Cheesin It

Tonights picture for daddy. I got her new cupcake pajamas from Coscto sized 3T last weekend. I can't believe how big she is getting. Her new favorite saying these days is, "Thank you..SO MUCH!"
Tomorrow's Thursday and hopefully Daddy is coming home tomorrow night. We miss him so much.

The most precious singing ever...

So I finally took some videos of my 1st born singing some of her favorite songs. She is so cute and she will sing a lot of the time by herself. The only problem is as soon as I whip out my phone and start taking pictures and videoing, she starts with the "Cheese!" And a few times lately she gets one of her 3 play cell phones and pretends to take pictures of us with them. She is a ham!
Hope you enjoy!

Birthday Weekend

Some of these pictures are not from this weekend but I wanted to post them anyway. This picture of Grace was maybe from the beginning of the month..my corn on the cob eater-summer 2011. Why she reclines when she eats corn on the cob I don't know. And that's not her beer there just fyi, she has the pink sippy cup. Another phone pic for daddy..

Tonight we went to Wingers for dinner-had to get my doubled sauced bacon cheddar wingers burger, and they sang to me. Kent told them I was 32 and the guy yells, "Hey everybody this young lady is 61 today lets wish her a happy birthday!" LOL it was hilarious but then Aaron started crying his poor little baby eyes out. Of course some yummy Asphalt Pie helped. Asphalt pie has his most favorite mint n chip ice cream on an oreo cookie crust with caramel sauce and whipped cream on it. He looks ok to me...

My big girl! Before dinner we went to Costco. We needed swiffer pads and toilet paper and I got Grace a new pair of 3T pj's that have cupcakes on them. She looked so big in them tonight and was thrilled to be wearing them. With her new haircut and new pj's and her little articulate vocabulary asking me Why? every other minute, this girl is getting so big!

After dinner we walked around the strip mall and they have a splash park fountain area and Aaron loved it! Yes Aaron, Grace is a little hesitant, but my boy dives in face first and worries about drowning himself later. :P He was crawling around and having a good ole time getting drenched. He was getting right in there with all the big kids-no stopping him when it comes to water!

I had a great birthday weekend, lots of sleeping in and good food that I didn't have to cook! Thanks for all the well wishes and love everyone!

Not really on the ball...

So I know I have not been updating my blog as frequently as I normally do. And there hasn't really been anything going on lately to be an excuse, just laziness I guess. Although I did take our camera somewhere a couple of weeks ago and it had been in the truck until today, when I made a point of bringing it in. This week my blog has been in the back of my mind as something I want to update and I kept thinking I need to get the camera so I can get some good pictures of my kiddos.

So I took this one tonight right before bed to send to daddy. Grace was so cute, she said Cheese about a billion times and Aaron was looking at me like Mommy what are you doing. I have been putting Aaron to bed early a lot lately because he is napping so bad in combination with getting up around 5am still. I was previously thinking that he was waking up and experiencing some separation anxiety and just needed to be shushed to sleep. However the last 2 days have not been the case at all. Aaron is on to me! He woke up around 520ish and I tried to settle him down, (which in the past has been decently easy) but he was NOT having it. So I stuck him back in bed this morning and he whine cried until 6am where I got him again and nursed him and hoped he would go back to sleep. Which thankfully he did until almost 8am. Which was great, but I so could do without the continual 5am wake up call. 5am is just too early for this night owl. Especially since his naps are not too long during the day. My prayer is that he sleeps straight through until 7am.
My sweet girl loving herself some, "Micka-Donalds".

Aaron with a mouthful of chicken nuggets. He is such a weird eater. He loves chicken nuggets and he can really wolf some food down if he likes it or wants too. However sometimes it really takes him some time to almost warm up to the idea of eating. Unless of course it has some kind of sugar in it. He seems to have a 6th sense for sweet treats! We went to get frozen yogurt with daddy the other night and K was holding him while I got a couple of samples to try. Aaron was practically mashing his face into the little sample cup of yogurt and had a death grip on K's forearm pulling it towards him. But I can offer him something new like a yummy mozzarella stick (which you would think, what kid wouldn't like??) and he won't even touch it. I went to Los Betos tonight and was hemming and hawing about whether to satisfy my burrito craving because I wasn't sure if the kids would eat Los Betos. So I got a chicken quesadilla and some rice for the kids to share. It took him awhile but the kid wolfed down some chicken! And the other night all he wanted was cold green beans.

My friend who has a little boy a little younger than Grace just gifted us with a TON of little boy clothes because they are done having kids and she was spring cleaning. We got some 12 month and some 24 month clothes, but let me tell you all we now have plenty of sized 18month winter clothes. Which include about 30 long sleeved shirts and 30 pants and about 5 jackets. We have 1 pair of 18 month pajamas. So this boy will be set by the time the snow flies this season. There will be some stuff we will have to get like shoes and hats and pj's and such, but otherwise this winter Aaron will be set!

I can't believe how big my kids are getting. Grace is becoming so grown up. She puts her shoes on all by herself now. She just sits down and says, "This right foot?" And she doesn't always get it right of course, but the fact that she can do it is awesome. She can almost open the sliding glass door by herself. Sometimes its closed too tight and she can't. She goes potty by herself and can buckle her top buckle on her car seat all by herself too. Every night when we tuck her in we say prayers and then we have to sing a song. Usually You are My Sunshine and then Jesus Loves Me. And during the day she will sing her ABC's to herself and Rock a By Baby. So precious, I have been meaning to record it because I don't ever want to forget that sweet precious little voice.

Aaron is becoming more and more vocal just this week. He will grunt and kind of scream when he gets mad. Especially when Grace takes a toy away from him, and he yelled at me tonight when I got him out of the bath. He was not done playing!!! Also he has been standing a lot hands free the past couple of days. Just figuring out his balance and practising over and over again. Such a sweet boy...

Tomorrow is Friday, thank goodness, and K will be home. I know he has a hard and long week and will be glad to be home. And I will be glad to have him home this weekend. I am looking forward to a relaxing birthday weekend. We may go to Liberty park after church on Sunday and just hand out and BBQ, just depends on whether I want to actually do something or veg out all weekend. Next week is the last week K will be gone so we are over halfway there! I can't believe summer is almost over...it went by too quickly. I am kind of bummed that summer is almost over but then kind of excited for Aaron's 1st birthday. Boy how time flies!

Clapping

Today was an eventful day. Last night Aaron was up a 100 times it seemed. He was up at 230, and then 330, then 430-530 with sporadic whine crying and finally up for good at 630. Yesterday his eye was bloodshot and watery but this morning it looked normal. However since the horrible night I decided to take him into the pediatrician this morning. Turns out he is healthy and fine, no ear infections or anything. Which is good, great. Why all the drama and trama then?? I wish I knew. He has always been a bad napper it seems, I keep hoping for a breakthrough, a revelation of understanding, for how to get him to take 2 good naps, or at the very least one good nap a day. He isn't even a year yet! He can still take 2 naps a day! The mornings I can get a good hour or hour and half nap especially if he wakes up early. However the afternoon when Grace is still napping he lasts for about 40 minutes-and hour and a half again. Only one time can I think of that he napped for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. And actually that can flip flop around too, bad morning naps and decent afternoon naps.

Then this afternoon he went down and cooed and then he cried himself asleep and slept for just under 40 minutes before he woke up crying. He has a very sad whiny heartbreaking cry. So I went in gave him some little Tummies some water and his paci again and tucked him back in. Again he cried for about 5 minutes and then fell back to sleep for about another 40 minutes so that was pretty good. And I have been putting him to bed early since his afternoon naps have been bad.

I think he is waking up and can't put himself back to sleep and then he realizes he is by himself in the crib and that works him up. The problem is how do you walk that fine line of teaching him to self soothe and quickly going into his room and shushing him before he really gets himself worked up? I don't mind getting up and soothing him for a few seconds but I also don't want him to become dependent on me running in there as soon as he cries.

Grace pointed out to me today that Aaron was clapping. He is so smart. I said Aaron are you clapping and he starts clapping. Hopefully this video I took with my phone will work.

The hubby is out of town this week. It's only Tuesday and he is having a rough week so far. His shoes are giving him some bad blisters, he has no rental car, he got sunburned on Monday and he has to be out of town next week and the week after. :( We miss him, but I think he misses us more being all by himself.

Play group tomorrow and hopefully the grocery and maybe some afternoon pool time for Grace and Aaron.

10 months old!

Yesterday my tender hearted son turned 10 months old. It has been 10 months since I have worked at the bank, and it has been 10 months that I have gotten to stay home and do mommy stuff all the time. And after 10 months I still love it! This little jailbird here is growing so fast. He is the faster crawler ever! He loves to put his head down and crawl and break neck speeds towards the dogs water bowl or to be "chased". He loves to pull himself up on everything!! Mostly me and especially when I am trying to cook dinner. The last week you would have heard this around my house, "Hey Honey??!! Can you come get the baby??!! I can't cook with him clinging to my leg!" Then my sweet husband comes and grabs him while I cook a yummy dinner. Tonight they went outside and daddy filled up the little inflatable pool I got and they played in the pool for about an 45 minutes while I cooked. We had tried to go swimming at Aunt Crystal's new apartment place but that fell through so we just hung out with them but the kids were in their swim suits most of the afternoon so it worked to let them swim tonight. Plus its still hot out. Let me tell you, Aaron LOVES the water way more than Grace ever did at this age. He will play and splash and crawl and practically drown himself in that pool or the bathtub for that matter! Daddy hadn't gotten the pool all the way filled up yet tonight before Aaron was crawling in it. And K tried a couple of times to get him out and let him play in the grass and dry out he kept going back for more! (I think he is like his mama with that regard)

He also is a bit of a picky eater compared to Grace who loves slurping spinach, asparagus and brussel sprouts. He has to have his meat cubed, don't use a serrated knife to cut his meat up! No way! It must have a nice clean edge, no shredded pork for him or torn pieces of hot dogs, they all must be little sliced circles for him to enjoy. Oh and he sure does love fruit and yogurt, grapes, strawberries, and melon are all of his favorite. But like Grace he isn't a big condiment fan. Neither one of them much prefers their food bathed in mayo, mustard ketchup or BBQ sauce and forget fry sauce or ranch!

His sleeping patterns are still erratic although I am going to work really hard at trying to stick to a strict naptime for him and we will see what happens. He just goes and goes sometimes and doesn't sleep. At church this morning they asked, "Is it ok if he goes to sleep?" We were like, "Sure! If you think you can get him to!" Especially since he was awake at 630am and didn't get a morning nap because of church. Yeah way too much going on at church for him to sleep. But he is always a sweet heart with whoever is holding him. He loves mama, but will be fine with anybody as long as they are holding him. And actually he will play contentedly by himself for a little while if you sit there with him too. But Grace tends to leave him alone and if I am cleaning or walking back and forth between rooms he doesn't like that.

His personality is coming through more and more. He is such a ham! I don't know where he gets that at all!! LOL! He loves to rock back and forth like he is dancing if I turn a song up and dance with him in his high chair. And he will do this bashful head shake thing while he smiles that is just adorable. Also I started playing a game with his paci with him the other night and it was cracking me up! I took his paci and sucked on it real fast and then he grabs it out of my mouth. When it comes out I go, "Ha!" and make a face and he just cracks up laughing! Then he puts the paci back into my mouth and we do it all over again!

I think he was/is going through a growth spurt because of how he was sleeping late a lot last week and how he has been eating a ton of food! I make him the same size sandwich for lunch as Grace but just cut off the crusts and cut it into little bite size squares so he can swallow it easier. (He still has no teeth) and he eats it all and tons of fruit or avocado or maybe some yogurt raisins. He is just a chow hound lately. Plus an afternoon snack, and then tonight he and Grace both ate a ton of the Chicken with Sage and Fontina I made. (New recipe and it was delicious, or as Grace would say, A-licious!)

I just can't believe how big my children are getting. I can't believe Grace is practically potty trained and how good she talks and learns things. She is so smart and picks up on everything! Aaron is so smart too and he "gets" when you joke and act silly with him. Today he even took a lunging step toward the coffee table at Aunt Crystals place and made it!

I am already planning Aaron's birthday party and it should be a fun time! I got a frog mold off of Amazon and going to try to make chocolate frog pops. I think it should be pretty easy, I will let you all know how it goes after I do a practice round or two.

Well its getting on towards bed time and K has to head off to CO tomorrow for the week. :(

Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend like we did!

Wedding and what we have been up to

These are pictures that I took with our camera from my sister in laws wedding last week. I tried and tried to get a cute picture of Grace in her dress but as you can see she was having a ball running around.

My boy.

My man, so handsome.

Grace and her pal.

The brother in law and sister in law and my nephews. You can't tell but they one on the way due in October, boy #3! (Check out the hot pink socks-in memory their father)

We went to Wheeler Farm on Tuesday and Grace got to check out the farm with her buddies A and L.

Holding hands with her little friend. Lately Grace has been all about boys. She will see boys playing, riding bikes and scooters and say, "Where did those boys go mom?" Funny thing is she never mentions any girls! I might be in trouble... hee hee.

Herding the kids.

Aaron hanging out at the farm.

I took this picture this morning, can you see what Aaron is standing on? He climbed up onto the ball of the popper toy.

I have been back to working out and do 4 miles at least 3 days a week. The beginning of the week Aaron slept until past 8am 2 days in a row. Then today he had a good morning nap but had a horrible afternoon nap and so I got him back up. I put him back down around 415pm and he cried and cried and finally fell asleep for a half hour before Grace stomped around in the hallway and woke him up. Tomorrow Grandma is babysitting and K and I are going to go to dinner and a movie. Which is perfect timing because next week K has to go out of town.

Another cute Grace expression, when we tell her some news that she will like, "That be exciting!" Oh and she loves telling you her full name. We will say Grace, your silly. And she will reply.."No I Grace ____ ____! "

She is learning to say her ABC's and doing super with her potty training. She hasn't had an accident in forever it seems. She knows how to buckle the top part of her seat belt and is so proud of that. She loves being 'bare feet' and can't wait for her birthday, even though its still months away. Tomorrow my sweet young son turns 10 months old, the time sure does fly doesn't it! Hope everyone has a great weekend!