Baby or Big Girl??

Ava is confused... she doesn't know if she still wants to be a baby or a big girl. I set up her old booster at our kitchen table for Sydney and she wanted to sit in it again, not Sydney. Eventually she let her Sissy sit in it (when I put her in the high chair) but she insisted that I feed her some applesauce. Later she wanted me to spoon feed her yogurt with Baby Sydney. On the other hand, the other night when she and I were singing before bed, she made it clear to me that she wanted me to sing to Sydney while she sang to baby Stella. She wanted to be the Mommy too. Whenever I would look at her and sing to her she would get mad and tell me not to look. So cute.... I will let her be Baby Ava when she wants to.

She found her binky!

Sydney has been doing a good job at self soothing lately. When I put her down for her nap in her crib, she finds her binky and sticks it in her mouth, then she falls asleep. My baby is growing up so fast! I started her on yogurt lately and give her some mixed with rice cereal before bed. She has been sleeping for 5 hours at a time, only waking up 1-2 times per night. Yay me! It is amazing what a longer stretch of sleep does for me the next day!

What a face!!

Valentines

We made Valentines this weekend. The kids had so much fun and so did I.

New Hat

Someone got a new hat today :)

A day in the life...

We had so much fun today. We woke up, ate muffins, cereal and fruit. Luke slept in his own bed all night with the help of a little bribery. Then when Baby Sydney went own for her morning snooze, we finger painted. It was so messy and fun and completely washable, thank goodness. We all made some masterpieces. After we painted, we went outside. It has been nice all week so we have been walking down to the field, setting up cones and kicking the soccer ball to knock them down. Luke loves it! Ava just kicks down the cones with her foot. Sydney just sits in the stroller and watches us, she is very entertained. I love how big the kids are getting and that we can finally go outside and play little games like this. I feel like I have been waiting a long time for this to happen. Before I know it, Sydney will be outside running with us. It amazes me what an advantage the 2nd and 3rd born kids have by watching and learning from their older sibling. Ava has learned so much from Luke and I just see Sydney watching it all, soaking it in. I love it. After our little soccer match, we walked and got the mail. We had 2 exciting packages in the mailbox. I had a book made of the kid's totsite and it was so rewarding to watch Luke be in awe of it. He kept thanking me for it. The best part is that he doesn't even know everything in there. All he sees is the pictures and he loves them but he does not know what all of the writing is yet. To me that is the best part. All of the journals I wrote 2-4 times a month for 3 years and all of the comments from loved ones... all of their firsts recorded. It was so much fun for me to look back on some of that stuff and it was just a year or two ago that I wrote it. How quickly we forget the little moments that were such BIG moments at the time.

When we got home, we watched Caillou and Dora and ate grilled cheese sandwiches with grapes. Ava fed Sydney her pear puree for the first time. She did so good, she even held the little container of it. She insisted that I let her feed the whole thing by herself. She always says "I do it." to me because she wants to do EVERYTHING on her own. All the power to her, I love it! Evelyn and Missy came over for a bit and we visited while the kiddos played. Luke and I played Super Mario on the Wii together, while the girls napped. Sydney is pretty much down to 2 naps a day.

It was a fun day with nothing big on the schedule... those are my favorite days. I love watching Ava and Luke play together. Ava makes all of these voices for the Little People animals that crack me up. She can play with all of that stuff for a long time. Until Luke comes in with the bat robot and harasses her Little People village. Before we knew it, Daddy got home, we ate a couple bites of dinner, played, took a bath, did our nightly puzzles... tonight it was Dora. And the kiddos went to bed. Goodnight :)

Little People, Little People and more Little People.

And the masterpieces...

Luke...
Ava...

Time to hide the tiny toys...

Baby Sydney spends a lot of time on the blanket on the floor playing with her favorite toys. She is starting to move around a lot and this past week started lifting her chest off the ground in hope of crawling. She probably has a few weeks more of practice before she can finally do it. Stay tuned...

Luke and his bots

Luke's latest fad is robots. He builds them out of legos, megablocks, and pre existing toys by flipping them around and manipulating them. He makes robot Mr. Potato heads and robots out of magazine cut outs. Lately, he started carrying around his R2-D2 and I introduced him to Star Wars. He picked out an R2 book at Barnes and Noble. Uncle Doug and Greg would be proud!

Siblings

I love watching the kids interact together. I have watched Luke and Ava's relationship mature to what it is now. They love to play together... maybe Luke a little more than Ava. I think that it is amazing that she can play "with" him at the age of 2. Usually it is more about independent play at that age. When they both want to play something together like their Little People Zoo or barn, they play so nicely. And then there are times when Luke runs his "Bat-Bot" all over Ava's Little People party she has going on and she gets so mad at him.... "No Luke" she says, sometimes pushing him. I just sit there and chuckle to myself. I don't like to interfere if I don't have to. I want to teach them to learn how to read and respect each others feelings. Sometimes I think I am crazy for believing a 2 or 3 year old can do something so mature but someday they WILL get it. Now that Sydney is getting older and grasping toys, it is interesting to see hoe Luke and Ava handle it, especially if she is holding onto one of their toys. Luke is very protective of her and cares mostly about not giving her something she shouldn't have... like a magnet. He knows everything goes right in her mouth and he talks to her like she understands him... I love it. Ava typically mothers Sydney and does like to bring her toys to play with but she still likes to claim her own things 50% of the time. I am proud of how loving and gentle they both are with their little sister and I can't wait to see their relationships continue to evolve.

The many faces of Sydney...

She may not be the best sleeper these days but she loves to model for her Mama.

Tutu

She loves to wear her tutu, especially when Luke dresses up daily in Batman or Spiderman costume.

Dooooo Rah

Lately Ava is OBSESSED with Dora. I probably should turn off the TV more than I do but she just loves "Doooo rah" so much. We saw a little Dora doll at Target last week and we had to buy it. She has been mothering it ever since. When I think back to a couple months ago when I was planniong her birthday party she did not prefer any characters. Now here she is 2 months later loving Dora, Hello Kitty, Minnie Mouse and Tinkerbell.

Doodling

I love the kids doodles. I think it is cute when they draw little faces and say that it is Mama or Baby or whoever. Luke's faces have eyes and noses and lately they have these really long arms that extend out from the head, where the ears should be. Today he drew a picture of a train with wheels. I was so impressed with his picture! Ava's faces are just circles and they have long lines for the eyes and mouth. After they both the draw the faces, they scribble in the middle of them and I think that is the hair... although they don't really answer me when I ask them if that is what it is. I seriously laugh out loud when they draw these people because they are so freaking cute and I just think it is funny how skewed they are. That is what I love the most about them.

Me and the Bubs... I mean Batman

I love my hour or so of one on one time with Luke (and so does he.) He is still wearing his Batman and Spiderman costume quite a bit. Today we set up the camera and took some pictures... he was so cute he just wanted to keep taking them and taking them! I was all for it because it is usually hard to get him in a picture with me.

A first for Luke...

He did it! He slept the whole night through without peeing in his pullup! YAY Luke!

A duck in a rainbow tutu...

My sweet girl cracking me up again... Yes, this is what it looks like.... a duck in a tutu cooking dinner.

6 1/2 month developmental update

Baby Sydney can finally sit... I should be taking pictures of her doing it but her balance and strength is not 100% there so I can't just leave her there. Her sleeping habits have been all over the board lately. There really has not been a long stretch of sleep in the night... maybe I get a 5 hour stretch every week or so. I feel like she will be teething forever... still no tooth yet. She is eating pears 3 times a day. Her digestive system has a hard time with every other food. She definitely loves her toys and she rolls around and around on her blanket playing with them. She takes 1-2 short naps a day (about 1 hour tops) and 1 long nap in the afternoon (about 2- 2 1/2 hours.)

Video Gaming with Grammy

Who knew that Grammy liked video games so much? Luke and Grammy played hours of Super Mario yesterday, it was quite entertaining to watch!

Sleeping Baby

Poor Baby has hard a hard time sleeping at night lately, but not when on Daddy's lap!

Luke's Funny Faces

About a month ago Luke started making this funny face. I love it because he does it to make us laugh... it is the fist time he has really tried to be funny. I wonder if he will be funny like Daddy when he grows up. Here are my little characters in the bath and of course Ava does everything that Luke does.

Ha Ha

I asked Luke to go pee. He came out of the bathroom and said "It's empty, Mama." Then he said, "Where is my orange juice, I need to fill up."

Life is Good =)

There are about 20 other things I should be doing right now, the eve before my 34th birthday but I feel compelled to write down some of my thoughts for Luke, Ava and Sydney. Someday, when they each are 21, I will give them the books I have created on their totsite and this blog, all wrapped up with a pretty bow as a BIG surprise!

I can not believe another year has come and gone! It was exactly 2 years today that I had a revelation and I have lived life differently ever since. It is sad for me to go to such a sad place in my life, it was Pop Pop Lass's last couple weeks of life. I was so sad that I could not go with Steve to say goodbye but Ava was just 4 weeks old and we were strongly advised not to bring her on such a long flight. So here I was, a new Mom of two kiddos left for the first time with my 2 children alone so Steve could be with Dad. Ava was feeding every couple hours and I remember actually feeling a little sorry for myself that I did not have some help... I am ashamed for feeling that way (as Steve was leaving to go see Dad for the last time) but it was a thought that legitimately went through my head. It was the middle of the night and she was crying and crying and would not go to sleep and I was pulling my hair out crying to myself because I was so sleep deprived and just sad. And then I pulled myself together. I thought of my situation at hand... a newborn baby, a miracle of life... how lucky that I through all of my personal losses of babies had a perfect, healthy beautiful baby girl in front of me. A sweet crying newborn baby that needed and [still needs] my unconditional love. I realized that this is no problem at all and I felt so happy to be sleep deprived, so full of life... between me and Ava. Life is short and I truly feel like that the hand of God was upon me that night and continues to rest upon me everyday. I feel so blessed to have had another year of life and I will never take a day or minute of my life for Granted thanks to my father-in-law. Birthdays are a celebration of life, what is more beautiful than that?

And so I use that philosophy of life everyday. When I am tired, run down, have had no personal time... no "me" time I kick myself and say "What a wonderful problem to have!" How much my life has changed in 4 years. I thought it was good then, but it is better now that Steve and I have 3 little ones to share it with.

My Babies at 6 months!!!

Here they all are at 6 months old. Amazing thing is that Ava and Sydney were exactly the same weight at 6 months old... 16lbs 4 oz. Sydney is a tiny bit taller. Luke was 19lbs 3oz at 6 months.

Sisters

My Sister means the world to me! I was so happy to know that Ava would have a sister too when I found out Sydney was a girl. I can only hope these girls will be best friends like Jen and I. They are off to a great start ;)

My Birthday Pictures

My Birthday isn't for a few days but I think it is fun this year because the kids actually know that it is my birthday. They made me these pictures. Luke just started drawing people and I love it. The have these marshmallow heads with dots for eyes and a nose and a little line for the mouth. Some of them even have arms sprouting out. I have yet to see legs. Ava LOVES to draw and would draw all day. I have not yet made much of her scribbles but she is definitely drawing people in her little world.


Luke's Masterpiece...

Ava's work of art...

One Proud Mama...

Luke and I had so much fun yesterday working on his Batman puzzle from Auntie Jen. We have been watching the old Adam West "Batman" video quite a bit... thanks to Uncle Doug's recommendation. Luke still likes to dress up as Batman. He has really turned a corner lately and is able to focus on activities a lot better. I am so proud of him. This puzzle definitely held his attention! He is 100% potty trained. He went to school all week without a diaper and we also went to the Children's musuem with no accidents!

I cherish our one on one time we have every afternoon when the girls nap!

Sleepy Baby

I kid you not, this happens every time Daddy holds Sydney. He bounces her on his knee and she is out. The poor sweet thing (and mama) are sleep deprived because she is teething.

Her favorites...

2 of Ava's favorite things: Dora and hummus and what a great combo they make when enjoyed together.

da da da daaaa... It's official

Luke is potty trained :) Yay for everyone! He only uses 1 diaper a day (at night) and that is money in our pocket and he gets to wear undies with all of his favorite superheroes on them. Did I mention how cute he looks in them? Tomorrow we face using a public toilet at school. Stay tuned and we will see how he does.

Sydney Bean's First Christmas

We were so lucky to have our cousins, Uncle Len and Nana Lass with us for the holidays. It was Sydney's first time meeting her cousins and Uncle Len. Although we were not planning on it, Sydney rung in the New Year with Steve and I. She is teething really bad and could not sleep. Needless to say, Mama was really tired when I had to get out of bed this morning.