Maeby's First Book and a Portrait of "The Libby"

So - big news today: "His Royal Highness, Prince (insert name) of Cambridge" was born at 11:24 a.m. EST in the Lindo Wing of St. Mary's hospital, weighing in at 8 lbs., 6 oz. It was so fun to hear the bits of speculation throughout the day and wonder about whether baby would be a boy or a girl! I admit that I was hoping for a girl, due to the historic nature of the fact that she would be heir to the throne whether she later had a younger brother or not, but a boy was very exciting too, and unexpected, as the talk had really been focused on a girl. Now we're just awaiting the name... they better not steal ours! Ha.

But on to the REAL news:

Maeby received his/her first book today, courtesy of the O'Tooles!

Seriously- how cute is that?!

And I was just worrying about how few things I have to fill Maeby's room at this point, but I know it will be filled soon enough - and it's already filled with love. (Gag, I know.) Michael and I chose this house, the furniture, the paint; Gigi painted and is putting up crown moulding; Mimi has/will help me arrange everything and painted the beautiful "Pooh" artwork. Libby visits regularly and likes to look at the ultrasound photos of the baby in the little album Michael got me for Mother's Day. She has also agreed to begin with sharing five of her "babiest" books with Maeby. I haven't asked her to follow through yet though, because the shelf isn't quite ready and I want her to put them on it herself.

We just have to fill it with Maeby!

Now, as for the big sister... we had a great weekend with her, even with the continual on-off cycles of rain. This summer has been nuts. I picked up a rain gauge while we were at the store last week and it's been fun checking to see just how much it's rained. We had 1/4 in. on Thursday and 1/10th on Friday and Saturday. Gigi and Papa are always asking us about how much rain we've had. Now we can tell them! And Libby has enjoyed it, too.

Anywho- back to B, she got to have a great day with Mimi on Friday - visiting the pool for the fourth time in five days! And she got to go out to dinner for her favorite: quesadilla and rice. And that night before bed, we got to play, "put Mama and Daddy to bed." I came in her room while she was playing this with Daddy and she sent me out. I gave her a little bit of a hard time about it - just teasing her, but I guess she took it to heart, because she came to check on me and then told me she wanted me to play and to "go get in you-a bed." She was so funny going back and forth, covering us up, bringing us extra blankets, cuddling and then asking us to tell her stories. I was pretty stoked that I had the actual bed while Daddy was stuck on the floor. I could have just about slept there all night. BUT, instead, we put her to bed and then watched a whole movie! On a Friday night! We watched "Away We Go" and really enjoyed it. Some laugh out loud funnies in that one, as well as some poignant moments and serious topics.

On Saturday, Ty came over to go to the pool with us and the kids had a great time... even if they were generally more focused on their own swimming, floating and playing than on each other. Ty's very excited about the water now and much more comfortable than last summer. And Libby's daily swimming over the week and clearly paid off. She swam... and swam... and swam on her own. Definitely doing a bit of showing off for Aunt Lindsi, but since that sort of behavior is so rare for her (usually shy about demonstrating her skills), I was just proud and delighted!

Yesterday was scrambled blue eggs (that were actually green) made my Libby and Daddy, church and driveway ball! Last night, Mimi came over to be with Libby and spend the night while Michael and I went out to celebrate our anniversary, again, with Mandy and Nick. Maybe our gift to each other is eight anniversary dinners in honor of eight years of marriage? Either way, I'll take 'em! They've all been good and last night was NO exception. Great company, too! Nick photographed our special "killer tiramisu" dessert.

Libby apparently waited until we got home to check on her before she actually went to sleep... but there was some sweet hugging and love involved, so despite it being 10:30 p.m. or so when we went in to see her, I couldn't be too upset! (Turns out today, she slept for a solid three hours and still wasn't close to ready to get up... and was definitely ready for bed tonight.) And as it turns out, the "killer tiramisu" may have killed my sleep patterns with the espresso involved, because I could NOT sleep last night.  Ugh- and I'd been doing so well! My lower back is officially hurting to a point where I feel justified complaining just a little, too. Fortunately, no sciatic pain yet - hopefully not at all!

We didn't get home quite that late, but we did arrive to find Diddy at the house, waiting to see us after his trip to Savannah for the weekend and heading back home. And he was there for a very special other reason: my parents had a sweet anniversary gift for us! A portrait of Libby, painted by my mom! Turns out it was one of the two portraits that had been selected for the Portrait Society of Atlanta's Juried Exhibition this summer. So... tons of people saw Libby's portrait before we had the pleasure! But now you can, too...

Thanks, Mimi and Diddy!