So I guess I'll start there. Her birthday was actually a little uneventful, since it was her first. Matt bought her a donut with sprinkles from Tim Hortons, and we sang to her the evening of her birthday. Then she proceeded to eat the entire donut. And it was huge. She loved every bite of it. And that was pretty much it. I did bake her the traditional teddy bear cake that I have baked the older two girls too. But we ate it at Easter with the family, so it was not really a big deal. I gave her some bites of it. On Emma generally, she is growing like a weed. She is trying desperately to keep up with her big sisters, and so she is close to walking and coasts along the furniture regularly. She is also quite the little stinker. She can argue with me. I say yes, and she proceeds to say no. And we go back and forth - already at age one she is arguing with me! I'm not sure that's a good sign for the future. She eats all table food, and we are down to one bottle, right before nap time, which will be difficult to end. But she still nurses in the morning and evening too. She went to the doctor for her one year appointment, and she weighs 20lbs. She has moved up to the next Infant Room at daycare. This is my least favorite room at daycare, and she got bit on the face her very first day in the room. But other than that, it's actually going fine. (As fine as daycare can go anyway.)
Moving on to Laura, she is becoming older, that is older acting, with every week. It is both exciting and frightening for me. She completed Kindergarten Screening the first week in March, and she got accepted to St. Brendan's late March. So she will officially start school August 21, 2013. That will will be a huge change for our family, that I am not at all prepared for emotionally. But we still have time. Laura's appetite for learning is insatiable, so I know that she will enjoy school. She is constantly finding shows on Netflix about nature or some other educational topic. Don't get me wrong; she likes all the fun shows too. Her favorite at the moment is Transformers. She even got a couple of Transformers in her Easter basket. Laura's favorite activity continues to be drawing. She is even a little bored with coloring, as she would rather be drawing. At Sunday school, they always give the kids a picture to color while everyone arrives. She told Matt last week that she is bored at Sunday school because she wants to draw. So Matt told her that she could draw on the paper instead. Laura also likes to set up complex settings for her and Hannah to act out. For example, yesterday Laura set them up a horse jumping course. And she and Hannah pretended to ride horses over the jumps. I took a video of it. It was awesome. After the "competition," Hannah was injured when horse didn't make a jump, so Laura proceeded to cast her legs and perform surgery on her. I enjoyed watching the whole scene immensely.
Hannah's language is progressing by leaps and bounds. Just a couple of months ago, we sometimes had a hard time understanding her, and now she speaks in multiple sentences. And it fairly easy to understand her. She wants to do everything Laura does. In fact last summer there was a birthday party for one of Laura's friends, to which Hannah couldn't go. Well, she still remembers that party. She felt so left out. It was horrible. I know it will probably be the first of many times, especially as Laura moves into school. But Hannah asks every time we have an activity, "do I get to go?" It's so sad. She wants to be with Laura constantly. They play very well together too. They have their spats, but in general they are very close. Hannah still loves Rapunzel, but her favorite show on Netflix has been My Little Pony for a while now. The girls have a boat load of My Little Ponies, so they play ponies fairly often too.
Easter was special, relaxing and fun this year. I haven't been to Easter Vigil Mass in many years, largely since it is an extra long mass with all of the new Catholics entering the Church on that night. Well this year was extra special. Matt entered the Church this year. My parents watched the kids, and I enjoyed an amazing evening. The service was beautiful, and it was truly awesome watching Matt take part in his first sacraments and enter "the fold." The next day we went to my Aunt Lisa's for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. We enjoyed hanging with the family, and the kids hunting eggs. Laura asked about the Easter bunny hiding eggs at our house. Matt told her that he left a note for the Easter bunny to go ahead and hide them at Lisa's. Laura was none too pleased about this. She scolded Matt several times that day that he should not leave any notes in the future for the Easter bunny. She wanted to hunt eggs at her house. Lesson learned. They did have a blast at Lisa's though. Thankfully the weather was nice, and the kids had fun climbing on hale bales in the barn, while my dad loaded hay in his truck. Then Lisa saddled up old Skip, and both girls took rides
around the barn. They loved it. It was an awesome weekend.
Well, as I close this post, I am committing to more timely posts. My goal is to document my memories of our family, and I can't document well when I only post once a month! To better blogging....
