State of the family

Well Ana's been busy working on her milestones. She is now sitting very well. She started kind of tripodding about the time she turned 5 mos and now she's totally got it. She loooves her new view and spends a lot of time sitting on the floor with me playing with her toys. She especially enjoys a ball that rolls around on its own with songs and lights.

She's very good with her hands and can pretty much grab anything she wants. ...including food. She makes us feel very guilty for not sharing ours with her. I think that chubby little belly is always up for a good meal. :) She actually shares cheerios with us in the morning and eats them like a champ. If we don't share, she basically begs and raises a real fuss.

She is also able to roll both ways and prefers sleeping on her belly. She can also push up on her arms when she's on her belly and I think (fear!) it won't be long before she's learning to crawl. She would love nothing more than to keep up with her big sister.

Ana thinks Katen hung the moon! She always smiles when she sees her and loves to laugh if Katen makes a sudden move or is being silly. I've got some video coming showing Ana belly laughing while Katen circles the room and then pretends to crash.

Katen is an amazing big sister most of the time. When she hears Ana on the monitor she loves to be the first to go up and see Ana. She talks to her and rubs her head from outside the crib. She is also good about giving Ana kisses and hugs... and the random cheerio from time to time. (How do you think we figured out that she could eat them, after all?) Sometimes Katen has a little trouble sharing. She'll ocassionally take a toy away and recently, since they wear the same size, Katen will have trouble letting Ana wear a shirt or bottoms that were previously only hers. I'd hoped we could make it to the teen years at least before the girls started fighting over clothes. Oh well!

Last weekend we visited the Tulip Festival in my home town. We braved cool temps, wind and a little bit of rain. Katen got to Dutch dance with Grandma ("Mamo") Debby and both girls rode in the baby parade with their Dutch costumes on. After riding in the parade we watched the rest with Great Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Tammy. Katen especially enjoyed the marching bands. I think we have a future drummer on our hands. Ana wasn't overly impressed with the whole operation but didn't really complain too much either.

As an update to the housing situation, we have sold our house. The home that we'd picked out to move into got 5 other bids on the day ours was sold and we did not win that game, which left us homeless. After searching for just the right opportunity, we came across a great piece of land that fit all of our criteria for the house we'd intended to build later, so we jumped on it. In two weeks we secured a six month lease on a townhome near our land and called our builder. We should be breaking ground in the next three weeks or so. Living in a townhome is pretty cramped (our cars sit out because the garage is totally full) but it's a nice place overall. Close to our future home, Grandpa R's house, a little Dutch ice cream shop (!), and it's very sunny and bright. For a short time, it will certainly do just fine.

I think that brings everyone up to date on the state of our family. :) Always lots going on around here!

Here's some video of Katen dancing to the marching band...

(you might have to go to the actual blog to see this if you're reading this via email.)

Slip Sliding

I took the girls to the park the other day and somehow Katen pooped in her little pants without me noticing. Usually she's good about telling me she has to go. I guess that day she was on vacation.

So... that's not terribly bad but then she proceeded to slide down the big tornado slide and smear poop allllll the way down which in turn smeared a nice stripe up her back as well.

There was no way I was letting her back into the stroller, and we hadn't taken the double stroller that has a standing platform, so she couldn't even ride on that. She had to walk back home beside me. Poor kid. I couldn't even carry her because I already had Ana in the carrier strapped to me asleep and it would have been too much for my back. ...not to mention the poop all over. She did really well though and didn't get tired. Hopefully next time she'll let me know if any bathroom time is needed.

You just have to laugh at all the random things that happen, don't you? :)


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Catching up

It's been so long since I last posted. I'm afriad I'm going to forget all of the fun little things that the girls are doing. Let me try to get back up to speed.

Ana is 4 mos old. At her pediatrician appointment she weight a whopping 19.5lbs and is 26 inches tall. In comparison.... Katen is 23lbs. They're wearing the same clothes and the same diapers. The diapers are a little snug on Ana and a little loose on Katen. Ha!

Ana has been busy making discoveries lately. She found her hands and can be found gazing at them, turning them over to see the other side and just totally in awe of them. She also noticed that her feet are down there and uses them to play with the toys hanging above her when she's in the activity gym. Surprisingly, as big as she is, it has't held her back from being early with physical milesones either. She can already roll from back to belly and belly to back. This is much to her frustration when she rolls over at night. It sort of freaks her out. She's also able to "tripod" or sit up and steady herself with her hands. She really enjoys the new view as I remember Katen did as well at that age.

Sleep is coming along. Ana on occasion will give me a couple of 3 or even close to 4 hour stretches of sleep. She still struggles with her acid reflux from about 4am until she wakes though so it's not unheard of to find Mommy sleeping upright with a snuggly Ana during that time. About a month ago she was having a particularly difficult night. Multiple times she'd spit up through her nose and was just very acid-ey, wheezing and choking throughout the night. Finally I decided that nobody was getting sleep anyway and took pity on Ana bringing her into bed to sleep on my chest for a good portion of the night so that at least she could get some rest. As she drifted off to sleep though, she grabbed onto my finger and held it tight as if to say, "thanks mom!" I think I had happy tears in my eyes until I drifted off myself sometime shortly before the sun came up.

Katen has been the best big sister a girl could ask for. She's been an amazing help and loves to make her little sister laugh. Ana thinks Katen hung the moon! She especially enjoys it when Katen jumps up and down in front of her. Doing so, makes Ana let out big loud belly laughs. Katen also is very caring. If Ana is upset and I can't get to her right away, Katen will sing the ABC's or Twinkle Twinkle to her and rub her belly. Usually Ana really enjoys hearing Katen sing to her. It's a pretty neat connection that the girls have.

Katen is growing like a weed. She's gotten taller and all of her pants are way to short now. She hasn't gained much weight though so she's quite the string bean. Funny that we often call her "bean" or "Miss Beans." (Ana is "bear" or "Ana bear") She is maturing very quickly and doesn't look like a baby anymore. She's definitley looking more like a little kid now. She knows all of her ABC's and can name any letter that you point to. She can count to 12 on her own or 20 with some help. She knows several songs and even sings in tune. She's got her colors and shapes down and is starting to understand what sounds each letter makes.

She's having a ball with the warm weather that we've been having and it's hard to get her to come inside. She plays outside on her slide or with simple things like rocks using lots of make believe. I love to sit back and watch the stories that she comes up with. Often she's cooking and offers me a taste. ;) She also likes to pretend that she's driving to the store in her little car. I'll ask her to pick up some eggs or muffins or some odd item. Usually she'll wrinkle her nose and say Noooo, I'll get you some peanutbutter, or she'll suggest something else. Cracks me up!

Today we picked up a little table and a set of chairs for Katen. They were a steal for $15 off of Craigslist. We'll be renting a townhome for a while until either we find a new house or build our dream home. The townhome doesn't have room for our dining room table (or anything much really) and the counter with barstools is too high, so the little table and chairs will be a great place for Katen to eat and color. She set to work hosting a tea party at the table as soon as we set them up at home this evening and really seemed to enjoy having chairs just her size.

It's hard to believe how fast both girls are growing up. If only there was a pause button for them. :)


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A little cuteness from Ana

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This is a little video of Ana smiling and talking to her toys.

And this is Ana jumping in her jumparoo. She really gets moving in there some days!

She speaks

Katen playing dress-up

Our record snow piling up. Those are mailboxes!

Miss Ana the snowbunny - about to take her first outside walk

Ready for Easter

Sweet Ana has found her voice! Up until now she's been giving us quiet little coo's and smiles but in the last week or so she's really found her voice. Now she's talking to us when we play and it sounds like she's holding serious conversations with some of her toys as well. watch out!

She's also discovered her hands and tries multiple times daily to fit her entire fist in her mouth. I'm half worried that she might succeed. Since she realizes that her hands work, she can also pick up toys and things as well. This has opened up a whole new level of play for her. I clipped a little blue birdie onto her carseat the other day and she's been mesmerized by it ever sinice. She bats at it and grabs the feet. Super cute!

She's also really tall so she can fit into her jumperoo and touch the ground now. She just discovered yesterday that she can jump up and down in it. At first I think she was pretty much terrified, judging by the look on her face, but quickly she decided it was fun and jumped for quite a while. As she jumped she made the most hilarious faces. She was pretty serious about it. Ha!

I had her at the pediatrician last Friday and she's up to 17lbs already. She and Katen wear the same size diaper and Ana is wearing a onesie that Katen just grew out of last fall.

Things around the house are going well. I have my Dove Chocolate Discoveries launch party this Friday. We're still waiting on our house to sell but we've settled into a good routine around here. Ana pretty much is up at 7am and eats/sleeps again at 9. That leaves me time to catch up on emails and play with Katen. Then we're out the door to our activity for the day when Ana wakes and eats again. At noon it's time for lunch, nursing, and then naps again. I can usually get both girls to sleep at the same time, so that leaves a nice chunk of time for me to clean and catch up with any other work I need to do. After naps we play a little and then, when Daddy gets home, we have dinner and the girls get a bath. Ana goes to bed for the night by 7pm which leaves Katen a little more one -on -one time and it makes it easier to get both girls to sleep when we're not trying to do both at once.

Everyone asks if Ana is a good sleeper. Well no, she's not. She's up about every 2-3 hours, but that's okay. Katen wasn't a good sleeper either so I expected that. I'm not completely exhausted during the day unless we've had a particularly difficult night dealing with reflux or sickness, so it's working for us right now. Sure, I'd love for her to sleep better but she's a big girl who likes her food. What can I say? :)

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