Pushups

This is how girls do pushups,

and this is how I do them.

Tiny story

We were having a little time together as a family the other night. We were running through our calendars for the coming week and coordinating schedules when Carolyn perked up and said "I need to take care of my blog!"

Time in Washington

My grandmother died two weeks ago and I went to Washington to attend the funeral with my family. When my mother changed her plane ticket to stay longer and try to tie up loose ends, I changed my plans to stay as well. I sent Jeremy and Carolyn back to Portland with my sister, and Blake and I stayed to help.

We found lots of interesting things in Grandma's house. My mom says this is what people used prior to high chairs. In fact, she's sure I used this when I was a baby.



Apparently, my mother has a picture of me, with her and Grandma that was taken when I was a baby in front of this same church building. This is our only picture with Blake looking at the camera. He wanted to watch all the cars zooming by in front of us.
Sorry about the blurry picture, but you have to move fast when you want to take a picture of your dad wearing a pink, flowered apron!

I am glad that I was able to help my mom, and I am very grateful to Blake for being the best baby anybody ever saw! He slept wherever I placed him and happily played by himself for long stretches of time so I could work.

Sleep is for the birds

I get entirely too little sleep these days. Usually, when the kids go to bed at 8, I lie down on my bed to read until I turn the light off at the late hour of 9 pm.

Tonight, Jeremy lured me downstairs with the promise of So You Think You Can Dance. I wasted time reading blogs and watching the TV when I heard the pitter patter of little feet around 8:40. Carolyn snuck out of bed to try and join us downstairs with the TV. I took her little hand and marched her back into bed. We heard a couple of whines and wails intermittently, but then all was silent.

It was so nice to read things on the internet without anybody sitting on my lap. So I stayed up, wasting my precious sleep time away reading about new recipes and civil rights infractions in Burma. I couldn't bring myself to go to bed because the sooner I went to bed, the sooner I would have to get up to nurse.

Finally, around 10:40, I told Jeremy I was packing it in. I couldn't delay it anymore, and I knew I would be feeling the pain tomorrow. I hate feeling sluggish. We were getting ready for bed and I told Jeremy I wanted to peek in on Carolyn. It's so easy to do these days because she sleeps with her door wide open. I tiptoed down the hallway to catch a glimpse of her body burrowed into her blankets.

Instead, behold photographic evidence that Carolyn is in fact my daughter. If the lack of concern about hairstyle didn't prove it as my mom tried to point out here, then this should:

Don't let the flash from my camera fool you. She was working on her masterpiece by the dim light from her nightlight. (And yes, we let her sleep in her play clothes. It's so not worth the fight.)

I can't even count the number of times after my parents thought I was in bed that I would get a book and read until it was way too late. Of course, let's hope her imitation stops there and doesn't progress to sneaking to friend's houses when she gets older. (Sorry, Mom!)

Now I'm blogging so I stay up long enough to make sure she is really sleeping before I go to sleep myself. You know what I love more than being tired in the morning? Being tired with tired children. It's the best.

Is this really fun, Carolyn?

Early Birthday Girl

We purchased Carolyn a bike for her birthday and were storing it at her cousins' house. We wanted to wait until June. Then I took her out on her little push car for a walk. She couldn't actually move her legs so they weren't dragging on the ground. I realize I am not describing this very well, but it looked very uncomfortable. So we decided to give her the present early so she could work on learning to do the pedals.

Here she is finding it. Her joy is a little understated.

It will take some time to help her figure out the pedals, but once she does I know she will love it.


And as usual, Blake stayed parked in his stroller while we were outside helping Carolyn. He's such a happy baby.

For your listening pleasure

Carolyn made it obvious when I was filming Blake that she is more of an in-front-of-the-camera girl. She wanted to put on a little show.

And he's off...

Blake rolled front to back a few weeks ago, but yesterday he learned to roll back to front. And he hasn't stopped since. I'll have to start making Carolyn keep her crayons picked up and all that other baby safety stuff.

Here's a link to the video. Blogger hates the videos from my camera.

Tulip Fest

We headed to the tulip festival yesterday. The weather was wonderful and the flowers were beautiful. These purple ones were my favorite.

Blake stayed right here in the stroller the whole time.

But Carolyn got to cheese for me all over the fields. She fits in this little shoe...

she's a cute tulip...

and she sure makes those tulips look nice.

Her favorite part of the day was riding the shoe train. I think this is the first time she went on something like this by herself. Well, Rachel, Emilee, and Chandler were all in different shoes, but Carolyn rode by herself. She had so much fun with it.

Look long and hard because you will probably never see this again

UPDATE: Apparently I need to clarify: I did her hair. It's adorable. She took it out in less than five minutes.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

A few months ago I posted this picture


showing that Carolyn understood the idea that I had a baby in my tummy.

At the time, someone (I think it was Mom) thought it looked like she was trying to nurse the baby. Please. If Carolyn were trying to nurse her baby doll, it would look more like this:

Blake

Easter Party

Jeremy came up with this great idea to let Carolyn have an Easter party. He thought it would be fun to host an egg hunt for her and some of her good friends. And then he asked her if she would like to do that. So, as you can imagine, for two weeks we have heard of nothing but this party. "Is my party today? How many more naps until my party? Is Arys coming to my Easter party?"

Finally, the day came and this was how Carolyn felt about it:

(This is trying to repress giddy laughter.)

We had dinner together...
...and you should hear a table of young kids telling jokes. It's hilarious!
Here are the little hunters getting ready to find some eggs!

Post-hunt enjoyment:


Here are the children trying to blow dry the dyed eggs so they could put their stickers on.

We eventually just got out a real blow dryer so we could hurry and finish. There needed to be time to watch Bolt. The kids watched the movie until the parents could come back and get them. That's right. This was a drop-off party.

Special thanks to Elyn who kept Blake happy all night. She stayed when she realized that Jeremy wasn't going to be able to make it home from work in time to help. She was a great help.


Here's Carolyn's basket at the end of the night.


Of course, this morning her basket is empty. She made quick work of it--just in time to refill it at the neighborhood hunt in a couple of hours.

Cookies with Carolyn

Courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Horner, Carolyn had the opportunity to decorate some sugar cookies for Easter.

She invited a friend over and they went all out. I believe it was one spoon of sugar in the mouth for every two on the cookies.

I think the cookies turned out great.

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!

Kelly comes to town

Kelly came to visit with her brand-new fiance, Mike. We had a great time. Saturday we took them to Five Guys and had burgers.

This is Carolyn's outfit for the big outing. You can't see them very well, but she let me put barrettes in her hair. One Elmo and one Big Bird. We're making progress.



After lunch, the guys stayed home and played Wii, while Kelly and I went and did some fancy shopping at Target. Carolyn needs all new clothes for spring. The shorts all have a nice 1.5 inch inseam though. We got one pair to see how they would look. I think we are going to follow through with my threat and make her wear Blake's newborn pants for shorts. She did it all day yesterday and they fit fine.


Sadly, this might be the first picture of me with Blake since his blessing day.

Of course, what is a trip to see friends without cookies? We ate them while watching Seven Pounds with Will Smith. Weird, but interesting.
Kelly and Mike left Sunday to return to Seattle. We hope to see them again soon.

P.S.: The beautiful roses aren't mine. They're Angel's.

P.P.S.: Blake rolled over yesterday. From his tummy to his back. We are still waiting to see if it was an accident or on purpose.