OK, I'm Falling Behind!!!

Help! We are so busy lately that I can't seem to keep up with adding posts with any regularity...I keep thinking that I'll start doing them during naptime (which is actually when I'm typing this) but mostly I end up deciding to take a nap myself. Maybe I'll just have to take one more step toward becoming my mother and start drinking coffee every morning... My other excuse for the lag in posts is a technical one. Our pictures and movies were taking up too much space on our computer, so Andy moved them to another drive...but so that it would be easier to retrieve them, the drive is remotely accessed by my computer. This makes looking at and choosing the pictures SLOW. We are working on a compromise, but in the meantime just know that it took me forever to do this post!!!

Well, lot's has happened since my last post, but I'll start with Elizabeth. She has been growing and changing like crazy lately! She actually rolled over for the first time on Sunday (9.27) from her tummy to back. I saw her do it and that was pretty awesome! No such maneuvers since then though, but I've got my eye on her now as she's becoming more mobile. She is also starting to grab things and bring them to her mouth...anything she can get her hands on - toys, her clothes, burpcloths, even her other hand! She has been trying to suck on her hands for over a month now, but over the past few days I've noticed her starting to prefer her first and second fingers of her right hand. She can now easily lift her head to 90 degrees when on her tummy, and is starting to figure out how to use her arms to prop her chest up. She coo's, oooh's and ahh's for us now and has a few random consonants pop up now and then too. Today I swore she said "hola"! Hahaha...not "guten tag" mom!

Sometimes we would put her in her boppy like this and she really liked being part of the action as AJ and I would play. See how happy she looks? And AJ liked hanging out with her up there too, and would bring her a pacifier or a toy if she fussed. Well, all of this is written in past tense because I can't put her in the boppy on the couch anymore...because she somehow leapt over the boppy and slid down to the floor while I was making faces at her from the island in our kitchen!!! I just about died, but luckily there was a pillow and her playgym on the carpet where she landed, so she was fine after the initial shock. What a scare! So now she can still lay on the boppy, but only on the FLOOR! (I felt like the winner of the Bad Mom contest, but after sharing this story with many other moms, almost everyone has had something like this happen to their babies. No wonder God leaves their bones soft for a while!) So now we are much more cautious. See, I said she was getting more mobile! I also worry about leaving her alone with AJ for more than a few seconds, but so far that is an unfounded concern. I've just heard too many stories about the "hugs" gone wrong! AJ is usually not even that interested in Elizabeth, but lately has been interacting with her more...little by little. I think he likes it that now she can smile or react to him instead of just laying there or crying. At night when he goes up to bed, he gives her a kiss on the head. Very cute.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the past couple of weeks of both our cuties...

AJ hanging out with Elizabeth under her play gym...precious!

He loves to tilt the mirror, "AJ, Elizabef, AJ, Elizabef..."

Happy in the bouncy seat (thanks Emily!)

"Elizabef has squishy cheeks!"

(where did he get that from? I NEVER squish her cheeks! OK, maybe once in a while.)

"Here's your schnulli, Elizabef!"

(schnulli is our German word for the pacifiers)

"hmmm, I thought this was MY playgym.

What's he always doing under here anyway?"

At least they're sharing! :)

And having fun!

Frankenstein?

On the changing table...look at that Michelin arm!

Lifting up the head...you can also see in this picture that her

hair is starting to come in...looks like it will be brown.

Maybe she'll get her dad's nice curls!

Happy Baby!

Watching football already?

Mama loves you!

Little cutie pie

Artist and Explorer

AJ has been doing some interesting craft projects and drawings lately, and has also become really interested in exploring. Recently I was drawing some of his favorite "Cars" characters for him on his magnadoodle, and then asked him to draw one for me. He usually just scribbles and makes circles when he draws, but this time he was making more deliberate lines and dots and assigning them to parts of the car. Pretty cool, I thought! Since it was not on paper, I couldn't save the drawing, but I took this picture instead. The dots and vertical line on the right are McQueen's eyes and mouth, and then on the left are 4 wheels (the dots) and the rest AJ said is the car... Exactly. I see it, don't you? :)

I also found a small pair of blunt scissors and taught him how to cut with one hand and hold the paper in his other. He did really well and was very proud of himself. I was just happy he was not trying to cut his t-shirt with one of my pairs of scissors! So, he did an art project while I finished a few more of Elizabeth's announcements (yes, you'll get one soon, I promise). He stamped on paper with his washable inks and my stamps, then cut up the paper and glued it down to another sheet of paper. He also loves his new glue sticks that "draw" purple and then dry clear. This type of gle stick is genius for getting kids to understand how to paste and where the glue is. That white thing on his face is a sticker...of Flo from Cars, no less. He put it on his cheek himself as a fashion statement, and wore it most of the day. Fyi, Ramone was on the other cheek.

AJ has also been big into exploring. One day while G'ma Cheri was in, she stayed home with Elizabeth and AJ and I went to the Conservatory and strayed from our usual path. First, they were harvesting the bananas from the banana trees in the "sugar house", something we'd never seen them do before!

We shared one of the tree's tiny bananas and here is a picture I took of the it after about 2 bites. The whole thing was about 3 or 4 inches long, and the inside of it was almost peach-colored. It was very tasty, too! We ventured outside to find the compost boxes the employee spoke of to toss our peel... and here began our explorations:

First, when we walked outside,

we came across a little gravel maze in a grass opening. It was just barely drizzling so AJ was holding my umbrella and walking along the maze's path. (It's a really cute area and the following week we had a picnic lunch there with some of our friends. We moms got to relax for a few minutes while our kids played follow the leader winding all around on the gravel path.) He got a real kick out of walking all around under the umbrella and insisted on holding it himself.

Then, near the compost area, AJ found this little thatched hut. It was the perfect size for him to fit through the opening and have a seat on one of the log stumps inside. Not so much my size I found, as I squeezed in. But AJ wanted us to both be in "together". Then we walked a little further and found a good sized garden where the Conservatory was growing everything from Swiss chard and squash to tomatoes and green beans. We checked out all the vegetables and I felt jealous of their setup and sun exposure! Then AJ spotted something like a Tee Pee skeleton. This structure was much easier for me to fit into, so we sat on the stumps and hung out for a little while playing the "what can you hear?" listening game...bees, airplanes, cicadas, birds, a train, etc. He's getting better at focusing and picking out different sounds, so this is one of our favorite games lately. Well, okay, maybe it's one of MY favs since it gets him to be quiet and sit still for a few minutes! Hahaha!

The exploring continues when we walk to the parks or local restaurants, since AJ does not always ride in the stroller anymore. This way he is free to stop and look and check things out. He now has his own little magnifying glass too, so we've got a little observer in the making, I guess! (Kim & Mom, does this sound familiar? Didn't you wonder if I'd ever make it home from school!?)

Elizabeth Shots...

Here are some recent pictures of Elizabeth. She is growing and changing so fast, I will have more to post again soon!

Grandpa John and Renee came in to visit and meet her a couple of weeks ago, and here is a good shot of Grandpa holding her for the first time. She looks so small in his hands!

After the visit (which included brownies that Renee made. Yum.) Elizabeth was tired. Here she is conked out in the swing. I love her in this outift...thanks Kristin! :)

I took this picture of Andy with her on his lap. This is how he always used to sit with AJ, and it was really cute to see him like this with Elizabeth too. It brought back all the cute memories of when AJ was this small. (was he ever really small? hahaha)

She liked to suck on our fingers for the first month and a half or so. Here she is with Andy's magic pinky in action. Now she has finally accepted the pacifiers (which we call "schnulli's") and for that I am thankful. My finger was turning into a raisin! ;)

Here she is licking and sucking on her hand, trying to find a good finger...for now, this is her soothing mechanism and how she puts herself to sleep if there is no schnulli close by...

And then a few minutes later, she fell asleep in her bouncy seat...now, just a few short weeks later, she is pretty much taking all naps in her crib.