Happy 2nd Birthday, Patrick!

My baby boy is 2 today!

Here he is this morning with his birthday pancakes. He likes to eat.

We originally planned his party for December 12th to not interfere with everyone's busy holiday preparations, but a stomach virus hit the Burns household that weeekend. We moved his party to the following Wednesday night. We had a great turnout-thanks to everyone that came!

I originally made the Lightning McQueen cake that he requested, but since I made it Friday night and got sick Saturday, we decided not to eat all those germs. Yuck! We saved it for looks and I made fresh cupcakes the day of the party.

The party was awesome! It was 1.5 hours of sheer, uninterrupted madness.

We got lots of new cars, trucks and things that go vrooom. Good times.

Penny's 2 month update

Penelope turned 2 months old last week. Time is flying by, as usual! She is such a happy, content baby and is such a joy to us. She has observant and has started smiling and cooing so much. She likes to hold her head up and look around, especially at lights and ceiling fans.

Here's a snapshot of her last week while sitting on my belly and looking around. Please ignore my freakish long monkey finger if you can.

Here are the stats from her 2 month checkup:

Weight-11 lbs. 3.5 oz. (75th percentile)

Height-22 1/4 inches (50th percentile)

Head-38cm (25th percentile)

I'm finally almost finished with her room. I'll post pictures of it soon!

We were those people

You know, those people. The ones who have very sporadically been to church over the past year and somehow had the energy and will to bring all three of their small children to mass this past Sunday.

Jackson was excellent as well as Penny. Patrick on the other hand...

Actually, he was pretty well behaved (thank you snacks) and only got restless towards the end, but he managed to do some very funny and embarrassing things that definitely drew attention to the fact that he hasn't been to church enough.

He's a big fan of music and danced and swayed through every song. After the first song, he loudly clapped and screamed "YAY!" Hey, a little enthusiasm in church never hurt anyone.

When it was time for offertory, the basket came our way. Those wicker baskets apparently look a lot like the baskets that hold tortilla chips at the mexican restaurant. Patrick likes tortilla chips. He adamantly started yelling "chips!" and trying to grab and spill the money and envelopes everywhere.

And then it was time for communion. I still cringe thinking of this one. Juggling 3 kids for communion is not easy. Jackson walked, Alex held Patrick and I carried Penny. As they approached the eucharistic minister Patrick recognized yet another opportunity to do his favorite thing, eat. Those communion wafers looked mighty tasty to him and he quickly threw that little arm out and grabbed a large handful. Not good.

Yet another time that my mother-in-law's quote is very fitting. "Children are humbling."

This church trip definitely holds up to the last one where Patrick looked at his truck book and yelled "TRUCK" throughout the whole mass. Wouldn't be so bad if his "tr" didn't sound exactly like an "f"...

Pumpkin Patch

Things are settling down around here and we're finally getting used to having a little girl around the house. I've been going overboard lately shopping for girly things. I've discovered that I have a weakness, or some might call it a strange obsession, with tights and girl shoes. I just love them!

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch last week. The boys had a blast playing on all the tractors, petting the goats, bunnies and pigs and riding on the corn train. Patrick is still talking about the pigs and oinking all the time. Jackson screamed "whoooohoooo" the whole time he rode the train. His country boy side is really coming out.

Another big hit of the day was the corn crib. This is kind of like a ball pit, but with corn kernels instead of balls. We couldn't figure out why Patrick was so grumpy on the way home, but we understood once we got home and changed his diaper that was full of hard corn kernels.

Penny did this the whole time. She's a good baby.

Penelope's Story

Most of you already know this, but we welcomed baby number 3 a couple of weeks ago and it's a girl! Penelope Kate was born on October 6th. She weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz and was 19.5 inches long. The labor was quick and easy. It went even faster than the other two-only about 3.5 hours. I hardly even had time to realize what was happening and she was already in my arms!

She is doing great. She's such a sweet baby and is very petite with delicate, small features. She went to the doctor yesterday for her 2 week checkup and is up to 7 lbs. 14 oz and 21 inches, so she is definitely nursing well.

I think we are finally adjusting to having a girl in the house. It felt a little strange at first to be able to dress her in pink and refer to her as "she." I've been doing lots of shopping for cute girly things and I am working on her nursery. Fun!

The boys love their little sister. We haven't had to deal with any jealousy issues so far. Jackson wants to hold her and "pet" her all the time and Patrick likes to bring her trains to play with. They have done great with the adjustment.

We are going to try to finally get to Tate Farms (a local pumpkin patch) today, so hopefully we'll get some good pictures that I can post. Thanks everyone for all the well wishes and gifts!

Blueberries

The boys and I went blueberry picking in the rain this week. I've been wanting to go for a while and this week was pretty skimpy on activities and appointments so I decided Tuesday would be a good day. We ended up going to Gin House Branch Farm in Decatur. It was excellent. They had a ton of ripe, plump berries and they work on the honor system, so you can just show up whenever you like and put your money in their lockbox and start picking.

We got very wet and dirty, but at least we weren't hot. The boys had a blast! We filled up a gallon bucket in no time and Patrick filled up his belly. I think he ate as many as we put in our bucket. He was just shoving them in his mouth by the handful.

I made this blueberry muffin recipe this morning and it is excellent! This has become my new favorite baking blog. She has a very interesting looking vegan chocolate cake that I'm dying to make for my sister-in-law, Lizzie.

Anyone have any good blueberry recipes?

Picture Update

Hello friends, it's been a while! The boys have been taking deliciously long naps lately, so I'm going to attempt a long overdue update with lots of pictures. This should definitely make up for my absence because I have serious issues with adding pictures in blogger and this will probably take me a week to get finish and get everything lined up correctly.

We took our annual family beach trip to Sea Grove in June. We all had a blast and I'm still sad that we're not there. I'm having beach withdrawal and I'm trying to figure out some way for us to squeeze in another beach trip before the new baby arrives. This is our family picture-it had to include our 2 dump trucks because they are a big part of the family lately.

I was about 6 months along in this picture. This pregnancy has been a doozy compared to my other two. I have just felt completely run-down the entire time. I'm ready to have this baby! We are still waiting for the big day to know the gender. It's been killing me having to pass on all the bargain baby clothes I've seen while shopping lately. I don't have any instinctual feelings either way on the gender so I will be as surprised as anyone when we find out. This baby is very active and so far very healthy and we are thankful for that.

Jackson took swim lessons for the first time. He did great. The first day was a bit traumatic, but I think that was due to the fact that we were late and I pretty much had to walk into this new, hot, humid place and throw him in the water with his scary looking man teacher. After that day, he warmed up quickly and enjoyed doing his "scoop hands" and floating and even jumping in from the side of the pool.

Alex had shoulder surgery the first week in July. This was surgery to repair an injury he got while playing in the ocean last September. I was scared to death about the surgery and the recovery, but he has done remarkably well. His shoulder is doing great and he has hardly whined at all! It's amazing what they can do with arthroscopic surgery-he just has 3 tiny incision marks and hopefully he'll be able to throw a baseball again soon.

Patrick has had quite a learning explosion over the last couple of months. He is talking up a storm and putting words together. He'll repeat pretty much anything we say and is learning his colors and he loves to hum. He loves trains, trucks and race cars just as much as his big brother and has really started to enjoy reading time. He has also started to show a lot of interest in the potty. We spend a lot of time hanging out in the bathroom, but haven't had any success yet.

Alex finished our newest home improvement project, the mudroom, the week before his surgery. It is awesome! This space is the walk through from our garage and actually used to be our laundry area before we moved that upstairs. It's great to make use of that wasted space and have lots of storage for sports stuff, purses and backpacks.

Hope you're all having a great summer!

Sleepless Ramblings

A naked Jackson woke me up at 3 this morning with wet sheets. All that moving around while I changed his bedding and cleaned him up and got him dressed and back to bed woke up our third little peanut. So as I was lying in bed feeling our baby swim around inside of me and thinking about the future I was unable to go back to sleep.

We have our big ultrasound tomorrow. We are still set on not finding out the gender, but I still have just as much excitement. I can't wait to see the baby again. It has been a long 13.5 weeks since I have seen that tiny, beating heart and it will be so reassuring.

It's funny how different subsequent pregnancies are from the very first. With the first you spend so much time marveling at the changes in your own body and dreaming of how your life will change and hoping you can do it. Now, I am still in awe at my body and the changes it goes through and the fact that it can support and grow this new life, but I have more confidence in myself. I know this place and these feelings. I can do this, I just hope I can keep my other little guys' worlds from being turned upside down.

I haven't had much time to dwell on worrying with this pregnancy, but I do have the same worries as last time. Will I have enough? Enough time, love, patience to give them all what they deserve? I know it all miraculously and beautifully ends up working somehow, but that doesn't keep me from fretting over these things sometimes.

I can't wait to meet this new little bundle and discover a new personality and witness another special sibling bond. It has been amazing to watch Jackson and Patrick and see how natural and special their relationship is.

I feel lucky that I will get to witness many more moments like this one. Being a mom is beautiful thing and I can't wait to fill our house and hearts with more love! Please think of us tomorrow and pray for a healthy baby.

Finally!

It's official! My babiest of babies started toddling last week. (Technically, he's not my babiest of babies considering the bun in the oven, but I'm not one to get technical and I really don't need any reminders that Patrick is not a baby and is growing up, thank you very much...)

I read a statistic that 90% of babies are walking by the age of 15 months. Apparently, Patrick finally got that memo. I really think he took so long to walk because he can't do that and push a little car or train around on the ground at the same time. That's his favorite past-time.

I've been waiting to post this until I could get a good picture of him walking, but every time I pick up the camera he starts crawling. This is the best I could do.

So Long

Today we sold Lettie's SUV. We are both sad to see it go. It was a very good car, and we never wanted to get rid of it. But, we either get rid of it or we get rid of one of the kids. We thought about it for a few weeks, then we chose to keep every kid. I hope we've made the right decision but only time will tell. Here's a picture from the Craigs List ad:

We are working to get the replacement car later this weekend. The new car fits our needs to hold more car seats. I know you're anxiously awaiting me to tell you what we're getting. Here's a hint: it has 2 sliding doors and it will rock your face off.

What we haven't been blogging about

I guess I should start with the biggest news first. The Burns household game plan is changing from a man-on-man defense into a zone. #3 is due October 14th and we are pumped! I have already gained 13 pounds. Wow...

Patrick still isn't walking, but he's very close. He will walk all day holding a finger and he has taken 3-4 steps at a time on his own. He has holes in all of his pants, so I'm definitely ready for him to walk now.

Alex and Pop built a swingset for the boys. It is awesome! We still have some additions to add to it, but the boys are loving it.

Jackson went to the dentist for the first time earlier this month. I'm so mad that I forgot my camera because he was so good and he looked so cute sitting in the big examination chair. He loved it and didn't want to leave. It definitely went better than I expected it to.

Patrick's newest word is "mine!" He doesn't really know what it means, but it drives Jackson crazy because he'll say it over and over and over.

Jackson has started to loudly and honestly observe other people of loud stature in public. A couple of times recently he has blurted out "HE'S BIG!" when he sees a large person. It's very embarrassing and when I tell him not to say it he says "But, he IS big!"

Alex and I were recently nominated for parents of the year when another diner at Chik-fil-a frantically brought to our attention that our son was licking his spilled ice cream off of the floor. Can you imagine how great it will be when we have 3?

New Game

We have a new game in the Burns household.  It's called "Pretend to be asleep" and it is awesome.

  

Alex always wins.

The Big 3

Happy Birthday to Jackson!

I can't believe my first baby is 3 today!  

He's been such a big boy lately.  He loves going to "school", counting, playing with trains, painting and singing.  He's a big help with all of Daddy's projects and when Mommy is cooking.  He's a super big brother and has been doing a great job being polite and kind.  He has a sweet heart and loves to cuddle.  He makes us laugh-a lot. 

He is such a joy to us!

Bottomless Pit

Here's a list of what Patrick ate yesterday:

Breakfast

cheerios

1 banana

1 yobaby yogurt

milk

Snack

animal crackers

juice

Lunch

piece of bread

1 cheese stick

green beans

blueberries

milk

Snack

graham crackers

juice

Dinner

bowl of peaches

bowl of blueberries

fish

bowl of peas

rice

chicken nuggets

milk

I'm afraid he's going to be morbidly obese soon.

Being Humble

Over the years my mother-in-law, Linda, has often stated that children teach you to be humble.  I never really understood this until I had children of my own.

Sometimes it's their embarrassing actions (growling at people as a greeting or announcing to someone "my booty itches"), but more often for me, it's about accepting that I can't be a perfect mom.

I sent out invitations for Jackson's 3rd birthday party this week.  I've always made his invitations myself, but to make things easier on myself I used store bought invitations this time.  Jackson decided on a fire truck cake this year and I happened to have some dalmation invitations lying around so I put them to use.  

These invitations definitely tried my patience.  I had to experiment for over an hour to figure out how to get the text to print on them correctly.  After I finally got them all printed I had to assemble the little dog collar/tag embellishment on them.  This consisted of threading a plastic cord through a tiny, stiff opening in the paper.  I tore most of them and kept forgetting to put the tag on the collar before I threaded it through so I ended up threading that little cord at least twice. 

I sent them out anyway, even though they are far from perfect and I didn't really make them myself.  That's only one of the million ways I've been humble this week.

So, if you get one of the torn invitations, please understand.  I only hope that the fire truck cake I promised him doesn't prove to be more of a lesson in humility.

Hope to see you there!

Hope everyone out there had a great Christmas and New Year's.  Like everyone else, we're just now getting back to our regular routine.  We did some holiday traveling for the first time this Christmas and were able to see my parents new house in Mississippi.  The boys had fun and were good travelers and we only ended up with one small black eye.  (Patrick likes to play rough)

  

December 26th was the beginning of all the cooties in the Burns household.  Jackson was sick for a couple of weeks and now Patrick has the dreaded RSV.  He's doing fine and seems to be through the worst of it.  Jackson also had RSV at one year old and it was the beginning of all of his respiratory problems, so we're just hoping that Patrick won't have the same complications.  So far, he seems to be handling it well.

Jackson has been very busy lately figuring out this whole counting thing.  He's getting really good at counting things.  I don't know what he has against 5, because he often skips it, but if we remind him to go slowly he always does well.

Patrick is still not walking, but has become quite a chatterbox lately.  He tries to repeat words that we say.  His favorite word over the holidays was "pretty".  I thought he was talking about me, but now that all the lights and tree are gone, the word has disappeared from his vocabulary.  Hmph.  So now he's moved on to "wow" and "uh-oh."  

I've been letting him try out self-feeding with a spoon.  It's very messy, but he loves it and I think it really helps his independence.

I've been working on a quilt for Jackson's bed.  This is the first quilt I've ever attempted and at times it helps with my insanity, but it often adds to it.  I guess that's what projects are for.  I've been at it for about a week and have 3 12x12 squares completed.  I think I'll need about 56 squares for the entire quilt.  So...yeah, it's going to be a while.

Wii Fit

We went to Lettie's parents during the Christmas holidays.  They have a Wii Fit that Jackson tried out.  I'm guessing that his Wii Fit age is 37, since that's what everyone else's happens to be.  Here's a clip of Jack playing a few games.  Sorry for the length, but I don't know how to cut scene when a 2 year old is screaming while showing off minimal balancing ability.