My Little Gardener

Ava happily helped me pick out and plant some flowers in our garden. She especially liked using the shovel and squirt bottle. She's not a big fan of dirt and was found wiping her dirty hands on the grass after every planting.
It was nice to have some Mommy-Ava time while Daddy watched Elise.
One funny note about the squirt bottle is that Ava and I have sort of a deal with it. I let her squirt me, even in the face, with it -if she'll let me squirt her hair so I can make it curly.

laughing all the way

I hit a milestone today: BOTH KIDS SCREAMING AT ONCE IN PUBLIC. This happened at Hobby Lobby while checking out. Ava was screaming because she wanted to walk and not have mommy hold her. (mommy tried letting Ava walk but Ava got into everything and wouldn't listen...so sad.) Elise was crying because Ava's screaming woke her up from her pleasant slumber. All I could do was laugh and hurry out of there.

Yay List

I need to add a new yay list:

1. Yay for 100 posts on blogger. It took me a whole year.
2. Yay for Elise sleeping really well at night. Typically, she sleeps at least 8 hours in one chunk.
3. Yay for making my first outing alone w/both kids to Target. Ava was actually more challenging because she kept wanting to stand up in the cart - her newfound freedom was too exciting. (Question: why don't more carts have 2 seaters? So far, I've only seen 2 seaters at Costco - it wouldn't be that hard, really!)
4. Yay for planting some flowers this weekend. It's nice to add some beauty and color to your surroundings. It's also kind of fun to play in the dirt.
5. Yay for the zoo. We made a trip last weekend to the zoo. Ava L-O-V-E-D it. Chris thought it would be a lot of fun so we did it. Elise, thankfully, did well. Yay for my sister Kelly coming with us and yay for eating at Olive Garden afterwards.
6. Yay for a break from vomit! (see previous posts)
7. Yay for a family nap and walk today...not at the same time that is.
8. Yay for finally putting up dark curtains in our room to block out that morning sun...5:30 sunrise - you've got to be kidding me! Plus, Elise sleeps in our room and thinks it's time to wake up.
9. Yay for cherries. Hadn't had fresh ones in a while until today.
10. Yay for two sweet little girls and a great husband who takes such good care of us!

BUZZ, BUZZ

I think we're finally over the vomit bug...but I have to share one more vomit story for all of your reading pleasure.

--Needing to get out of the house Wednesday, and thinking Ava was all better, my sister and I and kids picked up Daddy from work and went to eat lunch at the HyVee salad bar. As we were walking in, I was talking to Ava about her new shoes because she was acting like they hurt. She started whining, "Momma" and "Ughhh" - I immediately knew this was the vomit cue. I grabbed her and hurried as fast as I could to get her outside. We didn't make it. She threw up right at the threshold of the entrance. I did get her second round in the trash can. We just happened to have extra clothes in the car, which we never do...so I picked her up and carried her to the bathroom to clean-up. As I was walking through the produce department, carrying her "bucket" style, trying not to get any more throw up on myself - Ava, in a peppy voice says, "BUZZ -BUZZ". I think I muttered something like, "huh?" And she said, "Look Momma! A BEE!". She had just seen a mylar balloon in the shape of a bee and this was all she needed to perk up out of her feeling yucky.

--We survived and did stay for lunch anyway. As we were leaving HyVee, walking out the door, Ava noticed the trash can and said, "I frew up there." Yes, yes, you did.

the last couple of days

...have not been fun!
Ava woke up Sunday morning throwing up for several hours, then Monday Chris comes home from work throwing up, Elise then starts throwing up Monday evening, then after being okay all day Monday, Ava wakes up late Monday night and was throwing up all day today. YUCK!

I'm so glad I'm not sick! (yet). Elise didn't throw up at all today and neither did Chris so we're hoping we're on the mend at our house. UPDATE: As I was writing this, Elise threw up! Chris thinks it's because he didn't burp her. Who knows!

On to another topic: So I'm feeling like I could really use a break, a date, something - but I have this feeling that I'm the only one who can really watch Elise. I left Ava with family and even friends when she was Elise's age (8wks). I just feel like Elise is a more challenging baby or that she is high needs. For instance, she has to be swaddled in order to settle her down when she gets really upset, etc. (The 5 S's are super important for those who follow the Happiest Baby stuff).

So what should I do? I just fear that I leave Elise with someone (even her own Daddy or my family) and she cries and cries and they can't soothe her. On the other hand, maybe I need to just break through these feelings and let someone watch her. (I've let a few people watch her for very short periods). Is this normal or am I being too controlling/anxious, etc...?

8 Years Ago

Happy Anniversary, Chris!
We don't have any big plans for our anniversary...other than watching Heroes tonight. I'm hoping we can work out a way to catch a movie one evening coming up. I'm ready for a little time away from the kiddos. :)

Is this normal?

Is this normal or am I losing it?

At any given time, I can stop what I'm doing and will think or imagine that I'm hearing my baby crying.

The things she says...

Ava has said some pretty funny or cute things lately. Here's a sampling:

1. Daddy walked by her high chair while she was eating and said, "Mmmm, pizza!" Ava put her hand out in front of her and said, "No, Swiping!" (Those of you who have seen Dora the Exlporer will recognize the no swiping part).

2. Daddy dropped us Ava and I off at Kohl's the other night and he ran inside of Old Navy. Ava and I came out of Kohl's and I started looking around to the parking lot to see if Chris was ready or still shopping. I didn't say anything but started walking towards Old Navy. Ava looked around and said, "Where's Daddy?" then immediately said, "My Daddy's Lost" in the most worried tone. (We've been reading the Little Critter books and one of the stories is called, Just Lost.) We of course found Daddy at Old Navy.

3. Ava likes it when the disney characters get married. I got out our wedding album and showed Ava how Mommy and Daddy got married too. She saw Daddy dressed up and said, "A prince." Then, Mommy was the "princess". The cutest part was when she saw a picture of the temple we were married in (St. Louis) and said, "Look, Mommy's castle!"

4. "Bye People", "Bye Everybody" - things Ava said leaving garage sales last weekend. ;) She also kept asking, "More garage sales??".

5. A couple of weeks ago, Ava came to me out of the blue, gave me a hug and said, "I love you, Mommy".

A New "Normal"

We're finally feeling like we're adjusting to our new "normal". Elise feels like such an important part of family - we're so happy to have her. She's also been smiling for us just a little which is so much fun. We still have our challenges but all in all we're getting back in gear...case in point - we're talking about how to improve our lawn and what to do with investing, etc. instead of baby this, baby that.
Hangin' with Dad. Ahhh...boy do I like this picture...for many reasons...mainly because my arms were free for a few savored minutes of mommy time.
Tummy time. BTW-Elise is still doing a great job sleeping at night! She slept from 9-5 the other night! Yippee.

Listen to this...

For those of you who know my sister Heidi - you know that she is a talented singer. Here is a recording of her singing from Sunday. She's the soloist.

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=adelheide8

(Monday, May 7th entry)

The Good and the Gross

First, the GROSS!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/07/spiderboy.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Now, the GOOD!
This was exactly what I needed to hear.

http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,49-1-690-13,00.html

Zzzz...

Last night Elise (6 wks tomorrow) slept from 9:30-4:30, (7 hrs), then again from 5:30-8:30, (3 more hrs).
I'm fully expecting this to be a fluke but will enjoy the fact that I, myself, got 8 hours of sleep last night.
I needed it too. Before I went to bed, in my prayers I mentioned how tired I was and that I needed either more quality or quantity of sleep.

Shhh...Shhh...

We went over to our friend's (Rebecca S. and her daughters Shannon and Erin) house today so Ava could play with the girls and I could pick Rebecca's brain with all of my parenting questions. (Thanks, Rebecca!)

It's so cute - Shannon has named one of her baby dolls Elise. I noticed Ava walking around with baby Elise, holding her close to her face and whispering, "shhhhh...shhhhh..." I thought it was so sweet. She definitely sees Mommy & Daddy (well, mostly mommy), doing that. :D

Sunday and more

Here are my girls snuggled up on Sunday morning. I can't believe Elise is 5 weeks old and Ava will soon be celebrating her 2nd birthday.
This was our first Sunday back at church I was a little anxious because Elise does not do well outside of the house. She screams when we put her in the carseat and is hard to settle down when she gets going. I'm hoping she'll learn to enjoy sleeping in her carseat...I guess we were lucky that Ava didn't mind it when she was a baby.

Things went pretty well. Chris kept an eye on Ava. Elise slept through Sacrament mtg - thank goodness. We ended up helping out in the nursery b/c they were short-handed and had lots of criers. Good thing that didn't last long.
here's Elise in her Sunday dress that I found brand-new at a garage sale before Ava was born for only 50 cents.
The open house for Liz (previous post) was also on Sunday. Here's Elise at the end of our long Sunday.
CHEESE! Here's a pic of Ava and I being silly for the camera. I'm trying to find time to make sure she feels lots of love, It seems the last few days I've had to hold Elise a lot! Let's just say we've had a couple of 2 movie + days.

Open House

Chris' sister, Liz had an open house this Sunday for her new townhouse. Several members of my family were able to attend.

Heidi and her "friend" Luke.

Here's an impromtu family portrait
Here's Gina, Heidi, Luke, William & Liz's boyfriend Shaun. Notice that William was so into his video games that I couldn't get him to look at the camera. :o)


Ava & Aunt Liz
Here's Ava shouting "Hooray" as she jumps out of the ottoman
Here's Gaia, William & Kate...by the way, Gaia is blogging again. I have a link for her under "Kevin & Gaia" now