Happy Birthday, Margaret!

Margaret turns three years old today. While we already threw her the first of her parties, she is looking forward to having a very long lasting birthday indeed!

a mother and her last baby

Our baby, Margaret, turns three in a few days. Emily found a sling that we had used with our children when they were infants. Margaret takes after her mommy and is tiny for her age so we decided to see if she still fit into the sling. Turns out she not only fit, but fit well.

Good bye, baby. Hello little girl. We will miss your infancy, but love who you are turning out to be.

Beautiful Girls

But is it art?

I called Margaret for dinner last night which usually results in her tearing down the stairs. Nothing.

In a few minutes I called again and got this response: "I can't come right now, I'm stuck."

Hmmm. "Do you need help?" (asked only because we are trying to get Margaret to tell us what she needs)

"Nope." Ok. I'll give her a few minutes...

A visit from a Butterfly

When we got home the other night a Monarch Butterfly came in the back door with us. We all gathered in the kitchen and watched it flying around. We had learned all about butterflies and the kids had been trying to catch one for several days on the wonderful "butterfly bush" we have in the back yard. But, they hadn't been successful.

After a little while fluttering around it landed right in front of Emily and allowed her to pick it up. Even with an open hand it stayed on her for quite a while. It went back to flitting around the room only to land on Molly's shirt. It stayed, flapping slowly and crawling up towards her face.

Margaret even got to give it a very gentle kiss before it left the kitchen and landed on the ceiling of the living room where it stayed until the next morning when we sent it back outside.

More pics here.

A Birthday and a Creek Walk!

For Elaina's 13th birthday party (the first celebration), Oma and Opa prepared a great picnic and we all went for a long walk in Little Sewickley Creek. Here are a few shots with a bunch more in the album here.

Happy Birthday Boof!

Here second celebration was a day with mom and dad at Kennywood, the amazing Pittsburgh amusement park. Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jonathan joined us at the very end for some wooden roller coaster action. Sweet!

Don't trust the photographer

Flying Lessons

Do you ever have one of those days where you are convinced you aren't communicating very well with your soon-to-be teenager? You're pretty sure that what she's saying isn't what you are hearing and visa versa? Days like this:

"Hey, dad. Can I have flying lessons?"
"Um. Why do you want them?"
"Well, I just think that while I have the basics down, I am not sure my technique is as good as it should be."
"Um. What? The basics? What?"
"Yeah, I've got lift off and stable flight, but think I could be a lot smoother"
"What? Are you talking about a video game? I am so confused."
"Oh, nevermind."

Then one of the automated sentry cams comes back with this:

More Margaret

Yes, we let her out of the house looking like this...

Margaret's Outfits

Margaret (not quite 2½) changes clothes about every 17 minutes throughout the day. At least that's what it seems like. Here's one of her latest creations...

Meet Thunder

This is Thunder. Well, Thunder is kinda in the shot. He's the horse. Hard to see, but the photographer wasn't much interested in the horse until he decided to make Thunder the central topic in this post. He must have been distracted by the riders.

Anyway, Thunder lives in our living room, eats gluten free oats, and doesn't make a sound. His riders, on the other hand, seem to be everywhere, also eat gluten free oats and make a terriffic racket: "Hyaa!" "Giddyup, Thunder!" "Don't pull my hair!"

Poor Thunder. Although he's a mean, spring loaded, running machine, he never manages to go very far. Even with an hour of hard riding each day, he only moves a few inches one way or the other, and he works so hard for those few inches. His tyrannical riders never seem to give him a break and shout incessantly while riding. On occasion, his load lightens and a doll or stuffed animal hops into the saddle. But, mostly he's being driven by the little girls.

However, he doesn't complain; his new life must be better than living in that thrift store where no one yelled at him or spurred him to achieve all the wild inching he has accomplished in the last few weeks. And, he's now valued far above the $6 that we paid for him.

Sled Ridin'!

We have the greatest yard for sled riding! It's steep at the top to get you started, has a long straight stretch where you can build up speed, a tree at the bottom just to keep things interesting and a solid fence at the bottom to catch you. What more could you want?