Botanical Gardens... we love this place!

Seems like as soon as the weather is remotely warm, I hurry over to our Botanical Gardens.  It's a win-win, as I think I have said before.  We all get to enjoy God's creation... love seeing names of plants I like and don't know, so I'm learning and growing in my love of gardening AND they have 2 slides and several other fun kids things like walking thru the caterpillars mouth and thru his body until he becomes a butterfly... so girls get some Vitamin D and enjoy the sunshine.  We did take baby along, but she didn't make it into the pictures so I will add a photo of her from when we were playing in the driveway!

Doesn't Lover have a great eye for photography... or maybe he was hungry for some kale?

Bathtime and loves

First bath with all the sisters -- little MM doesn't know what to think, as you can see!  The big girls thought it was so fun and kept "feeding" her sea creatures.

On a different note, I wanted to mention a couple of things that are noteworthy for my memory.  As of last week celebrating St. Patrick's Day, Nucky has been so obsessed with leprechauns.  It started when her teacher described said creatures as if they were mini-Santas b/c they come when children are on the playground and bring treats and leave little green footprints behind.  She came home from school and the first thing she said when she jumped in the car was, "Mom, the leprechauns came!  They turned the potty water green!"  Yes, Mrs. Ashley went ALL out and even had the little green guys turn the toilet water green... how exciting!  In this 4 year old's mind, it was all she could think about.  She didn't get near this excited about Santa and his elves.  She continued to talk about this all day and was quite occupied with her little pot of gold filled with a gold rock and gold coin candy.  When I went in her room after bedtime, she quietly said to me before I left, "Mom, Mrs. Carney said that when she came in from the playground she saw a leprechaun running down the hall!"  Funny what they get into.

Squeezie's love right now is YOGURT.  She wakes up yelling from her crib, "Wogurt, Mommy."  If you don't give it to her, she continues to chant for it.  She would eat her weight in those cultures if I'd let her.  Cute little thing, she is!  She stayed home from school yesterday and was entertaining herself at the table with the resurrection eggs (tactile tool to tell the Easter story - love them).  I caught her using the nail as silverware.  I got it on camera...

Here's the baby!

You've been asking and I've just not taken a lot of photos of this sweet one.  I guess b/c everytime I have the camera out, she's in her carrier.  Not a really cute photo to me when they're all bunched up in there.  So here she sits in her Bumbo seat, scantily clad.  She is 6 months old now.  Wow.

Birthday and Snow

Nucky is now 4 and we celebrated with a clown party. The only thing "clown" about it were the invitations, favors and one game. She insisted on the theme, so we ran with it as much as possible. See below for the favors (clown nose and glasses)


We made party hats b/c she loves to wear party hats. When she gets one at school from someone else's bday, it stays around our house until it's totally ripped apart (about 3 hrs).

Little sis also enjoyed the party... maybe posing for the camera was more fun for her.

Thought these were funny!

And then we have had 2 snows. This one pictured below was beautiful and at least 4-6".

I like to eat anything... snow was no exception. She ate it off the ground (you know, the kind that's been stepped on and yucky... she's not refined in her taste yet).

Meet Percy... he still hasn't completely melted.

Christmas Highlights

We celebrated Christmas with Lover's family this year. It was our first Christmas at home in Atlanta. We were excited to experience going to our church's service and just enjoying our home during our favorite time of the year.

Here's a pic of the grands on Christmas Eve.



Then we prepared some goodies for Santa and the reindeer...



I love this picture... it captures well the personality of this little girl.


Christmas morning brought some excitement... but were they excited?? Not so much!

My favorite gift... Lover had a picture of Squeezie drawn by the same artist who did Nucky a few years ago. He picked a great picture and the artist did a wonderful job. He also got me a getaway weekend with my mom and sister, completely booked for us... just a few more days til we leave!!

Hi Ho the Derry-o..

The farmer and the cow.

Halloween just keeps getting more fun as they get older. I love it when little tikes come to the door Trick or Treating... there's so much more wonder and joy in their faces than the average 8-10 year old who is basically saying "Gimme some candy!"

Nucky truly sees wonder in Halloween. Too bad she doesn't feel this way about the birth of our Lord... there's still time though.

Birth Announcement tries

We tried many, many times to get a cute one. Wow, the yelling and gnashing of teeth involved. I finally decided to just do a photo of baby alone. Here are my other attempts though. Kind of cute anyway.

For the record, some cute things Nucky has said lately:

"Mommy, you need to turn the wimper wipers on, it's raining."

Talking about the little boy on Caillou named Jeffrey --

Mommy: Perry, what is the name of Jason's brother on Caillou?

Perry (very resolutely): Jeopardy

We watch Jeopardy faithfully every night at 7:30 usually pausing it until after bedtime. I guess she's heard a lot about it.

When time was getting closer for baby to arrive, we talked a lot about going to the hospital and coming home with the baby. ONe day she asked me if we were going to take Bruiser back and pick up a new baby. In her dreams, I guess!

Now onto #2:

Bruiser needs a new name. Kind of like in the Bible when people did something notable and God changed their name (Abraham, Paul, Jacob, etc)... let's just call her Squeezie. Some notes on her right now. She is the quintessential rascal, always messing with something yet constantly happy and laughing. A true joy to have around, she keeps us all laughing with her silliness. As far as the messing around, one morning in the craziness that is called getting ready for school and me trying to meet a client right after I drop them off, I was busy getting my make up on in my room. Baby and Nucky were with me. Squeezie had been missing and quiet for at least 5 minutes. What could she be doing? (Always the question when there's no sign of her and all is quiet) She was sitting on the kitchen floor with the syrup bottle in hand, had poured it in a huge puddle on the floor and was dipping her whole hand in there and licking it. If I hadn't been so enraged, I might've stopped to laugh and/or take a picture. She has also been found in the laundry room with the scoop in her hand and powder detergent all over the floor around her... and powder footprints thru my kitchen. Don't even get me started on the soap pump in the bathroom...I could go on and on.

And for baby:

Sleeping well thru the night. Usually goes down at 9 and up at 6, then back down. Thank you, God, for a good baby so far.

Very smiley and content. Smiles easily at all of us, but often at her sisters despite their torment.

Gaining well, probably at least 13 lbs now.

Mommy:

Tired but used to it.

Busy with clients. Good.

Excited for the holidays that will be hosted at our house for Thanksgiving and Xmas.

Reading a lame book -- don't laugh... it's called Size 12 is Not Fat.

Daddy:

Renovating our basement bathroom that had a miniscule vanity, carpet on the floor, gray 80's wallpaper and lovely faux wood soap holder and towel bars.

Always an encouragement to me.

The best dad to these 3 beloveds. Truly loves to play with them (hmm, is that in contrast to me??).

Even more excited about the holidays. Never met anyone who loves Christmas more than this guy.

Thrilled over the Yellow Jackets football season thus far.

Wow, that was a long post!