Will's Birthday Party

We had a blast at Will's birthday party on Saturday. It was mostly family, but his friends Tyler and Ethan came to play too. I posted some pics of the party table and the two cakes-I couldn't resist getting Will a mash cake this year. It wasn't quite as funny as at his first birthday, but I think he enjoyed it just as much. You can see from the pictures he even shared a little bit of his cake with my mom and sister-in-law. The weather was perfect-a little cooler than we had expected, so the kids weren't able to play in the water as much as we'd thought, but they had a lot of fun jumping on the trampoline and playing on the playground, and the adults enjoyed the nice breeze while we sat outside.

It's hard to believe Will is already two years old. It's even harder to believe Maggie is already two MONTHS old! Time goes so much faster when you have a child, and it seems to fly by even more now that we have two. Maggie had her two month check up at the doctor this week, and she is growing like a weed. She's officially sleeping through the night most of the time-maybe one night a week she forgets to go the full 8-10 hours, but I can live with that. She coos all day long, especially to Will. It's so funny to watch her watching him.

We have another busy week ahead this week, including Will's surgery on Thursday. Please be praying that the surgery goes smoothly and that it helps him the way we're hoping it will. Until then...

Mother's Day

We had a great mother's day, starting with chocolate chip pancakes in bed! After church, Eric went and picked up my granny and Aunt Lynette. (For those of you who don't know, she fell and fractured her pelvis a couple of weeks ago.) Scott and Amanda brought lunch to Mom's house, and Dad and Eric had picked up a special dessert for each mom. We had a great afternoon just hanging out with family, and Scott's new puppy Jersey. One of the pictures is Will with some of the boys from church-Tyler, Carter, and Ethan. The one of her in the exersaucer makes me laugh because Will is having so much fun playing with her and she just kept looking at me like "Get me out of this thing!" She was crying in her bed this morning and Will went running into her room with her pacifier trying to figure out a way to get it to her. He's really getting into the whole big brother thing, and I love it! Maggie gave me my favorite Mother's Day present though-she rolled over! I couldn't believe it. Will was almost 5 months I think and Maggie just turned 2 months on Saturday. I told Eric I think she might have rolled over last week because I put her down on her mat and went to put in a load of laundry, and when I came back she appeared to have rolled over. I just figured I had forgotten how I laid her down!

I hope all the moms out there had a great Mother's Day! We've got Will's birthday party on Saturday, so I'll post pictures of that next week (hopefully).

Sea World

We had a great time at Sea World this past weekend! We went with our friends Jeffrey and Kristy and their son Tyler, who is 9 days older than Will. We left Friday morning at 6 and stopped in West to eat kolaches for breakfast. We got to San Marcos around the time the outlet mall opened and our fabulous husbands took the kids so Kristy and I could shop for a few hours. By the time we got settled in our hotel in San Antonio with all the gear required for 2 kids under 2, we were too tired to try to make it to the river walk for dinner! We all got our suits on and headed to the pool-both the boys LOVE the water! We went to Sea World the next morning and got to eat at a breakfast buffet by the shark tank and then feed the dolphins before the park even opened! We ended up spending most of the rest of our time at the water park and the kiddie area, but we did catch the killer whale show. Will LOVED Shamu-he just sat there with his eyes (and mouth) wide open. When it was time for naps, we headed back to San Marcos to finish up what we left behind the day before. And yes, we managed to stop at the outlet malls one more time on our way back Sunday! The whole trip was a blast, but the most fun was watching Will and Tyler interact-they had so much fun playing with each other, and it got me really excited about when Maggie gets a little older and she and Will can play together. The pictures didn't turn out all that great-there was way too much happening for Will to be still and look at a camera! The first one is in front of the shark tank-if you look really close you can see a couple. It was much neater there than it came out in this picture!

Well that's about it for here. Maggie is getting big way too fast, but she's doing great. She's sleeping for 8 or 9 hours about 1 out of every 3 nights, and the in between nights aren't usually very bad, so that's been nice for Eric and me to get some sleep! I'll update more when something new happens.

Maggie's first portraits

For all those who gave up on my keeping the blog up to date...these are some of the 200 plus pictures that were taken of the kids (mainly Maggie) the other day. The session was around 3 hours long, and for those who have kids, you know that's pushing past the brink of sanity. The whole thing was a comedy of errors really, so I was happy to get any good ones. But with kids this cute, how can you miss?

ENT Appointment

Well I know you're all going to be surprised with 2 posts in one week! We had our ENT appt. this morning, and Will definitely needs tubes. He's scheduled for May 24, 2 days after his second birthday. It's a quick procedure and we should see immediate improvement, so that's exciting! Of course I'm worried about the anesthesia, but I'm trying not to focus on that part. Dr. Palmer said that the fluid probably never drained from Will's ears after his very first ear infection, and that each time he gets a cold, his body's defenses focus on the new infection, rather than his ears, so that's when he gets another ear infection. So I guess once the tubes drain the fluid, he should be pretty much home free on ear infections. Poor baby's had fluid in his ears for almost a year! One of the nurses said he's going to start talking a lot more once the surgery is over-I really don't know how that's possible. It's also supposed to improve his balance, and once Eric and I started thinking about it, he does seem to fall down a lot-I just thought he was graceful like me.

So that's the update there. The pictures are just some of the kids around the house. I had a headband on the other day and Will thought it was my sunglasses and asked to wear it. Once he had it on he didn't want to take it off! I'm not sure how Eric felt about Will wearing "hair accessories." So that's life with us right now. I had the kids' pictures taken the other day, so I'll post some once I get the CD.

Since Easter...

Well, I know I didn't post Easter pics-sorry. I never knew how busy it would be having two kids, and we had to get a new computer because our other one was so full of all the pictures I take that it wouldn't accept any new ones! I'll try to remember what we've been doing since the last post. Easter was great-Maggie slept through the whole Easter basket party, but Will and Scott's stepson Brandon seemed to have a good time going through everything and eating chocolate bunnies. Maggie experienced her first road trip. We went to Little Rock to see Shayla's family a couple of weeks ago and had a blast. We're finally getting into a little bit of a routine, and that's been good for all of us. Maggie's a sweet baby who likes to sleep as much as her mom! Will is still a fabulous big brother, always wanting to "snuggle" Maggie. He got another ear infection though, so we have an ENT consult this next Wednesday to discuss the need for tubes and possibly taking out his adenoids. Yuck. The ear infections have definitely not affected his language skills-he knows the alphabet, counts to 20, knows all of his shapes, etc (Sorry for the brag session!). I'll TRY to remember to update after the consult to let you all know what the verdict is. Let's see...We went to Will's first Ranger game with his friend Tyler. He had such a good time, especially with the cotton candy and funnel cake! We're all enjoying the weather-we spent the day potting plants and working in the yard-Will had such a good time "helping" with the soil and using his new watering can. We'll see which one of us can kill them first! We're going to Sea World next weekend with Tyler's family, so once again, I'll try to remember to post. Until then...

Maggie-week 3

I know I haven't exactly kept up the blog very well since Maggie was born, but I've been a little short on spare time! A few days after we got home, Will got strep throat and a few other things to go along with that. When he finally started feeling better, his Arkansas cousins came to meet Maggie. Now things are settling down a little bit. Will is going back to school tomorrow and I am going back to Target! Maggie's doing really well. She eats and sleeps all day-what a life! Will is learning to adjust to sharing the attention, but he is so sweet with Maggie. He is the first to comfort her if she seems upset, and he loves to lie on her playmat and watch the lights! For those who are checking regularly and have requested more frequent updates, I'll try to post Easter pictures next week!