Fun with the Leahy twins!

So while big bro Aidan was galavanting through rain with his Nana and poor Daddy Leahy had to stay late at work, Kristin brought the 6 month old twins, Addison and Alec, over to play at my house last night for dinner. It was so much fun watching them! Oma and Pop-pop came to visit for a little while too.

Beca got another birthday present! Tinkerbell exploded on our floor! Way cute stuff from the Disney Store! Kristin is AWESOME!

Beca was starving after swim lessons so my parents hung out with the twins while the rest of us ate my version of chicken parmesan. Beca's reward for eating all her food (or whatever amount of it we said she had to eat) was to get to hold the twins. They were definitely bigger than the last time she asked to do that!! She wanted to hold "the girl" first.

Alec is a big giggler. It's very funny - got some good smiles out of Addison too!

Beca helped Kristin try to feed Alec his solid food but he didn't really want a second meal that day (they are just starting solids) while I fed Addison who is totally into eating, even if she laps it like a doggie (her mom's words).

Feednig cereal early on is messy - I forgot how messy. Alec was done first eating so he got a bath first while I finished Addison's eating. I then took Alec to get him dressed and Beca helped wash Addison - she was very good at it. The tricky part was what to do with Alec for a minute when I went back to get Addison to dress her - thankfully they don't roll far, yet. Beca tried to help feed a bottle but it was difficult because alec was already trying to fight sleep. While Kristin cleaned up, Addison snuggled down on me and fell asleep and Alec just sat and watched the happenings, fighting sleep the whole way. He finally shut his eyes when we put him in his car seat and there was nothing interesting to see.

I can't imagine doing that every night but as my mom sent me recently - "The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God cannot protect you". At least some parts get easier as they get older!

Beca's Birthday Bashes

Beca has the luxury of celebrating her birthday over an extended time frame. She's been getting presents occasionally since the end of May. It would have been earlier (like the beginning of May) but I made her save the presents from Grandma and Aunt Dawn. And we knew we'd be seeing Pop-pop's side of the family at the beach the end of June. A 2 month celebration is taking it a little too far, don't you think? However, I will state that I am all for birth month celebrations.
Bash #1 -
the first big celebration was a family party, which started early in the afternoon with the arrival of Emmaw and Aunt Jenny. Beca also had her friend Joliana over for the afternoon and it was fun just to have a small play time. I had a slight hiccup int he day when we went for the cake - they had never gotten my order - but they did a great job getting one together in time for my parents to run by and get it (just chocolate with vanilla buttercream iciing and pink flowers). Next, Allie arrived with her entourage (Joe, Erin and little bro Andy). We were opening some presents then. I was also in the middle of baking cookies (partially for the party but mostly for the Spruills because I believe in the healing magic of chocolate chip cookies when you have had a baby). Mom and Jen had to leave (always too short of a visit!) and then Jolianna had to head out too but no worries - the Horman and Queen families arrived! And then the Blooms! Yeah! Steve made kabobs - and they were good! Of course, the cake and presents were Beca's favorite parts! And she hadn't worn the pink birthday girl hat since her first birthday - I kept forgetting to pull it down! But she knew it was up there this year and had told us she needed a special pink birthday hat.
We used the bounce house for a while - always a crowd pleaser!
A cake fromm Blue Moon Cafe-yuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm!


Princesses all over the cake!
Andy and his Daddy
Beca and her "Nici crackers" - or crackers that Jan makes - or seasoned oyster crackers. but Nici crackers is so much cuter!My favorite party favor: (I ordered these from mymms.com - I'm not getting paid or anything, I just think these are the coolest gift for personalizing!)


Princess Isabel modeling one of my other favorite favors!
The next day we went to another birthday party - this time for Anderson Cole! He turned 4 and it was so much fun to see the Cole and Pipan families - I've been friends with Emily, Mikey and Mary since high school! Here's some picts of the birthday boy and his cousin Maddox, plus Beca on the playground:



Bash #2 -

OK, not so much of a bash but its nice to do something quieter with just our family group. So on her birthday, I wanted to do something that was sort of special but everyday too. First, we had lunch with Beca at SAS - Mommy, Daddy and Oma. With mini-burgers! she loved that. Then we had cupcakes with her class and Beca got to serve them to her friends after they had eaten their lunch. After sugaring up the kids, we took off so they could "nap". After school, there was supposed to be swim lessons but the weather was not cooperating and lessons were cancelled after we were already there and dressed. Beca took it ok when Denise explained it to her but that was only because she had gone through the meltdown earlier when there was thunder and lightning as she was leaving school. Oh well - we did get to talk to Grandma, who sang Happy Birthday to her. We headed to dinner - Beca's favorite restaurant is Torero's - chips and salsa, milk, and a chicken soft taco with only rice and no tomatos. And she will order everything herself, thank you very much. We did presents from Oma and Pop-pop and some clothes from Mommy and Daddy. Mostly nightgowns and a pink Disney princess robe (personalized, even) but some other clothes too - Hanna Andersson dresses that I was going to give her regardless but it was way more fun to wrap up. We had already given her the pink Jeep and the bounce house. Spoiled much? Whatever...



Bash #3 -

Princesses!! Except Beca just wanted to wear her Easter dress to start out. I knew that would change once the princesses began arriving. We had fun playing outside in the Jeeps and on the playground. Steve made burgers and dogs for the adults and the kids mostly had princess and unicorn PBJ's!

Queen Rebecca to the rescue with glitter for all the princesses!

Our token prince - Harrison

Caroline Grace shows everyone how to eat a cupcake: Beca and Kate

Beca and Caroline:Payton, Beca, and Kate:
Princess Kate:
Princess Caroline
Princess Flora
Princess Payton
Princess Alice (Beca)
Melissa Rose and Harrison wondering what in the world their parents are trying to do - and before Melissa figured out that this was her friend Harrison from her class.
Princess Flora
Beca with her flowers that she picked out to have at her party (and the like 4th wardrobe change):
Cupcakes - Beca assigned the princesses to each -Kate got Ariel, Caroline got Snow White, Flora got Aurora, Payton got Cinderella, Melissa Rose got Belle, and Beca took Jasmine. The one with the candles on it went to Harrison - it was cute and little! There is a 5th candle there - a princess castle.
The Princess line:
Princess Payton decides to smile
Princess Melissa Rose

It was such a fun day, even if it got a little muggy. The bounce house came into play again after the cake and presents. Beca's favorite toys were an MPG princess player, Cat in the Hat game and Cooties game! She also loves her new music box (which I sing little Einsteins songs to). there was actually a real nap time that afternoon in our house, which after a 5:30 AM wake-up seemed perfectly reasonable!

Swim lessons - round one - DING!

So, when we were on our Disney cruise in January, Beca loved the slide and the kids pool. But she did not like that she couldn't swim like the other kids. So she said she wanted to learn to swim. And I asked her if that's what she wanted for her birthday. She said yes.

March - I got up early and trudged to the YMCA to get a number on a cold Saturday morning only to return that evening to complete sign up. It worked out well for me. I got all my first choices - most everyone else was there signing up for daycare, summer camps and the like. Swim lessons for a beginner were not top priority for anyone else.

May 26 - Beca's first swim lesson. She loves her teacher, Denise. She had a lot of fun and was the only one to actually look really excited about being in the water, even though it was a little damp out that day.

May 28 - A bright, sunny day and this time Beca got to watch Elijah before lesson while he did swim team practice jumping in. Then he came down to say hi to her! They both thought that was pretty cool. Lessons themselves went pretty well - Beca is comfortable with the bubble and the noodle.

June 2 - yellow light, green light, blue light! And most importantly red light. Green light means kick your legs, blue light is scoop your arms and yellow light is blow bubbles. All 6 kids in class so it was a little full. But there was help for the class and they all made it down to the end. Beca likes to be first and chat with someone while she's swimming.

June 4 - a cloudy/rainy day - and Beca was the only swimmer! She swam the whole time too! All the way up to the end of the pool, scooping and kicking and blowing bubbles. She worked on jumping into the pool and climbing out. She learned how to be more still on her back. She learned soldier, airplane and mokey arm positions - I can see how all this will work into actually learning how to really swim later.

June 9 - Beca's birthday. The only lesson to cancel for weather - thunder right before the start of class kept anyone from getting in the pool :( Beca was sad but her Mexican dinner, presents, and cupcakes made it better.

June 11 - Class started with only 3 girls so things went pretty well. I have been able to keep Beca from seeking out goggles any more even though one of the girls insists on wearing them. Oma came to watch and I think all the parents got too involved this session (me included but Beca was not listening and she had done that all day so I needed to remind her of the safety reason for hanging onto the side of the pool while Mrs. Denise was working with someone else).

And today was final lesson. Steve had to cover this one but she did pretty well with the scooping and kicking. Not so much entirely with the listening.

Monday starts another round - this time more intense as it is every evening (M-Th) for 2 weeks. Hopefully, she'll be ready to swim at the beach then!

Welcome to some new princesses

I am so very excited that my AOE little sister, Cynthia, and her wonderful hubby Jason have welcomed two beautiful little girls into the world as of June 4! They are going to be the best parents for Evelyn and Jessica and I cannot wait to see what these twin girls will be like in a year! Luckily, they decided (I hope that cannot be translated that I badgered) to start a blog to chronicle the adventures that they will go through in the next few weeks as the girls grow from 2 pound babies to 5 pound babies. This is my newest blog to visit when I get a chance. And Beca is really excited for Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Jason too. Although, they probably won't need her to rid the house of pirates once Beca teaches Jessica and Evelyn to do it!

Happy 4 to Rebecca Dawn

Wow - today Beca turned 4 years old! She was so tiny when I first held her. And fairly quiet! But that has changed tremendously!! She has learned so many words and paragraphs and makes up the funniest stories! I'm constantly amazed by what she understands and knows. She can work on 50 to 100 piece puzzles now and is starting to really recognize her letters and get higher in her counting. We have a few weeks until her yearly check but she's already pretty tall and weighs about 40 pounds. Beca loves nightgowns and princesses, dress-up and dolls. She likes clothes and books too. Her favorite breakfast is either a chocolate pop-tart or chocolate chip pancakes, generally served with pink milk. Her very favorite TV show is Charlie and Lola right now, which causes our entire family to speak with a British accent and commonly use the words "actually" and "extremely". But she also is less afraid of things after watching this show. Rebecca also worries a lot about other people when she hears someone is sick. She asks about them a lot. She's been saying things about dying and being sad, asking questions and saying that she would be sad if someone died. Of course, she also says that if she eats the piece of meat we told her to eat that she will be so sad that she has to eat it. We also don't share properly (another Charlie and Lola word, enunciated such that it is clear that we are not doing whatever it is that she wants us to do). But she loves us soooo much. And we adore her. Here's our princess growing up:

Beca just a few hours old - June 9, 2005

Beca at her first birthday party - June 10, 2006

Beca at her 2nd birthday party - June 9, 2007

June 8, 2008 - Beca's 3rd birthday party

June 6, 2009 - Beca's 4th birthday party

We're excited for 4 - there are swim lessons already in progress (although thunder and lightning kept us from having them tonight and she was sad but understood), Beca wants to learn how to ride her bike and she wants Ballerina lessons. We're hoping her poodle blanket can become less of a permanent fixture and confine it to her room and work on sleeping through the night without wearing a pull up. All goals for this year, along with some fun surprises!