Baby Ballerina

Marion is dancing this year! She is taking a ballet and gymnastics combo class, and is super excited every week when it is her night to go to dancing school. After all, she's been sitting in the waiting room while Grace dances every week for far too long! She was nervous through the first couple of classes and just stood back and watched, but is now happy and participating!

Marion with Kate and Emma Kate

Beautiful baby ballerinas!

Ready to do her front roll!

First Day of Preschool

This is the best I could do! Marion was a little nervous, and wanted to stay wrapped around my leg. I had to run away, and snap a picture as she ran toward me! Marion has two wonderful teachers this year, Mrs. Shannon and Mrs. TJ. She goes to school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Marion absolutely loves it! Many tears are shed around here on Monday and Friday, when Grace gets to go to school and she doesn't!!

Marion's Pink Glasses

This is Marion's new look! She got her sweet pink glasses about a month ago, and I'm already so used to seeing her with them, that she looks funny without them. Really, I see pictures of her from before she got her glasses, and they don't really look like Marion anymore.

I suspected that Marion's vision was bad, and had said that I would be surprised if she didn't need glasses... but I had no idea how terrible it really was. She is extremely near sighted - negative 11.5. As you could guess, she loves her glasses and being able to see. People ask me all the time if she leaves them on- yes!! That has not been a problem from day 1.

I am thrilled that my sweet girl can see now, but a little disppointed in myself for not figuring it all out sooner. My poor baby was blind!! Anyway, she's doing great now! Her walk is even steadier. I can't wait until she gets a bit older and we have more styles of glasses to choose from. The one and only toddler selection is shown above, it comes in burgundy, blue, and thankfully- PINK!

This picture was taken at the eye doctor, seconds after her glasses were pout on for the first time!

Pee-Pee in the Pot-ty!!

Marion used the toilet for the first time this morning!! Not in the household one, but in her red Dora potty chair. It went something like this...

Mom: "Marion, stop taking your diaper off!"

*twenty minutes later*

Mom: "Marion, if you don't want to wear a diaper, you need to start using the potty!"

*Marion runs to sit on her Dora potty*

Mom: "Marion, if you make pee pee in that potty, I'll give you some candy."

Grace: "Candy?! When I was learning to go potty, you gave me DRIED FRUIT!!" (oh, the first and second child differences!!)

I absolutely did not expect her to go. She has sat on the potty, done nothing, wiped, and flushed for quite some time now... but then, she went!! Not just a tinkle, she filled that Dora potty up! The things a mommy gets excited over ;)

After we sang the potty song, and did the potty dance, she picked out a big pink sucker. As soon as she had swallowed the last bit, she asked for more. I promised more candy for more potty... she ran to the potty and did it again!! Five minutes later, she did it again. I am now only offering 3 Smarties for each tinkle. My baby LOVES candy :)

Congrats to my big girl Marion!! She has a big girl bed in her near future, and maybe she'll be looking cute in some big girl panties soon!!

Marion is a Big Girl!

Well, maybe not yet, but she's getting there! Today was my baby's first day of Mom's Day Out. She'll go from 9 until 1, two days a week. She cried for a minute when I walked out of the door, but then she was good. When I picked her up, she was soooo cute!! She ran toward me, yelling "Mama! Mama!" When she got halfway, she started kissing the air, and didn't stop until she was in my arms kissing me! She is such a sweetie!! I hope to get that reaction every time I pick her up! I think it will be wonderful for Marion to have this time to play with little ones her own age!

Marion and her backpack... she didn't want to wear it.

Marion is walking very well, even running at times! She can also carry around armfuls of treasures! Marion is very close to being discharged from physical therapy. Last week her visits were decreased from once a week to once a month. She is pretty much age appropriate for motor skills now.

Marion's speech has had huge improvement just over the last week. In the past, when you told her, "Say _____," she would just stare back at you quietly. Now, she always tries to say what you ask of her!! Most things don't sound much like what they should, but some do!

Marion says... mama, dada, nana, paw paw, yeah and no very clearly, and she makes a variety of animal sounds. There are other things she says that I understand what she means, although they don't come out perfect, such as milk, dog, and up. She continues to have speech therapy once a week, so hopefully, now that she's more willing to talk, we'll see much improvement!

may may is moving!!!

Marion at her Mommy and Me Valentine Party

Little May May has been hitting lots of milestones lately. Today she wore black for the first time! I'm sure this sounds a bit trivial to many of you reading this; but to me, it's a big deal. I don't recall putting Grace in black and hot pink until she was about two and a half (and she only wore black once before that; a black and white gingham Halloween bishop). Black just doesn't have that fresh sweet innocence that I think baby clothes should have. Anyway, I got these matching tees at Target, and I think Marion looked pretty darn cute! She was thrilled with her Valentine treats... baby likes to eat!!

Marion is also still a star student according to her physical therapist. She now pulls up to standing on her own, cruises (very slowly!), and will take steps behind a walker wagon. She's really catching up fast!

Pulling up

We have to bribe her with food... this day it was Fruity Cheerios!

Enjoying her reward, she made it!

I must not forget to acknowledge my lovely assistant who puts out the rewards and cheers on Marion during "physical pherapy!"

Marion has found some motivation of her own too. She loves to open drawers, pull up on them, and empty them. Yes, those are plastic knives... you should have heard the tantrum when I took them away! As we were getting ready to go eat dinner tonight, she did this in my bathroom. She was emptying my nail polish drawer when the hot pink one broke... it went all over her and the floor. Ugh!! I won't complain too much though; because truly, I'm glad she's motivated and exploring :)

and now it's marion's turn

Grace's birthday was celebrated throughout last week and now it's little Marion's turn. My baby turned one today. I had several people ask me this week if I was sad. I'm just the tiniest bit sad that the time is gone, but really I'm more happy. I'm a worrier and there's just so much to worry about when they are so tiny... I'm simply happy that we made it safe and healthy :) I have been weaning Marion this week and I'm so proud that we made it through nursing. We had an awfully rough start, but we made it, and we both became total pros at it!

On Wednesday we celebrated with Marion's Mommy and Me class...

I brought a butterfly made out of cupcakes. Grace asked me as we were leaving that morning if I would please be sure to save her a purple cupcake. I told her that I couldn't tell people which color to take, but that hopefully there would be one left. She sighed and asked me to please let Marion's friends know that purple was her favorite color ;)

The part of this story that really cracks me up is that purple really isn't her favorite (PINK is!!). Purple was just the best color when the only choices were purple, green and gold. Yes, it was a mardi gras butterfly... I guess the bakery is getting in the spirit!

As you see in the photo, Marion was mesmerized by the fire. About 10 seconds after it was taken, she yanked the napkin in an attempt to pull the cupcake into her reach. Well, the whole thing toppled over and the combination of flying fire and babies made the whole room gasp a little. A friend of mine was video taping the whole thing and I still haven't brought myself to watch it... kinda scared of seeing the awful faces I make as the cupcake and lit candle went flying!

Anyway, if you're still worried about Grace, yes, there were plenty of purple cupcakes left over. We've celebrated Marion's birthday over and over with the leftovers! If you're wondering about Marion's party, yes, she will have one... Mommy's just running a bit behind.

baby torture... it's working

After only 2 sessions of physical therapy, Marion is already doing so much new stuff! Ms.Tracie, her therapist, even said that Marion was one of her top students :)

This morning when I went into her room, Marion was already sitting up! She has been able to sit since she was only 5 months old, but today was her first time to get up to sitting by herself. She did it again tonight in the playroom. She scooted herself into the middle of a pile of dress up clothes and tutus, sat herself up, and put on a pair of pearl beads!

Yesterday, Marion pulled up to kneeling by herself for the first time! She's done it several times since. I'm so proud of May May! She's been working out and it shows!!

snow day!

This is our third winter in Hattiesburg and for the third year in a row we had SNOW!!! That's pretty unusual this far South. In my 18 years growing up down here I can only remember it happening once!

Our home... a winter wonderland!

Gate to the backyard... snowcapped!

Camellias

Japanese Maple

Deck...

Playhouse... everything looks better in the snow :)

Have you ever seen snow covered palm trees?? They don't look too happy!

The weight of the snow bent these shrubs over to block the back walk.

My snow angel!

It was Marion's first time in the snow!

we have forward movement!

Yes, forward movement, and a TOOTH!

The tooth arrived a week ago, on October 30th. It's so cute, sticking up another millimeter every day! Marion is breezing through teething so far with little to no complaining... I'm a lucky Mama, Grace never complained much either.

And just today, forward movement!!! Not that she hasn't been mobile, she has- rotating and rolling wherever she wanted to go. She got so super fast at it, I thought she may never crawl! Today, with some inspiration... our fancy schmancy remote control... she did sort of an "army crawl." Her little tummy only left the ground for a fraction of a second, if at all, with each pull forward. Hopefully with some practice, she'll be cruising on all fours soon!

baby food... yum!

Marion had her first taste of baby food this week. She started eating cereal about a month and a half ago, but how much she's actually gotten down is questionable. She mostly spits it out over and over, as I spoon it back in over and over, until her bib is soaked and I feel like we've gotten some practice. She doesn't cry; she seems to like the ritual, but she just isn't into eating solids!

So since she didn't seem to be catching on all that well, I thought, "hey, maybe she just really hates rice cereal!" So last week at the grocery, I got a small stockpile of yummy baby food... bananas, pears and green peas! Here are photos from her first attempt at baby food!

All bibbed up and ready to try some bananas!

Her first jar of baby food... 2.5 ounces... the smallest jar they had!

Hmmm... this is new!

And she spits it out... over... and over... and over again!

All done!

I don't think she got much down on night 1, but she's had 3 meals since and does seems to be getting a little more down. I'm sure she'll be going through the jars in no time!

is she sleeping through the night???

YES!!!

Marion moved to her crib in her own room about a week ago. Maybe it was the crib, maybe it was the rice cereal, but she is sleeping much better. She's sleeping from about 9:00 at night to 7:00 in the morning. It is so nice! This is her one morning this week when I went in to get her...

Marion relaxing on her minky sheet in her crib after sleeping all night!!

Just for fun... here's Grace at about the same age when she started sleeping through the night...

feed me!

Marion started "eating" cereal for the first time last Wednesday! I'm not sure how much actually made it to her tummy, she seemed to just hold it in her mouth for a while and then spit it all out. She's had "dinner" every day since and the improvement is slow! I will say, however, that it's going much better than it did with Grace...
... maybe Marion will be a less dramatic child... one can hope!

Yes, I'm going all whole grain and organic this time around- with Grace I just did the standard Gerber. For some reason when I bought this I was expecting brown baby cereal, like it would be brown rice... but it looks the same, white as ever.

her first meal!

Holding, then spitting... over and over. At least there was no crying!

Grace LOVES to help feed Marion!

my littlest water baby... mother's day

Jeremy, Grace and Marion all helped to make this homemade bouquet for me for Mother's Day. Isn't it lovely?! The did it along with some friends while us mommies were having a girl's night out. Grace was so excited and couldn't wait to give it to me... but she did wait! This was her first successful secret keeping!!! She even teared up one night telling me, "but I just want to tell you your surprise!!!"

She also made me a handprint plate at school. The teacher sent it home wrapped with a note that read, "Do not open until Mother's Day!" Grace handed it to me immediately when I picked her up and yelled as excited as could be... "It's a glass plate!!!!" I did wait to open it :)

Jeremy and the girls also gave me a gift certificate to a boutique... that's already spent ;), and a gift certificate to a spa... that probably won't get spent because I have to go sans kiddos, which is seeming as impoosible as ever with preschool out!

After gifts, we packed up and headed to a friend's pool. We had so much fun! Both girls loved the water and Jeremy and I really needed the break from the unpacking!

Marion relaxing poolside in her bouncy seat!

Grace jumped right in! It was her first time in the pool this summer. I'm loving the floaties now that I have two to handle!

Our attempt at a group shot.

Just Daddy and May May, Grace swam off!

I'm not sure what was going through my head in the following sequence... apparently, I just snapped away as my 3 year old dumped a bucket of water on my 3 month old... not okay!! Marion cried a little, but got over it fast.... Mommy's so sorry honey!

a happy Mommy!