2.19.11 Spring Cleaning & Elizabeth!

I spent the bulk of this week getting ready for a much needed visit from one of my best friends, Elizabeth. She was coming to visit and of course meet Ash for the first time. In prep, we cleaned the whole house, and transitioned Jakob to a chair at the table. We realized we desperately need to work on his table manners. He does a lot better when we sit and eat with him. We really let this one go on for too long, so we have a lot of work to do.

I also cleaned up the backyard and moved Jakob's fort. He loves the new location, and keeping him entertained meant I could get yard work done. Win, win!

He also drew a boatload of snakes on the patio. They were all drawn the same, just different sizes and colors. He even informed me which one was the mommy snake and the baby snake.

I have been trying to help Ash along to learn to sit in the bumbo. She is so close, just can't last for long. I think she was feeling a little overworked in this picture. She is so adorable.

This week has definately been the best one with her yet. She is finally starting to get on a regular schedule. We are down to sleeping from 8ish-8ish, getting up twice to feed for about an hour, hour and a half. I switched to fomula, and it definately seems to agree with her more, and we are a happier family because of it. Even the smiles are coming more frequently.

This is a picture I have wanted to take for a long time, but I don't much care for the way it turned out. I do like that you can read her dress though. Well if you can't, it says "Mom Rocks."

On Saturday we tried to take Elizabeth and the kids to the zoo, but since it was the first nice weekend weather, they were packed worse than I have ever seen it! So we went to the Museum of Nature and Science and saw an animitronic dinosaurs exhibit. Jakob liked it, but was a little leary of them when they roared.

2.12.11 Photo crazy!

This week I took over 60 photos I loved and wanted to share, so if you like pics of the kiddos, you can check out more on FB. These are the pics I took just to blog about. This week I did some scrapbooking. Not as much as I wanted to, but I did get through the end of Jakob's first year (yeah!). Here are the two layouts I did.

From Jakob's 1st B-day party...
Random pictures from the 12th month...

This is our sucker fish. He is huge. I didn't even realize the shark was in this picture till later. See him? He's looking right at the camera.


After being cooped up all last week, I was ready to get out! Mom called and invited me shopping on Monday so I said of course! Here's the new shelf I got for Ash's room.


I had a lot of fun buying girly dresses for some special occassions...


And of course she is going to need a swimsuit for the summer and a matching hat!


Jakob getting Riley ready for the beach. (see the sunscreen? Jakob got that out...again, didn't realize it was in the picture till later but it sure cracks me up!)


Lazy morning. I love when Jakob lays on the couch opposit you. It was cute t see it from an outsiders perspective. I used the calm morning to do the kids photo shoot for their valentines. They both did a pretty good job, even though one needed to be bribed.


We went to Beni Han for my mom's birthday on Saturday, I think Jakob enjoyed it, but I think everyone did which is awesome. Here he is with Tio.
I know it wore him out because he did not make it all the way home. This rarely ever happens.

We were searching for another miracle this week when collicky baby reared her head. After a 15 hr stretch of her only napping for 20 minutes at a times, and crying the rest of the time, We put her in this chair and she pretty much slept the next day and a half! Since then we have switched her to formula and she seems to be doing better, in fact proving she was on a schedule after all, just a very inconveinent one. Things seem to be slowly righting themselves though, so I am opomistic. She smiles now, not as much as Jakob, but at least its not always a frown anymore. She occasionally coos. Its wierd like she was stunted by the surgery. She is huge physically, but behind developmentally. I can't believe she is almost two months already.
She has slept in our room in this miracle rocker/sleeper ever since. It's awesome to be sleeping in bed with your spouse again after so long on sleeping on shifts.

Here were the results from the kids photo shoots. These are the ones they put in their valentines this year.

2.5.11 The Not-so-funny Week of Funny

Plainly put, this week sucked. Due to ice and snow, we have all been stuck trapped in the house all week (except Jeff who still got to escape to work in the evenings). I think being cooped up made us all a little stir crazy. The result are some funny pictures of Jakob! I also had time to finally make the Taggie for Ashlyn...here it is!


Ashlyn turned six weeks old this week, and that meant it was time for her second "watch me grow" picture with Pinky, her bunny. She has definately grown over the last four weeks!

I had to go through her closet and pull out the next size clothes for her because it won't be much longer until she needs them. In the process I pulled out the pieces to all the baby things, like the jumperoo and walker. Jakob grabbed the top of the walker and immeadiately stepped into it and began cruising around the house. What a nerd!

This next one cracks me up, although truth be told, Ashlyn is not crying. I have no idea what she was doing, but with Jakob covering his ears, it makes it look like she was screaming!

The other productive thing I did was to finish journaling in two of Jakob's scrapbooks. We sat at the table and he painted while I journaled. It was fun having art time with him.

The best thing that happened all week though, was I bought a swaddle thing for Ashlyn. Jakob never liked being swaddled, so I didn't think about having one for her, but she flails about and carrys on so much, I thought it was worth a try. She loves it! And a happy baby makes for a happy mommy. She is so much more content now to sit in her chair or swing or just look around. I guess smacking yourself in the face uncontrollably is probably annoying. I think it is great because she looks like a little baby burrito.

Though her smiles are still few and far between, they are coming a little more frequently. I even managed to capture a few on film this week, this was the first one.

We have been trying to get her to sleep in her crib really hard this week, but without a lot of success. I thought the light was so sweet with her glowworm, that I had to take a more artistic shot.

The last of her steri-strips from her surgery finally fell off also, so I got a good look at the scar for the first time. It is really subtle and should fade away nicely. Finally that whole ordeal is just a memory.

One thing I used to love doing when Jakob was a baby was to pose him with stuffed animals and have photo shoots. Since she had on her froggie pajamas, I decided it was time to have the first of many to come with Ashlyn.

I asked Jakob to help me pick a bow for his sister, and he picked one for himself instead. He insisted on putting it on, and I took advantage fo the fact my camera was out and ready. Some "tough guy" eh?

He wants to do anything Ashlyn does, and so he decided this pacifier was Jakob's. He didn't suck on it, just held it in his mouth. He is such a total goofball, I love him to pieces!

And to end on a beautiful note, my yin and yang...so sweet.