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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

What's Alexa up to?

Here is a picture of Alexa playing one of our new favorite games, Memory. She got two different kinds for Christmas and it has been one of her favorite past times, an obsession really. She is really good at it too, she almost always wins when she plays with Daddy and Mommy! :)

Other things that Alexa has been doing over the past month:

*Counts to 20

*Can count backwards from 3 to 1 (randomly started doing that one day)

*Has been talking in Spanish (not sure what she is saying, but I'm pretty sure it's Spanish....I should really ask her Spanish teacher what they are learning)

*We have been working on her letters and she can recognize and pick out about half the alphabet.

*Sleeping GREAT in her new big girl bed.

*And of course is still busy swimming, building with Daddy at Lowe's, practicing her gymnastics, and cooking lots of good meals in her little kitchen.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Randoms from the weekend

Here are just some random pictures from the weekend.
Alexa in a hat she found while we were cleaning out her room to fit her big bed in there. She made all four of us wear her hats.

Here's Braden in his hat that he had to wear, he actually liked wearing it.

Here's Alexa patiently waiting for her big girl bed.


Braden looking at himself in the mirror.....a pink princess mirror.

Alexa wanted to share her water with Braden and he was more than happy to take it and chew on it.


Alexa forgot her sunglasses so she wore daddy's.

I know this is like the hundredth picture like this that I have shared but it's just so funny. This one was from his first bite of pears.


New Beds

We FINALLY got the kids rooms all switch around and now they each have new beds! We actually have had Alexa's new bed sitting downstairs since before Braden was even born but we (as in me) just weren't ready to move up to the next stage. But now we realized that Braden REALLY should have a bed of his own. Where has he been sleeping the past 5 1/2 months you ask? It's been a combination of bassinets, swing, pack-n-play, our bed, and Alexa's bed when not in use. Disturbing huh? He'll get used to it though, after all he IS a second child and that's just how it goes right? (Even though I said I would NEVER do anything different with him as we did Alexa....HA)

So anyway Alexa is now in her big girl bed. So far she has only took one nap in there because we set it up yesterday and she spent the night at Gramma's house last night so as far as actually sleeping in it at night we have no idea how that is going to go, but she did great during her nap. Didn't try to get out, didn't fall out...I would consider it pretty successful. I just can't believe our baby girl is in a big bed, once again I took this much harder than anyone else in the household. I had to fight back tears as I watched her sleep (yes, I watched her sleep) and that was in between bouts of crazy, irrational thoughts about her falling out, getting tangled in the sheets, and getting trapped in between the bed rails and bed. Let's just hope tonight goes as well as the nap did....I'll be watching, but only because I want to be able to give you all a full update on here of course! :)


Doesn't she just look so little in there? She actually LOVES it though, thank goodness I probably would have been easily convinced if she asked for her crib back.




This also means Braden finally has a bed to call his own AND we also finally got to break out the cute bedding that we bought like a year ago. He has also only taken one nap in there today but it went great as well. I think he slept much better than usual and much longer. We always tell him he needs to learn to take better naps....who would have known all he needed was an actual bed for that?! :)


Yes he is not actually sleeping in these pictures, they are right after he woke up. Any other moms out there will understand, not even a picture is worth waking a baby up from their nap!






Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Where are you teeth?


If you have seen Braden at all in the past oh about a month or so, this is what you saw. Actually much of the day now is spent with BOTH fists crammed into his little mouth. Of course most of the day I have the camera either in my pocket or sitting right next to me but of course not when I actually am trying to get a picture of little Braden with both of his hands about 75% of the way in his mouth. So whenever I see him doing this I say "stay right like that, mommy has to get the camera!" HA yeah right. He must have hearing like his sister.....but anyway I WILL get a picture of it because it truly is amazing, sometimes I actually wonder what would happen if they got stuck in there. So the wait is still on for the first little tooth to pop through, from the mouth of our trusty doc "it could be in 3 days or it could be in 3 months." Thanks, that helps a lot. However from my expert opinion.....what am I saying, I have no expert opinion. I just hope for Braden's sake that something comes pretty soon. His little gums are swollen, he has been feeling feverish lately and just not his happy self 100% of the time, I think we're down to like 85%. Tonight however I did see 2 tiny little white specs on his bottom gums, YAY!

So as Matt and I were talking about this tonight I asked, "When did Alexa get her first tooth?" And Matt says, "I don't remember, do you?" and I realized I didn't remember either. How could we possibly forget such a big thing in her life? Almost EVERYTHING Alexa did I was like 'I'm never going to forget that this is what she did and this is when she did it, but I will write it down anyway just to have it written down.' Well it's a good thing I did that, huh!?! Isn't is funny how we as parents think that we will never forget anything that our little kids do? What makes it really funny is I can honestly not even remember what Alexa and I had for lunch yesterday so why would I ever think I could possibly remember everything that both of our children do as they grow up. Apparently now I know for the record that this is not my "gift" and I must always write everything down.


The Little Mermaid

Here's some pictures of our little swimmer in action. The pictures didn't turn out that great but you get the idea. She loves going there, I always remind her on Friday nights that we get to go in the morning and then that's all she can talk about. After 2 weeks she pretty much has all the basics down....kicking, blowing bubbles, floating on her back and going all the way under the water! She gets herself extremely tired after only 30 minutes, we can always count on a nice good nap on swim days.









Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A few pictures

Being home with the kids I realize I take A LOT more pictures than I have in the past. In an average month I probably take about 400 pictures, sometimes a little less sometimes a bunch more. :) Of course I think they are all worthy of making it into our blog but realistically it just can't happen. So here are a few from last week I thought I would share....

Here's Braden playing in his seat when we went to watch Alexa swim.

So I thought the -23 was bad, then this is what we woke up to the very next morning.
Thank goodness it's in the 30s this week, what a heat wave.
(Are you ready to come home yet Papa and Nana???)
This is Braden with his first bite of peaches.....I feel like I'm torturing him or something.
We have since moved onto squash which he loves, go figure.


Here is Alexa being her princess self, most days this is how she is walking around the house.

Alexa and Mommy

This is our little chef Alexa, she LOVES playing in her new kitchen she got from Santa.

Monday, January 19, 2009

We survived!

Saturday night Braden had his first night away from home. Matt and I went out with friends for my birthday and Gramma took both kids for the night. As I was packing up the kids things I realized that I haven't been away from Braden for more than about 3 hours! With me not working I haven't had to really be away from him except for a couple trips to the grocery store and taking Alexa swimming. I must say things went much better than the first time away from Alexa, I actually DID have a great time going out and spending time with my husband. I'm not saying I didn't think of them almost the whole time but I knew they were in good hands. Gramma did a wonderful job and didn't even laugh (too much) at me when I showed her Braden's page long "instructions" for the evening. Things went great and I can't wait to have another night out. We love you Gramma!! :)

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Global Warming?

For those of you that live in the Midwest, this is probably what you woke up to. For those of you who don't live way up here, consider yourself lucky. This was our outside temp this morning. This doesn't include the wind chill factor which made it feel like -41 degrees! This is CRAZY! Coldest temperatures in 5 years. I'll be the first one to admit I don't know much when it comes to stuff like this, but global warming? Really?


Music to my ears

happy birthday to you mommy
happy birthday to you mommy
happy birthday to you mommy YAAAAY

This is the song I got to wake up to this morning, sung by my adorable little Alexa. She was so excited to sing to me and give me my birthday card that she made a whole TWO days ago. It has been sitting on our counter since Tuesday night and the temptations to take a little peek have been crazy, I couldn't wait to see her masterpiece that she and daddy spent so much time making. They also spent lots of time in the kitchen last night making my cake. Below are a couple pictures of the event, and now that I think about it I really should have video taped it instead to capture the "real" thing. The two of them are funny when they get together and start making things. Overall it went pretty good, only a couple extra broken eggs and just a few little fingerprints in the finished project.



Adding the sprinkles (notice the pink around her face already.) :)
And here is my pretty PINK cake that Alexa picked out all by herself!
(It says "Happy B-day MOM" and that's a heart in the upper right hand corner)
And here is the card.....
She's so sweet, she even included Braden.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Hold him, Mommy

Alexa loves holding Braden, and it's so cute....she climbs up on the couch and says "I hold him, mommy!" So I hand him over and she holds him and kisses him and it just the sweetest thing ever. We always knew we wanted more than one baby, mostly because we thought it was important that they have someone to grow up with and play with and knowing that they will always have someone there. What I never thought about was how it would feel as a mommy to watch your kids interact and grow together. Since the day Braden was born Alexa has been nothing but wonderful to him, it was like she knew that this was the little guy she would grow up with and always have in her life. Even at such a young age I just watch them interact, her tickling him, kissing him, hugging him and him watching her, smiling and laughing. I find myself smiling all the time and I think I must say "awwww" way more than I think because now every time Alexa does something cute to him she looks at me and says "mommy, awwww." We know they will probably have their ups and downs like almost all siblings, but I pray that they will always have a deep connection and love for each other.



Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Already 5 months old?

Can it be possible that Braden is already 5 months old? He's getting so old....

Here's a look at what Braden is up to at 5 months:
-Rolling all over the place (making diaper changes and getting dressed very difficult!)
-Exploring the world of solid foods
-Loves sitting up and standing (with help of course)
-Smiling and laughing constantly
-Talks A LOT
-Loves to sit in his saucer chairs to play
-Sleeping well at night (12 hours, up once)
-Likes to take baths
-Has discovered his hands and gets so serious as he watches them move
-Loves listening to music and reading books
-Is finally taking a bottle with no complaints
-Is a happy, adorable little boy....seriously take a look....






Sunday, January 11, 2009

Weekend in review

I thought I would share some pictures of our eventful weekend. We tried to get out as much as possible since the highs this week is suppose to be below zero (YUCK!) so we probably won't be going too many places.

Alexa has all the sudden decided that she is going to be a little gymnast. She is obsessed with doing somersaults all over the house and she can actually do them very well! Here are a few pictures of her in action....



As you can see nothing can stop her or get in her way....

Not even me as I take her picture.

She's a natural and actually doing more somersaults as I type this. I looked into maybe getting her into gymnastics classes but the youngest age group I could find was 3 years old so we will have to wait until next fall after her birthday.


Here is Braden sitting in his swing watching Alexa, he is happy now that he is off the floor and out of the way.


Here's Braden waiting to eat. The first food we gave him was carrots and he loved them and since he did so well we decided to try a yummy fruit next, so we picked bananas. We haven't decided if he didn't really like them or was just surprised at the taste, but his reaction to them included way more facial expressions then the first time even after having them for a few days. So when we finished off the bananas we went on to peas and once again he loves them, not one weird face. We can only hope he stays so interested in his vegetables!

Just another picture of Braden being super cute.



Alexa started swimming lessons again this weekend after taking the summer and fall off. She LOVES the water, she kept telling me to let her go even though the water was almost up to MY neck. She is still in the Waterbabies class because you have to be 3 to move up to the next level (apparently 3 is a very important age and that's when you get to do all the fun stuff.) So we are still just working on kicking and blowing bubbles and she even wanted to go under the water, twice.


Alexa also goes to Lowe's every other weekend for a kids building workshop. Her and Daddy usually go but he and Braden were stuck at home with no power. So since we were already out for swimming lessons I got to take her for the first time and see how much fun she really has there. It is such a cute thing to do, they have several different things you can build and they get little hammers. I was so surprised and how good Alexa does, she can actually hammer in a nail! I would totally recommend anyone with young kids to check out your local Lowe's if you have one to see if they have this program there. Not only is it fun to just get out and do something but you get to keep what you make and Alexa is always SO proud of herself and shows EVERYONE what she did on the way out of the store. Below are a couple pictures of this weeks masterpiece....a time capsule.


Last but not least here is my wonderful husband working so hard on our closet that we finally finished this weekend. After spending hours in there and taking several unexpected trips back to Lowe's we now have completed the second closet in our room and have more than enough space for all of our clothes. It's so nice to be done with that project and have the huge mound of clothes off the middle of our bedroom floor! Thanks Matt! :)



Thursday, January 8, 2009

Just a couple pictures

Here are just a couple recent pictures to start off our new blog.