Today the girls took an hour long bath and turned all of their digits into raisins. We took a picture:
We also dressed the girls in their new outfits from Nana:
After church, my mom got a beautiful blessing from Abe. After that, we all ate dinner. Chelsea brought us some gorgeous tomatoes from her garden, so we had caprese salads and leftover birthday cake.
For the subsequent hours before bedtime, we all just hung out in the living room and played with Mary’s new birthday puzzles:
Today we took another sick day. This virus is really hard to beat! Because my mom and Abe were so compassionate and caring, I stayed in bed until…5pm. At that point I arose and morphed into a semi-responsible adult/parent…but until then, I kind of felt like I was at a resort! Delicious food kept appearing by my bedside whenever I so much as uttered a whim, Abe and Lydia gave me a massage, and I got to sleep as much as I wanted. I feel so spoiled, and I fervently hope their efforts pay off and I wake up tomorrow with this virus gone.
I did take a picture from bed:
Abe took the girls biking and to the park while I made dinner. After dinner, he and Lydia talked and crafted while Mary and I played puzzles. He took a picture, but I forgot.
Today we celebrated Mary’s birthday. Nana is in town and I have high hopes of being in labor on Mary’s actual birthday, so we celebrated three weeks early. I feel totally off the hook when September 27th rolls around!
For her birthday, Mary wanted to ride a pony. We went to Thanksgiving Point in the morning for a pony ride and a wagon ride.
Then we had a picnic with Abe in the gardens by Qualtrics.
I have a ton of pictures of our arrival home. Mary got to see her balloons unveiled for the first time and had a blast. Lydia deserves credit too for delighting in Mary’s delight and not demanding any time at all with Mary’s balloons. After Mary exhausted herself dancing and running with her balloons, Lydia and Mary played hide-and-seek with the balloons and played for the next couple hours.
I have two videos of Mary twirling and dancing with her balloons here and here.
And this evening Tom, Suzanne, the Marshalls and the Vandegriffs joined us for a party.
I just adore Mary to pieces. I can’t believe she’s (almost) three! She lights up our lives every day. I wish I could capture her at this age and keep her almost-three forever. After the presents, Mary was eating cake. At one point, she looked up, smiled, and said, “My presents are lovely.” All I could think of was how lovely she is. Happy early birthday, my darling Mary!
This morning we went to Little Gym for the girls’ gymnastics class. Mom and I had so much fun watching all the little kids run and tumble around.
Then we rushed home so I could feed the kids before preschool. After I picked Lydia up from preschool, we went on some special birthday-party errands for Mary’s party tomorrow. She felt special. We bought two ice cream cakes, one from Cold Stone and the other from Baskin Robbins. By the time we got to Baskin Robbins, we had been doing errands for over an hour and a half. I thought Lydia–and I–both deserved ice cream for our efforts.
This evening Abe took the girls to a Bee’s baseball game with his dad while Mom and I stayed home and talked. We watched some TED talks and the trailer for Half the Sky.
Abe sent me pictures from the game. Apparently they are having fun!
The girls were so excited to see Nana this morning. They knew it was going to be a good day because she was here!
Grandma, Mom got in safely last night! We are so thrilled to have her with us, but I totally forgot to take pictures. I’m so sorry. Today I will take pictures and post them on the blog tonight. We love you!
This morning we all went to the dentist. It was such a great experience! The kids’ dental room is basically a wonderland. There’s an adjoining play room with all sorts of toys, two TV’s for kids’ shows, and a little leather recliner chair so siblings can watch each other have their teeth cleaned. Afterward, the hygienists even babysit the kids while the parents get their teeth finished up. The kids left the dentist with goody bags, treat cups, and free drinks. I think they thought the dentist might be comparable to Disneyland.
Then we hightailed it over to the OBGYN for my check-up. There the kids proceeded to raid the lollipop basket. After our three-hour test last week, they know where all the good stuff in that office is.
I spent a lot of the rest of the day in bed. I guess I did cook dinner (the easiest thing ever, but Abe still felt like he needed to take a picture), and after dinner we had FHE and then tidied the house from top to bottom. Our sick day yesterday meant that the kids tore everything up, and we want it to look nice for my mom–who is coming tomorrow!
