An AWAY Play Date

Our house is too hot and muggy for playdates to be much fun in the summer, so Veronica hosted US today. We put Neely in the stroller, and Paige hopped on her scooter.
Caso walked with me, and kept Neely happy when she wanted out of her stroller.
I purposely brought my camera, with plans to take lots of pictures, but the only time I remembered to get it out was when Sophie clung to her mama's leg, which I thought was really cute.
Soon after I took this Neely crawled over and pushed her forehead into Sophie's and made her cry. She and Cason have both done the affectionate forehead smashing thing. But poor Sophie didn't know it was a sign of love.

A bit after everyone else went home Neely started to get tired and fussy, so we packed up our stuff and walked home. Neely was still sad, so I let her play with my phone, and I made a curtain out of my nursing cover for her, to block the sun. She was fast asleep within about a minute, plump legs hanging limply over the seat.
Paige thinks it's quite a long walk from Veronica's. Ha.
We hung out in the front yard, waiting for Jess to get home. Cason has a new (to him) pair of boots and a hat, so he doesn't have to wear Paige's boots anymore.
And unrelated, but sweet: Tonight I looked down just in time to see Neely lay her head down on Gia's rump and cuddle her for a minute.

I'm 28

I had a really good birthday. I spent the morning hanging out with the kids and answering lots of happy birthday calls. Then around lunch time Jess surprised me by coming home early for the day! With lots of treats for me too.

Later, Grammy showed up bearing gifts AND babysat so Jess and I could go on a mini-date to get frozen yogurt. It was my first time, and I had a raspberry pomegranate kind, and it was really really good. I forgot my camera of course. We even got to drive around downtown looking at all the really old houses I love. I always want to do that, but Paige hates it and begs to go home the whole time.

I also had a softball game, but before we left I decided to try for some pictures with all 3 of my kids. Not so easy to get them all to pose together.
I love everybody in this next one:
Then we went to my game, which we lost, by 10. After that we stopped at Walmart because Paige REALLY wanted to go shopping for a present for me. So we split up, Jess with the older two, and me with Neely, so they could shop in secret. Then we came home, where they presented me with my gifts. Cason was so excited, he got me a honeysuckle scented candle.
And Paige picked out some "jewels". A pretty locket. :)
They even made flowers for me out of tissue paper, with Grammy's help. Here we are with all my loot.

Cutest Night Ever

I tried to convince myself that the house felt so hot last summer mainly because I was pregnant. But no, it's quite hot and muggy again. About a week or so ago, we thought it might be hot enough in their room that the kids would end up sleeping with us all summer again. But we figured we'd wait and see. Well that very night Cason was sopping wet with sweat in the middle of the night. So into our room they've moved for the summer again. Last night we watched Rapunzel, and Neely woke up. She was instantly WIDE awake, and wild, and also really into the movie.
Paige laughed at how awake and happy Neely was, and told us "This is SUCH the cutest night ever!"

Today after her bath, I put lotion and a diaper on Neely, and then put her down next to Cason while I went to grab an outfit for her. He immediately started wrestling her, and she loved it.
Tonight Neely was enjoying her new peach yogurt snacks. She must have liked them, because she was all smiley and started being silly. Here's the face she makes when she sniffs in and out of her nose really hard to make us laugh.

Birthday Trip

My birthday isn't until Tuesday, but Jess can't take the day off so he took me to Vegas on Saturday. We ate at Sweet Tomato. Paige asked about it on the way there, trying to decide what she'd eat. When we walked in we were getting our trays and she goes "Oh YEAH, we came here with Grama!" It took me a second to figure it out, but she was right. It had to be when she was MAYBE two years old. It was SOOOO long ago. I wish I remembered why we were in Vegas with Grama, because maybe that would help me figure out how long ago it was. But yet again I'm so amazed by Paige's memory. Even AFTER she told me it took me a minute to remember it happened, and I called Grama to tell her and it was the same for her. Anyway, the kids liked the food.
Even Neely tried some bread.
I got to do some birthday shopping. We went to Anthropologie, so Jess could get me a couple of my carousel plates. I also sold some of my bird dessert plates on ebay so I could afford to buy the other two and have the whole set of 4.
I also got to go to Target, and FINALLY to Hobby Lobby for the first time. I LOVE it there. Too much.

This Made Us All Quite Happy:

Juggernaut's Portrait

Yesterday Cason did his first real drawing. He's sat down before and scribbled for a minute, and then gone off to play. But this time he sat down, put the Juggernaut down on the paper, to model for him, and started drawing. I don't know if it was his own idea, or if he's watched Paige when she gets things to set in front of her and draw them.

It was the first time I could recognize what he was drawing, there was a round body, and legs, which he drew while telling me "...and wong wegs!", and eyes and a mouth.
He gave it to me when he finished, and then got some more paper, to draw one for Paige. Sweet boy.

Neely had a doctor's appointment yesterday too. She was sick the last time we went, so she had to have her shots postponed, and they did them yesterday. She was pretty mad at us, but recovered quickly. Then she and I hung out in the waiting room because it was pouring rain and I parked at the FAR end of the parking lot. It didn't let up, so I finally had the girl at the desk hold Neely while I went to move the car closer. When I was buckling her in it was still pouring, so I was trying to block as much of the doorway as possible to keep her dry, and I was buckling her as fast as I could. So then, like a wonderful mom, I pinched her thigh in the buckle and made her cry again. Like three pokes in the chubby thighs wasn't enough pain for one day. :(
She was fairly happy the rest of the day, but we had our roughest night ever, last night, by far. I ended up hanging out on the couch in the living room with her all night, while she alternated sleeping and waking up all hot and sweaty and sad. When she was awake the only thing that helped was if I cuddled her and turned on Yo Gabba Gabba. We didn't sleep much, but miraculously she finally started smiling again around 8:30 this morning, and seems to be her sweet happy self again.

"Surf's Up"

The kids have a new Hello Kitty sprinkler. It's really cute, Hello Kitty's surfing on a big wave, and she spins in circles, spraying water everywhere. They were excited to try it out this morning. They all got their suits on and we went out front, where the grass is still in good shape.
The fact that Hello Kitty's on a surfboard reminds me of something Paige said a few weeks ago. They were in the little pool in our backyard, and Paige was lying on her back on her new little floatie thing. She put her hands behind her head, and closed her eyes, and did this exaggerated relaxed sounding sigh, and kind of whispered, "aaaaaaaaah, surf's up." Haha.

And apparently during the fireworks the other day Tyra saw Paige whip her light stick around and heard her tell Lily "look, it looks like a fan." Then she fanned herself and said "I do declare!", in an exaggerated southern accent so it sounded like "AH DOOO Declaya!" Haha. That's my girl.
Anyway, back to today's sprinkler run. They're all careful about where they let the water hit them at first.
Eventually Caso got braver.
He still wouldn't jump right over it, but kept trying and chickening out at the last second. So then he covered up in his beach towel and did it. Then he ran over yelling "YES!" all proud. Ha.
Neely watched from the bench with me, happily. But then I took away the leaf she wanted to eat, and she was less happy.
Then we came in to rest.
When Neely woke up I took her to my room to do a photo shoot, because what's cuter than a plump body baby in a swim suit?
Then Paige came in to visit Neely.
And complain to me about how she does all the work "around here".