last year's box.  The lid screws off, which is hard for Laura.  Last year's box had a lid that just popped up and down.  I think I'm going to keep looking.  Laura can't wait for the lightning bugs to be out in full force.  We have only seen a few so far this year.  Little Hannah found a playmate at the party.  There was a 3 year old little boy with whom Hannah played ball.  It was cute!

Emma went to her 2 month doctor appointment this week.  She did really well.  She is 11 lbs, 11oz and 23 inches.  Matt said she only cried a little when they gave her shots.  She did run a fever later that day.  But it was gone by the next day, thankfully.  She just melts our hearts with her little coos and smiles.  She loves when Matt or I talk to her.  I have yet to capture her little smile on my camera yet.  One of these days I will get it!  She has done so well at daycare too.  She is such a happy baby.

We spent yesterday at the pool with our friends, the Moores and Gary.  It was an awesome, relaxing day.  Laura and Hannah had a fantastic time at the pool, jumping in the water, splashing, squirting guns, and playing with noodles.  Laura loves playing with Maddie, and as usual she didn't want to go home last night.  Even little Emma did good at the pool.  She wasn't really fond of the cool water, but she napped on and off in the stroller and was pleasant.  Matt, Robert, and Gary made us a delicious dinner to top off the evening.  We kept saying it felt like we were on vacation!  It's always nice to have a weekend like that. 

Back to Work

I am disappointed that I never got around to post while I was on maternity leave.  There were so many fun things that we did and funny conversations.  But of course, I don't remember most of them - the whole reason why I am writing this blog!  Oh well.  I can say that I enjoyed my time with the girls immensely!

Little Emma is growing like a weed.  She will go to the doctor next week, and I am anxious to learn her progress.  At her 1 month appointment, she weighed 10 pounds.  She is such a good baby.  She went to daycare for the second week this week, and she is doing great there!  It helps that her teacher, Miss Laura, is amazing.  She is the same teacher that had Hannah in that room, and I love her.  Our one struggle with Emma has been car rides.  She does NOT like riding in the car.  We had to go to Logan in April, and she screamed most of the way down there and part of the way back.  Needless to say, we have not attempted any other trips out of town.  It has helped in the last couple of weeks that we finally found a pacifier that she will take.  I tried several different kinds before I found one.  So if I am not driving alone with the kids, I can turn around and stick her pacifier in to calm her.  But otherwise, I pretty much have to let her cry, which is extremely stressful.  I'm hoping that this is a phase that she will outgrow eventually.  On the upside, she is smiling and cooing when I talk to her, and I love it!  It just melts my heart.  She is such a sweet baby!  She loves to have her sisters around her too.  When we go to their rooms at daycare to pick them up, she usually smiles when she sees them.  Laura is super proud of her.  It takes us forever to get out of daycare because Laura stops every person that we pass and asks, "Do you want to see my new baby sister?" 

Hannah is doing great too!  We did eventually get past the rough bedtimes.  One night late in April, she finally let Matt lay her down for bed.  It was such a relief!  Now either Matt or I sit at the end of the girls' bed while Hannah falls asleep.  It's usually about a fifteen minute endeavor, which is good in my book.  Hannah is so affectionate towards Emma.  She is constantly kissing on her face and talking to her.  However, Hannah continues to be extremely independent and at times aggressive.  She still hits often and occasionally bites her friends at school.  Matt thinks they might have it coming, since she has a few big boys in her class :)  Hannah is the smallest kid in her class, with maybe the exception of one other little girl.  She must get that smallness from my mom or Matt's dad!

Laura is a wonderful big sister!  She helps me so much with her sisters.  Whenever Hannah can't get a toy or needs a snack when I'm busy with Emma, Laura takes care of her.  It's so sweet!  She is such a nurturing kid.  On the other hand, Hannah tends to dominate her.  Hannah will take a toy from her or push her off a chair, and Laura really doesn't fight back at all.  She just screams for me to help her.  Matt and I joke that Hannah will be the one protecting Laura when they get into school.  Laura has said some funny phrases lately that are ahead of her time.  For instance, when I'm telling her to do something she doesn't want to do, such as pick up her toys, Laura will grumble, "Mom, I wish you would stop ruling me!"  I just can't wait till the teenage years!

Both girls still like to dress up like princesses and dance around the living room.  They do this often.  I'm glad it's getting warm now so that they go outside and play.  They enjoy their swing set and sandbox, and they even played in their plastic pool last weekend in the heat!  We are looking for to a great summer! 

We have a little garden in our yard this year that Laura and my dad planted.  Laura enjoys watching it grow.  She is such a good planter, which is no credit to me.  My dad taught her how to plant flowers.  So when I planted the rest of the flowers one week, I just dug the holes and laid the flowers in them, and Laura filled them all in with dirt.  I was so impressed! 

We went to the zoo a few weekends ago for Chelsea's birthday.  It was our first trip to the zoo with all three kids.  I definitely cannot do that alone!  I carried Emma in the sling, and Hannah rode in the stroller.  And Laura walked of course.  But it was quite a job keep track of everybody.  They had a great time with their cousins.

Mothers day weekend we went to my aunt's house, and Laura got to ride a horse with her.  She has done it before but not for a long time.  So she was very excited.   She rode for quite a while and loved it!  Hannah, at first wanted to do it because her sister was, but she quickly changed her mind.  When I lifted her up to get on the saddle, she said, "No.  Too big."  She just watched Laura from a distance.  So cute.

I went back to work two weeks ago - to a new job!  I now work at Wright Law Co. as an attorney.  I love it so far!  I work four days a week, so that gives me an extra day with the girls, which makes all the difference.  It adds so much more balance to our lives. 

That's about all that's new in Adams land!  I will be better about writing these posts.... hopefully!

New Addition

Emma is finally here! She came a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to writing a post. We started at about 9:00am, and she was born at 3:23 in the afternoon. She weighed 7lbs 14oz and was 19.5 inches long. She came very calmly, and she remains a calm baby at this point. She is beautiful, and we are so happy that she is here. Her sisters absolutely adore her. When we walked in the house with her, they both instantly crowed around her and wanted to hold her. They have not stopped loving on her since then. Hannah rubs her hair and says, "she's too coot." Hannah also reassures me regularly that Emma loves Hannah. She is so cute. Hannah has surprised me with how loving she is towards Emma. She gives her kisses and hugs and is generally very gentle with her. She carries her babies around the house and names them Emma Bababef (Elizabeth). Laura is a big help. She fetches things for me all the time. Her favorite thing is of course to hold Emma. She always wants to hold her after I feed her.

Naturally, there have been some adjustments since Emma has come home. Hannah struggles at bedtime. She only wants to be with me. Matt has attempted to put her down a couple of nights and she sobs for so long. Or she puts her head on my knee while I feed Emma until I am done, and I put her to bed, which of course is later. Then she is tired in the morning. We will eventually get past this stage, but in the meantime, it is grueling. I ask her to go to her bedroom with Daddy, and she says, "I not. I not."

Since I nurse Emma, Laura and Hannah are now nursing their babydolls. Laura even used my nursing pillow one day with her doll and asked my sister if she had some milk to feed her baby too. She's so innocent and funny! Yesterday they grabbed my pump pieces and pretended to pump. Matt just loves it!!

Some other interesting conversations we have had recently...
Laura asked me about my earrings and then proceeded to tell me that she didn't want to have earrings because she didn't want to get her ears "chopped." I told her that it was kind of like getting a shot. Her eyes got big, and that sealed the deal. I'm pretty sure she won't get her ears pierced until she's a teenager at least!

Laura also doesn't let Matt fast forward during commercials. We DVR most shows, and we usually watch one thing in the evening, kid-friendly of course. Well Matt attempts to fast forward when we get to the commercials, but Laura yells, "stop Daddy!" She wants to watch all the commercials. It's hilarious since Matt despises commercials.

Hannah had her two-year doctor appointment right before Emma was born. She didn't have to get shots, but they did have to prick her heel for a hemoglobin test. She did really well, but she yelled out for a minute when they pricked her. Then she told us all week, "doctor gave me boo boo." She was very serious about it. Hannah has made great strides in the last few weeks developmentally. She is talking a ton now. She asks Matt to tickle them about every night. She will go put pillows on the floor and say, "tickle, tickle?" She adores Laura too. She hates it when Laura plays her Leapster. She wants Laura to play with her all the time. She will give Laura a hug and say, "I wuv you Rara." It's so sweet. Laura is fairly patient with her and generally likes to play with her.

We really haven't made any progress on the potty training, and I haven't worked on it seriously since Emma has been home. Hannah still goes inconsistently on the potty, but alas, I still have two kids in diapers.

We are, however, making progress on the pacifier. She only has one left, and she is not using it very often. She pretty much uses it at bedtime, but there have been several nights that she didn't even use it at bedtime. So I think we are moving in the right direction. On a related note, at Emma's first doctor appointment, the doctor asked if I had given her a pacifier yet. I responded no I hadn't and that I wasn't sure if I was going to give her one. He said that it was the lesser of two evils. He said, "You can't cut off her thumb, but you can throw the paci away." This is true, but I'm still not sure. I guess we'll see how fussy she gets.

We got Laura a bigger bike for Easter. She loves it! And she is doing really well on it. Hannah has taken over the trike, but she doesn't peddle yet. She sits back, and we have to push her. We also had a small egg hunt for the girls on Easter. I think Hannah enjoyed it more than Laura. Laura wanted there to be more eggs! We had a very relaxing Easter.

Laura is also doing really well assuming her seat in the back of the van! She can't buckle herself yet, so we have to go through the back to buckle her. But she loves being the big girl in the back. She asked me one day if Hannah will be in the back with her when she gets big.

Waiting

Well, we are waiting, waiting, waiting for our new arrival. She is due a week from Sunday, and we are very excited! One night this week on the couch, Laura and Hannah were fighting over my lap. I told them that they have to share since I have two daughters, Laura and Hannah. Laura promptly scolded me and said, "Mommy, you have three daughters! One in there (pointing to my belly) and me and Hannah." She is so excited to be a big sister again. She woke up one morning this week and the first words out of her mouth were, "When are we getting the baby?"

I wish I could say the same for Hannah :) She is probably going to be a bit jealous of her new little sister. She doesn't like it when Laura climbs on my lap or when Matt even gives me a hug. I think she thinks I'm all hers. Poor little Hannah; this is her last week to be my baby. Good thing she is quite the strong willed little girl.

Her little personality has been developing so much in the last few weeks. When you ask her how she's doing, she says, "I good." And she often tells us if she likes something. Last night she told me, "I wike books, Mommy." Every night, without fail, she asks Matt to tickle her. She loves to wrestle on the ground with her sister and Matt. She will say, "Daddy tickle? Tickle?" She also has developed this galloping routine when she's excited. Instead of just running down the hall to the cafeteria at school in the morning, she will gallop all the way down the hall. It's so cute. She is still very attached to her monkey and her pacifier. If either is lost, we have a major problem. I think we are getting close to her wanting to potty train though. She seems to be sitting on the potty more often. One morning she woke me up at 5:30 to go sit on the potty. Granted, she peed a little, then listed to the music the potty made and cheered. And then she repeated this cycle about seven more times in a row. So it took about twenty minutes for her to go potty. But I'll take it - at least she's showing more interest.

Laura is doing great right now too. As mentioned, she is super excited to be a big sister again. She is my little helper. She loves to "care" for Hannah. She attempts to change her diaper once in a while, which is hilarious, since Hannah is usually not overly cooperative and runs from her. But she helps Hannah get her toothbrush ready and combs her hair and finds her pacifier for her. She is going to love helping me with the new baby.

A couple of funny things...whenever we watch the Buckeyes on TV, Laura asks which team is the Bucks and which one is the Alligators. Ever since the Bowl game in January, she thinks that every opposing team is the Alligators. It's so funny. Once in a while she also gets pretty grouchy, especially in the mornings. Well one morning she was particularly irritable, and I was trying to tell her something. (I don't even remember what it was we were discussing.) She just made a grrr sound and said, "Mom, I'm tired of you tracking my life!" I thought, did she turn fifteen and I missed it? It was funny. She apologized to me pretty quickly, but I think it was a glimpse into my future!

This morning, the sun was shining, and you could see the shadow of my hand and finger on the blinds near the kitchen table. The girls were eating breakfast, and Hannah spotted the shadow. She said, "Look mommy. Turtle!" She thought that the shadow was a turtle. Well if I moved my finger, it looked like the turtle's head was moving. So we started to play a game. Matt said, " If you like mommy, nod your head." And the turtle nodded. Then we did the same for Hannah and Laura. Then he asked, "Turtle, nod your head if you like daddy." And the turtle didn't nod his head. Well Laura thought that was hilarious. She laughed loudly. Hannah just looked curiously at the shadow and said, "Crazy turtle." It was so funny!

Hannah Turns Two

I officially have a two year old. Hannah had a great birthday, and she was very excited about it. I asked her, "Is it your birthday, Hannah?" And she yelled at the top of her lungs, "YAY!" I asked her, "How old are you?" She again yelled at the top of her lungs, "Two!" And she held up all her fingers on one hand. She was jumping up and down and was so happy. We had dinner, which she wanted nothing to do with since there were vegetables involved. But when it was time for cake, she was so excited again. She sang with us when we sang happy birthday. She isn't good at blowing air on anything though, such as bubbles or hot food. So when we told her to blow out her candle, she had a little difficulty. She blows like she is making an 'F' sound and kind of spits. But big sister came to the rescue and blew it out for her. We didn't even have time to get the plates. Hannah just started digging her hands in the chocolate frosting and eating it. Then of course, it was present time. Hannah was ready to dig into the wrapping. Laura struggled a bit since none of the presents were for her. She helped her sister unwrap gifts, but she got upset when Hannah wanted to play with her new toy for a minute first. Laura always want to play first too. It was a hard lesson for Laura. Hannah got legos, puzzles, cookie monster, a bath set, a piggy bank, and a whacking ball set. Overall it was a nice, relaxing evening. I know that Hannah enjoyed turning two.

Of course, now that she is two, she is definitely representing the age well. She is the epitome of the 'terrible two's.' She is extremely impatient and scolds us every night. I think her aggressive behavior is in part because her class at school is three boys, her and only one other little girl, Quinn. So I think she has to defend herself a lot. But she also knows how to push our buttons or how to manipulate daddy. For instance, one night it was Matt's turn to put the girls to bed. And Hannah threw an all out fit screaming and kicking because she only wanted me to put her to bed. Matt gave in quickly, and I ended up putting them to sleep. The next night though Mommy won, and Daddy put them down to bed. Another funny example is that Hannah loves shoes. When the girls stayed at my parents' house, Hannah wanted to sleep in her shoes, so my Mom let her sleep that night in her tennis shoes!

We had a great Valentine's Day too. The night before Matt did an activity with Laura; they made a foam princess castle card box. It was perfect, and Laura loved it. Then on Valentine's day we had pizza, and the girls went through their goodie bags from school, ate tons of chocolate, and they opened a special package from their cousin, Chelsea. There were stickers and valentines all over the kitchen floor. Both girls had a great time!

I'm so lucky that my girls play so well together. Yesterday afternoon, they were upstairs playing after their bath; so both girls were naked. Laura was the mommy, and they were pretending Hannah was the baby. Hannah kept pretending to cry, "waaaahhh!" And then Laura picked her up and dragged her around. Then Hannah crawled in the babydoll pack n' play and pretended to fuss for her mommy. It was the cutest thing. They played like that for at least 30 minutes. Overall they love to play together. Usually they are wrestling, like right now. Or they play chase, which usually evolves into wrestling. But sometimes they color together or play house in their princess castle. I'm thankful for this now. I know they might not get along so well when they get older!

Yesterday Laura also serenaded us with a princess concert. She and Hannah dressed up in their princess dresses, and Daddy hooked up the microphone to their princess CD player. Daddy had bought them a CD with several of the princess movie songs on it. Laura proceeded to sing along with each song. Hannah became uninterested very quickly, and she stripped out of her princess dress to run around in her diaper. Matt dubbed her Mougli from the Jungle Book. It was a fun afternoon.

Puff the Magic Dragon

Victory! Yes, I am claiming victory on at least one of our objectives with little Hannah. You will remember that we have three things we are trying to accomplish with her of late: getting rid of her pacifier, getting her transitioned to Laura's room, and potty training. This week she has slept three nights with Laura in their now shared bed! Even better, she has not woken up in the middle of the night, like she used to in her crib. This morning, both girls slept till 6:30! That is huge for us. They are so cute in there together! One night Hannah fell asleep with her little arm around Laura's neck. And last night Laura said I want to snuggle with Hannah when she falls asleep! Laura loves having Hannah in her room!

Another funny development. Usually Laura listens to the radio in her room at night. It plays softly on either country or rock. (She actually prefers heavy metal, but I don't think that's good sleeping music!) Well, she has a Puff the Magic Dragon pop-up book that she found recently in her bookshelf. She hadn't read it for a long time. This week when she found it, she noticed it had a CD in it. So this week, she has been listening to the Puff the Magic Dragon song playing all night on repeat! The CD actually has four songs on it, but she only wants to hear that one song all night long. Too funny.

We had two visitors this week. Uncle Steve came over on Monday night, and Grandma Jane came on Tuesday night. Laura was so excited when I picked her up from daycare and told her Steve was coming over. She barely let him eat dinner that night. She and Hannah wrestled and Steve read them stories. They loved it. Grandma Jane surprised us Tuesday night. She came bearing gifts. The most popular of course was the toilet soap dispenser that yells, "Hey, Don't forget to wash your hands!" The girls want to hear it about fifty billion times a day. Matt says that he's going to take it to work and put it in the bathroom to yell at the people who don't wash their hands! Laura and Grandma Jane spent most of the evening drawing each other pictures. Laura always wanted Jane to guess what she was drawing. The best was her picture of the flamingo - I should take a picture of it! Laura is generally pretty good at drawing, but this picture wasn't even close!

Laura loves to draw pictures of herself and pictures of our family. They are usually pretty good pictures. She almost always has pigtails in her hair, and Hannah is usually a smaller version of herself. But Matt and I vary quite a bit. This week she stapled together some of her pictures and make me a book! She is so sweet.

Hannah is progressing significantly this week at feeding herself liquid foods, like soup and cereal and milk. She is very proud of it! We had soup twice this week, and she did really well both nights. She likes some other odd things for her young age, like black olives and pad thai! Her favorite food continues to be breakfast bars though! She loves them! She eats one at least once in the evening and twice a day on the weekend. She also loves fruit snacks. I remember when Laura was addicted to breakfast bars, and then one day she wouldn't eat them anymore. Laura still is not keen on them. However, Laura is addicted to chocolate milk. She practically won't drink white milk at all, at home anyway. In fact, we make her start eating her meal before giving her any milk. If we give her milk first, she drinks all of it immediately and then says she's full. I wish I could survive on a liquid diet! She definitely does not get this from me!

Hannah loves wearing our shoes right now too. Whenever we leave shoes on the floor, she puts them on and walk/drags them around. She wears Laura's too. Actually I think she likes everything of mine. Every morning she comes over to my nightstand and steals my jewelry, lotion, perfume, whatever she can find! I am constantly hunting down my stuff!

Laura is such a little caregiver. She loves to take care of Hannah. She even gets Hannah's toothbrush ready at night, putting toothpaste on it. And of course, Hannah wants to do everything Laura does. One story that comes to mind is the Super Bowl half time show. Madonna was the performer, so there was lots of dancing. My kids were glued to the TV. Not one peep came out of them the entire performance. As soon as it was over, they broke into dance. Laura kept saying, "Look what I can do." And then Hannah would proceed to say something like, "Look, I do." And then whatever dance move Laura performed, Hannah would attempt as well. They usually involved twirling or a somersault. It was absolutely adorable. We should have videoed it.

The first picture above is the girls "driving" the cart at the store. They love to drive the car carts and pretend to run into people, particularly me! The second one is the girls in their "capes'! They dance around in them.

Wrestle Mania

I'm glad that January is almost over. Between work trips and illnesses, I'm done with it. Actually we've been pretty lucky in the illness department from the perspective that we haven't had any stomach flus or other major fever-type sicknesses. But Matt and I have pretty much been sick the entire month. Hannah got Fifth's disease from school, and I think both Matt and I have had it. Matt is just now getting it. He temped tonight at 101.7. But before Fifth's disease we both had colds that wouldn't go away.

On the up side, our kids have weathered this mild winter well so far. Last weekend we had a little bit of snow, and they took full advantage. They were sledding down the driveway and running around in it. Tonight they are full of energy. They have been running around our living room wrestling for the last hour. Do anybody else's girls wrestle and rough house all the time? Laura and Hannah are like two boys. They love to chase each other and knock each other down and roll all over each other. It's funny to watch.

Last time I mentioned that we were going to try to get Hannah to sleep in Laura's bed. Well that was a complete failure. She will have none of it. There are three things that we would like to accomplish: potty training, eliminating the pacifier, and getting her in Laura's bed. We are failing in all three categories. Oh well. It will all get done in time.

Hannah is developing rapidly right in the language department. She is really starting to enunciate her words and speak in phrases. She likes giving us commands especially! Imagine that! She still likes to do whatever her sister does. If Laura is wearing a dress, Hannah screams "too, Dress too!" If Laura is having hot cocoa, Hannah has to have it too. If Laura is playing with her magna doodle, Hannah has to have hers too. Laura has even talked to her about sleeping in her bed and going on the potty. But Hannah seems to disregard this sisterly advice.

The third sister has been quite active lately too. We only have seven more weeks! We are getting very excited to meet our newest family member. We are narrowing our name choices. We are down to three: Emma, Sarah, or Abbie.

Now the girls are playing "house". Laura is the mommy, and Hannah is her daughter. She just put Hannah in time out and made her apologize for something. It's so funny to hear their conversations. She usually drops Hannah off at daycare and buckles her in her carseat and pretends to drive with her. Laura just took Hannah's diaper off and brought it to me. She is changing her diaper now. Maybe when I have the baby, Laura will just start taking care of Hannah all together! Just kidding. :-)

Hello 2012

Well 2012 is upon us with a vengeance. We have survived the first two weeks. Thankfully. The first week I had to go to Atlanta for the whole week for work. That was definitely a stressor for our family. Laura struggled the most. She had a couple of melt downs, and she was definitely happy when Friday came. Hannah actually did pretty well. I'm not sure that it phased her much. As long as some one gives her food and meets her basic needs, she's good to go.

Then this whole last week, Hannah and I have had a cold. So we pretty much just struggled through the week. Hannah of course seems to being doing much better; she can breathe at night while she sleeps. I am still a hot mess though! It went into my eye (which only seems to happen when I'm pregnant), and I seem to be getting more congested instead of less.

Overall, we really can't complain though. All is well in the Adams household. Laura is learning and excited about taking showers by herself. We are getting ready to transition Hannah into Laura's bed at night, and Laura is looking forward to this new "responsibility."

Hannah is getting more independent by the minute. I can't even imagine what it will be like when the new baby comes! She scolds us several times a day with a very serious scowl on her face. She will say "No, Mommeeee!" And she will point and say it in a deep voice. It's so cute! She wants to do whatever Laura is doing, more than ever now. For example this morning, Laura put on a jumper, so Hannah had to put on a jumper. Laura is trying to play with letters on the fridge right now, and Hannah has to be right there with her moving letters around (usually frustrating her sister). Normally, they really play very well together.

Hannah is my "dragger outer" too. It's like she can't handle a clean space. She drags out toys, books, movies, crayons, whatever she can get her hands on and drops them everywhere. Laura, on the other hand, understands the concept of cleaning up rather well. She doesn't do it on her own, but if I ask her and tell her several times during the process, she does a good job.

So this is the grand finale story of the week.....are you ready????

I bathed Hannah this morning, and as I've mentioned several times, she likes to run around naked a few minutes after her bath. Well I was letting her enjoy it. And yes, we have had a pooping incident in the past, but I try to keep an eye and don't let her go too long. Well this morning, I was getting Laura ready to take her shower. And Hannah likes to play in our closet lately. Well she was in there hiding, and Matt was "finding" her. Matt started downstairs, and I picked Hannah up to dress her. When I picked her up, I happened to notice a poop in Matt's shoe!! Oh yes, Hannah pooped in Matt's shoe! That just made my morning! Most of you know that Matt is extremely poop averse, so he was totally disgusted. It was hilarious! Happy weekend All!

These are a couple of pictures from our Christmas Eve dinner.