Lydia Jane

Our beautiful Lydia Jane was born Wednesday, March 21 at 1:59 pm.  She weighed in at 8 lbs 3 oz and is 22" long.  She is an angel and has a calm, sweet disposition.  We are all so very happy to have her here to cuddle and love!

Hidden Pond Park

In an effort to enjoy every possible moment of life, we stayed very busy this week doing fun things!  And in between the fun activities, the whole house got cleaned too, so we're all pretty worn out.  Lydia, we're ready for you!  We spent one morning at one of our favorite parks/nature centers, Hidden Pond Park.  Sam was thrilled to see turtles in the nature center and out in the middle of the pond.  Abby was happy to have her new friend Liam around for 4-year-old fun.  They raced, explored various trails, and experimented with how different sticks and rocks looked as they were thrown into the water.  And the two little brothers (Sam and Liam's brother) were thoroughly entertained by the games and joined in as best they could with everything.  It was a gorgeous morning!

Sam has recently fallen in love with doing art.  He prefers markers and is well-trained to only do them at the kitchen table (after about a zillion reminders and nearly as many fights).  He'll travel the house with crayons and paper and request Abby, Roy, or I do draw turtles and monster trucks.  If you look carefully at the drawing below, you will see that Sam has learned how to draw his own turtles.  On the bottom right corner, you'll see a turtle shell and a head (that's the turtle not in the water).  And in the bottom left corner, you will see a turtle shell, head, leg, and tail (the turtle is in the water).  He drew the picture and then got really excited to tell Roy and I about his turtles.  I am super impressed that at age 2 he can draw a pretty good rendering of a turtle!

I'm hoping our next post is one announcing that baby Lydia is healthy, happy, and here.  No matter what, she'll be here by March 26 because I have an induction scheduled, but we are thinking happy thoughts that she will join us earlier than that.  She has 2 anxious siblings and 2 equally-anxious parents counting the minutes until we can hold her!

Cardboard Boxes

We got several boxes in the mail this week, only a few of which made it out to be recycled.  The rest are used as temporary toy holders ("It's my special place for                   , Mom!"), 3-D canvas for art projects, and children's entertainment.  Thank goodness for cardboard boxes!

Dinosaur Day

A few weeks ago in preschool, Abby learned about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Imagine my delight when we drove downtown on Monday to pick up Roy from work and Abby shrieked, "That's the Washington Monument!"  Of course we had to snap the traditional picture.

 Our future paleontologist(s) wanted to go see some dinosaurs so since we live so close to so many great, free museums, we made a morning of it.  We were only downtown for about 2 hours, but had the greatest time!  Sam literally ran from exhibit to exhibit in this cute bounce-run.  He was wowing and enthusiastic and we just couldn't help laughing as we enjoyed him taking it all in.  Abby was very intrigued with videos, buttons, and soaking in as much information as she could through the whole Natural History Museum.  She picked up on lots of fun facts and fell even more in love with dinosaurs and animals.

Sam and Roy with Sam's favorite dinosaur, Triceratops.

 Sam, Roy, and Abby with Abby's favorite dinosaur, T-Rex.

A fuzzy and different shot of Abby with the T-Rex.  Seeing the T-Rex was the best part of her day.

Last night at dinner, Abby was picking through her mixed vegetables and very carefully picked up a lima bean.  "What's this?", she asked with a look of pure horror.  "A lima bean."  "Oh," she said and then paused before continuing, "That's disgusting!"  Roy and I were dying to keep the laughter in.  I love hearing the kids as they learn how to appropriately use new words.  It's a recipe for laughter.

We were taking the kids to the neighborhood park yesterday and they were running ahead of us.  Roy saw the puddle at the same time that Sam did.  Roy took off, calling for Sam to stop.  Sam of course either didn't hear or decided not to hear (the second is more likely) and ran even faster, not stopping as he plowed through the 6-foot mud puddle.  Another time where I had to stop everything and double over to laugh.  Man, our kids are hilarious!  I can only imagine how many stories we will be collecting in the future.