Preschool graduation

Right after Norah was born, Olivia graduated from preschool. This was the second year we've been part of a preschool coop through our playgroup. It has been a pretty wonderful experience for all of us. Malachi started in class this year and loves it too although he's a little more mommy-dependent than Livi. The moms prepare and teach the classes once a week. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that I needed that preschool time each week every bit as much as the kids :) So, graduation day followed by a party time at Fun City Pizza was a bittersweet one. Malachi will still attend this coming year. These are her little classmates at the party!

Norah Maeleigh Brown

So much for staying on top of things with this blog, huh?
Well, let me catch up a little bit. First, and with great excitement, Norah Maeleigh Brown arrived on May 4th, 2011 at 4:20 weighing in at a gigantic 10 lbs. 6 oz. Below, see her really new baby pictures and then her much more recent pictures. I was induced "early" (the dr. says 2 weeks...I say she was 2 days overdue) but she was already on her way that day. I tested positive for B strep so I needed antibiotics before she was born. When we went in, I was having contractions (that I didn't know were contractions) about 3 minutes apart and was at a 5. Water broke on it's own and once they finally got the 2 rounds of antibiotics in, they started pitocin and then it was super fast after that. HOnestly, though, I think she would have been here pretty close to the same time without anything at all. I did have an epidural though so it was a nice, easy, hang out time. We were only at the hospital until the next afternoon before we were released to go home to our wild and crazy housefull of LIvi and Malachi and Baba :) They're just now (she's 3 1/2 months) starting to want to play with her since she's now interactive and smiley. She's an incredibly easy baby. She rarely cries and she sleeps wonderfully. We were bound to have one of those kinds of babies eventually, right? She's starting to come down in the percentiles just like the first 2 did. For a long time, she was WAY off the charts but now she's managing nicely between the 75th and 90th percentiles. As of today, she is 15.4 lbs. She's already teething but even then, is a pretty happy camper! She has amazing head and trunk control for someone so little and is well on her way to scooting. Norah is our last one...officially....we already took care of it! OUr little family is complete. As of

Big boy pants

Malachi has decided to potty train. We really loves wearing his big boy underpants. We are still a long way from leaving home in them though. He does great when he's totally pants-free but underpants make him less reliable and underpants with pants over them, well, you get the point.

Egg Hunt

We've done an egg hunt every year but it's usually someone else's egg hunt (as in they do all the work and we reap the rewards). This year, we've had tons of rain and flooding so all the hunts were cancelled. The kids had just as good a time at home finding their little bags of eggs hidden around the house.

Easter

Church in the morning. Mike and Gina's delicious Easter lunch. Kelly Sue's baptism in the afternoon. Egg hunt when we got home. It was a good day. Kelly Sue is one of the students at Christ on Campus. She's from Peru. The "young" people riding the rocking horse are Jonathan Chavez (Peru) and Su (Korea). I'm not sure there's a better way to spend Easter than surrounded by a rainbow of different cultures and backgrounds at a baptism.
Olivia's new obsession is the Ipod on loan from our friend Jun. She's been asking for "a phone that she can play games on". And, indeed, she is quite good at it. So much so that we limited her to 1 hour of games or movies or tv a day. She's my little tech junkie.

Henry Update

Thanks for the Henry prayers. He is HOME! They found a rare bug (rare for here...not so much in 3rd world type places) and good ole Henry managed to catch it. And in even bigger news....Nikki sent a message that Henry is EATING! That's a really big deal since he's 2 1/2 and not done much of that yet. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE join us in praying for a continuance in this giant step forward.
And a Brown baby update...there's nothing to update, really...that's the update. Some contractions but they're not regular yet or very close. Due date is tomorrow (what I say is the due date, anyway). Dr. says if she isn't here by my appt. on Tuesday then we can plan a date to help her along a bit. Prayers for me and this new little munchkin also appreciated. With Malachi and Olivia's crazy entrances into the world, we're a little nervous.

Prayers for Henry

Henry is back in the hospital. Please pray for him and his family. He's had diarrhea for a while (a week?) now but not making progress and they're trying to get him all figured out. They had him on pedialyte but have taken him off thaat now he's just getting IV nutrition and keeping him hydrated. He's testing negative for everything so far and are waiting on some parasite tests. If it's a virus, they just have to wait it out and keep him hydrated. They just switched him to a different feeding thingy (I'm so medically savvy) but don't think that's what's causing the problems. Thanks for the prayers, friends!

Eggs

We dyed eggs after the hail storm. Malachi was far more interested in eating the eggs than dying them.

Hail

We had a big hail storm yesterday. The kids were super excited. Malachi wanted to go catch them but we convinced him that it wasn't a very good idea. I did let them go and play after it stopped and then keep some in a bowl for the freezer. Our van's windows were spared but the van itself has lots of new dents. Some of our tomato plants are broken, and we'll need to have the roof looked at but it was kind of fun and exciting. It looked like snow in our yard.

Olivia and Ivy's party

This is the 3rd year that Olivia and Ivy have had a joint birthday party. We've decided to ask for donations for a local food pantry instead of presents since teh girls really don't need any more toys and there are lots of people who really do need the food. I love that it helps them to learn that helping others is important. This year, 2 of the Christ on Campus guys became the favorite toys and all the kids used them as jungle gyms. I'm not sure who had more fun OR who was more exhausted at the end of the night. Olivia asked for a Wonderpets cake with a skunk stuck in a rosebush for the wonderpets to save so that's what I made for her. It was the easiest cake to make yet, thankfully, since we spent the first part of the day in the hospital thinking baby was going to make an arrival that day. Thanks to all who helped set up, clean up, come and play, and entertain. We love you guys!

Sibling love

These 2 really love each other a lot! Look at those super dance moves :)

Train ride with Baba and John

Baba and John came down for a weekend and took us to ride the train from Van Buren to Winslow. There was much excitement and questioning about how much it would be like Dinosaur Train. They did, in fact, punch our tickets, go through a tunnel (although not a time tunnel), blow the whistle lots, and even yell "all aboard". It was pretty exciting for Olivia and Malachi. It was a nice, relaxing ride for the rest of us too. And then we ate 4 million pounds of candy walking around Van Buren before going home.

Olivia is 5!

Olivia is 5! It's hard to believe. We've always let her choose every single activity for the whole day to celebrate her birthday. She's always picked the very same things with only a little variation and this year was no different. First, she wanted a mommy date to the mall to play in the play area and see the crabs without Malachi. This year, one of them pinched her though so I'm not sure that tradition with be with us much longer. Then off to Fun City Pizza with Austin and Malachi which worked out nicely since it was also the place to drop off good for our playgroup bake sale. After that, the pet store to see the animals followed by Barnes and Noble for some books and playing. Then we picked out a toy at Toys R Us and ended our day with supper and ice cream at McDonalds where Malachi got stuck on the ladder and freaked out and this very pregnant mommy had to climb up to rescue him. Still, it was a fun day and I'm every bit as much in love with that sweet girl as ever. She's a smart, compassionate (well, sometimes not so much with her brother but I think that's pretty normal), curious, beautiful little thing and I learn as much from her as she learns from me. Oh, and her birthday stats are around 38 lbs (about 25th percentile) and 42 inches tall which is about the 50% percentile for height.

hiding in the closet....doing "nuffin"

I found Malachi and Livi in the closet doing "nuffin" when I noticed they'd been quiet a little too long. Thankfully, they really did stick to drawing only on the little pads of paper this time. And, yes, that's a ribbon in Malachi's hair. Livi had one so....

PBS Day

Every year, the Jones Center has a week full of activities for the kids on spring break. This year, PBS day happened to fall on a "make-up" day for the school age kids so it wasn't the mass chaos that it usually is. It was actually pretty fun. The kids liked getting to see some of the characters they have seen on PBS and some of our friends were there too. It helps us get through the loooooong week that Austin spends away with college students on missions trip.