Photos and updates, long overdue

My camera is getting fixed--I figured I would spend a little to get it fixed instead of several hundred for a new camera. But it is taking weeks, and I have missed Easter and our SBAK conference and so many moments I would like to have had photos of. All I have had is my phone. :( So I'll dump all the pictures I can find from my and Blake's phones and facebook. I'll add some overdue updates too. Work and life have been so consuming that I have neglected the blog. Sorry, grandmas.

I'll start with our SBAK Easter Egg hunt. (These are not from my phone! Photos by Kelly Davenport.)

This is our friend Caden, who just loves Georgia. :)

Then my parents came for a visit for Easter weekend, and they were brave enough to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese. They bought them a bunch of tickets to play games, and all they did was play on this slide for free, lol.

I was pretty happy with the Easter baskets this year.

And oh my goodness. The kids looked so adorable all dressed up.

 Georgia loved this little purse and carried it with her everywhere. I had a diaper in it for when she went to the church nursery, lol. I need to start making her carry her own diapers around all the time. She was also very serious about the hat.

Um, Georgia has this face. :) If you even raise your voice to her--like here, to tell her to stop before she ran in the road--her lip pops out and her feelings are hurt. I am told she gets this from her mother.

Let's skip to Mother's Day. We visited Memaw and GrandBob and had a great weekend.

Look at my pretty new dress from Memaw.

At Memaw's house, Nate gets to sleep in a twin bed (he's still in a toddler bed at home). At one point during the night, I heard him screaming (which is not uncommon) and when I went to check on him he was sitting in the middle of the floor. I got him calmed down and back in bed, and it wasn't until the next morning I saw this big bump and bruise on his forehead.

A few weeks ago, my friend Jenny and her little girl Ellie came to visit. The kids all had a blast together, it was so fun. We tried to get a group picture, and it was pretty funny.

Hehe, finally!

 The girls played a little dress up.

Usually there's stuff to update about Nate, but I thought I would talk a little about Georgia this time. :) She is 21 months old now, and she's SO big. First of all she talks so big. She has a great vocabulary and can communicate just about anything. And she's not just repeating us--she comes up with stuff all on her own all the time. Like one day this week I was loading the kids in the car and I asked who I was loading up first. Georgia came running saying "Meeee!!!!" Then as I was buckling her in, she said, "Mama, Nate's turn!" I'm biased, but I think she's very smart and clever. Probably the phrase she uses the most is "Where Nate go?" She loves her big brother.

Georgia can eat with utensils very well, and she's learning to drink from an open cup. You can tell how great she is at it from that big wet spot on her dress.

While Nate was riding the horse at hippotherapy, Georgia put on a helmet and said, "Daddy, a horse. Daddy, a horse." As in, "Daddy, go get me a horse." :) She's been watching Nate long enough that she thinks she knows what to do.

A few weeks ago she tried out a bike for the first time. She wouldn't keep her feet on the pedals, so I just pushed her like she was in a stroller. Eh, she's still little.

Georgia loves to play dress up. She will try on necklaces she finds in my room, random hats, anything she can find. Then she says, "Mama, wook!" The other day I had some clean laundry on the couch waiting to be folded, and when I heard "Mama, wook!" I turned around to see Georgia trying to pull up 3 pairs of boxer shorts up over her legs! She was so mad they wouldn't stay up! She also loves putting on Nate's braces when he's not wearing them, and she wears them as boots, and she will put on anyone's shoes and stomp around in them.

She learns to love dress up from the best--the 4 year old girl at the babysitter's house. :)

She also loves her babies. How sweet is this.

Two things I hear on a daily basis are, "Mama, sucker. Mama, sucker" and "Mama, chocwat. Mama, chocwat."

Okay, so the biggest news is that Georgia is starting to want to use the potty! We're not full on potty training yet, but she actually asks to use the potty, which is a nice change from begging Nate to use it. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage Nate to use the potty too.

(Forgive me, teenage Georgia.)

Ha! This is how fancy girls go potty!

A couple of Nate. :) One day Blake and Nate went to the zoo by themselves, and Nate was really into the map.

Nate's latest thing is to repeat everything you say, except he does it AS you are saying it. I don't know how he can possibly repeat as quickly as he does--but he ends up saying what you are saying, simultaneously with you saying it. It's really .... fun. Especially reading him a story book! We're basically reading it in unison.

 One day this week Nate and I were talking at dinner, and I figured I should start going over some of this stuff that the school system said Nate should know before he starts school. He already knows his address, so I tried to teach him my cell phone number, and let's just say he's not ready to memorize seven digits. Then I was teaching him what to say if someone asked him where his mommy and daddy worked. I told him to say the Spina Bifida Association for me.

Then on a whim, I said, "Hey, do you know who has Spina Bifida?"
Nate: "Um ... Jenny?"
Me: No, you!
Then he decided to go all re-Pete on me and start saying what I'm saying in unison.
Nate: No, you!
Me: No, you have Spina Bifida.
Nate: (at the same time) No, you have Spina Bifida.
Me: No, really--
Nate: No, really--
And then we both started giggling and I gave up.

Then yesterday I was telling him about our upcoming weekend and that we were going to a playgroup.
Nate: Will my school friends be there?
Me: No, our Spina Bifida friends will be there. It's just for kids who have Spina Bifida and their brothers and sisters.
Nate: Will Georgia be there?
Me: Yes, because she is your sister.
Nate: And I will be there because I am her brother!
Me: Sigh. Kind of.

It's just not sinking in. :) And that's okay. I just want to make sure that he knows that having Spina Bifida is not a big deal, but it is part of him. And I think the way to do that is to talk about it sometimes.

Anyway, the SB playgroup was a couple hours away in Bowling Green, and there is a time difference between here and there, and as usual I got mixed up. So we got there an hour and a half early. In my quest to find a kid friendly restaurant to stop at, I ran across ... a train museum! Poifect! Nate was so surprised--we pulled in the parking lot, and he started yelling about the train! He saw a train! And it was moving!

Inside there was a little museum and Nate's idea of heaven--a model train layout.

Georgia likes Nate so much that she dutifully likes Thomas too. I think her longest sentence to date has been, "Where. Nomas. Go. Nate?"

 The kids are both in the dreaded "why" phase now. It actually started with Georgia. I don't know where it came from, but a couple months ago she started asking why to everything anyone said. This week Nate picked it up too. Awesome. Now I get to hear why at least one time, sometimes twice, after everything I say!

Okay, you are officially updated! Oops, found one more picture. The babysitter sent me this on Friday after the kids had played in the sprinkler and were eating popsicles. It's a good life. :)