Sunday & Four's Baptism

Our church does the baptism
as part of the children's sermon:



All of my kids have worn my grandad's,
their great-grandad's, baptismal gown.


It's at least 100 years old
and made from the thinnest muslim
with lace and hand-embroidered daisies.
It's actually a dress and a lining
and has the eensiest little shell buttons in the back.

Love sentimental stuff like that.
None of my cousins wanted it
for their children.
I think they might be a bit crazy
but I really can't complain because
I am so happy to have it for my own babies.

Four did so good during the baptism,
she didn't cry and she even had
her very own hallelujah moment:

Love it!

Sunday & Two's Graduation

So here's my pic for Sunday
and yes, I know it's Tuesday.
Oh well!

But Two had her preschool graduation!



I could hardly get a picture of her
before we left because she
was so excited to get to school!



There was a little program:

(Thank goodness for my short little kids,
they always get to be in front!)


She said good-bye to friends:



And we even got a great family picture!
Gran should be a photograher,
this was her one and only picture!



Picking Two up from preschool for the last time
was a little bittersweet.
She's one of the youngest in her grade
and the opportunity is there
to hold her back one year.
But I would be holding her back for me;
she is ready and so excited
for kindergarten.

Little Two,
my preschool grad.

Mother's Day

If your kid doesn't want to be in the picture,
just gather everyone together behind them
and take the picture anyway...

Hey, at least they're all in the picture!

Happy Mother's Day!

Testing, Testing

We spent the day with Gran today.
It was her 18th birthday, according to Two.
Her 102nd, according to One.

We picked up $1 sundaes at Sonic
and headed to a park for some memories.

When we got there,
they were testing a new
water feature!

Gotta love it.
No one at the park was dressed for it.
It was barely 70 degrees outside.
But who was going to say no?




A sister encouraged.



A big brother taught.



And all were soaked by the end.


Good times!

Bath Time

Four did not love her first bath.


But the big kids were thrilled to be there!
They pulled up chairs to watch
and made sure all body parts got washed.

3 out of 4 were happy.....not bad!

Laundry

Actual conversation:

Me: Didn't you wear that shirt yesterday?

One: Yeah.

Me: Don't you have clean clothes in your drawer?

One: Yeah.

Me: Well why did you wear this shirt again?

One: Cuz I like it.

17 mos & a haircut

Three turned 17 mos last week!

At 17 months, he's:
*started walking backwards (for fun, not for getting around!)
*able to drink small amounts out of a real cup
*might actually weigh 21 lbs, or is very close (still under chart)
*has switched to drinking half & half rather than soy cream,
with only slight worsening of his excema
*is so close to running
*taking 1-2 naps a day

And he also got his first haircut!

Here's the before:

Not the best picture but you can see
how long and thin it was,
resulting in scraggly, fly-aways.



He got to pick this cute chair:


Ready to go!





Ta da!

He would not look at me afterwards!
But I thought they did pretty good,
much better than I could have ever done
with a squirmy 17 mos old!

Fifty Cents

That's what the Tooth Fairy brings at our house.

Unfortunately, she didn't get One's tooth,
and it's not because One's mama kept it....

we're pretty sure One ate it.

And no, I'm not doing The Big Dig to get it.
As One said, "You can have my second tooth."

I'm thinking the second tooth will be just fine.
;o)


ps. You know the BBQ cookout was good when you leave with some dinner still on your face. And more than that, does anyone else think it's odd that my son is wearing a sweatshirt in late July?!

An unexpected celebration

Growing up I had a baby blue banana bike
with a rainbow on the seat,
streamers and a basket on the handles...
and training wheels.
Because I didn't learn to ride until I was twelve years old.
(Yes, that's right people, I was athletic like that.)

I had no idea how to teach my babies how to ride bikes.
When I finally learned how, I could just do it,
and I never fell down.
(I was twelve afterall!)
So how in the world were we going to teach them?

Our old neighbors just slowly raised their kids' training wheels.
Their bikes gradually got more wobbly
and their kids gradually learned how to balance
and pedal at the same time.

Seemed to work fine.

But then a friend of mine mentioned a scoot bike.
(Oddly enough, I had seen one on Sesame Street
when Grover visited a kid in a Scandanavian country.
Apparently that's what everyone does over there.)
Anyway, her son learned to ride his bike in a week!
So the scoot bike seemed like the way to go
but 90+ bucks?!? NO WAY!!!

So I went to my favorite store and the bikes had just been marked down to $2! Wahoo! We picked out a decent one, brought it home, and DaddyMan took off the pedals. Viola! Scoot bike for $2.

That was three days ago.

Today, One wanted to give his real bike a try.
The one with pedals.
I gave him a push to get started
and then kept running along side him to keep him going fast enough.

But he didn't really need it.

The hardest thing to do was letting go of my baby
so that he could keep going on his own.

But he did it!
My baby can ride his bike!



Here he is with his training-wheel-free bike:



Naturally this called for celebration:


My boy order strawberry:


When he finished , he said "Can I call Gran now and tell her what I did?" Of course!

My baby!
I'm so proud!
And a little in shock at how easy it turned out to be!
:o)

Randomness with tons of pics

Wow! So I didn't mean to take a two-week break from blogging!
I even kept crafting and taking pictures
so who knows what happened?!

Here is the big catch-up:

We went to story time about alligators
and my craftiness didn't quite extend to cutting in between every single tooth.
Two seemed happy enough with it.
Here she is roaring at the camera because what other sound does an alligater make?



We went for a walk in the park back behind our library:



But walking was not enough for Two, she preferred to fly:



I made Three his own set of keys, complete with key fob.
The finished product is somewhere in my mama van,
but as a consolation prize
here, at least, are my materials:

(Materials were about $2, then throw some old keys that you don't remember what they belong to or go to any place that makes keys and ask for a few from their "mistake" bin (free).)


As an only child who had a sibling for a short little while, watching my kids play together is always one of my greatest joys and something I make a point not to interrupt.
Here is One with his legs wrapped around Three
so Three wouldn't fall down
all while rockin' the baby toy air-guitar style!



I planted flowers.
Here is one that is still alive:



And some impatiens look adorable in these pots on my patio table:

(Do you see the roses in bloom in the background? Love them too!)


We got goofy at the mall:

(Then got issued a new credit card when the photobooth company got hacked into... Oops!)


One got his bobcat badge
and some really rockin' make-up:



I'm working on making a reusable snack bag:

The process is slow going because I am making a go of it without a pattern and, oh yeah, I like my sleep.
The fabric is a leftover scrap from this skirt.
Mental note: next time fork out the money for the pattern!


We went camping with friends over Memorial weekend.
DaddyMan made paper airplanes for the kids to throw into the campfire.
It was such a hit, I'm pretty sure it is our new tradition!

Breakfast



And most recently we've taken this guy back to the kidney doctor.

His bad kidney is still several times "normal" size. Another function test is back on the books. Hospital gowns, IV's, catheters, radio-active dye followed by radio-active diapers... We've got our fingers crossed and prayer chains full of prayers for good results because I'm pretty sure bad results will send him to surgery.


Up next are some grad gifts but those will need to stay top-secret for now since I know my favorite grad reads the blog.
(HI Kimiiiiiiii!)
Stay tuned!



Whew!
It's good to be back!