Maggie is 5!!

This year we celebrate the fifth anniversary of me becoming a mom. In other words, we celebrate this beauty. 

Five years old. No longer a baby, no longer a toddler. She is a full on grown kid. I just can't even believe how quickly it has gone by. I can't believe how big she is. My Maggie Claire is just the best. 

This year it seems like I've gotten a special reminder of what we experienced five years ago, due to the arrival of Josie. It has been really neat to read my timehop posts that related to Maggie's impending arrival which coordinated so closely with what I was experiencing with Josie. 

Maggie was a sweet baby, but I say a lot that I didn't really enjoy her until 9 months. Some of that has to do with some baby blues I experienced with her. Some of it has to do with the fact I was so afraid I would break her! And around nine months she was able to crawl and engage with me. Unbelievably she and I both made it! 

She is a sweet heart and excellent helper. She can be very responsible and excellent cleaner. She enjoys being the oldest and has a tendency to boss her little sister around. She likes to be right and know it all. 

Maggie can also be an incredible big sister, so loving and encouraging and she does a great job (for the most part) of including Ellie in her day to day. I will randomly find them cuddled together or walking together holding hands. I'm not sure how that happened, and I pray with all my heart that their relationship will continue to grow stronger as they get older. And now I include in that prayer that Josie will be another piece to that sister puzzle. 

Maggie attended preschool this year at our church, and she absolutely loved it. Every snow day was a huge let down for her. She was the only girl for the majority of the year, so "boyfriends" were a topic of conversation more than Mommy or Daddy would have liked. She fit in well with them, but more than that did a great job in school. Her teacher said she was the "prayer warrior" in their class (what could make a Mom prouder?) and was excellent at recalling the details of the bible story each time. With the exception of a couple of days she was usually the first to be recognized for good listening or behavior at school. This may have had to do with the prizes she won with that good behavior. We Lusk women are competitive!

She knows all her letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. She knows about 75% of the letter sounds and recognizes about 10 sight words. She is ready for Kindergarten in only a few short weeks, whether mommy is or not. She has mentioned concern over not napping in Kindergarten, saying "I may just be too tired for school." I doubt that is an issue. She is most looking forward to art and new friends at her new school.  

Maggie loves dancing, singing, playing outside, playing with Barbies, and reading books. She is a great helper around the house and is responsible for cleaning her room, making her bed, helping with the playroom, helping with laundry and dishes. We will be starting a chore chart and allowance this summer to work on more responsibilities and the concept of money. 

We have been celebrating her birthday all week, with a birthday party, a park date, a pool day, a lunch date and will finish up this evening with dinner out and gifts. Though she was excited to turn five, this morning she said she missed being four. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, she can be a bit dramatic as well :) It's a big year for this five year old, and I couldn't be prouder of her. 

I'm so incredibly thankful that she made me a mom five years ago today. Happy Birthday Magpie Claire! 

Here are this years questions! 

1. What is your favorite color?
• Yellow, Pink, Blue and Um...Grey, purple, pink, yellow and I think that's all 
2. .What is your favorite food? 
• Macaroni and cheese and some pancakes, cereral, and marshmallows
3.  Who is your best friend?
• Sydney, Bree, Emma, and Bella
4. What do you like to do with your family? 
• Go to the park, eat dinner,go on dates with Daddy
5.   What is your favorite toy?
• Big Baby, Anna, Elsa doll, and my new birthday Periwinkle doll
6. What do you want to be when you grow up?
• a hospital doctor
7. What makes you happy? 
• hearts, and buying toys
8. What makes you sad?
• when people don't really play with me and when people don't really want to be nice to my friends. That makes me really, really, really sad.
9. What is your favorite show?
• The Little Mermaid, Strawberry Shortcake
10. Where do you like to go?
• to the pool, to the park, and to Disney World
11. What is your favorite animal?
• giraffes, dogs, but wait not big dogs, not big dogs...never mind i just don't like dogs. Elephants
12. What do you do best?
• Trying not to be bad, I just hope I don't. 
13. Who is the coolest person on earth?
• Ms. Brittany
14. What did you do when you were little?
• I like to paly with toys and swing and walk and cry
15. What is your favorite season?
• That's really hard. I think winter. 
16. What is a food you don't like?
• pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes and the purple things, and mushrooms, tomatoes, avocados, big carrots, um...i really don't like to eat...is...pickle juice. 
17. What is your favorite song?
• Oh what a special night. (We then sang along together.)
18. What is your favorite game?
• Sophia card game, mickey mouse card game, 
19. What do you want on your birthday cake?
• Elsa
20. What is your favorite candy?
• chocolates and lemon, wait not lemons...I really like chocolate oreos. 

A Pre-Baby Date

So May was a whirlwind. We were busy. BUSY.
In an effort to document our fun, I'm backdating these posts to include all the fun we had, since I didn't get around to posting them in a timely manner.

The beginning of the month we Scott and I decided that we would take the girls on a few dates separately to prepare for the arrival of their new little sister. Scott took Ellie to see Cinderella in the theater, while I took Maggie for her first ever pedicure.

She doesn't do new things well and was a bit apprehensive about sticking her feet in the water...and no way was she trying the massage chair.

Ok, it may not be so bad 

She likes it! She has asked several times to go back, she doesn't realize how expensive it is!

Her "Funny Face" for her Funny Face pancake

Fun night with my girl 

 

Explorium Adventures

Now that the weather is FINALLY warming up, the adventure bug has bitten us once again. Recently our family sat down to create a summer bucket list to be sure that our summer was filled with fun adventures. I'm not sure why winter weather makes me feel so lazy and content to stay home and veg, but I'm excited about the adventures that we have on the books for the upcoming months.

We found out at the end of the week that Daddy was going to have to work most of the weekend. On one hand, it was a bummer that he was away. On the other hand, because of the extra work he was able to avoid a week long trip to Oklahoma. (Remember our girl is due in three weeks :)  ) So instead of hanging out at home for the millionth time the girls and I found ourselves on an exciting adventure to the local Explorium.

The girls had a great time, and due to a groupon I found that the price was worth the experience.

I warned the girls ahead of time that they were to stick together so I could keep an eye on them both. They did a great job asking each other when they were ready to move on to the next activity. I was super proud of their great attitudes and team work together.

I thought the facility was a bit run down, not everything lit up, made noise or worked as it was originally created to, but the girls didn't notice one way or another.

I was also very careful to not think about all the other children who may have touched, slobbered on, licked, or who knows what on the rather aged equipment, toys and stuffed animals.

The Exporium was two levels, and we managed to make it into a three hour visit.

Despite it being a Saturday it really wasn't busy at all. There was a birthday party in attendance, but even with that concentrated group of kids we were able to play on other attractions while we waited for them to scatter.

The girls enjoyed running from one thing to another and back.

We were excited to visit the bubble zone, unfortunately only a few of the exhibits seemed to work. Again, the girls didn't care they just enjoyed getting their hands dirty.

We ended our adventure with a lunch out, which was of course the girls favorite pick, Taco Bell. No adventure is really complete without a cheese rollup.

One adventure down, lots to go...looking forward to Daddy joining us next time.

T-32 Days

Other than being about the worst blogger ever, I also have been pretty lacking in posting anything regarding my baby girl and the past 241 days. I can't help but wonder if it is due to the fact that she is the third, and you know how people say the third babies get the shaft with pictures and memory books etc. Part of me thinks its due in part to the fact there has been a lot of heartache surrounding her pregnancy and our baby making history. But, more than anything it probably has to do with the fact that I'm a lazy bum...

Regardless, I realized last night that we are only 32 days away from meeting our baby girl.

32 DAYS! That is nothing!! I freaked out a little when I realized that. On one hand it seems like a long time since we discovered our exciting news.

On the other, not so much.

We have been busy getting things ready for our girl. We've bought a new to us van. Oh, how I love our beautiful "mama wagon".

While Scott was out of town for a week recently I redid Josie's nursery. I figured that since we had used the same bedding for Maggie and Ellie, we were due a change. Throughout the first trimester I KNEW that we were having a boy. Like, would have bet money on it. So, I began planning for our superhero nursery. Then, we had an ultrasound revealing Josie not Jacob would be joining our family. I still planned on a super hero nursery, why not...until I got to the fabric store and found these beautiful prints. A week later, I had crafted, sewed and covered my way to a Pinterest worthy nursery for my girl.

Josie and I have been doing well as we both grow, her growth is much more exciting to me than my own, but I suppose it comes with the territory. Feeling lots of contractions off and on. Lots of indigestion too. Other than that we are making it.

The To Do List grows as the days shorten. I have big plans of creating a summer schedule to keep us from wasting the day and making fun memories instead. I have my grocery list ready for the many frozen meals I will be preparing. We'll see if my lazy bum tendencies get in the way of those plans.

Until then, we keep a close look out at the calendar and anticipate the exciting arrival of our Josie Rose!