Eggstravaganza!

I have several blogs that I need to get posted, but just haven't had the time. So I will just take it slow and start with one at a time, and go in chronological order, just so you don't get confused. :)

This blog starts the weekend before Easter, when our church holds their annual egg hunt. Like last year, the day dawned gray and rainy, so the festivities were held indoors. At this point, I wonder what it's like to have them outdoors - indoors seems to work so well! We tried to make the best of a gray morning at home, by making fresh cinammon rolls for breakfast. Hayden (as well as the rest of us) thought they were delicious.

There might have been some other 'bunny' business as we got ready for the egg hunt.

Eliza got to be in the 1-2 year old egg hunt and she did great! Given our recent practice egg hunts, she was well primed and picked up lots of eggs! She could have been a little more efficient, since she continued to exclaim over almost every egg she picked up - but I'll take enthusiasm over efficiency while she's little. :)

Even Molly got her own egg, but she wasn't sure what to do with it.

Hayden was in the 3-5 year old egg hunt and had a great time flying around the youth room looking for eggs. I couldn't even get a good picture, because there were so many people in there and she was so busy. But she found plenty of eggs and had fun doing it!

After egg hunts, we headed upstairs to see what other fun things we could find to do. Both girls got their faces painted - can you tell what each one picked?
Then we went into the fellowship hall to get some food. We enjoyed the hot dogs and drinks, the girls decorated sugar cookies for dessert. All in all, a very fun Egg-stravaganza! (by the way, how would you define extravaganza? Hayden was asking and I think I said something about a really big event with lots going on. Not a word I use very often!)

Checking out their haul on the way home.

Then, since an egg-stravaganza just wasn't enough excitement, after naptime, the girls made some new friends that Jason found while mowing the lawn.

Can you guess what's in the bucket?!

Toads!

The humidity made the toads happy and really helped Eliza have a good hair day!

They bonded over the toad examination.

Oh and Molly also developed pink eye that weekend. We got to go into the doctor on Sunday morning. Yay! (don't worry, she's all better.)

Can you see the pink eye coming? I'll spare you the pictures I took of it up close and personal.

7 months!

Molly is 7 months old today!

She is getting so big and so interactive. Hayden and Eliza love to play with her and make her smile. She's starting to get a real good giggle going that is so addictive. Once you do something that makes her giggle, it's hard not to do it over and over and over, no matter what other tasks need to be done! She's also getting much more distractible - if you can find something new to give her, then she grabs onto it and checks it out for a bit (like right now, she's exploring a duplo car so I can write this!)

love that smile! It comes so easily these days!

Not quite sitting up yet, or even rolling over much, but it doesn't seem to bother her. She just plays with toys and watches her busy family quite fine from one spot. I do think she's going to be mobile any day now. She's twisting and turning and discovering that she can do things to make herself move. I saw her spin 180 degrees today on her back while getting some floor wiggle time. So any day now!

What you want me to show off my skills?
I prefer staying on my belly, feet up, ready to face plant.

And this weekend we will finally introduce her to something other than breastmilk. But the big question is, Will she be ready for a chocolate bunny by Easter?!
Her powers of cuteness at 7 months are very strong. She can make me not mad at her even when she continues to wake up at night with a single well-timed grin. However, her powers weren't not quite strong enough to help out the Heels; though both she and the team gave a valiant effort this past weekend!

Happy 7 months Molly! I think this next month is going to be a big one!

Eliza 2.5

Eliza is two and a half years old today! As the middle child, she probably doesn't get as much blog attention as she should, since Hayden is always doing the cool oldest stuff, and Molly is doing the cute baby stuff. So Eliza deserves her own entry for once.

At 2 and 1/2, she is quite a conundrum of a child, and can seem both so old and so young at the same time. She is a child who can use the words "lovely" and "actually" correctly without any prompting at all. She climbs just about anything and then jumps down, proclaiming it "a very big jump!" quite proudly. But then Hayden tells her not to do anything and she comes to me sobbing because "Hayden yelled at me." If she is denied something that she wants, she often dissolves into tears.

jumping in our backyard

climbing at a favorite park

Eliza is a child that loves to eat. She will try just about anything as I cook or bake. She'll take a taste, tilt her head to the side and announce quite seriously, "I like it" or "I don't like it" whether it's flour, or pizza dough, or hummus. You have seen in previous blogs how she's a mooch and will ask for food from just about anyone. She still needs her milk - nicknamed "milky" by her- but also likes to eat quesadillas, avocados, sausage, pizza and just about any sweet treat she can get her hands on. At this point, she's much more likely than Hayden to try something new. She asks for the lemons from people's drinks when we go out, and actually eats them.

look at that grin!

She has a growing love of books, though she tends to read one and then stick with the same one for a few days. The Big Red Barn, Olivia, Going on a Bear Hunt, and Edwina, the Dinosaur who Didn't Know she was Extinct have been some of her favorites recently. She also loves music and sings along with all kinds of songs in the car. Hayden, Eliza and I recently put together a CD to listen to, and I think Eliza likes the songs I picked out (that are not official kid music, just upbeat happy songs) best. Also, I've started going to a music class with her but we don't have a CD of the music. Even so, I still hear her singing the songs to her animals several days after we've been to class (and we don't even go every week!).

Eliza is quick to go from super happy to super sad and then right back around to super happy. She loves to be close and touching. At dinner, if you sit next to her, she is likely to pet your arm, or pull at your shirt sleeve. At a recent playdate, the other mom spent more time holding Eliza than her own daughter, because Eliza just somehow managed to convince the mom to pick her up. She has a wonderful smile and infectious laugh. She dotes on Molly and is completely enamored with Hayden, even if Hayden spends much of her time bossing her around.

Molly says: which one are you again?

watching Hayden's dance class intently

no Hayden, I want to do it myself!

She is also quite goofy. She makes funny faces, does funny walks and just acts so silly sometimes. She's started laying down in the bathtub amidst the bubbles, pretty much floating on her back. She'll be swimming this summer. Sometimes she just spins (or runs around) in circles till she's dizzy.
goofy example #45: took off her pants in the kitchen for no reason, put them on the floor and started sliding them around, butt up in the air. did this for several minutes!

And no discussion of Eliza is complete without talking about clothes. The girl changes clothes faster than you can blink. She can dress herself no problem, though by some strange ability her shirts almost always end up backwards. And she changes clothes ALL DAY LONG. When sorting thru the clothing that has collected on her bedroom floor, it's hard to determine what needs to go in the laundry because I can't remember how long she wore something. My current default rule is whether she wore it to school or if she wore it to a meal that was messy. She changes clothes because she's hot, because she needs to match someone else (Hayden's wearing a skirt! Mommy is wearing jeans! Daddy is wearing a Tar Heel shirt!), because she got something wet, because this shirt is more comfortable, and simply just because.

vaguely 50s-ish style. in her "lovely" skirt and "fancy" shoes

gauchos and a tunic dress. when you're Eliza, that combo works!

wearing a cropped sweater? who needs a shirt underneath!

And if you aren't admiring her fashion choices, then you are probably admiring her hair. Because it is awesome. Curls galore. She gets comments ALL the time when we are out. We haven't cut it yet, because we just don't know what we want to achieve with a haircut. It is just awesome, and it is Eliza.

Eliza 2.5 is pretty awesome. I can't wait to see what future models can do!

Going Green

We had a wonderful St. Patty's Day last weekend. The weather was warm and sunny and everyone in the family was in a good mood; must have been the luck o' the Irish smiling down on us because we were all wearing green!

The kids thought it was pretty fun to dress as a theme, though I'm not sure they understood our interpretations of St. Patty's Day traditions. Both Hayden and Eliza lamented that they were unable to dress in head to toe green, even though we told them they just had to have some green on. Molly managed to stay in green all day, even though she went through at least three outfits. (She's a drooling, spit up machine!)

Later in the day, Hayden asked where the people were who were going to pinch us. I'm still not sure if she meant leprechauns or some mean green-loving strangers. Eliza kept asking to go over to a neighbor's house - that we have never been inside, we always say hi outside - and when I asked why we would go over there, she said, because we're wearing green! I think she might have been confusing Halloween and St. Patrick's Day.

We also had fun trying to do theme foods. Eliza had green oatmeal for breakfast (and asked for it again a couple days later!) We made Irish Soda Bread for dinner. For dessert, we made and decorated cream cheese sugar cookies. It was a fun day!

Molly 6 months

Can you believe Molly turned 6 months old this past week? She has come so far in the past 6 months. In the beginning, she was this scrawny little newborn and now she is this chubby, smiley baby.

I would have posted this on her "birthday" but I was waiting until we went to the doctor for her checkup, and that wasn't until yesterday. The doctor said she was looking good, very social and a big cutie. :) She weighed 14 lbs, 5.5 oz and was 25.25 inches long, which puts her in the 25th and 30th percentile respectively. She was a real trooper at the doctor's office. She loved the giant mirror. And she recovered quite quickly from the FOUR shots, plus one oral shot, that she got. She's a tough little girl!

holding hands with her 'twin'

who is that handsome baby in the mirror?

Though the blog entry is a bit late, I did take pictures on her official 6 month birthday. Isn't she a cutie?

look at that head control.

Of course, the head up doesn't last long, and then she buries her head, while sticking her butt up in the air. She's still working on coordinating those limbs.

Now I think you should know that I spent most of the photo shoot alternating between making funny faces at Molly to get her to smile and trying desperately to keep her sisters off the bed and out of the pictures. But you can hold off Hayden and Eliza only so long, so soon they joined the photo shoot.

say cheese!

why are you fussing Molly?
You don't get personal space when you are the youngest!

fingers in the mouth are funny!

Happy 6 Months Birthday, Miss Molly! You're pretty cute, so I think we'll keep you!