Figured I should get in one more update on what our two girls are up to lately. It's been a long time and soon life will revolve around the newborn for a bit. Here goes...
Mary Moments
Mary is definitely coming into her own personality lately. She's as sweet as can be, but if you cross her she will show you more sass and anger than you ever thought capable of such a sweet little face, but then just as quickly she'll turn right around and be the sweetest things you'll ever meet.
She still is our little bookworm. She loves to read books or to just sit and look at a book page by page over and over. She counts and knows her letters almost as well as (if not sometimes better than) Lydia.
She loves to sing and dance at any random given moment. We'll say, "Mary do a dance." And she'll show off her groove right there on the spot.
She has the most expressive face I've seen of any 2 year old, and it doesn't just range from the normal happy, to sad, to mad. If she thinks something is slightly amusing, but mostly ridiculous, you will know it because her facial expression will clearly tell you.
She loves the word "special." She thinks if she calls anything special it makes it off limits to us and automatically hers.
"Kissing it better" works like magic with her. She'll be SCREAMING crying and then we'll kiss it better. She'll stop crying immediately and walk away smiling and laughing. We get a kick out of it.
She's very independent. She has to do everything herself. If you try to suggest otherwise... well, see the comment above on crossing her.
She is (always has been and probably always will be) a Daddy's girl. She's happiest when Daddy is around and has him completely wrapped around her little fingers.
We don't know exactly how much she understands about the new addition we're about to add to our family. So we're curious how exactly she'll handle the change. Fingers crossed that it brings out the sweet side, and not the beast ;)
Lydia Lately

I don't know about you, but whenever I pictured myself as a mother, I always pictured myself with a baby. Lydia is no longer a baby and it throws me for a complete loop sometimes, but it is also SO fun.
We've made quite a bit of progress on the potty training front. She still has bad stretches and we haven't made the leap to panties, just pull-ups. But for the most part she goes potty in the toilet more than she doesn't. Poop is another story, but we finally got her to do that for the first time a couple days ago. We're hoping that within the next few weeks she'll be in big girl pants. (Fingers crossed!)
She's got the most creative imagination and comes up with the most off the wall things to say. Like today, we asked her what movie she'd like to watch for quiet time and she said, "How about one about cats and dogs, but not real dogs. Dogs that are made out of paper. And they ride cars and boats and airplanes. And then when the big wave comes they all save the day! Do we have a movie like that??" I don't know where she comes up with this stuff, but it cracks us up.
Lydia's favorite days of the week are preschool days. She gives us a full report of everything they do multiple times and how fun it was. She's also developed a little crush on the boy in her class. The other night she asked me to tell her the story about how Mommy and Daddy fell in love. So I started to say that when Mommy and Daddy were younger we were in singing class at school together to which she immediately responded, "Just like me and Grant are in singing class together! We're going to get married too!!" Ah, young love ;)
She has the most amazing memory. An elephant might never forget, but if it did forget something, Lydia would remember what it was. Lately Lydia has requested bedtime stories "from our mouths, not the books." So the other night Robert told her the first half of Jack and the Beanstalk and told her he'd finish the rest the next night. A couple days later, I was helping her brush her teeth before bed and she said, "Maybe Daddy can finish the Jack story tonight." She then proceeded to tell me every detail of the story, including the funny little quirks Robert added into it and using the voices Robert used. It was hilarious.
She is SOOOOOOOO excited for her little brother and I think will prove to be a great little helper when he arrives :)
I love my girls!!