Early in the morning of July 16, 2008

Mari in her room. Some of the toys should look familiar. I hope Gran is happy to see the dinosaur/dragon toy survived Jake and is enjoying a long life! Mari seems to enjoy having her own room and she slept through the night for the first time last night! I hope it is not a fluke! As glad as I was to get a good nights sleep, I am a little sad that she won't be my baby much longer!

Mari crawling towards me.

She was happy to see me!

I tried to get her to show her new tooth to the camera (She got her first tooth yesterday evening-July 15), but to no avail! I did get some cute pictures of her chewing on a teething ring though!

At first I thought she was offering it to me, but when you see the look on her face (below) while she was doing it- she might have been hitting me with it.

Big blue determined eyes!

Below you can see how she loops her tongue through it. She loves sticking her tongue out. I call her my baby giraffe when she does it.

Jake slept in and was disappointed that we were already up and playing. Most of the time Mari and I cuddle or play in mine and James' bed until he wakes in and comes in to join us.

Mari came crawling over to cheer him up and between her excitement to see him and a promise of toast, he was cheery again in no time!

Mari practices singing while waiting on her breakfast!

In the middle of the day... (July 16, 2008)

I finally get a picture of Mari's first tooth, although as it just broke through the skin yesterday and is translucent, it is hard (okay, impossible) to see even in this picture.

Mari was not too happy about letting me see her tooth, when I asked Jake if I could see his teeth, he refused to let me see them as well!

The next few pictures is Jake attempting to teach Mari how to play hide and seek!

Below, Jake demonstrates how one would fly to Scotland if he were the pilot. Hopefully our pilots will be a little more skillful!

And then Jake wakes Mari up.

After this I dressed Mari (in her third and final outfit of the day) and we went to the airport to see Nana on her way to Scotland!

Later that evening (Wednesday July 16, 2008)

During our walk, Mari fell asleep. Jake, however, was full of energy as you can see below!

I thought this picture was interesting because it looks like there are two moons- a red one and a white one!

Jake swinging. In the picture above he is pointing at which way the airplane just flew overhead (it was too dark to get a good picture). The park is across the road from one end of the runway so it is a good spot for plane spotting!

Another picture of last nights "red moon".

My Birthday Weekend!

Saturday was my birthday. James turned it into a "birthday weekend" for me by surprising me Friday night with flowers, margarita mix and a bottle of tequila! Saturday morning he let me sleep in with Jake (who gave me lots of sweet morning cuddles for my birthday) while he and Mari went down stairs to cook breakfast. Breakfast turned out to be a birthday cake! Not only is it the first cake James has made in the six years we have been celebrating my birthdays, but it was my favorite kind (of from a box cake)- chocolate with strawberry icing. For those of you observant people that know that I turned 27, not 25, it was a gesture of kindness on his part. I kept forgetting I was already 26 and thinking that this was my 26 birthday. I mentioned it was kind of depressing to learn that I was already 26 and not about to turn 26 and that I felt I was getting two years older instead of one. Last year I was so focused on Miss Mari and the pregnancy that my birthday just slipped by. So James was trying to make me feel better by turning the clock back two years! He is such a sweetie! I received lots of nice cards for my birthday, and had a very enjoyable meal with my parents (you can see the pictures on my Mom's Blog). My mother-in-law even called and sang me happy birthday. I got a camera tripod and we have been attempting to take a picture of the four of us, but as usual- Jake will not participate. Hopefully I will have one to post soon! Until then, here is one of him blowing out my candles for me. He isn't dressed because he just woke up. We let him have cake for breakfast that morning! All in all I had a very wonderful birthday weekend. I hope to turn 25 again next year!

Back from our visit with Dr Sheffield.

Here is a rare sight- Jake taking a nap. I feel like I really need one as well as they can be difficult to handle when I take them anywhere together, especially when we have to wait hours to see the doctor. Fortunately, our doctor is worth the drive and the wait. Our appointment was at 10:45 but we didn't get out of the office until 12:54. At one point Jake decided he was a peacock and started making a loud imitation of a peacock noise (they sound like a scream so you can see why he would be fascinated by them). When I told him to be a quiet peacock he pinched Mari. When I got on to him, he responded that he was a baby peacock and Mari was "baby bugs" and "baby birds eat bugs". While I was proud that he made the connection that peacocks are birds, Mari and I were less than thrilled by his baby peacock impersonation. It was a very long trip to say the least! He told the nurse that she was bad (she wanted to listen to his heart and lungs) and refused to open his mouth until they bribed him with a sucker. Mari cried every time she was out of my arms. I just hope they don't kick us off the airplane. I am pretty sure peacocks are not allowed in the cabin with the rest of the passengers.

The doctor recommended that we give Mari some diluted fruit juice once a day and that we start her on a sippy cup. Here she is trying to figure it out. Despite loving apple sauce she doesn't seem to be too sure about apple juice, but then again the only juice Jake likes in cranberry and OJ.

Here Mari has given up on the juice and decided to try and wake Jake up.

Well we've been to Amory and back. Dr Sheffield confirmed that both kids are cute, smart, healthy and a little on the cheeky side! Jake's stats stayed the same at around 30lbs (as expected) -they didn't measure his height as he was there only a month ago and was 37 inches tall then. Mari is now 20.5 lbs and 28 inches which places her around the 93rd percentile on height and weight for her age. Jake was around 100% plus or minus for his age range until he reached nine months and then it was only his height that stayed in the top fifth percentile. He has leveled out now and is around 66% on height and 50% on weight for his age. I knew Mari was working on a bottom front tooth, what I didn't know is that she has a bottom molar that may actually come through before the front tooth! That is why she has been scratching her ear as both ears were fine according to the doctor. So we have been given the all clear to move Mari to her own room and work on getting her to sleep through the night (she still wakes up once or twice). I can't believe how fast they are both growing up! Above are a few pictures I took when we got back a minute ago.

An Overdue Update

Mari can crawl (she has started pulling up on furniture and taking steps as well) really well now so our lives have gone from "never a dull moment" to "never a still moment" and thus never a moment to blog. I am working on rearranging things in the house to make it more 'Mobile Mari' friendly as Jake was 15 or 16 months old when we moved in. As with where we lived before there is tile in the kitchen and dining room and so I am dreading the first time she falls on it. She is still working on her first tooth. She is 7 and a half months old at the moment. I never know what Jake will say next and he is constantly surprising us with the connections he makes between things. He is so observant- very little gets by him and there is no tricking him. We are all excited about going to Scotland in two weeks. As Jake says "Fly airplane Scotland, see GG Mac, GG Bill". He now says this every time he sees an airplane as well as every morning when he eats breakfast. I am taking them both to the doctor tomorrow for a check-up so I will post updated heights and weights soon. I have got to find out how much of what to drug them with on the airplane. Just kidding, sort of...

Above is picture of my friend Elizabeth and her son Connor during a visit about two weeks ago. Elizabeth has quite a few more pictures of the visit on Connor's Blog. Notice Mari standing and trying to stomp around while holding herself up with one hand.

We had a nice treat on the evening on July 4th the City of Guntown fireworks display was across the street from our house so we all had a good view. James took these three pictures. As a side note; he had to change some settings on the camera to take these pictures and did not change them back and I only became aware of it tonight when I noticed all the pictures I took in the past few days are out of focus. So if a picture is a little blurry, that is why.

As you can see below, even Mari enjoyed them.

This is a picture of Mari sitting in Jake's chair while he was asleep one morning (she wakes up early so she can play with all his toys).
Below is a recent picture of part of our front yard to demonstrate progress with the landscaping efforts.

Above, playing on our pathway with his sidewalk chalk. No, he did not draw his own name (although he can spell his name and Mari's) but he did tell me he drew several 'I's and 'C's and the markings he made did actually look like 'I's and 'C's.

Mari and Jake share some Cheerios.

Jake 'helps' Mari play with her toys. Well actually only one of the toys in question is in fact Mari's, but the toys they are playing with are ones Jake has outgrown (he has taken a sudden interest in them now that she can play with them). The look on her face is classic!

She is going to hate me for this one (above) later, but it is so cute. She is so warm and snugly (probably not really a word- I know) and she loves taking naps with her Daddy!

The picture directly above and below are to demonstrate her crawling position when she wants a closer look at something. It is amazing how mobility has changed her world. It is almost like she has been waiting for months to go up to things around our house to get a closer look... ...and now she can!

These pictures were taken at dusk in our backyard. Above is pet dog Daisy standing guard while Jake climbs up his slide backwards. These next three are in a series.

This last picture was taken earlier tonight of Mari "reading" a book (and standing) we got for Jake to help him understand what was going on with me when I was pregnant. It is "Baby on the Way" by Dr Sears (et al). I figure that she took in interest in it for one of three reasons (a) she heard us read it to Jake so many times while I was pregnant with her and so now she just wanted to see the pictures for herself (b) as she ended up chewing on it shortly after this picture was made, it might be possible she was attempting to destroy it to keep us from having any more children and thus securing her position as the baby and saving herself from the dreaded fate of middle children or (c) she is teething and anything made of paper is her first target. Of course it is most likely C or some combination of all the above, it is just that it is 11:01 and I just got everyone asleep including James and after trying all day to finish this blog at this late hour I find the possibility of A and B funny. As to whether there will be any more children, we are still very much undecided on the issue but the book is safe in case we need it again.