Easter at Mimi's house

The week before Easter the girls and I headed to Mimi's house for some Easter Fun. Mimi went all out and bought candy baskets for the girls and dye for the eggs. Claire had so much fun with the dye but I think if my OCD had not kicked in then Claire could have really gotten her hands dirty or should I say stained. Maggie just sat and watched Mickey Mouse with cookie in hand of course and had a ball. Thank you Mimi for making Easter at Mimi's house so much fun!!

The girls

Things have been a bit busy in our world but that has not stopped Maggie and Claire from growing and learning knew things. Maggie will be 9 months old on the 28. I cannot believe it. She really hates being on her belly but in order for her to start being mobile this is just something we have to do. Up until now I have not encourged the crawling or the walking. Claire started crawling at 6 months and started walking at 9 months so we missed out on the sit in the floor and play with toys phase. Maggie is now getting really bored with this so crawling here we come. The times that she is on her belly she scoots herself backwards. Her pudgy little tummy and legs hinder her from moving forward but we are doing baby excersises so she will be crawling in no time. I also realized how much maggie is costing us in baby food so we have introduced solids. I could make one jar of baby food last like three days with Claire but Maggie could eat two jars three times a day and that really adds up! We are waiting on the 2nd tooth to pop through. There have been some tough days but she seems to be doing better with this one than with the first one. She has also started saying words. Baby, dada, bye-bye, mama. These are four she can say really well. This morning I asked her where's dada and she looked over at Rodney and smiled. That made up for last night when I handed her to Rodney and she started crying. Alright Maggs, two more months and we have to call it... :)

My Claire-bear is getting so big. She is coming up on four now. She knows her letters and numbers and has started writting. It has been really neat teaching her all of these things. She catches on really fast. Claire loves to play with Maggie and I realize when Claire is not around how much she helps me take care of her.

I thank God that He gave you girls to Rodney and I. We love you!

The first tooth..

Well, its official- the first tooth finally came through on April 3. Maggie actually slept from 7pm to 7am solid. I was the happiest mama ever!! Claire did not have this much trouble with her teeth. I could always tell when she was about to get one because of her diapers (i will spare the details..). She might have been a little fussy but honestly I think she was too busy with other things to be upset about her teeth. Maggie is a bit different. She must sit around all day and think about her teeth.... how much they hurt and see how miserable she can make all of us because she is in pain. I do have to give a shout out to mickey mouse clubhouse that has gotten us through some incredibly whiney moments (for both me and Maggie). I will also have to say Praise the Lord for the makers of motrin and tylenol!! So yah for the first tooth!! I do remember the words coming out of my mouth... when she starts getting teeth then there goes the nursing for sure.. yeah right!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Mimi's Birthday Wishes

Shopping with my Claire-bear

I am one of those women who does not really enjoy shopping. I will say that I do enjoy looking (notice I said looking) at shoes and bags/purses. Every now and then I do make a purchase and it is usually a bag. You can buy bags or purses cheaper than you can shoes these days. I have started pulling out the spring and summer clothes for Maggie and Claire. I have gotten everything for Claire that she needs except flip flops and a bathing suit. I thought I would not have to buy anything for Maggie but it looks like I will be purchasing a bathing suit for her as well because the one that Claire had at this age is too small (shocker). I decided I would look online since I have looked at some stores and have not found what I am looking for(ask granna or my mom about the search for that "perfect" big girl bedding for Claire- and yes they think I am crazy). I was sitting at the computer looking at the swimsuits at target. Claire comes out of her room and here is our conversation- Mommy, what are you doing? I am looking at swimsuits for you and Maggie. Oh, can I look too? Sure. Climb in my lap. Ooooooooo I like that one, no mommy I like the blue one, wait no I like that purple one. Look at that pink one. Well Claire, which one is your favorite? The pink one. Ok, well lets see if we can look for some flip flops. Yeah! What do you think about these Claire? I like those, no wait I think those are cute. Wait, I like the pink sparkly ones. You do. Well, maybe we can get to target and see what they have at the store. OK mommy. -
About 3o min later Claire asked me when she is going to get her sparkly flip flops. I said we would need to go to target to look. She said, "its ok mommy, papa will get them for me (this is her new phrase since papa has a surprise for her every time he sees her... thank you Brunos for going out of business...). I passed this information on to mom and she told dad that Claire said he was going to buy her some flip flops. Yesterday afternoon he came home with not only one pair but two pairs. We went over to their house this afternoon to visit. Dad came home from work and pulled out her shoes and let her open them. The first box had a white and pink pair of flip flops that light up when you walk in them. How fun were these. They are really cute. Claire was really excited about these. Claire got the second box and took the top off and was so excited to find a pair of pink "sparkly" flip flops with butterflies on them. She jumped up and jumped in Papa's arms and hugged him and told him thank you. I am sure at this time Papa's head grew about three sizes. He had a grin on his face and was really excited to see her so excited about the shoes. We have now decided that Papa will be do the shoe shopping. He does a great job. Claire has asked for a swing set and trampoline- we will see how this one ends but I tell you something, if Claire had asked for anything else in the moment right after she hugged papa's neck and told him thank you then I am sure no matter what it was he would have gotten it in a split second. It is such a sweet bond that grandparents have with their grandchildren. Yes, they spoil them and then laugh at us as they give them back to us with chocolate mouths and bags full of goodies but it melts my heart to see the love that they have for one another. And its ok if we are the bad guys sometimes....they are just getting us back for all those fits and long nights.. after all you can't go to grandparents house without some candy. We love you guys!

Laura's Shower

Brook, Cristy, and I had the honor of throwing Laura's baby shower for the church. We have a group of girls who have hosted the last 3 or 4 baby showers we have had and they have done an amazing job so when it came time for us "old schoolers" to have our turn we found ourselves under a little bit of pressure. We started thinking about what we should do or not do and threw out the ideas that back 10 years ago would have been so great but not so much now. We decided to go all out and do fine dining. We needed to find some fancy dishes and decor. I was in charge of this. I had a thought to check thrift stores and some flea markets but I was running out of time. I started praying for free dishes. (and hey, we are not afraid to ask for free stuff these days!) Mrs. Calfee told me that Maw had a ton of dishes that she collects and that she would love for us to use them. I had forgotten that she collected them. I was so excited when we got up there and found so many things to choose from. She showed me her milk glass collection and it was beautiful. I decided this is what we would go with. She had the punch bowl, candles, and other platters to match it. So leave it to me to bring up death in this situation. As we were packing these dishes up I asked Maw (and before i realized what was coming out of my mouth) I said something to the affect of "so has anyone claimed these when you go and see the big man upstairs" - which could have been taken- when you kick that bucket i want those dishes you hear. As I have analyzed this in my head over and over that is the only thing it sounds like to me. She was so gracious and said no would you like to have these. Yes! So my free dishes were beautiful for the shower. We needed to find some thank you notes that did not cost us a ton of money. So we began to pray for free thank you cards. Cristy J went into target and found some cards that were damaged. (the boxes were damaged not the cards themselves) She grabbed them up and went to the customer service desk and started asking how much she could get them for. After a little process of negotiating she walked away with two boxes of really cute thank you cards for 6.00 total. Now I realize these were not free but God never said He would give it to us I just felt I needed to ask and His favor was with us. The next day I had to buy flowers. I went in to walmart and just before walking in I prayed that God would help me to find just what we need for a great price. He did! I found several bundles of flowers that were half off and ended up spending 2.50 a bundle. I was so excited! I called Brook and Cristy and shared my excitement. I am sure the people in Walmart thought I was a fruitcake and thought they were too because you could hear them squealing through the phone. It did not matter to me one bit. Cristy J had an idea to get boots and put flowers in them and make it a little cowboy theme. She even pulled some bamboo from her back yard and we used that with flowers. I was sweating it a little bit when Mrs. Calfee came in and saw the bamboo sitting in the floor and said what are you going to do with those weeds! I told her we were going to put them in boots for Laura's shower. The look on her face was so cute. I went over to Brooks on the Friday before and we spent the day getting everything set up. Cristy joined us by phone for most of the day but it was so much fun. We set the flowers up in the boots and it made the cutes arrangements. We got a picture so I will upload those a little later. The shower was beautiful and we were all really pleased at how everything turned out. Laura said she really enjoyed. Now either she really enjoyed or she did not want to hurt us old timer's feelings.