My kids love

A Bouncey House!  I never thought I'd see the day but as long as there are not lots of kids inside, they have a blast!

 Lainie could care less how many kids are in them, but to keep her from getting run over we won't let her in unless there are only 1 or 2 others.  Let me tell you she gets TICKED when we have to keep her out!

My Christmas girls

This was on our way to our playgroup annual Christmas party (which was incredible, more on that later).  I got 2 half fake smiles, that counts for something right?  :-) These girls crack me up.

Daddy's Girl

This girl loves her Daddy and wants to wear everything he does!

Cheese Face!

NayNay has been so much fun lately. She is starting to talk and communicate more and is just funny!  One of my favorite things she is doing lately is a cheese face when the camera comes out (along with a cheeeeeeeeeesssseee sound).

 

It usually starts like this with shock and the lower mouth/lip moving.

 

 Then moves from shock to sort of angry.  This picture completely cracks me up! This is as close to two kids smiling as I've gotten in months!  It also makes Ruthie look huge compared to Lainie, which she is not (they can wear the same size pants now, it really confuses me when I'm folding laundry)

 

If I'm lucky, ends up with this sweet cute face!



 Love love love my little girl!

WW:Dress up has taken over!

We've entered the dress up phase and officially live with twirling Cinderella and Tinkerbell! i love it!

Are we back?

 

Thank you Sara for teaching me about blogger (more than once)!  I really appreciate it.  I will leave you today with one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken in life.  This is Cinderella dancing with my nephew Matt, who she is 100% crazy about and he is the BEST!  We love Matt! Yipee more pictures to come!

Blog Photos!

It looks like we're out of Free blog storage, so I'm trying to figure out exactly what to do!  I don't want to pay the monthly charge (although it is minor), but the pictures are pretty much the point of the blog (I'm sure Grandma would agree ;-).

What do you all do? Do you archive it somehow to stay under the free storage limit or just pay it?  Hopefully, we'll figure something out soon!

Christmas Tree Lighting!

This past weekend our town had their annual Christmas tree lighting. We absolutely love the town we live in as they have lots and lots of holiday lights up.  They line the walkways that are on the water with garland and lights and have a huge (gigantic) Christmas tree.

A very short year ago we went and had a great time with our two babies.

We were both shocked it was already time to go again. The girls were really excited!

We arrived after they lit the Christmas tree.  We thought we were being smart because last year our town Mayor talked for about 2 hours and it took forever to get to the tree lighting.  I'm guessing he got a lot of people telling him not to do that this year because when it started, they lit the tree! Oh well!

Ruthie really loves to hug a Christmas tree!

We weren't able to get a full family pic so I think I'll have to photo shop us together!

It was absolutely freezing and windy, but Ruthie was all over the playground.  This picture makes me so happy. It has taken a LOT for her to be able to go up the playground if other kids are up there.  This is a big deal folks.

Something I never thought I'd see! Hair blowing in the wind!

 Really unhappy that it was time to go home.

After seeing the big Christmas tree Ruthie really wanted to put up our tree, so we decided to go ahead and do it the next day.  She was pumped about it.  Hopefully that will be up tomorrow! I love Christmas time (and keep having to remind myself we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet).

My Little Lainie-Month 12

This marks the end of the fastest year of my life.  Too fast.  When Joel got home the day before Lainie's birthday, I said, tomorrow she won't be an infant, and he said, "I know, tomorrow we'll have a baby". Needless to say, neither of us can stand (or accept) how fast our girls are growing up.  They are growing and thriving and for that we are so thankful, but wow is time flying.

I can't believe my baby is a year old.  She's amazing, awesome and one of the happiest baby's I've ever been around. 

Eating:
I forget how fast baby's go from eating nothing to eating everything. She has eaten almost everything we have (although I don't give her things that I think her tummy isn't ready for).  I think she would eat sweet potatoes until she turned into one.  She has downed 1 1/2 whole sweet potatoes at a meal with no problem.  Its crazy.  She also loves cheese and yogurt (really glad she didn't have a dairy allergy).  She's not a huge fan of pasta or veggies, likes fruit, mainly banana's and peaches.  It is so nice that she can now feed herself and we can give her food when we're out.  There is so much more freedom in that.  She does great with baby goldfish (the big ones still bring on the gag), nilla wafers, graham crackers, and puffs. 

She is all but weaned. I feed her once a day in the mornings usually, and give her water and whole milk in a cup.  She's not a huge fan of milk but I think that has to do with the fact that I haven't found a cup she really likes.  She does great with a straw, and I think that the sippy cups with the hard spouts hurt her gums.

Size:
She is in 18-24 month clothes and I think its time to move to size 5 diapers.  She is in the clothes Ruthie was in at 18 months old which is great for us because of the seasons!  I'm not sure of her weight and will update at her well check on Wednesday.  I think she is exactly the size Ruthie was at 18 months (when she was born) mainly bc of these Halloween pictures.  Crazy.

Halloween 2012

 

This is Ruthie Halloween 2011

She weighs 22 lbs (65%)
She is 31" (95%)-although I really don't trust this measurement, marking on doctors paper while a baby is moving I doubt is totally accurate.

Nighttime Sleep:
Still great.  She does down between 6:30-7pm and will sleep until 6:30am-8am (I never thought I'd see a baby sleep until 8!).  She is so sweet when she gets sleepy, she loves to play with your hair and will twirl it when she's really sleepy and when you lay her down her hand goes straight to her hair.  So sweet.

Daytime Sleep:
If we're home, she'll sleep from about 9:30-11am, and 1-3:30.  If we're out in the morning, she'll usually take one longer nap from 12:30-3:30pm.

Mobility:

She is a full blown walker and so proud!  She took 4 consecutive steps the week before we went on our trips, and then right before we flew home from Seattle she took off walking all the time and hasn't looked back.  She walks like a chicken with her arms up, belly out and on her tippy toes. I love it.

Eyes:
Crystal Blue. Seriously identical to Joels.

Paci:
Still in the car and crib (or if we're out in a store).

Hair:
Its starting to come in!  I could almost put one piggy in it but I think it might pull too much. I did give her a mullet cut and it looks so much better!

Signs/Words:
She's really doing great.  She signs more and all done, waves hello and goodbye, and twinkles her stars when we sing twinkle twinkle.  She says Mama, Dada, ChloChlo (loves Chloe), and is making lots of sounds. She really focuses on things when you're teaching her and you can tell she really wants to talk.

Teeth:
Wow! The teeth came in this month!  She now has the top two and bottom four have broken through, plus I think there are two more on top almost through.  Its been a big month for those chompers.

Doesn't love:
-Getting her diaper changed.  She can alligator roll in a second.
-Having something taken from her.  She gets TICKED. and give you a teradactyl scream like no other. I do love the spunk she shows now and how she isn't going to get forgotten!
-Not a huge fan of the car.

Loves:
-Stairs. She's a magnet for them.
-Ruthie.

-Chloe

-Walking! Running!
-Playing with hair
-Being chased. So cute!
-peekaboo

-dancing
-Singing
-Life.  What a sweet, incredible girl.  Happy one year!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAYNAY!

One year ago, the world became a better place with the birth of our sweet Lainie.

 She has been a complete joy.

 In ways I didn't know was possible.

 We should've known when she smiled at 5 weeks, she was going to be happy.  She is.

 

And genuinely sweet.

And oh so cute.

Loves her sister (the feeling is mutual).

And funny. and Silly.

 

And so cute I can't stand it.

Happy 1st Birthday to my sweet Lainie.  You are a joy, our angel and we love you more than words.   

Seattle-Part 1

This post has taken me way longer than it should to get up because I've gotten fed up with all the pictures several times. I think now I've gotten it straight!

 

Back to our trip!  The day after we got home from St. Lucia, we took off for Seattle.  This was Ruthie's first time having her own seat on the airplane and she looked like such a big girl.  Both girls were excited to go to Grandma's house!

 

After the flights were getting a little long, we started playing around with the ipad taking silly pictures to keep Ruthie entertained. 

Our long flight, we had a row of three seats. Lainie and I took the window, Ruthie was in the middle and Joel was on the aisle.  This seems to work best for us because both girls can move around but are completely blocked by Joel's legs.  Plus this gives me the most privacy when feeding Lainie.

On our first flight we had great flight attendants who were super sweet to the girls.  One flight attendant came up to Ruthie while Joel was in the bathroom and asked her if she wanted some candy (after asking me first, thankfully). Ruthie pretty much leapt into her arms.  Yikes, talk about an eye opener that its now time be talking about strangers... I didn't think anyone would believe me that she went with a stranger (since she has never gone near a stranger without screaming) so I took a picture.

After a long day of flying we got to Grandma's House! Ruthie was so excited to run up to Grandma in the airport, I wish I had a picture of that.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was that the girls carseats were next to each other (and I was usually in the back row so I could take pics) and they kept holding hands.  Break. My. Heart.  Seriously, into a thousand pieces.  They did it over and over.

I really almost can't take it.  

Once we got to Grandma's house, the girls quickly found their boxes full of toys and Ruthie showed off her loot!

My MIL Judy, has a friend from Japan who she has been penpals with since she was a teenager, Yasuhiro, who was able to make it to the wedding.  He is one of the nicest people I've met and Ruthie instantly loved him.

My big girl and I.

Aunt Jessica decided to make her own wedding cakes and was baking when we arrived.  She had a great helper.  The cakes were absolutely delicious.  She made a Roasted Apple spice cake from Smitten Kitchen.  She also made red velvet cakes, but I'm not sure what recipe she used for those.  I would definitely make the apple spice cakes again, they were so good! I bet they would make a great muffin.

 

The next day was spent playing with Grandma and Grandpa, grocery store runs, costco runs and getting as ready as we could for the wedding weekend.  The wedding was held at Wellspring near Mount Rainier National Park.  There weren't stores nearby so everything pretty much needed to be ready for the weekend when we left on Friday. 

As always the swing is a big hit!

She loves it!  I love this one!

Thursday evening, Jessica's MIL, Aleda came and joined us for dinner. The girls loved her and she is just so sweet. I'm glad we were able to spend some time with her!



 

Of course, Ruthie (and Lainie) love love love Miss Molly.

 Ruthie loved playing with Grandma non-stop and especially hiding with all of Auntie Jessica's stuffed animals!

Jessica and I spent the night (from about 7pm-1am-ish) making frosting and splitting and leveling the cakes.  We decided to go ahead and frost the cakes that night so once we got to wellspring we could do the final decorations.  Those containers are holding the first and last wedding cakes I will be part of :-)!  We had a good time doing it, but wow cake decorators earn their money and probably don't charge enough.

 

The next morning it was time to pack up and head to the wedding site!  Wedding Weekend coming up in Part 2!