B’s buddy Hawke invited her to come hit tennis balls with him this morning. We don’t have a kids racquet (or any tennis racquet for that matter), so she used my racquet ball racquet (and occasionally tried out Hawke’s racquet).

It is unclear which she liked better - hitting the balls or chasing after the balls. Regardless she had a marvelous time!

M turned 3 months old yesterday, and although I admit we are biased, we think she is adorable! She has just started playing with toys you give her, with the current favorite being Eli the elephant. She spits up a fair amount, but not nearly as much as B did. IF she is going to be fussy, it almost always happens between 5 and 7 at night, but I estimate that only happens 2-3 times a week. During the day she eats roughly every 3 hours. At night, she generally falls somewhat asleep in her swing or in someone’s arms by 8:30ish, eats again around 10-11ish, and sleeps until somewhere between 4 and 5:30ish. As soon as we get the crib assembled, we will start working towards her going in there every night. I will start with trying to put her down for some daytime naps, and in the next couple of weeks, we will work up to putting her up there at night.

She is a very laid back and generally happy baby. While generally slow to anger, when she gets mad watch out! She definitely has Jason’s temperament… Her eyes are still dark, and while there are still areas of green/grey, they seem to slowly be turning brown. If they do end up hazel, it will be the darkish brown/green kind of hazel as opposed to the lightish blue/grey kind of hazel. Her hair is still dark, but then so was B’s at this point. B’s had changed by the time she was 4 months old, so we shall see what happens with M in the next month.

The project for this coming week is to get her more used to the bottle, as I will be returning to work a week from Monday. I am not sure where those 3 months went, but they sure went by quickly!

They slept in a bit in the morning, and given how late they went to bed, I was impressed with how well behaved and cooperative they all were the next day. All three did willingly take a nap…

I didn’t get many pictures because, quite frankly, they never stopped moving! On Sunday we said goodbye to our friends and headed into the city to see a baseball game with more of our friends (Kelley and Brad and their kids). Brianna was fairly resistant to this baseball plan at first, but she eventually decided she liked the idea. She stayed the entire game, and said she had a great time! After the game, the kids had the opportunity to run the bases and B said she wanted to do that. We stood in line for over an hour - here we are as we got closer to home plate.

Unfortunately, they would not let me or Jason go with her, and at the last second she balked at the idea of doing it by herself. *sigh* The whole thing was made even more frustrating by the fact that by staying for the base running event, we missed the last MARTA shuttle. *sigh* As a result, we did not get back to our hotel room until 7 hours after we started this particular adventure. Everyone’s nerves were a little frayed (except M, who was more of an angel than anyone could have asked for), but we made it. We all slept really, really good that night…

The next day we headed to the aquarium! Unlike the first time we took her when she was about 18 months old, this time B darted from this spot to that, barely stopping long enough to see all the fish! When we first arrived, she visually latched onto Deepo, the orange fish shown here, who is the main character in a 3D movie at the aquarium.

Deepo provided good behavior motivation for the rest of the day…

She did allow us to get a few pics, but not too many as that would have cramped her style, ya know.

with Daddy

Look Daddy, I am taller than you!

She had big fun crawling through all the myriad of tunnels they have, and even stopped once or twice to allow me to capture her picture.

All done (with the prized Deepo, named Avery by B, in hand)!

After the aquarium, we stopped at another friends’ house (Kelly and Dan) to visit with them and their kids. We had a GREAT time, and wished we could have stayed longer to visit more friends, but this was as much time as Jason could get off from work. It was wonderful to see everyone and to take the girls on a trip. I’d be lying though if I said I wasn’t happy to get home. Right now with two girls, the trip to Atlanta is about as far as I want to go in a car…

After Jayson left, B continued to explore by driving a bus

and experimenting with circuits.

Complete and utter exhaustion led to another great nap! Nana, Tia, and I used that time to work on the cake pops B specifically requested for her birthday party - panda cake pops. I think they turned out pretty good myself!

The party was the next day (as she continued what had now become her birthday weekend) at Monkey Joe’s. She decide something like 6 months ago that she wanted a party at Monkey Joe’s and she stuck to that wish the entire time. So, Monkey Joe’s it was! She had a FANTASTIC time! I took some pics of her running around with her buddies, but they didn’t really turn out - the kids never stopped moving! So here are some pics from the party room part.

The Queen of honor.

Special visit by MJ.

Hug!

The prize grab booth.

The object is for the birthday girl (and in this case one helper) to grab as many pieces of paper from the air as they can and stuff them in the bag around B’s neck. The pieces with dollar amounts are added up, and B got to use the total in the store to buy prizes. Her choices:

Here she is at the end of the party - can you tell she had fun?

It’s hard to believe, but B is already 4 years old! She celebrated by having a fantastic weekend, starting on her birthday and finishing with a fun Easter celebration. On her birthday, she insisted on wearing her new outfit (orange and pink dress, pink sandals, and pink sunglasses - how can you go wrong?) to the natural sciences museum (her choice of activity for the day). This, of course, happened after she opened a few presents. The first round of presents was heavy on non-toys except for these skates…which she had to try in her pjs AND in her dress.

We did not get many pics at the museum - she never really stood still long enough! She zipped from one exhibit to another in her never-ending quest for live animals. There weren’t many, but she did get to attend a kid’s class on animals where she got to pet a bird and see a salamander and a gator. She was BEAT!

After her nap, Nanna, Poppa, and Tia arrived and we went to dinner for her choice of birthday foods - brown noodles (Japanese udon noodles with chicken). After opening the rest of her presents (tearing through them, really) we did birthday cake. She insisted on decorating the cake.

We lit her super snazzy candle from Mimi (think shooting flame into the air with spinning candles and the happy birthday song), and she blew them all out. She said she made a wish, but of course, she wouldn’t tell us anything about that wish!

She had a fantastic day…and slept very well that night!

Or should I say, she really enjoyed the frosting!

That definitely worked out to my advantage since I got to eat the cake part (my favorite part anyway)!

M also wore green - B picked out her brotosaurus outfit. Oh, and M has decided to follow in big sis’s footsteps…

During the first 7 weeks of Mackenzie’s life, we were so very fortunate to have family in town to help out for all but 8 days!! Before our last set of visitors arrived, we had a week with just the four of us. It went pretty well! That was the same week as the anniversary of Dr. Seuss’s 100th birthday, and to celebrate, B wore red and black to school.

Since B has declared that pictures are only allowed on Fridays, we took advantage of the opportunity to get a shot with her and Jason.

The last set of visitors, Nana and Poppa, just left a few days ago. We had a wonderful visit! Poppa was first up to hold Mackenzie (who promptly took a nap on his chest).

Then Nana took a turn, with the same result.

Brianna had a great time showing off her new favorite activity - yoga!

There was lots of play time with Nana and Poppa, but all these visitors also means more play time with Daddy!

I went out with my girlfriends one night, and Mackenzie was just too hungry to wait for me to get home. Thankfully, once she figured out it wasn’t the bink in her mouth, her first bottle was a big success!

Best of all, she graced us with her first smile (thought it took a while for us to catch it on camera).

It was great to see them and they, like all our other visitors, were a huge help! Thank you everyone!!