The end of a long March!

March is one of my favorite months. So many good things happen and have happened in March. It is the beginning of Spring. Most of my favorite flowers bloom in March. It is James's birthday month, as he likes to refer to it (instead of most people celebrating a birth day, he likes us to celebrate the whole month), James and I got married in March of 2003, we found out we were expecting Jake on James's birthday, March 21st, 2005. Two years later, also on James's birthday, we found out for sure that Mari was on her way! This past March Mari was christened. We became home owners in March 2007. I found out I was accepted into the McDonnell Barksdale Honors College and the Croft Institute at Ole Miss and that I had been chosen for several academic scholarships that paid for it all many years ago in the month of March 1999.
This March 28th I received notification that I have been accepted into my first choice Ph.D. program. This fall I will enter the Public Policy and Administration Ph.D. program at Mississippi State University. I am very excited. I want to research and develop social policies and if I didn't get accepted into this program I was going to have to go to law school to work at the level I want to. I have no real desire to go to law school and I can't imagine myself ever actually practicing law. I was nervous that I wouldn't get in because I do not have a masters degree or even a bachelors degree in the field of political science, although I took many political science courses for my International Studies program. However, they looked at my transcripts, read some of my written work and then called me in for an interview. After the interview I went by the main office to say goodbye to the secretary whom I had communicated with many times over the phone and she said," That was the fastest one yet!" She must have seen the horror stricken look on my face, because she then said, "Oh but I am sure it went well. They were really impressed by your GRE scores." I assumed the worst and waited an agonizing week and half for the good news. If I am lucky I can graduate in 2011 (the year I turn 30).
Mari went for her four month checkup this past week and she is 17lbs 14oz and 25 inches long! She is a big baby, but still not as big as Jake was at this age. She continues to be a sweet little girl although she can be fussy at times now that she appears to be teething. She is rolling over by herself on occasion and holding herself upright rather well. She is trying so hard to sit up by herself. She coos and talks to us quite a bit. She has discovered that there is a difference between Me, James and strangers now and so she is not to keen to be held by others. I don't mind though because she is growing up so fast that I like to hold her and cuddle her as much as possible. James and I are still undecided on if she will be our last or not and I don't know if it is the thought that she might be my last baby or that she is a little girl, but I find myself hanging on to each little moment more so than I did with Jake. Maybe, it is just realizing how fast Jake has grown up and knowing that she will never be small ever again and that soon she won't like me to cuddle her all the time. She is starting to develop a little attitude and it doesn't look like she will have much trouble fending for herself against Jake. She has started cooing in this really bossy tone of voice!
Jake is cute as ever. He uses it to his advantage very well. As you can see in the picture below, time-out and redirection do not work out so well for us these days. Depending on the severity of the offense we now occasionally smack his hand. When we do this he says we hurt his hand, "you hurted me," and demands we kiss it better. He constantly amazes me with the things he notices and remembers. Jake is quite the little back seat driver. He yells stop and go at intersections when the lights change colors. He knows that green means go and red means stop and he can be quite emphatic about it! He loves his little sister to death, but he gets to excited sometimes when he tries to play with her and we have to make him stop. He has developed a new game that we aptly call "Wake up the baby." He waits until one of us put down an asleep baby Mari and then he wakes her up. You think he would want to take advantage of his time alone with us, but it seems he would rather watch Mari cry than spend time with us. In all fairness though, Mari has woken Jake up a few times this week with her late night crying so all of us are a little short on sleep these days.

Jake occasionally does something bad and then gleefully puts himself in time out!?! Mari is definitely interacting with her toys a lot more these days. At four months old her eyes are still solid blue, no hint of brown at all. Although, I have heard they can still change anytime in the first year.

We've got tickets to ride!

And now we're scared! Well more excited than scared. We are a little nervous about making the transatlantic flight with two small children, but we are so excited to get to go and see so many family members we don't get to see often including two Canadian first cousins I haven't met yet. We are all getting together for my grandparents' (Mum's side) 50th Wedding Anniversary Party. We are leaving the end of July and coming back in early August. Below are the pictures we had taken for Jake and Mari's passports. It was a LONG and DIFFICULT experience. If they would have just let me take them myself it would have been way less hassle (and probably more flattering). Their passports arrived about a month ago, so now we are all set!

The Great Picture Fiasco

Trying to take staged pictures has not been working out to well for us here lately at the Carr household. We never all seem to be in a 'happy' picture taking mood at the same time as evidenced above. If you will notice at least one of us is smiling at all times! Maybe by Mother's Day I will get a good family shot of us all four together!

Easter 2008!

Above, Jake reads the directions before we get started! Below, James and Jake begin coloring the eggs.

Jake is playing with his truck and cars that he got in an Easter Basket from Nana and Papoo.

Jake loads up his basket with eggs. It is the same basket that he picked out last year and he was happy to see it again. Below is Mari standing in her Easter outfit, showing off her very first pair of shoes.

This picture above was taken of Jake at 4 months old, two Easters ago in his very first pair of shoes!

Above is a very accurate picture of what it was like Easter afternoon. My mom is taking pictures, as usual, and my dad was rehiding the eggs for Jake while he counted his two baskets full and we took turns holding Mari.

Above, Jake through the cracked real eggs in the lake for the catfish to eat.

Above Jake opens the plastic eggs and below Mari (and Jake) playing at our house that evening.

Text to follow later, too tired tonight!

The first days of spring...

James has been moving dirt around the yard to level it off and plant grass. We are also having a patio poured later this year and he is doing the prep work for that. Hopefully by the middle of April we can things (other than grass).

With all the work going on in the yard, James has everything moved to the edge of the fence as you can see above. Below are Jake and Mari enjoying their new swings and slide courtesy of money the received at Christmas for outdoor toys.

The blanket behind her is to shield her from the sun.

James's birthday was Friday and we had BBQ. Jake ate his usual salad and baked beans and then asked for "chick bones" which is what he calls drumsticks. As you can see he ate part of two drumsticks. While he was eating we asked him what chickens say (he knows all his animal sounds) and he said "I have bones." We couldn't stop laughing.

The Middle of March.

We often think of Jake being jealous of Mari, but here you can see the beginnings of Mari becoming jealous of Jake as well, with the looks on her face as she watches her Daddy share pizza and some of his drink with Jake. She seems very interested in food. We didn't start solids with Jake until he was almost 6 months and we plan to do the same with Mari. We think she might be teething, so maybe she will have teeth by then, not that she will need them with baby food!

Mari loves standing up and sitting up. She is not a big fan of reclining at all. Here she is playing in bouncy toy we got her a few weeks ago. Below is Jake helping James work in our back yard. There will be more pictures of this project to come in the next few weeks. He is leveling it off so and redoing the patio (which was brick, but has now all been taken up and will soon be concrete) and developing flower beds. Jake was helping by packing the dirt (stomping) with his boots, which he really seemed to love. I also occasionally saw him throw clods of dirt in the wheelbarrow to help load it up!

Jake and Mari helping us plant some daffodils (by behaving and staying on the porch). I bought these daffodils in pots to use as decorations for Mari's Christening Luncheon instead of getting cut flowers so that we could remember the occasion when we see them.

We recently got out a box of soft toys from when Jake was a baby, now that Mari is getting to the stage where she can sort of 'play' with us. Jake was very happy to see his old green giraffe!

Grandmother and the Chocolate Duck

Need I say more?

Mari's Christening Luncheon

These pictures are from the luncheon we held following Mari's Christening. James and I didn't take any pictures during the actual ceremony as we were involved in it, but my mom has some, that she took, posted on her blog (under links on the right) in case you haven't seen them already! I think things went really well, it was a very special day for us as a family.

Below are some pictures of the family that showed up. James's Aunt Yvonne came, but we took the pictures after she left (not on purpose) when Mari woke up. After all the excitement from the ceremony, Mari slept through everybody eating!

Above are James's uncle Phillip (his dad's brother) and his wife Leslie and daughter Emily with Jake and Mari. Below are James's brother John holding Jake and sister Cheri holding Mari and then James holding nothing but a big smile on his face.

Above are James's parents with Mari and below are my parents with Mari.

Last of all are the four of us as a family. The group pics didn't turn out as nicely as I hoped, but I couldn't take them before we ate (which is when Jake became super hyper and got chip cheese all over his nice white shirt) because (1) Mari was asleep (2) people were hungry. Oh well, hopefully I will get another chance to take pictures of us all as a family again soon.