7 Months

Sadie is 7 months old today!  I can't believe it.

We've fallen into a pretty good routine with the girls now.  It's about time, huh?  The bad news is that I can't really be out of the house past 5:30pm or it throws us way off and it turns into a bad night for all of us.  I have to feed Sadie her dinner by 5:30 then nurse her around 6.  If it's bath night for her then she gets her bath after she's fed then I get her dressed for bed, read a book and put her down.  As soon as she's down, it's time to get Maddie ready for bed.  I'm continuing to give the girls baths on opposite nights.  Some nights they both need a bath so I'll get Maddie washed, then let her play in the tub while I give Sadie her bath.  This gives Maddie enough time to play and gives me something productive to do while she's playing :)

Sadie's has tried a pretty wide variety of foods now.  Not as much as Maddie had by this age, but Sadie's different...Sadie has more of a gag reflex so I've been cautious on giving her anything that isn't pureed.  She did have some of those baby puffs (and LOVED them) and last night I have her really small bites of flounder.  She did fine with both without choking so that's good!  So far her favorite foods are pears (pureed with oatmeal or in the mesh bag feeder thing) and pureed sweet potatoes mixed with oatmeal and apple juice.  YUM!  I'm planning on mixing up some different foods for her to try soon. 

Sadie has been quite the active little girl.  She loves to sit up now and plays for long periods of time.  However, if she notices something she wants to get her hands (and mouth) on, she'll topple over and start squirming to try to get to it.  She wiggles her body from side to side, then pulls her knees up (to the side), goes up on her toes and pushes forward.  She's making progress, but moving at a VERY slow pace.  I'm happy with that!  I'm in no hurry for her to get mobile. The girls already keep me busy enough without having two of them to keep track of!

Sadie is absolutely in love with her big sister.  When she hears Maddie's voice she stops whatever she's doing and looks for her.  When Maddie laughs, Sadie giggles right along.  They are so sweet to watch together.  I only hope I can help foster the love between them and keep them from getting into any major fights as they grow up.  Maddie has shown some aggression toward Sadie over the past week.  She pushed her over when we were all in the playroom one day.  Then another day Maddie picked up one of her (super cute) cowboy boots and started hitting Sadie with it!  I was so mad!  Since that she hasn't done anything mean to Sadie so I'm hoping she was just checking to see what she could get away with and when she didn't get away with it she's giving up. 

This week Sadie experienced the kiddie pool for the first time.  I think she would've liked it if the water had been a little warmer.  I'm sure by late summer the two girls will be having a great time "swimming" together!  I can't wait!!  Speaking of swimming...I need to get the girls on a trip to the beach before Sadie starts crawling.  I'd much rather go when I know one of them will be sitting still :)  It'll be fun when Eric's home in May and we can take both girls swimming and to the beach without me being responsible for both of them!

Well, both girls are down for afternoon naps (Yay!!) so I'm going to catch up on a little laundry and cleaning (boo!!).

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March

I can't believe March has come and (almost) gone already.  We had a great month and I've got the bags under my eyes to prove it!  :)

I didn't want to let the month end without having at least one more post, so I thought I'd give you a few videos to watch. 

Enjoy!

While Eric and Maddie were outside playing, I kept being the nagging wife/mom and saying, "DON'T hit Sadie with the ball!".  Well...turns out that's exactly what happened but it turned out to be a good thing :)

Maddie wanted to plant flowers for spring :)  She's such a big girl!!

Sadie growls when she sees her food but I'm not putting it in her mouth.  Yes, the girl LOVES to eat! On this particular day she did her usual spit/growl routine then I got an extra surprise...  :)

We've been having the most beautiful weather!  Maddie's been playing outside just about every day.  She's especially having fun with her "worm toy" and playing in her pool :)  YAY for spring!! (with apologies to my friends and family...or random readers...who are getting snowed on right now)

Just a video to show you how cute and squeezable Sadie is :)

Check out THIS hand-eye coordination!  I was shocked when she started catching the ball at such a young age.  I don't know what's "normal", but I know Maddie never did this this early.

And another new trick Sadie learned within the past 3 days :)  She's growing up so fast!!

And, for the final video of the night (thank God because this is taking F.O.R.E.V.E.R.)...

I have such a little tomboy on my hands!  I was REALLY impressed when Maddie wanted to hold the Roly Poly bug.  Not only did she want to hold him, she wanted to play with him all day.  Poor little thing.  I finally told Maddie we needed to leave him alone because he was trying to get home to be with his family.  She's really big into family so all I had to do was explain that his family missed him like we miss our daddy and then she left him alone so he could go home.  She said he had to hurry so he could eat supper with his family and then watch Nick, Jr.  :)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the videos.  I have a few others that I would LOVE to share, but they involve Maddie not wearing any clothes and I'm not willing to risk any kind of legal issues to share them.  But Maddie has been enjoying being naked lately and she's so funny!!  The other day after she went swimming in her clothes I took the wet clothes off outside and she told me she was a doggy and she had to go pee in the grass.  She ran over to the corner of the house and stood there peeing!  Then tonight after she got out of the bathtub she was running around upstairs with no clothes on then came back into the bathroom wearing nothing but rain boots.  Silly goose :)  I didn't get video of that, but definitely snapped a few pictures to show to any future boyfriends!  HA!  She's going to hate me.  And I'm pretty sure Sadie will hate me for the video I shared above.  But at least she has clothes on!

BUSY!

Here are a few things that have happened since my last post:

Uncle Guy came to visit
Daddy came home
Sadie turned 6 months old
Aunt Renee came to visit
We went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Parade
We went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
Sadie started sitting up
Aunt Catherine came to visit
Aunt Jennifer, cousins Mary, Joseph, Michael, Joshua and Amy came to visit
We celebrated Sadie's baptism
We went to the Butterfly museum
Sadie had her 6 month check up...17lbs 7oz (75th percentile), 25 1/4 inches (27th percentile)...4 shots :(
We went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (again)

It's been a busy couple of weeks but so much fun!  Will catch up soon and post pictures...but for now it's time to go to bed and recouperate from our busy, busy day...

Blog Break

It's been a while since my last post, and it will probably be a while until my next post.  There's always so much going on that I want to share with everyone, but I just don't have time to sit down and compose my thoughts and form it into a sensible blog post.  So, once again I'll give you some bullets :)  Sorry...but I figure you'd prefer that over a wordy play-by-play, right? 

-Sadie is such a bundle of joy.  I know I say this a lot, but she really does brighten up my days!  A sweet snuggle with her takes away and bad feelings I'm having :)

-Sadie saw her first zoo animals today!  I held her a lot when I took the girls to the zoo and she noticed any animals that were moving quickly enough to grab her attention.  The first one she noticed was the sea lion.  These are Maddie's favorite so it was exciting for Sadie to see them too!

-Maddie bought herself a stuffed sea lion the last time we went to the zoo.  I let her take along some of her own money (she chose to take $8) and she picked out an animal all by herself.  The animal was $7.99 and we get a 15% discount by being zoo members so she even got to bring change home to put in her piggy bank!  What a fun experience that was!

-The stuffed sea lion's name is "Hackseek".  Another interesting name that she came up with and I have no idea what made her think of that.  She hasn't forgotten his name since the first time she said it.  Hackseek enjoyed the sea lion show with us today as well.

-Maddie is growing up so fast!  Her 3T shirts that I bought her at the beginning of fall/winter are getting snug.  They look like they fit her just fine but we're beginning to really struggle to get them on and off.  It's not fun.  It's about time to start shopping for spring/summer and I don't know if I should buy her 3T or just skip straight to the 4T so we'll be sure she'll fit in them all summer.  I can't believe she'll be 3 in June and is already outgrowing 3T clothes! 

-Maddie is really getting social.  We invited some of her classmates over to play after school yesterday and she had so much fun with them.  Only 2 we able to make it and I think that turned out to be the perfect number. She was happy to show her friends her playroom and then asked me to turn on music so they could dance together.  (sidenote:  one of her favorite songs to dance to is Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and she was SO EXCITED when they played that song before the sea lion show started today!!)

-Next week is a crazy week for us!  My brother comes in for a visit on Monday, Eric comes home on Thursday and my sister comes in on Friday.  Saturday ther Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Parade is taking place so we plan on going downtown to enjoy seeing all the trail riders coming into Houston for the rodeo!!!  I've been wanting to go to this parade since we moved down here so I'm thrilled that we're going this year.  Maddie's going to have a blast!  It might be a little cold first thing in the morning but I'm sure she'll enjoy lots of snuggle time with Daddy to stay warm :)

-I am super tired and even though I have a lot to do tonight, I'm going to take a Tylenol PM at 7:30 then head to bed.  I figure a few nights in a row of getting 10 hours of sleep should help me feel better...I just can't get energy.  Tomorrow's another busy day starting with taking Murphy to get a bath before we even drop Maddie off at school so it'll be good to get a lot of sleep tonight!!

Goodnight all...hopefully you'll hear from me before the end of the month :)

Sadie 5 months old, Maddie 2 years 8 months

I took a break from sorting baby clothes to change a diaper...Maddie took the opportunity to make herself a seesaw out of a basket :)

The Houston Deep Freeze of 2011...this picture was taken at 4:00pm!

A close up of our poor frozen van.

Super Bowl baby!  Sadly we didn't win :(  But Daddy's team won so it's ok!

My supermodel-in-the-making.  She was really posing for pictures :)

Go Steelers!!

Last Friday after school Maddie rested in a laundry hamper.  She was pretending to be a dog and this was her cage.  She stayed in it for about 20 minutes while watching tv :)

The top view.  What an imagination!

5 Months

Today my Sadie Mae turned 5 months old!  Seriously?!?!  I'm noticing her growing up so fast already and I really wish I could slow time down so I could savor all her cuteness and chubbiness.  I told her yesterday that she was growing up so fast and soon she would be a big girl.  Maddie didn't like hearing that and told me, in the whiniest voice, "But I don't want Sadie to grow up and be a big girl.  I always want her to be my baby sister."  I tried to explain to her that Sadie would always be her little sister no matter how old they get.  She acted like she understood but I'm not sure she really did :)

Sadie's been staying awake a lot more during the day now.  If we're home she'll take good naps, usually 3 a day and they're ranging from 1 hour to 3 hours.  If we're away from home she sleeps when we're in the car but is awake while we're out and about.  She'll doze in the stroller or shopping cart, but doesn't really sleep.  I find myself (at home) trying to put her down for more frequent naps than what she wants now.  I just got into such a habit of doing what I had to do with her and then putting her down to sleep again.  Now I have to find ways to keep her entertained while she's awake. 

Sadie started using her exersaucer.  She seems to enjoy it a lot but gets frustrated that she can't pull all the toys to her mouth yet.  She also gets frustrated when one of her arms gets down in the seat with her and she can't figure out how to get it out.  She has already figured out how to make some of the toys spin.  Well, there are only two that spin so she has those figured out.  And she'll just stare at the one while it's spinning around, absolutely amazed by it.

Sadie is starting to get more and more excited about Murphy when she sees her.  It's so cute to see her get excited when Murphy starts coming close to her.  She's no where near as excited as Maddie used to get over Murphy, but I can tell she's interested. 

Sadie still hasn't rolled over from her back to her belly.  She's a back sleeper and is just so content to be on her back most of the time so she doesn't have any motivation to roll to her belly.  She resists tummy time with every thing she has.  She lasts about 5 minutes then we've all had enough of trying to make her be on her belly.  At least she doesn't have a flat head...I'm cool with her not being on her belly as long as she's not getting a deformed head from spending too much time on it.  I guess that's where the exersaucer and bumbo come in handy :)

Today Sadie got to meet her Pap Pa (her great grandpa-my dad's dad).  Pap Pa is her only living great grandpa so I'm so glad she got to meet him today!  She looked into his eyes and gave him several super sweet smiles!  They have the same beautiful blue eyes :)  I'm looking forward to Maddie and Sadie spending more time with their great grandparents while they're visiting from PA over the next month.

So, that's what's new with my littlest one :)  Life is SO GOOD!

Smart Phones?

I have had my iPhone for almost 16 months.  I've loved it from the first day but I'm finally starting to get annoyed by it.  Well, I'm really more annoyed with my addiction to it but I like to pass the blame off on the phone.  I mean, if it wasn't so amazing I wouldn't be so addicted, right?  I've always known I was addicted to the phone but I kind of joked around about it and didn't take it seriously.  Last night I came out of denial and am finally on the road to recovery! 

Every night at bedtime I read a book to Maddie, then she takes a turn and reads it to me.  Every night the iPhone (aka my window to the outside world) is right there with us.  Last night when it was Maddie's turn to read the book, I picked up the phone to check in with facebook (I had just heard that a friend had her baby and I wanted to congratulate her).  Maddie looked at me and said, "Mommy, don't type on your phone.  Listen to me read to you."  OUCH.  The truth hurts.  She's been noticing that I'm on the phone more than I'm paying attention to her.  I guess part of my denial was also denying that she even noticed.  Of course she noticed that I was paying more attention to the phone than I was to her!  She's not stupid. 

Today is day one of my recovery.  Tomorrow starts actual rehab.  I will have my phone with me for emergency purposes when I'm outside of the house.  I will still use my phone when I need to and when my girls are napping or in bed for the night.  When my girls are awake I need to be present for them.  I am their mom and we're blessed that I get to stay home and raise them.  They need my attention and need to know that I'm there for them when I need them. 

Ok, I'm probably making my phone addiction sound a lot worse than it really is, but I have to make a more conscious effort to put the phone down!

So, with that being said, if you need to reach me when my girls are awake, please call my home phone as the iPhone will be on silent :)  However, I'm not promising I'll answer the home phone either.  I spend a lot of time feeding Sadie and changing diapers and doing chores around the house.  I'm trying really hard not to rush to the phone as soon as it rings.  It causes me to get distracted from what I'm doing and causes neck and back pain from holding the phone with my head and shoulder :)  It's really hard to not run for the phone, though, because I know there's an adult on the other end and I'm usually dying for some adult conversation!!