Goodbye to Good Friends

We had our last playgroup before the move today. I had it at our house even though it was a disaster area. I figure that my friends love me enough to overlook my mess! If you look behind the girls you can see that the dining room has been overtaken by boxes.
We got all the girls to stand in one place for a picture by asking them to hold hands. Otherwise, they're all going in about fifty directions.

What a sweet bunch of kiddos. They're so cute, they're really starting to play and interact together. By interact I mean fight, but it's fun to listen in on their little conversations. We told Maura and Sarah to stop fighting and hold hands together, and they walked holding hands around the entire house before settling down to play. Maura said, "Lets go play with the Weebles together." So cute.
Probably the last photo with the kids in this house for awhile. I joined Facebook(Yes, Facebook!!) yesterday, and went looking for a recent photo of me with both kids. That picture doesn't exist! I need to do a better job of actually getting in my photos. It'll be easier to be photographed when I lose another 22 pounds. That's my current total weight loss. Yay!
Near the end of the play date, Maura ran upstairs after the cat and Sarah and Lily followed. Maura came back out of my room wearing this bra! She knew she was being funny too! It's amazing how two-year-olds want to copy EVERYTHING!
She then "shared" with Sarah and they proceeded to play tug of war with it!
Angie and Sarah. I'm going to miss our heart to hearts and all the advice. We'll keep in touch over the phone, I know.

Dawn and Lily. We're going to miss our sweet neighbors and the ability to call you up to share walks whenever we want.
Maura and Sarah saying goodbye.
Lily and Maura giving lots of hugs.
We tried to get the girls to pose for us. This is about the best you can expect from two-year-olds. Lily looks like a little lady in her pink dress with her legs crossed!
Love how Maura is just reclining back and waiting for the photo shoot to end. I can just see these girls together in about sixteen years. We love these friends like sisters and we'll hold you in our hearts always! Keep in touch!! We'll miss you so much!

Tristan is Twelve weeks old!

Tristan turned twelve weeks old on Tuesday. I know that these "week" posts are probably getting old, but someone told me that they took a picture of their child every week on the same day and later put them in time lapse photography and they could "watch" their child grow. It just sounded really cool to me. Not that I'll ever remember to do it when he gets to be a few month old, but it' worth a shot. Mr. Personality here is getting funnier by the day. He's truly laughing out loud now, and yesterday even gave me a belly laugh. He thinks I'm hilarious!
He's an official thumb sucker. If he can escape his swaddle, the thumb immediately goes to the mouth, but he's not good enough to always get it in. He wakes himself up trying, so we'll continue with the swaddle until he figures out this thumb thing.
Sweet widdle man!
On Monday, I caught him trying to turn over for the first time. I grabbed my camera, but this is the best shot I was able to get before he returned to his supine position. He can make it all the way up on his side, but his arm is a problem. He hasn't figured out how to get over it yet. I can't believe he's starting to roll when he's not even three months old. Watch out world.
As soon as he spied the camera, he abandoned all attempts to roll over and adopted this "look at me, I'm a heart throb" look that he shoots me when he notices he's being watched. What a sweet man. His hair is finally starting to grow and the new growth is BLONDE. The hair he was born with is going to merit a trim before too long. He's got one hair that's about three inches long. It's not appealing on a little boy. I'll have to document the "haircut." It's going to look like a Dr. Seuss book when I cut his one hair!

Happy Birthday Pappap!

Monday, July 28th was my Dad's 55th birthday. As my aunt says, now he's as old as the speed limit. He, he!! We celebrated his birthday as a family on Sunday. I'm always up for a party, so we left for my parents house as soon as Maura woke up from her nap. Maura loves her Pappap so much. We're going to miss him a lot. I doubt I'll see him as much as Mom over the next year because she'll travel down while he works. Maura loves playing with her Pappap, who always does fun things like throw her in the air. She told Grammy awhile back that she and Grammy live at Grammy's house(I guess because Mom babysits her) and Pappap lives at the work house! Too cute!

Mommy, Maura, Micah and Molly. All the M's took a picture together.
Aunt Lorie enjoyed some Tristan time. She's been seeing a lot of the kids these days because I've had to have her babysit in a pinch recently. Look at my chunky baby--he's wearing a 9 month outfit and bustin' out of it!
Maura "helped" Pappap blow out his candles. Well, she tried to help, but when she blows, the air always goes down. I'm going to have to teach her how to blow correctly sometime. She'll be the only kid out there who can't blow bubbles!! Dad had blackberry pie for his birthday "cake." Yum.
Pappap and Tristan had a good visit. Even when Tristan is fussy he likes to lay on Pappap's leg and talk to him.

Maura also "helped" with the present opening. She tore into the presents before we were really ready, but I think she was a little disappointed by the contents. I think she expected something much more exciting like toys!

Allen Look-alike Meter

Well, it happened again. A comment that Hannah made got me wondering who Tristan resembles more. I went on this website that I used last time with Maura and it said he looks more like me by 8%! Maura was the exact same! Too funny!

Swimming fun

I was so tired of being at home today. I really haven't been out of the house for any length of time since Tuesday, and I'm seriously tired of packing boxes, so we broke out today and went over to my parent's house to spend the day. Mom and Dad were glad to see the kids and I think they're just trying to enjoy every last minute of grandkid time that they can. We ended up spending the entire day there and we were so glad to have other people to talk to! We went out to enjoy the pool not long after we got there.

" DUDE!" I brought a new pair of swim trunks that I bought for Tristan before he was born. They were so cute, but SO long. They almost touched his toes! Notice the look of utter concentration on his face. He has to really concentrate to keep himself so upright!
Maura discovered Pappap's three foot stepladder and said, "It's a yittle yadder for yittle girls." We're still working on the "L" sound!
Pappap and Grammy got Tristan all ready for his dip in the pool. I held him with my back to the sun the whole time we were in the pool. I can't believe how burned my back got in that period of time. I'm really glad I lubed up the kids, even though Tristan is still supposedly too young for sunscreen.
Maura loves the pool, but she's been a lot more cautious of the water this summer. I can't decide if it's because she's getting wiser or if she's just remembering the two different times this summer that she's been stung by a sweat bee while swimming. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a two-year-old? Incidentally, she actually got stung by a real bee today. She asked me to take off her swimsuit after she dried off and she went cavorting happily naked back to the house. Along the way, she stepped on a bee and immediately started screaming. She felt better after I took out the stinger, dabbed on some toothpaste and applied a band aid. Poor girl! One minute you're frisking naked and happy in the flowers, the next minute an insect is mortally wounding itself to inflict intense agony on it's unsuspecting victim--YOU!
Maura enjoying the pool with Grammy before the stinging incident. She loved the raft and spent most of the morning sitting happily upon it. Well, happily sitting except when she was bouncing and the two times she bounced herself right off of it! Thank goodness for the water wings!
We were sad to have to re-home Luna this week. Luna has been our pet since a few weeks after we got married. I remember how excited we were to pick her up and bring her home. We used to spend hours playing with her and she used to sleep at the end of our bed. All that changed when Maura came into our lives. Luna became progressively more neurotic and drove me nuts meowing all day long. Brent has become more and more allergic to the cats and takes allergy medication on a pretty routine basis just to coexist with our cats. We took the opportunity of our move to Georgia to make some decisions about whether we wanted to continue on as pet owners. Unfortunately, Luna lost out. We decided to find a new home for her and her new owners came and picked her up on Thursday. Maura has yet to really notice that she's gone, mostly because our house could probably be declared a disaster area while we pack. I was really sad to see her go, but I think she's going to a really great home and she'll be happier and get more attention than I'm able to give her right now. Our other cat, Thea, will be going to live with Emily's boyfriend, Brad. I couldn't bear to get rid of her, mostly because she's Maura's special pet. This morning, Maura was petting Thea and saying, "Aww, I love my little kitty. Thea is never going to go away." She said this over and over again and it almost made me cry to think that Thea IS going to be going away in the next week. I started to try to explain, then just decided that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I think with the move and the change of scenery, it might be awhile before it's even an issue. We'll see. Anyone have any tips for what you tell a two year old when they discover that their beloved pet is missing...

Eleven weeks old!

Tristan is eleven weeks old today. What a sweet little chunk! He's getting ready to grow out of a lot of his 3-6 month clothes! I'm scrambling to find 6-9 month clothes that he'll be in in the next month or so! It's hard to believe he's such a big guy because Maura was so petite for so long. Not this little tubbby tub!
He's such a happy guy. He has a wonderful personality and he's getting more and more interactive. Can't you just see him saying, "Goo!" in this picture!
"Thumbs up, Mommy! You're the best!!"
My little bathing beauty. She loves the bathtub and I think she'd stay there for hours if we'd let her! I've truly been challenged for the past week and a half with being a single parent. I'm definitely not cut out for the lonely life! I've had lots of help from family and friends, but it's still difficult to tackle bath and bedtime by myself. Yesterday and today have felt like triumphs when I had both kids bathed and in bed by 8:30. I felt like I'd just run a marathon, fatigued and jubilant! We're all looking forward to being back together as a family again. Maura is doing great with talking on the phone to Brent. She tells him long stories that he only catches a few words of. Tonight, she told him that she was eating cookies and dunking them in her milk and that she helped make them to send to him. It melted his heart! She always ends the conversation with "I love you, I do do. Bye!" We're not sure where that came from but it's really adorable! We have a definate move date of August 2, so we only have about a week and a half at home. That gives me a heart attack to read! I still have so much packing to do. Ooops, I hear the baby!

Wonderful, Wonderful Weekend

No, your eyes are not decieving you, and these aren't pictures from a while ago. This is a picture of Brent and Maura from THIS PAST WEEKEND! Brent was so bored down in Georgia with no real job yet and without a private room. He was missing his wife and kids, so he hopped in his car on Friday evening and drove straight through and got home about 1:30AM. I was so glad to see him! I'm not cut out to be a single parent! I get so lonely without someone physically there to talk to in the evenings and so worn out trying to deal with both kids all day. He was such a huge help to me this weekend. Maura was so happy to see him first thing Saturday morning. She said, "Daddy's home from Georgia!" She couldn't get enough of him and kept dragging him away to play with her. She is truly a daddy's girl now.
On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to a local "farm" for a Vegetable Festival. Things were pretty well cleaned up by the time we got there at 5:00, but they still had the animals out for the petting zoo. Maura and Daddy loved checking out the bunnies.

Maura loved the goats and has been imitating them ever since. "Maaaaaa!"
This momma bunny had three little babies with her. So cute! Maura wanted to touch the babies, but they jumped away pretty quickly when you stuck your fingers through to pet them.
The chicks were the most fascinating thing for her. She studied them and studied them, but she couldn't get too close because they all ran to the other side of the cage when she got too near.
Feeding the goats clover. Notice I'm wearing my baby. Tristan was so sleepy that he had to be held, but it was at least ninety degrees. He was burning up in that front pack!
This little boy took an interest in Maura and showed her around. I think he must have been the son of one of the workers. He knew the goat's names and he told her all about the chicks and the bunnies. She loved it all and it made me wish that we hadn't skipped the petting area at the zoo a few weeks ago.

That evening, we went for what will probably be our last family trip to Bruster's for awhile. Bruster's is at least a weekly adventure for us. The last few months of my pregnancy, we walked down at least once a week. Since I've delivered, we go almost as frequently. Even though I'm on a diet, I'm able to save enough points to get ice cream every now and then. Brent was enjoying his double scoop!
Since the weather has gotten so hot, we've changed over to a family drive to Bruster's. It's hard to justify eating the ice cream when you haven't actually walked down to get it, but I'm usually able to put that from my mind! Maura always gets the vanilla baby cone with sprinkles and candy eyes. She loves it, and it's just enough ice cream for her. Lately, though, she's started begging for the kids sundae with "worms and dirt." So far I've told her no, mostly because you actually have to pay for that one! I did tell her I would buy her one if she would start going poo-poo in the potty. So far, bribery has gotten us nowhere!
My one diet concession that I've had to make is to downsize from a waffle cone to a sugar cone. It's not too hard when you consider that there aren't too many diets that allow you to eat ANY ice cream! I call it my Ice Cream Weight Watchers Diet. So far, even eating ice cream, I've lost 16 pounds in five weeks! Woo-Hoo! Tristan is crying because I wouldn't share my ice cream with him! Brent headed back to Georgia on Sunday, and we really miss him, but we at least know that it'll be less than two weeks before we see him again now.
Friday night, Maura and I went out to eat with our friends Angie, Chris, Brandy and David and their kids. My parents were kind enough to keep Tristan so I could actually eat with both hands. It was so easy having only one child to worry about. Why did I ever think that was a big deal?? Maura loved eating out with her friends.

After dinner, we walked over to look at a railroad car. You can see the difficulty that we had in having all three kids look at the camera at the same time.
Maura loves her friend Sarah. She's the first person that we pray for every night! Sweet girls!
Yes, I did allow my child to stand on the railroad tracks! We checked for trains before we let the kids loose and they loved playing on the ties and throwing the stones. Thanks, Nan, for the super cute outfit!
Lots of railroad track fun!
I just thought this picture was a pretty good illustration of my Maura. She's always going the other way when everyone else is going the same way! Perhaps she'll be a leader, not a follower someday!