A whole week?

Did I really go a whole week without a blog update? I find it hard to believe, but the weeks are flying by with unbelievable speed right now. I wake up on Monday morning and, in the blink of an eye, it's Friday again. I used to wish for that to happen when I was in school....now it just leaves me with a pile of things on my to-do list that never quite make it to complete status.

We had a great week last week, including a mid-week visit from Jeannine and Joe who are two of Joshua's favorite people. We were blessed with a wonderful weekend to cap it off. I ended up being home with the kids on Friday, so I took care of getting my seasonal and H1N1 flu shots. Now there's a good time. Joshua was so concerned at the prospect of me getting shots and insisted on holding my hand. When it was all over with, he commended me for being brave and then got to have a lollipop. I found it quite unfair that I was the one stuck with needles while he got a reward, but I guess that's the kind of thing that a mother should just brush off. When it was all said and done, we had spent an hour of packing up, bundling up, loading up and then the un-doing of it all for the sake of a 2 injections that took no more than 10 seconds to administer.

Later Friday morning we had a visitor that was right up Joshua's alley. We were asked to allow Lauren's participation in a research study from Penn State. After much consideration, Jason and I decided to allow her to participate in order to give back a little bit to PSU. (This eases my conscience a bit when they call 80 times a month asking for a financial donation. I'll just say, "We've donated our daughter to research at the university. What more do you want from us?") Anyway, they're doing a temperament study and got our name from the newspaper announcement when Lauren was born. They send a student researcher to our house at 4 months, and then we'll take her to the lab on campus at 6 months, 12 months and 18 months to play with toys and listen to music. (And I may or may not already have a Meyers Dairy trip all conjured up in my mind. And perhaps some new PSU gear for the Dugan family.) Anyway, a nice student named Tina came to our house on Friday morning to play with Lauren. She showed her some mobiles and had her listen to some music and video taped her reaction to them. Lauren had a blast. Joshua was so concerned with everything that she was doing and asked her no less than 350 questions about why she was doing things and how she was going to play with Lauren and what she was trying to figure out. I believe Tina was never so happy to complete a home visit as she was on Friday morning. God bless his heart, Joshua is so analytical. If he doesn't end up in medical school or the Penn State College of Engineering someday, I'll be shocked.

Saturday morning, Lauren and I went to a board meeting of an organization that I sit on the board for. She was so well behaved. We were there for a few hours in between feedings and at the first sign of hunger for her, we hightailed it back home. While we were gone, Joshua and Jason did some heavy-duty playing at the house. I could tell by the state of disarray things were in. Joshua isn't a kid who can play with just one thing at a time. If he's engrossed in play, just about everything we own is scattered about the house and jammed into different spots (drawers, baskets, shelves, etc.) that he is pretending to use. Some days I'm fine with it and other days it makes me feel like I'm coming unglued. On those days, I put things away when he's not looking. Really, it's the definition of insanity, because he's busy getting everything back out while I'm picking it up, but for some reason, I feel like I'm maintaining some sense of control by scooping things up behind him.

Sunday was a church day and marked Lauren's first stay in the nursery. We've got quite the talker on our hands lately, complete with blowing raspberries, squeals and a whole plethora of other noises that she can make. I love it, but she was getting awfully chatty during an inappropriate time of the service for her to be chatting up a storm (prayer time), so I took her out about half way through the service. Evidently she did fine in the nursery. I'm happy to report no panic attack on my part (no shaking, no sweating, nothing....ask Emily and Jason as they were right beside me!), although I was quite anxious to get her picked up after the sermon was over.

Enjoy some pictures from the past few days.

(Please don't miss Joshua screaming like a banchee in the background of this one. Nice touch, huh?)

Yes, Joshua is without pants in this picture. I believe it had something to do with his inability to pee INSIDE the potty anymore. We've cleaned up more puddles on the floor in recent days than I care to tell you about. We're at a bad inbetween stage here because he's getting too big for the potty chair, but isn't big enough to climb up on the big potty by himself.

Here's Lauren all dressed for church. This dress is my definite favorite!

And this one makes it worth checking the blog, at least I think so. Check out that dimple! I couldn't possibly love her any more than I do.