Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving at J's Grandma's house, we call her Super Great Grannie. Super Great Grannie has a lot of great granddaughters, eight to be exact and just two great grandsons. Seven in a row born in the last five years. {Our baby boy will break that streak come spring.} This year the girls got their own special table for Thanksgiving dinner. They thought they were pretty big stuff, in the kitchen all by themselves with their goblets of festive sparkling cider or punch. One in particular had impeccable manners.

Poop!

Baby Miss has shown a limited amount of interest in the potty.  She has her own little wooden potty chair that my Dad made when the Girl was a tot.  She usually likes to "use" it (and I use the term very loosely) when one of her Big Sisters is in the bathroom.  She sometimes follows them in and sits on her seat pants, diaper and all.  This morning she showed her usual amount of interest and I figured I'd take her diaper off and see what happened.  She kept running back and forth into the bathroom.  Each time she came out I'd ask her if she'd gone potty and she'd say, "Yes."  I'd go check and find nothing.  About the sixth time that this scene played out she came and informed me that she'd gone poop.  "Not likely," I thought.  So I finished up with the dishes, thought about starting some laundry and with the laundry room directly outside the bathroom popped my head into the bathroom and low and behold...there it was.  Poop in the potty!  Baby Miss was rewarded with two M&M's (emmy-nems as she pronounces them) and gushing praise from myself and Little Sister.  She was so proud of herself as is evident by that gleeful grin.

Uncle Steebie!

Baby Miss received a birthday card in the mail from my Aunt. Inside was a five dollar bill. Baby Miss got extremely excited when she saw the money and I was amused to think that we were in trouble if she already knew what money was all about. She held up the bill, pointed to Abe and knowingly exclaimed, "Uncle Steebie!" Hilarious!!! J's brother, Stevie, doesn't bear an uncanny likeness to the President but Baby Miss apparently thinks so. Warms my heart to think she was so thrilled to receive a picture of her uncle in the mail.

Pre-Dinner Dance Party

 This evening as J was working on dinner, I turned on some tunes from a favorite playlist.  That was all it took to bring about an impromptu, pre-dinner dance party.  All of these girls LOVE to dance!

We call this the "Freak Daddy Out Sister Dip."  Aptly named cause it causes J to have heart palpitations every time he sees it.  He is sure that Baby Miss is gonna wind up being dropped on her head.

 And the "Sister Squeeze."

 Oh how I love those smiles!

Little Sister can do it too...still working on the dip part though.

Unconventional

This is how we do nails...sprawled out on the dining room table, in jammies sans pants, wearing two different boots.  One belonging to her, the other to her big sister.  Unconventional, probably.  But it works for us.

Birthday Girl!

"Oh yeah, I remember what this is all about!"  Exclaims the expression on Baby Miss's face as we celebrated her birthday last night with a cookie pie, ice cream and a few friends.  I have to laugh when I think about how we've scaled back on the birthday celebrations over the years.  With the Girl, every birthday included balloons, streamers, favors and lots of people.  Which equated to a stressed-out Momma that didn't even get to enjoy the moment cause she was too worried with the details...were there enough treat bags for everyone, was the house tidy with everything in it's place (a rarity that usually only occurs on such occasions in this house), etc.  All for a one, two or three-year old little girl who didn't care about such things and who had no such expectations.  With each successive child I'd like to think I've grown a bit wiser and now our birthday celebrations are pared down, more intimate versions of previous years.  And hopefully when they're older and look back at pictures they'll know that the lack of decorations or people wasn't because we loved them any less than a sibling but that we'd grown and learned what works best for our family.

 As this sweet pea turned two I mourned the loss of my little babe.  She is now a full-fledged toddler and has been for a while now but the age of 2 just puts a little finality on the conclusion of the baby years.  But, I didn't dwell on it because, man is this Baby Miss at a fun age!  She is fearless, expressive and funny.  Her vocabulary is like no other two-year old I have ever known.  In fact, this morning at her Well Child Check-Up, no sooner had the nurse asked if she'd started putting two or three words together to make phrases, than Baby Miss walked over to Little Sister, held out her box of raisins and asked in perfect pronunciation, "_______ (Little Sister's name here), would you like some raisins?"  The nurse just laughed and said, "Check."  She adores her older Sisters and is my cheerful morning person (quite unlike the other two).  She usually starts off her day by asking where the Girl and Little Sister are before we even make it out of her room.

And the dress that she is wearing in these pics, it's her favorite.  Her "ballerina dress."  A majority of her day is spent twirling when she wears this dress.  She doesn't mind being the center of attention and is pretty good at garnering it.

 This is her best little bud, Miss C, giving her some birthday love.

 The gifts were a hit this year.  She loves this little music box with it's twirling ladybugs...

and it's quite plain to see that she's smitten with this giant giraffe.  She brings a lot of joy and laughter to our house.  J and I are so abundantly blessed to have not one but three daughters, all of which are uniquely and wonderfully made by an amazing God, the ultimate Creator.  Only He could give gifts this good!  Happy 2nd Birthday Baby Miss!

Dude!

Yep!  Seven and a half years and three girls later, in April we welcome a little prince to this kingdom of princesses!  But maybe Baby Miss has known all along...she has been patting my belly and exclaiming, "Hi Dude!" from the beginning.  Our ultrasound was this afternoon and our technician, Carmen, was a riot.  We all filed into the tiny room and she said, "I guess I don't have to ask what you are hoping for."  She then proceeded to get down to business, as she was squirting gel on my stomach she said, "Well let's see if this little baby has some outdoor plumbing," and no sooner had she put the wand to my belly than up on the screen popped an unmistakable image that gave us our answer.  "Good thing you wanted to find out, otherwise baby would've just spoiled the surprise.  It doesn't get any clearer than that."  She then proceeded to check all of the other organs, major body parts and take the required measurements.  Baby Boy is healthy and measured big (by about a week), which was never the case with our Girls.  Carmen had fun drawing a ball cap on Baby Boy and commented, "Wow, this baby is gonna have fun.  Your family is like a circus."  In reference to the Girls who were a little wound up and enjoying the experience.  As for the Girls, the Girl voiced her preference on the way to the hospital that she hoped it was a boy or a puppy.  Good thing it was a boy cause puppy was definitely out of the question!  Daytona will undoubtedly continue to refer to him as "Dude" and Little Sister showed her first glimmer of enthusiasm.  Up until today she has refused to even acknowledge the situation.  J and I are excited that our last one will lead us into new and unchartered territory.  Not quite sure what to expect, other than the inevitable...that we'll get peed on quite a bit.

Practice

 This weekend we are at Poppie and Gramma's.  J is painting the inside of our house.  A much easier task without three munchkins underfoot so I decided to take the Girls and head over the mountains for the weekend.  Yesterday Baby Miss got to practice her blowing-out-the-candle skills with a pre-birthday celebration in her honor.

 She had the right idea but kept sticking out her bottom lip and blowing up, which was great for displacing her bangs but didn't do much in the way of putting out the flames of the candles on her cupcake.  It sure was cute though and she was persistent.

Her persistence finally paid off and she wasted no time in getting hold of that cupcake.

Earlier tonight we got to reconnect with old friends.  Friends that we don't get to see nearly enough.  They are the best kind of friends though, the kind that you just pick up right where you left off whether you saw them yesterday or 2 years ago.

Lovely.

As Baby Miss's birthday looms on the horizon, I couldn't help but think how she has transitioned from a baby caterpillar and emerged from her cocoon into a full-fledged toddler.  Very few traces of baby remain.  Sad in some ways but amazing in so many others.

Auto Mechanic?

Today I walked into the front room and saw this.  It's not the first time either.  This is a coffee table that my Dad made for us complete with cubbies for storing magazines and books.  However, the books and magazines have long since been cleared out for Baby Miss to do this.  Her work.  Possibly a future employment option.  {And, in case you were wondering, "No," her feet are not that big...Little Sister had a friend over to play today and those are her boots that Baby Miss is wearing.}