A special day...

Happy Birthday, Aedan!

Today is Aedan's 3rd birthday! Yay! We are so glad that he's a part of our family. I love many things about him. His willingness to share (even one of his greatest loves-stickers), his smile, his sweetness, his goofiness, his snuggleness (that's a word!), his laugh, his love for his siblings, his love to hear music and dance (hip hop...with a twist of break dancing), his fearlessness, and of course, his blonde hair.

We are happy to celebrate his birth! We will start the day with doughnuts with Grammy and Grampy, and then venture to a new state park (well, not new, but a new one to us) to go on a family hike and explore. We look forward to a party with friends tonight! We love you, Aedan!
(pics coming soon)

Wow, we're impressed!

Aedan is blowing us away with his potty abilities! He is doing sooooo awesome, that it is hard for me to express in words. We moved him into big boy underwear this week. He had three accidents...two outside, and one in the bathroom...trying to get to the potty. We are so proud of him! Go Aedan!

Mercy's stats

Mercy had her 4 month check up today with shots. She now weighs 13 lbs and 9 oz. She was in the 90th percentile in height, and in the 50th percentile in weight. I've never had a baby with such a low percentile in weight! I realized later that Josiah weighed 14 lbs 2 oz at his 2 month check up, and Aedan was just a little under Josiah's weight at his 2 month! Mercy is doing great...eating and sleeping well! She is such a sweetie!

First Day of School

CBS (Community Bible Study) started today!! wooooohoooo! The kids have been looking forward to starting back for weeks now, and I've been looking forward to it, as well. Aedan is now in the preschool program, so he will have lessons similar to Josiah and also get to go to music class. (Aedan loves singing and music.)

For me, it was great to see some of the women who were in my group last year. For most of them, last time they saw me was the Thursday before I had Mercy Cate...really pregnant! The groups change every year, so I have different women in my group (with the exception of one). We are studying Acts this year...I love CBS (and also CVS) and I look forward to Thursdays!!!!

Aedan's new love

Over the past several weeks, Aedan has had a new growing love toward Mercy Cate. Whenever I put her on the floor, he always comes and lays right next to her. He says often, "I love my sister." What a sweetie:) Here are some pictures taken over the last several weeks:

the bumbo seat

Everyone loves the bumbo...

Mercy in the bumbo

Aedan in the bumbo

Josiah in the bumbo

school today

It rained, and rained, and rained today!!! We stayed home and did some school activities. First, we made letters using small marshmellows and toothpicks. It was a good fine motor skill activity, and also good for reviewing letters, and sounds (which we went over after making the letters). The kids liked the activity, and Aedan loved eating the marshmellows when we were finished. (He did sneak a few into his mouth while we were making letters.) Here are some pictures:

Aedan with the letter "M"

Josiah with the letter "A"

Random shot of Mercy in her crib. This was where she was during the letter making:)

Josiah making a letter

Aedan working on a "H"

Josiah made the word, "MAT"

concentrating:)

Next, we did some activities with the bears again...sorting, counting, and patterns!

the frog under the bed

cereal time!

I started giving Mercy some rice cereal a yesterday. She's doing pretty well taking it. I can't believe that she is almost 4 months...she is growing too fast! Here's a video of her first cereal bites! Feeding her and taking the video was difficult, but it worked:

Christmas in August

While we were at the concert, Shane and Cathy watched the boys for us. We are so thankful to them for keeping and entertaining them. We know the boys had a blast. We are also thankful to them for the Rescue Hero tower they gave us. Ryan and I contemplated waiting and giving this to the boys for Christmas, but decided to go ahead and give it to them now. They love it! Thank you so much Shane and Cathy:)

Andy P concert

Last Friday night we took the youth to Nashville to see one of our favorite artists, Andrew Peterson. We went to Andy's release show of his new album, Counting Stars, which is wonderful! I love these types of concerts because the album is played straight through, and you get to here the stories behind the songs:) Mercy did great! I was a little unsure about bringing her...will she cry all the way to Nashville, and back? Will she cry during the concert or make her new loud noises? What about feeding her? Everything went well, though...so glad I went, too, and brought her, of course!

Mercy in her Andy P, Sandra, and Derek onesie:)

Ryan and I with Mercy on our love seat chair...yes, I brought my boppy pillow into the concert.

youth girls

more youth

yes, more youth:)

tummy time

Mercy Cate has really been enjoying "tummy time." It's odd to me since the boys cried whenever I placed them on their bellies. She doesn't seem to mind it at all, and her neck has become stronger. Here she is yesterday when I placed her on her belly:

The boys were napping. (Yes, Josiah napped on this particular day:) All of a sudden...Mercy rolled over....YAY!! Here she is after the 1st roll:

Go girl!

busted!

Josiah is beginning to grow out of naps. Some days he naps, and some he doesn't. I'm okay with that...especially when he plays well in the morning; with a good attitude. A couple days last week I found myself with Mercy in my arms asleep on the couch (ready to sleep myself) when Josiah came out of his room (unable to sleep). I sent him in Mercy's room with toys to play so I could sleep. It worked well the first day, so I didn't think anything of it the second day when I sent him in her room. It is a treat to play in her room since (normally) they don't play in there. (They like to play with the glider rocker and make bridges to the bed...maybe they will be engineers:) Anyway, I found Josiah like this when I went into Mercy's room:

He had gotten into the baby powder. Wow. It was pretty bad. Almost the whole container of my barely used baby powder was gone, and a new, fresh scent filled the room. Not to mention it looked a little cloudy. The first words that came out of my mouth (with I'm sure a shocked look on my face) were "Don't move." I went to get my camara:) This is one of those offenses that I just can't get angry at. I expressed disappointment to Josiah. Laying upon the changing table was Mercy's puppy poodle (from Aunt Francie) covered in baby powder. When Josiah saw me look at the puppy, he broke down crying. Josiah LOVES little stuffed animals like this...he plays with them. He was so upset that he "hurt" (his words) the puppy. He cried and cried. He went to Mercy and apologized for hurting her puppy with the powder. He kept asking me if the puppy would be okay.

I took a baby wipe and wiped the powder off. The white powdered puppy appeared pink again and Josiah was thrilled. The puppy now has a fresh new scent. She is now resting on the dresser to recover:)

Potty News

Last weekend we startd potty training Aedan. He started out being completely clueless on how to pee. I had to make him just sit on the potty while I (or Ryan) read books to him. After a week of training, he is doing really well. We are so proud of his efforts. We've gone through a good number of pullups, but in the last two days, he has been telling us that he needs to go more (and is dry:)! Hopefully he will continue to make progress, and be able to wear "big boy" underwear soon! It will help financially, also, to only have one in diapers. I stocked up on diapers throughout the spring (when on sale) with the hopes of having enough diapers to last until Aedan was potty trained. It looks like the timing will be close:)

Tragedy struck last week when one of Aedan's stickers accidently fell into the tiolet. Ryan flushed the sticker, and the boys were in complete shock...which led to tears and sobbing. With his knowledge from Nemo, Josiah said in horror, "All tiolets lead to the ocean. The sticker is going to the ocean and we'll NEVER get it back!" The boys cried and cried, while Ryan and I tried not to giggle. Once they were calmed down, Ryan told the boys that maybe a dolphin would find it and put it on it's dorsal fin. And, maybe we would see the dolphin wearing it next time we go to the beach. This appeased them a little...I'm sure they'll remember the sticker that went to the ocean next time we're at the beach. They'll definitely be looking for a dolphin!

"get my hand"

(sorry it's so dark...i had the lights off in an attempt to get her to sleep:)

need a laugh?

National Dance Day was July 31st...and most of you know my love for the show, "So you think you can dance." (If you've never seen it, you have one last chance this season. The season finale airs Wednesday night at 7:00 central time, and the results show is on Thursday night. You'll see some pretty amazing dance!) Anyway, I tried to teach Josiah and Aedan the Tabitha and Napoleon hip hop dance routine that was online. They provided step by step instruction. Well, after about 15-20 minutes of teaching...the boys weren't getting the steps down...they were only interested in their own choreography...