Bead and Bath time Video

A new way to play with beads!

Mike and I have been trying for months and months to teach Lilly how to use a spoon an fork correctly.  She just didn’t get it, I personally think she likes her food too much and the fork or spoon slows her down.  She was the same way with walking, she knew crawling was much faster so she didn’t want to waste her time doing the franken-toddler walk, she just crawled until she could walk pretty much.  I’ve been obsessed with pinterest lately and I found an awesome fine motor skills activity that would also help Lilly learn how to use a spoon…sweet kill two birds with one stone!  The goal is to transfer beads from one bowl to the other with only the spoon.  Lilly loves this “game” she asks to play it all the time AND she is getting better at using the spoon too!

 

After Lilly played with the beads she helped (I use that term very loosly) me give Raelynn a bath.  Raelynn just learned how much fun it is to kick everything that touches her feet, including water!  Lilly and I both got soaked.

 

I have a video but my either my computer or my camera is being funky so I’ll have to post those later.

Jump, jump, jumperoo

I just pulled the jumperoo out of the closet this past week for Raelynn to try out.  She seems to like it so far, she doesn't jump just yet but she does play with the toys.  Take a look..

  

 

And here’s Lilly right around the same age…

Yup those are books…we are not very tall people and apparently don’t have very tall kids :)

Soccer Tots

This past weekend Lilly had her first Soccer Tots class and it was a big hit!  We did a trial class at the beginning of the summer and Lilly was a little skeptical about following directions from another adult and she was a little skeptical about the other kids.  My cute little girl would rather have a deep conversation with an adult than play a game with kids her age (note to self must bring Lilly to more play dates).  Its amazing what a difference 2 months make, Lilly listened and followed all of the coaches directions, she was not scared of the other kids and she didn’t demand to be picked up once! 

They really don’t play soccer, but they do a great job of wearing toddlers out!  Lilly stretched, ran around the field, kicked a soccer ball around, chased me and Mike with a pool noodle, kicked over cones and stood them back up with just her feet (this required a little help from Daddy).  What was Lilly’s favorite part you ask, well it was the part at the very end where she got a sticker from the coach!  Lilly is very obsessed with stickers, that will be a future post I promise.  Ok, now on to the pictures..

 

Sitting on a circle, last time Lilly refused to sit by herself.  This time she gladly plopped down on the color of her choice

Did I mention this is a parent participation class?  Of course all the pictures are of Mike and Lilly, but we did trade baby duty and I got to play a little too

Stretching

Standing on the white line getting ready to run across the field.  Lilly is still talking about standing on the white line.  It’s funny what she remembers.

Lilly running across the field. She’s not the fastest runner, but she giggled and laughed the whole trip across the field.

Daddy helping Lilly walk backwards.  Did you know most toddlers can’t walk backwards?  I’ve never thought to even teach Lilly to walk backwards..hmm

Soccer star in the making?

Where was Raelynn during soccer?  Chilling in the stroller smiling and talking to anyone who would listen to her squeals.  I really meant to take a picture, but I was too busy laughing at a dozen or so toddlers bumping into each other.

 

This was on a different day, but still super cute…Lilly found my brand new running shoes behind the treadmill and decided to put them on.  It’s hard to be mad at her for playing where she shouldn’t when she is acting so cute!

A post all for Raelynn

Raelynn and I get to spend some alone time at least twice a day, before Lilly wakes up in the morning and during Lilly’s nap time.  This day Raelynn was being especially cute, so I decided to play photog. 

She has those big brown eyes just like Lilly!  I could get lost looking into her eyes, they are so sweet and innocent.

Smile #1, big open mouth smile

Smile #2 a little crooked but still really cute

Smile #3 such a sweet smile, she has just started to smile at us and put her chin on her chest like she is being bashful it is super cute

There is a neck in there! I was starting to think she was missing that body part, I had not seen it in weeks.

   

Beautiful little girl.

 

I don’t know how many times I have to say it, Raelynn is so sweet and content with everything.  She is a social butterfly, she will smile at just about anybody who talks to her (much different from Lilly who would stare you down until she knew everything about you and what you ate for dinner last night).  She is also a talker/squealer, she rarely ever cries, but man she is loud, she wants everyone to know where she is at all times.  Raelynn is also a sleeper, oh I love my sleepy babies, Mike and I both love to sleep so I am very happy that we passed that gene on to our kids.  Right now Raelynn is sleeping 11 hours just about every night and she wakes up every morning with a big smile for me when I walk into her room. 

We took her to the doctor about 3 weeks ago because she was spitting up a lot, much more than I had ever thought a baby could spit up.  It turns out she has reflux, she is what is called a “happy spitter” she is gaining weight really well (as you can see), she is generally happy and is not phased  by the mass amounts of spit up she is producing.  We decided to put her on an antacid to reduce the acidity of her spit up so it doesn’t damager her esophagus.  Hopefully she will grow out of this as she get bigger, because Mommy is pretty tired of smelling like spoiled milk all the time.  But for now we are propping her up for 30 minutes after she eats and I cut broccoli out of my diet (darn no more yucky green veggies). 

In a nut shell I love this kid!!

Has it really been 10 years?

Seriously, it feels like I was graduating high school just a couple of years ago, not a full decade! In the last ten years, I attended 3 colleges, married a wonderful man, moved 6 times, suffered survived 2 deployment and added 2 beautiful little girls to our family, just to name a few.  Anyways, a group of people from high school meet at the Baton Rouge zoo last weekend with our families.  It was fun, but oh so HOT! Here are a few pictures that I took before the heat made me forget that I brought my camera along.

Lilly and Raelynn sporting their matching LPC shirts

 

This giraffe was so close to us it could have licked our heads

Taking a stroll through the zoo, of course Lilly didn’t last long in the stroller when she saw that Flynn was walking around like a big boy.

Big sleepy tigers

Lilly and Flynn in the tiger cage

Turtles, we drank lots and lots of water that day

Flynn and Lilly looking at the otters, they were following the bubbles so they could see where the otter would come up.

 

“Look Momma, I’m a big bird”

More stroller time, I can’t wait for it to cool off outside so I can take this baby out for a run with both girls in it!

This was Raelynn pretty much the entire time, chewing on her blankie or sleeping…I think I’ll say it again she is such a content baby, then again she really doesn't have a choice, she just goes wherever we go.  And for now is just along for the ride.

Fine motor skills

Genetics…mmm I think Lilly got my genes when it comes to motor skills and pure clumsiness.  I recently joined pinterest, it is by far my favorite website right now.  I found this project for Lilly to help her practice her fine motor skills.  It involves a pool noodle and a piece of string.  I found a noodle on sale at big lots the other day and decided to try it out. 

First I cut the noodle into 1” sections.

 

Then had Lilly pick them all up and put them in a bag

I tied one noodle piece to the end of a string and had Lilly go to town.

It took her a long time to figure it out, but she finally got the hang of it.

 

She was so proud of herself

 

When Daddy got home she had to show off her new “game”

Look at that she got a bunch of “rings” on there!

She has not played with them too much since this day, but for $1.50 it was totally worth increasing her fine motors skills just a little.  Next I may add numbers or letters to each piece and have her put them in order.

*Ok so you may be wondering where is Raelynn while Lilly is doing all this fun stuff.  Normally Raelynn is sleeping, she definitely got the sleepy gene, she has been taking a good 3 naps a day and sleeping about 11 hours at night.  Now that I wrote that here she’ll probably stop sleeping through the night or something crazy like that :)