What a fun time little girls can have at an aquarium. We went with our friends Elena and Maeve to check out a preschool program and explore the aquarium together. The girls wore themselves out playing and checking out the exhibits and fish. Emily touched a Horseshoe Crab, saw the teeth on live sharks, found out that there can be catfish longer than she is, and pushed a million buttons and knobs. Emily’s favorite thing to do was to look for Nemo and Dory, which she succeeded at.

Julia hung out a lot in the stroller and her highlight was getting to steal french fries from her mama’s tray. I always tear everything small so she can gum it well, but she wanted to try at a whole fry and kept stealing them. Then she was making the action motions to try to dip them in catsup like mama was. It was really cute and she did just fine with the french fries. Hopefully for her sake she will get more teeth soon and have some help chewing her food.

We spent a beautiful hour out picking strawberries with some friends and their girls. It is nice to be out with people that Emily is familiar with; so that, she is so much more bold. She also wants to be like the other girls so she generally acts better and tries new things to be like them too. I think she had a lot of fun, she didn’t have any inhibitions about picking the red strawberries straight from the plants on the ground. No lesson on how to pick was necessary. I might need to check over the ones we picked to see if we have any overly ripe ones.

Emily picked strawberries, visited with the different mamas, hung out with the girls, fell down and required comfort, played in the dirt, found mud, played with Julia, snuck snacks from Elena’s lunch, and sampled Mommy’s strawberry fried pie. I call that a successful outing! It is hard to take photos, herd kids, pick strawberries, and get great photos. So, I have no photos of Julia because she hung out in our front pack and no great individual photos of Emily. But we had fun and enough photos to help us remember it by.

I wish I had photos, but I was too caught up in the moment – Julia rolled over from her tummy to back today three times like she had been doing it forever. After I put her back on her tummy the fourth time, she decided that she was over it and fussed until I turned her over. I know it isn’t fair, I rewarded her monumental event by putting her back on her tummy. I also rewarded her by praising her and clapping for her. She did smile and laugh a lot during the first three rolls. She is so close to rolling from her back to her tummy. Wouldn’t it be funny if she figured them both the same day?

We are very thankful this year for the blessings that God has given us. We are thankful for the things we have learned from our challenges this year. And mostly we are thankful that God is with us through both!

We will spend the Thanksgiving afternoon and evening with good food and family. Uncle Philip, Aunt Jen, Caleb, and Nathaniel are visiting for the holiday. We will eat at Grammy and Granddaddy’s house and have lots of fun playing together! Julia might just watch and take it all in, but most likely she will just nap for the evening.

Today was our morning movie day for the girls. While it seemed to take us forever to get out of the house, we managed to make it to the movie theater on time. We had to bundle up extra because it was literally freezing outside. Emily was willing to wear her hat (thanks Granddaddy for giving her a love of hats!) and scarf, but unwilling to wear her gloves. Wearing them outside has not been interesting, while she loves to wear the gloves around the house to play.

Julia slept through most of the movie with the exception of waking up for a bottle. I noticed that if you go to an active movie that a baby’s cry isn’t going to be heard over the music and dialog of the movie. It worked out really well.

Emily was simply wonderful today. We tried popcorn last month and Emily was really disinterested in it. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning and decided that I would get a popcorn and a drink. I figured that Emily would try a few and then end up becoming disinterested like last month. I was wrong. She tried it and helped me eat half of the bag. Then she took the bag from me, sat it on her lap, and munched most of the movie. Emily sat for the whole movie either on her booster seat or on my lap and watched the movie. She was such a big girl! The whole event was quite relaxing for me. Imagine that – going out into public with two little ones and being relaxed! It has been a good day!

Today was our 38 week checkup for the baby. Everything still looks good. The doctor’s estimation of the weight of the baby today is 6 lbs. It appears that she is on the same track as Emily in size. Because I will not be able to see my doctor next week for my visit, we went ahead and discussed having an induction. While I want to wait for the baby to come on her own, it is wise to plan ahead. We have an induction scheduled for October 21st as a backup plan in case the baby doesn’t come ‘on-time’. We are trusting God to work out all the little details surrounding taking care of the baby and Emily. He does such a good job whether or not I am practicing my trust in Him to provide. It just seems that God was with us today to work out some simple details of our day and it is a good reminder of His sufficient provision.

We had a surprise today when we went to our appointment. Granddaddy came to the appointment with us to watch Emily in the waiting room. When we arrived we found our friend Ashley in the waiting room. She was having a test and had to wait for a while in the waiting room. She hung out with Granddaddy and Emily while they waited for Mommy’s appointment. We are so grateful for the people that God has put in Emily’s life that love her. Today was just another reminder of that! It will be such a joy to see God do the same for the new baby.