A Handful, A Heartful

A few days ago I realized that rarely does a day go by that I don't hear at least once "My, you've got your hands full." One time, though, I was leaving the gym and a gentleman said "My, you've got a heartful." I like that better, although both are definitely true. Seems like everyone has their hands full of something, and at least mine are full of these sweet little ones. What a blessing!

A sweet neighbor of ours gave them shirts when Ellie was born. "I'm the big brother John", "I'm the middle sister Eve", and "I'm the little sister Ellie". The shirts are so cute and have little stick figures. Ellie has finally grown into hers, so I tried to capture a picture. Typically I try to select just one, but looking through the progression just cracked me up, so I chose just a few (I took lots more). So, you can get an idea of how hard it is to get everyone in the picture, much less smiling and leaning back so you can see what's on the shirt. Here goes...

And that's just going to have to do.

Ellie recently passed the 3 month mark! What a big smiley girl she's become! She's even given me a full week of sleeping through the night. And by sleeping through the night, I mean she's been going to bed between 8 and 9, and not getting up until 7:30 or later. I didn't even have to give her tough love at night to get her to this point. She just started it on her own. She's definitely tracking and enjoying faces a lot now. She's not quite reaching for things yet, but sometimes she gets lucky and hits a toy. Her favorite place seems to be the dining room table (she loves the light fixture over the table). She still spits a lot, but usually smiles before she spits. You can't get much sweeter than that.

Oh, and she's managed to become quite chubby, which I think is wonderful!


John and Eve love playing together. Not that they don't fight, but when they aren't fighting, they enjoy each other's company. The other day John was the horse and Eve was riding. She couldn't stay on for long, but they kept trying, and cackling.

Just to show how rough Eve is...you can imagine where that cup ended up.

Almost up!


John and Eve will read this one day and be very bitter. A friend of ours had a birthday party at the beach...no kids invited. We managed to get a special pass for Ellie. We only stayed one day, and John and Eve were thrilled to have a sleepover at Grandma's. I felt so guilty, though, that I promptly booked a weekend at the beach in September. Ellie did great. Everyone went on and on about how great a baby she is. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn't have the camera out at the beach. I put her in the water once and she HATED it! Each time a tiny wave come she screamed, and when I just placed her in the calm water between waves, she screamed. She was much happier hanging out in the shade of her little cabana. She's officially seen the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans before reaching 3 months. Not bad. Oh, and she got to sit in a limo...

Yesterday I decided to take the kids to pick blueberries and the Happy Berry Farm. It was a long drive, but we had a great time and got to meet Daddy for lunch in Clemson. We used to meet him for lunch almost every day, and I miss that, so this was a special treat. The Happy Berry was fun because the bushes were so big we could fit under them and pick from the shade. They were unbeleivably yummy, too (this coming from someone that's not a big blueberry fan).

Eve doesn't really need a bucket because they all go straight to her mouth, but we give her one anyway

You can kind of see her hair curling in the back in this one. I'm a little biased, but I just think she's beautiful with those blue eyes and rosy pink cheeks

Of course we made our contribution to the sin bucket...we certainly ate more than our share

Certainly I can't remember or record everything they do that makes me laugh every day, but here are a few.

I was out the other night and came home to a hysterical video (hopefully we can post it). John was dancing to "Mr. Roboto" showing his robot moves. It was AWESOME!

Eve was drawing today. I asked her what she was drawing and she responded "Mr. Roboto".

This morning John asked the blessing "Thank you God for growing peaches." I couldn't have said it better myself.

John was coloring today (side note, he randomly started coloring in the lines today with very impressive skill. I don't think he's ever tried it before. He said some girl at the Y showed him and he doesn't like to scribble anymore. I'm still amazed.) Eve said to him "John, that's lovely, you did it!"

Today I overheard Eve putting a stuffed hippo in timeout and giving it a lecture "Time out, hippo, we don't hit John, it's not kind. Now go tell John you're sorry" and she proceeded to take it out of the chair, into the kitchen, and apologize to John for hitting. She may not change her behavior, but at least she's hearing what we're saying. Can you guess what she gets in trouble for most?