Faces

Bedhead!

 

Ignore the breakfast on her face, but I just had to show everyone Abby's hair this morning. Today she woke up, and a little bit of it was sticking up! Click on the picture, and you can see the sweet out of place hair on the right hand side of her head. I know only a mom would get so touched and excited about something like the first time her daughter has bedhead! But, it is a special moment to me just the same! :) Oh and how about a quiz.. any guesses about what is Abby eating?

Capron Collection Giveaway

Tomorrow, the Capron collection is having a giveaway. Head over to the Nesting Place to enter my giveaway and a bunch of other giveaways throughout the day. New ones will be added throughout the day.

Also check out all of my new designs at www.caproncollection.blogspot.com

On the Move: The Nontraditional Way

Abby is starting to understand the concept of moving! She can push up to her hands and knees, and she rocks back and forth. But, most of the time she puts her head down and gets up on her hands and feet. She walks her feet forward, but hasn't figured out that she needs to move her hands and big head! She is moving but not ending up in the place she would like to be!

Abby and Fall

Abby is starting to get some very blonde hair! I can see it best when we take a picture with the flash. In the above picture we are showing off our Fall collection. We (me) were very excited about pulling out some long sleeve outfits since a front has brought in some cooler weather. I told Jon that Fall and cool weather makes me want to go shopping. So we shopped Abby's closet and tried on several different outfits!
Here is a great picture of Abby's teeth! She is has 3-4 more teeth coming in on the top. Maybe that is why she was up half of the night one evening last week. Or it could just be that I keep on nursing her back to sleep 2-3 times every night! I'm trying to work up the energy and will to try a bit of sleep training again, but after trying for 2 months and listening to crying night after night, I'm not there yet. So for now, we are getting the most rest with this system. We will see what is to come in the future. I am just hoping and praying she will grow out of this!

Playtime at the park

We have had lots of fun at the park near our house. Anyone remember this post with pictures of Gianna and Caleb swinging together? That was one of the first times Caleb played at a park.

Look at the two little ones swinging together. They are finally old enough to enjoy the park some themselves!And here are G and C playing together on the slide and on the swings (below).

We went at night time, so while the dads played with the older totts, the moms took some pictures of any child that wasn't running around like crazy (i.e. Selah and Abby)

So one of this pictures was photoshopped and one wasn't. I am being lazy and not working on the unedited picture! I have been in photoshop way too much this past week and don't feel like it right now! (more about why I have been in photoshop so much in a future post!) For now enjoy these adorable babies!

Herptologists? Any Guesses?

Came home from the park to find this little guy hanging out on the side of the house?

Caleb at 2 1/2 Years

Our first baby is truly becoming a little boy. Today he is 2 and 1/2 years old. Caleb is a delight and brings much joy to our family. He can tell me almost anything he wants to say these days, which includes things like "I want to play five more minutes". I hear that one a lot at bedtime or naptime. He usually does get to play for five more minutes but then has a difficult time understanding how long five minutes really lasts. (i.e. - crying and resistance) Or he will say "I don't want to watch this part of Thomas. I don't like this part." He is fairly sensitive and gets a little scared easily!

Caleb is working hard on his potty training. For us that has meant committing to having him wear underwear everywhere and all of the time except when he is sleeping. That was a challenge at first, and he had quite a few accidents on the go. Thanks friends for letting us go through this process at your houses! Anyways, we have just stuck with the whole underwear all of the time thing because I felt like otherwise he was getting confused about whether he could rely on the diaper or not and then he would have an accident. After about 5 accidents at church, this Tuesday I picked him up from MDO, and he still had the same clothes on! Yeah! He made in all 5 hours without an accident and was good about using the church bathroom. When Caleb wakes up from his nap or in the morning, he heads straight to the bathroom by himself. So all that to say, that we are making some really good progress as far as potty training goes. Oh and I should mention there has been a good amount of bribery involved: chocolate chips, toy cars, ice cream, and lots of Mommy and Daddy cheering Caleb on!

Caleb is quite independent these days. He loves to carry his stool around and turn on lights, get into cabinets, and reach for things. Today, he stood on his stool and helped me make cookies. He is now able to ride his tricycle on his own and enjoys putting his trains on the back of it while he rides around the driveway. Also he can open the car door and climb into his seat on his own, which is a big help to me!

Caleb is fairly introverted and sensitive. He likes to play by himself rather than with a big group. He always carries around at least 1 toy in each hand when we are playing with other kids. I am trying to brainstorm about how to work on changing this habit as it has led to some meltdowns and lack of sharing. Caleb enjoys Abby more and more, but he doesn't want her to play with any of his toys. Usually he will bring her something from her room to play with as he is taking away whatever toy she may have. So we are definitely trying to work on sharing!

Wow, I wrote a whole lot! If this is too much info- just disregard it! I have to say that I love looking back and reading about different stages in my kids' lives, especially now that we have two. So this is for documentation and for the grandparents!

We love our boy!

Another Caleb Story!

It seems that as Caleb is becoming more and more independent (as much as is possible for a two year old!), we are having more and more memorable incidents! Several days ago I put Caleb down for a nap. He slept several hours and came running out of his room quite happy when he woke up. I started feeding him a snack, and I began to notice dark brown stains on his shirt and face. I thought it could have been from lunch, and I just hadn't noticed earlier. Then I saw that all of his fingernails had dark brown stuff in them. I went into his room to check out the situation and found a completely empty bag of chocolate chips in his bed! The bag was fairly new, so as best I can guess he ate at least half of the bag! You would think he would have had a stomach ache, but instead he was as hyper as could be. That night we put him to bed at about his normal time, 8:30. But, instead of sleeping he kept calling for us and talking for about 3 hours! He normally goes to sleep very easily at night, so I guess the sugar made him a little crazy. Then he woke up at 5:15 the next morning, still as hyper as could be, which sort of came out in a bunch of early morning meltdowns. Thank goodness he seems to be back to normal now!

Abby 7 Months Old

Abby will be seven months old tomorrow. Here are some of the things that she is up to these days:
-She sits very well, and I can leave her in a sitting position without worrying about her falling over.
-She has somehow figured out how to sit up by herself in her bed. We moved the mattress down, but this is still a problem because once she sits up she doesn't know how to lay back down. Yesterday, she just kept crying at both nap times because she would sit up and get stuck.
-I am still getting up with Abby some at night. We spent more than a month trying the crying it out method, and I am thoroughly convinced that all kids are different. That method just wasn't working for Abby although it did work for Caleb. Night after night for weeks and weeks Abby would wake up and cry for hours before going back to sleep. I would go in to check on her, and she would often be stuck in the crib slats or in some sort of weird position: one leg out, both legs out, a leg and arm out and twisted in different directions, in a sitting up position but slumped over with her head between her legs, and the worst one- sitting on her knees with her back arched and her head jammed in the corner of the bed and grabbing the crib with one hand. So we are done with crying it out for awhile. Now I just go in and feed her and am back in bed within 10 minutes rather than listening to screaming for hours! I am hoping she will outgrow waking up in the middle of the night naturally, and feeding her is the least stressful thing for us right now.
-Abby is a Mama's girl! She is starting to respond to being away from me more and more. She still loves to be held and likes to be touching me when she is playing on the floor. READ- She wears me out! But, she is a sweet snuggler!
-Abby loves Heidi! She coos and reaching for Heidi often.
-Heidi loves that Abby is eating some finger foods! She eats puffs that I put in her mouth, and she absolutely loved the ritz cracker I gave her earlier today. She can feed that one to herself!
-Abby is still in size 2 diapers, which makes me happy for some reason!
-Abby is not anywhere near crawling. She moves around a ton in her crib, but tends to stay in one place when out on the floor. She hasn't quite figured out that she could go somewhere by rolling or crawling.

Wow! That was a long list. Sorry if it is too much info! I figure this is a great way to remember! I loved reading about Caleb at seven months a few days ago to compare him and Abby. He wasn't really sitting by himself completely but was close to crawling! They truly are their own little persons!

I hesitate to write too much about potty training on our blog because I don't want to annoy anyone with too much information. But, today's event is worth documenting. Caleb has been doing better and better with his potty training with a lot fewer accidents and many successes. I have to say even just this morning I was sort of patting myself on the back for our progress. That was until around 5pm tonight when dinner was almost ready and sitting on the stove. All of a sudden I hear Jon telling me to watch out. I look over, and Caleb has pulled his undies (or underoos as we call them) down and is peeing all over the floor right towards our cabinets and stove top where our meal is sitting. He just peed all over the kitchen floor in the streaming arching boy style. It was actually quite hilarious, and I had to run out of the room to keep him from seeing me laugh. Caleb has had several accidents standing right in front of the potty because he forgot to pull his undies down, so I thought maybe with him pulling his underwear down that this was just a step toward correcting the sequence problem. However, Jon assures me that it was quite intentional. Apparently we have now entered the spiteful peeing stage of potty training!

Conversations with a two year old

Dad: "Caleb, who made waterfalls?"

Caleb: "God, made them!"

Dad: "Who made giraffes?"

Caleb: "God!"

Dad: "Who made Caleb?"

Caleb: "God!"

Dad: "Who made Daddy?"

Caleb: "Mommy made daddy!"

and then later in the week Caleb asked "Mommy, who made God?" and "Where is God?"

Two Little Monkeys at Play