It's a fork...not a comb!

So this is what Anna decided to do today with her lunch of chicken and rice with applesauce!

When I first saw her put a little bit of applesauce in her hair, I tried to get it out with a wet rag, which Anna thought was quite funny. This also encouraged her to continue putting food in her hair including her chicken and rice. By the time she finished, she had made a mess and had to be put directly in the shower!!

Alexandra's sitting up!

Alexandra is now sitting up! Yay! This does make it easier for her to play and for the girls to play with her as well. She's so sturdy when she sits up, too! I've just started sitting her up in the past 3 or 4 days and she can already sit up (completely by herself) for 10-15 minutes or more at a time. Alexandra loves sitting up and playing with her toys. She's getting so big, so quickly! Before I know it, she's not going to be a little baby anymore!
Of course, Aubrey has to get in on the action. Now she can hold Alexandra all the time (according to her)...and ham it up for the camera with sweet kissed for Alexandra!

Messy Eater!

We've had a couple of great milestones for Alexandra in the last week or so. She had her first cereal last week at 5 months old. I did a little family research and both Aubrey and Anna had cereal before 5 months. It seems that with each child, I'm ok with them staying a baby longer and am not rushing the milestones. Milestones means that they are growing up and I just want to take my time with Alexandra.

She seemed to like the cereal, but as with all babies, she pushed most of it right back out with her tongue. More of the cereal ended up on her bib than in her tummy! Aubrey and Anna were, of course, very interested in Alexandra eating, but we distracted them with their own treats so that Alexandra could have her first meal in relative peace!

Mmmm, this rice cereal is good!

Are you kidding? I can feed myself!!!

She's a Climber!

If you give her long enough, she will find a way to climb it! Anna started climbing onto the kitchen table when she was only 13 months or so old, she climbs all the way to the top of the swing set fort without any help and climbs up the shelves in the pantry.

Tonight I caught Anna climbing up on the bathroom counter so that she could get the toothbrush to clean her teeth. I was in the bathroom giving Alexandra a bath and looked up and she was in the sink. I wondered how in the world she got up there, but assumed she climbed up onto the toilet. Boy, was I wrong. I took her off the cabinet, but by the time I turned around, she was scaling right back up the front of the cabinet. We have a short stool in front of the cabinet so that Aubrey can reach the water to wash her hands and teeth. This stool is obviously just tall enough to give Anna the boost she needs! Here's a series of pictures I captured of her scaling the cabinet.

Jesus would not be very happy....

I love how Aubrey is starting to incorporate Jesus into her everyday thinking and conversations.

Two nights ago Aubrey ate all of her dinner and asked if she could have a treat. I told her she could so we went into the pantry and let her pick her treat from the leftover Halloween candy we still have. She chose the Lifesaver gummies, which is always a favorite of her. After opening the gummies I told her to back to the table and sit down to eat her treat. Listening is definitely not one of Aubrey's strong points and something that I'm constantly working on.

Of course, she got up after the table after a minute or so and I told her again to go sit back down with her treat. On the second time of her getting up from the table with her gummies, I immediately told her to give them to me. She quickly put the last one in her mouth, but not wanting her to get away with this, I made her spit it out in my hand and then I told her to go to her room. Her time out now consists of her going to her room, shutting the door and sitting on her stool with her hands in her lap until I come to get her.

She immediately burst into huge tears and asked me what I was going to do with her gummy. I told her I was going to throw it away, which caused her crying to increase. She then went to her room crying her eyes out. Having to follow through on my words, I threw her gummy in the trash. After letting her cry it out for a few minutes, I went to her room. She promptly asked me where I gummy was and I told her it was gone. At this, she started crying even harder than she had before, but through her tears she managed to tell me, "Jesus would not be very happy that you threw my gummy away!" I pulled her to me in a tight hug so that she couldn't see my smile as she continued to cry and tell me how much Jesus would not be happy with me. After composing myself, I pulled back and told her, "No. Jesus would not be happy that you didn't listen to mommy."

Hopefully a lesson learned for Aubrey, but I kinda doubt it!

Sleeping Beauties

It always amazes me how the girls can fall asleep sometimes. Today, Anna fell asleep in her highchair while eating lunch! Now, I'm sad to say this is not a first, but it has been a while since she's done this. I always snap a picture of them when they fall asleep in places other than their crib just because I think it's so cute. Here are a few of the different pictures I have snapped over time of the girls sleeping.
This is Anna sleeping in her highchair today. You know she's tired when she didn't even have her pappy in her mouth!

This picture was taken one morning around 7:45. Anna woke up a little after 5 a.m. and refused to go back to sleep, so she decided to take a quick nap before we left to take Aubrey to preschool.

This is how I found Aubrey one day in her bedroom. She got out of bed, crawled into the little sleeper that holds her stuffed animals, wrapped the curtain around her and make a comfy bed for herself!

Anna sleeping in her high chair again. This is definitely her second favorite place to sleep!

Yes, that's Aubrey under that book! At least she's in the bed!

Aubrey was in time out and I guess she decided to just sleep it out! I left her there and she slept like that on the floor for over an hour and a half!

Once again, Anna sleeping in her high chair!

Sleeping together in mommy and daddy's bed.

Aubrey and Matthew sleeping in the car on the way home from an exciting trip to the Georgia Aquarium.

Tidbits

We are still working on Aubrey's listening. This is a daily challenge in my efforts to discipline her. Tonight, she got a "treat" of gummy life savers since she had a happy plate at dinner. I asked her three times to sit down at the table while she ate them. After getting up the third time, I took her last gummy from her (after she very hurriedly tried to put it in her mouth so I couldn't get it) and sent her to her room. She was terribly distraught that I took the gummy from her and she asked me if she could have it when she came out of her room. I told her that I was going to throw it away. At this, she threw herself on the floor crying and screaming! We never lack drama at our house. After she sat in her room for about five minutes, I told her she could come out. Of course, she asked me where her gummy was and I told her I had thrown it away, which I had. She burst into tears again and as she cried she told me, "Jesus would not like it that you took my gummy away from me!" So she wouldn't see me smiling, I just started hugging her and then explained, "Jesus does not like it when you don't listen to mommy!" I love that she references Jesus daily in her conversations with me even if it's while she crying her eyes out!

Our Friday night fun most often includes a dance off in the living room with Aubrey and Anna. Aubrey loves to get dressed in every piece of dress-up clothes that she has for the dance event. If we are lucky, she will also provide us with a great concert as the girls dance to the tunes on Comcast! We also have some great video footage of our little dancers. I sometimes wonder where they come up with their moves....

Anna is still not really talking! Her two favorite words are "Daddy" and "Hey." She is really starting to pick up on her sign language and would learn a lot more signs if I would just be consistent in signing to her. The signs she uses the most are more, please and no. We are working on thank you even though she has her own verbal version of thank you! I have to keep my eyes on her at all times or she's getting into something that she shouldn't be. As a climber, she has discovered how to climb the shelves in the pantry. I specifically put the gold fish on a higher shelf and I found her the other day standing on the second shelf and reaching for the gold fish! Another time, she got the gold fish without me knowing. Once it got quiet, I knew I needed to start looking for her. She was sitting on the floor in the kitchen enjoying the snack she got for herself!

Sweet Alexandra is growing so fast!!! She will be 5 months tomorrow! I can't believe how quickly she is growing. She has been rolling over both ways for a couple of months now and she tries her best to sit up on her own. She wants to be watching the action! She is definitely her mommy's girl! We spend so much time together and I feel like I've made a special bond with her much earlier than I did with Aubrey and Anna because they were in day care at this age. She's still sleeping in our room because I haven't taken Anna out of the crib yet. Anna is sleeping so well at night and I don't want to disrupt her good sleeping. I need at least one child who sleeps good! Since Alexandra is still sleeping in our room, I think this has added to our bond because most nights she ends up in the bed with me while I nurse her. Danny can't believe it took the third child to become spoiled by sleeping in the bed with us! I know I need to put an end to this soon, but since this is my last child, I just feel like holding on a little tighter!

Some other recent pictures:

Anna and Aubrey sleeping together for the first time and YaYa's house. I ended up getting in between them until they both fell asleep!

Our family!

At the Pumpkin Patch with mom and dad!

Trick or Treat!

We had a great Halloween this year! Aubrey dressed up as Cinderella and Anna and Alexandra were her pumpkins. They were prissy pumpkins with tutus and bows and they did not turn into a carriage at the end of the night! The girls had a blast trick or treating. It didn't take Anna long to figure out the drill. Ride in the stroller, get out at each house, knock on the door, get candy and then get back in the stroller to go to the next house. We are still eating Halloween candy, but at least we have treats (bribes) for a while!

This is the only picture I could get of all three of them, so I'm posting individual pictures below so you can see just how cute each of them were!

Ok...now I really feel like a horrible mom. So I started this blog so that I could record daily happenings, but then I felt that I needed to go back and record details of the first three years of Aubrey's life and the first year of Anna's. Like usual, I have put expectations on myself that just aren't reasonable. So now, plan B. I'm hoping to be more consistent with my posts of the small things that happen each day or every few days so that it doesn't become overwhelming.

This stay at home mom thing keeps me busier that I thought it would...but I wouldn't rather being doing anything else in the world. My life's dream has come true. I have the most wonderful husband, the most precious girls and I get to spend every day of my life raising children that I pray will grow to know and have a personal relationship with our Lord, Jesus Christ. What more could I ask for?

Sisters

Sisters...they are becoming best friends. On the way to school yesterday, I glanced back and saw Aubrey and Anna just holding hands. I moved my rear view mirror so I could watch them, then Anna took her pappy out of her mouth, kissed Aubrey's hand and then promptly put her pappy back in her mouth! Aubrey looked at her and smiled. My heart melted. Oh, how I pray that these precious girls will grow up to be the best of friends.

Granted, a few minutes later, Aubrey started screaming because Anna was clawing her arm. I will take the bad with the good!

Aubrey is definitely going through a phase of NOT LISTENING. I have to tell her four or five times every time I tell her to do something. She has been in timeout a lot lately, which is being by herself in her room with the door closed. While she was in timeout today, I heard her talking in her room. I went and asked her who she was talking to and she said, "Jesus." How can I stay mad after that?

Anna is STILL teething. I don't think it will ever end. She has become very attached to her blankie (and her LaLa, too) and won't get out of her crib without it. She has started kissing on demand. She puckers up with out any hesitation now when I ask her for a kiss, or two, or three.

Alexandra just smiles all the time! She really is a happy baby (I also remember Anna smiling a lot as a baby) and is still just going along with the flow. Anna is constantly all over her and she very rarely gets upset about it.

The First Daily Blog

Today was just one of those days where not much at all got done! Aubrey woke up before 6:00 this morning, but luckily, Danny was able to get her back to sleep (at least for an hour) and Anna has been a champ about sleeping late for the past week or so and woke up around 7:30. This is great considering she was waking up at 6:00 a.m. EVERY morning for the past few months!

As you can see, I've started writing these blogs late at night. As a working mom, I used to be in the bed every night no later that 10 so that I could get enough sleep to function the next day. Oddly, now that I'm staying home with the girls, I'm becoming a night owl. I still very much need my sleep to function and have patience with the girls, so I'm thrilled that Anna has started sleeping later. When Aubrey wakes up earlier, we are getting into the routine of her crawling into our bed to watch cartoons (preferably, Little Einsteins, which is her favorite) while I continue to snooze until Anna wakes.

I'm still trying to get into my stay at home mom routine, which is about to change anyway since Aubrey will be starting 3K at First Baptist Academy tomorrow, but it just wasn't happening today. Anna is STILL cutting teeth. It seems like she has been cutting teeth for the past 4 months...and she has. Her teeth are coming in much slower than Aubrey's did and must hurt a lot more. Anna was quite cranky this morning and wasn't satisfied with anything I tried to give her or do with her except to just hold her. This is a little difficult to do all day with Aubrey and Alexandra also demanding my attention. Aubrey was just wound up today. It was like she had an all day sugar rush and was bouncing from the walls. She talked non-stop and asked a million questions. Her favorite question: "But, why?" My favorite reply: "Because I said so." I think she is ready to be back in a structured school environment.

Alexandra only took short cat naps today, which always makes for an interesting day because this means she wants more of my attention, which I love to give to her, but like I said, is difficult to do when I'm trying to calm Anna down and keep up with Aubrey at the same time. Alexandra definitely doesn't get the one-on-one time that Aubrey and even Anna got when they were first born. I really feel guilty about this a lot of days, but she is thriving and is the happiest little baby. She loves watch Aubrey and Anna and she usually doesn't really have to search for them because they are all over her! Anna loves to kiss on her with her big slober kisses. Sometimes Alexandra's head will be wet from Anna kissing on her. So far, we haven't had any major oops with Alexandra. By this, I mean that her sisters haven't hurt her as they are loving on her. I'm sure this will come though either unintentionally and sometime intentionally.

Memories

I've had every intention of starting a handwritten notebook for each girl of all their milestones, funny sayings or faces, and just what they are doing on a daily basis. They are all growing up so quickly and if I don't record their lives in words, I'm afraid I will forget all the special moments we are sharing with each of them. My hope was to have a collection of notebooks to give each of the girls once they are adults.

Well, Aubrey is now 3, Anna is 16 months and Alexandra is 10 weeks and I haven't started the notebooks yet. In typical me fashion, I keep looking for the perfect, cutsie notebooks that would be the best memory book for each. As I'm doing this, I'm missing out on recording the special moments that are occurring on a daily basis. So...my new idea is to start a blog! I read on another friend's blog that these postings can be made into a book. I'll look further into this, but in the meantime, I have an outlet to capture my precious children's lives and to share their lives with our friends and family.

Since my dream of becoming a stay-at-home mom is becoming a reality, I look forward to spending each and every day trying to raise these little girls to know and love our Jesus Christ. God has so greatly blessed Danny and me with these beautiful girls! My cup runneth over.