Gifts

Ben got a birthday card in the mail from MawMaw Wilma and PawPaw Sherman today. I planned to save it for his birthday, but he saw it on the counter and recognized his name. He was very excited about his first 3 year old card. He said, "Wow! This is cool."

This is what the envelope looked like when he finally got the card out of it.

Mollie got a gift today too. I got out a Christmas gift that I had put away until she got bigger. She obviously isn't walking yet to push the stroller, but I thought it might encourage her to pull up and stand. She had fun sitting on the floor playing with it and Dolly, though.

Egg Garden 2011 Update

Our seeds are sprouting!

Saturday

John killed this gobbler at his Dad's camp on Saturday.

Watching some sort of multi-legged insect crawl up his arm.

Notice Ben's nose. It's yellow from smelling flowers.

We attended another birthday party this weekend. This one was Annie themed. Notice Ben eating his icecream without paying the slightest attention to the girls surrounding Annie in the background.

Mollie in her birthday party clothes. This picture was actually taken at the birthday party.

A Busy Week

I realized this morning that I have not posted all week. This has been a really busy week but nothing to take a picture of. Grocery shopping on Monday and laundry on Tuesday. We went to the big library for Story Hour on Wednesday rather than our usual Thursday at the little library so that we could make a visit on Thursday morning. On Friday morning, we took a meal to a family in our church that has a new baby.

On Thursday we visited with the oldest member of our church. She is 100 years old. Our church has a new program that pairs young families with older mostly shut in members of the church. I had been waiting until none of us had even a hint of a sniffle to visit. She lives with her daughter and is amazingly sharp. She knew all about what was going on at church. We stayed about 1/2 an hour and enjoyed our visit.

On top of all our going, Mollie has not been her usual pleasant self this week. On Wednesday she cried the entire hour she was in the nursery. Normally, the nursery workers love Mollie, but this week they were happy to see John come get her. Thankfully, she was pleasant during our visit Thursday morning, but she screamed all the way home. I finally realized yesterday that she wasn't just being moody or developing a stronger personality, but that her gums were hurting. She was chewing chewing chewing on her thumb. We went to Dollar General and bought Orajel (and a 2 liter Dr Pepper and a box of brownie mix for me), which seems to give her some relief. Hopefully the new teeth will break through soon.

Last Sunday

I just found this picture from last Sunday morning on my camera. It's not a great picture, but I worked very hard to get a picture of them together so I am posting it.

Pretty Girl

I thought Mollie looked very cute at the birthday party, but as often happens I came home without any pictures of her. I was holding her with my left arm and taking pics with my right again. I took her picture in the backyard in her pretty pink and green bubble suit.

Birthday Party

Ben went to a birthday party at the zoo this morning. He got a purple monkey tattoo on his cheek.

We rode the train, looked at the animals, and ate cake.

Ben was very excited about the birthday cake. He didn't wait for a fork.

Return of the Egg Garden

We are planting a real garden in our yard this year. We planted tomato seeds to sprout indoors for our garden along with impatiens for the back porch. I think I was too late starting the tomato seeds so we may end up having to buy plants for our garden. We'll see.

Mollie gardening.

Ben is watering his seeds while Mollie munches crackers in the background.

Yummy

Mollie enjoyed her first taste of mashed potatoes. Mollie enjoys all of her food. Last night she was shoving fist fulls of black eyed peas into her mouth. Canned peaches are probably her favorite food. I think she would eat the whole can in one sitting if I would let her.

Blue Eyes

Ben the Builder

Mama sent Ben a book about how a house is built and a level. His house needed lots of work this morning.

Checking to see if it is level.

Smores

Barney and his friends make smores in a video we got from the library. Ben has been pretending to make smores for several days so yesterday we bought all the ingredients while we were grocery shopping. John loves smores so he and Ben made them together last night. They melted them in the microwave. Ben wasn't sure about that since Barney doesn't use a microwave, but John told him that is how Nana does it so it was okay then.

New Seats

After several attempts at photographing Ben and Mollie's last rides in their old seats, I missed the actual event. We were running late for the library and I forgot my camera. I had to choose between making it to story hour or going back in for my camera. I decided on story hour. Ben's brown Graco Nautilus arrived Thursday evening.

AND then I missed their first rides in the new seats. Sunday morning we knew the time had changed, but the lost hour killed us. We simply did not have time to take pictures. While I wasn't loving Daylight Savings Time Sunday morning, this morning I thought it was great. Both Ben and Mollie slept until nearly 8 a.m.

Saturday Fun

Today is beautiful and warm. We had fun playing outside before lunch.

This is Mollie's smiley face -- jaw cocked, nose wrinkled.

John raked leaves this morning. Ben went for a ride on the leaf tarp.

Playing with Thomas on the track we built out of wooden blocks.

Climbing

Ben discovered yesterday that there are other things to climb on his swingset than just the ladder. He isn't tall enough to reach the monkey bars across the top so he just climbs up and then down.

Up the climbing wall.

Wet Wednesday

After about 5 inches of rain on Tuesday night, we put on our rubber boots Wednesday morning and went wading.

I was wading too so Mollie rode in the carrier.

Nine Months

Mollie was 9-months old on Sunday. Tuesday, we took her to the pediatrician for her 9-month well baby checkup. She weighed 19 lb 5 oz, which is in the 59th percentile for babies her age. She was 28.25 inches long and in the 74th percentile. Her head was 18 inches around and in the 90th percentile.

Ben is showing off his blue tongue from the sucker he got from the pediatrician. He was really good during Mollie's visit. The orange straps on his shoulders are his backpack that he carried with some books, colors, and cars to play with. Usually, I carry his bag in the basket under the stroller, but Tuesday I decided to make a trial run without the stroller since Mollie will be moving out of the infant seat soon. The stroller we normally use is just a frame that you connect the infant seat to. Mollie will also have to move up to the umbrella stroller, which doesn't have a basket under it for carrying all of our stuff. That will be a big change for us since we've used that stroller a lot.

Last ride?

As Ben is nearing age three and Mollie is getting tight in the infant seat, I've been planning to buy Ben a booster seat with a five-point harness and move Mollie to Ben's seat facing backwards. Sunday night I finally did my research and determined that Ben was getting a Graco Nautilus. According to Wal-Mart.com, they had them in stock in our local store. Monday as we were headed to Wal-Mart to do our weekly shopping, I took both their pictures in their seats since this would be their last rides in these seats.

Ben was too busy with his cell phone to look at the camera. It's like a glimpse into the future. Can't you see him several feet taller ignoring me while texting?

Monday's pictures were taken in vain. Wal-Mart only had two pink flowered seats. On Tuesday, as we were leaving to take Mollie to the pediatrician, I took pictures of Ben and Mollie in their seats since this would be their last ride in these seats. After Mollie's well baby check-up, we were going to Target, where according to Target.com we could buy Ben a new seat.

Guess what? The only Graco Nautilus at Target was purple. Tuesday evening, I ordered a brown Graco Nautilus from Amazon. It should arrive later this week. I guess tomorrow I'll take pictures of them in their seats before we go to the library since it will be their last ride in those seats . . . unless Amazon ships us a girly seat.

Entranced

Ben and Mollie were entranced by Cedarmont Kids Sunday School Songs yesterday while John and I dressed for church.

Color Experiments

On one of Ben's favorite episodes of Barney, Michael mixes colors in cups. Ben has been pretending to do it for days. This evening I got out the food coloring and let him have fun mixing colors together. He loved it. It was as messy as you can imagine, but it was easy to clean up.

Mollie had fun playing with a spoon.

Zoo Day

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday (which was yesterday) at the zoo today. We read If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss. Can you believe that is Mollie sitting by Ben listening to the story?

Since it was a birthday party, we had cupcakes for snack.

Mollie tried repeatedly to steal Ben's cupcake.

The kids made crazy Dr. Seuss animals using clay, feathers, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes.

Ben petted, Rose, the snake, while riding a stuffed lion. I asked Ben what the snake felt like and he said, "carrots."

Mollie even got to pet Daisy the chinchilla.

The zoo is still closed for construction, so we walked to the park with Burn and Harris. Burn was supposed to be holding hands while they walked too but he had made a run for it.

Ben was into climbing. He climbed all the way to the top of the jungle gym and slid down the pole with the help of another taller mom. He was pretty nervous about climbing from the bars onto the pole, but he made it. I didn't get a picture since I was trying to help him.

After we played, we had a picnic with Marion, Burn, and Harris. It was threatening to rain so we took cover in the pavillion to eat. I think Ben was most excited about having a picnic. We had crackers, ham, cheese, grapes, strawberries, brownies, and popcicles.