TOYS!

Grace has really loves her toys, gets excited for them and entertains herself with them...here is her favorite!

My Pi Phi Girls

Pi Phi for life...that is the "phrase" the national sorority uses as it talks to seniors in college about staying involved in the alum clubs and the benefits of doing so. As someone who still volunteers for Pi Phi and believes that being involved in college prepared me for much of my professional success today, I am the first to admit, that sounds a little hokey and causes many an eyerolls by collegiate members. I am here to tell you it is true though...not in the sense of alum clubs or professional success, but in the sense of the personal support network I still have. Not only my pledge sisters of 40 something in number, but the classes ahead and behind us too. No matter what anyone of us goes through, or how many years (many cases not since college) it has been since we have seen eachother the support is there. We also still know how to have a good time and love to think back and laugh about the not so smart things we did in college, that our kids won't be allowed to do (yeah right). Although some of the girls I am closest with live out of town, my pledge sisters that live in KC attempt to get together every month. Here is a pic of most of us last week. What we really should have had our cameras out for was this past Saturday, I hosted our first ever get together with the kids. My backyard had about 10 moms, and at least 15 kiddos running around having a good time. I am thankful for my Pi Phi girls!

My Flowers make me happy

These "annual" flowers that I planted about 3 years ago were a great investment, turns out the willow tree gives them enough protection to be perrenials. I LOVE this time of year, watching all my flowers bloom, makes me so happy...I think my lillies will be next!

Purple Bird House

When we bought this house almost 7 years ago, part of the package was a homemade bird house hanging in the back tree. We have left it there and many birds have called it home over the years. Mike has always talked about painting it, I said it was just fine how it was and therefore was NOT going to put that on my list of projects to coordinate supplies for, I have enough other things to do. Ever since Grace arrived, Mike and I are very conscious of making sure we both have alone time with Claire and he decided that this weekend they were going to have a date with paint and the birdhouse. After trips to 3 stores he finally found the paint he wanted at a craft store, bought 5 colors only for Claire to determine that it would only be purple. He did all the set up, clean up and even used a shoelace from his beloved track spikes to hang it with. It turned out great....now if he would only get those paintbrushes with purple paint on them out of my fridge!

Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's day, thanks to a combination of a great husband, two little girls and mother nature who gave me sun and warm weather. We went on a long walk in the morning, had lunch with my parents and then just played in our backyard and grilled. I will be enjoying my gift tomorrow, an hour massage which is a treat now that a 6 month maternity leave, new car payment and soon doubled daycare expense has knocked my regular massages right out of our budget...that's okay it's worth it to be Claire and Grace's mom, would not have it any other way! Here are some pics of our day!

Popcorn

Claire has a new favorite snack and will eat the whole bag if we let her (we don't). She prefers it in a silver bowl, will share willingly, and is very careful not to eat the "beans".

Grace 4 months old

Miss Grace had her 4 month birthday last week and when I was thinking about how it felt like she just was "3 months" I realized we had had a busy month and accomplished a lot. She won her battle with reflux and is offically med free and sleeping flat on her back for hours and nights at a time. We have ditched the swaddle and moved into the official thumbsucker category. I officially love this stage, she is a happy, happy baby which makes for a happy, happy mom. She is all smiles and plays most of the day with her mouth wide open in a half smile. She loves to lay and watch her mobile and grab her toys in her play gym and most of all loves to watch her sister, take baths and sing songs and just flirt with anyone interested. She has a sense of humor and often times will try to play games while she is nursing and ends up just laughting and smiling at me, all without missing a bit of breast milk. She also will stop eating for a few seconds and just turn her head and look up me and smile...talk about melting my heart. Her hair is really coming in on the top where she can't rub it bald and although it is too soon to tell how blonde she will be, she definitely has lighter hair than Claire did at this point. I have just over a month left at home with my little angel before I go back to work and I plan to get more than my fair share of kisses, snuggles and quiet time between now and then.

Proud Mamma

So there are a lot of things that make me proud of Claire and Grace, but I think I had my proudest moment yet yesterday. Claire had her 2nd week of "big girl" swim lessons, the kind that mom doesn't get in and the teacher makes them struggle to learn to swim. Last week was okay, about how I expected, a lot of tears, but she completed the whole class. I was afraid that might of scarred her, but she was excited to go again yesterday. Then there was me, I could not think of another time in which I had to watch my daughter struggle so hard and me not be able to help her. I just kept the smile glued on my face and told myself it would get easier. On our way I told her it was okay to be scared, but she didn't need to cry because Miss Debroah (the teacher) wouldn't let anything bad happen and neither would I. I told her I just wanted her to try hard and and have fun and I would be so proud of her. I wouldn't say it was her most favorite experience during the lesson as she still had to really struggle as she learned to swim, but she made it through the whole class with no tears, kept her goggles on the whole time and acgtually was swimming with her "foam" bubble on her back. She also was able to pull herself out of the pool in the deep end. That little girl showed a mental toughness that made me so proud and even made herself proud I think. I know she was trying not only to do what the teacher asked her to which was physically so hard for her, but she also was trying to hold it together emotionally when she was scared. I saw a few quiviring lips, but most importantly a HUGE SMILE at the end of the class when she knew she had made it through and swam "all by myself". Here she is kneeling on the side of the pool as she waits her turn again....Mom is so proud!

Princess Kate

I promise I am not obsessed with the Royal Wedding, but now Claire is. Claire has a princess carriage that she was playing with late last week and growing restless for dinner to be ready, so I asked if she wanted to see a real princess and carriage. Of course she did and I turned on the last 20 minutes of the Royal Wedding when they are walking out of Westminster and ride in the carriage to Buckingham Palance on our DVR and told her that was princess Kate...she was obsessed instantly. Now we watch the "princess Kate movie" at least twice a day. She wants to know everything and talks endlessly about it, "where is her mommy in the blue dress, the queen wears yellow and rides in the black carriage, that is a big church, and there is her castle, sister, etc..... She has now started calling her Belle doll Princess Kate too....oh my what have I started . The worst part is that we are going to switch to a new cable company in our area with much better prices, yet when we do next week the Princess Kate movie on our tv is gone......uh ohhhhh!