Happy 3rd Birthday, Anna Kate!

Sweet Anna Kate,

Happy 3rd birthday! It is hard to believe that our first baby is three years old today (although you would say that you are NOT a baby, but are actually a big girl). It is hard to find the words that would express all the joy that you bring to our family, but I will at least try!  We never want to forget all of your sweet and silly personality traits that make you who you are.

~ You are such a happy little girl.  You have the greatest facial expressions when you are excited about something, or when you come up with a good idea, or when you are surprised.  It's as if your whole face lights up!
~ You LOVE to read.  Seriously, we read dozens of books every day.  You absolutely love to be read to, but you are also reading now yourself.  Last fall we realized that you had learned all of your letter sounds and were starting to put them together on your own.  So, I went ahead and had Grandma send me Alpha-Phonics, the book that she used to teach me to read.  We jumped right in and you are reading fluently through lesson 70 (which includes one and two-syllable words, all short vowel sounds, and all consonant blends).  You are also reading Bob books from the library up through level 3.  You also read most of your birthday cards this afternoon (those that didn't write in cursive!).
~ One benefit of you learning to read is that you now will sit and read stories to Caroline.  You really love reading Dr. Seuss books to her.  The Cat in the Hat, Wacky Wednesday, and Hop on Pop are definite favorites.  Caroline absolutely adores you and loves having you read to her.
~ Speaking of your relationship with your sister, you are (almost always) very kind and loving and protective of her.  You always refer to her as "Cares" or "Caresy Bears" (unless she takes something of yours and then you call her CAR-O-LINE!).  You always watch out for her, whether she is climbing something, or touching something she shouldn't, or grabbing food that she can't eat.  In fact, even when you're playing pretend in your kitchen, you always make her food dairy- and egg-free so that she can eat it!  (However, you have been known to purposely "put eggs" in something so that you have an excuse not to share with her...)
~ You can almost always be seen carrying a purse.  Your favorite items to carry around in your purse are your wallet, cellphone, chapstick.  Actually, just the other week you pitched quite a fit in your class at church.  It was because you had left your purse somewhere and you wanted your teachers to go and find it, but they didn't know where it was.  Anyway, it was really the first tantrum you've ever thrown at church and your teachers were so surprised that they really thought it was rather amusing.  You did stop immediately when they threatened to go get Daddy.
~ Now, that incident aside, you absolutely love your classes at church.  You are still in Ms. Tammy's Sunday School class and you have now been joined by Caroline.  You are the oldest one in the class now (you will go to the 3-4's in September) and I think you enjoy that a little too much.  I have a feeling that you boss the toddlers around a little bit!  And you always tattle on them when you get home.  But you also are a very good listener and you tell us exactly what your lesson was about each week.  On Wednesday nights you go to choir, which you love, and then you go to Mrs. Wanda and Mrs. Janis' class.  You really have fun in there!  They always have some kind of very messy craft and a very yummy treat, so what's not to like?  You also just moved up to Children's Worship during the service hour on Sunday mornings.  You have a different teacher each week in there.  This past Sunday morning as we were praying in the car on the way to church, this is what you prayed: "God, I pray that we would have happy hearts to worship you and I pray that I would get the teachers that I like in my worship class!"  Ha!
~  Speaking of praying, you truly are quite the little prayer warrior.  The very first thing you think of whenever you hear about someone being sick, or sad, or in need, is to pray for them.  You love praying for your church family, for your new baby cousins, and for all the missionaries that you know, "that they would tell lots of people about Jesus."
~ You love family worship time.  We still normally read a story out of the Big Picture Story Bible, but you have also started to really enjoy the Jesus Storybook Bible, which contains longer stories.  After Bible story time we work on our catechism (you know the first 30 questions) and Bible verses (you know 10 different Scriptures by memory).
~ You are a great sleeper these days!  You are usually in bed by 7:45 and then you come to our bed for snuggles in the morning promptly at 7am.  You know that you are not supposed to get out of bed until you see a 7 on the clock and you are pretty good at abiding by that!  You also take a good 2 hour nap every afternoon.
~ You are so funny about what you have to have in bed to sleep with you.  You will not go to sleep if you don't have Molly Monkey, Heidi Ann, Sweet Dreams, Penny the Pig, Curious George, Lamby, Lovey, and Ruby the bunny. Some nights it is a little bit of a hassle (if something goes missing), but it's pretty cute and we know these days won't last forever!
~ You also have to have Daddy pray for you and tell you a story each night before you fall asleep.  And they have to start the same way each night or you tell him that he's doing it wrong.  The prayer has to start with "Father God, I pray for Anna Kate and for Caroline".  The story has to begin with, "Once upon a time there lived a princess by the name of Anna Kate.  She lived with her Mommy and her Daddy and her little sister, the baby Caresy Bears."  If any of those words is changed, you make him start over.
~ You have quite the imagination.  You are constantly playing pretend something.  Lately you have been making rows of chairs into a car and you drive places - Walmart, Edventure, the zoo, etc.  And you never let anyone ride in your car without buckling up!
~ You still are very good friends with your imaginary rhinos and talk about them on a daily basis.  You give them different names that usually rhyme, but the names change.
~ You can count up through 14 and then you mix up the rest of the teen numbers, but we're working on it!  You can also add all single digit numbers using your fingers as a guide.
~ You have really started to enjoy board games and puzzles lately.  Your favorite games are "Cootie" and the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" board game.  Your favorite puzzle is your big Disney princess puzzle.
~ Speaking of princesses, you love to dress up like a princess, wear jewelry, paint your nails, have tea parties, and generally do anything girly.  But you also love to run around and play outside in the sandbox and get really dirty!
~ You are an extremely inquisitive child.  You always want to know why things are the way they are.  And whenever something is out of the ordinary, or breaks what you thought was a universal rule, you are quite concerned.  You are always trying to make sense of your little world!

Anna Kate, you light up our life.  Thank you for teaching us what it means to live joyfully, to love with abandon, and to have a childlike faith.  Happy happy 3rd birthday, sweet girl.

Love,

Mommy, Daddy, and Caroline too!

Then out of the box...

came Thing One and Thing Two!

 

One of our favorite books around here is "The Cat in the Hat" by Dr. Seuss.  So, these t-shirts, given to them by Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Allison for Christmas are quite the hit!  The love to wear anything matching, but especially outfits as fun as these!

Birthday Musings

I love birthdays.  My own of course (which happens to be today!), but I also love celebrating anyone's birthday!  I mean, really, who  doesn't?  Sweet treats, time with friends and family, fun surprises, reflections on another year of life given by a God who himself creates and sustains all things.  So today, I thought I would just write down a few of my memories of birthdays past. 

Birthdays growing up were always very fun.  We usually had two parties.  First a family party, often at our own house, often at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and filled with lots of cake and ice cream, aunts, uncles and cousins, and of course, the "You are Special Today" plate.  And then we always had a friends party, too!  Sometimes pretty simple, sometimes more elaborate, but always fun!

One of the very earliest birthday gifts I remember receiving was from my Grandma and Grandpa Burgin.  I was probably 4 or 5.  You see, they had taught me to play Cribbage (a card game, for those of you who have never heard of it) when I was very little.  In fact, so little that my fine motor skills had not progressed enough to be able to shuffle the cards.  So for my birthday, Grandma and Grandpa gave me a little motorized card shuffler.  I LOVED that thing.  I used it constantly.

My ninth birthday was one I will never forget!  My mom and I planned a very elaborate "kidnap party" for all of my friends.  Basically, the party was a surprise not to me, but to all of my friends.  We of course informed all of the mothers that we would be coming very early on a Saturday morning to "kidnap" all of my little friends in their jammies.  We went to their houses one by one and woke them up and brought them all back to our house for doughnuts and a pajama fashion show!  Such fun!  My mom even went to all of the trouble to bring the video camera along to video us waking up each little girl...but unfortunately she was pressing the wrong button!  Dad saved the day, though, and videotaped the rest of the party once we arrived back at the house!

My most memorable gift from my Mom and Dad was given to me on my tenth birthday.  Some of my favorite books growing up were the American Girl series.  I loved all historical fiction, but I especially loved the Kirsten stories - about a Swedish immigrant girl growing up during the pioneer era.  On my tenth birthday, Mom and Dad gave me Kirsten, the American Girl doll.  I spent hours (even through middle school and high school!) playing with that doll, dressing her up, doing her hair, and daydreaming about the simple life she lived.  If I'm truly honest, I can't wait for the day that Anna Kate and Caroline are old enough to play with her so that I can have an excuse to get her out again!  Right now we're still in the drag-baby-dolls-around-a-little-too-rough stage!

I received a very creative gift from my Aunt Patty on my twelfth birthday.  Aunt Patty has always been known for her thoughtful and personal birthday gifts.  At this time we lived in Miami and Aunt Patty lived in Seattle.  She sent me a birthday card that said my gift would involve "trains, boats, and planes" but that I would have to wait until summer.  That July, she helped fly me out to Portland (to Grandma and Grandpa's), bought me a train ticket to Seattle, and arranged a week long sailboat trip with friends up the Puget Sound.  It was incredible!  We ate and slept on the boat as we journeyed through the beautiful scenery of the Olympic Mountains.  She even let me drive the little dinghy myself!  She also made me keep a hat on at all times so that my face wouldn't get sunburned, but because of the wind, we had to wear little straps that attached it to our jackets - I thought they were a little dorky!  We stopped at various points to hike or visit little towns, but most of our time was spent out on the water.  Such a neat time!

My birthday always falls on or around Superbowl weekend.  My freshman year at Furman, my roommate Whitney, along with a number of our other hallmates and our brother hall, arranged a big surprise party for me!  Mom and Dad secretly had the cake sent, and my friends invited me to what I thought was just a Superbowl party.  Truly, I didn't even know if these friends of mine (who I had only known for 5 months) even realized that my birthday was the same day.  I was extremely surprised to find out when I arrived that the party was for me!  The only downside to the day was that they all threw me into the Furman lake when we arrived back on campus.  It was nasty!  And it was a good 1/4 mile back to my dorm.  And it was cold.  But I suffered though it.  All in the name of tradition!

My next three birthdays during college were spent with Luke at our favorite restaurant in downtown Greenville - Trio's.  It was there that we decided dipping foccacio bread in olive oil with herbs would have to be a part of our meals more often! We loved going there on special occasions and he always made me feel extremely special.  I remember one of those birthdays he bought me roses and around each one he had wrapped a little note telling me that he loved me in a dozen different languages!  And that was before Pinterest!

I will never forget my twenty-fifth birthday.  February 1st, 2010.  I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant with Anna Kate and we had quite a snowstorm in Wake Forest.  I was so excited to wake up that Monday morning to find out that school had been cancelled.  I wouldn't have to go be on my feet all day and deal with 90+ middle schoolers!  What joy!  We spent the day watching the snow fall and playing Settlers of Catan with our good friends Heather and Jonathan, and hoping that Anna Kate might make her appearance that day to share a birthday with me.  Here is the blogpost I wrote that day: 25th Birthday and 38 weeks. 

And here's the post I wrote a couple days earlier about our big snow and another big snow that same weekend in 1985:  Snow Day

And that brings us to today.  I have spent the morning relaxing while Luke has done all of the diapers and dishes!  I have also listened to sweet sounds from the kitchen as he and Anna Kate (with a little help from Caroline) baked me a chocolate chip cake to enjoy tonight. 

I am truly blessed and thankful to God to have another year of my life with my sweet little family.

Caroline at 15 months!

I just wanted to do a little update about our sweet baby Caroline these days.  She is growing and changing so much lately, and I know if I don't document it, I'll forget it!

First, she went to big girl Sunday School for the first time today.  She did a great job in Ms. Tammy's class, but will definitely miss snuggling with Ms. Erin and Ms. Summer each week in the nursery.  She did great today though, probably because she is now in the same class as Anna Kate.  They will be together until Anna Kate is promoted in September.  It's so great having Anna Kate in there because she can tell me exactly how Caroline did!  From AK's report, Caroline even sat still for the lesson time!

Caroline is really communicating so much these days.  She really likes to use head nods/shakes and pointing to indicate her wishes, but she is also starting to use words too.  Here is a little video of her three favorite words:  Mama, Dada, and Sisssss (Sister).


We are still doing FANTASTIC in the sleeping department!  Caroline has slept all the way through the night (11-12 hours) for four nights in a row!  And before that it has been only up one time (if at all) for the past three weeks.  We have arrived...

Caroline will now sit through multiple books at a time and let us read to her.  Her favorite book is definitely Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton.  She loves to clap her hands and do the chicken sounds at the right times.  She also will just sit down at the book shelf and look at books for 10 or 15 minutes at a time all by herself.

Caroline is starting to participate a little bit more in family worship time.  It's still hard to get her to sit still for the whole time, but she is learning her first catechism question.  Here she is answering the question, "Who made you?"



Caroline has become quite active lately.  She has figured out how to run (although she sometimes careens out of control when she gets going to fast) and she LOVES to climb.  She can frequently be found standing or sitting on top of their little playroom table.

She has discovered lately that it is really fun to use objects for their intended purposes.  For example, if you hand her a brush, she immediately tries to brush her hair (or Mommy's hair!).  She knows that hairbows go on your head, and that cell phones go up to your hear (or she tries to text on them!), and that shoes go on your feet.  My favorite lately was she found a little pretend credit card in one of Anna Kate's purses and she took it right to the space between the door and the door jamb and tried to "swipe" it.  Ha!

Caroline has quite a fascination with jackets.  She loves wearing coats/jackets and usually wants to wear one around the house even if she's not cold.

She also loves any kind of chase/hide-and-seek/peekaboo game.  She loves the anticipation and giggles and giggles with delight!

Caroline is a joy and she brings such sweetness to our life!

And because no post is complete without pictures, here is one of Caroline and her sweet big sister after church this afternoon!

If she dressed herself...

This is what Anna Kate would look like every day.  Jammies with sparkly ballet slippers, a pink sparkly headband, a silver sparkly scarf, a pink sparkly tutu, and red sparkly shoes (on the wrong feet, of course).  Notice a theme?  What can I say, the girl loves sparkles!  This is how I found her after I got out of the shower the other day.  She said she was ready to go to the library.  It took a little convincing to get her to change her clothes...

Sweet sleep

Psalm 4:8

"In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
    for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Psalm 127:2b

"For he gives to his beloved sleep."

Proverbs 3:24

"If you lie down, you will not be afraid;
   when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet."

Those of you who know us well, or have followed our blog for any length of time, know that we have been blessed with a very precious child in our sweet Caroline, but one to whom sleep did not come naturally!  To give a little of the background here, Caroline was a fantastic sleeper as a newborn.  It was not uncommon for her to give us 5- or 6-hour stretches of sleep at two and three months old.  

And then something happened when she turned four months old.  Suddenly, she started waking up three and four times a night.  She would nurse and go right back to sleep.  We attributed it to her becoming more social and aware of the world around her, or a growth spurt, or teething pain, and figured this too shall pass.  Well it didn't!  Literally since the day that Caroline turned four months old, she has never (not once, not ever, never) slept more than 3 hours in a row.  In fact, most nights she would wake up to nurse anywhere between five and seven times.   It's amazing how you learn to cope with very little sleep!

There have been various times throughout the past year where we have wanted to try some method of sleep training...but there never seemed to be a good time.  Vacations and trips would mess things up, or we would have out-of-town guests in our house, or she would be getting new teeth, or getting over a sickness, and the list goes on.  And there were a few times that we did try, but it just did not work for Caroline.  She can be a very persistent child who knows exactly what she wants ("fellowship with Mommy" as my own mom calls it!).

But finally, last week we decided it was time.  We devised a plan (which we called "Daddy-it-out"...as opposed to "cry-it-out") and got ourselves all psyched up for what we knew would be a few hard nights.  The plan was to just have Luke go to her any and every time that she woke up and cried.  No more nursing all night long, but not leaving her completely alone either.  The first night she was not extremely pleased.  But Luke was able to comfort her each time she woke up, and she seemed to understand when he told her that "Mommy's milk has gone night-night!"  He also placed multiple pacis on her dresser (that she can reach from her crib) and she was starting to figure it out.  The second night she only woke up 3-4 times.  The third night was only 2.  And since then (for a week straight), she has either slept all the way through the night (11.5-12 hours), or has only woken up once, and she goes right back to sleep when Luke goes in there and tells her to lay down.

Success!

We truly were not sure if this day would ever come!  Never again will I take for granted a full-night's sleep, that's for sure.  Now if we could only keep Anna Kate from waking up at 3am asking to come to the "big bed"!  Oh well, one child at a time! 

 

Christmas in Greenwood

We just returned home from a wonderful five days in Greenwood spending Christmas with Luke's family. We enjoyed lots of board games, fires in the fireplace, walks in the chilly sunshine, and of course, lots of sweet treats!  We headed to Greenwood right after our 3pm Christmas Eve service, so we were there in time for a nice hot supper and time with the girls before bed.  Before I start with the Greenwood pictures though, I wanted to share just a couple that I took at home before we left.

Luke and I in front of our massive Christmas tree!  

Sweet Anna Kate 

And I just love our stockings, so I thought I would post a mantel picture or two!

Ok, now for the Greenwood pictures.  Of course the girls had to open their traditional gift of jammies on Christmas Eve.

Before

During...

After

(Caroline obviously wasn't super excited about AK's arm around her neck...)

A little playtime before bed!

After we got the girls down, I got to work stuffing stockings and Luke got to work on the girls gift from us...a wagon!  They absolutely love getting to ride in their friends' wagons, so we knew they would love it...and they did!

Daddy and Uncle Jonathan working hard

Mommy testing it out to make sure it was safe!

As for Christmas morning pictures, the girls were so busy and active that we didn't get many good pictures.  But here are a few!

First, though, how about a couple videos?  Anna Kate was up first and just couldn't wait to get started, so after a little while, we let her go wake up Caroline.

And then we opened the most important gift of all.

My sweet girl picked out a present for me all by herself.  Pink and black snowflake pajama pants!

Anna Kate with Mimi and Papa

Here is another video of the girls seeing their wagon for the first time! 

Once we brought the wagon inside, Caroline wouldn't get out of it!  She wanted all of her presents brought to her in the wagon.

After opening gifts, the rest of the morning was spent decorating Christmas cookies...

 

Putting together new puzzles...

 

And going for rides in the new wagon!

After naps we had a wonderful steak dinner!  I know, not necessarily traditional, but delicious nonetheless...and who passes up the chance to eat a good steak!

I tried to do a little photo shoot with Caroline after dinner...she was more interested in the ornaments!

Our little family

Highlights of the rest of the week included more wagon rides...

And decorating a gingerbread house!  We had so much fun we just might make it an annual tradition!

Anna Kate with her finished house...

(My favorite part of this picture is Caroline in the background!  I know, she's missing a shirt, but she got her dinner all over it and we were about to go get ready for bed!)

We had a wonderful week celebrating the gift of our Savior and are looking forward to all that God has in store for us in 2013.  Happy New Year, everyone!