We celebrated Lucy's fourth birthday in February. As far as birthdays go, I hope this is the worst birthday Lucy ever has. James was gone all weekend for a conference, which finally completed on the evening of her birthday. We were moving in a week, and had only found out that we were moving a couple weeks prior. And to top it all off, Lucy had the flu, which I had the week before. Only the male members of the family received the flu vaccination this year, so they got off relatively easy. I however felt absolutely miserable for about 10 days with a fever that just wouldn't quit. Lucy unfortunately followed suit, celebrating her fourth birthday with a 104 fever. We'd been planning on making pink cupcakes, and when she woke up I told her maybe we should wait until she felt better to make them. She begged me to make them anyway, even though she said of her own volition that she was too sick to eat them. She smiled weakly every time she woke up that day. In the evening, she was still too sick to eat anything, but her eyes brightened up when it was time to blow out the candles and open presents!
So many presents, and they were almost all pink! Notable gifts included Magnatiles (more on those later), slippers like Daddy's, a doll with braids, and a butterfly growing kit!
"Look! Charlie and I are riding a train!"
As I mentioned, we moved! After searching for an affordable place to live for months and months, we were finally able to find the perfect place for us. I've promised pictures to the grandparents many times and here they finally are (or at least a few). After a month, we still don't have anything on the walls, but things are mostly unpacked.
Here is half of the living room. We have windows!!! And a fireplace!
This is the other half of the living room. I'm sorry it's so dark, but I can't figure out how to the lighting. Not only do we have windows, but we have this large wonderful window in the front. Lucy gazes out the window at our garden and yells at birds and squirrels to stay out of our garden.
Here is the kitchen (view from the front door). I have a stove! And it's gas! And a dishwasher (unfortunately, I'm getting so pregnant that most nights I just do them by hand to avoid bending over...).
Those are all of the pictures I have at the moment of the house, but the other perks include a bath tub (in Lucy's sing song words "a big huge bath tub for two friends to live in and take a bath"), three bedrooms, a back yard with ample garden space and some nice flowers already planted, and being closer to school for James and Children's Hospital for Charlie. Oh, and also really nice neighbors with kids all up and down the street who are throwing a BBQ later this week to welcome us to the neighborhood. Anyway, I'll try to get more pictures up soon.
Charlie is climbing. Seriously climbing. He can get up on this rocking horse, a small rocking chair, and Lucy's table all by himself. He also taught himself to whistle several months ago. You can hear him do it in the back seat of the car. Not bad for a not-even-two-year-old who has hearing loss!
We took a tour of a recycling center with Lucy's preschool group. It was fascinating! And very loud! Notice Lucy on the right below holding her ears.
Here is everything being sorted: a magnet pulls out the metal, a big machine smashes what's left and the glass that's among it breaks and is sifted out. What's left is plastic and paper (and things that shouldn't have been recycled) which is sorted by the workers.
The kids could have spent all day here, and the adults were pretty reluctant to leave too.
Here is the initial pile that the trucks continually added to.
Plastic, compressed into cubes and waiting to be made into something new.
I mentioned that Lucy got Magna-tiles for her birthday. They are little plastic shapes with magnets running along the sides that can be built into all kinds of great things (Lucy built a recycling center when we got home from the tour).
On Holy Thursday, Lucy somehow got the idea firmly wedged in her head that we were going to make cookies in the shape of a cross. I had no plans for that whatsoever, but we ended up making pretzels (some of which were in the shape of crosses).
We spent a good part of Holy Saturday afternoon churning ice cream for Easter in our front yard. Lucy helped us clean up the utensils.
Charlie is terrified of the camera lately. Whenever you see a picture of him smiling, know that it was because I snuck up on him, snapped a quick one, and half a second later he was in inconsolable tears. Here is the best shot I could get of Charlie in his Easter clothes as we headed out to the Easter Vigil. He has already managed to remove his socks and shoes as I got the camera and snuck up on him.
Here is Lucy after the Easter Vigil with a celebratory cookie. Both children stayed awake for the whole thing!
Lucy is very proud and excited about her Resurrection Garden. I saw a picture of this online and thought it was a neat idea. Ideally we would have gotten started a little earlier than two weeks before Easter but we do what we can! We planted grass seeds in the dirt and talked about death and new life. On Good Friday, we put the three crosses on the hill and rolled the stone in front of the tomb. After we came back from the Easter Vigil the stone was rolled away! And on Easter morning flowers were there (along with other Easter goodies).
Charlie enjoying a little Easter gift, a squeaky monkey.
Here is another example of the climbing. He climbs up on Lucy's little table to get a better look at cars and trucks going by.
This may make you a little nervous, but he has actually learned fairly well how to get down without too much injury.
Enjoying the backyard.
Lucy picks all the dandelions faithfully (there are a lot). I think she is signing something to me here but I can't remember what.
Here's a section of our garden that was already completely planted when we moved in. It's been fun to see what's come up! There are rose bushes, those overflowing green and purple patches just keep blooming more purple flowers. There's also several rosemary bushes, tulips, daffodils, and irises.
Here's a link to kids blowing some bubbles (Charlie was sufficiently distracted that he did not mind the camera): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jiJUjTy8o4&feature=youtu.be
If you made it through all of that, I'm impressed!
