Michael's Future

Dear Michael Jr,

It occurs to me that at some point in the future I might find it necessary to apologize for providing these as the male role models in your life.


Only time will tell if you are able to overcome (I promise to do my part by helping you avoid mullets as long as possible).

8 Hours Later...

We made it home! No major delays, and only one minor meltdown by Mary when I took Catherine to the bathroom on the plane (I opened to bathroom door to find Michael and Mary standing right right outside it waiting for us). We had a really great time visiting friends and family we haven't seen in a while (and some we just met!) but the kids were clearly a bit relieved to settle in with their old toys. Within minutes the girls were running their track around the kitchen, Catherine on the car and Mary pushing something in the stroller.

Here are some snapshots of other parts of our trip...

We got to spend a couple hours at the playground with this cutie, Caleb, and his mom, Carrie.


Carrie has some cute swinging pictures on her blog here. When we came inside for a drink the girls were super sweet in bringing toys to Caleb - I think when Michael gets to be a few months older he is going to be very pleased with this habit.

Carrie also took this adorable picture of Michael sleeping through an earlier visit (have I mentioned he still sleeps a lot?):



Catherine and Mary took full advantage of the presence of their uncles on this trip. It turns out Uncle Tommy is very talented at writing spur-of-the-moment Dora-style adventures, and Uncle Chris was willing to pull the wagon up and down the little hill in the backyard more times than a toddler can count (even my toddlers).


We also got to spend a bit of time with Aunt Melanie and new cousin Kali. I think Catherine started calling Michael "our big baby" after she met baby Kali (around 7 pounds, as opposed to Michael's 12-ish).



We even got to spend an afternoon with the Walters family. At first Catherine informed Grandma that she couldn't play with Ali because she "doesn't play with adults" but when Grandma told her that Ali was more like a big kid Catherine decided to give it a try. Within minutes, Ali was her new best friend, which means she was destined to spend many hours playing "shopping" with Catherine and Mary...


at least, when Ali wasn't trying to steal baby Michael (I think her mom put her up to it).


Mary asked me several times where Aunt Jena was, but Ali did a pretty good job filling in!

Look: Robert, Michael Robert, and Michael Robert Jr


And yes, we did get to meet Aunt Sunny (she got baby Michael to sleep for me the first night she was there - I thought about bringing her home with us)! Although we only got to spend a day with them, Catherine spent most of the plane ride home telling me everything she knew about Aunt Sunny. Whether or not Aunt Sunny knows it, she is a VERY big fan of Catherine's princess-dress-jammies.

It would have been nice to be able to stay for the party for Chris and Sunny today, but since it takes eight hours of traveling to get home, we had to get started rather early. I'm off to unpack and make sure we all have something clean to wear to church in the morning... at least with the holiday weekend we have an extra day to recover from the trip!

We're missing you all already...

Tractor Time

I have lots of pictures and stories from our week visiting family, much too much for a single post.

We got to spend one afternoon at Gigi and Pa-pa's house, where the girls were delighted to occupy themselves with a remote-controlled digital picture frame, a toy talking parrot, and of course, TRACTORS.

Pa-pa broke out the mower with the wagon and gave Michael and Tommy a quick refresher on driving them. I'll just be honest - Tommy's refresher took a bit longer (look at Mary's face - she is seriously starting to doubt if they are ever going to move that thing).


They went for a few turns about the yard...


And then Mary decided driving would be more fun.


So Daddy let her sit on his lap and steer for a bit, which she did with a surprising amount of success.


(For anyone with safety concerns, let me assure you, the fake deer statues in the yard could have outpaced the mower if necessary.)

They drove around with various combinations of passengers in the wagon...


Until it was Catherine's turn to drive! Honestly, if she could reach the pedals, I'm pretty sure she could have mowed the whole yard with no problem.


This went on for some time with, I believe, all possible combinations of steering toddlers, steering chaperones, and wagon occupants.

They even went on a long-distance trip into the adjacent field.


Michael, as is becoming his custom, slept through the whole shenanigan, and even for some time afterward.

Midwest Heat

If we hadn't travelled to the Midwest to celebrate a marriage and visit friends and family, I'm pretty sure the only thing we would notice about the place is that it is way hotter than we're used to. I'm happy to admit that the Cape might be turning us into summertime pansies.

But since we did celebrate a marriage and we are here to visit friends and family, there is much more to talk about than the oppressive heat. Michael did pretty well on our weekend trip to Tulsa. We know is he not a fan of riding in the car, but he only had one major crying meltdown in each of the 6-hour driving legs, so I guess it could have been worse. He was great sleeping at the hotel and being hauled here, there, and everywhere while we made as many visits with friends as possible in the couple days we had. He managed to charm everyone at the wedding in a rather short amount of time.


All reports concur that the girls were perfect angels at Grandma's house while we were away. They got to visit The Butterfly House and apparantly talked Grandma into purchasing a small pool for the backyard. Mary isn't actually too impressed with the idea of being wet and cold, but Catherine has been in and out of it several times every day. She particularly likes making a "big splash" with the mini slide.



And even when she's not in the pool, she really likes her new bathing suit.



Mary prefers the swing to the pool.


And Michael is just enjoying all the attention.





And finally having good reason to wear his Cardinals gear.

Like An Only Child

With the two girls staying with Grandma for the weekend, Michael is experiencing what it would be like to be an only child: 24/7 uninterrupted mommy time and lots of photo shoots.

When Michael was first born I thought it would be really nice to be able to take pictures of a non-moving target, but already it's not that easy. Every time I put him on his stomach to try to get some pictures with his head up, he would just roll over. And when I tried to take pictures of him on his back, he kept kicking my arms holding the camera and everything would come out all blurry. But we had a lovely afternoon lying around in the shade anyway.

Just Let Me Sleep

Balloons

We went to a friend's birthday party over the weekend and they had a bunch of balloons decorating the doorway. Obviously several of them made it into our car when it was time to leave.

It turns out balloons make a great dancing prop.



Catherine is being Mickey Mouse; Mary is being a bunny.




Balloons are pretty high up on the girls' list of things that are totally awesome. Other items currently making the list:

Hummus sandwiches
Bubbles
Playing outside in bare feet
Bathing suits and learning to swim (Catherine)
Bathing suits and not getting wet (Mary)
Yogurt
Running, exercising, and getting stronger and faster
Books. Books. Books.

Life of the Third Born

Here's a little taste of what it's like to be Michael, with two older sisters.

First of all, toddlers are incapable of understanding the concept of personal space, so you have people in your face all the time.



Second, there is no such thing as quiet time, so you learn to sleep no matter what else is going on.



There is an upside though. Lots of people want to be your pillow all the time.

More Babies!

No, not more babies in our house, but another baby in the family! My sister Melanie had her first baby, a healthy little girl. Kali was born at 7:59 yesterday morning - she was 6 pounds 6 ounces and 19 inches long. Mom and baby (and happy grandparents) are all doing well. So far I only have cell phone pics:





Congratulations Melanie!

De Ja Vous

I feel like I've posted these exact same pictures before, but I promise, they're all new. It's just that once a toddler finds something she likes to do, she is capable of doing it ad nauseum. We still have Easter egg hunts regularly and Mary can sing Peter Cottontail a hundred times in a row, no problem. They usually latch onto one book for several weeks, and during those weeks, we have to read that book not only daily, but several times per sitting (seriously, test me - I can recite Fancy Nancy's Favorite Words to you in my sleep). When we're outside, the girls like to make pizza in the house, play in the sandbox, and climb the slide, which is why you've seen pictures very similar to these in past posts.




Here I was trying out the monochrome shooting on my camera to see if I like it better than turning color pictures black and white later. I don't know if I like it better or not (or if there's even a difference) but it was fun.


It was my first day back at work today, and I quickly realized just how loud my children are, even when they're being good. Do they make noise-cancelling headphones for telephones?

Smile

Catherine is a Mother's Day pro already. Michael explained to her that it was a special day for moms, and she spent the whole day telling me she liked what I was wearing, and she liked my hair, and she loved me, and telling Mary to tell me she loved me. It was very adorable. And I took a nap, which made it a lovely day.

Today Catherine and Mary spent a long time pretend-playing with Uncle Chris and Aunt Sunny in the yard. From what I could tell, they were not exactly the most cooperative of playmates. I overheard Catherine yelling at Uncle Chris several times that he could not ride in the stroller because he was too big, and later she put him in time-out for "putting Aunt Sunny on top of the bush." Aunt Sunny was reprimanded several times for running her bicycle into the car and stepping on the blooming flowers.

After a while, Uncle Tommy and Aunt Jena showed up. Catherine spent a long time trying to teach them how to ride a tricycle by lying on her back in the grass and doing bicycle kicks with her legs. I'm not sure either of them ever got it, but at least Catherine did not put them in time-out for being slow learners.

Michael spent equal amounts of time today screaming and smiling. I was only able to catch a couple (slightly blurry) smiles.



When Catherine asked why I was taking so many pictures and I told her I was trying to catch a picture of Michael's smile, she said "Here! Take a picture of my smile!" Done.