Saturday, September 21, 2013

Layla holds a worm

The unthinkable happened today. Layla- my child that went through 6 months of therapy for texture issues, the SAME child that refused to go outside at the beginning of summer because there were buuuuuuugs- held a worm today. A worm. It was disgusting. It even pooped on her. Fun!!



Jack is 10 Months!

Happy 10 month birthday to baby Jack!

J has been very busy this month. He's mastered crawling but still isn't on his hands and knees. He can finally get to the sitting up position on his own (he likes to greet us sitting and smiling in his crib in the mornings) and he is pulling up on his knees! He's gotten on his feet a few times but is super wobbly and looks at me like "HELP!". He's getting to be VERY active and into EVERYTHING. His favorite things to do are pull books off the bookshelf, spread his toys all around and crawl from one side of the house to the other. It's hard work following him around all day!



Jack has 8 teeth now and has become a master of eating. He can have small amounts of dairy now (woooo hooooo!!) and loves mac and cheese, bites of chicken nuggets, sharing Cliff bars with Mommy and crackers. He's still getting about one pouch of baby food a day to get a decent serving of fruits/veggies...but he will do OK eating those things off our forks if we are eating them for dinner. Transitioning to chunky/normal foods has not been an issue and we are so SO thankful! J is still nursing but we are down to about 4 times a day with 2 sippy cup snacks.

Growth wise J has really slowed down. He's holding steady around 20 pounds but he is SO tall. We are starting to move into 18 month fall clothes now that it is getting chilly. He's in a size 4 shoe...I broke down and got him a pair since it's been colder. Ha!


Jack isn't really attached to anything but Mommy. He does like to carry around the base to a stacking toy. He gnaws on it like a dog bone and will crawl all over the house for it. We are thinking that might be what he's attached himself to...I hope not.

Sleeping has been much better this month. Thank you Lord!! Jack goes down for bed between 7-8pm and will sometimes still wake up around 10:30 for a quick snack...then back down until 6-8am. It kind of rocks. He will take 2 naps if he wakes up early but they still aren't terribly long...maybe an hour to hour and a half. That's OK though, it is MUCH better than 15-20 minutes and I'm hoping he'll move to one nap a day here pretty soon.


This picture is hilarious so I had to include it. I have nothing to say about it other than it's hilarious.

Jack is really starting to show more of his personality. He is happy ALL. THE. TIME. How did we get so lucky? He laughs constantly. Flashes his dimple and shy grin at everyone and is so easy to entertain. He's getting a little spoiled when it comes to being held (Mommy can now make dinner with one hand...including chopping) and has some serious separation issues going. It's been a rough month for us in terms of getting a break- I even think our baby-sitter may have thrown in the towel. It's fine though, he's a happy guy with us and I know that as soon as he figures out that when we leave, we DO come back he'll be just fine.

I LOVE that picture. He's his father's son in that gray stripped shirt. :)

I have to finish up now...Bryan is teaching Layla to call 911. Taking bets- how soon do you think a cop will show up at our house?

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Layla's First Day of Preschool

This day seems like a total blur. Did I really just send my baby girl to preschool today?! It seems so surreal...how can this be?!

We have been preparing for school since February. We've talked about it daily- "you can't do this at preschool" and "you need to learn how to do this by yourself so you can do it at preschool" and "you are going to do things like this ALL the time at preschool- fun!". We've read books, made up school songs...waved to the school every time we drove by.

Last night I put her to bed and we talked about preschool for the last time as a "new" thing. She was over it, she didn't care anymore. Talking about it was old news, she was so ready to GO.

We woke Layla up at 8:00 today. She got up with a smile on her face (whew...that could have gone worse), Daddy got her dressed and gave her a special chocolate donut breakfast. Mommy did her hair and finished getting her ready and before we knew it...we were leaving for school.




We made matching bracelets to wear for today. L was so proud of hers and I think it really helped break the ice with her teachers too!

She was SO excited to get going!

We got to preschool 15 minutes early (last time THAT is happening) and got a few more pictures before it was time to say goodbye.

One of her teachers, Mrs. Silvis, walked her in.

Layla learned how to find her name tag (thank God she recognized her name...I've been having nightmares about her acting like she knows nothing).

She was able to identify her backpack hook and with a little help, hung up her stuff.

She has a fox to match her name tag...she was bummed she could get a turtle like the kid next to her LOL.

I snapped one more picture before we said our "goodbyes". You could tell she was getting a little nervous but her other teacher invited her right over to play and started chatting about her bracelet. After a hug and kiss from Mommy and Daddy she was ready to go.

I pretty much paced at home the whole time. The dogs were pacing, Jack was fussy...things just didn't seem right without sis here. I didn't realize how much I valued having a child that I could actually communicate with...even if it is silly conversations like "what's your favorite color?".

So 11:30 rolled around and we were on our way back to school for pick up. L was playing in the sand by herself when we got there (all the kids were playing by themselves LOL). Her teacher said she had a great day but did cry one time. We finally got it out of her later on in the day (thanks to her BFF's down the street) that she was playing with playdoh and she didn't want to move on to the next activity. I'm OK with that...at least she wasn't crying about us not being there! She's an emotional girl, I expect a few more fits and tears throughout the year. ;o)

She told us she sang songs, did a craft and learned about teddy bears. She says she's excited to go back next week and she's SUUUUUPER excited because Mommy will be there as the helper that day. :) She told me that she won't cry and she'll be really happy that I'm there. Hopefully she realizes I will be busy and will have to help others too. And that having one of us in the classroom isn't a normal thing. Oh boy.

So overall- a GREAT start to L's school career. I hope she's always this excited to go back to school. And I hope I have this much energy to put into every early morning wake up to get her there. Layla and I hate mornings...it's a combination for disaster.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Brock and Jessie's Visit

We had a BLAST with Uncle Brock and Aunt Jessie last weekend. I'm so glad they came to visit. Layla is in love with Uncle Brock (because they are the same person) and Jack really loved to snuggle up to Aunt Jessie. 

Brock and Jessie (and Winery too!) got here Thursday afternoon. They were pretty tired after getting up at 2AM to drive here but L wasn't ready to give them a break. Uncle Brock was nice enough to read her a bedtime story and then it was time for sleep. 



Friday was spent playing at the "castle park" and running some errands. Our facet broke Thursday so who better qualified to replace it then the Culligan Man himself? Brock has his trusty helper to hand him tools:

On Saturday we went to the airport for a pancake breakfast and to see some airplanes. It was rainy and we went towards the end of the even so we didn't get to see too much. L liked to look into a few planes and both kids loved to sit in kid size planes!



The kids loved playing with Winery when we were hanging out at home. She was SO good with them...J was totally in awe of her. She's a monster compared to our tiny dogs. 

Sunday was a fun day too! We did lunch at Cafe Zinc and took a quick trip out to the Nature Center to confirm that L is still afraid of livestock. We got home and I put Jack down and walk out to this:

Back story- they had face painting at the airport pancake event but shut it down before L could get her's done. She was sad about it so Uncle Brock and Aunt Jessie decided to buy her some face paint to do at home. The following photos are a result of this brilliant idea:



After Brock and Jessie got their face's painted, L look at Bryan and said "your turn!". Mommy and Daddy both said "no way" and you would have thought her heart broke into a million pieces. She didn't throw a fit...just got so disappointed. So guess what...

This happened: 

And...this happened:

We had Jack take a family pictures (just kidding...thank God for tripods and timers!)

We had the best time this weekend. I hate seeing family go...waking up to an empty house knowing your nearest family member is 5 1/2 hours away just plain sucks. Having Brock and Jessie here made me really home sick. The kind of home sick where you just miss existing in the same state as your family. I really miss making silly runs to Wally World together for random things or being able to go to dinner all together. I thought I was kind of over it but I think I will always miss it. But at least we have fun places to visit (Chicago, NYC...Decatur LOL) and get great quality time when we DO get a chance to see our families. 

Thanks for coming Uncle Brock, Aunt Jessie and Win! Maybe next time we'll come to YOU?!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Jack's official 9 month pics (finally)

It is so true what they say about the second baby...you just don't get as many pictures. I do take a ton on my phone but it is hard to get to these quarterly milestone pictures. And yes...I've been a SAHM for almost 3 years and I still speak in "quarters"...corporate America will not leave me.

Pictures this evening were on a total whim. Jack had a VERY rare "good" nap day and I needed the lighting to be just perfect at this location...that means 6:30. That's a tough time to have a happy Jack on a "bad" nap day (aka- a normal day) so we packed up after dinner and headed to the beach.





The eyes. The smile. The drool...I love him. I just posted 4 pictures, I don't have the energy to edit anymore. That's what you get when your Mom is a photographer. My poor children.

One thing that I will never get used to is that he is SO happy...and he'll put anything in his mouth. This includes sand. Honestly, I just let him eat it. I would rather have a kid that likes to get messy and eat sand then one that can't even look at green beans. It was kind of awesome to see him play with it tonight. We may need a good head squeezing or two but this boy will NOT be going through food therapy. :)

Speaking of...Lady Gaga made an appearance tonight:


Her and her sunglasses.

Uncle Brock and Aunt Jessie (and Winrey!) are coming in a couple of days...can't wait to post pictures of their visit!