Giveaway

No, no. Not me. I don't do giveaways.  But my friend Elizabeth over at E, Myself and I is doing an awesome giveaway where you gets tons of cool stuff, and she will donate $100 to your charity of choice.  Go check it out!!

Big News

Two months after turning two, Adelaide can finally hold up TWO fingers. We're all pretty exited about it.

Cuties in Christmas clothes

Courtesy of Gram and Pop!

These two

These two have apparently been keeping me busy.  They both drive me absolutely crazy and then within a minute bring the biggest smile to my face.  I don't know where my days go sometimes, and I seriously don't know how people have like 10 kids.  But the days are good and I am in love.  Here are a few updates.

Beckett:
I am starting to figure this guy out.  He still hates the car, and I do believe he is a much louder baby than Adelaide, but he is SO so smiley.  Seriously, when this kid is happy, he is so so happy.
At 2 months he was 11 lbs 1oz (2lbs bigger than A at that age) and 23'' (1'' longer than A).
He is a decent napper, but not a great night-time sleeper.  Well, I don't think he is, but Adelaide is my only basis of comparison, and she was a much better sleeper at this age.  I am tired.
He has rolled from his belly to back a couple times, but doesn't do it regularly.  He likes sitting up in the bumbo seat while we eat dinner.  Loves looking up at toys on his play mat. REALLY loves to be held more than anything.
He has the most expressive face.
He is starting to laugh and I l.o.v.e it. He's super ticklish and lets out the cutest little giggly squeal when you get him in the right spot.

Adelaide:

Where o where do I even begin?? Well first, she really does love her brother as much as it looks like in the pictures above.  The fascination and affection has not faded away.  She wants to hold him every day. Wants to hold him, sit by him, hold his hand, show him her tricks, and her face lights up every single time we bring him in the room.  

She is talking up a storm. Every single day she says words that I didn't know she knew. She's definitely speaking sentences.... mostly short ones like "Mama, read this." or "I like that." The other night I tried to give her a cup of water and she said "No, Mama. Nacho licked that one." Amazing.  

(more for my own records than anything) She replaces her "f" with "s"... ex. "sall" instead of fall.  And she usually replaces "p" with "t"... ex. "tay" instead of play.  Leaves the s off of the beginning of st word... ex. "tuck" instead of "stuck"

Her imagination is totally coming to life.  She l.o.v.e.s. her babies and her play kitchen/food.  

She likes puzzles and LOVES books. "Mama, read dis. Mama, read dis, mama read dis...." alllll day long.  She is really in to Dr. Seuss/ P.D. Eastman books right now.  

Loves pointing out buses, airplanes, and the moon.

LOVES the sandbox! That is the ONE thing she will do by herself for an extended period of time (she likes to have company... always)

LOVES hide and seek.  I don't know how many times a day we hear "Count Mommy! Count Daddy!"

Counts (more or less) to 20.  She's got 1-13 down... then it's a lot of jumbleness... "19, 20!"

Is a very auditory learner.  She loves songs and knows lots of words to lots of songs.  She doesn't actually sing them, necessarily. But if we are singing, we can stop almost anywhere in the song and she will fill in the word.  She does the same thing with books that we read a lot.  I'm pretty sure she has The Cat in the Hat completely memorized (that's a slight exaggeration, but only slight). 

I could go on and on talking about these two.  I can't wait to watch them grow up and play with each other and watch Adelaide teach things to Beckett. Can't wait to see what moves Beckett brings to our family dance parties in the kitchen.  Can't wait to watch their personalities blossom. And boy are they cuuuute!!!

The non-party

Jason and I kept saying that we didn't really want to have a big party for Adelaide's birthday.  But I really wanted to invite all her little friends from the neighborhood (p.s. there are like 100 kids in our neighborhood) and just have a little play date.  So then when we decided JUST to invite neighborhood kids, we decided that there was one other family we wanted to invite. Oh, and two more.  But we were just going to keep it really simple and just have the kids play in the backyard for a little bit.  And then I really wanted a finger painting table.  And we were just going to have a little play date snack... of cupcakes.  Simple, basic cupcakes that I would make from a box.  And then my neighbor, who happens to be an amazing baker, offered to make amazing Mickey and Minnie cupcakes.  And we put a candle on one of them.

And there were just a few balloons.

But it was not a party.

It was a glorified play date.

 

It was a blast.

"two two two"

That is what Adelaide says now when people ask her how old she is!  You heard her right.  TWO.  Pretty sure I'm still way too young to have a 2 year old.  Here are some pics from the day of her birthday.


We decided we would make it a little birthday tradition to go get donuts for breakfast.

Adelaide got approximately 1,000,000 presents for her 2nd birthday.  She was definitely spoiled = definitely loved.

(the pics are a mix from my camera and my dad's... mine are the ones that are all blue... forgot to set my white balance, but had to include them anyway.  i never claimed to be a photographer.)

New backpack from mommy and daddy.

Mickey Mouse pillow pet from the Browns, lying on top of her new picnic table from the Grandmom and Papa

She was literally this excited about every present. It was adorable.

Opening her new ukulele from Dana, Brad, and Leila! 

 

She loved that thing.

Playing with her new play kitchen food from Gram and Pop.

Oh yes, and she got a dancing birthday hat from the Browns. it.is.awesome.  It will definitely become a new birthday tradition in our house.

What we do when Jason has a day off

Potty train
Color
Sleep
Potty train
Play games
Drink coffee
Roast coffee
Potty train
And do puzzles, eat snacks, potty train, get treats for pee, watch tv, and stay in our pajamas all.day.long.

Our Babies

My computer is broken. That us my excuse for not posting anything lately. But the truth is I'm not sure I would have posted anything anyway. Thankfully Jason got me an iPhone a few weeks ago so now I can write a blog post using only my opposable thumbs.

I have been realizing a lot lately how DIFFERENT babies can be. I think I had heard people say that before but I might have always thought "how different can they be at 1 month old". Well I am here to tell you that they can be very different.





People have sounded surprised when I said this, but Adelaide was actually a pretty easy baby. I even remember thinking that and telling people when she was born how lucky we were that our first baby was so easy. She at least was always a good sleeper. I didn't do any sort of intentional sleep training or scheduling with her, but she kind of fell into it by herself pretty easily. Also Adelaide was a pretty even-keel baby. Sometimes this made me sad because she wasn't super smiley; it took A LOT to make her smile and it was rare that people other than me and Jason got a smile out of her.

BECKETT however... Is very extreme. He is either super smiley (after a good nap and feeding) or SUPER sad. I'm talking screaming until he has no breath left. When Adelaide cried we knew just what to do to calm her down. When Beckett cries, he makes you work to earn his happiness and quietness again. Also in his almost 7 weeks of life, Beckett has given us very few stretches I'd sleep longer than 2 or maybe 3 hrs. And the car was Adelaide's happy place. She was one if those babies who was calmed by the rumble of the engine. But Beckett cries almost every time we get in the car.







Luckily he is super cute and his times of extreme happiness definitely make up for his extreme scream-i-ness. And Adelaide still loves him so so much (and of course we do too). We can hardly keep her away from him. It's mostly adorable (except when she wakes him up). Also, we're thinking Beckett might be our snuggly baby (since we all know that Adelaide does not really like to snuggle).  He is certainly always happy if he's being held.  Good thing Adelade LOVES to hold her little brother!

(oh and Adelaide is in a big girl bed now! there's a glimpse of it.)