Lots of Updates!

Aubrey:

This morning when I went in her room to get her because she was fussing off and on, she was STANDING, holding onto the crib rail. It was quite a shock considering she has never gotten herself up to the standing position before!  What am I going to do when I have 2 little girls running in opposite directions?! I don't think I'm ready for that, but I'm thankful that I'm sure her walking will be a ways off since we have just gotten to the standing.

Natalie:

Bedtime has gotten quite a bit better. I actually ended up putting a child-proof door knob on the inside of her bedroom door since she was constantly getting out of her room when it was bedtime. After having it on there for a little bit, I think it actually did the trick. Now, when she is not wanting to go to bed, she knocks on the door or cries, but it was limited her 10,000 trips out of her room at bedtime to 1-2 now!  We even weaned her off of drinking milk at bedtime too!  Now she is down to just drinking ice water. We have definitely noticed a difference in her belly too because she was drinking 2-4 glasses of milk every night!  By no means was she fat...just definitely had that bloated milk belly that little kids have. The weaning was actually easier than I thought. We still have to be pretty stern with her at bedtime, but at least it's not the most dreadful thing now!

Tonight, Natalie was crying after being in bed for about an hour. She gets herself so worked up and is hard to settle down. Also, if you ask her what she wants, she'll tell you a million different things: milk, water, rock, blanket, play, etc. The list goes on and on!  Finally tonight after rocking her and laying her in our bed, she kept telling me "poopy." So, I asked her if she wanted to use the potty, and she said yes. I figured she just wanted to get to stay out of bed as long as possible because many times using the potty also means using the computer/phone. However, tonight I didn't let her use either. First, she sat on her Abby Cadabby toilet seat on the regular toilet. I could have sworn I heard her poop, but I didn't see anything. Then, she wanted to sit on her little princess potty. After sitting on the princess potty for a short time, she started saying "water!" "water!" She was so surprised there was "water!"in the potty...it was funny!  She did get an M&M (actually 2), mommy dancing and giving her a hi-5, calling Daddy and Grandma on the phone at 11p...lol!  Then, she went to bed!  I really hope this potty thing sticks because we have been pretty unsuccessful in all our other attempts...I hope she is ready!

Her favorite song is Jingle Bells currently and she sings it EVERYWHERE, all day long...lol...only a few months away!

Our House:

There is ALWAYS something to get done, but from the outside of our house, it is finally looking like someone lives here!  After a VERY LONG, and drawn out process, the building trades board FINALLY decided to level out our yard...only took 1.5 years. Also, we got landscaping done in the front of our house. Bobby also starting installing our Quickrails (however, don't let the name fool you because there is NOTHING quick about it). I offered to help several times, and finally tonight, Bobby actually let me use the power tools to screw the railings in. They are about 80% done, but it looks awesome. I've been wanting these since we moved in, in July 2011! Can't wait for them to be done, then get our hanging baskets up. Pictures to come when it's finished!

Next on our To-Do list:

1. The building trades kids are supposed to plant our grass this week!

2. Power wash the swingset wood and assemble. (Get all the needed replacements since some of the stuff is no useable from age)

3. Plant flowers in containers and hanging baskets

4. Stain the monstrous fence...yippee!

5. Finish planning Aubrey's party!

We definitely know how to keep ourselves busy around here...haha!

Happy 11 Months, Aubrey!

Say it isn't so...

I know time just flies, but I feel with Aubrey time just kind of snuck up on us. I'm not really sure why, but maybe it's because she's not walking along anything or quite pulling herself up so she is still very much our baby instead of our almost ONE year old!

Getting pictures of her is quite the chore now that she's on the move and much more interested in grass pulling and exploring everything but the camera!  Bobby helped a bit when he got home, but she still didn't want any part of it.

You can see what she really thinks about these stickers!

Aubrey Updates:
1. She has 2 teeth
2. She is crawling everywhere...her favorite places seem to be Rusty's food dish and the bathroom
3. She is starting to eat a little table food, but with only 2 bottom teeth, she's pretty limited: her favorites are bananas and green beans (sounds like Natalie)
4. She is very inquisitive and looks for things to get into all the time (baby gates up soon?!)
5. She has starting doing a very high pitched scream/squeal which is awful especially when your ear is right by her mouth...oy!
5. I still can't really say that she's sleeping through the night because it's not consistent, but it's getting there
6. Wears 9 and 12 month clothes
7. Size 3 diapers still
8. Her favorite toys appear to be balls and things with music or that make music

1st Birthday Invites...Already?!

I can't believe I'm ordering Aubrey's birthday invites already! She will be ONE in a month...that's just crazy! I'm sad about this one!

I was practicing taking Aubrey's pictures in her cute birthday outfit yesterday since it was nice outside, but she decided she was more interested in picking, taste-testing the weeds/grass!  I think I will need an extra set of hands to take her ONE year pictures!

Sleepyheads!

Natalie is not very good at taking naps at home, she does pretty well at daycare for the most part...peer pressure I think!

So, lately, we have allowed her to be in her room and as long as she is quite, then she doesn't get in trouble. She likes to "read." However, if she doesn't nap, she gets really whiny later in the day, too early to go to bed and too late for a nap.

Today, before Bobby had to go back to the church to volunteer, we went to the school across the street to play. After Bobby left, we skyped, had a snack, and then the whining started!  I turned on Thomas and Natalie didn't even make it through the entire show. Anyone who knows Natalie well, knows this is a pretty rare occurrence! I let her sleep about 30 minutes, so I hope she goes to bed tonight too!

Can't forget about Aubrey, too!

Rusty wanted a nap too.

Dirt!

The yard drainage project that Bobby started last weekend is finally complete and we will hopefully have our yard complete by the end of this month!  I'm not holding my breath on the yard, but after Aubrey fell asleep tonight, Natalie and I headed outside to help Bobby. She LOVED being outside and playing in the dirt!  Imagine that!  She is definitely not going to be our girly girl, which I am totally fine with because I wasn't either.

We put her to work early and tried to get her to pick up the empty rock bags in the backyard. I think she picked up three total, but she was very proud of herself. She even ate some dirt...yum!

 

Daddy's little helper

Happy Birthday, Cadence!

One of the family's from our small group from church just moved here from California this winter and invited us over for their daughter's 4 year old birthday party. It was a cute little tea party. Natalie is still a little young to catch onto the concept, but she enjoyed herself. It was nice to be with the other mom's, too. I was glad Melissa moved the party to Friday instead of Cadence's actual birthday, which was Wednesday. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to go.

 `
 

 

Happy Birthday, Cadence!

Week Wrap-Up

Before Bobby left last weekend, he met us at the park on Friday during his lunch break to enjoy the nice weather.

Something weird that Aubrey did last week was on Thursday, I had to pick the girls up early from daycare because Aubrey decided to throw up her lunch which was a packe of pear, kiwi, and spinach. She has had that before and wasn't running a fever, so Sara (from daycare) and I thought possibly it was the kiwi since she doesn't have it often. Then, on Friday, I fed her peas and spinach and guess what...yep...she threw that up and still no fever. I looked up spinach allergies and couldn't find a whole lot other than it's not common. Either she had a little but that never developed a fever or she's allergic or has an intolerance to spinach even though she's had it multiple times. I'm not planning on introducing spinach anytime soon, that's for sure!

This past week Bobby was out of town from Sunday until late Friday night. So, I was a single-mom for the week. Other than being mentally draining, I have to admit, it really wasn't much different than a regular week. I'm the one that gets them up and around in the morning, drops off/picks up from daycare,  and I make dinner/meals (almost always). The only mentally difficult part was bedtime; however, the girls were actually better than normal. Natalie's typical 10 times in/out of bed before finally falling asleep was probably only down to about 3 times on average and Aubrey slept through the night on average from 9p-7a, which was nice. Also, I wasn't able to go to my Pulse fitness class and had to take them to small group by myself. On top of being a single-mom, I was super busy at work so really no downtime at all.

The weather was nice so we were able to take a couple walks and play at the playground which was nice!

 

It was also crazy hair day on Tuesday...Aubrey didn't participate.

 

On Friday, I was planning to take the girls to the free childcare offered by our old church and have a girls' night, but it got cancelled so Alison and I took the girls to Chili's then shopping at TJMaxx. I really wanted a break, but we made a night of it anyway.

When, Bobby got home later that night, once Natalie realized he was home, she ran up to him like she usually does and said "Miss you" without even being prompted. She was too cute!  Aubrey was excited too. However, ever since Bobby has been home, the girls have each woken up at least 1 time a night (different times). Guess who gets up with them...yep...me. I did nudge Bobby Saturday morning to get Aubrey since I had already gotten up 2 or 3 different times. I enjoyed the empty bed and sleepy girls while he was gone!

I still didn't get a break once Bobby was home though because on Saturday he started a major outside project of digging for pop-up drains in the front and backyard. So...no break for this mommy! Saturday, I took the girls by myself to a dairy farm with a large group of young families from our church. I heard that they had 60 people (including kids) total. Natalie got to pet a baby cow, but was more interested in jumping in a hay pile. It was really stroller friendly, so I had Aubrey on my hip all day, so pictures were very scarce and bad.  My arm definitely hurt from holding Aubrey for an hour straight!

                                      

Aubrey was more interested in the rocks on the ground.

Standing where the cows get milked

  We did get to take a little time for a date on Saturday night with a couple from our small group from church offering to watch the girls. We will watch their kids on Monday night so they can have a date. We went to the new Italian restaurant in town...Piloni's. It was really good. Then, we ended up playing putt-putt on a very sad-looking course (I won), then played a video game in the arcade, then walked around the mall. It was definitely an interesting night. Supposedly Bobby was going to take me to the jewelry store to pick out something since he didn't get me anything in Las Vegas...not even a thank you for being with the girls alone all week (however Bobby will tell a different story that he did tell me thank you). The girls got souvenirs, but not me. I didn't even get my Valentine's gift fulfilled yet (a housecleaner for a 1x deal).  Ugh!  

Sunday I went to church with the girls, then drove up to Indy for Gavin's 2nd birthday. Natalie had a blast on the trampoline and bounce house. I stopped at Target while we were Indy and good thing I bought Aubrey an outfit because she had a MAJOR blowout that I didn't realize until we got out to the car. Talk about gross! We met Matt and Amanda for dinner, then headed home. Both girls slept the whole way home, but bedtime was a little difficult even though Natalie was exhausted, she fought going to bed like normal!

She ate the frosting first.

 

Having fun in the grass 

This ball was a big hit!  As Gavin would say "my ball"  You have to love the mine stage in 2 year olds :) (Natalie says everything is hers lately)

 

 

Easy toy for Aubrey :) 

Birthday boy

I definitely give single moms a big pat on the back because it is definitely not easy...doable but not easy!  Everything you try to do takes a ton of extra time and effort and patience. When do I get my weeklong break away from kids, husband, etc?!