Playground Fun, New Cousin, and Sarah's Big Girl Bedroom!

Our little princess is getting so big!  We've been seeing her grow by leaps and bounds lately and when I look at photos of her, I can't believe how grown up she is looking.

We've been very excited about the coming of spring and, though the weather has recently been spotty, we've taken advantage of the nice days to head to the playground.  We've got a nice little park in our neighborhood and we walk there frequently, but we also make a special trip up to the "big park"(Chutes and Ladders in Bloomington) now and then.  She is getting braver and can climb like a little monkey.

Peeking out of the little kid part of the park.

 Scooting down the curly slide (a little bigger).

 Then she took on this slide!

I helped her climb to the top and slide down by herself once, and she did it all on her own after that.

She still gets a bit nervous if she gets off on the other connecting parts of the park, then I have to climb in to get her.  Here she got up to the top of another tower and refused to move, even when I sent Austin in to show her the tunnel to connect back over to the purple slide she had been going on.  I had to climb in (baby belly and all) and comfort her and help her get to a spot she was more comfortable with.

The benefit of going in to get her was that I got a super cute photo of Sarah coming through one of the tunnels.  My big girl!

Austin, on the other hand, disappears into the tunnels and pops out some other part of the park.  It's hard to catch photos of him racing around, but I got a couple here and there...

Tire swing fun!  They beg Mommy to swing them super duper fast!

Sarah also had fun playing with some fun sand toys another child brought but didn't want to play with.  I feel like she looks so much older in this picture.  She also looks a bit more like me than usual in this photo.

Other fun and excitement...
Recently, Austin and Sarah's cousin Owen was born to Uncle Kevin and Auntie Keng, who unfortunately now live in California.  The kids are very excited about Owen and talk about him all the time.  Nanny and Grandpa went to visit and took some cute photos of the little guy.

Happy Mommy and Daddy with Owen.

 Nanny even caught a little smile on camera.  Cutie!

When Nanny and Grandpa got home, they popped over on Thursday to see the kids and stayed for bedtime stories.  Grandpa read stories to the kids and, when he got to the last word of a story and said the very last word wrong, Austin corrected him, then said with a very exasperated tone, "Granpda, you're not very good at reading!"  Little stinker!

The biggest change of the week came when I got an itch to accomplish a big project over the weekend and the family rallied to help.  We've been waiting and waiting and waiting for our cabinetry to be installed in the basement, so we can do the last few finishing touches and then get the carpet installed.  We were waiting for the basement guest bedroom to be done so we could move the guest bedroom down there (along with all the other stuff we were storing in the guest bedroom while finishing the storage areas in the basement).  Then, when the guest bedroom was moved, we could move the baby furniture into the new baby's room/former guest room, then get Sarah's big girl room set up.

I got sick of waiting!  The storage room is almost complete.  The only thing left to finish is putting the electrical outlets in and installing the light fixture and return air vent cover.  So we decided to go for it and get the storage stuff moved downstairs while the rest of the basement gets completed later.  We went out and bought some industrial strength shelving units and got Uncle Brian to come over and help carry them down and put them together while I got all the storage stuff organized and moved out of the bedroom.  Then the boys brought those down to stow on the new shelves.  Next was moving the furniture out of the guest room/new baby room and then moving the baby furniture out of Sarah's room and into the new baby's room!  Nanny and Grandpa arrived, bringing Sarah's new big girl bed and we got her bed set up and her new furniture moved up and assembled.

Sarah's last nap in her baby crib!  The project to convert to her big girl room was so impromptu that I didn't get a chance to take a "last night in her crib" photo like I did with Austin.

 Flashback to her first time in her crib when she came home from the hospital January 2010.  Hard to remember how small she was and how much she has grown!

My big girl...looks like she's ready to head off to college.  She's got her Notre Dame hoodie, khakis, backpack, and her big girl ponytail.  My little cutie! Growing up too fast!

She wanted to help get her big girl room set up.  When it was empty, she ran in there and said, "Wow!  Look at this room!"  Then she helped Nanny vacuum the carpet before the bed went in.

 Austin helped put together the base of the bed frame and was really excited for Sarah all day.

 Excited little big girl!

The kids were so excited about the new bed coming in, they danced and jumped for joy in the middle of the bedframe base.

 As soon as the mattress was in, Sarah climbed up and started jumping on the bed.  Little stinker!

Big girl room!

Her new bedspread is her favorite color - purple!  It has white polka dots and butterflies on it, with a matching butterfly pillow sham with her name embroidered on it and a butterfly throw pillow.  Her new dresser and bookcase look really cute in her room and we even put on flower and butterfly knobs on her dresser today (not shown in this photo because we didn't have long enough screws to install them right away).

We didn't finish everything until late at night (around 10pm!) and the kids got to have "movie night" after bubble bath while we finished up getting the bedding on and the furniture built.  This is Sarah's first view of her new room!  So excited!

 She immediately climbed in and pretended to be asleep...

However, actually getting her to go to sleep was much tougher and she got very sad and tearful for while, needing Mommy and Daddy to take turns checking on her and laying in her bed with her.  She eventually accepted it when I said I needed to go potty and I would come back and check on her in a few minutes.  I gave her a few minutes until she started to wail again and I snuggled her a bit more before I told her it was Mommy's bedtime and I needed to go shower since I was stinky.  She accepted that and while I showered, she settled in and finally fell asleep (around 11:30pm)!

First night sleep in her new bed.

(Love the night portrait setting on our camera!)

My precious baby girl is getting so big!

Today, she got a little teary when we put her down for nap, but Daddy laid with her for a few minutes and she fell right to sleep.  Bedtime, we tucked her in, said her bedtime prayer with her, and kissed her goodnight.  She pouted a few minutes, but went to sleep on her own.  We're on the right track!

While the kids (and Daddy) napped today, I got Sarah's clothes moved out of the dresser that is now the baby's and started unpacking the boxes of baby clothes and getting them washed and put away.  How fun to get out little tiny newborn clothes and see the infant clothes Austin wore 5 years ago!