Saturday, March 31, 2012

Easter Brunch


Today we hosted an Easter brunch for our families. We always have a great time when everyone is able to get together and I am pretty sure it blows Liams mind that everyone is in the same place at one time. Liam had a blast playing with Evan (they played cars and trucks, blew bubbles and more) and eating M&Ms...of course!

On the menu today: greek yogurt bar, vegetable frittata, sausage hash brown bake, overnight french toast, bagels/muffins/scones, and baked ham with Hawaiian rolls. For dessert we had sugar cookies and raspberry cream cupcakes. To drink we had water with lime and mint and iced coffee.











...and my precious Lula-Bell (i just realized i don't drop her nicknames on the blog that often) who was an angel today and took an EPIC nap in her own room!!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Finally....

What I've learned in the last few months is that it is extremely hard to take a (decent) picture of a two and a half year old. If he is looking at me he is usually making a cheesiest "cheese face" or some other silly face ...as seen here...





yesterday we had another nice day after a few cooler ones so we took advantage and headed outside after dinner. My goal....get some pictures of Liam and I finally did get a few good shots of him, finally!




I threw this together yesterday just for fun and because you know it always blows my mind. I am with her every single day yet it goes unnoticed until you look at pictures side by side. With Liam I feel like when you look at his itty bitty baby pictures it still looks like Liam but not Lucy, i think she looks so different then when she was born. She definitely...ya know....filled out a bit but we love that little kissable chunk :-)

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Happy 6 Months Lucy



Dear Lucy,


Happy Half Year Birthday!! It has been a really nice month. We had some really nice weather and for once the month didn’t fly past us, we really got to soak it up and enjoy everyday. Being that we had such nice weather we learned that not only do you love being outside but you love sitting in the grass and digging in the dirt. Girl, you are going to fit into the county living real well.


You are still trying your hardest to crawl and let me just say Liam is in trouble when you do finally take off because we all know you are going to be his tail all day long. You LOVE your brother so much. This month you started laughing at each other and interacting while playing, it is just the best thing! He thinks it it hysterical when you are in the doorway jumper (jumping like a crazy baby) and when you try to "run" in the exersaucer, he always says "HAHAHA DeeDee flying".



You got your piggies painted for the first time this month, ooooh the cuteness of those teeny tiny toes painted hot pink. You found your feet this month and just love playing with them!


You really like your exersaucer. You can turn around in that thing so easily, I don’t remember Liam ever turning himself but you whip around to all the toys so fast. You love to play with every toy on it and especially love flipping the pages on the animal book. You also like sitting up and playing with Easter eggs, your black and white blocks, and your caterpillar mirror. You are getting better each day with your independent sitting but you are so active that you forget what you are doing and reach for something and topple over pretty fast most of the time. If you are content and playing with something in front of you you are steady as can be. You went on the swings for the first time and laughed and smiles the entire time, you loved it!




You took to your paci a little more this month and can put it in yourself like an old pro. One day you were playing in your exersaucer and had your paci, it fell out and you looked down, picked it up and popped it straight back in your mouth and went along playing like it was nothing. You are so finicky with your pacis thought. You like the soothie when you are playing, the advent to fall asleep, and the wubbanub to stay asleep….high maintenance much? Still chewing on those hands but no teeth have popped through yet.




This month you started eating solid foods regularly, right now you are eating a breakfast and a dinner. You really love solids and have even cried at your bottles because you wanted real food instead. You really love apples and have them with brown rice cereal for breakfast a lot. You ate carrots a lot this month and a little squash, HATED peas….. You also had pears and loved them. You had a banana in the fresh food feeder and loved that, ate the whole thing (half of a banana). A few times after you have finished your food and we are still eating breakfast or dinner I have let you play around with some puffs and you’ve managed to get a few in your mouth.


You are very vocal, you have a loud voice and an even louder laugh. You love to be sung to, held, and bounced. You started making some of the funniest faces this month...


You are napping upstairs instead of in your bouncy seat and have been getting very restful sleep lately. You still take a 45 minute morning nap and then a good two hour afternoon nap. You go to bed around 7:30 (and need us to soothe you back to sleep multiple times per night) and still eat at 11 and 3am….one day you will sleep through the night…one day. Speaking of sleep we are still co-sleeping and it is a habit that I have grown to love and will be just as hard for me to break as for you.


You experienced a lot of separation anxiety from me this month. You are very selective of who you let hold you, you can be quite the drama queen. Mama needs to be in view at all times and many nights you have to be holding onto my shirt or hand when you fall asleep. You love to give hugs and kisses; it is seriously adorable! One day your Dad was holding you on his knee and I leaned towards you and you reached your arms out right around my neck and held so tight. Whenever I sing “If your happy and you know it” you grab onto my face or neck and give slobbery kisses the entire time. When you get really really happy you smile and stick out your tongue.



You weight __pounds and are __inches. **Appointment next week** You are wearing 6 month and some 9 month clothes. I was so happy we had this random hot weather because you got to wear a few summery 6 month outfits I had purchased for you last year that you may not have ever worn if we had to wait until June.


Saturday, March 24, 2012

Bridal Shower .... and a reunion 8 years in the making!

One of my very good friends from high school is marrying her high school sweetheart (who is also a long time friend of Alexs) in May. Today we got to shower her with gifts, love, and words of wisdom. I could not be more excited for Teri to finally be tying the knot with Mike!







I have so many memories with these girls, oh so many! As we said today, we had a really great time for what little we had (small town with not a whole lot to entertain us). It has been 8 long years since the four of us (and Ash who we missed today) have been together, it was so good to see everyone!!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Our Weekend

We had such a great weekend here in PA, entirely due to the amazing weather!! Yesterday (yes, on St. Patricks Day) we, along with Alex's Parents, took the kids to an Easter Egg Hunt. Liam had so much fun and was just a pro at egg hunting. He kept saying "i get eggs, i get eggs!" while he waited (not so patiently) to start. He was so cute and ended up finding one of the winning eggs and picked a puzzle as his prize. We spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening outside playing. Both kids have been a little "clingy" to Mama the last few days. Both of them whined and fussed and cried until they were both on my lap under a blanket watching a movie before bed. After the kids went to bed i decided to paint out master bedroom. Pretty much the only time to get a project done like that is post bedtime...let's just say by midnight when i was done i was exhausted BUT i love the way it turned out!! It is the perfect mix of light blue/grey ...love it!!



Today we had another great (more like early summer then last week of winter) day. After nap time we got ice cream then played outside. We took Liam's bounce house outside and had a great time jumping and sliding.

Friday, March 16, 2012

A Beautiful "Spring" Friday

Can you believe it is technically not even spring yet?! Crazy since almost all of us are having some amazing weather lately! We have been loving it this week and taking full advantage to play outside! Next week it is suppose to be even nicer, woohoo!!! I am working on a big project which has taken over blog time this week but i did throw together this piece from our day today. We had such a fantastic day!! Both kiddos were in a good mood, Lucy (my child that HATES sleep) took an epic nap, we took a trip to home depot for paint (I am doing out bedroom this weekend), had pizza (Liam even had some?!?), and played outside.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Learning curve...

Meet the newest "member" of our family....


On Friday my computer (Alex's old laptop) kicked the big one....so after much debate i decide to go with a MacBook pro. I got my iPhone over the summer and to say i love it would be an understatement. There is so much i can do with it and so much it has been able to capture for me, from pictures, to journaling, and learning tools for Liam it has rocked my world. I know a few people that have Macs and all say once you go Mac you don't go back, plus a lot of the programs i use (photoshop and lightroom) just seem to run better on Macs. So my friends, that is why i decided to switch teams. Big thanks you to Alex for making this purchase for me, i am so so grateful for it!

One of the things that I am really missing is windows live writer, if you are a blogger and running windows but don't use this program go get it RIGHT now! Seriously it will change your blogging life forever! I makes everything so easy. Basically there is no equlivent for Mac, which is crazy to me ... maybe i should make one :-) So i am back to using the regular blogger platform which i am not a fan of because it makes adding pictures more difficult. So bare with me on posts and pictures until i get my bearings and decide how to proceed. I have been doing a lot of digital scrapbooking (for both project life and the kids indivuldal yearly albums) so i may just end up posting those documents instead of multiple pictues, we will see.




Anway, we have been hit with some nice weather here in PA, windy but sunny and in the 50's so i'll take it. Liam got to go outside over the weekend and show off this soccer skills, he was so excited to get back outside and run around! Right now I am sitting at my computer with a straighted up house, the kiddos are napping, the windows are open and i am warming a spring smelling scentsy (camu camu)....talk about #1000gifts. There is just something about cleaning with the windows open that makes it so much nicer.


We started to give Lucy actual baby food recently, she was just getting brown rice cereal here and there but the kid was so ready for food. She would get so mad at me in the moorings (after she had already eaten) when i would eat my oatmeal in front of her. She'd look at the bowl, watch the spoon, and then scream when i would eat it. Low and behold i fed her some cereal right after and she devoured it. One thing i am doing differently with Lucy then with Liam is making her food. I have turned into quite the "crunchy Mama" since having Liam so it seemed fitting and cost effective. I made her roasted carrots and roasted apples over the weekend and she has been loving both of them. Last night we had our first dinner with all four of us at the table.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Growing and Comparing

Well someone found their thumb on Tuesday and decided it was a whole lot better then a pacifier. I have to admit I think it is adorable!

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Liam and Lucy at 5 months, cracks me up that they are both leaning to the same side and funny to think that Lucy looks like such a chunk but Liam was a pound heavier at this age (the kid is still solid!).

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BLOWS MY MIND! One month, one year, two and a half years….

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