Art

Teresa has been wanting to go to an art museum for quite a while now, so on Friday we went ahead and took the metro down to DC to the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art. 

The girls were so thrilled to get to ride the train.

For Grandad:

There was even some poor sucker re-enlisting in the Navy right there at the memorial while we were there. T thought it was fun to watch. Nora didn't care. Then they both set a bad example for the rest of the poor kids whose parents wouldn't let them play with the water.

Imitation. 

She imitated a lot of the statues. It was funny. 

Teresa LOVED everything about the museum. She was so cute, excitedly going from item to item pointing things out to us.

Possibly her favourite part was seeing some actual artists there painting. She could have watched them forever. She really, really wanted to talk to this girl, but was a bit too nervous. She did go stand awkwardly beside her for a while, though. 

Nora's favourite part of the day was easily this nice big fountain right outside of the museum. It was nice and hot when we got outside, so we let them cool off with the water. Marc got too many cute pictures of them getting their energy out here.

And this is just a cute picture of the T. She loves putting on Daddy's uniform when he gets home from work. 

Third

Finally, the third trimester! Seriously, this pregnancy has c r a w l e d by. Like a sloth. A crawling sloth? I don't know, but I feel like it's taken forever. It's been pretty much a dead heat between this one and T's pregnancy, but I'm gonna call it and say this one is the worst so far. They have been really, really similar, from the constant nausea and ER visits, to the migraines and carpal tunnel, to the passing out if I sit still for too long, but this one edged ahead with the immobilizing back pain. Thank goodness for chiropractors! I'm really hoping that the fact that baby boy's pregnancy is so similar to T's will mean that his labor and delivery will be similar as well. We're also interested to see if the similar pregnancies will mean any other personality/appearance similarities to Teresa, or if it's all just random.

I decided to go ahead and stick with the OB I've been using since we moved here. I was pretty sure I wanted to switch to the midwives/birth center option, so I was surprised when we went and toured it and it just felt really wrong, and totally changed our minds.

I'm actually not loving my doctor right now, though. She used to be, seriously, the best doctor I've had, really nice and actually let's you talk, and never makes you feel like she's sooo much smarter than you (unless you don't want IUD birth control), but my past few visits she's been not so cool. She keeps trying to move my due date, because she apparently doesn't believe me when I tell her I know when I got pregnant? I guess. And she's acting pretty concerned that baby boy is measuring a bit big, as if I don't have a history of giant babies. I'm relatively certain the reason Nora was so much smaller was because of my anemia with her, and since I'm not this time around I do think we're looking at having another big baby. I can't say I'm thrilled at the thought, but I don't think it's anything to freak out about, either.

Ha, this was kind of funny, we took the girls to my last appointment, they were really excited to hear the heart beat, and they were so ridiculous while we were there. They weren't too awful in the waiting room, but it was pretty much the quietest waiting room ever, so every little noise they made sounded so loud. And then when I was in with the nurse they were both being such rascals, Nora kept screaming and had a huge melt down, and T kept rolling around on the floor. I could tell the nurse was not thrilled that they were there, which was fine, because I was not thrilled that they were there, either. So when she left we threatened them pretty much within an inch of their little lives. It totally worked (for once) because when the doctor came in she couldn't stop going on about how well behaved they were. Marc and I were trying not to laugh as she kept saying what little angels they were. Hopefully she didn't compare notes with the nurse after we left...

Both our girls are still super excited about their little brother. Nora has big plans to give him all her pacifiers (or paci-furrs, and she calls them) and to feed him milk when he gets here. I'm doubting the paci thing will come true, but it's cute that she wants to share with him. Teresa has been such a super star helper lately. I've been SO tired the past few weeks, and she is so good about playing quietly so I can rest during Nora's nap time. T is still campaigning for his middle name to be Salad Sandwich.

In other news, we registered T to start pre-school in the fall. Honestly, it's still a little horrifying for me to think of her being away from me for so long every day. Even though it's only half-day. I know she will love it, though, she has really had a rough time with how much of a hit her social life has taken since I've been pregnant and several of her friends have moved. She asks at least weekly if we can move to California, and when I say no she gets all exasperated and says "Well, then can we please move to Texas?!?". She also told us that when she goes to school she is going to tell them to call her Tressa, instead of Teresa. She's been trying to get us to switch back, too, but it's so hard for me to remember. Nora is good at correcting me, though.

Nora is still a little fire cracker. She's been extra snuggly and needy lately, which is fine by me. Poor babe is having a rough time getting the rest of her molars in all the way, she always gets a fever for a few days when she's working on one. We've kind of put the brakes on weaning her from the pacifiers lately. Mostly because if she had any other special attachment item (like a doll or blanket) I wouldn't be forcing her to give it up just because she turned two. I know pacis are socially unacceptable after two, but I don't really care. All the little old Asian ladies at the commissary definitely do, though. It's kind of amusing to hear them all try to convince her to hand her paci over.

Marc is still working a thousand hours a week, or at least that's what it feels like. T made him sad the other day, I heard her talking to one of her stuffed animals, saying "My name is T-E-R-E-S-A. And Nora is N-O-R-A. She's my stister. And my mommy is brilliant, and my daddy just goes to work all the time". But hopefully it will all pay off eventually, right?

If you made it this far, here are some pictures. We took the girls to pick strawberries last week. They were totally cute doing it, Nora would say "twist and pull!" every time she got one. But then she saw a butterfly and completely freaked out. Seriously, people were staring. So Marc and T got to finish picking our row because Nora just could. not. function.

The Castle

Teresa has been begging to go to the big castle (Medieval Times) at the mall here for the past few months. Basically it's dinner and a show with knights and horses and princesses and all that stuff. Marc and I went last year with some friends, and as much as I thought T would like it I was also worried because it can get very loud. Teresa has a bit of an issue with being able to handle loud noises (she generally has to cover her ears before we can flush the toilet in public restrooms), so I've been hesitant to take her. BUT she has been doing better with that, and had been really, really interested in going for several months, so we decided we would make it her main birthday present this year. At first I was just going to have Marc take her on a little daddy-daughter date, but we got a good deal on Living Social, so we all went. I'm so glad we did, because Nora was absolutely enamored with it and had such a blast, she was so cute. She is super in to horses, and the very first thing they did was bring out a bunch of dancing/performing horses and she was transfixed watching them and breathily saying "oh, wow" over and over.

They were so excited all day waiting to find out what the big surprise was.

When you go in, the color of your crown indicates which knight you are supposed to be cheering for, so we were in the blue knight's section. 

T was pretty thrilled with our knight. Apparently Teresa already has a 'type' because she thought he was super handsome, and he looked just like our mailman. Now that I think about it, he might actually have been our mailman...seriously, they even had the same facial hair.

 They did a bunch of cool tricks with their horses, and every now and then each knight would throw some flowers in to the crowd. T really, really wanted a flower from him, every time he came over she would cheer her little heart out, and was getting so disappointed each time he didn't throw her one. And then FINALLY each knight was given a sash to present to someone in their section as queen of the tournament and he rode right over and gave it to Teresa. 

That's him holding his lance out to her to take it above. She was so thrilled, it was really sweet, she just couldn't believe it, it totally made her night. 

There's a storyline to the whole thing, and the knights all end up fighting each other at the end, using their lances, then swords/axes/maces, etc. Our knight beat the first guy he fought, and then lost to the second one. When he got "stabbed" and fell down Teresa was legitimately horrified, and almost started crying. Luckily he got up pretty quickly.

Nora started to wilt towards the end. She was fighting off a bit of a fever thanks to those darn two-year-old molars.

T wanted a picture with the lion on the way out. That's her queen sash she's holding on to. It's definitely featured heavily into her pretend play since we've been home. 

When we were tucking her in to bed that night she said "Guys, that was the best-est surprise in the whole world!".