* I finished teaching a class, including grading 51 course papers and exams
* My parents came for 3 weeks to facilitate the above, and we SORELY miss them!
* Rob worked on a big project at work requiring some overtime
* Meredith stayed home from school for a week right AFTER her spring break with a cold
* Rob, my dad, and our friend Nate built an awesome swingset in the backyard
* Meredith began using words like "anyways" and "but" to start sentences
* Lucas moved from "angel baby" to "angel baby except from 9-11pm" to "angel baby most of the time with unpredictable outbursts"
* Lucas established that his favorite song for Mommy to sing while holding and bouncing him is "You're the One that I Want" from the Grease soundtrack (the "hoo hoo hoo" seems to hit on something that makes him stop crying, at least temporarily)
* I had my second ever Mother's Day with children! (Note that on Mother's Day 2008 we were in Russia on Trip # 1 meeting Meredith - but had not yet gotten to adopt her)
* Lucas went from "up once or twice per night" to "up once or twice per night"....hmmm...
* Meredith went bowling for the first time!
* Lucas smiled!
* Lucas demonstrated an ability to scoot on his tummy, a couple of feet, in quite a short period of time. Yikes!
Those are just a few tidbits. Here are some photos to keep you going as well...
The first set are a little photo shoot (all of 2 minutes) that I did to capture some of Lucas's expressions...he was about 3 weeks old here.
The other set helps you keep up with Meredith:
* she caught the bouquet at Chris and Amber's wedding!
* she loved bowling and its associated snacks
* she adjusted her musical image (and apparently handedness)
These require a bit more explanation. Here is a photo from January, soon after she got her guitar. This was a Sunday morning before church. Instead of a more typical church outfit, she insisted on wearing the "Tweetheart" shirt that Grandma gave her for Christmas. Which was fine except it was chilly out, so she needed something under it. I did the best I could to pick out decent pants and some matching socks. Then she insisted on wearing her white church shoes with the ensemble, and proceeded to rock out on her guitar. This is one of my favorite pictures of her ever :) I consider it her grunge phase.
This picture was taken in April after Holli had given Meredith some awesome french braids. I invite you to comment on what you would call this musical style/image...is it pop, or something more?
* Finally, she found she couldn't get enough of her brother, so she brought a stepstool in by his crib to take a peek :)
Well folks, let me close with this. It is important to be honest. This is what our living room looked like a little over an hour ago when I started working on this blog entry:
And of course, this is what it still looks like, because I have been working on this blog! We are learning to prioritize the important things and leave other things for an undefined "later"....but that said, please leave a comment if you're reading this blog and want me to keep it up! I need the encouragement to make time for it to happen.Thanks, and hope you enjoyed the update!
