Thirty

I'm 30 years old now, as of the 12th.  I had one weird moment where I felt a little sad about getting older, and then I didn't care anymore.  Ha.  

The kids had all made me cards, which they hid under my pillow and said I could open in the morning. 

All day, any time they remembered, they'd bow to me and call me "Your Thirties", which was sort of a spin off of "Your Highness" I gathered.

 Then I spotted a cake box in the fridge with this sweet message from my husband:

Our day was pretty normal, Jess had to work and the kids and I just hung out at home.  They were especially into stickers that day, so we were all covered in them.

Late in the afternoon some kids knocked on the door, selling candybars.  I talked to them, bought one, and then when I shut the door Cason goes "Shouldn't you take the stickers off your face?"  Haha.  I had them ALL over my face while I talked to the kids. 

Jess made me delicious lasagna for dinner, and the kids threw me a party.  While they set up, they wanted privacy, so I went to my room and got to cuddle a napping girl while watching Netflix on the Kindle.

The party meant I got to relax on the couch mostly, watching them dance to some of my favorite music.  Paige did this birthday dance for me:

Then we had that cake that got me called a Bozo.

 

 It was pretty much my ideal evening.

Her Arms Are Too Short

 This is a couple of weeks old.  The girls were dancing for us first thing one morning, and I loved this moment when poor Neely tried to dance like her big sister.  So cute and funny.

Our Little Ballerina

Our little ballerina girl has really liked dancing lately.  With music or without, doesn't matter to her.  She does this windup with her arm,

 and then spins around,

and then the finale is a really cute pose with her leg lifted up behind her, or sometimes out to the side, and she usually tries to balance on one leg like that.  (although in the first pic she's trying out the hands on the step version)

She has watched Angelina Ballerina with Paige a couple of times.  We might have to sign her up for Princess Ballet one of these days.

Soopee Quat

Last night the girls and I rented Alice in Wonderland and had a movie night in our bed.
Jess and Cason got sleeping bags out in the living room and watched Superhero Squad.
In the morning Cason wanted to watch his Superhero show in our room, so we had a lazy morning watching it in bed. Neely loves it almost as much as Cason does, and she also loves watching him play the Superhero Squad game. She calls Superheroes "Soopeez" and Superhero Squad is "Soopee Quat". She gets very excited for the theme song, says "Dancin!" and dances to it.

Emails from Santa

We've been on a muffin kick lately. This weekend we couldn't agree on whether to make some mixed berry muffins, or banana muffins, so I invented bananaberry muffins. (Actually I'm sure it's been done before, but I'm gonna pretend we invented it). They were awesome. I made banana ones this morning. The kids loved the crumb topping, and Cason wanted to just eat the muffin tops, and then get another. Ha.
We've also been having some dance parties, and Neely has added some incredible moves to her repertoire. Her moves up until a few days ago involved pretty much just her lower half. But suddenly her arms are involved, and it's amazing. I'm gonna do my best to get some video of that tomorrow.
She also makes little monkey sounds at us when she wants something. Usually it's when she brings us a book she wants us to read. She'll hold it out toward us and grunt "Uh-uh-uh-uh" and it sounds like a perfect monkey impression.

Paige still has a pretty bad cough, and Neely's got a runny nose. :( I thought Paige was feeling okay though, until she had quite the attitude all day, which makes me think maybe she IS a little grumpy.

Speaking of which, she was being a grump during dinner, and ran off to her room, crying. Pretty soon we were eating dinner while listening to her cry loudly from her room: "If you want me to say sorry, come carry me out there!" Ha. We ignored her and kept eating. Neely was in her highchair, chowing down. At one point, she said, without looking up from her food, "NO Paige." She sounded like a little parrot. Her pronunciation of Paige is so cute. Sounds like "Paidsh".

This morning I opened their emails from Santa, which they loved. They each had one sent to them, and Santa talked TO them, using their name, which made them light up. It was SO cute.
Paige got shy, like he was right there, talking to her face to face.

Ballerina Paige

The last couple of days we've spent mostly at Paige's rehearsals.
The recital was tonight. SO cute.
Paige and Lily are in different classes, which was actually nice, because then we could actually see our own kid AND our niece dance. Because how can you tear your eyes away from your own baby dancing on stage.

Between dances, the lights on stage would be turned off while the dancers got into position. When Paige and her class walked on, it was all quiet and dark, and Cason loudly said "I can see Paige in the dark!" It was cute.

Paige had her little shy face on, but did such a good job, and looked so pretty. My eyes started to water, but I didn't want my mom to make fun of me so I was keeping my head turned more toward Jess on my other side. Haha. We're so lame. I used to be able to will the tears away when I thought I was going to cry, but I have way less control since having kids. I cry pretty easily now.

It's so cool to see your baby doing something like that. I felt so proud and happy. You really do want to tell everybody "That's my kid!" Haha.

I went backstage to get her and she came running up and attacked me. We'd gotten her flowers, but I left them with Jess out front, so I wouldn't have so much to carry. She saw all the other girls getting flowers and stuffed animals, and asked me why the other girls "won". Haha, so cute and sad. So thankfully Connie had cash on her so we could buy a stuffed ballerina bunny last minute and make Paige's night. Here's a blurry picture of how happy it made her.
She also had 3 bouquets of flowers and was SO happy. She always gets excited when Jess brings home flowers for me, and he'll give her a couple of them. But these ones were ALL for her, and she was very excited.
I got like 3 pictures for some reason. I guess she snuck out some makeup while they waited backstage and put on some more, so her left cheek got some extra pink. I'm not surprised, I caught her putting stuff on in the bathroom before we left and she said "I'm just putting on a little extra, so it will look even prettier." :)

When we got home she changed into pajamas, had me wash off her makeup (which makes me feel like a weirdo by the way, putting makeup on my four year old), and took down her hair. Then she ran around all hyper and pumped up. She goes "I was SOOOOOO happy because of the flowers." Then she told me "I was soooooo embarrassed because of all the flowers. I'm blushed." Haha.
My little brother Matt had his graduation from chiropractic school today too. Sorry we couldn't be there Matt, but we're proud of you and we love you.

Thanks to all our family and friends who could come watch Paige tonight, and for the rest of you, there was no video or flash photography allowed, but you bet your biscuit I ordered the dvd.

LAME

You know what's disappointing? When you do the usual countdown to the weekend, getting excited that you're one day closer to the weekend, when your husband's home with you, and then on Friday you suddenly realize you've been in denial. There won't BE a weekend, you'll drive your husband to the airport on Saturday so he can go to a conference in Chicago and not get home until late Sunday night, only to start another work week Monday morning.

Also disappointing? Your seemingly healthy older daughter starts coughing a bad croupy sounding cough. Before it started:
Now, she's sleeping on the couch, waking up asking for hot tea with honey, and every time I make her a new cup I bring it to find her asleep again. She wakes up right about the time it gets cold and asks for another. Ha.

But NOT disappointing is having this guy:
singing in the backseat of the car. He requests Cupid by Otis Redding now, and has memorized lots of the words. He sings them and dances. This is his usual move for the "Draw back your bow-woah" part:
I'm pretty sure he's drawing back his bow-woah.

Also not disappointing: Neely starting to use the jumperoo.

Waiting

No baby yet, our internet was just not working for about 3 days. I DID have an appointment yesterday though. He said I'm now 2 cm, 70 % effaced, and the baby's REALLY low. I can tell the baby's lower now too, I can breathe again, but can barely walk sometimes. Ha. Our original due date was today!

Other than that, we've been up to very little. I'm definitely having a hard time walking around, but I have energy all of a sudden, I've even kept the house relatively clean, AND I got 1/8 of the way through quilting the boy quilt today.

It's sad not having the internet, I know both kids said some hilarious things the last couple days, but since I wasn't blogging I didn't get them written down and have forgotten most of them. Although I DO remember one Cason said. We were cuddling on the couch and he pulled his shirt up to look at his belly. He was watching it go up and down as he breathed, and then he goes "Mama! My BABY'S moving!" I was cracking up.

Paige seemed really tired the last couple days, and had some serious tantrums too. Yesterday she took a nice nap though, which NEVER happens anymore, and it seemed to help.
While she slept Caso and I played "Mowercycooz" for a good 45 minutes. Of course there was lots of "felling" and "dwiving fast!".
Sometimes he likes the toys to suddenly notice him there, and talk to him as if he's a giant. He tells them "I CASON!"
We also had 2 big dance parties in as many days.

Starbucks and a Dancing Boy

I was kind of lame today. It got hot again, so I was feeling sort of lethargic, and got all sad for no reason at the end of the day. So Jess was making me laugh by making fun of Starbucks and the complicated orders. Here's one example:

"Vanilla order, deep and tall, black coffee swirl with full bean count."

His delivery was awesome, so I was cracking up. Paige thought it was funny too, so she started making up her own.

Her drink creation was the "Vanilla top blueberry crack crack cracker." Haha.

Anyway, I need to get some decent video in the daytime, but here's a little taste of Cason's moves. Even if it IS just his silhouette you can see. Ha. You only need to bother watching the first 15 seconds.

Sleepovers and Swords

Paige asked the girls to stay over again. (Speaking of which, she's been asking for Lily too, Veronica, but I never want to ask you in front of Lily. So let me know if and when Lily's ready to stay over here some time)

On the way home we stopped at Safeway so Jess could run in for tomatoes for dinner. The girls and Cason and I stayed in the car. I looked back at him and he had his extra cute "about to dance" smile on. So I smiled back and he started doing the little wiggle he does with his shoulders when he's strapped into his carseat but really wants to dance. Then he goes "Shake da booty". Haha. We were cracking up, so he said it like 10 more times. Good man.

Their sleepovers are getting so cute. We walk in the door and first thing, Paige turns to the girls, twirling her hair, and says "Wanna go in my room?" So they all went to play in the bedroom, while Jess and I went to start dinner. After a little while Paige came in asking where she could find a brush so Alex could do her hair. I told her to look in the drawer, and didn't see them for a while. It was pretty quiet, so I sent Jess to check on them. He said Cason was leaning against the bed, Faith was sitting ON the bed, and Alex was braiding Paige's hair. It sounded like such a cute scene to me for some reason.

By the time I went to get pictures though, Cason was up, helping "do" Paige's hair.
Her first ever braid was really cute, but she made Alex redo it, so she'd have TWO braids.
The third attempt finally pleased her.The rest of the time I was cooking, they spent running screaming away from Cason, who was apparently spraying them with the spray bottle no matter how many times they begged him to stop. Then he picked up his sword, and stood in his tough guy stance in the middle of the room swinging it while the girls screamed and ran around him trying not to be hit.

Every time I blog I want new carpet. :(

Tiny Scotties

A couple days have passed. We did a little cleaning. Had a couple dance parties. This one was planned and executed by the kids without any help from us. They even set up chairs so they could take turns dancing and watching from a seat.

Paige dancing, Cason watching:
Cason dancing, Paige watching:
Saturday I had a baby shower, a visit from an out of town friend and her new baby, and then we went to dinner for Alex's birthday. After the dinner the girls came to spend the night. They were really excited, so we went to Hastings for a movie. Faith decided she wanted to go home with her mom before we even made it to our house. Haha. But we went home so they could play a little while before her mom got there. Alex did some cooking, sometimes with, sometimes without Paige. (Sorry in advance for how dark these pictures are, our camera's not doing too hot)
Faith ate cookies and threw "bones" for the little dog children to fetch.
After Faith went home the other three settled in to watch what may have been the most poorly made movie I've ever seen. "Cop Dog" in case you're wondering. But they liked it.
I couldn't watch too much, so I worked on a little baby project. Little tiny scottie dogs for a mobile for the baby's room. They were fun to make, quick and easy and cute. They'll just need little pink bows or blue collars later. Then I had to make bigger ones for the kids, because they kept stealing my tiny ones.

We also had the 4th of July/Mollie's birthday of course. I forgot my camera though. :( It was smaller and quieter than usual, but still lots of fun. I may have tried 3-4 different desserts. Shooting for an 80 pound weight gain this pregnancy. Paige wanted to watch a movie at Mollie and Tim's, so we kept the poor people awake longer than they probably wanted. Then she didn't want to leave when we tried to convince her to in the middle of Snow White. So Mollie asked if she wanted to stay the night. She said yes, so we kissed her and said our goodbyes. Then we drove for a few minutes, waiting to see if we'd get a call that she changed her mind. We did, of course. This was only her 2nd time even thinking about spending the night somewhere, so she's not QUITE ready. So we turned around and picked her up again. :)