Maggie’s Journal

It’s been a busy several weeks around here. My Mom came in unexpectedly and spent a few weeks with us. Then my sister came in and my brother and his family came for Memorial day. We enjoyed all the visiting very much. When everyone was gone, Brenden told me that he wanted Grandma and Grandpa, Rachel, Uncle Paul and the cousins to come back because he was lonely for the them. Very sweet. Now I’m going to overload you with pictures.

Brenden’s 3 year stats:
36 lbs
38 1/4 inches

Emily’s 4 month stats:
15 lbs 4.1 oz
24 3/4 inches

Brenden had been noticing my toe nail polish for weeks as it became more and more chipped. I decided it was time to fix that. So one night I painted my toes pink and the next day Brenden noticed. Throughout the day he would say something about my pink toes. That night he asked if he could have pink toes too, and with no valid reason why he couldn’t, I painted them.

I did draw the line at painted finger nails however, telling him that even Mommy doesn’t have painted finger nails!

Brenden turned 3 on Thursday April 30th and we had a small party for him on Sat. He knew all week long he was having a Mickey Mouse party and he kept asking to have his Mickey Mouse cake at home. He had a great time playing at home with his friends and really loved the party and gifts!

Studying his Mickey Mouse placemat.

Waiting for cake.

The kids loved that their tongues turned blue from the cake.

Emily enjoyed getting held by everyone. Here she is with my Aunt Jane.

Brenden has been sick with yet another sinus infection, his 3rd of the year. He was allergic to the first two antibiotics he was given and spent most of last week covered in hives.

Not sure why the getup. He came out of his room in the boots so I suggested the hat. This is the first day of spots.

He’ll go to the doctor again on Friday for his 3 year check up! And oh yeah, his birthday is Thursday. Slow down time.

Leaving you with some more pictures.

Last post for the day!

Enjoying the sun at the zoo with his dad.

He put on his dad's hat to be funny and I was lucky enough to get a couple of shots.

Total ham.

I think it is a well documented fact that Brenden loves trains. He could play with trains all day and still get into bed saying, “Momma, play trains”. So when we saw that A Day Out with Thomas was coming to Grapevine again this year, we had to get tickets.

We headed out to Grapevine on Sunday expecting a warm day again, but luckily we were armed with jackets just in case, because it turned out to be cold until the last half hour that we were there.

Brenden was so excited to see Thomas when we arrived. He also so the Thomas bounce house and wanted to do that right away. Unfortunately the will call booth was all the way at the back of the event and we had to pass everything to go get our train tickets. After we got our tickets we saw that Sir Topham Hatt was only going to be out for a few more minutes before going in for another hour. We decided to wait in line to see him. Brenden did well getting his picture made and didn’t cry like a lot of the other kids were.

After that we headed to the bounce house/inflatable slide.

Brenden said he wanted to play trains so we headed into the tent they had set up. Big mistake. There were about 8 train tables and tracks set up for the kids to play on and Brenden jumped right in.

We let him play for some time but then realized we needed to grab some lunch before getting in line for our scheduled train time. Brenden did NOT want to leave and had a mini meltdown. He cheered up a little when he was told he could have a big pretzel for lunch. We were headed to find a table to set everyone up so I could go get some food when the heavy winds caused Patrick to drop his drink and Brenden’s pretzel. The kid lost it. Ok, I know it’s a little gross but I was trying to stop a meltdown so I immediately picked it up and brushed it off and showed him it was fine. Poor Patrick made the mistake of tearing off a piece for Brenden to eat and major meltdown turned even more major. Finally he calmed down enough to eat some pretzel and we headed off to the train line.

Brenden got a seat to himself on the train and I think he really loved it.

I love the way the light on him in this one!

When we got off the train Brenden remembered we had said he could play trains again after his train ride, so headed back into the tent.

It was a great time and we learned that if he’s still into trains next year, we ride the train first, then play!

After hunting eggs we all went home to rest before heading out to a birthday party.

Several months ago when my parents were at our house for the day, Brenden begged to go for a walk so my Dad took him. He ended up meeting our next door neighbors that we had not yet been successful in making friends with. Turns out they have a little boy that just turned 2 and a little girl that is 7 months old. Brenden promptly took to the little boys toys. He even invited himself in to borrow one he could see from the window. Since then we’ve had a few occassions where the boys have seen each other outside and played together for a little bit. And the last time we saw him Brenden got really excited and started waving to him to come over and play. So we got invited to little Joseph’s 2nd birthday party and were happy to go.

Well, actually Brenden looked forward to it all day but when we actually got there he was a complete grump for the first hour or so. I couldn’t put him down. To be fair there were a lot of things working against him. An emotional Friday (taking my parents to the airport), being sick (got another cold late Friday) a big morning hunting eggs and being woken up from his nap early. But he did finally warm up and then he didn’t want to leave.

It was at Amazing Jakes which is a pizza place with tons and tons of games. Brenden bowled, rode a train and play lots of those silly games where you try to navigate a claw or some other type of object into getting you some loot.

He actually bowled pretty well if there had been just a little more force behind his roll!

We drug poor little Emily along everywhere too and by the end of the weekend she and I were also sick.

On Saturday we started off into what was supposed to be a warm day to hunt Easter eggs at the Owens farm. It was not warm, it was cold and windy. We arrived a little late, just as the hunt was about to start. We were toward the end of the line and when they cute the ribbon for us to start the hunt, I had a hard time getting Brenden out into the field to look for eggs. He did manage to pick up 4 before they were all gone. There was a second hunt for older kids and we were told if the kids didn’t get much we could come back to that one. So we set off to enjoy the bounce house, barrel ride, hay ride and feeding the goats. When we went back to the second egg hunt, we were told since he was so little we could sneak in down at the end closer to the eggs, so we did that. This time Brenden knew what he was doing and filled up his little monkey basket. Every time he picked up an egg, he’d shake it to see if there was something in it.

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks around here. First, my parents stayed with us for 10 days ending last Friday. Then we had a jam packed weekend with an Easter egg hunt, a birthday party and a Day Out with Thomas. I’ll be writing an entry for each of those because I have a lot of fun pictures I want to show off!

I’ve been purposely vague in writing about my Parents adventure on here, but the short version is that my Dad took a teaching position at a college in Washington and they will be there off and on for awhile. So we were all really excited when the came to visit. Brenden was in heaven and my Dad got to meet Emily for the first time. Brenden got to stay the night with my parents at their house two different nights and the rest of the nights they were here with us. He loved all the attention and getting to play his games with his grandparents.

And thanks to our wonderful babysitters, we got to go to dinner and a movie and then get a real nights sleep in a hotel for the night and we also got to go feed our gambling addiction a little. We had a great time and can’t wait for them to come home for the summer! Most of the pictures we took were on my parents camera for some reason but here are a few we got. We also got some really cute video but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to post it.

Last Thursday Emily had a belated 2 month checkup and is doing great. She has a slight case of colic that keeps her a little grumpy from about 8-11 and she is eating a ton. Other than that, she is a cuddly, easy going girl.

Stats:
Weight- 12 lbs 10.9 oz
Height- 23 inches

She is so strong and is getting really close to having head control. She can hold it up pretty long and she can raise it off the floor very well. She’s trying really hard to sit up and getting close to being able to roll from her back to her stomach.

She loves it when Brenden get’s in her face, which is good because he does that a lot. She laughs and smiles for him. I’ve got a picture to add in a bit, but right now I have to go see why Brenden is suddenly terrified of thunderstorms.

“You happy Mamma?”
and not related: “Why not?”

I just wanted to post a few pictures, but here’s a quick update on the kids: Emily is still doing great. She’s strong and she likes watching Brenden. She getting to the point where she stays awake a little more too. Brenden is learning his alphabet thanks to Dr. Suess (he learned colors and numbers first, which seems a little backwards to me). He is in love with the movie Cars and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the Disney channel.

It’s been a couple of hectic weeks around here and that is why I haven’t had much time/energy for posting, but I think we are getting close to the other side.

And now for the pictures:

He's been wanting to take his naps on the couch this week. This is the first day we tried it. He fought sleep so hard, until he couldn't fight it anymore and fell asleep sitting up.

Some tummy time for Emily.

Still tummy time.

We didn't rake all fall and we ended up with the leaf pile to prove it. I raked up 11 or 12 bags this week in just the front yard. Brenden enjoyed playing while I worked.

I put her down on her tummy, but by the time I came back with the camera she'd rolled over.

Stats:
Weight: 10 lbs 15 oz
Length: 21 3/4 inches
Head: 14 1/2 inches

She is growing and growing. And eating and eating! At 3.5 weeks she decided she was going to start rolling from her tummy to her back. At first I thought it was a fluke and that she was just flinging herself off the pillow that comes with her tummy time ma. I took the pillow away and she was still flipping and has been every time I put her down for tummy time since.

Brenden is still enjoying being a big brother. Sometimes he isn’t very patient with me about giving him his play time and I hear “Mama play” over and over. One night this week he really surprised me by being very helpful. Patrick was working late and it was time to put Brenden to bed. Emily was up to eat and I had all the sheets and blankets pulled off Brenden’s bed after washing them. I put Emily down on a blanket on Brenden’s floor so I could make the bed. She didn’t like that and began to cry. Her bottle was right next to her and Brenden walked right over and started feeding her. I didn’t notice at first but then he said “I’m feeding Emily”. He’s tried to help with that a few more times, but he doesn’t like to hold the bottle for her for very long. He’s also really taken to calling her Em for short. “Where’s Em?” “Let’s go check on Em.”

I went to checkup on my parents house this week with the kids. I knew Brenden would be excited to be there after not going for a couple of weeks and I knew he’d want to play in the back yard. I packed a lunch and we set off planning to play for about an 1-1.5 h. We ended up playing outside for about 4 hours (let’s just say I didn’t remember the back door locked automatically) and had a great time. I’d taken the camera and video camera and I’m posting some shots from the day. I’m still working on video. I’ve got a couple of little things recorded and just need time to edit them.

Playing in the leaves.

Prepairing to slide down the hill.

Aren't I cute? I used this photo to enter him in the Regis & Kelly baby contest.

Climbing the big hill after some good fun in the leaves.

I can't say that Emily fully appreciated the time outside.

A couple of weeks ago when Brenden was at Mother’s Day Out they took pictures of all the kids. We got them back today and I think they turned out great! The first one is what they gave us and the second one is a proof of another pose.

I’m trying to take more pictures of the kids to help my parents and sister keep up so hopefully that will translate to more pictures here.

Brenden slept like this as a newborn. We called him touchdown baby. So of course we had to get a picture of Emily in the same pose!

Brenden got a haircut yesterday and is very happy to show it off.

He was very excited to go for his haircut because he remembered they have a Thomas train set there. They have Gordon and he doesn't have him at home. He was sick yesterday and he somehow got it in his head that he was getting the haircut because he was sick. So he kept telling me he was sick again and he needed to go get his haircut because he wanted to go back and play with Gordon more.