The Fabulous Five

Today I packed away all of the baby bottles for the last time. Once again, I was not sad, but HAPPY! Life is so much easier without having to haul bottles and formula around everywhere. Hailey did fantastically well giving up her bottles. I only really noticed a problem right before naptime, because she was waking up during her nap instead of sleeping straight through. But, I did the same as before and took away the bottles really slowly. I had not been wanting to take away her nighttime bottle because that always means bad sleep during the night. So, about a week ago, I went to make that nighttime bottle and I was out of liners. I figured, well, here we go. She did great! She didn't even need the bottle after all. She is drinking tons of milk during the day and getting her tummy full. Yay, Baby Hailey, one baby milestone behind you already.

Pete just hit a milestone because he is now sleeping in his big boy bed. I know, I know, it seems a little late at 2 1/2 to just now be switching him . . . but I didn't want to mess up a good thing! He never really WANTED to get out of his bed. So when we finally did it, it really didn't faze him at all. This kid has been my easiest sleeper, for sure! Now if he would only sleep past 6:30 . . .

Untitled from c s on Vimeo.

And Avery, sweet, funny, lovable, Avery is just growin' and learning every day! It always amazes me that I can now carry on a conversation with these kiddos! She is singing up a storm and it's really the cutest little thing. Her favorite song is "Twinkle Twinkle" and she loves to say "Ta Da!" when she is finished!

I love these pictures - I think it captures everything that mommyhood is for me right now: funny, loving, carefree, exasperating, tough, easy, messy, busy, imperfect and yet perfect, the list of goods and sometimes toughies just keeps going and going and going. But that is what we do it all for, right? To see these shining happy faces turn into fabulous little people and then into even greater adults.

Since I was very sick for Mother's Day, I'm going to say these are my Mother's Day pictures for 2010! It all started with two and then became perfect with three.

We went to Kylie's birthday party and she had PONY RIDES!! Avery and Pete kept talking the whole way there about the pony rides. But as soon as Avery saw them, she turned and ran away! She only agreed to ride when she found out the ponies were leaving! Hailey kept riding, but was constantly saying "Down!" throughout the whole thing.

I don't think that it is possible for me to go to the playground by myself anymore! Hailey is at this new stage of climbin' and being fearless. Daddy Pete and I chased them all over the playground, I think we were more worn out than they were.

Untitled from c s on Vimeo.

Untitled from c s on Vimeo.

We took a little vacation to San Antonio this weekend and took the kiddos to Sea World on Friday. We thought it was such a great time to go since all of our kiddos are FREE . . . that's right free! Needless to say, once they aren't free is is going to add up VERY quickly!

Untitled from c s on Vimeo.

It was fun, but I keep using the word "ambitious" in respect to 2 parents and 3 small kiddos. The most difficult part was parking the stroller and walking into the shows/exhibits with the little ones. Those stairs are steep and there are alot of them! By the end of the afternoon I began to understand why kids under 3 are free!

We weren't really sure what to expect out of the kiddos. They ended up being very funny! Pete basically sat clutched to me throughout all of the preformances. Avery and Hailey usually sat with Daddy, but all in all, they really did a good job staying focused and watching what was going on. Little Pete was tired after staying up really late the night before (he was so excited that he kept shouting "Orcas! Whales! Dolphins!")

We got to feed the dolphins and happened to walk up right after the park opened so there was basically only a few people there. As we were leaving, it was SWARMED with people - so we learned that you go see the dolphins first!

Shamu was awesome, plus a new baby had been born in January and was following its momma around everywhere. We also really enjoyed a new cirque-de-solish show called "Azul". It was more of a human type acrobat show on water. Frog people were jumping off the top of the platform and synchronized swimmers were swimming with Beluga whales. And to think we almost missed it becuse we thought the kiddos were too tired!