4 more days?

I can't believe it...in 4 days my baby will be 3 years old!!! Surely it hasn't already been 3 years, has it? Since Grady has been born, I've really started to see just how mature Ainsley has gotten lately. She says phrases like, "I have an idea! How about we...." and remembers things from MONTHS ago. She's the best little helper too. She loves to get me items and try to change Grady's diaper and such. This morning she even got Grady to sleep by holding his paci in his mouth and holding his hand. (The boy won't fall asleep unless he's holding someones hand!) Plus, she's actually doing a pretty good job of folding clothes as well. (Can't complain there!) The girls is SOOOO excited about her party coming up! She absolutely loves birthday parties. We seriously play "birthday party" at least once a day. She made out her own invitation list and even picked out her own cake and party favors. I can't wait...after how easily she has adjusted to our new family the last few weeks, she deserves a day just for her! Plus, her dance recital is the evening of the party as well. It will be a busy day, but definitely fun!

Grady is still doing excellent. He's in bed anywhere between 6:00 and 8:00pm and sleeps about 8 hours the first round, then 5 hours, then another 4 or 5 hours. He's still waking up between 10:00am and noon...depending on when he went to bed. So, I seriously can't complain. It's the TOTAL opposite of Ainsley. Oh, and did I mention that he isn't even swaddled? Yeah, we kept trying to swaddle him in the hospital and he'd get his arms out. We quickly found that if he had his hands up on each cheek he'd sleep longer, so we started swaddling him with his hands out. Now I just lay a blanket over his legs. (He still sleeps in a sleep positioner so he can't really move around much.) He's also great to take a paci until I'm ready to feed him and he always spits it out as soon as he falls asleep. He's such a sweet little man! When he gets really fussy (which still is FAR from crying) I can lie him next to me, let him hold my finger, and he goes right to sleep...no matter what time of day. He's already started looking around when he hears me talking too. Yep - he's definitely going to be a momma's boy!

My car was in the shop today so we all took a little outing in the Bronco. That was a challenge! It's plenty big, but only 2 doors so getting the kids (especially the carrier) in and out was difficult. Ainsley thought it was a lot of fun, though. And since Clint has these oversized tires, there's a lot of road noise so Grady slept great. We went to Sam's and ordered the cake, ate some pizza, then bought a ton of frozen food from Wal-Mart. I just can't seem to find time to cook right now. At least, I'm not doing a good job planning. All of a sudden it's dinner time and I have nothing laid out to thaw, so I thought another couple of weeks on frozen dinners wouldn't hurt anybody. We got mostly stir-fry and broccoli chicken so my almost-vegetarian daughter will eat it too. :) I also gave Grady a bit of formula while we were out. He wasn't crazy about it, but he did drink a little bit. I'm not going to wait until it's too late (like I did with Ainsley) and then be joined at the hip with him. I waited until almost 4 months with Ainsley and then she wouldn't take formula OR a bottle. For almost 3 months I was called out of church service or bible study every single week! The worse part was, I pumped and always included a bottle in her bag, but it would get wasted every time. For those of you who have been in that position, you know how expressed milk becomes precious little jewels! So, hopefully, Grady will take some formula now and then.

Well, I uploaded some new pictures to the "May '08" set on flickr. We also took the kids to get studio pictures made yesterday so those will be coming soon! I'm off to feed the little one! (Who has been asleep for the last 4 hours!)