Madeline Elizabeth Day

And so precious Madeline Elizabeth Day arrived on Friday, May 15, which is her great-grandmother's birthday, Maw-Maw. What a wonderful present for Maw-Maw's 85th birthday! Madeline is just beautiful - you can see for yourself - and weighed in at 9 pounds, 3 ounces. Kelly is recovering nicely and Madeline is eating like a champ so they are well.

And yes, I am now getting worried that I am going to have a big giant baby. Maybe if I don't eat for eight weeks Mary Martin will come in under 8 pounds.

Also, we got to watch Spencer this weekend while Kelly and Michael were in the hospital and I caught the cutest picture of him...

new cousin tomorrow and week at Meme's

Well tomorrow is the big day for Aunt Keke and tomorrow we will welcome our new niece Madeline. All our prayers and thoughts go out to Kel and little Madeline...

In other news, James came home today after a few days with Meme and Poppie. He was very tired after his long car ride but did learn some new words and had fun! He was glad to be back in his own bed though. And for an update there - we have lost orange van for one and put a few other animals away. So tonight we only have panda bear, hippo, Schatzi and a wind up bunny. Definitely progress...

The Wharf 2009

Last weekend we got to visit Meme and Poppie's condo at the Wharf in Orange Beach. Gee and Grandaddy came too as well as Aunt Dianne, Uncle Darrell, Jackson and Linley. The kids swam, went down the slide 100 times, played and then crashed every night HARD. They had a great time! And I think their parents had a fun time too. Dad (Jim) even got flowers for me, his mom, his mother-in-law and his sister - it was a wonderful surprise for mother's day. Let's see what else did we do... Ate donuts that Granddaddy picked up for us (yes, Jackson held up his donut for me to take a picture), rode the Ferris Wheel, wore our cool Hawaiian shirt, and enjoyed many smoothies and slurpies. James and Linely both especially enjoyed the red slurpies - can't you tell?!?!

Night Night line-up

Sorry no pictures tonight...

For the second night in a row James has had eight "friends" in the bed with him for bedtime. It is pretty amusing and I thought y'all might enjoy the list. He has been working on his night night team for a while and it keeps growing. I suppose we'll stop the madness soon, but I didn't object to multiple animals when we moved him to his big boy bed. I thought more animals might make the new bed more comfortable. Now that the big boy bed is the normal routine, I think we can scale it back a bit. Anyway, here is the list:

1. Panda bear - the most important. Goes with us most places and particularly enjoys riding in the cart with James at the Publix. Gets the highest place of honor in James' bed, tucked under his right arm and under the blanket with James.

2. Orange van - a hot wheels orange van. This is a new addition to bed. It is James' favorite car and also seems to go with us most places lately. Tonight it was in his left hand as he fell asleep.

3. Hippo - big stuffed one from Ikea. When we got it I swear it was taller than James, now James has him beat. But he is the biggest friend in the bed.

4. Stuffed dog.

5. Stuffed monkey.

6. Schatzi - stuffed bear that used to be James' favorite until Hippo came home from Ikea and then Panda bear came.

7. Stuffed elephant.

8. And finally a DVD set of Thomas the Train. This past weekend James had a clear obsession for Thomas the Train on TV. We watched a few and James was hooked. For our beach trip next weekend, we thought it might be good to get a Thomas DVD for the ride. We found a 3 DVD set and James loves it! Not watching the DVDs mind you - because he is already over watching it on TV - but he loves playing with the DVD covers, the little papers inside and identifying the engines. And for the past two nights, Thomas - in the form of the DVD set and cover box - are also in the bed with him.

So James' night night line up: six stuffed animals, an orange van, and a DVD set. Makes sense don't you think?

Spencer Spends the Night

Spencer came to spend the night this weekend so Kelly and Michael might have one more night off before my new niece comes. The boys had a ball! We played with blocks, watched SuperWhy, and played with cars, of course. I think bath time was their favorite but you can judge. They screamed and cackled before they even got in the bath. Yes, that is water flying through the air in the photos. Splash time!! And they both went down to sleep without a peep so I was grateful. Can't wait to meet your little sister, Spencer!

Neighbors

Have I told y'all that Jim and I love where we live? We live on a quiet cul de sac surrounded by other kids. Tonight we got together with three families on our street to sort of celebrate the spring weather and the return of one family to our neighborhood after they renovated their house. We had three two year olds, one 5 month old, and a 5 year old and 6 year old. All those kids plus a sandbox and bubbles and they were happy. We grilled burgers and just had a ball! Here are a few pics... The older girls are our next door neighbors - Mary Ryan (6) and Dorsey (5). They are holding Annabelle who just returned to our neighborhood now that their house is finished. The picture of James and dad does shows off James' new hair cut, which he got today. It fails to show just how dirty he was. Someone brought a watermelon and James was covered in pink juice and dirt but he loved it!

Hmmmmm....

More Easter fun... In keeping with our indoctrination of Star Wars (James can now say R2D2 - Jim is so proud), I found a Star Wars easter egg decorating kit. I thought my boys would love it and they did. After we dyed the eggs-ruining a shirt of James' in the process, oh well-there were Star Wars stickers to put on the eggs. See all the stickers? I thought they turned out cute. What was more cute was James trying to decide which sticker to put on an egg next. He would study the sheet of stickers and say "Hmmm" and sometimes "Hmmm" again before picking one. Do Jim and I do this? Someone tell me - I don't know where he got this but we thought it was funny.