Casey's Birthday/Memorial Day Weekend

Casey has had about a week of birthday celebrations. It started last Wednesday when my parents brought dinner over, complete with a homemade rhubarb pie. We sang Happy Birthday for the first of several times.


Casey took a vacation day on Friday, so we had a wonderful 4-day weekend. Here are a few highlights:

FRIDAY: Family outing to the Children's Museum in the morning. Date night to celebrate Casey's birthday with our friends Jeff and Erin at night. We went to Logan's for dinner and saw the new Indiana Jones movie.

SATURDAY: Did stuff around the house, went for bike rides and to the park.

SUNDAY: Casey's 33rd birthday! We let him sleep in and then woke him up by delivering a cinnamon roll with a candle in it to him in bed and singing Happy Birthday (2nd time). Esther sat through an entire church service for the first time (there was no children's worship and she didn't go to the nursery). While Casey and Miriam "watched" the Indianapolis 500 (see previous post) and Peter napped, Esther and I took a long bike ride together. We attempted to take a nice picture of Casey and the kids, but one kid wasn't happy (can you guess which one?) Jeff, Renee and Tyler came over for supper and we had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday to Casey and Renee (3rd time).

SUNDAY-MONDAY: A thunderstorm rolled in around 3 am. We had an almost-4-year-old in our bed for a while. At 6:20 am, Miriam work up for the first time since going to bed at 7:00 pm, completing her first official full 11-12 hour shift of sleeping through the night (she usually gets up once in the middle of the night to eat)!

MONDAY: After feeding Miriam at 6:20, Casey let me stay in bed until 9:00 am! I can't remember the last time I did that (maybe 4 years ago?) What a treat! Casey did a yard project so he could cross something off his honey-do list and Peter and Esther played in the kiddie pool. We went to Casey's parents house to celebrate Casey, Renee and Nick's birthdays (Nick turned 35 today!). We played outside, had burgers, and of course ate Mom's delicious cake. We sang Happy Birthday for the 4th time, this time to the 3 of them!

The Perfect Way to Watch the Indy 500

This lasted through the whole 3 1/2 hour race.

Sister Similarities

People often ask us who Miriam looks like and if she looks a lot like Esther and Peter. I always say she does and think that she looks a lot like they did as babies. However, today Miriam was wearing a hand-me-down outfit from Esther and I decided to find a picture of Esther in the same outfit to compare. Esther was about 5-1/2 months in these pictures, which is how old Miriam is right now. I think you can definitely tell they are sisters, but there are obvious differences too! Esther has much more hair and much larger cheeks. It might be hard to tell in the pictures, but Esther's eyes were definitely dark brown by this age, and Miriam's are still very blue. I think she will stay our blue-eyed girl, and she will be the only one in the family without brown eyes. I guess that just makes her extra-special!

The first 2 are Miriam, and the last 2 are Esther...

Apple Jacks

Today Peter said, "Mommy watch me, I can do apple jacks!" and then proceeded to jump up and down and clap his hands over his head. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was actually doing jumping jacks--it was too cute!

Miriam Jump Up

Casey hung the Johnny Jump Up on one of the joists in the basement for Miriam. Now she can get a workout while Esther and Peter are playing down there. So far, she seems to like it!

Esther's (Partial) Debut

Yesterday at church the children did a musical. When they started practicing several months ago, we were told that it was (understandably) optional for the three-year-olds. We asked Esther if she wanted to do it, and she did. She went to all the practices after church, attended a 1-1/2 hour rehearsal on Saturday, and knew most of the words to the songs. She's been talking about it for weeks and invited all her grandparents and aunts and uncles to attend.

Sunday morning she woke up and told me that she didn't want to be in the musical anymore. We have no idea what triggered this, but we weren't going to push it. We talked about it a little, still dressed her in the t-shirt that all the children were supposed to wear, and she and Casey went to church early for the final run-through. He couldn't get her up on stage for that, so we just figured she wouldn't be participating.

When it was time for all the kids to go up, I told her that I would go up with her and sit in the front if she wanted to go. She decided she did, so she went up on the risers and I sat in the front pew. Things started out great and she sang her heart out for a few songs. Then all of a sudden she started to look upset. She started reaching toward me as if she wanted me to come get her and she was mouthing, "Mommy" with a sad face. I tried to give her a thumbs up and a smile to tell her it was ok. She went back and forth between singing and being sad for a while, and eventually came down by me. We watched the rest of the musical together and that was just fine. We were so proud of her for even doing part of it, especially since she was the only three-year-old up there! Maybe next year she'll make it through the whole thing.

After church we had Mother's Day dinner at my parents' house with my parents, sister, and aunt. Casey's parents and brother joined us as well. I'm so blessed to have such an amazing mom and mother-in-law, as well as being a mom to 3 wonderful children.

The Mind of a 2 1/2 Year Old....

This weekend I began finishing off a room in our basement...Daddy's workshop. I took Peter with me to the store to pick up some electrical supplies. As I was grabbing the items I needed, I handed them to Peter to put in the cart. He would place everything behind him in the cart, until I handed him a light switch. I had to hold back my laughter as I watched him flip the switch on and off, and look at the ceiling of the store obviously wondering why the lights weren't going off!!

By the way, the new allergy medicine is finally helping him win the "Battle with the Pollen."

Peter

He still looks like he got hit by a truck......but he sure feels a lot better!

Guess who has allergies.....