Molly turns 2

Our friends, Rob and Jody (who's wedding was were Nathan and I met!!) have a daughter a little bit older than Sofia. She turns 2 in May. We all packed up and went to her birthday party. Here are some cute pics.

Sofia drinking juice from a box - we don't let her drink juice at home, so she was running around taking EVERYONE's "jugo." I was chasing her around like a crazy woman because she was drinking after everyone. YUCK - I know that's how she gets sick most of the time - drinking after other kids. It's so hard to prevent, though!!!!

Here is Jaquelyn hanging out in their cool rocker. She liked it!

And here is Sofia sitting with all of the girls eating birthday cake! She's hanging in there with the bigger girls - she's hardcore tough girl!!!! Driving me crazy trying to keep her from hitting other kids. She seems to play better with older kids because she's not trying to be the "alpha dog" around them and doesn't push them as much!

And Jody just had her 3rd baby!!! It's a BOY! His name is Robert after his dad. Sooooo cute. So now we have 2 kids that are almost the same age. We'll have back-to-back birthday parties for a long time to come :o)

Jaquelyn looking cute after a bath

Sofia has an accident :o(

Sofia LOVES, LOVES, LOVES going into the pantry to dig for anything to eat or play with!!! She's in there 100 times per day! Today she decided to open the Ziploc bag that had the baking soda in it . . . then tear open the box of baking soda and spread it all over the floors!! And if that wasn't enough fun for Mami, she wasn't wearing a diaper because we are trying to potty train . . . so she peed on the pile of baking soda!!! GOOD TIMES being a SAHM :o) !!!!!

Gable cooks Thai dinner on Memorial Day!

Nathan's stepbrother, Gable, is an AMAZING cook!! His specialty is Thai cooking. It's really, really, really good!!!!!! He's cooked it for us several times. This time he really outdid himself. He made 5 different Thai dishes, plus white rice (curry/pineapple shrimp, Thai eggplant dish, basil/pork rice, broccoli with chicken dish, and something else)! It took him most of the day and you can't imagine how many ingredients he used. We were starving by the time we ate, but that's good because he cooked so much food we pigged out! Katy's friends Gitta and John and their son Christopher came over to join us for dinner. So did Uncle Andy and Doug. It was a great day!!! The only thing missing was Katy :o) But she'll be here in June.

WHEW!!! We did a lot this long weekend!!!

Jaquelyn's first Braves game - WE WON!!!

While Steve and Leanne were in town we all went to the Braves game - including Uncle Andy, Caroline, Doug, Mike, Nathan, the girls and I. The Braves won too! YAY! It was a lot of fun, but a little long for Sofia. She has too much energy to sit in the seats and watch a game for that length of time. Jaquelyn had no issues as she was in the Moby, as usual.

Here are some cool pictures from our seats!

Here is Sofia running the pretend bases - she was already starting to get tired!

These are some humongo Coca-Cola chairs!!!

Ileana's handy work

Here is Jaquelyn wearing one of the outfits that Ileana embroidered for her. Isn't Baby J so cute?!?!?!?!

Aunt Leanne's visit - Jaquelyn's QUILT!!

As most of you know, Leanne is an AWESOME quilter! Her mom was a quilter and she learned from her and from all of her quilt-bee friends. She tried to teach me once - we made a joint quilt for one of our friends' baby - it's A LOT of work!!

Anyway, she's made quilts for her nieces and nephews and for her sisters for their weddings . . . she made Nathan and I a wedding quilt, Sofia a quilt and now Jaquelyn has her own Leanne quilt too!!! I never dreamed that she would have one done for "Baby J" (as Leanne affectionately calls her) so soon . . . it's only 1 month since her birth!!! Leanne said she had a little more free time on her hands since she wasn't working at Hanes any longer! I already see benefits of her not working there :o) It's a really cool quilt - it has fabrics from all of her nieces and nephews quilts and Sofia's quilt and mine and Nathan's quilt - TOO COOL!!!!! I feel like part of the Marshall family :o)

She brought gifts for Sofia's birthday too!!! THANKS AUNT LEANNE!!!!! We LOVE you very much and can't wait to see you again at the end of June!

Zoo Atlanta with Grandaddy, Leanne, Doug & Daddy

Grandaddy and Leanne were both here over Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday we all went to the Atlanta Zoo - Grandaddy, Leanne, Mike, Kim (Leanne's sister), Marshall and McKinley (Leanne's nephew and niece), Doug, Nathan, Sofia, Jaquelyn and I. We have an annual pass and we love it every time we go! In my opinion, it's one of the highlights in Atlanta (they have several elephants, lions, kimono dragon, pandas, gorillas and so much more).

The new thing this trip was the Parakeet Feeding Cage. You can buy little sticks with seeds on them and you hold them out for the parakeets to eat from your hand. It's really cool! Here are some pictures and a video of the birds swarming all over our heads!

Here are Sofia and McKinley looking silly as meer cats - and Sofia as a "leon" - grrrrrrr!

Sofia looking cute on the giraffe.

Sofia and Aunt Leanne strolling together - awwww!! She can pronounce her name really well now - "Leeeeeaaaannnnneeee" - it's really drawn out the way Sofia says it.

Jaquelyn enjoyed the zoo too - she got to be carried around all day - which is what she loves :o)

Sofia looking cute in her hippie girl skirt - Jody McHoul gave this to us as a baby gift before she was born. I LOVED it and couldn't wait for Sofia to be able to wear it! It was worth the wait!!!

Here are all of the kids (plus me since Jaquelyn was on me) on the gorilla. Speaking of the gorilla - Doug did some amazing cinematography of the gorilla. Check out this video! YUCK!

Here are Doug and Nathan swinging Sofia. She LOVES this!

Here are Aunt Leanne and Jaquelyn checking each other out while we were on our lunch break:o)

It was a really GREAT time at the zoo - as evidenced by Sofia on the way back to the car.

Jaquelyn takes a bottle

We decided that Nathan would give Jaquelyn a bottle once per week so that she would be used to taking one - just in case I/we ever want/need to go out anywhere without her for longer than a couple of hours.

Sofia only ever took 3 bottles when she was about 7 weeks old. Then we waited about 3 weeks to give her another one (we were in the middle of packing to move to Atlanta), and by that point she decided that she would have NONE of that!! She only wanted her "leche" straight from the tap!!

Maybe Jaquelyn will like the bottle a little better. We'll see.

Another Boo-Boo for Dudley

THAT Dudley has another boo-boo!! $121 vet bill later he has a heart-shaped bandage on his right front paw and some antibiotics to take. He tore of an entire nail - completely - all you can see is the quick - OOOUUUCCHHHHH!!!! We don't know how he did it - we think it was on one of the slats of the privacy fence - running up and down it chasing the dogs on either side of us. Is he worth all of this trouble and money - YES!!!!!!!!! He's a sweety and feeling a little unloved these days since we have 1 more in the house. Maybe he's acting out to get more attention :o)

Grandaddy visits

Nathan's dad (Grandaddy) came to visit for a week to meet Jaquelyn and to see Sofia (and the rest of us :o). We had a really nice time - did all sorts of things that I'll create separate posts about. Here are Sofia and Grandaddy posing for a picture. Also, here is a picture of Sofia playing with Dudley.

And here is a funny picture of Gable (Nathan's stepbrother) holding Dudley like he's a lap dog - an 85 lb. lap dog!!

Grandaddy brought some gifts for Sofia, Jaquelyn AND me!!! Here is Sofia opening my present - a beautiful white gold necklace with Sofia and Jaquelyn's birth stones - white and blue topaz, respectively. It's gorgeous!! I'm pretty sure Katy picked it out :o) She's the best jewelry picker ever!!!!

Sofia pees in the potty for the 1st time!!!!!

Hurray!!!!! Sofia is starting to potty train. We've been sitting on the potty a lot, but today was the first time that she actually peed in the potty!!! Baby steps :o) Here she is celebrating her accomplishment!!!

Sofia's FAVORITE person!

Sofia LOVES Ben (Deirdre's oldest)!!! She goes up and hugs him a lot when she sees him and when we don't see him, she says his name about 100 times per day. Here is a cute picture taken at Stacy's house where we FINALLY got to see Ben for the first time since Jaquelyn was born! She was so happy.

Here is a cute video of Ben pushing Sofia on the swing! He's such a good boy!!

Here is Stacy trying to keep Jaquelyn sleep. She's such a good mommy!!!

Here is Deird reading to all of the kids. Somehow the one with 3 kids gets stuck watching our kids - OOPS!!

And here I am holding Jaquelyn in the Moby (as usual)!

Cute pictures of "The Girls"

I can't believe I can say that!! I have GIRLS - plural!!!!! In my head I'm still in college - not the mother of 2 :o) It's craziness!!!!!!!!! They are both doing amazingly well. Having 2 has been a little easier than I thought it would be. I guess when you prepare for the worst, it ends up being a little bit better than that. Jaquelyn is starting to develop a routine and Sofia is starting to settle down little bit after having a rough couple of weeks. Life is really GREAT!! I have a wonderful husband who works hard and is good to us and 2 healthy and beautiful daughters and family and friends who love and support us! It just doesn't get any better than that!!!!!!!!!!!

And here is a cute video of Sofia asking for more of her DHA vitamin. It's Carlson Labs Kids DHA - orange flavored gel caps. She chews the gel cap with oil - YUCK! But who cares what I think - she loves it!!