Little Smarty

Yesterday Katrina didn't take a nap. After being in her room for a couple of hours she knocked and I let her out. I was surprised when she greeted me at the door with a lightbulb in her hand--the very same lightbulb she took from the nightlight and I took away from her a month ago! Well, when I cleaned the bathroom lasy week I put her potty seat in her room, and she had used it as a stool to get into the changing table drawer and fish around inside. Luckily the lightbulb was the most dangerous item she found.

She also has been using her lion ride-on toy as a stool. She pushes it around to her desired location, then climbs up on the seat. And once again we have to baby-proof the next level up! She recently became tall enough to reach inside drawers in the kitchen, so I've moved scissors and things higher.

I stuck Daniel in the high chair today when he started crying while I was making lunch, and he was pretty happy. He sat there while Katrina and I ate, and I think Katrina was a little weirded out by that, but she takes it all in stride.

It's fun to do new things that surprise Katrina. Today I exercised on the elliptical for the first time in months. Katrina stood right in front of me looking up and talking. She thought it was pretty cool. Then I tried to do Pilates. First she tried to pull me up to follow her somewhere, and then she decided to sit on my lower stomach. That wasn't too bad. But then she started to bounce! I quickly ended my workout and will finish tonight!

We are supposed to get dumped on with more snow tonight. Hopefully Adam will be able to get our car cleared out tomorrow so he can get to work. Trading doesn't stop, even if Philadelphia is snowbound!

Visit with the grandparents

I was really sad to say goodbye to my parents this evening. I've really enjoyed their visit for the last several days. Today we finished off by driving around a bit and looking at big houses, then eating lunch with Adam.
We took some pictures with the kids and my parents.

Katrina loved having them here, though she had a hard time with the words "Grandpa" and "Grandma" and instead called them Nana and Poppop as well!

She was harder to get a picture of because she moves around so much. Wait--so does Daniel! Kids are just so mobile and hard to photograph.

There must be a spot on my lens because all of these photos have a smudge in the same spot.

Katrina didn't want to sit still for a picture, so this is the best one we got!

Giving Grandpa a kiss on the chin.

Tonight we did Baskin Robbins for Family Home Evening. Katrina was thrilled to get her very own ice cream for the first time. She gobbled down some rainbow sherbet and Adam and I were happy to be able to eat our entire ice creams without her little voice saying, "Ahhhhh!" as she ran back and forth between us, waiting for bites!

On a negative note, my back is in so much pain right now. I would lay down and not get back up again for the rest of the night if I could get away with it. I think it is because of how much I have hauled around Daniel's baby carrier over the past few days--the pain always gets worse on days when I drive Adam because I have to carry both kids at the same time so much. I have been doing Pilates sporadically for the last few weeks but I am going to have to do them much more if I want to combat this pain. Pilates has helped me a lot in the past to strengthen my back and reduce the pain. I'm pretty miserable, so I hope that taking it easy and starting up Pilates again can do the trick.

Baby blessing

Church was delayed because of the snow and we only had Sacrament meeting, but the blessing went on as planned. Here is a picture of Daniel in the blessing outfit his Nana made. She made Katrina's blessing outfit look like my wedding dress and Daniel's like a tuxedo, complete with a bowtie.
Adam said that while he was being blessed, Daniel was cooing and looking around and being altogether very cute.

Here's a family picture.

We also celebrated Adam's birthday. This is his cake, made to look like a little campsite. Isn't it way cute? Adam's sister and mom have lots of fun decorating cakes and this was a joint effort.

I am glad to be home and hope for an early bedtime. Last night was pretty miserable, so I'm hoping for a better night from Daniel. Occasionally he'll sleep for 5-7 hours in a row, so I know he's got it in him!

Snow pics #2

Unsure about the snow.
Really unsure about walking in it.

Walking around in Daddy's arms.

"Enjoying" the snow up close.

Back up in a secure place.

Off to explore.

Daniel thought it was interesting for a couple minutes, but didn't like my putting him down to get a picture.

And back again!

This is what Adam did while they were out there. She thought it was hilarious.

Poor car, only halfway cleaned off.

Did I mention it's still snowing?

Cute kid pics and SNOW

I've got a cute baby, don't I? :]

Yesterday we took Daniel to the doctor for his two-month checkup. He did so well and the nurse and doctor commented on how alert he was. He started talking and cooing at the doctor and she turned to my mom and said, "He talks more like a three month old, don't you agree?" My mom made a sort of noncommittal "uh-huh," and she and I laughed later because who really knows the difference between a two and three month old besides a pediatrician? His numbers are great--almost 12 lbs and close to 24 inches. To compare, he's slightly heavier and longer than Katrina was at her three month appointment but with a much smaller head. He's average for weight and head and 75th percentile for length, so it looks like our feeling that he was kind of long was correct. Unfortunately, his heart murmur is back, so we need to take him to a cardiologist. The doctor isn't worried because he's gaining so well, and after they took his blood pressure in all four limbs (he hated that!), she said it'll probably be nothing serious.

Okay, so this next picture might freak you out a bit:

If you blinked and had to look again, that's what we have to do all the time when Katrina leaves her doll in various places where we're used to seeing Daniel.

This is what we woke up to, and it's still coming down! My parents are basically snowed in at their hotel. We're not sure what's going to happen with church and the blessing tomorrow.

While I had the camera out to take pictures of the snow, I snapped some of the kids:

Quilt Preview

I went out last night and finished buying some fabric for a quilt. This will be Katrina's birthday quilt. I wish this picture showed how vibrant these colors are but I just am not very good at photography.
And here is the fabric I bought that inspired the colors of the quilt. Aren't these frogs cute?

So this will be Katrina's quilt. I am very excited to start making it.

Speaking of being bad at photography, I just took around fifty pictures of Daniel, trying to get a full on shot of his face for a late Christmas present that I haven't shown on here yet. Kids are horrible to photograph! I have no idea how people ever get shot of babies that aren't blurry. I did get a few, but none with a big smile on his face that was useable. This one was pretty cute:

I also tried to take a picture of Katrina because I need one of her too, but I'm just going to have to use an older photo because she got on her rocking horse and all the pictures looked like this, except with more blurriness and motion for most of them:

Kick in the bum

I really need someone to give me a swift kick in the bum to get up and do something. Usually I at least have gotten something done by three in the afternoon, but not today. Oh wait, I folded some clothes and ran the dishwasher. But that's all.

My parents are coming tomorrow! They will be in town for Daniel's baby blessing on Sunday. Adam's birthday is this weekend too, so I need to think about that. Right now I am staring at the pile of random papers on the side table next to me and at the scattering of random things on the floor in front of me. Toys, stuffed animals, a reusable nursing pad that I probably don't want to reuse any more, a little kitchen clip to close bags, post-its that I gave Katrina to play with, some random reciepts, fabric that used to cover the coffee table, etc. . . I told myself all morning that as soon as the kids were both napping I would start tidying and that my motivation would catch up with me. Well, Daniel has pretty much only spent an hour awake today and Katrina has been asleep for an hour and a half, and all I've done is eat lunch and look at pretty fabric online.

Adam stayed home from work yesterday. This cold hit him much harder than it hit me. He did as much work from home as he could in the afternoon, but the entire morning he just slept on the couch because he was so miserable. Today he felt well enough to go into work, luckily. I always enjoy having him home, even if he's sick, so that was nice. Then we watched the premier of the final season of LOST and I also watched a little of American Idol because I have a high school friend who auditioned (and made it through to Hollywood!).

K, I'm going to clean up the side table next to me. Maybe more productivity will follow. Tonight I'm hoping Adam will feel well enough for me to leave him with the kids and go get errands done so I can have some away-from-the-house time.

Whoops, Daniel's awake. Guess that tidying will have to wait!

Coat Rack

Over the past week I've been mulling over a couple of additions to Katrina's room--some little wall shelves for books and a coat rack of some sort. I've considered different options and browsed the web. I finally found some shelves at Ikea but they are out of stock at our store, so that will have to wait. For the coat/towel rack, I was planning on doing something involving wooden plaques and cabinet knobs. Then I went to Joanns and found out that they sell unfinished coat racks--this one was $5. I quickly changed my plan and bought it and some scrapbook paper, also $5. Both things were 40% off, so this was a cheap project.
This was my first real decoupage project. I like how it turned out.

When I was at Joanns I also picked up these little star wooden appliques, and after going back and forth either way I decided to go ahead and put them on the rack. I wasn't sure what color to paint them but finally decided on white so I wouldn't have to deal with the problem of mixing the perfect green/yellow/blue that matched the scrapbook paper and the wall colors in the nursery.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product! Here I am holding it up against the wall because I need to buy some sort of hangers to fasten it to the wall.

And here are a few other cute pictures I snapped yesterday.

Daniel is the only healthy person in the house. I am better, but Katrina is still cranky and has a runny nose, and Adam feels like walking death but has to be at work this week for an audit.

And lastly, here is Katrina giving her little wooden spool dolls a hug. I finished the glaze and gave them to her yesterday to play with. She had one in each hand for the rest of the evening! They are definitely a hit. The cutest thing she did with them was kiss them and then have the dolls kiss Mommy, Daddy, and even Daniel.

Oh, and this picture really isn't just to show you how messy our living room gets during the day, but is to show off our new ottoman! Remember how we wanted to make our own? Well Adam's family had one they didn't need, so we got ourselves a perfectly-sized storage ottoman for much cheaper than had we made one ourselves. Katrina loves it too! You can't tell from this picture, but it really give the whole room more space. We weren't sure where we would put our coffee table, but after we took it apart we found out that it fits perfectly under our bed.

Linked to Blue Cricket Design and Somewhat Simple.

Home Sick

Here are pictures of Katrina's first ponytail! I went back and redid it after this with a comb and gel, but this was the very first one. And yes, she has some oatmeal on her forehead.

Today we are home sick. We had a fun day yesterday in NJ, but had to drive home in a snowstorm, so we were happy to get home safely. Here is Katrina's day-after-ponytail hair.

Luckily Daniel isn't sick yet, and he was good last night. I thought I would describe what a "good" night for us is. I always consider it a success when he falls back asleep easily after feedings (You can skip this if you want to avoid traumatic flashbacks to newborn days):

8:30 we get Katrina into bed and Daniel happily plays in crib watching the bedtime routine. I feed him. He spends the next several minutes looking around, enjoying things. Eventually he gets tired and we alternate walking him, attempt the swing, and finally Adam gets him to sleep in the room.

10:30 Daniel wakes up and we move into the bedroom to go to sleep. I feed him. He falls asleep on the boppy and I try to keep still until he is asleep enough to transfer to the bassinet. I turn off the light. That wakes him up and he fusses. Adam groans in anticipation of a long night. I cradle him in my arms and lie down in a probably fruitless attempt to get him to sleep. He falls asleep, but is a really mobile sleeper and hits me in the face a lot.

Midnight Daniel wakes and fusses, so I move him to the bassinet. He cries a bit. I put his seahorse in there and suprisingly, it works and he falls back asleep.

2:40 He wakes up crying, so I turn on the light and he is fast asleep. I stare for awhile as he wakes, falls asleep, wakes, falls asleep. Finally I turn off the light and fall back asleep.

4:00 He wakes for real and I feed him. He falls back asleep. I think I moved him to the bassinet. It's a little blurry.

7:00 He wakes. It's light enough I can feed him without the light on. We both fall asleep with him still on the boppy and me sitting up. Half an hour later I move him into the bassinet.

8:00 Daniel wakes and so I lay him down next to me, cradled in my arm, and we both sleep/doze for the next 45 minutes.

Anyway, that was our good night. The night before I spent half of it in the living room while he was in the swing and Adam spent over an hour walking a screaming baby in the middle of the night, so you can see how this night was so much better. Plus, he went from 10:30 to 4 without eating, which is a really nice stretch.

We are having a lazy day in our pajamas, drinking orange juice. Katrina got to have her first sippy cup full of watered-down orange juice. She was definitely a fan. She wanted to watch tv, so I told her we would watch a movie about Jesus. Then I changed my mind and put in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and told her it was "kind of" about Jesus. She's fascinated. We've already fast forwarded through a scary part, and I'm sure there will be more, but she likes it. Oh, and one more thing. Katrina saw Toy Story at her cousin's house once and loved it. She went around saying "Yee-aw," over and over again. A couple of days ago I decided to show it to her on Youtube (ten minutes at a time), and then the next day we watched the second one. She is obsessed with it now and often points at the computer and says "Yee-aww!" We will definitely have to actually buy a few Disney/Pixar movies.

Spool dolls completed

Here are the dolls, almost complete:
Notice something kind of weird? I'll go closer:

Ahhhh! Yeah, that needs fixing.

Here they are, complete except for my face and a finishing glaze, which I would have done except I realized that the "glaze" I bought is really just more white paint. Grr. Luckily I tested it on Nana's head and was able to wipe most of it off.

So this morning I finished them, except the glaze. Here are close-ups of all of them. Can you tell who is who?

They are Nana and Poppop, Katrina and Daniel, and me and Adam. I look like I have a really bad foundation and mascara job, but oh well. Katrina looks like a teenager and Daniel looks like an old man. Still, I'm very happy with them! I got the idea from a blog here and more pictures here. You can see that her painting skills are far superior to mine!

I'm linking to Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design and Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple.