Lucy Ava

My sweet little girl is already 19 months! My mom calls her, her little dolly baby because she will just sit with you and cuddle and you hardly even know she is there! She loves being like her big sister. She took a little longer than Ella to talk, but she is talking all the time now! I love it! 

She loves making messes. I have never seen a little girl make such big messes when they eat! And she does it so innocently! She also loves to wash herself off with a washcloth when she is done and she loves to find the diaper wipe container. If we don't put it out of reach we will find a heap of them on the floor that she has taken out and she will proceed to take them with her and wipe things down. It doesn't take her more than 2 seconds of watching me do something and she is copying it so effortlessly. 


She isn't picky like her sister when it comes to what she wears, but when she wears a dress on Sunday mornings she holds it out to show it off when people talk to her. She is very proud of it! She also loves to carry around little purses and wear play tiaras around the house. She loves to use her sister lip gloss, and we often find her licking her lips when she puts in on. 


She just started to make the connection that I am pregnant. She points to my belly all of the time and says baby! She will even call her "baby So So" and she has even said Sophia a couple of times! We are very curious to see how she will react when the baby is born, because she is such a baby herself still! But we also think that she will see how much Ella loves the baby and she will love her just as much. She has become very sweet and motherly to her baby dolls in the past couple of months :)

We love these little princesses and we can't wait to welcome another one into our family! <3

Ella Grace

Its hard to believe that my first baby is getting so big! Ella is fast approaching 3 1/2, and she acts even older most of the time! She is such a wonderful big sister to Lucy, and I love how motherly she can be with her. Its so precious! When we are going somewhere Ella likes to make sure that she and Lucy have everything they needs: cups of water, a snack, their socks and boots on, etc. When we come home she likes to help her sister take her coat off and hang it up (or throw it on the floor!). She is incredibly excited to be a big sister again to her baby sister Sophia! We were so worried at first because she was very convinced that this baby was going to be her baby brother. When we found out she was having another sister, we were scared to tell her! But when we did tell her, she was so excited and hasn't asked for a baby brother since. I am trying to keep her as involved in the pregnancy as possible so she doesn't feel out of place once the baby is here. I am curious to see her actual response, but I think she will do well and that she will love to help with the baby! She is always saying something about the baby, or asking questions about what it will be like when she is born. My favorite was the other day she looked at me very seriously and almost looked scared and asked, "Sophia is naked in your tummy?!" The rest of the day she concerned herself in asking what she would be wearing at different seasons. She wanted to make sure we were prepared to dress her baby sister! And are we ever! We have been so blessed with baby girl clothes! 


I am also very happy to say that she is moving past her throwing fits, or crying or whining when things don't go as she plans. We have been working on helping her communicate her feelings instead of melting down. It seems to be working! Now instead of throwing even the smallest of fits, she puts her head down and pouts and tells us "I'm so sad." And then will proceed to tell us why! It is such a welcome change from her fits, even though they weren't nearly as dramatic as the ones she would throw when she was 2! 

Her favorite things right now include princesses. She refuses to wear jeans most of the time, and when we finally do get her to wear a pair of jeans she will say sadly, "I am not a princess right now because I am not wearing a dress." She normally tells us that she wants to wear a dress so she can be a princess and dance! We hear that quite often. She loves to dance and sing. She knows a lot of songs, but she also loves to make up her own words. 


I have been assembling homeschool curriculum that turned out to be more work than I had thought! I ordered everything printed in color on cardstock and then I still had to laminate over a thousand pages and then cut them out how they were suppose to be. She loved helping me where she could, and she even started doing some of it. She does so well with letters, but she, like her mommy, has a harder time with numbers. She will get frustrated and say that she just can't remember! We are planning to start preschool in the fall. With her birthday being just days away from the cut off, if we were to put her in school we would have had to petition having her start this coming fall. And we know she is more than ready! 

Getting Ready for Baby

It doesn't really matter that its been weeks that I have had baby clothes washed a put away, swings assembled and in their places, and the nursery painted and ready, it is still hard to believe that in a couple of weeks we will be welcoming our third baby girl into our family! We are so excited! We know there will be challenges of having 3 kids 3 1/2 and under, but we know that the hard time won't last long. Time goes so fast, and its my goal to enjoy every moment because we will never get these moments back!

These last few weeks of pregnancy are always difficult for me, because even though my due date is a little over 4 weeks away, my baby could be here early! Ella was born 2 weeks early, and Lucy was most likely born only a day early. However, we aren't entirely sure that Lucy wasn't early - she could have been a little over 2 weeks early as well! I feel I need to be prepared in case I have an early baby, but I also feel that towards the end you kind of run out of things to do to occupy the time when you are just waiting. This time is a little different since my girls keep my pretty busy just on their day to day routine. I am planning to add some mall days to our schedule during the next couple weeks so that I can walk around more and so we can enjoy going out together before the baby comes! I know that it won't be soon that I will be taking all 3 of them out to the mall by myself! 

 

Pregnancy, Take 3

I have to admit, the first many months of pregnancy really flew by! And I was happy about it, and just slightly worried that I would be unprepared when her due date actually came. After Christmas time started to slow down. I have been avoiding many of the activities that I normally do because of all of the sickness which makes times go even slower! And to top it all off, I really have been uncomfortable these last couple of weeks! So uncomfortable in fact that I am very ready to have this baby! I have a little over 4 weeks until my due date, but I have been feeling like she will be born early. Maybe its wishful thinking, I will have to see. I have been praying that she will be born when she is healthy, though. Every baby is so different, only God really knows when she is ready! It sure is a lesson in trusting God when you are so uncomfortable and you would do anything to have your baby! It is silly really, because of course God knows the perfect time. And of course God has my, and my baby's best interest in mind. However, sometimes I believe God allows us to go through times like this to allow us to trust in Him more. And I intend to learn it all over again this pregnancy!

Merry Christmas from the Madlo family!!! :)