Ramblings from Alabama

Here is the first of two catch-up posts I promised. This first one (well, second one I guess, since it’s Part 2) are pictures from Easter. Yes, Easter. (YES, Easter 2009, Mr. Smarty Pants! I know I am behind! I was having blog issues…didn’t you read my post from two weeks ago?!?!)

This alone is worth a blog post, even this late. Doesn’t this look like the BEST bubble bath EVER?!

Elise shares her Fun Dip with Aunt Cara’s dog, Boudin. Yes, he is named after a Cajun sausage!

Elise and Jacob eating crawfish…

Opening Easter presents from MaMa and PaPa…

True to form, Mary finds her area to hunt eggs and combs it more thoroughly than a crime scene investigator. And she finds just as many eggs as all the kids running around the yard, AND she doesn’t get all tired and hot from running. That’s my girl!

Elise and her second cousin Eli…

Dying eggs for our third egg hunt of the Easter season!

Elise and Mary going down the slides at the park near Mom and Roger’s house…

Slumber party with MaMa and Mommy. MaMa didn’t last quite as long as the kids!

Any blog readers still out there? There seems to be an issue with commenting that I’ll have to look into. Also, I have had my web browser crash on me the last two times I’ve tried to upload pictures for my much-awaited next post Soooooo, I will keep working at it but it may be more time still before we are back up and running normally again.

I am working on some “catch-up” posts (Parts 2 and 3, at least, to finally finish off what started as Part 1), but here a few recent pics in the meantime, along with some quick updates on the girls. Quite a bit happens in a month’s time!

First and foremost, Nora is walking! She started a few weeks ago and when we were in Kansas City over Memorial Day weekend, she just took off walking. Now she can finally keep up with Mary and Elise!

And Nora still loves to eat.

Mary and Elise are both potty trained! I wrote about Elise in the last post, and Mary has finally come around, too. She is doing a great job, except for the dreaded “number 2″ in the potty. But she will eventually. Elise is completely done. She hasn’t worn a single diaper, day or night, for nearly 2 weeks now, and no accidents, either. Way to go, girls!

Here are my silly little monkeys playing in my socks.

And here are some pics of our summer garden. There are tomatoes, peppers, and squash, and they are MUCH bigger now than in this picture. We are starting to get some tomatoes and peppers, and Mary and Elise love checking on them, watering them, and watching them grow.

My little bloggy has been sick. I tried to post several times a couple weeks ago, but to no avail. If this post shows up, that means Damon successfully cured our blog, and I will be back to posting again soon!

This is just a quick post (no pics!) to let you all know that my big girl Elise is using the potty!  She was very easy to train, and basically did it herself…I guess that’s one of the benefits of waiting as long as we did.  The downside, of course, is many extra months of diapers and the obvious fact that this is not working as easily for Miss Mary Mary Quite Contrary.  That kid…

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I started to be more diligent about having the girls sit on their little potties each morning after they woke up.  Most of the time they wake up dry, so clearly they would need to go.  On a Wednesday Elise had success, and you would have thought from the excitement (mostly by me) that we had won a million dollars.  On Thursday, she did it again and even told me later that morning that she needed to go.  From then, we put her in “practice panties,” aka cloth pull-up type diapers.  She did great Thursday and Friday and had only one accident, I think.  Saturday, the day of Nora’s party, Elise asked for panties and she kept them dry all weekend, even wearing them out to church and for her naps.  And by this time, she had also graduated to the “big” potty (with her little kid seat).  She’s been wearing panties ever since (except at night, although we’re ready to cross that bridge, too) and has done really well.  From the many potty-training stories I have heard, I think we got off really easy with Elise.  She’s a pro!  Way to go Elise!

Well, I having really been a bad blogger lately, haven’t I?  Is anyone still there?!

We have had a couple of visits with grandparents that I haven’t posted pictures for, so I thought I would go with the “better late than never” strategy once again.

In March (yes, MARCH!), we enjoyed a visit from Gramma and Grampa.  Grampa had to leave after a couple of days, but Gramma stayed about a week and a half and spent lots of time with us cooking, sewing, playing, and doing LOTS of reading!

Gardening with Gramma…

Looking out our window at the bunny who paid us a visit two nights in a row while Gramma was here…

Making cookies…

Having a tea party…

Gramma draws really good bunnies and babies…

Swinging with Gramma…

Nora turned one on April 17th.  We had a big party for her with all of our friends from our Monday night Bible study group.  Nora definitely hammed it up all night and had a wonderful time at her party and enjoyed her cake and presents.

I forgot to take a picture of Nora’s cupcakes (pre-demolition), but they were pink and green with butterflies like the one you see here.  We were celebrating another birthday, too.  Wanna guess how old Meredith is?!?

Birthday girl and her daddy…

No party is complete without caterpillars…

Getting ready for cake…

Going…

Going…

Gone!

Nora’s friends helped her open presents…

…while Nora focused on downing her sisters’ juice while they weren’t looking!  (Thirsty, I suppose, after all that cake.)

Don’t worry, we saved a few for her to open herself.  She (and Mary and Elise) loves all her presents…thank you, grandparents!

First year stats: 20 lbs, 30 inches.  Nora is pulling up, cruising, walking behind push toys, and standing on her own.  She says “DaDa,” “uh-oh,” and “bye” (with a cute little beauty pageant wave) and occasionally, I hear “MaMa.”  She can sign “more” and “milk.”  She loves to hang upside down and be tickled.  When she’s ready for bed, she crawls over to me and lays her head down on my lap (I love that).  She only likes to be rocked in the morning before her nap.  She still nurses three times a day, and she sleeps all night.  She loves her kazoo and her sisters’ dollhouse.

Happy Birthday, Nora!

Check out what Nora can do…and does at practically every meal in the high chair and in every shopping cart she rides in.

In the roomy carts at Costco, she’s been known to get both feet in the air.  She’s quite flexible for such a little chunker!  She practically folds herself in half to stick her feet up there.  It’s so funny to look over and see that foot coming up over the tray like a little flag being raised.

And let’s not forget to mention the hair in these pictures…you WISH you had wings like this, don’t you?!?

Now that Nora is pulling up and cruising on everything, she is keeping up better with Mary and Elise.  Still not as much as she’d like, but more than Mary and Elise would!  I often find Nora trying to get in on whatever Mary and Elise are up to.  It’s so sweet how much she seems to look up to them…not always so cute the way the big girls respond to that.  We’ll have to keep working on that one.

Mary informed me today at lunch, as we were looking out the window, that Jesus made the squirrels, and God made the birds.  Or was it the other way around?  I’ll ask her and get back to you.  This is important stuff to know.