Moving On!

We are finally settling in at our new house! For those unaware, we have moved.  Again.  Yes, you read that right...we are expert movers at this point in our lives.  Five times in our 10 years together.  Alex has been warned this time though- he will have to scrape me off the floor of this house with a spatula before I move again!  While we loved the space and quietness of Agua Dulce, Alex felt overwhelmed by the amount of time and energy the property required of him.  It was hard for him to go from spending every extra moment with the girls to spending every extra moment working on the property.  We all felt it was in our best interest to change things before the balance of our happy family was affected.  The good news is we are now raising our girls literally a couple blocks from where I grew up and just blocks from the community pool where Alex and I met 10 years ago :-) Thanks to all our moving I have been seriously slacking on blogging so I'll let these photos do the catching up:

Mother's Day 2013 at The Odyssey

Holding hands at the zoo

Watching the baby and mommy orangutans

 

 

Move-In Day- May 31, 2013

Checking out the new backyard

Sunday morning Princess Sofia time

Fixing up the house together :-)

An Exposé on Puppy Dog and Henry

I thought it was time to do a little piece on the 3rd and 4th important members of our family: Puppy Dog and Henry McEwan.  These two stuffed animals have become such a crucial part of our girls' lives that at times they drive me just as nuts as our kids! Olivia has had Puppy Dog since birth but it wasn't until around 4 months that she could recognize him and freak out without him.  Emma was given Henry (the St Bernard) by Auntie Shanyne at her 1st birthday--they've been inseparable ever since.  When I say the girls are addicted to their dogs, what I actually mean is they are obssessed, to the point that we've had to invest in two more Puppy Dogs and two more Henry's.  Since both dogs have some white to them they get incredibly dirty (mostly because the dogs go everywhere with us) and it was impossible to even take them away to run them through the wash. So I bought some more of each while it was easy to find them for purchase.  Now we have a Puppy Dog and a Henry for the house and a set in the car and then the 3rd extra set I use for laundry day.  Puppy Dog and Henry get a spa day once a month or so where I lovingly wrap them up together in a pillow case, send them through the delicate cycle, and then they air dry in a secret locale so that I don't ruin the illusion the girls have of their "one and only dog."  I know that eventually the girls will discover my trick but for now this works best for all of us and heaven forbid if something were to happen to one of the dogs we do have replacements :-)  So there you go! Now you know a little more about the dogs you've probably seen gracing most of our pictures: "Pupppppy Dogggggy" and "On-ry" (Henry is On-ry, who is actually French Canadian if you didn't know...).

Lu and Puppy Dog 8 Months

Emma and Henry 12 Months

Lu and Puppy Dog 22 Months

Emma and Henry 22 Months

Growing Girls

It seems like in just this past month the girls' vocabulary has exploded! They're using sentences more, responding thoughtfully to questions, singing along to songs, they both can count 1-2-3, and are both just non-stop chatting.  They are also becoming more coordinated and agile: they love dressing and undressing themselves, they can even put the right shoes on their feet about 90% of the time, they have a shopping cart and a baby stroller that they drag race around the house with, and even their once calm baths have turned into mayhem where they request "more water" so that they can swim in the tub.

Emma's Talking Quirks:

Asking if every single thing she touches, picks up, sees, etc is hers. Her words, "Is it mine?" Doesn't matter if you tell her it's hers or not, it's still hers.  She rules this house with an iron first.

In addition to assuming everything is hers, she also assumes a lot of things are "hot." When something is dangerous and I just can't figure out how to explain it to her I say it's hot.  I know, I know, I'm setting her up for some major confusion! Emma catchphrase #2- "Is it hot?"

Continuing in line with the fact that Emma questions everything, she also asks if we see a baby, "Is it my baby?" Recently with new baby cousins and new baby friends the girls have become OBSSESSED with babies.  If we see a baby in person, on tv, in a book, a doll, etc. Emma is sure to ask whether it is her baby.

She loves to sing the alphabet song but pretty much makes the letters up as she goes, however she does like to shout "Peeeeeee" at the end of L-M-N-O-P. 

Olivia's Talking Quirks:

When we're in the car, if I excelerate, Lu likes to yell out, "here we go!"

If a song comes on that she likes she'll say,"let's dance!"

Continuing on with songs...the kid LOVES her music.  She is a particular fan of Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars...she can sing Begin Again and Locked Out of Heaven like nobody's business.  I try to limit Locked Out of Heaven because of the s-e-x reference but unfortunately this kid gets her sailor mouth from her father and has already used colorful words like sh--, f--k, and crap.  Yaaaaa, be me in Target when you're 1 year old says "oh f--k." Thanks Alex...

Overall, Lu's vocab is just all over the place--she likes to talk about the moon, any clocks she sees, she can pretty much name any animal (her favs being elephants and monkeys), she mimics me when I'm on the phone (to the point that I can't use bluetooth in the car because she talks over me),  and she pretty much copies whatever anyone, anywhere says...hence her colorful language :-)

18 Months Photo Shoot

It is nearly impossible to actually photograph both girls at the same time and not have one crying, picking a booger, making a pirate face, or simply face down throwing a tantrum.  It is for this reason that we have avoided doing professional photos because why would I pay someone to capture something I get to witness everyday for free (that was sarcasm by the way).  That being said, I LOVED the photos my older sister had done of my niece Avery and I convinced Alex to give it one go. We also decided to include Avery in some shots so my parents could actually have a photo of all three girls.  I will just summarize the experience to say it was exactly what I expected: exhausting.  Thankfully, for all the work put in by me, Natalie, and the photographer, we actually ended up with quite a few great shots :-) Enjoy!

Photos by Julie Andress

Making It Up As We Go

 We've noticed for the last few months that the girls have been making a big to-do about dirty diapers: grabbing them, ripping them off, announcing to crowds of people that they have "pee-pee or poo-poo," and just generally being very interested in those delightful bodily functions.  We even caught Emma trying to "hold it" while running naked to get into the bath tub...hands down cutest potty dance I've ever seen :-)  One weekend with nothing to do or anywhere to go we decided, heck, let's just buy a couple pottys and see what happens!  We didn't go into this with any plans or really any hope--we had ZERO expectations.  They were so excited to just play with the pottys that that's all they really did the first day.  The next day we got them to sit on them nakey throughout the day but nothing happened.  The next day, a Monday (meaning mom was on her own without dad), I got them up in the morning and sat them on the pottys.  Emma was NOT having it, like full on tantrum, so I wasn't even paying attention to Lu.  I determined that Emma was definitely not ready for this and I wasn't going to push it anymore.  I turned around to grab a naked Lu and she was just staring into the potty repeating "pee-pee" over and over again.  Low and behold I looked in and we had our first success!  She was so proud and so excited that she ran all over the room yelling "pee-pee potty, yaaaaaa!" *Or was that me? No no, it must have been Lu*  Throughout that day, and the week that has followed, she has asked for the potty or to pee-pee.  She could literally sit on the potty all day happy as can be!  She doesn't always "go" but when she does she thinks it's the best thing ever and repeatedly "flushes" her toddler potty to hear the applause.  She is by no means consistent and she won't go #2 on the potty but since our potty training method has been pretty loosey-goosey what can you really expect?  She's too tiny/skinny for the smallest pull-ups and unless I special order her big girl panties she is stuck in diapers anyways.  So until things get a little more consistent she'll just keep wearing her diapers and doing her own brand of potty training hehe.

Checking everything out

She even keeps up her style while potty training :-)

Snowflakes

We've been lucky to have several "snow days" and by lucky I mean it only sticks around for a couple hours and only once have I had to pry my car door open :-)  I don't mind the fun flakes for a few hours here or there because the girls really enjoy it and by about the time I'm over the wet floors/dog...well...it's already over!  Last week the snow actually kept up for long enough that it stuck on the ground for a couple hours giving Lauren, Corey, and baby Penny time to get up here and witness it...baby Penny's first snow day  With a low of 27* today and rain predicted we may get some flakes AGAIN!

The girls have started "sneaking" things in to bed..apparently we run a prison where they feel the need to bring weapons like pizza cutters to bed!

George Strait in Vegas for our 4th wedding anniversary!

Outfits my mom sewed for the girls

Valentine's Day