Proud Mama with her chicks...

As I mentioned in the previous post, my friend Shawna took these pictures on April 1st at a nearby park. It seems like as parents (particularly mothers) we don't often get in the picture with our kids because we're too busy actually taking the pictures! So, I'm grateful to Shawna for having her camera there and then giving me a disc of these great shots. :)

11 months!

I thought I better get this post out soon since we are quickly approaching Miriam's first birthday!! I can't believe it. I know this sounds so cliche, but this year has flown by. I'll get more sentimental with her first birthday post, but Miriam has added so much to our little family. We love her so!

This was her first time on a swing. The girls and I had an impromtu playdate at a nearby park one night and my friend Shawna was there with her camera. She took several pictures of us which I'll share in another post. I'm glad she was there to capture Miriam's first swing ride!

I just took these pictures at home that same day (it was actually April 1st). I wanted to be sure that I got some 11 month pictures of her before I take her to get her 1 year pictures taken. What has Miriam been up to lately? Well, she is now crawling, although it's not a traditional "on her hands & knees" crawling. She sticks her right leg out and then kind of drags the left leg over. But, it gets her to wherever she needs to go! We're going to have to get the gates up soon, I'm afraid. She also has been trying to pull herself up on things. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she'll do that too. She loves taking a bath with her big sister and splashes & giggles like crazy. She doesn't like grass. I've put her down in the yard a couple of times and she just sits there with her little hands up like she doesn't want to touch the grass. What a little diva!

As you can see, she's got quite a bit of hair. We're going to take her in this weekend to get a haircut. I took Eleanor in right before her 1st birthday, so it's about the same timing. Miriam just has so much hair on top and it looks like a really bad comb-over. :) I also wanted to mention that Eleanor has become quite the watch-dog for Miriam. She'll call out at me, "Mom, Miriam is getting close to the TV" or "Mom, Miriam is getting too close to my Barbies." Eleanor will definitely have to take some lessons soon in sharing! :)

I've got some other posts I'm working on, so stay tuned!

The "Little" Dress

Do you recognize this dress?

Here is Eleanor at 7 months old in this dress for her first Easter. My aunt Janis knit and/or crocheted it. She looked adorable as you can see! I was hoping that Miriam would be able to wear it too, but it was just too short on her. While I was trying it on Miriam, Eleanor took it and tried it on. It looked adorable as a shirt! We then grabbed the matching hat for pictures.

Another shot of Eleanor at 7 months.

Easter baskets & Easter egg hunts!

This is the last Easter post - I promise! Here is Eleanor with her Easter basket. We told her that the Easter bunny comes through the neighborhoods while all the little kids are at church. But, you don't get an Easter basket unless you are a good boy or girl in church. That made total sense to a 3-year-old! She was a very good girl in church and got her basket. She got a new Belle Disney barbie and The Princess & the Frog DVD. Plus, some candy and other little things.

Of course, Miriam got a little basket too! She was also a very good girl in church. She got a board book about Easter and a Thumbelina DVD (I found it for $5 at Walmart!). Eleanor quickly claimed the DVD for herself...shocker.

Right when we got home, and while she was distracted with her basket, Michael ran out and hid some eggs in the yard. We then said that the Easter bunny must have "dropped some eggs while he came to deliver your basket." Once again, she believe it wholeheartedly! :) This kid thing is fun...

On Saturday we went to an Easter egg hunt at our church. That was great because they did a little devotion and activity at the beginning. This gave the parents time to hide all the eggs outside. We were all supposed to bring 12 eggs with candy inside. All the kids then could find 12 eggs, plus 1 egg with their name on it. That was perfect because then we didn't have to race to make sure she got some eggs (and fight through bigger kids to get the eggs). Plus, then the kids don't get so much candy.

That's all for Easter 2010!

Miriam's First Easter!

Baby's First Easter!

It's hard to believe that I was near the end of my pregnancy with Miriam last Easter. And now here she is almost a year old! She looked so sweet in her little dress - with ruffle butt tights (which Daddy at first put on backward, "honey, do the ruffles go in front?").

I put her hair up in a little ponytail on top of her head and then curled it just a bit. I can't really do much else with it right now because she now won't leave barretts in anymore.

All that Easter stuff is exhausting!

Hallelujah! He has Risen!

Easter 2010!

Eleanor looking beautiful in her pale yellow dress. It matched her hair perfectly!

Standing at the foot of the cross.

Our girls! Miriam wore a pale sage dress with white on top and little rosebuds. It was sleeveless, but our church is so hot that she was fine.

We hope you all had a blessed Easter. We spent ours just the four of us at home. We love our service at Zumbro and at the end they had a "community sing" of Handel's Hallelujah chorus!

More Easter pictures to come....stay tuned.

A couple things I forgot...

In Miriam's 10 month update, there were a couple of things I forgot to mention. One is that she has really "found her voice." She loves to squeal, screech, laugh, "yell," and make any other noise she can. Unfortunately, she has gotten in the habit in the last week of doing this at about 5:15 am. I think she's just practicing in her crib...but, it's 5:15 in the morning! She's loud too! It's like she's right next to our bed and I have her door closed. I just leave her because she's not crying (and because I'm so tired). She goes back to sleep after about 45 minutes of her rehearsal.

She has started to clap and rock to music. If she hears any sort of music she'll start rockin'! She also has discovered splashing. I let the girls take a bath together now and nothing brings Miriam greater joy than to splash her sister in the tub. We just have to be really careful because she'll get so excited that she tips over.

OK, that's all for now. So much growth & development happening!

Miriam - 10 month update

Before Miriam turns 11 months (in about 9 days!) I thought I'd better get an update on the blog for her 10 month status. She's really grown & developed over the last 4 or 5 weeks. She's still not crawling, but is able to get to pretty much get wherever she wants. She keeps trying to scoot backward and I think that's hindering her ability to actually crawl. But, I'm fine with that for now because she can't get too far out of my sight! The other thing she just started doing is getting herself back up into a sitting position (from laying/rolling on the floor). She also likes to do this in her crib when she gets up in the morning or after a nap. She looks so proud when we walk into her room!

She still eats quite a bit of baby food (along with her bottles) and just started to eat more finger foods. I started with Cheerios (instead of those Gerber baby puffs) and she really liked those. So, now we're on to crackers (Ritz are her favorite!) bananas, & little bits of whole wheat bread. And still with only the 2 bottom teeth, she devours all of it. :)

Check out that little belly over the pants! Love it!

She's a very happy baby! Laughing at Eleanor is still one of her favorite things to do. Eleanor is also so entertaining to Miriam and it's nice to have that aspect. I remember thinking that Eleanor was probably bored with me at home. But, having the sibling interaction is keeping us all busier. With the weather warmer, I was able to open up the porch and get that looking nice again. It works great as a little playroom. All of these pictures were taken in there.

That's it for now!

SPRING!

It's

finally

here!

A lot can happen in 5 minutes...

I asked Eleanor to "entertain" her sister while I took a quick shower this morning - and this is what I came into Miriam's room to discover. Eleanor had done both of their hair. She managed to get 4 barretts in Miriam's hair and several in her own!

A closer look at the "do."

As I continued to get ready in the bathroom (why I bother I don't know since I haven't even left the house today!), Eleanor found one of my old (and seriously ugly) nursing bras. Three-year-old humor!

Three Dancing Princesses

Exactly a week ago we went out to visit our good friends, The Nelsons. I know many of you follow their blog, The Nelson Nest. Bill & Amy had another beautiful baby, Isaiah, and we brought them a meal (Papa Murphy's pizza as I don't really cook for anyone!). Anyway, Eleanor absolutely loves playing with the big girls - Gloria & Violet. Amy suggested that Violet get out her old Snow White dress and pretty soon they were all dressed up. It was so cute to see Eleanor get so excited about all of it!

Note: you can click on any collage to make it bigger.

Amy is a wonderful photographer and also loves to play around with editing. It was so sweet of her to take the time to put these collages together for us!

And, of course, we can't forget about Miriam! She was there too...just not dressed up like a princess.

We always love going out to the Nelson house and in Eleanor's words: "It's so fun to be here!"