The Bad Girls

These two adorable ladies are only about 2 months apart. (Amaryllis on the right, Ezra -my niece- on the left.) Amaryllis was born in July and Ezra was September. These two both gave their mamas a run for their money in their first few months of life as well, which earned them the title "the bad girls". We still call them that even though they've both chilled out a bit. 

They both had acid reflux, they both had dairy allergies, and they both wouldn't sleep through the night until just recently. Like I said, the bad girls. ;) Thankfully they are cute.  And they may have had a lot in common from the first few months of their lives, but looks sure aren't one of them. My sister is in town visiting for a bit, so when we got the girls together we had to laugh at how completely opposite they look. So much for family resemblance, huh?

These two ladies will hopefully grow up to be great friends, and hopefully their nickname isn't indicative of the way they will behave when they hit the teen years.

Glover

Merrick had his first baseball game the other night. (We went straight from basketball to baseball...but he is equally enthusiastic about almost anything he is doing.) He told me after his game that this was "the best day of his life". Seems a bit over the top if you don't know Merrick. What was I saying about enthusiasm? He uses that phrase frequently...whenever he has fun it's "the best day of his life". I love that about him.

I only have this one picture of him playing, but I can't get over 1) how big he is, 2) how little he looks in that uniform. I'm sure that makes no sense, but it somehow makes sense in my mind. His hand is still small for the smallest glove we could find, and the same goes for the pants. Oh, and speaking of gloves...when I asked him what position he was going to play he told me, "I'm going to play both batter and glover." As for the batter part, he did get a good hit! Glover might need some work, since he wasn't typically even facing the right direction on the field. ;) But he sure had fun doing it.

The New Grumpy Cat

I'm sure we've all heard of Grumpy Cat. She has a face that just says 'no'. (And I always assumed it was a he...but google told me otherwise.)

She has a little competition though, I think. Jericho has been making the grumpy cat face since before grumpy cat was born. (I also stumbled across that while googling a grumpy cat picture. She's about 4 months younger than my own personal grumpy cat.) He's actually been making his cranky face since HE was born. I have proof: 

I can't decide if it's cute or just ridiculous...so we'll go with ridiculously cute? I mean, what has a 3 year old got to be looking so grumpy about? I'm not sure he could even tell you, but if I figure it out I'll be sure to let you know. 

Spring Chickens

 It's kind of become a tradition for me to take the kids to Maymont park every Spring and take some pictures of them. It's always an adventure, for sure. There are multiple fountains to fall in, bees to run from, flowers to pick that you aren't supposed to pick, etc.

 This was Fancy Pants's first year at the park. Last year she was still in the belly, and much easier to control. She decided after a few pics that she didn't like the tulips very much, so the pictures of her were fewer than I had envisioned.

 Jericho is THE child that gives me grief while taking pictures. He typically won't smile, or just likes to irritate the other subjects in the picture. Here you can see he's attempting to irritate Amaryllis, who thankfully isn't paying any attention to him.

 Probably because she was eyeballing those tulips and was afraid I was going to put her in them again.

 What was I saying about Jericho? That's how his face looks about 75% of the day. He was literally born making that face. I have pictures.

Despite his best efforts, I did get some of him smiling with the help of my sister and brother in law, who were doing who knows what to get his attention behind me. (Usually that's Billy's job, he's pretty good about making a fool of himself for the sake of the shot. I'm eternally grateful.) It's bittersweet to look at these shots, and be forced to acknowledge just how much they've grown this last year. But they are pretty cute, so I can't really look away.

"I Only Believe in Science"

*My fellow Nacho Libre fans will remember that quote. We sometimes have entire conversations in Nacho Libre.*

Last week we were gifted passes to the Science Museum. This was a hooligan first. I think every new experience with the 4 of them I go in to it wondering if I'm going to regret the decision to take them all out in public by myself. (Sometimes, I very much DO.) This was not one of those times. They had SO much fun. (And I'm realizing that ya know, it's ok if my kids act a little crazy in public and stress me out. They are kids...and that's what they do. I'll miss their misbehaving one day I'm sure.)

I have probably been to the Science Museum myself in the past, but don't remember going. So I was trying to be all "homeschool mom" discussing the different displays and relating them to things we are learning. Negative on that. As soon as I'd start talking I could tell the kids were all: "Don't make this about school mom. We got things to do." They did humor me a little...but for the most part I just let them learn by playing and waited for them to ask me questions as they had them.

They loved all the exhibits, but especially loved the bugs (of course!) and the snakes, and the section where you learn all about the human body. I mean, what kid doesn't want to learn about the digestive system? Poop is Jericho's favorite word. They were a little weirded out by the skeleton, until I informed them it wasn't real. Then they spent 5 minutes trying to stick their fingers into the space in the glass case so they could touch the "bones". Maybe I should have told them it was real?

Amaryllis was a saint, as usual. She sat in the stroller and didn't make a peep, and then fell asleep. She's so awesome about sleeping wherever/whenever that someone ought to put her in a museum. The Fancy Pants exhibit. I'm continuing to lug that infant carrier around simply because she is so good about taking naps in it. She napped right through the visit to the Boost section of the museum (a hands on area where you learn about health/fitness/nutrition) where the hooligans were playing drums (extremely loudly and off beat) and using exercise bikes while yelling about who was going to beat who. There was also a tight rope involved...but there was more pushing each other off the rope than actual walking on it.

I had to practically drag them out of the museum because it was closing. (Thankfully I could use that as an excuse for us leaving, and I didn't have to be the bad mommy.) But promised them we would be back. They have their eye on going to one of the IMAX movies they do at the museum next time. I wonder if Fancy Pants would sleep through one of those? Guess there's only one way to find out.