Quote of the Day

Molly: This rug that your grandmother gave you reminds me of heaven because it is just so beautiful!

Quote of the Day

Molly: When I close my eyes, I can see my heart.

Me: You mean you can feel your heart?

Molly: No.  When I close my eyes, I can see my heart.  It’s this special glow.

The Ninja Duck Award

There have been very few awards that have really had meaning in Tucker’s young life.  Almost everything is a participation medal/ribbon/certificate.  Even “Player of the Game” last year in T-ball was virtually meaningless as everyone had to win it for one game in the season.  The track ribbons last summer at the track meet were meaningful, though the amount of time involved in winning one was typically a minute or less.

Anyway, I think it is commendable that there are actually winners and losers in his gym class.  It turns out that there is also a real award – the Ninja Duck award – for being a superlative gym participant over a two week period.  I’m not exactly sure what distinguishes a kid, but it has to be going above and beyond the call of duty in both performance and citizenship as the award has only been handed out twice this year in his class, and Tucker is the proud recipient of the second award.  (The award is a rubber ducky dressed like a ninja which has already gone missing, of course….)

I am proud of my favorite Ninja Duck.

Quote of the Day

 

 

Austin: Molly, do you want to go in front of or behind me?

Molly: I want to be with you.  Let’s hold hands!

Planet Molly

  

Planet Molly would have lots of ballerinas, but no snakes, wasps or bees.  The weather would always be pretty….

 

I also think Planet Molly would have lots of love notes all over it, because that’s what I find all over our house.

Quote of the Day

“Mommy, I love it when you smile at me.” -Molly

Like a Sleeping Dolphin…

One reason I am needing to catch up on my blogging is because of how terrible my pregnancy was.  Emily darling, you were worth it, but you gave me a run for my money.

Tucker observed that during my pregnancy I was kind of like a dolphin sleeping.  Dolphins don’t ever go completely to sleep—they just turn off half of their body at a time.  He thought I was a lot like a dolphin that was asleep during my whole pregnancy.  I think Tucker is pretty insightful, because that is how my pregnancy felt to me, too.  .

A few memories from that time…

Just after I found out I was pregnant (before the kids knew), we were leaving the thrift store and passed a bouncy seat.  Molly said “let’s get that for our baby.” And I said, “But Jesus needs to give us a baby first.” So the kids right there both prayed to Jesus for a baby.  Actually, Molly had been praying for a baby sister for almost two years by the time Emily was born.  When she was in the littlest class in preschool last year, I actually got questions about whether I was pregnant because Molly kept talking about her baby sister because she was so convinced Jesus would give her one.

Telling the kids we were going to have a baby, we decided to play Twenty Questions.  We told them we had exciting news and they had to guess what it was.  By the end of the twenty questions, Molly was asking questions like: “Is the exciting news a window?”  Tucker stayed a little more focused, but they definitely didn’t guess it on their own.  When we told them they’d have a baby sibling, the first thing they thought of was that they would get to share a room.  They immediately squealed and started moving Molly’s things into Tucker’s room (even though we told them the move was several months away).

Molly and Austin were convinced from the start that Emily would be a girl.  Tucker and I thought she’d be a boy.  Molly still likes to tell me several times a week that she and Daddy were right. 

Quote of the Day

“Daddy, why did you push me in that store?” Molly asked recently.  She was talking about a time she tripped and fell in Lowe’s when she was 2 and got a bloody lip.  This event happened at least a year and a half ago.

1) Why does she randomly think of that event two years later at the dinner table with no provocation?

2) Does she really think Austin pushed her???!

Who Does Emily Look Like?

The first three comparisons are with Tucker, the last two with Molly.  

At first I thought Emily looked a lot like Molly, but I am seeing more of Tucker in the way her nose and eyes and mouth relate to each other now.  I think the shape of her face looks more like Molly’s though.  Also, looking at the pictures, I think Emily’s eyes are much bluer than either of her siblings at the same age.  Molly’s were already brown and Tucker’s were already turning.  I wonder when hers will turn?  (The likelihood we have a blue eyed child is very small!)

 

On our Hike…

 

Tucker jam packed his backpack with just the essentials: a ball, lots of mints, a random stuffed person no one ever plays with, several random stuffed animals no one ever plays with, plus everyone’s favorite loveys/stuffed animals.  Tucker’s shorts were too loose and falling down so Austin told him to get a belt. So he was sporting a belt as well… unfortunately his shorts didn’t have belt loops. 

We came across this carved wood statue randomly in the woods, and Molly took quite a liking to it.  She likes to play pretend in the woods so usually the woods is her house and she tells about the different parts of the house as we hike pass (ie a hill is her stairs, a reservoir is her bath tub…). 

After passing the statue, she decided that the statue was actually her husband, who was dead.  He died because he went into the fireplace when he was trying to catch the fairies.  She was originally supposed to be his mom but he was born before her so she instead became his wife.  His name was Moses because he has a staff.  (I’m sure I’m missing some details of her story, but that was the gist of it.)

Molly’s Outfits

Molly: I am going to take my church dress off so I can put on something beautiful for Avrie’s party!

Her resulting outfit: a blue ballerina tutu with a cape, tiara and red sparkly shoes.

On Easter, she took off her church dress to wear something beautiful as well: a Cinderella gown.

Of course, sometimes she is just styling in normal clothes…

Emily’s Baptism

If I remember correctly, Tucker cried during his baptism and Molly snorted.  Emily gave a little shout when the water hit her head but mostly she spent the baptism smiling at Katy (her godmother).

After the ceremony, Emily was spent and slept most of the rest of the day, though she did wake up long enough to smile at me and Henny and Papa.

 

We had glorious weather and all had a delightful brunch at Old Trail, with the kids getting to run amock while we leisurely talked and ate.

 

Smiles from Emily

I love it when my babies start smiling!  It’s hard to catch it on camera yet because she tends to grow serious when the camera gets in her face.  She also smiles best if you’re holding her and looking right into her face and talking softly to her (not the perfect set-up for a good picture).

Catching Up…

In case you’re wondering about the recent flurry of posting last week (and there will be more to come in the near future), I’ve been going back through this blog and putting together a book of this blog’s first six and a half years.  It was motivated by my kids wondering what they did when they were Emily’s age… and honestly, it’s hard to remember sometimes.  Anyway, it occurred to me that they have never heard most of the stories on this blog so I’m putting together a book of the pertinent posts about their antics. 

Also, as I’ve been sifting through old entries, it has reinvigorated my commitment to writing things down.  In particular, I have so much written down about Tucker because I was most active blogging before Molly was really saying much… makes me want to be sure to write the stories down now about Molly before she gets any bigger and stops saying ridiculous things every other minute.  In looking back over old posts, it’s kind of gelled in my mind the types of things that are really fun and sweet to look back on.  I particularly enjoy reading short entries with a funny or cute vignette about the kids—and reading about the old ones has made me think of other things that have happened recently that I want to remember.  So I’ll probably post a bunch of more recent things in the near future.

Quote of the Day

At breakfast this morning…

Molly: I have an idea for when you are done eating.

Me: What is it?

Molly: I don’t know yet.

“Baby’s Eyes Are Open!”

 

Molly tells me that Emily’s eyes are open at every opportunity.  This generally has nothing to do with whether Emily is actually sleeping or not.  Molly will stare Emily down and at the smallest flutter, she loudly declares to me that Emily is awake.  Often (usually?) Emily is not.  Molly is like a tiger lying in wait for prey, only she lies in wait for an awake baby to love.

Mouth Bunny No More

A couple months ago, Molly protested loudly when I was washing her loveys.  Since she puts them in her mouth and sucks them like pacifiers, a regular washing is necessary – not that it really made them look very much cleaner.  But it was essential for the smell (and presumably they would have actually been dirtier if I hadn’t washed them regularly.)

Anyway, Molly got so annoyed that I was washing them that she decided that they would no longer be mouth bunnies.  In that instant she cold turkey stopped sucking them by sheer force of will. 

Considering that these bunnies resided in her mouth at least 12 hours a day since she was 18 months old, making this decision all at once and then sticking to it is pretty astounding.

Lucy

Who is Lucy, you ask?  I don’t know either.  But the week Emily was born, Tucker had the hardest time remembering her name.  He told everyone at school her name was Lucy instead. 

We told the story to several people who asked how the big kids were liking the baby, and Tucker got a bit self-conscious about what he called her.  So he tried really hard to remember her name… and started calling her Elise (his cousin’s name) instead.

It’s not that Tucker doesn’t like Emily… he is just so much more interested in baseball and slam dunking his basketball on the doorway hoop in his room.

How to Get Molly to Wear Clothes I Like

…I hide them in the most inaccessible drawer in her dresser. 

Seriously, every time I go through her dresser and weed out the clothes she doesn’t wear or seem to like very much and put them up high so that she can actually see the clothes she does like and wear—she immediately finds them in their new spot and wears them.  I guess she thinks the clothes in the high-up drawers are ones I don’t want her to wear so she likes exploring them?  Or maybe they are just harder to get and therefore more interesting?

Easter

This Easter was the first time that Easter Sunday corresponded with my birthday, so it was an extra special Easter celebration for me.  We also had the unexpected bonus of having Helen and David join us from Easter dinner as they came back from a weekend with Liz and family.
It was a beautiful Spring day, with Virginia absolutely showing off.  Tucker got to be crucifer at church for the first time on Easter, which meant a lot to him.  And of course, Emily celebrated her first Easter as well by snuggling her way all through church with my mom, and then sleeping idyllically through Easter dinner.  It’s a bit silly to dress up tiny babies in real clothes, but since it was Easter, she sported her first dress of her life.  And she didn’t even immediately poop through it either!  PhD baby work.
Here are the pics from the day.
      

Baseball

Tucker has graduated from T-ball this year, onto the Rookie Red Sox.  His coach knows what he is doing, and Tucker is learning a lot.  He is very enthusiastic and seems to be loving every minute of it as well. 

Here’s Emily enjoying Tucker’s second game.  What’s there not to smile about when your brother gets two runs?!