Virginia's Blessing

We blessed Virginia this past Sunday in our ward here in Georgia. Mike gave her the sweetest blessing and she got to wear the same dress as her sisters. I decided since I wasn't throwing a lunch or dinner for any family that I would try to make her day special in some other way. I decided to make her a little bonnet out of some vintage lace I got from my Grandma Magleby. It coordinated so well with her dress and it was a fun little element for just her. I also decided to do pictures the day before her blessing so that we weren't rushed and so that I could get them with the blossoms that are all over GA right now. Ginny was such a sweetie and was silent during the blessing. She is such a ray of light in our little family. It was a bitter sweet day for us since we knew none of our family was going to be there. In the past our other girls have had large family gatherings and family in the circle. It was hard to know that we wouldn't have that and that she wouldn't have those pictures with uncles and and grandpas when she is older. Those are the real tough moments when you live far away. Luckily this angle baby made the day special by just being her same sweet self. Mike's mom also called us that evening and had a really sweet conversation with us and made us feel a little less sad about it all. Overall it was a great day and we are just more than thankful to have Virginia in our family. As I'm sure everyone can tell, she is a real joy.

The Grace Face Feb Update

I was hoping I would be better about updating but it turns out 3 kids keeps you pretty busy. Oh man, the Grace. She is our firecracker and just chuck full of personality these days. She is all about playing princesses with Violet. Lots of times I find them playing in the front yard decorating things with leaves and sticks and catching ants. They are as girlie as they come and will always twirl, sing and dance the day away. She has gotten a lot more into art in the last month. She actually does a really good job of staying in the lines and has good control of the pencil. She wears swimsuits with dress up skirts all the time and is found in princess shoes pretty much all the time. She loves her red rain boots and wears them almost everyday. We completely dropped the night time diaper and she has done a pretty good job of staying dry. I pretty much refused to buy diapers for 2 kids so once we were getting to the end of her last pack we said lets just do this. She has been a champ and I'm proud of how much progress she has made since we started. She goes to the bathroom during the day completely by herself. She would often ask us to come with her and now she is a solo act and I am super happy about that. She loves to sing and dance in the car and has a long list of requests whenever we are driving somewhere. She has been having a bit of a feisty streak and we have been working on talking nicely. She loves to tell jokes and when she knows she is in trouble she will usually say something funny and laugh to try and lighten the mood and get out of punishment. She is a sweetheart and will always bounce Ginny and give her snuggles and kisses. She is a really good big sister and has been taking on more responsibilities over the last few months. I'm so grateful for her fun, crazy personality and how she always keeps us laughing. She is much more rational then Vi was at this age and it makes our negotiations go a lot smoother. She loves nursery and playing at the park. She loves to help me with anything I'm doing and she just counts down the time until she can play with Vi after preschool. We sure do love our Gracie girl.

Grace at 2.5

Man oh man I had no idea I would have a child with as much personality as Grace. This girl is hilarious and crazy and just such a goof ball. I love her energy and spirit. She is the queen of hand gestures and her facial expressions always leave us laughing.

 I think since she got introduced into the land of make believe so early with Vi, she is just over the top with everything. Almost every day she is asking me to call her queen or pretend that she is a princess or ballerina. She will have the most serious face while she dances, with her arms above her head and her feet flying up in the air. She is always trying to mimic dancing that she has seen from different movies.

 The first thing she will do in the morning is ask Violet if she will pay pretend with her. Even when Violet is gone she will sit at her castle or dollhouse and play with her princesses. She rarely wears regular clothes, unless we are leaving the house. She always has a tutu, headband/crown, dress up shoes and probably 3 other accessories wrapped around her in some way and then 20 minutes later she is in a totally different dress up. 

She likes to lip sync to her favorite song and pretend that she is belting it. This usually consists of her closing her eyes and throwing her head back while she opens her mouth as big as she can. I will hear her singing in her crib almost every day and she doesn't hold back. She will literally sing at the top of her lungs whatever song she is feeling that day.

She loves to read books and will bring me books all the the time to sit and read with her. She knows all her letters and the sounds they make. She is super bright and picks up on expressions and phrases very quickly. People at church and at Violet's school always think she is so much older than she is because of how much she talks. She is the only one her age in nursery. All the other kids are quite a bit younger than her. So she kind of runs the place and chats it up the whole time. Anytime she is around other kids her age you can tell a big difference just in the extent of her vocabulary. I think it helped a lot that she had a super chatty older sister during the time that her speech exploded. 

She adapts really well to things and is by far the most rational of our children thus far. If she wants to do something and you explain to her why she can't do it, she will just go, "ughhh okay mom" and that's that. It has been so nice. She isn't one to throw tantrums. She cried and gets over things really quickly. She is good at brushing it off when she gets hurt. Lots of times she just needs a little snuggle and then she will say" okay mom i'm fine". I seriously love her for that. She is a screamer though and it drives Mike and I nuts. We have been really trying to stop it the past week or so. It is her natural reaction to everything and it's the worst. It is so loud and it will drive you crazy. Hopefully we can get her out of that stage real fast. 

She still takes a 2 hour nap every day and then lots of times she will sit in her crib and play for a bit after she is awake. We never hear her in the morning until about 8:00 and she is still in her crib. I am a firm believer that if they aren't trying to get out then don't take them out. So I'm hoping we still have a few more months of her contained in there.

 She is also our picky eater. She is not a fan of most things we have for dinner and will only take a few bites of it. We don't make her anything else for dinner and she doesn't ask for snacks, so maybe she just doesn't have as big of an appetite in the evening. She was a lot better at trying things when she was younger. Luckily Vi has gotten a lot better at trying what we have for dinner, so maybe they are trading places for a bit.

 Grace is always making funny faces and doing silly voices. She is naturally just very funny. Mike and I find ourselves laughing all the time at her. It's also not just us that find her funny. A lot of our extended family and friends seem to think she is hilarious too. She is such a fun kid to have and I love the dynamic she brings to our family. Vi and Grace are best friends and I love seeing how close they are and how much they look out for each other. it is a sweet thing and it is very much what you hope for with your children.

We love our Grace Face and I am so excited to see how her personality develops at this age.

Violet at 5

I missed doing a full update on Vi turning 5. I really just stunk at blogging once I got pregnant. Hopefully I can go back and play catch up with all of that.

 Vi started preschool this last September and it has been so fun to see her independence grow. She of course was very nervous going into it. She has always been my cautious child and she usually needs a lot of reassurance with things. I was so impressed with how she handled our move to Georgia. It all brought on a lot of change for the whole family and she just really took everything in stride and adapted very quickly. She loves her teacher Mrs. Pam and she has made some really sweet friends at her school. 

Violet has been really excelling at reading. She has graduated pretty quickly through all her pre reader books and keeps getting more familiar with sounding out tricky words and memorizing sight words. I have been so proud of all her efforts to get better. She really loves learning. We have a little program on our computer called ABC mouse and she loves doing the art pages and math. There are dozens of songs on the program that teach all kinds of things like seasons, letters, money and continents. Her and Grace love to listen to them. Our kids in general really pick up things when they are taught in song form.

 We got Vi a little scooter this past fall and she loves to scoot around on it. She was never very interested or motivated to ride her bike, but she really loves her scooter. She also loves going into the backyard to play soccer with Mike. We really want to get her signed up for soccer this spring. She loved dance last year but the recital seriously stressed her out and so she hasn't shown much interest in dancing since then, other than around our house.

She is our theatrical one and loves to put on a performance. She has really rubbed off on Grace too because they constantly want to wear tutus and sing and dance. Vi loves to play pretend with any toy pretty much. Her and Grace could easily sit around for hours playing some imaginary game. I love to listen in on it and pick up on all the funny things they say while they are playing. There are always pretty crazy storylines going on with their princesses and since we don't really have any princes or boy toys in general they have to get very creative in how they play.

She is still our lover of art. She could color and cut and create everyday. She really has a talent and I love watching her imagination come out with her pictures. We have an endless assortment of pictures getting put on our refrigerator. She has gotten a lot better at writing too. She loves to write all of our family member's names on all her art. She mostly draws princesses and fairies or pictures of our whole family. Vi wakes up earlier than all of us, so most days she goes downstairs and colors until it's 8:00 and she is allowed to come into our room.

Vi has started to get a much better handle on her emotions. She has always had a hard time with getting angry and frustrated. This is something we have just had to constantly work on with her. This past year has been a huge time of growth for her. She is learning to talk more instead of letting her emotions get the best of her. 

She is just the most amazing sister. She is so great at including grace and helping her. Don't get me wrong they fight all the time and sharing of course is a struggle, but they have really done a good job of working together and taking turns when they play. Some days are always better than others, but I have just been really impressed with how Violet treats her sisters and her friends. Hopefully we can still make progress with the anger and the drama. 

She has grown a lot in the last 6 months. She is a true 5T and can't wear most of her 4 T things because they are just too short. In the past she has been able to wear the size below her age for some time, but this time around she just grew straight out of them. She is a bit of a bean pole right now and her legs are just getting longer and longer. He foot still grows at a snails pace, but her pants are almost always high waters these days. 

Also, to go along with all the dress ups and dancing, Vi is constantly singing and making up songs. She sings to Ginny all the time and lots of times it puts her to sleep. It is the sweetest thing. She is such a fun smart girl and it has been so fun to see how much she has matured lately. 

We love our sweet Vi and I love seeing her really take responsibility for her actions lately. She has been an ideal oldest child for our family and is turning into my mini mom. We love our girl to pieces.

Virginia at 1 Month

Ginny is such an easy going baby. It has made my transition to 3 so much smoother than I thought it was going to be. About 3 days after we brought her home from the hospital I had my first little moment of anxiety about having 3 kids! I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. Luckily that was right when my mom came and she was here for a full week to help us transition it all. Then after that I only had to make it about 2 weeks until Mike had Christmas break and we had a few snow days thrown in there too. All of those things lowered my stress level a lot, but the biggest factor by far was Ginny. She is just the most easy going baby. She is a great eater and a champion sleeper. She was just always so content and her older sisters are the greatest help. They bring me diapers, wipes and blankets whenever I need them. They will also bounce her in her bouncer and sing to her if she is sad. Our biggest struggle was picking up Violet from school. Its just a bit of a circus, but I feel like we are starting to get the hang of it. So far she doesn't hate the car and that is a big relief too. She is our little chunker and I just love seeing all those cute rolls on her. She is officially out of newborn diapers and some of her newborn clothes are getting a bit tight on her. We are just so grateful for this sweet baby in our home right now.