More pictures

Here's a link to more Jonas pictures.

Here's a link to more Hurricane Earl pictures.

Baby Jonas

Baby Jonas is adorable. He's a stunning little boy. I loved holding him. It made me remember how little my girls used to be...although it's harder to remember Sophia than it is Lilly (or Aubrey, I should say).

I flew down to meet Jonas and to give some moral support to Claire and Craig after Jonas returned home from his stint in the hospital. I was there for 3 days. I did a bit of this and a bit of that to help them out. Seriously, they barely took me up on my nap suggestions. Also, Claire's work is calling her and has come by twice to drop off a laptop and some cds & paperwork. Crazy. Jonas just celebrated his 7 day old birthday while I was there. Come on, people.

The girls were glad that I was home, but I wasn't! It looked like a whore-i-cane ripped through every single room.

Sidenote: Whore-i-cane is how Sophia says hurricane. She knew that our town was freaking out about Hurricane Earl. I guess it was pretty bad at the beach, but at our house it drizzled all day. I think we got some heavier rain overnight though. The girls went outside with their umbrellas today


I spent the entire day yesterday cleaning the house! I hired a babysitter to watch the girls during the days (from 10-6) and then Will took over the nightly routine.

Anyway, back to Jonas.. He's still sleeping all the time and he's just a little bundle of warm, cushy baby. So sweet. (Can you tell it made me kind of want another baby, but now that I'm home I kind of like the fact that Lilly is almost potty trained?) I warned them that at two weeks he's going to be awake a lot more. (smile) and need constant attention. I also warned them that life kind of stinks when babies start crawling.

I was able to help out with his first bath and that was quite interesting. He decided to poo and pee several times. Um, yucky.

Jonas is a good eater and sleeper right now. He doesn't wail out at all. He might give a small whimper once a day, but not much more. He's definitely what you call an easy baby, but I wonder if that means that they will have a hard toddler? Gosh, I hope not.

Yay Lilly!

Lilly went pee pee in the potty! She took off her diaper this morning so I pulled out the potty seat and told her that if she had to go she needed to sit on the potty and go. And she did. Right then and there. We all cheered and jumped up and down. What a big girl.

What a disaster!

Addie and her 6-week old brother, Aiden, came over this morning for a playdate. Their mom, Amy, and I had a great time catching up, but while we were busy chatting Sophia and Addie tore the house apart. They literally pulled everything out of Sophia's dresser and threw all her clothes all over the floor. They came downstairs wearing underwear on their heads and layers and layers of clothes! If that wasn't bad enough, they pulled out four board games and mixed all the pieces together. They played marching band and marched around the house shouting and playing kazoos, harmonicas (thanks Uncle Mike!) and tambourines. Lilly followed them around copying everything they did...especially the shouting part.

Lilly was also very curious about the baby. She rocked him in his car seat, covered him with his blanket and tried to give him his paci a hundred times.

The girls had a great time, but man the house was a wreck. When they left I sent Sophia to her room for quiet time and told her to clean everything up. She actually did! I was really proud of her.

Her robot

Lilly has a cute little robe that she calls her ROBOT. It used to be Sophia's when she was younger, but now it belongs to Lilly and she loves wearing it after her baths. It's so cute when she says I WEAR MY ROBOT, MOMMY.

Body painting

Sophia begged me to get out the finger paint this morning before we went to the gym. I obliged. I got both girls set up at the kitchen table. They had blue, red, yellow and green paint. Sophia was mixing blue and red to get purple and red and yellow to make orange. The next thing I knew she was covered in paint. Everything but her face was painted! Luckily Lilly didn't follow Sophia's lead.

Sophia was thrilled with herself because not only did she get to paint all over herself, but then she got to take a shower which is her new favorite thing to do. She's turning into quite the shower hog.

All alone at the botanical gardens

The botanical garden has story hour every Wednesday and since there are only a few Wednesdays left before school starts I took the girls today. It was just the three of us and we had a fun time without anyone else tagging along.

We didn't spend much time in the sprinklers, but instead walked around the grounds trying to "rescue Snow White" (a made-up game of Sophia's) and then spent some time in the Enchanted Storybook Forest.

They have seven houses for the kids to play in:
The Three Little Pigs
Little Red Riding Hood
Huck Fin
Alice in Wonderland
The Crooked Man
The Old Lady Who Lived in the Shoe
Old MacDonald

The girls liked exploring every nook and cranny of the houses since there wasn't a whole lot of people there today. At the very end of the day they finally made a friend and had a tea party with her for 1/2 hour in the Alice in Wonderland house.

Partners in crime

Lilly has a PAPPY (paci) in her crib. It's supposed to be used only at night, but she often runs up to her room and tries to reach it in the crib. Sometimes she succeeds. Sometimes she doesn't. She asks me for it and I always tell her NO! When I don't give in she immediately calls out Sophia's name to see if she'll cave and give her the PAPPY. Sophia thinks she's clever whenever she helps Lilly out with the paci.

Here's the photos taken at the Botanical Garden earlier today. Once again, we had a great time. Lauren (10) and Olivia (8) came with us. Lauren also brought her friend, Randy.

Sophia got to plant a flower seed in a bio-degradable flower pot (basically it was newspaper rolled up to look like a flower pot). Lilly planted one too, but her pot fell apart before we left.

Take a look at the photos. Lilly had a great time playing and running around with Olivia. Sophia was really brave and actually went into the big sprinkler this time.

Botanical Garden

We're off to the Botanical Garden today with the neighbor girls, Lauren and Olivia. I ran into their mom, Michelle, yesterday at Walmart and since we have barely seen each other this entire summer we decided to take a trip to the sprinkler garden today. Look for some photos later today.

A visit to the doctor

Both girls had to visit the doctor yesterday for their annual appointments. We were there for exactly 2 hours. Boy was Will irritated that it took so long.

Both girls had to get shots. Lilly didn't even cry when she got hers, but Sophia screamed bloody murder and is still limping around the house complaining that her leg hurts.

Sophia is charting at the size of a 6-yr old, but we already knew that and the doc predicted that she'll be 5 ft 11 inches tall. She currently weighs 51 pounds and is 46 inches tall. After her shots she got to pick out a few stickers. She took every single Snow White sticker in the bin (seven in total).

Lilly is in the 90% percentile in height which surprised us. She had a major growth spurt and grew 4 inches since her 18-month appointment. She weighs 29 pounds 3.5 ounces and is 36 inches tall. Lilly picked out a Thomas the Train sticker and I grabbed a few Hello Kitty ones for her too.

Lilly has to go back at 2.5 years old. Sophia doesn't have to go back until she's 5.

Both girls enjoyed receiving their free book or BOOKY, as Lilly called it. Lately she's been adding the EEEEE sound to the end of everything. BOOKY, DRINKY, BLANKEY, etc.