The ballerina princess, the girl scout and the tennis player

I think I finally figured out the real reason why I prefer to dress the girls in matching outfits. Well, besides the fact that it really is super easy to just open their closet and pull out three matching outfits. I don't want one to be wearing an outfit that is cuter than the other two. I guess you could call it fear of favoritism.

For yesterday's birthday party for L, the little girl next door, I wanted to dress the girls in nonmatching nice outfits. I've been trying to dress them nonmatching when we go to functions in order to help others keep track of who is who. (Although, sometimes it doesn't help.) We somehow ended up on theme outfits and the girls became the following: Allie was the ballerina princess, Anna was the girl scout and Em was the tennis player. The girls loved their outfits. One of their new activities is looking through the clothes in their closet, as if they are shopping. When I tried that skirt on Allie, she looked down at it and said, "Oh, cute."

The girls had an absolute blast at the birthday party, which was held at a children's museum.







But the party was a bit sad in that our awesome neighbors are moving. This week. Not only is it great that L is so close in age to the girls but her parents are our age and really easy to get along with. Besides some minor social chit chat with neighbors we see on walks, they are the only neighbors we hang out with. In addition, out of the eight or so houses closest to us, we are looking at ten boys under the age of ten. I am in trouble.

Speaking of trouble, Jacob was at the birthday party yesterday. Jacob was at L's birthday party last year and took a liking to Emily. Yesterday, he was asking Rich what the girls' names were and then he said, "They are really cute." I think he's five years old. I really am in trouble, aren't I?

I wanted to post an update on Anna's fever. This morning her temperature was lower but moved back up to 100 degrees after dinner. I was up half the night with her and it really probably was my fault that she was up half the night. She was not going to get comfortable in our bed or in Grammy's bed, which is where Anna and I ended up sleeping from 4:00 to 6:15. We had been mostly awake from 12:30 to 4:00. At 6:30, she asked to go back to her crib (huge surprise to me!) and armed with her sippy of water and the Pianoman CD playing, she fell asleep in approximately one minute. We woke her up at 9:15, mainly because she needed to be catheterized.

I know that kids can have fevers and that they usually recover without issue. But there are some kids that don't. Most everyone believes that when you are 40 weeks pregnant and in labor, you are going to deliver your baby alive. I know first hand that this doesn't always happen. I am all too familiar of being the one in that small percentage of bad and it makes me nervous.

Here's a picture of Anna watching Barney this morning with me while Rich grocery shopped with Allie and Em.



And it has been brought to my attention that my list of our household rules the other day was missing the following items:

• Share with your sisters
• No running. Walk
• Don't touch your pony
• Don't touch your sisters' ponies
• Sit when you are on the couch
• No jumping on the couch