Happy Birthday Miriam!

Today Miriam turned six. If you didn't know that, it's only because you haven't been around her for the last, oh, month or so. She's been counting down the days -- practically the minutes -- until her birthday. Whenever someone asked her how old she was, she'd invariably reply, "Five, but my birthday is coming soon and I'll be SIX!" All day yesterday she reminded me, "Mommy, today is my last day to be five, and then tomorrow I'll be SIX!" At the grocery store yesterday, whenever we passed someone in the aisles she'd say that to me, no doubt for the stranger's benefit. (I wish I were as excited about my birthdays now!)

So after all the hype and expectation, how did her sixth birthday go? Well,

-She woke up to see number 6 balloons decorating her room.
-I made all her favorite foods -- crepes for breakfast, hotopuses for lunch, and tomato soup and grilled cheese for dinner.
-She got to open her cards and one present after breakfast.
-She got to wear one of her new spring dresses (with a sweater).
-We went swimming at the local Rec Center this morning (until Katie's lips started turning purple).
-I didn't make her take a nap, so she could play with her presents while Katie & I rested.
-We made popcorn and watched a movie in the afternoon.
-She talked on the phone FOUR separate times today.
-She opened the rest of her presents after dinner and loved everything.
-In lieu of birthday cake we had pound cake w/mashed strawberries -- with a candle stuck in her piece.
-She picked the story tape to listen to while Mommy & Daddy were washing dishes.
-She chose to watch Daddy play one of his video games after dinner, instead of having story time.
-During family Rosary she sat in Mommy's lap and led the very first decade -- and then got to fall asleep in Mommy's lap, feeling the baby moving.


So all in all, a fabulous day if you're six. Once she wrapped her arms around me, sighed with happiness, and said, "This is the best birthday EVER!" (I think that was at about 8:30 am, after we had crepes for breakfast and I let her wear her favorite new dress -- so we were off to a good start!)


After dinner we conducted a little interview with Miriam, age 6 (an idea totally lifted from Son Baby):

So Miriam, how do you like being 6?
-A LOT!

Are you going to start liking all those foods you don't like now that you're six?
-No, not until I'm grown up.
So, age 7?
-No, 13!

favorite color: pink & purple
favorite movie: Jonah (Veggietales)
favorite song: Poor Wayfaring Stranger
favorite person: my cousin Edy
favorite thing to do: color
favorite princess: Sleeping Beauty
favorite book: Big Sister Now
favorite food: mac & cheese
favorite video game to watch Daddy play: the Fox Game
favorite video game to play: Sponge Bob

If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?
-ice skating

If you could buy anything, what would it be?
-a bicycle -- a pink one with butterflies and little wheels on the back

So what's your favorite birthday so far?
-six!

What do you want to do for your seventh birthday?
-hmmmm, go swimming

For her sixth birthday, however, she did go ice skating. We had her party last Saturday -- earlier rather than later Just In Case. Earlier in the year I gave her option of having a birthday party and inviting 6 friends, or going someplace fun with just one or two. After her super-fun experience ice skating for the first time on New Year's Eve, she chose that for her birthday party.

Miriam with her friends, Anne and T.T. Katie and I sat it out -- Katie can't skate, and I shouldn't. :) So Mr. Pickles played chaperone.

It took them about 5 minutes to get all the way around the rink the first time! After that they all felt more confident and could skate holding hands, or the wall.

This happened a lot.

Meanwhile Katie was having fun on the bleachers.

Too cute not to post. :) (incidentally, it's weird seeing Miriam be the short one!)

Katie found some "snow" at the entrance to the rink! Eventually so did our girls -- T.T. got Mr. Pickles down the neck with a snowball.

Look what I got Mommy!

After skating we came back home for cake.

Have I mentioned before that Miriam is really into princesses? This was her consolation for not having a whole cake with a huge Cinderella face printed on it. I couldn't resist the clock.

Happy Birthday, princess!

The princess with her court.

Her highness reclining after a busy day. :)

Unfortunately, the next day she was a mess -- her abdominals were so sore it hurt her to move! Poor kid. But I'm guessing all in all she thought it was worth it.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl. We're so glad God sent you to us!

Ahwooga!! Ahwooga!!

Yellow alert! Had my 38 wk OB appt today, and learned some exciting things: the baby's head is engaged in my pelvis (which explains why I've been going to the bathroom every 30 minutes again, and why my pelvis feels like it's... full) and I'm dilated 1cm. Woo hoo! One cm! Exciting times! Of course, I could still be walking around feeling like the baby's head is hanging between my thighs for a couple weeks yet. But I doubt it....

So now I just need to:

-vacuum the house
-clean the bathrooms
-install the carseat
-call the pediatrician
-finish packing
-finish my Easter dress
-start Miriam's flower girl dress
-dust
-polish the piano
-do all the laundry
-paint all the baseboards
-organize all our photos
-go grocery shopping

...you get the idea. :)

As far as baby stuff goes, we're set. The car seat's in the car and the bags are packed, which is more than we had ready when Miriam surprised us. :)


The crib's all ready.

...complete with test baby

My nursing corner is all ready to go, with my deluxe leather lounge chair from IKEA. (Katie is demonstrating that Mommy's lap will always have enough room for her.)

I've got a new baby carrier, the Moby Wrap, provided by some FABULOUS friends. Miriam makes a great model, with the help of a zebra. :) I had originally wanted a Maya Wrap sling to replace (or supplement) our other one, but a friend loves her Moby and highly recommended it.

Itty bitty diapers! You forget how teeny they really are. It's like they're made for dollies. (Behind it you can see my new gender-neutral Boppy w/taggies -- made by one of those fabulous friends!)

Speaking of dollies, they make excellent models for babies. :) I practiced smocking by making a dress for Madeline, to get a feel for how it worked before I made a new baptism outfit for the REAL baby. (since the one Miriam & Katie were baptized in is almost 100 yrs. old and starting to show its age a bit...)

Here it is in all its glory, mostly finished! It's really hard sewing for someone whose measurements you can't take! I'm not totally 100% satisfied w/it -- but I suppose that's what I get for trying to make it using 3 separate patterns. :) The baby will probably be swimming in it -- the smallest pattern I had was for 6 mos. -- but I can put some tucks in to shorten sleeves and legs if necessary. I also didn't want it to be too frilly, in case we have a boy. But it still looks cute from a distance. :) And it will only be used once every 3 years or so, so really, does it matter? :)

Speaking of the baby....

Here's a little sample of what it's like having an alien living inside you.



And yes, it feels as weird as it looks.

Our baby for not much longer!

Here's a little post devoted mostly to Katie. Sadly, our camera died right around her third birthday, so we weren't able to take any pictures of her party. :( But here she is shortly afterward, on Thanksgiving.

Look at me! I'm cute and three!

Wait, HOW old did you say I was? (love our resident ham there) (she gets it from her father, FYI)

Pre-haircut, reading her new book to her pet turkey (which she LOVES).

post-haircut, dressing her turkey in a dolly shoe for a hat
(yeah, she is a short hair kind of girl, don't you think?)

Another of her gifts. Okay, CAN you get any girlier than this??

Katie really got into the birthday thing this year, especially the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. Several weeks after the fact, we would hear things like: "It's MY birthday so I pick a book to wead." It took her a long while to understand that a birthday is for one DAY, not the rest of your life. Sometimes I think she still doesn't get it.


Mmm, good to the last drop. Katie has inherited her mother's devotion to chocolate.

I just can't think of a caption funny enough to go with the face. I have to laugh every time I see this picture -- it's such a typical Katie mad face.

Miriam fixing a minuscule cup of tea for Katie. And yes, that's real tea (with lots of milk and sugar). They love it. Of course, I caught Katie using her spoon to eat the sugar from the sugar bowl later, so I'm not sure just how much in her cup was actually tea, and how much sugar.


A while back I remember Miriam going through a phase of extremely violent imaginings -- involving lots of scary beasts and swordfighting and killing. Now Katie is going through the same things, so I'm guessing it's a phase typical of this stage of childhood. Katie has taken to telling very involved stories, mostly enacted through playing with her stuffed animals and baby dolls. But every once in a while when I'm doing something mundane like washing her face after lunch, this kind of thing will just come spilling out in a very animated manner:
"Three little piggies jumping on the bed! And the wolf came and blew down the bed. And the prince came and saved them. And the princess saved them too and they got married but they were scared of the witch so they ran away and hided in a shadow of a dark cloud."
Another recent story involved some bees buzzing around and an alligator who was scary and a hunter who killed the mean alligator -- it just went on and on and I didn't have time to write it down! It's fun watching what her brain is coming up with these days.

I'm trying to enjoy her preciousness as much as I can now, because I know that in a few short days she's going to grow up overnight (in my eyes), since she won't be my baby any more. This was the hardest adjustment for me after Katie was born -- I just didn't feel the same towards Miriam, and went through a mini-mourning process for that lost relationship. I now understand why youngest children tend to remain the apple of their mother's eye -- there was never another baby to take that place away from them. I can't wait to have another baby, but I know I'm going to miss that relationship with Katie. *sniff*

2 hours and $170 later...

...our front doorknob looks like this:


Yes, for the first time in Pickles history, I locked myself out. I blame the foggy-headedness of pregnancy. :) Fortunately our lovely neighbors were home so I was able to call a locksmith right away -- plus the weather was nice so the girls could run around and pick flowers and have stick sword fights while we waited over an hour. (15 minute service my foot!) It's kind of scary how easy it was for the locksmith to open the door. The knob was so old that he had to drill it open -- it took all of about 3 seconds, maybe 4 to open it. Certainly gives you a real feeling of security to know how easy it is to break in to someone's house. :) Good thing we have so little of value to worry about. We'd probably have to pay a thief to break in and steal our TV. (even though we love it for its faithful service over the many, many years of its existence)

Okay, where were we?

Sorry for the hiatus, everyone. We've been (meaning mostly I have) fighting off one virus after another -- or maybe the same one -- for the last couple months. So on the good days I feel obligated to spend my time doing things like catching up on Miriam's schoolwork, cleaning the bathrooms, going grocery shopping -- you know, mundane things like that. Hasn't left much time to blow off on the computer. I haven't had a serious blog-hopping session since last year. (probably a good thing) :) But NOW, my latest cold is finally reduced to an occasional cough, there are groceries in the house, the laundry is conquered for another week, the baby's things are all ready, so I feel liberated! Gosh, where to begin? Well, we're seriously behind in picture posting, so let's start there...
Holy crap, we're still at October! Well, heaven forbid I not blog about every major occurrence in our lives, so here are two family events that I haven't had a chance to post about yet.

The first was our now annual trip to a local farm for their Fall festival. It really is great fun. There's lots to do, the food is great, PLUS you get to pick your own pumpkin! We had also planned to go apple picking, but the season was already over. :( So that's why nobody got apple butter for Christmas this year.

First stop is always the giant slide. Katie had a few moments of panic as we were waiting our turn -- from up above it's a loooooooooong way down when you're 2 -- but she loved it. Miriam made sure we stopped and got off the slide in a timely manner. :)


What they lack in height they make up in cuteness. (yeah, I'm a sucker for ponytails)

We spent lots of time near this wooden train

and the awesome fort you can see behind it.

Every girl needs a John Deere tricycle. I would just like to point out the color of Miriam's socks, and note that she is an independent dresser. (I vividly remember wearing bright pink socks with a pale yellow dress when I was about 7.)

Our little speed demon (who needed to be pushed around the track b/c she's too little to apply enough force to the pedals)

TWO pony rides in one month! 5-year-old heaven.

Feeding the chickens.

And the goats. Katie got a HUGE kick out of this. I wish we'd taken a movie of her giggling reactions.

Unfortunately, we didn't think to take a picture of Miriam getting a ride in the Cinderella pumpkin coach. Katie wanted to go, but chickened out at the last second. Not sure where this sudden timidity came from -- maybe she's just stubborn like her mother and doesn't like feeling pressured into doing something new. :)

As the afternoon wore on we finally took the hayride to the pumpkin patch.

I pick dis one!
Look how strong I am!

Yay for pumpkins! (I think I used up a whole package of tissues from all my sneezing.)

The pumpkins in action. (I can't believe I didn't blog anything about Halloween! Well, I guess there wasn't much to report anyway -- the girls made a killing with regard to loot intake, which Mommy "helped" them eat, Katie was a fairy princes, since she dressed like one everyday anyway, and Miriam, after a long period of indecision, was Cinderella. I broke down and bought Miriam a costume for the first time -- I just didn't have the energy to make one -- something to do with being 3 months pregnant or something silly like that.)

Fall is Fun with the Pickles!

Next big Pickles event was a visit from Uncle Dave and future Aunt Katie!


Aren't they cute? We can't wait for their wedding in June!

While they were visiting us, we all went for a hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

This was cool: one of the first things we saw when we got on the trail were several deer. The girls were totally awed, and STILL talk about it.

Miriam dishing out all the family secrets to a ready listener. :)

The view from the summit. We really should do this more often.

An even better view. (okay, maybe I'm biased) :) You may be able to tell from the color of Miriam's nose that it was COOOOOOOLD that day! Much, much colder than we were expecting.

View, schmiew. I've got a mud puddle to play in!

Where's Katie? No, the little one.

Miriam knows a sucker when she sees one. :) (well, I guess so does our Katie, in the background) At least we were going downhill.

We had a great visit, despite a minor bout of food poisoning. (guess we won't be visiting that hole in the wall again...) It was really nice spending some time with Dave & getting to know Katie before the madness of the wedding. Some time we'll have to return the favor and visit them in Chicago -- art museum, here I come!

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Most of our readers have probably heard already, but a California court recently ruled that it's illegal to homeschool in the state of California. If this goes unchallenged, homeschoolers across the country are threatened. Please visit http://www.hslda.org/ for more info, and to sign a petition to support homeschooling.

(Pickles-related posts coming soon: we promise! We're just swamped with baby prep lately!)