She thinks she's ready!

Her mom is not . . . .

Happy Mother's Day

I'm thankful for the opportunity I have to be a mom. "When I grow up, I [still] want to be a mother . . . ." Thanks to the moms in my life. I love you.

Number Three

I've been terrible at documenting this pregnancy, so I'm going to be brave and post a prego pic. This is me at 36+ weeks pregnant. (I'm now 37+ weeks.)

And here are the ultrasound pictures from last week. (They wanted to do another ultrasound because I'm measuring pretty small. The little one is just fine. They estimated her weight at 6 lbs. 4-5 oz. Not bad, with 3 weeks to go.)

I love this one of her little puckered lips and nose.

I didn't know this was possible in utero, but she's blowing a bubble! She was sticking her tongue out and back in over and over again.

Yep. She's still a girl.

Dancing

More Cute Reading Pics

I took these a long time ago, but just haven't gotten around to posting. I love my girls!

Sliding

Elaine has no fear! I learned she loves slides when, a couple months ago, we went to a playground with a pretty high, pretty long slide. Elaine asked me to help her climb the ladder. I lifted her up, she walked across the platform, and before I could prepare myself, she launched herself, headfirst, down the slide. I barely made it to the bottom to catch her. She laughed and asked to go again . . . and again and again and again. I wish I had had my camera there that day.

Here are some pictures and a couple videos of her in our backyard. Mike set the camera on auto to take several pictures in a row, so photos 3-9 are a sequential view of one time down the slide.

The Truth

Return to the Old Stories . . . .

A bit long, but well worth the read!

Rain Forests and Marriage

My Aunt Sally wrote this. Fabulous!

Three-year-old and Almost-two-year-old . . . Going Cheap

This is a vent post. I'm going to vent some of my morning frustration here, so I do not take it out on my children, who are currently locked in their room.

During my 5-minute shower this morning, my girls "dropped" a whole pound of dry black-eyed peas on the floor. I should have taken a picture, but I was too frustrated to enjoy the moment. Just imagine hundreds of tan beans with black spots strewn across an entire room, carpeted with tan carpet with black specks. Lovely. So, I made the girls help me clean up. It took forever. (Little fat hands don't pick up very many beans at a time and are easily distracted.) When the majority of beans were up, excluding those jammed into the window track (Mariah kept asking, "Mom, why did I put them in here?" Good question, child.), I pulled out the vacuum to finish up.

During my 5-minute vacuuming, the girls rushed off to my bathroom and got into my make-up. (Small break to rescue Elaine, who was being suffocated by a bored Mariah.) Even with the vacuum going, I sensed it was too quiet. I hurried off to find out what was going on. I was too late to save a few things--eye liner, and eye shadow, and had a mess to clean up. I did not allow the girls to help me with that mess; I locked them in their room, and here we are. (Actually, Elaine's now sitting on my lap, and Mariah's in their room. I couldn't leave Elaine in such a life-threatening situation.)

Oh, I almost forgot about the WHOLE ROLL of toilet paper that got flushed down the toilet while I was fixing breakfast.

Things can only go up from here, right?

Black-eyed peas continued . . . . I just changed Laney's diaper. There were 50+ beans stashed there too.

1 Hour Later: Just found both girls in the laundry room. Mariah had put triscuits in the washer's soap dispenser. Creative.