Lolli's 3rd birthday party!

Today was Lolli's 3rd birthday party. She had an ocotpus bounce house, a Hello Kitty cake, butterfly plates and party hats, and a Little Mermaid candle. She was one happy girl! Lolli's guests included: Lauren, Zach, Poppy, Papaw Lucky, Mamaw and Papaw Morgan, Gramma and Papaw Great, Jodi, Kim and Paul and Paige, Annie, the Dixons, the Noirots, the Aguayos, the Evitts, the Clemons, the Mockaitises, and Amy and Holly. Everyone had a great time!

Lolli's 3rd birthday!

Today is Lolli's 3rd birthday! Lauren worked last night and got home around 7:30 to find Z and the girls watching tv - apparently they got up at 6:30! So Lauren got Lolli ready for school, fed her a birthday breakfast of waffles and M&Ms, and sent her off to school with the Mockaitis's. Lolli took party hats, blowers, and M&Ms for her classmates. After school, Zach, Lauren and Poppy picked up Lolli and MOlly and they all headed southeast to Newport Aquarium. The girls loooove that place and Lolli kept saying it was the best birthday ever. After that they hit up a candy shop and Lolli got a big unicorn sucker. After that they dropped Molly off and headed home, where Lolli got to open her gift from Zach and Lauren. It was a motorized scooter and Lolli loves it! She's a little awkward driving it, but she'll get better with practice!
All in all it was a wonderful birthday for a wonderful girl. Lolli's looking forward to her party on Saturday!

Poppy's 14 months old!

Our little Poppy is a 14 month old toddler! She weighs around 24 pounds and is hardly chunky at all anymore. Her eyes are big and brown and her hair is still blonde with curls at the bottom. She doesn't know she's any younger than Lolli and all the other kids. Her favorite food is popsicles but she'll eat just about anything, even broccoli and tomatoes! She has a few signs: milk, eat, thank you, please, swing, sleepy, baby. But she has a gazillion words: hi, bye bye, mama, dada, Lolli, papaw, mamaw, Katie, Duke, Boo, moooo, quack, duck, meow, woof, baaaa, banana, pacifier (wawa), car, bike, swing, slide, baby, buckle, tickle, toes, teeth, night night, rock... I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting. She's quite the talker!
Poppy goes to sleep really easily these days. We just lay her down in her pack n play and she zonks out. At some point during the night she wakes and cries to let everyone know she wants to go in the bedroom with everyone else, so she gets in bed between Zach and Lauren and goes back to sleep. She still likes to breastfeed and does so about 3-5 times a day. She'll drink whole milk sometimes, but she prefers Diet Coke ;)
Poppy runs, walks, jumps, climbs... she's pretty agile! Her favorite things are babies, food, swinging, and playing with other kids. She's not shy at all. She loooves her big sister and they make each other laugh often. Poppy can be kind of stubborn if she wants something and no one will give it to her, but for the most part she's an easy going kid who makes everyone smile!

Lolli's First Day of School!

Today was Lolli's first ever day of school! She's enrolled at Irvington United Methodist Preschool where she'll attend Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30-12:15. The open house was Sunday so she got to see her classroom and meet her teacher, so it wasn't a huge shock to her today. Aside from not wanting to get out of bed when it was time this morning, she did great! She was a tiny bit shy when Lauren first dropped her off, but within 30 seconds she was off and playing, yelling, "Bye, Mom!" And when lauren picked her up, she didn't even want to leave! Such a grown up :

Pacifier Fairy!

So far we've been pacifier-free for over 40 hours and counting :)

Poppy's handling it really well. I was worried she wasn't ready to give hers up yet since she's not even 14 months old. But Lolli is starting preschool this week and turning 3 next week, so it was beyond time for the pacifiers to disappear.

Lolli gave hers up (via the Build-A-Bear method) when she was 23 months old and did great for 7 months, despite the temptation of Poppy's pacifiers laying around. Then something flipped inside her and she begged/screamed/wailed for a pacifier for over a month before we gave in, thinking it was a phase. It wasn't. So we decided to get all the pacifiers out of the house this time around to reduce the temptation.

So when we were leaving the house Saturday evening, the girls put their pacifiers into a box and left it on our "pacifier station" for the fairy. Obviously this was mostly for the benefit of our Lolli, but Poppy had heard the story enough times that I think she kind of understood. Anyway, the girls loved coming home to find that the Pacifier Fairy had left them each a Pillow Pet: a bee for Lolli and a ladybug for Poppy.

Lolli's only mentioned a pacifier twice, during times when she was already upset about something. Poppy asks more often (She goes, "Wa wa?" in such a sweet little voice it almost breaks my heart), but she doesn't get upset when I tell her it's all gone. The first night she wanted my boobs all night long but last night was only 3 times, so I can handle that.

I'm hoping there won't be some sort of 48 hour backlash or something LOL I'll feel a lot better when this first week is over!