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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Halloween Fun

This is some video of Katen waiting for trick or treaters to come to the door. She was pretty excited to give out candy!

This is Katen at the zoo. They hold a trick or treating event every year and it's absolutley perfect for toddlers.

We also visited the pumpkin patch on a rare warm day. Mother nature decided to skip fall this year and move straight from summer to winter. One day it was 70 degrees and the next it was 40 and threatening snow. Go figure!

vid

It's September... Already!

It's been a while since I updated. This month has been SO busy!!! We've decided to sell our little house and move into something that actually has enough room for two little girls and their parents. Of course we waited until I am in my third trimester of pregnancy to do this, but as of today, the house is clean, fixed, and the sign is in the yard. Let's hope for a quick sale! (11 weeks or less until baby arrives.)

Katen's language skills have really picked up lately. She's using sentences like, "Oh WOW you DID it!" and praises us enthusiastically for lots of things. Especially funny is when she praises us for using the potty. Ha!

Last night we were stopped at a stop light and from the back seat we hear, "Go Baby! Go Go!"

There are times where she makes up her own words for things though. Oops is usually pronounced "Bups!" and the word grandma is pronounced "Mah-moe."

Katen continues to sleep well in her new big girl bed. She's fallen out a few times but it doesn't really bother her. She just gets back in and falls back asleep. In the morning I hear her door creak and then shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.... as she walks into our room. She usually rounds my side of the bed and either climbs in with her lovies for a few minutes or indicates right away that she's ready for breakfast. Here favorite breakfast is "yogurt with the beebee on it." (most of us know it as Yo Baby yogurt. All of the cartons have a picture of a baby on them and she likes to point that out... every day.)

She's also graduated to a booster chair. One day she decided that she's just WAY too cool to sit in a high chair and freaked out about it. Since then she's been sitting at the table like a champ. Sometimes being such a big girl is tiring though. whew!

She's also been an excellent helper around the house. She's an expert duster and sweeper. She's been especially helpful as we fix up and clean the house.

Katen says, "Safety First!"

Here are a few more pictures...

                              It cracks me up that Elmo is drinking a juice box.

                              Nice of Katen to share. Notice the ladle over her shoulder?

                                   Shopping can be pretty exhausting!

Rocking the ponytail.  :)

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Hot fun in the Summer time

Summer is really underway now and we've had so much fun! Here are a few summer pictures to show you what we've been up to...

Katen and Mommy sharing her craving of the week - smoothies!

These are the injections mommy is taking to keep Katen's little SISTER from coming too early.

I love this picture. Katen always hooks her toes into the tray of her high chair. I adore those pudgy toes!

Independence Day! The fireworks are loud so Katen plugs her ears.

First corn on the cob!

She's got a new set of wheels this summer.

Did I mention she climbs EVERYTHING!

Some of the other fun things she's doing include

-making sounds like an elephant. If you ask her what the elephant says, she puts her lips together and blows raspberries.

-blowing on hot food. At first she'd blow through her nose but now she's got the hang of blowing with her mouth. She moves her head back and forth across the tray to make sure she gets it all.

- telling you how old she is. She holds her little index finger up to indicate "one" if you ask her how old she is.

-pretending. She likes to have tea parties with Mom and Dad and pretends to eat and put her babies to sleep. She's a good mother... most of the time.

-opening the fridge. She has definite opinions about what she wants to eat these days.

Katen do you want cereal? no.

Do you want yogurt? no.

How about oatmeal? Pease!

-not enjoying her stroller. ugh! Katen now hates to ride in the stroller or in the cart for trips to the grocery store. She'd rather get down and walk but then she takes off in a dead sprint.

-filling and emptying things. Katen could spend a half hour just filling her bucket with pool water and dumping it into another.

-wearing bracelets. I think it's funny that she picked up on this fashion statement because mommy never wears jewelery. However Katen loves to wear her little round links (the kind you attach toys with) on her wrists. She's generally not found with any less than three in various colors. She even insists on wearing them to bed most nights.

Overall it's been a great summer. Katen's been having fun and the pregnancy is going well with baby #2 for the most part. We have lots to be thankful for!

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A new set of wheels

Katen got her first bike trailer this summer. Now she can go on bike rides with mommy and daddy. It's got pockets for snacks and even a drink holder. What more can a girl want? We think she looks pretty spiffy in her little helmet, don't you?

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Pass the Salad please

We've been so lucky to have a good little veggie eater that I thought it might be a fun project to plant a garden this year. We seem to have a huge population of "bunnies" in our yard though so we had to get a little creative.

Katen and I picked out some large containers and hauled a bunch of soil onto our back deck to get the project started. I drilled some drainage holes in the tubs and we were ready to plant.

We're hoping to have yellow squash, two kinds of bell peppers, spinach, lettuce, blueberries, carrots, green onions, beans, two kinds of tomatoes and watermelon.

So far things are looking pretty good. We have a few sprouts...

tomatoes blueberry

Spinach Squash

Everything else is just tiny little sprouts... except for the watermelon. No sign of watermelon. Maybe it's a little slow.

Here's the whole "garden."

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Cookies!

Daddy is bringing cookies to work tomorrow. Do you know what that means?




Katen is going to be a BIG SISTER! :)


I am almost 13wks along and baby #2 is due on November 25th or sooner.
Our OB's are concerned about another premature birth so I will be taking weekly injections in hopes of keeping the baby safely tucked in there until at least 36weeks.

...And with 75-80% accuracy, it looks like our final baby will be another little girl. We'll take another peek at about 20wks to confirm that.

Oh and I didn't bake the cookies so they're safe to eat. I only decorated them. Ha!

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Tulip Time 2009

Here is a slideshow of our trip to Tulip Time.

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A few pictures

Here are a few random pictures from the past few weeks...

It's easier to find toys if you just dive into the box.

Speaking of diving into boxes...

It snowed! It's April 4th and we got snow. Yuck!

Loving the Kitty.

Still loving the Kitty...

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Pickle Meets the Easter Bunny

We went to visit the Easter Bunny today. As I was trying to decide what activity we'd do for the day it occurred to me that we hadn't seen the bunny yet. I wasn't sure if Katen would sit with him or not, because she's been attached to Mommy at the hip lately but she LOVED him! She really likes soft things and she kept stroking his hand. Ha!

Thank goodness it was easy to get a picture because Katen isn't really feeling very well and by the time we got done, neither was I. Poor Katen was just getting over a cold when it settled in her chest so she has a cough now and she's trying to cut her bottom canine teeth and molars. I think seeing the Easter Bunny is the least I could do for her today. :)

Here she is having a snack while we waited.

Hey Mom! What's with the dress?

Does this camera angle make my butt look big?

My nose is running and my mouth is drooling. How can you expect a smile today? (...But doesn't she look just beautiful in her dress? I love it.)


HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

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Multimedia baby

It's no surprise that Katen loves buttons. She has her own toy cell phone, TV remote, laptop, ipod, etc but she knows the difference and prefers the real thing. She's also a big fan of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so we use this to our advantage in desperate times. (restaurants mostly) by downloading a Mickey Mouse video to my Ipod. Here are some pictures of Katen playing with it...

Desperate times at a restaurant. (Can't blame her. We were there for three hours!)








She's holding the earphones up to her ear as she grabs for a snack.

Do you love my pigtails?

...and here are Katen and Daddy watching March madness. My two couch potatoes. :) Yep, the loveseat is still in front of the fireplace. It's safer that way.

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