The art of twirling

Twirling is a form of art to a 3-year-old girl. She LOVES wearing twirly dresses. And she has it perfected.

And some other random cute pictures of Meredith:

It's a banana bread kind of day

Since the weather this weekend has been not too stellar, Mer and I made banana bread today. And since we can't utilize our neighborhood pool because it's too cool, Greg and Mer are at the YMCA exercising and going to the pool there.

Here is my little helper. I love how excited she gets over things these days. Sometimes too excited...when things don't go her way. Yesterday she had a tantrum and she was sooooooo angry, she made herself throw up (in the car, on the car seat nonetheless).

The results. Yum...this was a new recipe I tried and I think it's my favorite recipe so far. I only used 6 tablespoons of butter instead of 8 and I substituted 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup of white sugar instead of 1 cup of white sugar. And I added a few chocolate chips.

Before going to the YMCA, Mer accessorized to her finest.
And an update on me. I'm 33.5 weeks right now. I go in for my 34 week appointment next week and I'm having a growth ultrasound since I measure small. I did with Meredith too. I'm looking forward to it since I know how my body carries babies at this point. The first time around with Meredith, part of me was worried something was wrong but not this time. But I am going to have them double check to make sure this is still a girl (even though I did see the money shot and it looked pretty conclusive that it was a girl from my last ultrasound). And I'm hoping to get a nice 3D picture again too.

It's funny because I hear a lot of pregnant women complain about the looks and comments strangers give them about their bellies being big. Well, I get the same comments and buggy eyes too, except for being too small. Whatevs...it doesn't bother me.

This is from last week at 32 weeks. I can't believe I only have about 6 more weeks to go before I meet this little girl :-)

Drawings

Recently, Meredith has started making drawings that actually look like something. This particular one really touched me because she was taking a bath and I was in the next room over and she called me in to come and look at her drawing. She said she drew a picture of me :-) I just adore it!

And she is good at her letters. She actually does a better job than this but I thought I'd share the Mother's Day card she gave me.

This is the card she made me at preschool.
And this is the gift she made me at preschool.

Just an update on me - I hit 30 weeks a few days ago.
We've got a lot of stuff to do still. The baby room was converted to a junk room when Meredith moved into her big girl room about a year ago. I have no idea what we're going to do with all this stuff.

Easter 2011

This is the first year we attempted to dye eggs. Both Greg and I despise hard boiled eggs but I made them anyway for the sake of being a good mom. And Meredith was really excited about it.

Decked out in her oh-so-holiday-appropriate santa jammies.
She finished them off with some stickers.
Because Greg and I don't like hard boiled eggs, Meredith has never tried one. She was so excited about having one for breakfast the next day. I really think she thought they were candy because as soon as Greg cracked open the shell and gave it to her, she was scared of it and didn't touch it. So, we gave the rest of the eggs to Juana.

Easter morning, she woke up to a basket full of candy and goodies. And of course Peeps. She loves her Peeps.
And how did the Easter Bunny know that Meredith wanted seven Disney princess dolls with removable crowns and shoes?????

We headed down to Peter and Phyllis' house for Easter lunch.
My cousin Nate, his wife Jen, and their two boys Sam and Matthew were visiting from Chicago. Mer and Sam seemed to get along great.
Then we headed outside for an Easter Egg hunt since the weather was nice. Both Meredith and Sam got to look for eggs. This weirdo was told to look for bumpy brown eggs over by where the dog was chained up. Hmmmm...wonder why.
Mer was looking for purple eggs.
She had a blast.
Sam had a great time too.
She played some ball with daddy and her uncle Chris.
The ladies gossiped.
And we ended the day by blowing some bubbles!

Why I love girls.

Okay, there's lots of reasons but one of them is that I get to buy stuff like this :-) It makes me happy.

Soccer

We've been trying to get Meredith involved in a few activities this winter and spring. As you know, she took ice skating all winter and is currently taking swimming lessons. She seems to love both. We also signed her up for a 3-year-old soccer league at the YMCA. That has been a big, fat, fail. She seems to have no interest in it. She spends most of the time there asking when she will be done, wandering around, asking for snacks, sitting on the parents' chairs, etc. It's quite comical really. But she isn't too far off from some of the other 3-year-olds though. It seems that each team is comprised of this:

1 kid who is exceptionally good and can run and kick really well. (Drew)

1 kid who is pretty good that helps out the exceptionally good kid. (Josiah)

1 kid who sometimes plays, sometimes doesn't and will just stand around by the net most of the time (Kai)

1 kid who sometimes plays, sometimes cries, but spends most of the time sitting on the parents' chairs. (Kaitlyn)

1 kid who wanders around aimlessly, asks to go home, and spends the remainder of her time on the parents' chairs. (Meredith)

Today was the last day of soccer. I think we'll wait until next year to see if her interest in soccer has heightened at all. In the meantime, we'll continue with swimming lessons.

Anything to distract this kid from actually participating...

So, what else is going on at the Carlson household? Not too much. Greg got a new grill for his birthday which he recently assembled for use.
And we've been trying to sort though some stuff in the baby room. I got out all of Meredith's newborn clothes to wash and put in the baby dresser. Mer loved it and spread each piece of clothes neatly on the floor in the kitchen and living room.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is the baby belly at 24 weeks.

Strawberry Applesauce

I can't believe I forgot to write about something that happened last month on Greg's birthday. I don't have any pictures to post right now (wait, I do have some soccer pics - I'll try to get those up this weekend) but I was just thinking of this incident and it was so funny. We were out at dinner at Green Mill in Lakeville for Greg's birthday and Meredith ordered spaghetti off the kids menu. When she was done eating, I told her it was supposed to come with strawberry applesauce as I reread the menu to her. When the waitreses came to refill our drinks, I asked her if she could bring out the applesauce. The waitress informed us that they don't serve applesauce anymore and they were just using the old menus until they were gone before they put the new menus out. Thinking to myself "this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of", I told Meredith that they were out of applesauce and she got very angry and started yelling and screaming in her really high pitched tantrum voice. "I WANT STRAWBERRY APPLEAUCE" She took the kids menu and pointed to it. "IT SAYS RIGHT HERE THAT YOU GET STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE". GET ME SOME STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE". " I AM SUPPOSED TO GET STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE". "LOOK (pointing to the menu again)". It was both horrifying and gratifying at the same time. It was horrifying because it's not appropriate to yell at the poor waitress like that and it wasn't her fault (although she could have told us in advance that applesauce wasn't included). It was gratifying because little Meredith said exactly what I was thinking. I almost thought she was going to throw a full on trantrum but she didn't. The waitress vrought out a plate of fresh fruit instead which Mer nibbled on for a bit and thankfully she let the applesauce thing go. Thank goodness. I bet the waitress didn't expect that kind of reaction about applesauce. Maybe they will learn now to not be cheap by using old menus. I can't be the first person who has asked about the applesauce, right? Sheesh.

Big Sister!

Most of you already know this, and if you don't now you do! Meredith is going to be a big sister sometime around July 28, 2011. We found out last week that we are expecting another girl!

I have not taken any pictures of the big sister in ages so I don't have much to share. I thought instead, I'd share some pictures of the little sister!

And, since I'm officially 20 weeks along now, I'm half done. Here's my 20 week belly.

Tantrums

We have hit the tantrum stage. Actually it has been going on for a while now but we have had some doozies lately. Greg and I can't wait until spring because most of the tantrums have something to do with jackets, hats, mittens, or boots. We rarely leave the house without having to deal with some kind of fit. A couple of weeks ago, she had a tantrum in the car on the way to her swimming lesson ovr her mittens. We even got to the YMCA and she refused to settle down. She plays this "I want to", "I don't want to" game all the time when she's mad so she refused to go into the YMCA. I don't play games so I put her right back in the car and we skipped the lesson and headed home. She proceeded to get even more upset because she couldn't go to her swimming lesson, even though she refused to go in. I think the hysterical screaming lasted about 90 minutes or so. Uggghhh.

Wonder what our tantrums look like? I took this picture after a tantrum one day. Keep in mind that she was fully clothed and was wearing regular underwear prior to the tantrum.

Christmas Part II

Since it's almost Valentine's Day, I thought it would be nice if I finished uploading the rest of my Christmas pictures. I'm in a picture taking rut. I honestly have very few pictures to share since Christmas. This time of the year is so dark, cold, and depressing that I don't get the camera out much. Our weekends consist of skating lessons and swimming lessons but we haven't done too much lately since it's been so cold. I can't wait for some warmer weather!

Sooo....as I mentioned in the last post, we hosted Christmas Eve. We followed in Ben and Angie's footsteps and did an appetizer dinner and it was awesome! This is seriously better than regular dinner! Check out this display of food!

We spent a lot of time chatting.

Mer got a truck and track set from Grandma and Grandpa Schwake. The wheels on the trucks have since spun out of control and got tangled all over in our cat Tabitha's 3 inch fur. It was not pleasant.

Since Meredith is a skater now, this is a fitting ornament.

Peace out!

This is actually from Christmas morning. She is checking out all her loot from Santa. She did get the one thing she really, really wanted...a Hello Kitty clock.

And this is the artwork she made in preschool. I love it!