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Well, we did… we managed to pull off a 4 year old’s birthday party successfully! There were around 12 kids there and I don’t think there were any serious altercations or crying fits!

CareBear loved her party. We had it at the local Round Table Pizza so the kids were able to climb around in the play structure while we were waiting for important things like pizza and cake. CareBear got to blow out her candles twice (she didn’t wait for us to sing to her the first time!) and received lots of fun presents from her friends and family (there’s a lot of pink in our house right now). She mostly loved being the center of attention, of course. She’s very impressed with being 4 years old, too. She has decided that she can only wear clothes that she got after she turned 4 since apparently the clothes she wore when she was 3 are too small. Considering she was 3 just a few days ago, I’m hoping to compromise with her on that one!

LiliBee seemed to have fun at the party, too, since there were several relatives available to pack her around and run after her. She’s always happy to watch the bigger kids play and follow them around. She’s been a little worried about not being able to play with any of CareBear’s new toys, but CareBear is relaxing that rule now that it’s been a few days.

Our party plans were threatened by a Friday tummy ache, but luckily that was mostly gone by Saturday morning. We did make a trip to our pediatrician to make sure CareBear didn’t have anything serious (like appendicitis), but we’re still not entirely sure what caused it. Still, no one else has come down with anything yet so I’m happy about that!

The rest of our week was pretty normal… the usual doctor appointment for me, “working” at preschool, feeding the ducks at the farm. I’d like to take a few days off to recover (I just don’t have much stamina these days!) but we’re pretty much repeating last week’s schedule of preschool commitments and doctor appointments! I’m lucky that Chris has been picking up some of the laundry and cooking duties or we’d be in sorry shape around here!

Happy Birthday to my big girl!

Welcome to March… seems like it shouldn’t be here yet! We continue to have unseasonably warm and sunny weather, which made for some fun outings this week.

We took our regular trip out to the farm where CareBear and LiliBee spent some time “feeding” the ducks… which meant that CareBear ate the stale bread while LiliBee chased the ducks around throwing bread at their little heads as hard as she could. It was quite a sight!

We also took our first trip to the park for the year. The girls had a great time climbing and sliding and swinging and chasing. LiliBee looks too little to be on the “big kids” structure, but you can’t tell her that. She has no fear of the climbing or the sliding and she’s actually really good at it. She believes that she can do anything that CareBear does, of course. They also spend a good amount of time running randomly through the field jumping on mole hills. A very good way to work off some excess energy!

Chris took the girls to the mall to waste some time while I had a doctor’s appointment and they were lucky enough to meet some actual daffodil princesses! I hear that it was very exciting. It’s too bad that most of the daffodil festival stuff is happening so close to Banjo’s arrival, I think CareBear would have a lot of fun with the parade this year.

And, of course, we spent a lot of time talking about CareBear’s birthday. She’s very excited to turn four and tells everyone she meets that her birthday is this week. It’s funny to watch her introduce herself to strangers and start telling them how old she is now, how old she will be in a few days and how old her sister is… they usually don’t know what to make of her.

My weekly OB visits continue to go well and we’re on track for Banjo to make an appearance in about 3 weeks. Banjo is an active kid who insists on stretching out, a lot (and my abdomen is about stretched to the limit!)… it will be fun to finally meet baby#3 and see what it’s like on the outside!

Big plans for this week… a 4 year old!

The kids love to take over my camera… CareBear is getting pretty good at taking the pictures that she wants. LiliBee is still learning which way to point the camera. Here are a few pictures by LiliBee:

It’s another beautiful, spring day here in February! The weather has been fantastic lately, which is weird but it’s nice to get out of the house in the middle of winter too.

We had a very busy week! Chris got Tuesday and Friday off to make up for his very long shift last Saturday. Since I was scheduled to be snack mom at school on Tuesday, this was an extra bonus for CareBear. She loved introducing him to the new teacher and showing off for Papa’s visit. We brought bananas and blueberry muffins since CareBear insisted that was what Teacher Nancy wanted. We also made a special trip after school to get birthday party invitations to pass out to her class this week. CareBear had a very good day.

Wednesday was ultrasound day. Banjo is doing well and getting big. We’ve got about another month before we meet him/her which seems like both a very short time and a very long time. I think my abdominal muscles are starting to give up on me. Chris and I were able to go out to lunch on the Tacoma waterfront to celebrate our off year anniversary. The view was lovely, especially with the sunny day.

LiliBee is getting the hang of potty training! It’s more practice than practical at this point, but I think she’s starting to make the connection. We’re keeping it very casual, though, since I expect the transition to “middle child” in a few weeks might set us back a bit. On the other hand, she’s finally growing out of her 18 month clothes! Maybe people will start believing me that she’s two years old pretty soon.

We actually stayed home for most of the nice weekend. Chris and the girls spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the front yard (ok, they mostly watched and critiqued what he was doing) while I took advantage of the extra child supervision to be a little lazy and work on online stuff for the preschool. It was a mellow weekend but, looking back, it was also surprisingly productive!

This week we’re back to normal… and only one dr appointment! After seeing doctors on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday last week, only going once seems almost like a vacation. Of course, we have birthday party planning and flier distribution for the preschool to fit in, but I’m looking forward to a slower week

LiliBee has started acting out stories with her Little People. It’s a lot of fun to watch.

Get back here, princess!

Here comes the prince.

Awwww… poor princess.

The plot thickens!

The prince and princess are together again.

LiliBee’s work here is done.

The girls and I turned our patio door into a giant, surprise Valentine’s Day card for Chris while he was working on Saturday. It was fun and super messy.

Happy Anniversary, Hubby! I love you!

Not much to report from this last week, mostly just the regular schedule of school and playing and doctor visits! Of course, our weekend was a slightly different story.

Chris worked on Saturday since he had things to do that required taking the computer system down and his coworkers appreciate him doing that while they’re not there. (He gets to take Tuesday off instead, which is a nice trade considering the holiday weekend.) Things didn’t quite go as smoothly as he hoped and he ended up working for 22 hours straight! He finally made it home around 6am on Sunday, poor guy… he hadn’t eaten since lunch on Saturday and had been up for more than 24 hours!

Unfortunately, I was then injured in a freak Valentine’s Day accident (LiliBee poked me in the eye with a surprisingly sharp candy wrapper) and had to spend the whole morning in the ER. I have a corneal abrasion, which will heal quickly but is remarkably painful and interferes with my ability to do things like drive and read. Chris finally got to have some food and sleep Sunday afternoon.

Other than the ER trip, Valentine’s day was pretty fun around here. I got a surprise card from CareBear and some technology thing that will be handy once I figure it out from LiliBee and Chris. The girls and I painted the patio door for Chris’ valentine… they had a great time making a big mess and a “masterpiece”. He was very impressed, of course. The kids also got some candy and super exciting Hello Kitty fans from Grams and Pas. All in all, CareBear thinks Valentine’s Day is great and LiliBee is happy to go along with that.

This week is going to be a busy one. I’m “snack mom” at school tomorrow and have my monthly ultrasound on Wednesday. Thursday we’re(hopefully) going to be training Grams and Pas in the drop off/pick up routine at school so CareBear won’t miss much time while I’m out of commission in March and April. Friday is my weekly OB visit. I also have several things I need to get done in my “job” as publicity person for the preschool (if you know anyone looking for a preschool, we’ll be holding an open house on March 3rd!). And this week is Chris and my anniversary-of-sorts… it’s when we met so we use it as our anniversary on the years when there’s no Leap Day!