Snoopy & Pickles...

Today was a kitchen day for me. I felt like I was cooking all day. I made a chicken casserole and started some chicken noodle soup...involving some made from scratch noodles. THAT'S what took so long, but it makes the soup taste OH so much better :) I also swept and mopped all the floors. That seems to take forever too...On days like this the kiddos take a few play breaks to watch some TV :) Since we left all of our favorite DVD's in Michigan they watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving today. Eli LOVES Snoopy.
Eli's a little focused on the show ;)

...and so is Leah...

Oh...and Eli likes pickles.

a lot

seriously. He loves 'em.

Eli didn't take a nap today, so he was in bed early. Leah is still trying to go to sleep. I'm tired. Edgar is tired. We should go to bed. But we probably won't.

Videos of Leah

My brilliant husband discovered why my videos weren't loading...we're having internet issues, which he temporarily fixed. Anyway, I'm having more luck loading the videos this morning. I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seat to see these... Enjoy these videos of my little girl. I was able to load 4 of the 5, so I'm gonna quit while I'm ahead. They are all pretty short (30 sec. or less) but if you don't have time to watch them all...watch the last one. That's the one that makes me laugh the most...

Here is Leah enjoying her jump-y seat thing:

Here is Leah showin' off her moves:

This is Leah's new favorite sound...she enjoys hearing herself apparently :)

And my favorite :) I had her on my legs (Like when you play 'superman' with your kids)

Yes...that spit-up landed on me. Aren't you glad you watched?

Will it work?!

Well...my goal of posting every day is hitting a frustrating block. I am trying to upload a video of Leah (actually I had 5 to upload...) but things aren't going well. I've been trying to load it now for a while, and think I had better just give up and go to bed. I'll try again tomorrow. I just wanted to document that I tried :)
Yes, I know that posting this CLEARLY makes me a dork.

I suppose I could write a couple of interesting things that my kiddos are doing. Eli now says 'Ta-Da!' when he shows me something. I also overheard him saying 'Okie Dokie'. Such a nut. Leah has been sleeping through the night now for over a week. She does get up most nights, but I am able to give her her pacifier and she goes back to sleep. You'd think I'd feel super rested, but I'm still tired. Apparently I'll be tired the rest of my life...She has also been drooling up a storm, which I can only assume has something to do with teeth...and since she's been having quite watery poop, I think she's beginning the loooonng process of teething. (Eli is done for a while, thank goodness! He's got all 20 teeth in already) Speaking of poop (sorry...), Leah went over 48 hours without pooping...and then got all caught up in one overflowing diaper. Lovely. Yes...it overflowed onto me. Thank goodness for OxiClean.

Alright...I've stalled long enough. The video still won't load. I give up. As stated before, I'll try again tomorrow. It's pretty funny, and worth seeing. Well...I thought it was funny. Of course I thought the poop thing was funny too, so who knows...

Goodnight.

I'm back :)

It's been a while...December was a blur. I can't believe it's 2011...I had a goal of posting something every day this year, and I already missed day 1. Oops. So, I'll start today. We'll see how it goes. I can't count the number of times I have looked something up on my blog, trying to remember when something happened, and it irritates me that I've been so bad about posting-especially things that Leah does. SO, I am going to try and do better. Even if it's just a picture...cuz really, that's what you want, right? To see my beautiful kids :)

So, to appease you, here is Eli playing with his tools :) Well...the first one is just him being cute...runny nose and all.
I love watching him play with them. They keep him occupied for really long periods of time.

LOVE his tool belt.

And Leah is pretty cute too :) She's wearing her super cute tye-dyed shirt we made in Michigan. She managed to pee through it...along with the next outfit I put her in...apparently she's getting enough to eat :)

Hopefully I'll post some pictures on Walmart from the month of December-there are tons of pictures I need to go through. The thought of it makes me panic a little bit. SO, for now I will just start with today and try not to get behind. We'll see...Oh...and I'm starting to exercise tomorrow. I WILL loose this weight!

Decorating the tree

Today we started our annual Advent calendar. Tonight's 'activity' was to decorate the tree. We had put the tree up a couple of days ago, but tonight, the lights went up :) The boxes came out...(like our new curtains?)
...the lights were tested (our white lights didn't all work...so colored lights this year. Eli is thrilled)...

...decorations were played with...

...ornaments were hung (only 2 broke in the process)...

And the tree was decorated (forgot to take an 'after' shot...)

I had all the lights out and Leah was just staring at the tree :) This is her by the light of the tree.

Really looking forward to preparing for Christmas this year. We have a lot of fun activities planned for the next month, all with the goal of spending time as a family, focusing ourselves on Christ.

Two Months Old!

Not to sound cliche, but MAN, time flies! These past two months have just zipped by. I can't believe Leah is already at the two month mark.
I laid a blanket out to take some pictures, and Eli decided he wanted to be in them all...well...not sure if he cared to have his picture taken or not, but he wanted to play with Leah.

Leah is such a good little girl. She has started smiling a lot (though this is the only one I captured yesterday that wasn't blurry...her smiles are MUCH bigger and cuter than this one :) ). The place she smiles the MOST is when she is getting her diaper changed on the changing station on my dresser. I think it's because she can see the mirror and the ceiling fan, but whatever it is, it makes changing diapers much more fun for mommy :)

She's getting chubbier too. She's got the cutest little rolls in her legs :) She was 11 lb 4 oz at her 1 month check-up (which actually was at 5 weeks old) and I'm so curious to see how much she's gained. We go to the doctor soon. She's really a very 'sturdy' kid-which is fortunate, because Eli likes to attack her...If she makes it to age 1 with all bones in tact, I'll be thrilled ;) She holds her head up SO good. She can go in the baby bjorn face forward now, which is so nice-because she hates being turned toward me. It makes grocery shopping easier-she's in the bjorn, Eli is in the cart.

She's got the cutest little lips-don't ya just wanna kiss them?!

Eli's back...he pretty much destroyed my little 'studio'...I tried not to be too mad...

She's also sleeping pretty good too. Occasionally she has a rough night, but for the most part she only gets up once a night. She's even slept from 8:30-5:00 a couple of times. Those nights are WONDERFUL :) Usually she gets up around 3 though.

Nap time is a little less predictable. I'm working on getting her on a better nap schedule, but every day is so different here, that it's hard to have a 'normal' day. I've got to get working on nap schedules, though, because it drives me nuts not knowing when she is going to sleep. I like predictable...

A couple more things about Leah at 2 months...

Her favorite place to take a nap is in her swing. I don't know if it's because it's elevated a bit, but she could sleep in that thing forever. (Really working on getting her to nap in her crib...) If she's awake, though, she doesn't like it as much anymore. She enjoys playing on the floor for a while. There are a couple of little toys that she really likes to look at. She follows them with her eyes really well, and has batted at them a couple of times. She likes her pacifier, but I think she's coming close to giving it up in favor of her index & middle finger. She's quickly outgrowing her 0-3 month stuff. I probably should already have her in 3-6 month stuff, but I haven't been able to go through her clothes yet...maybe today? (not likely...) She won't let me eat chocolate, and I don't think she likes food from Olive Garden :( (it might have been the onions in the salad...who knows, but the night after Carly's birthday was rough) and I think she wants me to stay away from eating super rich foods. Thanksgiving weekend she seemed a lot more uncomfortable. Apparently when mommy is gluttonous she isn't happy. She eats every 3 hours during the day, though I think she might already be ready to go a little longer. I'm not sure I'm ready to trust that she can go every 4 hours-she's still so young!-but there are days when she just doesn't seem hungry after 3 hours. We'll probably stick to this schedule for another month...just to make mommy happy :)

Ummmm...I think she was ready to be done with our photo shoot (or she was afraid her brother was going to smoosch her) so I think I should be done with this post :)

Happy 2 months baby girl!

Happy Birthday Carly!

Tonight we got to celebrate Carly's birthday.

If you read Jennifer's blog, you already know we were at Olive Garden :)
Singing Happy Birthday! (This is currently one of Eli's favorite songs...)

BLOW!

I can hardly believe she's NINE! I still remember visiting when Jennifer was pregnant (and fairly miserable...) with Carly. Time flies!

We came with the kids. Leah enjoyed her first visit to Olive Garden :) It must have wore her out, because she went right to bed tonight. Hopefully she'll sleep for a LONG time.

Eli enjoyed Carly's puppets that she got. Can't wait to see a puppet show!

I hope your birthday was everything you hoped for Carly :) We had so much fun celebrating with you!