Yep, Emma's birthday. No one gets more excited, plans more extensively or farther ahead, or enjoys a day more than this girl does her birthday. Really.
And although it was a busy day, and she did have to share it with the pinewood derby, I think she really enjoyed herself. (She is also stretching it out for a few more days…)
Happy birthday, Emma. I love that you love your birthday almost as much as I love you.
Zach got this jersey for his 6th birthday. It has been worn about a thousand times since. (That is probably not even an exaggeration – for the first year he owned it he wore it to school at least twice a week. I think his teachers wondered if he had any other clothes…) It has been covered in dirt, ketchup, ice cream… and today it still looks almost as good as new! They should make all kids clothes out of polyester.
Emma and I have been playing a lot of hopscotch. It has been super fun. But I can definitely tell that it has been a long time since I have jumped that much.
I know there are tons of pictures of Meg on the blog lately, but I think if I didn't do this, I wouldn't actually believe she was a year old. It wasn't this hard with my other kids to believe they'd grown up… but I still look at baby pictures of her and think, how'd she get so big?!? So, to prove it to myself… this is how.
facebook debut 🙂
1 month (taken I guess so I could remember how we spent so many nights)
2 months (always slept like this)
(almost) 3 months – I hated taking the blessing dress off, she was so cute in it!
4 months, smiling all the time
5 months, she loved the pool!
6 months, learned to sit up
7 months (pigtails became more frequent to control crazy sides of hair and worked perfectly for bee antennae)
8 months – crawling just in time to get into all the Christmas decorations!
9 months – lots of teeth!
10 months – incessant peek-a-boo
11 months – imitating all sorts of things, SO cute.
Birthday girl with the hospital where she was born in the background (not planned, the opportunity just presented itself when we were visiting Nate today.)
Happy birthday, Miss Meg. We absolutely adore you!
When Nate saw this picture of Zach making cookies by himself for a scout project, he said, "Wow, Zach really looks like you in this picture. Maybe it's just because he's standing over the cookie bowl…"
Since Meg doesn't even have a baby book to get written in (not that I would actually do it), here are a few things for memory's sake:
Every time she sees anyone wash their hands or get hand sanitizer, she rubs her little hands together. (she's started to imitate hair washing too.)
She loves playing with coats. She loves them more than her toys. The effort she goes to get one that is hung up out of her reach is hilarious.
She loves the dishwasher so much she has made me love emptying it (it used to be my least favorite chore.) She will play in the empty dishwasher with a couple of spoons for as long as I will let her.
We were lucky enough to have some old and wonderful ex-rochester friends come into town, and to spend Sunday evening with them talking, eating (although I enjoyed talking so much I forgot to serve dessert!), playing outside in the abnormally mild rochester spring, creating "Angry Sticks" on the swing (a mildly dangerous and hilarious stick launching game), building a battleship, making a beautiful sandcastle, and re-connecting. Thanks for making the voyage out and the time to hang out together, friends!
What kind of parent lets their 11 month old eat candy hearts? The one who gave their baby the box and didn't realize she chewed through the lid and helped herself. Although you can tell that I have relaxed a little at baby #4 because I only removed 3 from her mouth and let her eat the last one. :)
We had gone to the baseball park to enjoy a spring-ish day, and I had sent two kids up to the car on separate occasions to retrieve things that they had left behind (the car in this case was up an ENORMOUS hill and I was monitoring Meg and her newfound skill of riding one of those tiny push cars). I sent one of the children (both of who will remain nameless) with specific instructions for the keys – how to care for them, what to do with them, how to bring them immediately back to me. Immediately!! The second kid I just gave the keys to without a word – maybe because it went so well with the first kid, maybe because the second kid looked responsible, who knows.
Half an hour went by (maybe more) – it was time for dinner, we rounded the troops, cleaned up the baseball gear, watched Carter go on a death-defying ride down the paved part of the enormous hill on the little ride-on car with his feet up; and then discovered the keys were missing.
At this point I wasn't sure even where to look – in the car, on the hill back down from the car, where the kids were pitching, where the kids were batting, where the little ones were playing on the ride-ons, in the diaper bag (or where Meg had unloaded the diaper bag along the path), etc. We prayed and looked and looked and looked and called Owen's mom to tell her sorry he was missing dinner, we had no car to get him home. Thank goodness he was there, though – because it was Owen who found them at last. And none too soon – the sun was on its way down (as you can see from the pic I snapped with my phone as we drove gratefully away from the park.)
I will be taking Owen out for a great big ice cream cone this week. And I will be the only one in charge of the keys, which will stay zipped in a bag that is too big to loose in the grass.
The end.
There is nothing quite like holding a sleeping baby.
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