Raising Makaylee and Kaiden

Candyland Birthday Party

2009-05-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

My baby is 3! Can you believe it? I cannot believe she is 3. Her party was Saturday, and Makaylee was sooooooooo excited. Maybe so excited is an understatement. She talked non stop about her candyland birthday party all week and kept begging to go to it. Of course it was the normal combo party with Bailey. Bailey is 4! So her are some pictures going backwards.

Here are the girls blowing out the candles:

Here is the candyland cake. Makaylee says she made it and Mommy helped. All the fondant work took me days to do, and it was my first tiered fondant covered cake, but I am happy with the results. Of course it was destroyed in seconds!

For the main activity we had a candyland board drawn on the sidewalk. The kids drew colored cards and played the game for real. As they passed each station they got candy building their goody bags as they go. Makaylee and Bailey were the only two who lost interest in the game and took off halfway through. But it was still fun!

Here is the sugar cookie trail on the candyland table set up.

Here is our candyland table. There was a ton of candy! The kids were thrilled, the parents, not so much. But they got distracted by the water balloons, bounce houses, and candyland game real quick.

Kaiden and the dog door

2009-04-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, kaiden is dog door trained, we are so proud. He goes missing out on the deck any chance he gets. The dogs are not happy we had to cut off their constant access to the backyard so Kaiden stays in the house.

Kaiden and the dog door

2009-04-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

I love rich chocolatey ovaltein!!

2009-02-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

After trying every milk combination possible. Hot and cold plain milk, chocolate, and strawberry (both hot and cold), soy milk, rice milk, smoothies made with milk and yogurt, we finally found something that Kaiden will drink. Ovaltein! Thank goodness Grandma was here and she drinks ovaltein and decided to give it a shot. I am happy to announce that I am done breastfeeding and Kaiden is on whole milk with ovaltein!

More ovaltein please!

Kaiden walking!

2009-02-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

I forgot to add the video of Kaiden walking:

Kaiden in Pictures!

2009-02-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

Kaidens first snowfall, here is Daddy with the kids back in December:
Here is Kaiden in the snow. This is the one picture of him smiling sitting in the snow because shortly after he decided he hated the cold!

Here is Kaiden in the wagon at zoo lights. He HATED it. He hated having to be bundled up in all the clothes and he hated the cold. He was not amused by the lights at all.

This is kind of out of order, but I love this pic of Kaiden climbing into the dishwasher at Nana's house:

Reminds me of Simba from the lion king roaring on pride rock :)

Here he is on his first plane ride:

He loved looking out he window:

Here is Kaiden on Christmas morning. he was not that impressed with the presents, but he loved the paper:

He does love his little glow sea horse.

Birthday boy:

Kaidens first birthday party

Sleeping after the party

Trying to climb up the slide

Playing on the deck:

And here is a little video of Kaiden playing on our slide out on the deck. He goes down the slide head first, something Makaylee still wont do. Heck, when we bought the play system makaylee wouldnt go down the big slide for at least two months!

I am alive

2009-02-16T17:54:00.001-08:00

I am working on some new posts, I promise.

The kids are healthy.

Makaylee is learning to read, yes I said read. She tells us she is a genius. And I am partial, but I think she is :)

She is also finally pooping in the potty. It is a fight every time, but she is starting to do it.

Kaiden is walking. Not a full time walker, but deffinetly on the way.

He is also starting to talk. I think now that he is mastering the physical development, he has started to move onto mental because all of a sudden he has several new words. Mama, Dada, All done, More, uh-oh, and weeeee (that one he picked up from Makaylee). Not bad for just turning one!

Puppy love

2008-12-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Climbing into the dishwasher

2008-12-12T17:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas carols

2008-12-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

Sharing a tooth brush

2008-12-10T09:26:00.000-08:00

Testing

2008-12-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

So I am just playing around with my new blackberry and wanted to show all my new tricks to keep you better updated. Pictures and post straight from my phone! Look at me go.

Trying to escape down stairs

2008-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2008-11-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

That's what little boys our made of. Well, our little boy is made of some kind of indestructible force. We call him tank. NOTHING stops him. He can climb over, crawl through, climb up or under anything he needs to. He is already trying to reach the door handles in the rooms. Yesterday he climbed up onto the coffee table. He can climb out the dog door onto the deck, open half the cupboards in the kitchen despite the child proof locks that stop Makaylee. Just tonight he was trying to climb onto Makaylee's cute little pink play kitchen. He opens the toilet if he has the opportunity and plays with the water. This has happened twice. Having a potty training toddler and a tank who wants nothing more than to play with the water in the toilet is very difficult! Two days ago he pulled a large can of pumpkin puree onto the top of his foot. I was panicked thinking he might have broken his foot, and picked up my phone to call Mike to come home ASAP and as soon as I grabbed the phone he started cooing at it and reaching for the phone. All thoughts of pain forgotten. Every night I find a new bruise or mark on him, and he rarely cries. I am finally starting to feel the pain so many of my friends go through who have boys! Kaiden (aka Tank) reminds me of a post my friend Andi wrote about her little mad man Falco. Check it out here. Kaiden is trying to destroy my home or my sanity. Which will survive??

On the other hand I am learning first hand how totally and completely different girls are vs. boys! I think I have the ideal candidates for a study on nature vs. nurture and development of the sexes. How can two kids who have the same parents, raised in the same home only 21 months apart be sooooooooo different. Boys vs. Girls. Makaylee is gentle, she is content to cuddle up on the couch and read books, or watch TV. If we tell her no, she usually listens, she is not a risk taker in the slightest, and she HATES messes. So, the complete opposite of Kaiden! I guess what they say about opposites attracting must be true. Because Makaylee looks and acts just like me and Kaiden looks and acts just like Mike. So, does this mean they will get along or not? Does the whole opposite attract thing work for siblings? Maybe they will level one another out! A parent can hope right??

Halloween

2008-11-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

Just quick pics for those interested. These are not the best pics, just the ones I took with my cell, I just wanted to share my little snow white and dopey. Makaylee made and excellent snow white. I have video of her trick or treating at the mall. She had a BLAST and loved it. These pics were taken at the Halloween party we went to the week before Halloween.

Is everyone impressed with my sewing skills on Dopey? That is right, I could not find a Dopey costume to purchase for kaiden, so I decided that I could make one by myself. I have to say, I was really happy with how it turned out. Mike kept telling me I should send it to his Mom for her to make it. But I was determined. So here is our little Dopey:

Don't forget to VOTE!!!!!

2008-11-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Vote Obama!

Iron Cupcake Earth Challenge

2008-10-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post a link to my baking blog so you guys can see my cupcake creation, check it out Cupcake Delights. Voting starts this weekend on Sunday, so I would LOVE for you guys to vote for me!

video's as promised :)

2008-10-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

Last year at the pumpkin patch it started raining and Makaylee and Bailey had a BLAST jumping in the mud puddles. Time for a flash back video:

So when we told Makaylee we were going to the pumpkin patch she kept talking about jumping in the puddles. We have a DVD of video's of Makaylee and she loves to watch it, so she has seen that same video several times. On Saturday she did not seem interested in jumping. But on Sunday she said she wanted to jump in the mud. Well in the past year Makaylee has developed a fear of being dirty. We call her our little ocd girl. Don't get me wrong, she has NO problem with toys being all over the place. But heaven forbid she gets dirt on her hands, or her face or hands are sticky. We have two dogs that shed and if she has dog hair on her feet she freaks out and sits down to brush it off. The only exception to this is Chocolate. If she is helping me bake she gets chocolate all over herself and she has NO problem with this. Back to the point. So this is what happened at the Pumpkin patch when she tried to jump in the mud:

And just to give fair share, here is Kaiden enjoying the hay:

The Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend. We went to the pumpkin patch. Makaylee LOVED the pumpking patch, so we ended up going both days. They had a pumpkin patch, corn maze, hay bales to play on, animals and a childrens activity barn. We got some wonderful pictures. Makaylee loved walking around looking at the pumpkins. The activity barn was a ton of fun! They had a bunch of pans and buckets to bang on which was okay fun. But Makaylee LOVED the rubber duck races. They set up some gutters upside down on a platform and had water pumps on one end to "race" the ducks to the other end by pumping. Of course Makaylee kind of enjoyed the pumping, but she loved watching the ducks fall off the edge into the bucket of water. Also playing with the ducks in the water. We walked over and saw some animals and overall had a great day. The next day we asked Makaylee what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to go to the pumpkin patch. So, we went ahead and went back. I have some video's to share of the pumpkin patch, but youtube is down right now, so I will do that another day. But here are some great pictures:

Look, everyone is looking at the camera and smiling!

Happy boy sitting on a pile of pumpkins
Makaylee and Daddy smiling. This is her new cheese smile when we tell her to look at the camera and smile. Not sincere, but still cute!
Both the kids. Please smile at the same time. Come on kids, please! Well, look at the camera at the same time okay??
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this pic of him.
Hey look, a giant spider!

Smiling with Daddy

Cheese ball fake smile

Look at the tounge ;) He kept trying to get down to crawl

Kaiden likes the hooters girls ;)

2008-10-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

We went out to lunch the other day with some friends. Their little boy who was 5 wanted to get his picture taken with the Hooters Girls, so that is where we went. Unfortunatly he was too shy to actually take the picture, but Kaiden was happy to step in. He gave us a big smile. Cute pic! I am sure he will appreciate this later in life:

Pictures!!!!!!!!!!

2008-10-04T11:07:00.001-07:00

So I am waaaaaaaaaay behind on updating everyone on the kids. So here is a post of pics. My adorable kids over and over again :)

Happy Girl

Happy Boy:

Look Mom: One hand!
Reading books with Dad
They each can play with their own side:
Building a "Kaylee House" with blocks
Sleeping

Bath time!

Loves his giraffe
Playing on the deck!
Cheese grin
Kisses from Honey

They both smiled together!

Kisses from sister
Still cuddles with the binkie
Look Mom, I can stand! No Hands!
THis tooth hurts mom!

Making a protein shake with Dada

Hi Mom!

Makaylee is an octopus
Makaylee and Falco at the aquarium in Seattle

My First wedding!

2008-09-16T21:54:00.000-07:00

I survived my first wedding! I was up until 2am pretty much all week last week, and till 4am on Friday. Then worked Saturday morning and successfully dropped off my cake bites at 3pm. The bride wasn't there. So I set them up and that was it. The table was getting flowers added to it and also to the top of the tier.

So here they are:

Last week was also a busy week because my baby learned how to crawl! I need to get a video on here. I took one, but the size is to large to upload. With his new found skills he is on the go and into everything. He steals poor Makaylee's toys, and tries to grab her snacks. He also went from 3 naps a day to 2. So they no longer nap together. So sad :( Kaiden naps in the morning, then Makaylee's turn to nap in the mid afternoon, then Kaiden in the later afternoon. No break for Mommy. Which is bad for the house and Mom, but good for the kids. Because now they each have their own special Mommy time.

We took the kids to the fair yesterday and Makaylee LOVED it! We were so surprised at how well she did. They both loved all the animals. Which is no surprise. Makaylee has always loved the animals. She even had a conversation with a Llama. Well the Llama was talking and Makaylee was copying the noises right back to him. She thought she was pretty cool. We then went to the rides, and knowing our little chicken we were not expecting much. She did wonderful! She loved the giant slide, went on the air balloons that go up and down, swings, canoe ride, boats, and the slide some more. Oh and the carousel. Makaylee use to be terrified of the carousel and she loved it. We bought tickets to see the doodlebops on Sunday at the fair, and I am sure we will be riding more rides. I promise to post pics soon.

Got Boxes???

2008-09-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Cause I do! I have about over 1000 of these boxes:
Here they are in the garage:
Yup, I better do something with this baking business cause I need to start getting rid of these boxes! Time to set up my Etsy website so I can ship. If you can believe it I got all of these boxes for free from someone on Craigslist. She has a flower/cake business and got a ton of these boxes and did not have room to store them all. So she was giving them away for free. Well, I could not pass up free!!!! They are so perfect for the cake bites! They are in the 1/2 lb size, and a full pound size. Almost all in red, and about 1 box of gold.

Halloween Costumes

2008-09-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I am trying to figure out what the kids are going to be for Halloween. We have narrowed it down to three choices I think and I would like opinions! So here are the options:

Makaylee loves Jojo's Circus, and she has a pet Lion named Goliath. So here is what they look like for those who have never heard of the show:

Here is the Jojo Costume
This would be the Lion Costume for Kaiden, they do make it in his size:
Makaylee also loves Ariel So here is a toddler Ariel Costume, though I don't know if we could get her to keep on a wig, Maybe spray her hair red for the night or something instead:

And of course flounder for Kaiden:
Last would be Cinderella and a mouse. I cannot find a brown mouse like the mice in Cinderella, but I think this white mouse is super cute:
And Cinderella for Makaylee even though she is not blong :)

I wish I could get her to watch Snow White because I think having her be Snow White and Kaiden Dopey would be to cute, but she is not a fan of Snow White. That, and I have never seen a baby Dopey costume for Kaiden. But maybe just a green toddler robe and purple hat and i am sure everyone would get the point that he is Dopey. Hmmmmmm. Maybe that as an option as well. She does have the hair for Snow White! I know I was Snow white several times when I was little because I had the hair for Snow White as well :) Please post a comment and let me know what you think!

My Cupcakes are Nation Wide

2008-08-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

This is so cool! I always follow up on this blog called Cupcake takes the Cake. They keep the public up on every thing going on with cupcakes around the nation. The authors were on the Martha Stewart Show talking about cupcakes and their blog. I joined their flickr pool, and uploaded some of my cupcakes and they posted them on the blog! Check it out here.

One night is not a pattern :(

2008-08-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

So, last night was not a repeat of the night before. Kaiden was up from 11-12 before I gave in and fed him at midnight. Then he was up again at 3:00am until around 4:30 when he finally fell asleep until 6:30. I pulled him into bed at that time and it was restless going from then on. Mike came upstairs around 8 and I slightly remembering asking him if Makaylee was up and he said no, so I pushed Kaiden to him and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes. People, I am not a naturally peppy soul. Despite the illusion created by being captain of the cheer squad my senior year, I do not function well without sleep. If you could see my house at this time you would understand that I needsleep. My daughter takes after me in that area. She loves her sleep. She almost always happily goes to sleep and proceeds to sleep 12 hours at night, and naps about two hours during the day. Although we have started skipping naps one or two days a week, she follows the rare non-nap days with usually 13 hours of sleep. So, my son seems to take after his father. Though I feel the need to point out that his father is the one getting sleep in the guest bedroom at this time. I have been told by Penny that both Dada and Auntie Sarah were terrible sleepers when they were young. The things we do for our kids :)

As most posts have been surrounding Kaidens sleepless nights I feel it is time to give an update on Makaylee. She is growing up. To quickly. She is a non stop talking machine. Her favorite phrases right now are "oh dear" and "oh my." No, I don't talk like that, neither does Mike so I have no idea why when she spilled the markers everywhere yesterday she said "Oh my!" Then sat down and said "oh dear, what will we do now??" She is doing great in the potty training arena. We wear panties during almost all waking time when we are at home and she is great at telling me when she needs to go. Although she has yet to poop in the potty yet, we are working on it. She is great at timing the bowel movements for nap time or after we put her to bed when she has a diaper on. Yesterday was the first time she pooped in her panties. Yuck. She has had three accidents since she figured out the whole potty training thing. Twice on Mike while the cuddle and watch TV in the AM. (HaHa!) And once when we were playing in the basement, and she was just to busy to notice. She has not pee'd out in public yet, but we will get there.

Makaylee has also started to like Disney movies. She is in love with Arial at the moment. Mostly because she was given a pair of Arial panties that she loves, and so the movie followed that. She also loves fish, so it was a natural love. We were out at the grocery store the other day and I reached for the teddy grahams and she said "No! Arial crackers!" Because there was a box of disney princess crackers right next to the teddy grahams. So, it has begun, she wants her princess food. I know that I am way overdue to upload pics and video, so I will work on that soon!

People, I got sleep!

2008-08-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

That is right, I got one night reprieve from my two week of exhausted existence. For over two weeks I have been having a sleeping war with Kaiden. We have done pick up/ put down and moved on to cry it out. Kaiden has been successfully putting himself to sleep, but he does not stay asleep. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8 every night and is up to eat at 11. I would feed him at 11 and we would fight from then until 4:30 or 5 because I refused to feed him. So during that time he decided he NEEDED his paci at all times. But Kaiden pretty much stinks at hand to mouth so far, so he was waking me up every 30 min to an hour to replace the binkie. That was not working. I tried to get rid of the paci, but he was screaming and then sucking on anything he could get near his mouth. So I gave him the paci and he passed out. So now I am going in after he is asleep and removing the pacifier.

So needless to say I have not slept for longer than 1-2 hours at a time for two weeks. My husband left me to sleep in the guest bedroom. Some night it is a quick get up, replace binkie and get back in bed. Some nights it is a never ending scream fest for up to two hours. I have been walking around in an exhausted coma for the past two weeks. Lets not forget that he was not sleeping longer than 3 hours at a time before that. It is a sad time when you can look back fondly at your sons days in the NICU because that is the last time in 7 months you have gotten a decent night sleep. Before the NICU stay I was pregnant, so I basically have not slept well since Makaylee's first birthday.

Anyway. last night I took half a unisom and went to bed at 10. Kaiden woke up at 11, and I gave him his paci, then he slept until 3:30! I fed him and put him back in his crib where he slept until 6:45. At that point I pulled him in bed with me and he slept on and off the boob until 8:30 when makaylee woke up. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, sleep. I will take it!

Parenthood

2008-08-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

If you are a parent you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are not a parent, then I would try and explain it, but you would not listen. I didn't listen. People try and explain what being a parent is like, but I think the reason so many people go ahead with parenthood is because they have this dream vision of what parenthood is going to be like. Don't get me wrong, being a Mom is the best thing that I have ever done and I love it. It is also the hardest, most humbling thing I have ever done. Everyday I am faced with a new chalenge and a new decision that makes me question decisions I have already made. Every day my kids drive me so crazy I think I am going to loose it. Every day they almost bring me to tears with the amount of neverending love I feel for them and they feel for me. The moment your children are born everything changes. The moment you start wearing that Mama or Dada title everything seems to be so much larger than you thought it was before.

I will tell you one thing, being a Mom makes you respect, love and appreciate your Mom that much more. I love you Mom, and I miss you :)

I am a hippie mom

2008-07-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would be. Really, I didn't. But it is official. I meet those hippie mom standards. I co-sleep, breastfeed, I wear my babies, and soon I will be cloth diapering. Yup, that about sums it up! Ok, so I never really wanted to co-sleep (see previous posts), and I am working on getting Kaiden out of our bed.

I always wanted to breastfeed, but I had supply issues with Makaylee and we started solids at 4 months, and I was hanging onto breastfeeding by a thread when she turned 6 months, and about a week later I was done. But here I am, Kaiden has breastfed for 6 months, and still going strong. Or should I say still refusing a bottle. He has started solids though. Rice cereal is love, grean beans, not so much...........at all.

I wear my babies. I wore Makaylee in a hotsling. She loved it, and I loved it. Kaiden is an even bigger "hold me" type of baby. Basically if you are not holding him, he is not happy. He enjoyed the hotsling as an infant, but not so much anymore. I have been using my snuggli, but after a couple hours my back is killing me. I have been lusting over an ergo baby carrier
http://www.ergobabycarrier.com/ It can carry a baby up to 45lbs on your front or back. When Mikes Mom was visiting we went to a baby boutique and they had them there and she got one for me! Thanks Penny, I love it! I put Makaylee on my back and Kaiden and carried them around for awhile and my back doesn't bother me at all. Kaiden really seems to like it. We are even working on nursing when he is in the front, and so far it works really well.

I plan on cloth diapering soon. I have been going back and forth for months. If you do not know my diaper frustration, then I must not complain enough. ;) Kaiden has managed to pee or poop out of every single diaper I have tried. Pampers, huggies, (different types of both), generic, etc. So after pushing from my sister, and research, I decided to jump into the world of cloth. I ordered a cheap cloth off of ebay and hated it. Kaiden pee'd once, and peed right out of the diaper. Then I found a little baby boutique around here that had different types of cloth diapers and I checked them out. When Penny came up here to visit I showed her the cloth diapers, and she decided that she could make them. One try that was way to bulky a visit to the baby boutique and the purchase of one thirstie diaper later she was in business. So Penny is making some cloth diapers for me. Then I saw someone on craigslist who has 7 large fuzzi bunz diapers for $70 and i am going to get those tomorrow.

So, there you go, I guess I can display this here:

2 steps foward 3 steps back

2008-07-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

So this is the crib update. Kaiden slept in the crib until.............you guessed it 3:30am. At which point after going to bed at 9pm I had fed him three times, and had to give him his paci two other times. But at 3:30 am he decided he was done and wanted out so he started crying. So into the bed he went so Mike could get some sleep. Today, all naps successfully done in the crib. I swaddled him, and put him in the crib and he went to sleep with minor comforting. YAY! on that front. At this moment (10:45pm) he is in our bed *blush*. I put him to sleep at 8:20, and Makaylee to bed at 9 (don't ask). At 9:10 Kaiden was up crying. Makaylee was still awake playing in her room, and I want some alone mommy time since Mike won't be home from the airport till after midnight. So rather than fighting him to sleep in the crib, I quickly lost, and put him in the bed so I could watch some adult television and fold laundry. I know, exciting times :) I do plan on moving him into the crib after feeding him before I go to bed though.

Night 1 in the crib

2008-07-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

When we had Makaylee I was very much against actual co-sleeping. Both Mike and I were terrified we would roll on her, or something bad would happen. So I got my arms reach co-sleeper. Lucky for us, Makaylee was a great sleeper, and she loved the co-sleeper. I rarely had to feed her, and she made a great transition from the swing and co-sleeper to the crib.

Kaiden, not so much. He hated to co-sleeper. He did sleep in it in the beginning on two wedges. The one that goes under the sheet, and a memory foam sleep positioner to keep him from rolling around. When he outgrew the memory foam wedge, he stopped sleeping in the co-sleeper so well. I got desperate for more than 2-3 hours of sleep a night, so I pulled out the happiest baby on the block book, and tried the swing as recommended. He started sleeping for 4 hours, followed by an additional 3 hours in the swing, and I was so happy with that. The problem is that if I tried to put him back in the swing he would wake up, and in the co-sleeper he would wake up. Kaiden is still pretty much a very restless sleeper from about 3 or 4am on. So one night out of exhaustion I fell asleep with him breastfeeding. After that it was all over. He started coming into our bed sooner and sleeping less and less in the swing. Somehow we made it back to not sleeping longer than 1-3 hour stretches again. Then Kaiden started fighting and screaming when it was time to sleep at all, so somehow I ended up laying with him on the bed until he fell asleep and sneaking out. Don't ask me how I accomplished this with Makaylee still running around, but I did. This new laying with him to go to sleep has been going on for a month, and I am sick of it. I am also tired of him waking up every 1-3 hours all night long. He is so restless that neither Mike nor I get very good sleep from around 3 or 4 on. Mike has been sleeping on the couch more and more, and I want my bed back! So I pulled out the handy dandy baby bible AKA Baby Whisperer and decided to try sleep training him with her pick up/put down method. It is not crying it out. I sit in with him and comfort him with my voice, or perhaps a song and if he completely freaks out, then I pick him up just long enough for him to stop crying and put him right back down. He successfully took three naps in the crib today. YAY! (Let me also mention that he is a 45 minute napper just like Makaylee use to be). I put him in the crib tonight. So everyone please keep your fingers crossed that we both survive the whole night through with him in the crib. We might not tonight because Mike has to get up at 4;30 am for a flight, so if he is screaming and keeping Mike up he will probably end up in our bed, but the goal is to have him sleep a whole night in the crib. Then from there I will need to start weaning out his nighttime feedings. Because at 6 months, he should be able to go longer than 3 hours without eating. Everyone wish us luck!

Scrapbooking pages of auntie Sarah

2008-07-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

So Mike's sister Sarah came to visit us for a week. I scrapbooked some pages of her visit. The journaling says:

Auntie Sarah came to visit us. Kaiden, at 6 months was not to impressed, but Makaylee is in love with Auntie Sarah. We all had a great time playing around the house. Makaylee showed Auntie Sarah how she can cook pancakes in her own kitchen, and how she loves to sing along to her Elmo CD's. We went to the park and fed the ducks, went to the freedom festival, watched the fireworks, visited the spray park, and went on several walks looking for the neighbors kitty. Makaylee also discovered a new activity of rolling penny's down the driveway. Auntie Sarah brought Makaylee a giant Elmo coloring book and markers, and Makaylee is still having a blast coloring in it. This was also a new experience for us because this is the first time someone came to visit and Makaylee realized they were gone when they left. She has asked for Auntie Sarah several times since she left. We are now looking foward to the next visit. Nana Hale comes next week!

Kids laughing

2008-06-22T11:59:00.001-07:00

The best sounds in the world

2008-06-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

When I had Makaylee I didn't think there would ever be a better sound than hearing her laugh. But I have found a better sound. Hearing Makaylee and Kaiden laugh together. I just have to share.

My video wouldn't load properly, so that is why you saw it above instead of here :)

Budding artist

2008-06-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

I LOVE this scrapbook kit. Please forgive me because I am new the the digital scrapbooking world I forgot to save the link of where I got it. I will look for it tomorrow and try and post the link. I know the journaling is hard to read, so it says:

"This is the first time you used your chalk paint you got for your second birthday. Dada and Mama were working on painting the deck, so we let you paint it as well. You had a blast and loved painting with the chalk paint. I don't know if you got more paint on your or on the deck, but either way it was beautiful! You are quite the budding artist!"

Sitting, Standing and Rolling....Oh My!!!

2008-06-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the title says it all! My baby is getting so big! I cannot believe it!!!!!! He has been rolling from belly to back for a couple weeks, and I just don't think I have posted that yet. I have been trying to get him to sit every couple of days, and yesterday he did it! I could not believe it! He can also stand unassited propped up on something for a couple of seconds. I have pics!

Here he is sitting, love the look:

Here he is standing. I know it isn't a great shot, but I have to be close so I can catch him if he starts falling :)

Just a happy boy out on the deck while we were painting

He can hold himself for a second or two on his hands and knees, but to get the pic I put a stuffed zebra under his belly to hold him so he didn' face plant.

This is like one of the best pics ever of my two kids smiling together!

Makaylee loves holding Kaiden now that she has figured out she can. Of course now he is getting almost to big for her to hold!

Another scrap book page

2008-06-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

This is just a quickie page that I did for Kaiden. I found this great site with beautiful free elements for scrapbooking and I really wanted to try a more traditional looking page on the computer. So I gave it a shot. Here is the blog http://vicki20.blogspot.com/ Thank you Vicki!

Here is the page:

Digital Scrapbooking

2008-06-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

I have discovered a new world :) Digital Scrapbooking. I love scrapbooking. But my scrapbooking room has always been our storage room since we moved in. If I want to bring the stuff upstairs it is such a pain, and soooooooooooo messy with paper. I have seen digital scrapbooking, and always wanted to give it a try. Mike got me the Adobe Photoshop suite, so I have started taking tutorial online, and downloading templates. This is my first page. Made using a step by step tutorial. I hope you like my attempt! You can click on the image to see it larger if you need to.

My Baking Adventures

2008-06-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

I am in love with this blog that I saw on the Martha Stewart show:

http://bakerella.blogspot.com/

She makes the CUTEST things ever. Initially what sparked my interest were the cupcake pops. I was dying to try them and to make them for Makaylee and Bailey's birthday party. I did make them, but sadly forgot to take pics before they were devoured at a BBQ we went to. But I decided that for the birthday party to just make cake balls. Makaylee wanted cupcakes at her party, and I was trying to figure out how to decorate the cupcakes to match the Abby Cadabby theme. Bakerella answered that quest just in time with a melted chocolate technique to make toppers for the cupcakes. I have been having so much fun trying all the new techniques, so I had to try the cupcake bites as well for a BBQ we went to over the weekend. Needless to say, they were a hit there. The best part about the cupcake bites and balls is that there are so many steps to them. Normally, this would be a bad thing, but Makaylee LOVES cooking and helping out in the kitchen, so I can really drag out her baking enjoyment with these yummy treats. Here are my pictures of some of the my attempts so far:

Cupcake bites:

Cake balls or cake pops

Cupcakes

Up for auction! TODAY ONLY!

2008-05-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

I have up for auction two beautiful children. Give yourself an instant family! (No returns, refunds or exchanges available)

The first is a young girl who just turned two (the terrible twos). She is a wonderful sleeper (with the exception of today where she woke up half way through her nap crying and refused to go back to sleep). Very opinionated (wants Elmo on TV all day long), vocal (screams when Elmo is refused), a great eater (if the item in question involves chocolate), comfortable with her appearance (refuses clothing at all cost), loves to explore (pull items off counter, shelves, etc and hide them around the house), loves to play (spread toys all over without hesitation), cuddly (wants to sit on the couch all day watching television or reading books cuddling without letting Mom up to get brother, or get anything done around the house), loves to cook (will not let you in the kitchen without being right there at all times "assisting") and sensitive (cries if your voice is raised in the slightest bit).

The second is a four month old bouncing baby boy! He is extremely active (does not sleep), ahead in his development (cutting teeth and refusing to eat), affectionate (will not be put down for more than 5 minutes), loves to change clothes (has several blow outs of poop a day), extremely vocal (screeches like an injured cat when he is unhappy), observant (refuses to be left alone in a room for a minute), loves water (produces enough saliva to drown an ant colony on a daily basis) and stunning blue eyes, a real attention grabber (has blocked tear ducts that require massaging and ointment several times a day along with producing a lovely snot like substance constantly).

You cannot pass up this opportunity! I am sure my happy children will return tomorrow!

Our little girl is 2!

2008-05-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it has been two years since Makaylee was born. On the other side of the fence, it seems like she has always been here. Her birthday party was yesterday, and it was a huge success. We had it at pump it up party http://www.pumpitupparty.com/ In case you want to check it out. When we first opened the door to the party room, Makaylee went running as fast as she could in the opposite direction screaming "NO!" But she warmed up real fast and had a blast! She did so great climbing on everything and going down the slides. The second bounce room she pretty much stayed in the bouncer that had basketball hoops and lots of balls to play with. Mike took Kaiden down a slide, though he was not to impressed. She even unwrapped some of her presents after Bailey showed her the ropes. Makaylee said "I excited!" when opening presents. She did try and blow out the candle, and did so with my help. We have been telling her for weeks that she was having an Abby Cadabby party with cupcakes, chocolate, and cake balls. So she was super excited when she got to have her cake ball and chocolate. After the party we went to Toys R Us to pick up the tricycle for her birthday. Mike tried to get it before the party, but the Toys R Us he went to didn't have it, so we stopped after the party. We got home and Mike opened the box and Makaylee was even more excited to see the bicycle than she was for anything all day. She kept climbing on it when Mike was putting it together, and tried to help him. We took her outside for her first ride on the trike and she LOVED it. Unfortunatly it started pouring, so we had to bring it in. She then spent the next half our or so sitting on the bike singing songs, and refusing to get off.

Mothers day and Makaylee's real birthday was today, and Mike let me sleep in. Although, sleeping in with Kaiden was only until 8:30 and Makaylee got up at 8, so it wasn't that great. Mike and Makaylee made me breakfast which was buckwheat pancakes and eggs. YUM. Makaylee is great at making pancakes. She even makes them in her play kitchen. Last night I was searching craigslist and found a swing set by little tikes that I have wanted to get Makaylee and have been watching craigslist for. They also had a playhouse. For $150 I got both and I am so excited. It needs to be cleaned, but the swing set is normally $450, and the house around $200. Mike is going to borrow a friends pressure washer and we are going to get it all cleaned up. For now both items will be set up on the deck out back because then Makaylee will be able to play with them even if it is raining. Once summer is here and the sunshine is more consistent then we will move it on to the grass. We also had to exchange Makaylee's trike. The front wheel (which came fully assembled) squeeked every time it turned, and Mike tried to fix it, but could not. So we took it back to Toys R Us. The bike we had was a pink princess Huffy trike with a parent push handle and canopy. We exchanged it for a primary color radio flyer trike with a similar push bar and canopy. We decided to go with the radio flyer instead of the Huffy because it just seemed like higher quality and we didn't want a repeat of the same problem.

Instead of posting all the pics on the blog, follow this link to see the pics:
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/SSmiley908/Makaylee%20Ann/

My messy house

2008-04-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has taken one step into my house knows that we have an overwhelming amount of toys. Toys that Makaylee has gotten, toys that Auntie Tabi has passed down from Bailey to Makaylee that are now hanging around for Kaiden to use, and the large baby toys, like swings, jumperoo's, etc.

Mike caught me taking pictures of the messy house. He cannot understand why I wanted to take pics of a messy house. I told him it was simple, some day it would not be messy. Someday I will walk in the door and I will not see a walker, because both my babies will be walking. There will be no play food spread from one end of the house to the other because the kids will be told to play pretend. One of these days elmo will not be everywhere you look in my house, and blocks will not over run the floor. Play doh will not be spread out on the table, jumperoo's won't be an eye soar in the living room, and an exercauser won't be in the middle of my kitchen. Some day my house will be neat and clean, boring and quiet. I love it now. I love turning on the radio and hearing the doodlebops or elmo singing at me. I love knowing every song that all the fisher price toys sing. I love making a fool out of myself trying to squeeze through toddler size tunnels, toddler size tents, dancing around to Elmo's world theme song, playing peek a boo in my walk in closet, or doing just about anything to see a smile or hear a laugh from my kids. It is a wonderful gift, and wonderful moments that I plan on enjoying.

My other problem is that Kaiden is not a very "self entertaining" baby. He likes to held, or have someone right in front of his face at all times when he is awake. Then, if he is sleeping, Makaylee wants her one on one time with Mama as well. She has been super cuddly lately. So her favorite thing to do is sit on the couch and read books or watch TV. She has not been very cuddly for the past couple of months, so Mike and I are eating up the cuddle time while she is offering it. Bailey also started coming over, and have an almost 3 year old and an almost 2 year old running around the house can destroy a clean room in 2.3 seconds flat!

So, are you ready for my house before we pick up when Bailey comes over? If you are a neat freak, do not read any further!

Makaylee's room:

Living room:

Basement:

He just cannot compare

2008-04-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

That's right. My poor little Kaiden just cannot compare to his sisters head of hair. I mean, we all remember Makaylee's head of hair. This was her at 2 weeks:

Poor Kaiden had a head of hair. Nothing compared to Makaylee's, but enough none the less. Unfortunatley he has developed a pretty bad case of cradle cap. (Think baby dandruff for those not familiar). Anyway, I have been rubbing, scrubbing, and brushing often to rid him of this condition. Because of this, he is loosing the hair on the top of his head. He looks like a little old mans colmb over. He is also getting a nice bald spot on the back of his head from tossing and turning all night long.

Which brings me to the next thing that he does not compare well too. His sisters sleep habits. For the past week and a half or so Kaiden has not slept longer than a two hour stretch. Which also means that I have not slept longer than 2 hours. Can you say EXHAUSTED?? Though that is not a huge step backwards because before then he was only doing one 3 or 4 hour stretch, and then up every 1-2 hours after that. The night before last I finally gave in and let him sleep in the swing. He slept for 4.5 hours! Then restless after that, but I will take it! Of course last night I put him in the swing and the batteries died, so he only slept 3.5 hours, and restless after that. I have tried him sleeping on the wedge in the co-sleeper, flat on the co-sleeper, swaddled, un-swaddled, with me, in the bouncy seat on vibrate, and so far the swing is the only thing that has helped. He does copy Makaylee's 45 minute naps though. Unless he is breastfeeding while napping, that is the longest nap we usually get. Makaylee still takes her 1.5-2 hour nap every day, but most days they do not overlap. Tired Mom! My house is also a mess, but what else is new ;)

But, on the other side of the fence. He is so strong! He is always trying to sit up from any laying position. He has some serious abs. He wants to know what is going on at all times, and is not content just laying around. That can be a good thing or a bad thing sometimes. He wants to be sitting or standing at all times so I hope he is quick to learn how to sit up so he can! He can pull off camo print way better than Makaylee:

Looks super cute in a ton of necklaces (thanks to Makaylee):
This does happen to boys when they have a big sister :)

Also has some super cute blue eyes:

All in all, even with no sleep, I think we will keep him aroun ;) I mean, who can resist that smile??

Mother's Jod Description

2008-03-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

POSITION:Mother, Mom, Mama, Mommy, Momma, Ma, Mummy

JOB DESCRIPTION:Long term, team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES:The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets, and stuck zippers! Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, and embarrassed the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION:Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION:Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS:While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play your cards right.

Permission

2008-03-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I would keep this around in the event that Mike ever lets Makaylee date. He keeps saying she cannot date until she is at least 25. I keep reminding him that I was dating him at 15, and had her at 25. That doesn't seem to bother him :)

APPLICATION FOR PERMISSION TO DATE MY DAUGHTER

NOTE: This application will be incomplete and rejected unless accompanied by a complete financial statement, job history, lineage, and current medical report from your doctor.
NAME_____________________________________DATE OF BIRTH_____________
HEIGHT___________ WEIGHT__________ IQ__________ GPA_____________
SOCIAL SECURITY #________________DRIVERS LICENSE #________________
BOY SCOUT RANK AND BADGES__________________________________________
HOME ADDRESS_______________________ CITY/STATE___________ ZIP______
Do you have parents? ___Yes ___No
Is one male and the other female? ___Yes ___No
If No, explain:___________________________________________________
Number of years they have been married ______________________________
If less than your age, explain:______________________________________________
ACCESSORIES SECTION:
A. Do you own or have access to a van? __Yes __No
B. A truck with oversized tires? __Yes __No
C. A waterbed? __Yes __No
D . A pickup with a mattress in the back? __Yes __No
E. A tattoo? __Yes __No
F. Do you have an earring, nose ring, pierced tongue, pierced cheek or a belly button ring?__Yes __No

(IF YOU ANSWERED 'YES' TO ANY OF THE ABOVE, DISCONTINUE APPLICATION AND LEAVE PREMISES IMMEDIATELY. I SUGGEST RUNNING.)

ESSAY SECTION:
In 50 words or less, what does 'LATE' mean to you?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In 50 words or less, what does 'DON'T TOUCH MY DAUGHTER' mean to you?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In 50 words or less, what does 'ABSTINENCE' mean to you?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES SECTION:
Church you attend ___________________________________________________
How often you attend ________________________________________________
When would be the best time to interview your:
father? _____________
mother? _____________
pastor? _____________

SHORT-ANSWER SECTION:
Answer by filling in the blank. Please answer freely, all answers are confidential.

A: If I were shot, the last place I would want to be shot would be:_______________________________________
I were beaten, the last bone I would want broken is my:______________________________________________________________
C: A woman's place is in the:_______________________________________
D: The one thing I hope this application does not ask me about is:______________________________________________________________
E. What do you want to do IF you grow up?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
F. When I meet a girl, the thing I always notice about her first is:______________________________________________________________
F. What is the current going rate of a hotel room? __________________

I SWEAR THAT ALL INFORMATION SUPPLIED ABOVE IS TRUE AND CORRECT TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH, DISMEMBERMENT, NATIVE AMERICAN ANT TORTURE, CRUCIFIXION, ELECTROCUTION, CHINESE WATER TORTURE, RED HOT POKERS, AND HILLARY CLINTON KISS TORTURE.
_________________________________________________________
Applicant's Signature (that means sign your name, moron!)
_______________________________ ________________________________
Mother's Signature Father's Signature
______________________________________________________________
Pastor/Priest/Rabbi State Representative/Congressman

Thank you for your interest, and it had better be genuine and non-sexual. Please allow four to six years for processing. You will be contacted in writing if you are approved. Please do not try to call or write (since you probably can't, and it would cause you injury). If your application is rejected, you will be notified by two gentleman wearing white ties carrying violin cases (you might want to watch your back).

To prepare yourself, start studying Daddy's Rules for Dating:

Daddy's Rules for Dating

Your dad's rules for your boyfriend (or for you if you're a guy) :

Rule One: If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two: You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three: I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four: I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a 'Barrier method' of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is: 'early.'

Rule Six: I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven: As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process than can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight: The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual themes are to be avoided; movies which feature chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks’ homes are better.

Rule Nine: Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dim-witted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten: Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit the car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

She is growing up so fast

2008-03-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

I already cannot believe it that my little baby girl is going to be two in less than two months, but does she have to continually rub my face in the fact that she is growing up to quickly right before my eyes??

Makaylee's vocabulary is exploding. Seriously, she will repeat anything you ask her to. She has started to use proper nouns, using me, you, and I all correctly. I have been trying to get her to count to 3, and all of a sudden she can count to 10! She knows all the sounds her letters make. If you ask her what an S says she will tell you ssssssssssssss. Yesterday while hunting Easter eggs Mike asked her where the eggs where and she held out her hands and said "I don't know!" Today was the killer though. I was bathing Makaylee and Kaiden and she was playing with the faucet and I told her no twice. When I said it forcefully after not listening the first time she turns to me and said "I sorry." It was to cute, and almost had me in tears. My baby just apologized to me for not listening. She builds with her mega blocks and can do it on her own, without our help now. She will tell me what she wants for each meal, and she is FINALLY eating real fruit as of yesterday. Not just freeze dried fruit. She ate fresh strawberries, raspberries, and is completely in love with fresh blueberries. Makaylee asks Mike how his day was (by saying "day?"), she will pick up the phone and tell me who she wants to call, Dada, Nana, or Grandma. If I say not right now, she will pretend to call them. She will come running and tell me when she needs a new diaper. This morning I actually found her trying to pull a diaper out of the box because she had pooped. She helps me pick up all the laundry and puts it in the basket. She will take things to the trash if I tell her, and helps bring me things when I ask. She is getting really good at putting Kaiden's paci in his mouth, even when he doesn't want it :) Kaiden has been wearing some of Makaylee's old gender neutral sleepers, and it just seems like so long ago, and at the same time, not that long ago that she was a tiny little helpless baby. Now she has an opinion about everything and is not afraid to share it. Go hug your babies, because they will be big before you know it!

E......L.......M........O

2008-03-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

As a cheerleader in high school I think I had to listen to YMCA WAY to many times. I was a cheerleader all four years, and YMCA got played at almost every sporting even that we cheered at. You do that math. So if I never had to listen to YMCA ever again, that would be ok with me. Well, when you have a daughter who is obsessed with Elmo, you collect different elmo dolls. One of the elmo dolls we got somewhere along the way is the one that sings YMCA using E L M O. All of a sudden that doll has made it to the top of our toy basket and Makaylee loves to dance with him. Over and over and over and over again. Did I mention over again? So I thought I would share a video of her dancing with elmo:

I know, it is super cute! Makaylee has also become a little chatter box. She talks non stop all day long. But she is using real word now, not just toddler speach. She has an opinion on everything, and she will let you know it. She knows the sounds that all of her letters make. (ex S says ssssssss). We can go through the whole alphabet. She can count to 3, and almost 5, she just skips four sometimes. So we are working on that. She comes to get me as soon as she hears Kaiden crying, even if we are sitting in the same room. She tells me "Crying, check baby." Makaylee still loves Kaiden and wants to give him kisses all the time. Kaiden is starting to smile back at her and coo at her, so they do make a cute pair.

Kaiden is getting so big so quickly! He is starting to move into his 3-6 month clothes, though 0-3 clothes still fit. He has the opposite problem of Makaylee. She needs pants with a larger waist and short. He needs the skinny waist and long pants. What opposites! I actually think his eyes are going to stay blue. So Makaylee looks just like me with Mike's eyes, and Kaiden looks just like Mike with my eyes. How strange :) Kaiden's sleeping is still hit and miss. His gas is getting much better though. I now breastfeed all day and night. Except he gets one 4oz bottle of lactose free milk at night. This seems to make everyone happy, so it is a good system for us.

I have started doing a one stop shop for baths here to. Kaiden sits in his bouncy seat in the bathroom while I take a shower. Makaylee gets in with me, and I just fill up the tub while I am showering. Then when I am done I put Kaiden in the bath with Makaylee in his bath sling. Makaylee loves taking a shower with me and bath with the baby. Of course, she just loves the water, so she would stay in the tub for hours if I let her. Kaiden likes it because the bathroom gets all steamy and warm while I shower, so he doesn't get cold. Here they are in the tub:

Real men wear pink right? Kaiden is already in the large size swaddlers. I have two pink ones that are in perfect condition from Makaylee. So he gets to sleep in pink. shhhhhhhhhhh, don't tell him when he is a teenager ;)

Just cause it is a cute picture, here is what I will leave you with:

4 Shots :(

2008-03-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

My poor little guys got 4 shots today! Poor thing. He did so good though. He cried for less than a minute. He is a chunky little thing at 12lbs 9oz! That means he is gaining two pounds a month. Chunky Monkey. Other than that he looks good and is growing well. He is starting to smile a lot more, though his favorite person to smile at is Makaylee. I hope they continue to love each other this much!

We went down to the park yesterday for my birthday. Mike came home early so we dedcided to go feed the ducks. Makaylee LOVED it. She was so upset when we had to leave. kaiden was unimpressed, but he slept through most of it.

Well, just a quick update on his Dr's appt!

Busy Sunday at our house!

2008-03-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

What an exciting day! I got our first picture of Kaiden smiling (shown below) and Makaylee used the potty twice! All in all a good day!

Here is Makaylee on the potty, thee book is needed to keep her there:

Kaiden smiling:
This was actually taken a week or so ago, but I love it and have been meaning to share:

You can see more pictures of Kaiden here:

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/SSmiley908/Kaiden/

More pictures of Makaylee, including some from here little gym graduation here:

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/SSmiley908/Makaylee%20Ann/

So far, so good!

2008-02-25T17:03:00.000-08:00

Kadien has been sleeping a 4 hour stretch, followed by a 3 hour stretch every night since we started the zantac. We even got the two kids to take a nap at the same time on Sunday. Almost two full hours of kid free time! What did we do? Nothing to begin with! Then we got up and cleaned the kitchen and dining room. Followed by making some gluten steak. Huh? Gluten steak, what is that? It is vegetarian steak. It is super good for you, and our first patch actually wasn't to bad, a little tough, but we can work on it. You use it in place of regular steak in recipes, or just eat it as is. I am trying some tonight in a stir fry, so I will let you know how it goes.

Makaylee has started to get a littl rough with Kaiden, so keep your eyes open at all times! She is not trying to hurt him, quite the opposite, she is trying to help. She likes to help burp him, and was doing great for awhile, except now she wants to burp him all the time, so if he is accessible, she just walks up and starts hitting him to burp him wherever is available. Feet, head, belly, it doesn't matter. We keep trying to explain this doesn't work, but she isn't quite getting it, or she is ignoring us, so we have to keep a close eye on her. She also likes to cover him with a blanket since Mom does this all the time. She just thinks he needs to be completely covered with the blanket, head including. So watch out Kaiden, you are getting hit, and your sister is trying to smother you under a blanket, but she has good intentions! She is also taking care of her baby, burping the doll, and feeding her, it is super cute. Though I wish Kaiden went to sleep like her baby doll does. She chucks her on the ground and says "night night" and walks away. Wouldn't that be nice?

We are working on Kaiden putting himself to sleep. For several reasons. It is such a luxory that Makaylee puts herself to sleep, but we use to rock her to sleep. Teaching her to put herself to sleep was very time consuming and difficult process. We hope to skip that. Also, Makaylee doesn't understand, leave mommy alone while I rock the baby to sleep. She already has to give up time with me while I am nursing him. Sometimes I can lay Kaiden in the co-sleeper and he goes to sleep with only a couple patting and shushing trips along with replacing the paci sometimes. Sometimes I put him in the swing and he falls asleep. So I let sleeping babies lie, and he takes a nap in the swing. At night he fights going to sleep a bit more, and it can take me anywhere from 20 min to an hour to get him to fall sleep in the co-sleeper.

We have started introducing the potty to Makaylee. We are reading potty books, and watching elmo potty time video, which she loves and is addicted to. We have a potty seat in the bathroom, and she usually sits on it about once a day. We are working on introducing the concept right now. I bought some pampers that have a "feel wet" liner, but she was not bothered by it at all. We have not had a successful potty trip yet, but I am in no rush at the moment. Although it would be nice to only have one in diapers, it is difficult to get her to the potty as often as I need to with Kaiden wanting to nurse. Maybe once we have all settled into a routine we can really start focusing on it.

That is about it for right now~

Who's baby is this?

2008-02-22T15:57:00.000-08:00

So we started the zantac yesterday. I would like to know who stole the screaming baby? No, seriously. Kaiden slept for.........are you ready for this? Four whole hours straight last night, followed by 2.5 hours. Holy cow! What life luxury is this? Then he took a two hour nap this morning, followed by a three hour nap. What a great day right? Of course the kids refuse to nap at the same time. I did have a slight overlap and rushed to take a shower all on my own. Without Makaylee sitting in the tub trying to steal my shower water. It was a nice luxury followed by Makaylee waking up. So, you would think it would be a good day right? Well, no. Makaylee has decided to take over her brothers roll of complaining, crying, and just plain crankiness today. I guess you win some, you loose some right? I am not confessing zantac as the miracle drug quite yet, because it could just be an off day for him, so I will keep you updated on the progress. But I have high hopes that this does continue and we can resume some resemblence of a scheduled life.

There is hope for sleep!

2008-02-21T16:00:00.001-08:00

Kaiden was diagnosed with silent reflux today. Basically it is acid reflux in infants except he is missing the main symptom which is throwing up. The reason he doesn't throw up is because he throws up, but swallows the puke before it comes out. This is worse than normal acid reflux because the acid burns on the way up and on the way down. Luckily, the DR perscribed baby Zantac. So we started that today, and I HOPE that this helps. Kaiden has not been a very happy baby when he is awake, and we thought it was gas, but I have cut out a bunch of things from my diet to try and reduce the gas, and that didn't work. I thought maybe he was sensitive to what I was eating because feeding times were becoming a battle to get him to eat. So I went to very bland food, and we were still having issues. This led us to the silent reflux diagnosis. It could take up to a week or so for the medication to make a difference. We are hoping for some better sleep, as right now Kaiden doesn't sleep for more than 2-3 hour stretches at night, and a 30-45 min stretch during the day if that. The Zantac unfortunatly does not stop the actual refluxing, but it reduces the acid in it so that it doesnt burn as much, if at all. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Profesional pics

2008-02-04T16:53:00.001-08:00

Oh My Goodness!!!!!!!! Let me tell you how much fun it is NOT to try and get pictures taken with two kids :) Which we already suspected. We made an appointment for 11:15 this morning at kiddie kandids. We *suprisingly* all got dressed and ready to go and made it there early of all things. You would think we would know something would go wrong right? Well Kaiden took his two pictures alone just fine. Then when I went to change his outfit Makaylee tripped and fell head first on the babies r us floor. Oops. Mike calmed her down while I changed Kaiden. Then when we took her over and tried to get her on the platform to take a picture she completely flipped out and screamed at the top of her lungs. So we took a break and Mike walked around the store with her. Bought her a sucker (hey, not above bribery). Then headed back to the portrait studio. COMPLETE FREAK OUT. So we left. No one wants to pay for pics of a screaming kid right? So Mike went off to work, and I took the kids home for nap time. Makaylee took a super long nap, then back to the studio, and ready for another freak out when we tried to get her to take the pic. We worked through it though, and the photogropher was very patient. So we did end up getting some great pics. Though trying to get Makaylee to hold Kaiden for a pose proved to be impossible, so we said we would settle for one of the two of them in the same pic. Thank goodness Kaiden slept through both photo shoots. What are we going to do when we want them both to smile for a picture? We will cross that bridge when we get there. Here are the pics:

2008-01-28T14:19:00.000-08:00

2008-01-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

Kaiden might come home tomorrow!

2008-01-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update. Kaiden's jaundice levels have dropped to an 8. So they took him off the lights and if his levels don't go up over the next 12 hours, then he *should* be able to come home tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!! We tried breastfeeding today, and he is a breastfeeding champ right from the start. We also took Makaylee down to see Kaiden today for the first time. She thinks he is really cool. She petted him, and gave him some kisses. She was completely okay with me holding him, but freaked out when we switched and Mike was holding Kaiden, and I was holding her. She is having some serious Daddy attachments right now. So all in all it was a GREAT day. I just hope tomorrow is even better because Kaiden is coming home!

Look what we did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-01-14T19:39:00.000-08:00

Mike and I got to hold Kaiden! So, update for those who have not heard one in awhile. Kaiden had a miracle weekend and worked his way off the ventilator, skipping the CPAP, and going straight to oxygen tubes by Sunday. He was ready for feeding on Sunday, but at the first feeding at 1:00 he was to tired and tried to sleep through the feeding, so they had to put in a feeding tube. We went back to try again at his next feeding time at 5:00 and I got to feed him, but he had to stay in bed. Mike took his Mom and sister to the airport and then rushed back for the 8:00 feeding, and the night nurse brought a rocker over and let Mike hold Kaiden while he took his bottle. So Mike drove me to the hospital for the 11:00 feeding because we knew the night nurse would let me hold Kaiden for the feeding. We both fed him a bottle, and rocked him for about 30 minutes, Mike at 8 and me at 11. It was soooooooooooo wonderful to finally be able to hold him! I don't think I can describe how amazing it was to finally be able to hold Kaiden after watching him lay in bed for 5 days. We got to hold him again today! YAY! Other good news? Kaiden is off oxygen completely and breathing completely on his own! Oxygen tube was removed this morning and he was moved to a crib rather than the NICU bed. He is still in the NICU, but might actually be transfered to the intermediate care nursery tonight or tomorrow. He is still jaundice, so we have to get those levels down. He is currently at an 11.5 and needs to be at a 6. He only dropped a point all weekend, so slow progress there. Everyone is thinking that now that he is eating it should start dropping a lot quicker. I should be able to try and breastfeed him tomorrow. So here are pics of Mike and I holding Kaiden:

Here is my favorite picture of Kaiden so far:

Pictures of Kaiden

2008-01-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

Our Bathroom remodel

2008-01-03T11:23:00.001-08:00

So we are in the middle of a bathroom remodel. I know, great timing with the c-section on Monday. But, this is something we have wanted to do since we moved into the house. I am happy to say that the project is moving along nicely thanks to Mike working all weekend and every night on it. But the shower is almost done! Originally we had just a tub in this bathroom, but the previous owners had hooked up a shower head from the tub spout. Needless to say the drywall all had to be replaced inside the surround. Also the tub was cast iron so that was close to 300 pounds that mike had to remove. The new tub is in, and Mike undertook the process of putting up tile for the shower surround. Keeping in mind that he has never done tile alone before, this was quite the project, and it is done! It looks awsome. The only thing left to do is seal the grout and put the spout and shower head in. So, here are some pictures for those interested. Makaylee is so excited about the tub. She has been using a small inflatable tub on the bottom of our stand up shower, and she hates it. So she cannot wait to use the new tub. Tonight, Mike starts laying the tile on the bathroom floor! Our goal is to have the tub ready for use, and the toilet in by the time Kaiden comes. We shall see. The cabinets, sink and counter top may have to wait till after Kaiden arrives.

Belly Dancing!

2008-01-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

Kaiden is a mover and a shaker now. His back is on the outside of my belly, so when he starts moving my whole belly goes with him. I caught this video one night, and it is great! So I wanted to share with everyone:

Kaiden's Coming home outfit!

2007-12-29T14:47:00.000-08:00

I have found it!!!!!!!!! After much searching I have finally found Kaiden's coming home from the hospital outfit. I am so excited. For those who don't know, or remeber. Makaylee's coming home outfit was a purple outfit that said "Daddy's little princess." (I was going to load a pic, but it is on a different computer) So I thought it would be cute for Kaiden's coming home outfit to say "Mommy's little Prince" Well, apparantly that is a lot easier said then done! I have been searching for a couple months now, and have not found one at all. Even online. So I gave up on that idea and had a back up outfit already picked out. I went to babies r us yesterday to get the remainder of the things we needed for Kaiden and I found it! It is new to the store, and I am so excited. Here is a picture of his outfit. I also have the matching bib:

Christmas is over!

2007-12-29T13:35:00.001-08:00

Christmas was a success!!!!!!! We could not ask for a better reaction from Makaylee. She walked out into the living room and just stopped and gasped at everything. It took her a bit to come in then she started running from one thing to the next. The kitchen, fish, elmo couch, and easel. She didn't touch anything right away, and then she started playing. She LOVED everything. Well, everything except opening presents, and the rocking horse. We tried to get her to open the presents, but she just kept telling us no. So she watched us open the presents and played with the toys once they were out of the package. Makaylee also got a rocking horse that moves its head and tail and neighs from her Nana. She will not go anywhere near it and keeps saying "Bye Horseee" wheneve she see's it. We had to remove it from the living room.

Here are some pictures:

Her presents set up:

Here she is when she first entered the living room:
Looking at her gold fish. We got a real fish tank (10 gallons) that is now set up on her dresser in her room. This was just for Christmas morning. We named the gold fish Dorothy for the gold fish on Elmo's world and Hush for the gold fish on the goodnight show. Ever night we have to say goodnight to the fish now, and she says hi to the fish everymorning.
Exploring the kitchen:
So excited about the play food, which she LOVES

So that was our Christmas morning. Makaylee loved it. She was in a good mood all morning, then cranky the rest of the day. But she has been having a ton of fun playing with all the new toys. I am constantly picking up play food and kitchen accessories from all over the house, but she loves it! She makes a GREAT cup of tea and even spoon feeds it to you ;)

Santa is EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-12-24T13:50:00.001-08:00

Yes, that is correct. The jolly happy man with a bowl full of jelly is EVIL! Just ask Makaylee. So we knew it was not going to go well when we got in line (only two people ahead of us) and Makaylee saw santa and started freaking out. Mike picked her up out of the stroller and we gently tried to show her Santa. I asked if she wanted to go see Santa and she calmly replied "No." She was okay at that point, until she realized we were not moving away from Santa and were in fact moving closer to Santa. By the time it was her turn to sit on Santa's lap she was gripping onto Mike's shoulder for dear life crying and saying no over and over again. We even tried to let her hold Elmo while she was sitting on Santa's lap but Elmo got thrown at Dad in her haste to grip on Dad's shoulders once more. Mike quickly put her in Santa's lap so that the picture could be taken, and she could be picked back up. This was the lovely shot we got:

After which Mike picked Makaylee up while I placed our order for the picture. But the screaming did not stop there! In fact, the screaming did not stop for a good 15 minutes after Santa was seen. Mike walked her down through the mall away from Santa and his "North Pole" set up until she could not see it. When I caught up with them they were down a deserted Mall corridor and she was still screaming. She finally calmed down when we got her out of the Christmas dress so she could walk around with no memory of Santa near her. Hopefully next year will go better!

Halloween!

2007-11-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well, Halloween was not super successful :) We went to the mall. But Makaylee was a little freaked out by all the people. She was also very popular in her punk rocker costume, so she didn't like all the strangers pointing at her and trying to say hi. She did okay trick or treating. We have been working on her saying trick or treat all month, and she actually did say it to everyone who gave her candy. More like "tic teet." Then her boots started hurthing her feet, so when we tried to get her to walk she would sit down. After a little bit she told us she was all done and wanted to go night night. So we left. She was not very cooperative for pictures either, but I will share what we got:

Some Halloween pics

2007-10-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is not the final costume, we are going to try for makeup tonight for trick or treating, but this is what she looked like at Dad's office today:

New Pictures :)

2007-10-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, rather than post the pics here, I loaded a bunch to my photo bucket account. Here is the link:

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y24/SSmiley908/Makaylee%20Ann/

There are pics of Makaylee at the fair, circus, coloring, and her photo shoots. She likes to hand me the camera and take pics of her, then she likes to see all the pics I took. So there are some samples of that. Enjoy!!!!

My daughter the genius :)

2007-09-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

So, I know every parent thinks their kid is the smartest kid. But seriously. Makaylee has been suprising even Mike and I. In the past month she has learned how to say and identify shapes. At 16 months old my daughter can say and point out circle, oval, diamond, triangle, star, rectangle, and we are working on square. She has also become a dangerous little parrot. If we say something, she will repeat it. I tell her she is crazy, and she repeats it right to me. So we have to really watch our language slip ups. She also said her first sentence last week, which lets Mike and I know what kind of child we will be dealing with. Her first sentence was "No Mama, no, no, no, no!" I asked her if she wanted to get dressed and that is what she replied to me. When your childs first sentence is to tell you no, you know you are in for a good battle of wills!

The fair was going on the past two weeks, and we bought season passes at Costco so that we could take Makaylee on the rides and see all the animals. You are supposed to be two to ride the rides, but Makaylee is a bigger girl, so we got her on the rides. She was not to impressed with them. She LOVED the fun house. Mike took her on the giant slide, and I took her on the swings. She enjoyed both of those, but not to impressed with either of them. I took her on the carosel, hoping that she was over the fear she developed of it a couple months back, but no such luck. She freaked out on the carosel, crying most the time on it. When we got off the ride she dived from me to Mike who was safely outside the carosel gates. She really enjoyed watching it go around though, but stayed far enough away that she was not in danger of having to ride it again. As unsuccessful as the rides were, the animals were the complete opposite. Makaylee was totally in love with the animals. We have been working on animal sounds for quite some time, and she is really good with them, but actually seeing some of the farm animals was quite different. We go to the zoo, but at the fair the animals are really close, instead of far away in a cage. She LOVED the cows, they were her favorite. Though she refuses to say cow, and instead Moo's when she wanted to go see them. I think we walked around the barns at least 5+ times and she was highly empressed each time.

Makaylee has also discovered art in the past week. She has been coloring with crayons for awhile now, but never to impressed with it. With her obsession with shapes I got the idea to cut out shapes and let her glue them on a piece of paper. She LOVED it. We did shapes, and I let her play with stickers, and crayons. She is having so much fun. She keeps going to the table and telling me she wants to color. Yesterday we tried play doh, and she was having fun with the feel of it. Of course she did keep trying to eat it. She got a little piece in her mouth, they are quick! My picky eater actually enjoyed the taste of the play doh, so she kept trying to eat more, so we had to pack up the play doh for the day. Back to the crayons and stickers.

I have been having sentimental times going through Makaylee's first year of baby clothes. Now that we know we are having a boy I can stop storing Makaylee's clothes. They are so tiny! It is amazing how much she has changed in the past 16 months. I am planning on selling the clothes on ebay, only keeping a select few.

Kaiden is doing well. I have finally gained my first 3lbs, *sniff*. He is breach at the moment, so must of his kicks are on the bottom of my belly and right into the bladder. But that makes it difficult for Mike to feel on the outside as most of them are to low. I would be worried that he is breach, except for the fact that I am having a c-sec so it is not a big deal, plus he still has plenty of time to turn around. The biggest problem of him being breach is his head is pushing and causing my heartburn to be HORRIBLE this time. With Makaylee, if I took my Zantac medication then my heartburn was mostly under control. Last night I had taken my medication and taken 4 tums and the hearburn was still horrible. My next appointment is on Oct 4 and it is my Diabetes test, which I am not looking foward to. Last time I was so sick feeling all day. Plus I hate giving blood!

I guess that is it for now. Nap time is almost over. I will try and post pics tomorrow!

Our Busy labor day weekend!

2007-09-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I was suppose to go out of town for a girls weekend over labor day, but I chose not to go after Makaylee's hospital stay. I just couldn't bear to leave her yet! But we had a great weekend. On Saturday we went to the park and had a nice picnic. Makaylee had a ton of fun picking the "flowers" (aka weeds) out of the grass to smell them. She did put them right back when she was done smelling them. She also had fun playing with the dirt under the trees.

Sunday we went up to south center so Mike could pick up something for his new mountain bike at REI. We went to the mall, and just had another family day. We took Makaylee to the spray park that evening and she had so much fun. What a difference from the last time we took her. Every other time she wanted to hold our hand and needed help walking around. She has finally developed enough confidence to walk around on her own.

She had so much fun!

I took some belly pics yesterday :) So, here I am at 21 weeks at 1 day. The stretch marks are not new, just a gift from Makaylee :)

We also got our stroller!!! I have had my eye on the Peg Perego Duette since we found out we are pregnant. However it is $800! So, I have been keeping my eye on craigs list. We found one! It is the previous model, but still has all the features I wanted. My favorite being that I can flip the seats around in any pattern. So the kids can face each other, face out, face foward, face me, or back to back. I LOVE it. It has great shocks, and great storage. We are going to try it for the first time with Bailey at the puyallup fair sometime this weekend or next week when we go with Tabi and Spencer. So here are some picks:

Makaylee's hospital stay

2007-09-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Makaylee had her first hospital stay. :( For those who haven't heard it, here is the story:

Makaylee had been teething and cranky all week. We put her to bed Saturday night and she was perfectly fine. She was totally normal all day long. At 12:30 she woke up screaming. I ran into the room and she had thrown up all over herself. I started stripping her and took her into the bathroom and Mike came running. She felt really hot so we took her temperature and it was at 106.0 We freaked. Mike called the DR while I cleaned her up with a wash cloth. The nurse took our info and said she had to contact the DR to call us back. After getting Makaylee cleaned up and running a cool wash cloth over her we got her fever down to 104.4. So we decided to leave and go to the hospital.

We got triaged really quickly and they took her temp at 103.6 and gave her a rectal tylenol. Then we waited almost an hour to get back to see the doctor with her screaming and miserable pretty much the whole time. The DR saw us and said she had an infection with a fever that high so we just had to find out where. They had to do a catheter to get a urine sample, draw blood, put in an IV, get chest x-rays. It was HORRIBLE. We had to have 2-3 people to hold her down for almost everything and she just screamed the whole time. The test results started coming back and she has a urinary tract infection. We started to relax until the DR said in infants her age it required IV medication and they had to find the cause so we were looking at a 1 to 2 day hospital stay. Thank goodness the UTI is the only infection she had and they immediatly started her on Antibiotics and fluid through the IV. By sunday evening her fever was down to between 100-101. The DR contemplated sending us home that night, but decided against it. She had to get an ultrasound done on her kidneys and bladder. The 3 possible causes of a UTI in a child her age are a kidney deformality, a kink in one of the tubes connecting the kidney and the bladder, or bacteria from a BM got into her urethra. We had the ultrasound on Monday, but not until 6:00 at night, so we didn't get home until later Monday evening. Makaylee's fever is gone, and we were sent home with antibiotics. She is feeling much better.

We had a follow up with our pediatritian on Thursday. She said she wants to have a test run on Makaylee to check to see if she has Kidney reflux. She likes to do it on every child that has a UTI under the age of 3. If she does have kidney reflux and it is not treated then her kidney's could fail. So here is a link to a website for kidney reflux info:
http://www.drgreene.com/21_626.html

Here is a link for the test that she has to have done:
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=voidcysto&bhcp=1

Our pediatrician said that the test is not pleasant and we have to get it done at the childrens hospital in Seattle. She also has to have it done with her daughter next month because she just got over a UTI. Her daughter is 6 months younger than Makaylee. So we have some time before the test, but I am not looking foward to it.

Kaidens room theme

2007-08-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

Kaidens room will be the old guest bedroom. Which we already have painted a light cappacino color with green carpet. So we tried to find a theme that would go with these colors. We could repaint without a problem, but changing the carpet is another story. Here are some pictures of the room right after we got the carpet in:

So here is the nusery set we are thinking about going with:

We have decided to not purchase a new crib for Kaiden. Instead Makaylee will be getting a new bedroom set, and Kaiden will be using her crib, changing table and dresser. We figured this would be better rather than having two cribs. Plus her stuff is like brand new anyway. So, that is the plan at the moment!

Baby is a boy! Say hello to Kaiden William.....

2007-08-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

FaceFace
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Profile.....Is it possible for him to have my big lips already?
Face and belly
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It's a BOY! There is a tiny arrow pointing to his boy parts!
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The ultrasound went great! The tech actually remembered us from Makaylee. Kaiden was SUPER active to the point where she had trouble getting all her measurments, but she got them eventually. We were in there for about 25 minutes. He was flipping and turning every time she tried to measure something. The first couple of times she tried to get the gender shot Kaiden had his legs crossed, and Mike was getting really nervous that we wouldn't be able to tell. Then she was checking out his belly and he spread his legs and she froze it cause his little boy parts were right there. I thought Mike was going faint when she said "there is his Penis!" She knew he wanted a boy. So it was really cool. The tech said that it was a perfect ultrasound because he was in a wonderful position right on top. Which would explain why he has been so super active. We could really tell everything we were looking at and got some great pictures. Mike also got to feel him kick for the first time last night. So everything looks good and now we will have one princess and one prince! The tech gave us a ton of pictures. I wish we could share the video, but it is on VHS and I don't have the right tools to get it onto the computer. I wish they would get a DVD recorder, but this was our last ultrasound with them, so I guess it is not a big deal. We do plan on getting a 3D ultrasound in California like we did with Makaylee so our family can experience it with us. Hope you guys enjoyed the pics!

Our House is painted!!!!!!!

2007-08-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

We painted our house! Here is our before:

Here is the after:

The body is green, but we added a red accent seen below. Our deck out back is going to be painted the same color. We will be painting the deck in the next month or so, so I will post pictures when the deck is done. Hope you like it!!!!

2007-07-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

Makaylee is walking! Sorry for not sharing these sooner, but here are her video's. She is really getting good at it now. I think she forgets that she can walk sometimes because she will start crawling somewhere but if we tell her to "Stand up and Walk" she will stand right up and walk to where she wants to go. She does not like to go on uneven surfaces. So like between the hardwoods and the carpet she will get down and crawl past. Or if she steps on anything in her path she gets down and starts to crawl. But she is doing really well, and I am sure she will be a full time walker before we know it!

Makaylee at the beach!

2007-06-29T15:54:00.001-07:00

We went to the beach over the weekend and had a ton of fun. Makaylee LOVED the beach. I only wish it had been warmer because the weather never got above 65. She she didn't really get to get into the water to much. She loved walking around in the sand, and bending down to pick it up.

As you can see from the pictures she has FINALLY started making progress on the walking front. She is standing on her own now and taking steps! YAY! I think 5 is the total now, but she is starting to walk more on her own free will as appose to us behind her trying to coax her into it. So I am sure we will have a walker any time now.

Makaylee has really started to catch on a lot to the baby sign language. It is so wonderful being able to communicate with her. She tells us what she wants when she wants it. It makes life a lot less frustrating for everyone in the house. Well, enjoy the pictures!

Ultrasound Photos!

2007-06-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

We had our appointment last week and everything looked great. My official due date is January 13, but my estimated c-section date is January 7. So looks like my dates were really close. Baby was very mellow and slept through the whole affair. (S)He had their hand covering their face the whole time. So that is a hand right above the head. My next appointment is July 16!

Makaylee Update!

2007-06-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Our little toddler is still not toddling :) I think she is not walking just to drive us crazy! She is getting braver and starting to stand on her own a little more, but only for a few seconds. She is crawling at the speed of light though and can go from zero to in trouble in 2.6 flat :) Her favorite thing to crawl to is away from us and off the side of the bed. We have made several dive attempts to prevent her from going head first off the bed. She thinks it is the best gave ever!

Makaylee is getting really independent in her play. Basically if you are in the same room, she is good. She will play on her own and do her thing. But she doesn't like it when you leave the room. Luckily she can follow us by crawling. Our biggest problem with the crawling is Zoe is loosing her winter coat and there is white dog hair all over the floor. I vacuum almost every day and the floor is still covered in dog hair. Which means Makaylee's knees, and hands are covered in dog hair as well.

We got a swing and sand box for Makaylee out on our deck now. She LOVES both of them. She starts giggling as you walk out to the swing getting so excited to go on them. The sand box is only for bath nights because she is a pro at getting sand everywhere.

Well, that is about it for now. Hopefully we will be updating on the walking soon!

Pregnancy update

2007-06-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

Well, there is really not much to update about yet. My first appointment still isn't for another 2 weeks. June 18, the day after fathers day. I am still exhausted and napping every afternoon with Makaylee. Then going to bed usually by 9, sometimes I can make it till 10. My morning sickness is coming and going throughout the day. I got a pill called morning sickness magic and it is really helping. The only problem is the cravings have started. If I am not craving something then I have to choke it down and it will usually upset my stomach. Last night I made dinner and everything tasted funny so I ended up not eating. Dinner was a basic marinated chicken, garlic bread, broccoli and potatoes with cheese. Everything was gross. LOL. Though Mike said that dinner tasted great to him! My belly is already starting to pop out a little bit, but truth be told it was still popping out from Makaylee :) So that is our update. Just waiting till our first appointment. We will have an ultrasound, so we will have pictures of baby then.

Pictures of Makaylee

2007-06-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures of Makaylee today and just love them, so I wanted to share:

For those who I have not spoken with..........

2007-05-26T21:32:00.001-07:00

So, if I haven't spoken with you, or the growth ticker at the top of the page didn't give it away. We are expecting baby #2! SUPRISE!!!!!!!!!! We are due in mid January. I am saying January 15th right now, but will have an official due date when I go to the DR on June 18th. Sorry for such a quick update, but pregnancy symptoms are in full force with exhastion and all day sickness at the top of the list. I will keep everyone updated!

****** The ticker is blue in hopes of a boy, but we will be happy blue or pink as long as the baby is healthy.

Makaylee's first birthday professional pics

2007-05-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

I HATE teething!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-04-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

My poor baby is having such a rough time right now. She is teething. She is getting 4 teeth on top and 2 on the bottom. Two teeth have actually cut through, but the rest are just making the gums swollen and her miserable. She was up every two hours all night long just crying and she has a fever. I know the fever is from the teething because she has nothing else wrong. She just sounds like she is in so much pain when she cries. I hope the teeth pop through soon. I am almost glad that she is working on 6 teeth at once just so we can get it over with, but it seems like these teeth are taking forever to come in. This weekend is the spring fair, and the daffodil parade was today. We were so excited to take Makaylee to the parade and she was just miserable so we left after about 15 minutes so she can come home and nap. I hope she is feeling better either when she wakes up or tomorrow so we can get some good fair time in. We took her Thursday night, opening day, and nothing was open. So it was a bust. Luckily Mike's company has a booth at the fair so we get in for free.

Makaylee did succesfully stay with a new baby sitter last night. Yeay Makaylee! It was a friends niece. She drove over here and got here about 45 minutes before I had to leave. I let them play together in the living room while I finished getting ready to make sure she wouldn't freak out. Though everytime she saw me she would start crawling to me. I did have to turn on a baby einstein DVD when I left, but Melissa said she did okay after that. She did have a couple minor freak outs, but eventually went to sleep. Melissa also said she would be willing to babysit again. It will be nice to have someone come over here because usually we take her to Tabi's which is 20 minutes from here and then we have to transfer a sleeping baby home.

I left last night for Mike's quartly banquet for A plus Mortage. His office was the number one producing office! YAY Mike! He got to speak any everything. He did great in his speach and I am very proud of him. He was also the 2nd ranked net broker for personal loans in the company. Another Yay Mike!

TMWA_04-02-2007_0090_1

2007-04-11T23:00:00.001-07:00

TMWA_04-02-2007_0090_1, originally uploaded by ssmiley908.

Makaylee and the easter bunny. She LOVED the easter bunny

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2007-04-11T22:59:00.001-07:00

012, originally uploaded by ssmiley908.

THis is her new thing with all empty cartons, bowls or anyting on the tray. She sticks it on her face just to make a bigger mess. But she has so much fun doing it!

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2007-04-11T22:58:00.003-07:00

030, originally uploaded by ssmiley908.

Makaylee LOVES the swing at the park. She is not amused with the slides at all, but this girl can swing for hours

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2007-04-11T22:58:00.001-07:00

035, originally uploaded by ssmiley908.

Ooops, Makaylee was so busy playing in her crib, she forgot to lay down before going to sleep :)

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2007-04-11T22:54:00.001-07:00

079, originally uploaded by ssmiley908.

Here is Makaylee's favorite new hide out, under the jumperoo. There is also a heater vent under there which makes a great drum!

Flickr

2007-04-11T22:52:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Hi Everyone!

2007-04-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

I am so sorry I have been such a terrible blogger. I am going to try better, I swear. Just a quick update for today

Makaylee is fianally mobile. On her 10 month birthday she learned what we affectionatly called the peg leg crawl, Here is a videa why:

I am happy to say she is now a normal crawler.

Makaylee can wave, give kisses, dance (super cute, I will have to post a video), sometimes blow a kiss if the mood strikes her. She claps, does so big, she says dog, dada, and mama, and means all three. Sometimes she says hi and yay though we are not sure if this is on purpose or not. Her dog is also without the "g" sound. Mike has been trying to get her to do the "g" by sayind doooooooog to her so now she says dooooooooo when she copies him. Long o still no g. Again, super cute.

Makaylee has been working on getting her top 4 center teeth which makes for a miserable Makaylee lately, but she is getting better and I do have hopes those teeth will break through soon.

Makaylee is now officially a "wanderer" in our Little Gym class. This is what the kids who do not stay with their parents are called. Now that Makaylee can crawl as soon as we enter or class she leaves me to do her thing and doesn't look back. Though we made several errors today as she does not always watch where she is crawling to when she gets so excited. She just puts her head down and goes. So today we ran into a wall and balance beam. Also a mat, but that didn't hurt. I added some pictures to flickr and will try to add them to the blog

A way to see more Makaylee

2007-02-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

If you notice there is now flashing pictures of Makaylee to the right of your screen. Don't get to excited yet, there are only 4 pictures of her loaded right now :) I am working on loading more pictures so that I can share pictures that are adorable, but don't make the blog cut. So you can click on the flashing pictures and it will lead you to a website with nothing but pictures of Makaylee. How wonderful is that. Give me a little bit to actually get pictures uploaded. It will take time :) For now, enjoy!

We have a Beauty Princess in our house

2007-02-17T22:20:00.000-08:00

So, we did what I swore we would never do. We probably will never do it again, but we put Makaylee in a beauty pagent. There was a small one at the local mall last weekend. So we entered Makaylee. There was a total of 7 girls in her under 1 age group. I took her on stage and stood her in the center in front of the judges and all the people. Our little ham started jumping and giggling. She is the only one who really smiled up there. So, little Miss Makaylee won her age group and she got most photogenic. She got a trophy about as big as she is, a sash and a crown. She, of cours, slept through the crowning ceremony and woke up at the very end. But we got some cute pictures none the less.

Makaylee's 9 month appointment was on Monday. She is 29" long - 90th percentile and 20 pounds - 70th percentile. She is really starting to even out in her weight. Don't get me wrong though, she still has a huge buddah belly :) Her favorite thing to do right now is play with her belly if she has no shirt on. She will pinch her chub and rub her belly like a pregnant lady. She sticks it really far out and will sit there slapping her tummy. It is so funny. All in all she is right on track. She got three shots. She does remember the DR's office now though. She was so happy when we first took her in there. The second we laid her on the table she started screaming bloody murder. Any time after that we set her on the table she would start screaming again. It was a long DR's appointment.

On Monday Makaylee stood on her very own on accident :) We were watching a baby einstein video and she was leaning back against me. I slowly scooted away. She stood really well for about 10 seconds until she realized she was standing on her own. Then she quickly got on her bottom. I got a couple pictures but they are not at good angles because I wanted to stay close in case she fell. After a couple times though she caught on to my trick and won't let me back away anymore. She grabs my hair to make sure I stay put. She also stood on her own a couple of times this week when she would accidently let go of the table, but would grab back on really quickly when she realized she wasn't holding on. So it is coming. Hopefully soon. I am so excited for her to walk! Here she is standing:

Wednesday was Valentines day, and here she is holding Mike's be mine decoration:

I snuck into Mike's office on Tuesday night when he thought Tabi and I were playing bingo and decorated his office in Valentine's Day decor. It was a huge suprise for him. We had a nice romantic dinner planned after Makaylee went to bed. You see Mike always cooks on Valentines Day. It is our tradition. He made stuffed chicken breasts which were incredible. But, here is Makaylee's idea of a romantic valentines day dinner:

You see she chose our romantic dinner to be the first night she sat up in her crib in protest of going to sleep. She has been getting herself into a sitting position for a couple of weeks now, but our dinner was the first time she has done it when we put her to bed. Lovely. She has also sat herself a couple of times now between 5-6 in the morning. We are really enjoying that. LOL

Makaylee had a touch of the stomach flu this week. She started pooping like crazy on Saturday and it just got worse from there. We spent the day out on Saturday and went through about 5 outfits, got poop on the car seat, floppy seat, on Dad, it was a great day. She then had diahrea all week. I took her back to the DR on Friday and she said it could last for 2-3 weeks. Luckily it seems like she is getting over it as the pooping has significantly slowed down. Thank goodness. I cannot tell you how much it sucks changing anywhere from 1- 3 poopy diapers an hour. That is a lot of wipes, a lot of diapers, and one unhappy baby. I am happy to announce that our normal DR is back from maternity leave so we did get to see her on Friday. Makaylee did not freak out in the office like she did on Monday. What a difference a DR makes :)

I have some video's but they are taking forever to load so I will share those another day.

Hope you enjoyed the updated, will end with this................

a couple of pictures of Makaylee in the bath. One of her favorite things to do:

and her passed out on Dad.

Makaylee's 9 month photo shoot

2007-02-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

Here is Makaylee's 9 month photo shoot pictures. This is probably the worst set of pics we have gotten of her. They came out cute, but she was not in the mood to smile. For the valentines pics I had sunglasses, bracelets and a purse and she wouldn't keep any of them on. We all tried everything to get her to smile. When she actually smiled it was after a lot of work by Mike, the photographer and myself. So enjoy:

Makaylee's new Cry

2007-02-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, we are horrible people. We let our daughter cry just so we could record the new sound she is making during her cry. Here is her little "motor mouth" cry:

Peek a Boo Baby!

2007-02-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

Makaylee can play Peek a boo now. She loves to do it now that she has caught on. She has always been a big fan of peek a boo but now she hides her own eyes with pretty much whatever she can get her hands on. Here is a video of her with a deflated ball. Yes, a deflated ball. I bought it at the Little Gym and she loves chewing on it flat. We blew up the ball and she started crying, so we let the air out and she was happy as can be. So we have a flat ball she loves. But here she is using it as a chew toy and peek a boo toy. Multi uses, gotta love it :)

Makaylee has also started trying real food. It comes from the never ending stare we get when we are eating. She wants to try whatever we have. So far she has tried egg yolks, they can only have the yolk until they are one, with some pieces of wheat bread. She LOVES the eggs. It is great for me too because she can feed herself so I can set her in the high chair with breakfast and pick up the kitchen and such, as long as I am in the same room. Here she is with her eggs:

We tried a baked yam, that was not a hit, I don't think she liked the texture. She had watermelon out of her mesh feeder for the first time and choked, so Mommy panicked and took all the watermelon away. She likes chicken, turkey and tomatoes. So far I think that is all she has tried. Oh and oatmeal. She LOVES oatmeal. I have oatmeal pretty much every morning for breakfast. At first I just gave her a couple tastes, but now we pretty much share it every morning. Every time Makaylee see's me with a bowl she gets all excited thinking it is oatmeal and wants a bite. At 9 months you start making the slow transition from getting most of their nutrition from formula to real food. By 1 she should be getting the majority of her food and nutrition from real food. So that is a big change.

We found a new walk behind toy that has resistence to it, so we got that for Makaylee and she does really well with it. She can even use it on the hardwood floors. Mike about died when he got home from work one day and she walked to him to greet him at the front door with her toy. Here is a little video of her walking with it. Elmo was on TV so she was trying to get as close to Elmo as possible.

A new thing Makaylee likes to do is stand at the baby gate and smash her face into it. LOL. I don't know why but she finds it so funny. Especially if we are on the opposite side. But we have taught her to give us a kiss through the gate which she loves to do. But she won't give us a kiss if it is not through the gate slats LOL. Here is a pic of her little smooshed face.

This week she also started sitting herself up from her tummy. She is doing it completley on her own, but for some reason she will not do it unless we are touching her. We don't help, just touch her. She is also starting to actually enjoy playing on her tummy. I will try and get a video of her moving around on her tummy. She is not crawling yet, but this is the first time we have put her on her tummy and she doesn't freak out or roll right back onto her back. So that is a good sign. Maybe she will crawl yet. I think it is a race to see what happens first crawling or walking. She is not standing on her own yet, but it will come.

Makaylee has had cradle cap for about two weeks now. Tabi suggested rubbing baby oil onto her scalp to help re-moisturize the scalp. So I gave it a try and I got a grease ball for a daughter. As you can imagine with all her hair the baby oil did not come out easily. So I drenched her hair in baby powder to help absorb the oil. It did the trick, but before I washed it out I had a grayed hair 8 month old baby. Hear is a picture of it:

And, just some cute pictures in closing :)

Walking down the hall

2007-01-27T11:53:00.000-08:00

Here is Miss Makaylee walking down the hall with Daddy's help :)

Speed Racer

2007-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen the commercial with the baby running around the house in the walker?? Well here is a quick peek into Makaylee's ability to fly in the walker. She can control the walker like a car. It amazes me

Makaylee is sick

2007-01-23T12:11:00.000-08:00

Poor baby has a TERRIBLE cold. She got it from Bailey or Kiera, Bailey's cousin, on Friday night. Mike had an awards banquet for work which I am happy to say he got awards at. His office did great. Tabi and I also actually made it to the banquet which up until Friday we did not think we were going to. Neither of us could find a baby sitter. Then Tabi's sister said she would watch the girls. Three kids under the age of two and she had them all in bed before 8! We don't know how she did it.

Saturday we actually went out as a family to a Snow day in the park. They trucked in snow and had a snowman building contest and other fun activities, but it was too darn cold, so we didn't stay long. We left and went out to lunch. Then we went and got Makaylee's ears pierced! Yes we did. She did great and only cried for a minute or two and then was over it. Her crying scared the poor girl that was suppose to go next enough to not go through with it though. Here is a picture of Makaylee's new ear rings:

Not the best picture of the ears, but she is a total ham and every time she see's the camera she turns to smile at it, so this was the best I got.

Sunday we just hung out around the house. Makaylee learned to wave hi and bye and got it down really well on Sunday. I tried to get video of it, but of course she was not in the mood to share. She is now waving at everyone and everything. Sometimes with both hands she gets so excited.

She was having a great day yesterday then last night her nose started running. Of course Tabi and I had made plans to go to speed bingo that night. So I got her to sleep and left and she woke up screaming for Mike. He did great with her and let me stay out until about 10:45 when I got called home because he didn't know what else to do. Shortly after I left Tabi got the same call from home and had to go home to Bailey. So Bingo was a bust, though because we left so early I was only down $5. Makaylee was up every 45 minutes all night last night. Needless to say everyone in the house is exhausted. According to Tabi the cold should be moving into her chest next as it did with Bailey. We are trying everything to prevent it. What sucks is that tomorrow is their last day of class at the little gym for this semester and they get awards and little metals, but both Bailey and Makaylee are too sick to go. I am sure Makaylee will not notice the difference though as she is staying in the same class which starts up same time next week, Bailey however is graduating to the next age level for classes. THat is sad because they will not be in the same class anymore.

Today was pretty tough. Makaylee cannot breathe through her nose at all so that makes eating and sucking on the pacifier during nap time difficult. I didn't even get a shower today, which is where I am going when I am done here. First day in awhile that I had to skip a shower. Tonight doesn't hold promise to be too much better than last night as she has already woken up twice since we put her to bed. So send some healthy thoughts our way, both for Makaylee and Mike and I so we don't get sick with her.

Here are some pictures to share.

If you look close on this one you can see Makaylee's two bottom teeth poking through:

For those of you who don't know Makaylee is an Elmo addict. Everytime she hears or see's Elmo she smiles, so I pulled out all her Elmo stuff and here is a picture of her with her collection so far:

This picture I just wanted to share because she is so cute and looks so big to me:

Makaylee just woke up again, gotta go!!!!!!!!!

My baby has grown up!

2007-01-14T20:26:00.000-08:00

I swear in just the past week or two Makaylee has grown up SOOOOOOOOo much. Her first two teeth are finally starting to poke through. Right on the bottom. The white is just starting to show, though they have brought us a couple of screaming nights. But she seems to be doing better now that they are breaking through. It is super difficult to get a picture yet, but as soon as they start to come up more I promise a picture.

We had our second snow fall of the year this week and boy was it a good one. We got 2 inches at the beginning of the week, and then a couple days later we got at least 6 inches! The most snow I have ever seen up here. It has been below freezing ever since, so the snow is not gowing away at all. In fact our yard is still completely covered in snow. Here is a picture of Makaylee in her snow suit in the snow:

Here is a picture of the amount of snow we got:

Ok, so about Makaylee growing up. Last week I showed the video of her clapping, I don't have a video of it yet, but she is trying so hard to do the "rolling" part of Patty cake.

She has been standing for awhild now holding onto things, but she has really gained confidence now. She loves to stand on her own holding on, and even started "cruising" along the table. Her favorite thing to do is have her activity table and incrediblock set up by the coffee table and she will stand there switching between the three of them forever. Here is her favorite set up:

She is also standing with one hand really well. In fact she is almost standing on her own. She started letting go a couple of times today but quickly grabs right back on. Here is her balanced holding on with one hand:

Doesn't she just look so big? She can walk with her walk behind toy now. We still hold on to her because she will lean to one side sometimes and it goes pretty fast and she cannot always keep up, so we keep it slow. Her favorite thing to do in the walker is chase the dogs all around the floor and she can really keep up with them. She can get around any obstacle and back herself out of corners and everything really well. She even gets up and down our narrow hallway really well.

Makaylee has started feeding herself. If we put the spoon in the bowl she will pick it up and put it in her mouth. But then she chucks it back on the tray, we cannot get her to re-dip the spoon, but if we put it back in the bowl she picks it right back up. When we read her a story she turns the pages for us now, sometimes before we are done reading the page, but she loves to turn the page so we let her go fast.

And finally she signed her very first sign tonight. I was sitting there feeding her dinner and she signed Milk. We asked if she wanted Milk and sure enough she did it again. She did it a couple of times while she was drinking her bottle too. I would take the bottle away and ask her if she wanted Milk and she would do the sign. I cannot believe it. So much in such a little time! It is so exciting and so sad at the same time. She is really growing up. I guess that 8 month mark she hit on Thursday was a big turning point :)

Lets Try this again

2007-01-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, I have decided to give this whole blogging thing another go. Cause, basically, I suck at it, but I really want to try again :) Once a week is a good goal right? Shouldn't be to difficult :) I cannot believe how quickly time goes by. Makaylee is growing up so fast and it seems like every day brings something new she can do. Mobility is still out of our reach, though I don't think for long. Makaylee has shown no interest in crawling unless you consider scooting herself backwards as a sign of crawling. But she LOVES to walk. If you give her your hands she pulls herself right up to a standing position. She will either walk wherever she wants to go or jump. Did I mention she is a jumpaholic?? I am not kidding. The kid will jump in her jumperoo for hours if we let her. Darn naptime always interupts her. But if yo uwill let her she will also jump on you which is a great way to get a good arm workout. We bought her a walk behind toy the other day. You know the type that you can either ride on or walk behind to help them walk. She does okay with it. We have to kind of keep her centered, but she can get in a good couple steps on her own. She is even starting to stand for a few seconds on her own. We suspect she may skip that whole crawling thing and go straight to walking. She is great in her walker. She can go wherever she wants to go in it. If she gets herself stuck in a corner she knows how to back up and get going again. Gotta keep a close eye on her because we can turn our heads for a second and she is heading down the hall or to the door. Her favorite thing to do is corner the dogs in the coat closet. We keep the door open because they love to sleep in their on some blankets. We call it their cave. Anyway Makaylee has figured out that her walker fills the doorway so she can trap them in there and get them to kiss her, or she just pulls on their ears, cheeks, or anything they get near her. Zoe doesn't particularly like it when we leave her stranded in there, but it keeps Makaylee entertained, so unfortunatly that is how it goes! Honey just barrels her way out and pushes the walker out of the way, but Zoe is to much of a chicken to do that.

Christmas was as successful as Christmas with a seven month old who HATED to unwrap presents can be. She pretty much would start crying when we tried to get her to help unwrap the presents. I am so glad I spent hours wrapping all her presents with pretty bows and such to unwrap them myself :) Not to mention her favorite toys are the cheapest ones. We started giving Makaylee pig tails. She looks like such a big girl with them. Here is a pictures of her with the pigtails and her Great Nana:

Makaylee is no longer the youngest kid in her little gym class. It was so depressing this week. All the other kids use to point at Makaylee and say "BABY" but she blends right in with them now. THey were pointing at all the new babies and saying baby. It was so depressing. I cannot believe we are only 4.5 months away from her being 1 year old. So sad and exciting all at the same time. Makaylee's cutest new trick is clapping her hands, but not only does she claps. She claps when we sing "If you're happy and you know it" It is soooooooooo cute. Here is a little video I got of her doing it.:

One last thing to share. Here is probably one of my favorite pictures to date of Me and Makaylee on the carosel at the Zoo:

2006-08-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go? It is Thursday, and this seems like the week that will not end. We have been go go go all week. Monday started with our first class at little gym. Makaylee really liked it. She did spit up after the front roll, but at 3.5 months, what do you expect? She loved the wedge matt cause she could roll both ways down it. If only rolling was that easy all the time :) Then Tabi and I were off. Did I mention that Tabi and Bailey are in the class with us? Lots of fun. We went and got a coffee, then had to swing to toys r us cause Tabi forgot a cup for Bailey, then off to Babies R Us because I needed larger swaddlers. Makaylee still loves to be swaddled, and unfortunately the smells are just to small. We canceled our memberships at the old gym and joined the YMCA. Can you believe I have to pay $14 a month to be able to take Makaylee in the pool? If she wants to use the pool she has to have a membership. We cannot even take a Parent and me swim class till she is 10 months old. Ah well. It is amazing how long basic errands take with kids in tow. It doesn't help that they both fell asleep in the car so we drove around and extra 30 minutes or so for nap time. The things you do.

This week I started watching Bailey for Tabi. She needs to work a little so Tues - THurs from 10-3 I am suppose to watch Bailey. But Makaylee doesn't wake up from her first nap until about 10 so it is usually about 10:30 - 11. Would you know it? I can actually manage a 15 month old and a 3 month old at the same time. Bailey had two freak outs the first day, but we survived. Plus Tabi was only down stairs in her office, so mom was close.

Wednesday Tabi and I actually made it to the YMCA. We dropped the kids off at day care. At $1 per half hour, you cannot beat that for some Mommy time. Makaylee was asleep and she did great even after she woke up. Bailey was fine with all the other little kids and new toys, but after 30 minutes she got paged so we went to pick up the kids. Then we went into the pool. Both girls had a ton of fun. Makaylee kept giggling. So cute, wish I had brought the camera. The only problem was keeping her from sucking on her hands. Chlorine, not good. They both fell asleep on the way home, so that made baby sitting easy.

Today was another successful day baby sitting. I even got Bailey down for her nap, which is a big step. We only had one minor injury when Bailey was trying to share her juice in the sippy cup with Makaylee. She is so quick we didn't even see it coming, and Makaylee suffered a minor blow to the forehead. A quick cry and she was fine. They are so cute together. Bailey loves to give her kisses, and pick up the toys she knocks off the walker, they even play peek a boo. Makaylee lifts the bib to cover her face and Bailey pulls it down and says boo. So cute. The only problem we run into is Bailey loves to give Makaylee her pacifier. Well, she cannot seem to get it in her mouth and always sticks it by her eye, plus she pulls the pacifier out of Makaylee's mouth so she can put it in. But they are doing well together. Makaylee loves to watch Bailey, I think she is fascinated with her.

Well, that is about it, I will load some pictures tomorrow.

2006-08-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, so bad blogger :) I really am sorry. I will try and do better. So rather than talk your head off with all the boring stuff that has been going on, I will mix it in with video and pictures. Makaylee is getting nice and big. I officially packed up all her 0-3 month clothes. SO sad. Her newborn clothes were at the bottom of the bin. I cannot believe she has grown that much in 3.5 months! It is amazing. She is reaching for things and starting to play. Her she is playing on her floor matt. She LOVES this thing. Especially the mirror. She has the best conversations with herself:

Makaylee is learning how to drink out of a sippy cup. She is doing really well with it, especially since it has the handles. We have to give her prune juice all the time to keep her regular.

mmmmmmmmm, she loves her some prune juice!

We also made Makaylee's first trip to the Zoo. This was before we went in. She is a cool chick with the glasses. Getting a little top off so she has her strenght for the animals!

I think this is such a cool picture. She really loved looking in at the water:

Her is her and Daddy at the Zoo. In the hotsling, she loves that sling!

They had a carosel there. Makaylee's first one. She was not that impressed, but Mike and I had fun :)

Auntie Meghan and Cousin Ethan came to visit and they came to the Zoo with us. This is a great Picture of Ethan:

They rode the carosel too:

Makaylee also got some kisses from her cousin:

Makaylee has started really enjoying her exersaucer. She was so entertained, I couldn't get her to look at me for a picture

My baby got her first pony tail, sooooooooooooo cute:

I bought a walker for Makaylee cause she loves to stand. But she was to short for it. Wouldn't you know it the cheapest walker was the one she could stand in. She can only go backwards right now, but we have hope she will catch on soon enough!

We are pretty sure Makaylee has started teething. She loves her gums rubbed. She also LOVES this toy on her gums. It vibrates, so we are guessing it feels like a littl mini massage on her gums.

Today we went to Mason's first birthday party. Makaylee stole his walker and was having tons of fun. She was to short for this one too. Bailey was showing her the ropes on how to use all the toys

Here is the birthday boy himself with his cool truck cake

The party was sure a lot of work. Makaylee passed out on the way home