Yay!

Got an unexpected call on Friday. Due to our sitter situation, I was offered an extended maternity leave - an extra week to stay at home with the girls. I happily accepted it (even if it is unpaid and I haven't received a paycheck in over a month). I'm just so happy I got this unexpected extra week at home with the girls. Now I won't be going back until Hadley is almost 13 weeks old. I'm excited to be here for this 12 week mark - not sure why, but it seems rather important to me. :)
Last week, I had a cold the whole week! I said before that my sore throat had gone away, but it ended up turning into a laryngitis/runny nose/cough thing. And the cough has been unpleasant and rather annoying. Andrew won't even sleep in the same room with me because I cough all.night.long. It's been exhausting. And I told him it figures that I'd end up sick my last week at home. My cough is still lingering, but it's not near as bad as it has been and I've been sleeping better at night, so this week should be great!

Onto the girls:
Avery has been doing great at school. She's been writing her name well, and the teachers said she doesn't even have to look at her name to write it. That was something we've been working on for a while - spelling and writing her name. She's very good at it. She could spell it out loud for over a year now, but now she's writing it no problems. I still feel like she has a hard time recognizing all of her letters, but little by little I've noticed she's gotten better. In school, they have been working on colors and shapes. Shapes have always been Avery's "thing." She notices shapes and will point them out, all the time. She's been doing that for about a year and a half now. So I'm hoping she does well when they move over to the alphabet. I also noticed she's picking up her numbers too - she can see a number and point it out (1 through 9 - she hasn't quite gotten the hang of two numbers together).
We still have challenges throughout the day with tantrums, random crying/stomping her feet (when she doesn't get her way) and getting dressed - ALWAYS getting dressed. It doesn't matter if she picks it out or I pick it out, the results are the same. Typically I let her dress herself within reason (she has to wear tennis shoes to school, for example, and weather-appropriate clothes), but sometimes I will make her wear a specific outfit (today for church, we matched the girls for Hadley's baby dedication). Regardless of how the outfit is chosen, she does not want to physically get dressed. She also doesn't like getting her hair brushed (though once we start, she's fine and will sit through whatever I do to her hair) and she hates brushing her teeth (which is frustrating, she already needs to see the dentist for a cleaning). The age of 3 is absolutely way harder than I ever expected it to be. I was dreading two. But three so far has been much worse.

Hadley is starting to laugh, and she loves to smile and coo. she's still an easy going baby for the most part. It's 9:21pm and we're winding her down and getting her ready for bed. Once she goes down, she'll most likely be out until about 6:00am or so. She is becoming more interested in her play toys, so we do a lot of time under her play mat (until she gets mad and we stop). Tummy time is still a fail. She is a bit lazy and doesn't like to lift her head still. But I still make her do it every day. She'll thank me for it later in her life (when her head isn't flat in the back).

Still love seeing them together. Avery is by far the sweetest girl to her. She just told her Daddy, "She's so adorable!" And she pats her belly/rubs her head when she's tired to help her go to sleep. One night I came in, and Andrew was unloading/loading the dishwasher and the girls were on the couch. Andrew said Avery was "babysitting" Hadley. I check on them and Avery is putting her pacifier in her mouth and reading her a story. She's going to be an awesome babysitter some day! I can't wait to see their relationship grow stronger as they both get older.

Andrew wants to have one more, and I'm inclined to do so in a few years. I know he wants a boy, and of course, I would LOVE a boy, but I'd also love a girl so that all 3 sisters could be super close like I am with my sisters. I think it would be awesome. :)