All about Me

With Charlie closing in on two-years (although the appointment isn't until August) he's definitely starting to pick up the pace with his words.

I've come to realize that "B" may be his favorite letter because of all the words he knows that begin with the letter. Ball, bat, baseball, bubbles, baby, etc., but he is expanding on what he will say even though I doubt there is meaning tied to all the words that come out of his mouth. Case in point: purple. He says it, and it's funny when he does, but I'm not sure if he knows that it is a color.

His "kkkkk" sound (or however you spell it) is almost nonexistent now (and I'm worried that I never got it on tape! Why am I so bad at video-ing my kids?) and he's attempting to make more words, regardless of whether we know what he's saying.

Something he does that I find funny is saying names. He has his own way of saying each of our names, reserving "Baby" for Meredith. When I ask him to say his name he says--very enthusiastically--"ME!"

Six Weeks of Meredith

Soon, she'll be smiling! We get little glimpses of it every once in a while, I just don't have the camera ready!

Trying out her highchair. Not sure if she likes it.

Meredith and her cousin/aunt, Katie

Such a lovely dress.

Trying out the swing while her brothers are out of town.
She likes it.

There's not a hole in his pocket

The boys came home, meeting us at Uncle Nate's for a cookout and it was GREAT to see them! They had a good time with Grandma and Grandpa, spending the week going to the Clippers game, a farm, visiting their great-grandparents, and even going to Chuck E. Cheese's!

We had great weather for the cookout we were having to celebrate Nate and Jeff's birthday. Nate's house has a nice backyard, where we spent most of the day. There were coolers set up with drinks and the uncles got Ben to get them drinks by "tipping" him. He'd put his earnings of coins in his pockets and I soon came to realize that they weren't the only things in there!

I may be the only one that familiar with the movie (besides Aunt Joanie), but in Bedknobs and Broomsticks the younger brother has an odd assortment of things in his pockets, like a bed knob for instance. Benny doesn't carry bed knobs around in his pocket, but you might be surprised with what you would find! He's very protective of his valuables and wants them to be close by him :)

Sleep, reminiscent of five years ago

While the boys were gone this week I've been experiencing something I haven't since Lou was a newborn. Although I didn't bring Louie in bed with us I would wake up throughout the night with the thought in my head that he was caught in the sheets or that Kevin had rolled on top of him. It was a terrifying experience, and I since then found out that it is common for new moms to have this happen.

It's strange, because it never happened with Benny or Charlie, and up until this week, hadn't happened with Meredith. Let's just say, this is not something that I missed!

Reagan Visits Meredith!

My good friend Jamie came for a visit today, bringing with her Miss Reagan who is almost 3 months old. The girls had a great time, and learned that they had a lot in common like clothes and toys. Ah, it's so nice to have friends who have kids my kids' age. With Charlie I had a few friends who had kids, but with Ben and especially Lou I kind of felt like I was having these experiences by myself. This time around it was so nice to be able to talk to people during my pregnancy who knew exactly what I was going through, and ask for advice or commiserate with the gals who if they did experience it that day, they had it happen the day before.

It'll be so neat to have our kids all grow up together!

One Month Appointment

Miss Meredith had a pretty good appointment, overall. She is dealing with a tear duct that doesn't want to work properly, but it sounds like with some massaging it should get better in the next 7-9 months. This is coming from an overly protective doctor, so if she's not too concerned, I'm not going to be.

So worried about her weight a few weeks back and today she had gained three pounds! She's up over ten pounds now, but still at 21 inches. The nurse said that hospitals are least concerned about babies' lengths, especially when they are slimy and squirming, so chances are she wasn't exactly 21 inches at birth. I was wondering why all my kids were pretty much the same length when they were born...

She got a shot in her thigh, but only cried for a moment. The more painful part of the visit was being there for an hour when it shouldn't have taken longer than twenty minutes because a hot-shot resident doctor was expanding Meredith's and my mind with all his big medical mumbo jumbo. Sorry. We had just come from the zoo and my little girl wanted to have lunch and relax at home, not hang out all day at the doctor's office. Thank goodness the boys weren't there! I can't imagine how long the "see what animals you can find in the border" game would have lasted.

Girls gone wild...at the zoo

Meredith and Grace went on their first trip to the zoo. Apparently, the excitement was just too much for them and they both slept through the entire visit. Oh well. We got a few cute pictures and the mommies had fun watching the polar bears swim, and desperately searched for the new baby tigers in the shrubbery.

There's a chimp in there somewhere. Can you find it?

Waterfall shot of the girls

Grace wore the cutest giraffe shirt, so of course we had to get her picture taken with them!

We had such a nice time, and maybe on our next visit the girls will enjoy it, too!