A Baking Adventure

I don't bake often at all, but I have been longing for an excuse to bake lately so that Amaia and I could make cookies together.  She is a very good and healthy eater, but my girl loves her cookies!  She has the eating habits of her mama, go figure!  This week our community group decided to have a dessert/snack night and I had my excuse!

I knew this could have gone either way: a first world disaster, in which Amaia was mad at me the entire time for not letting her eat the cookies or a really sweet mommy-daughter experience.   I am pleased to report that it was super fun and sweet!

I have been trying to work on the concept of pretending with Amaia, so that when she tries to give her dolly a bath I can tell her she needs to pretend to give dolly a bath and not actually throw her in a tub of water :)  Thus, I had her pretend to make cookies in her kitchen while I prepared our ingredients.  I gave her a real spatula and she was happy as could be.

Once I had things assembled I pulled up a chair and had her stand next to me. She was slightly freaked out by the electric mixer at first, but I had her put her arm me and "hug mommy" and we were good to go! 

Don't we look cute in our aprons?!  A shout-out to Aunt Ashley for Amaia's super cute apron!

Amaia mostly watched the cookie making, but she did help me stir in the chocolate chips.  She was a great little assistant! I did let her eat a couple chocolate chips and as you can see here she did try to sneak a bite while I was snapping a photo.  Can you really blame her?? Not to worry though I put the nix on that pronto!  I also learned that one benefit of making cookies with a toddler is that you really have no time to struggle with the temptation of eating the dough.

Of course we did enjoy the fruits of our labor after lunch :)

It was a really sweet time together.  I am looking forward to many, many more baking dates with my favorite girl to come!

An interview with 25 month old Amaia

I did a little "interview" with Amaia this week, mostly so that I can remember exactly what she was like at this age.  

Be careful watching this. You might be taken over my her cuteness and sweetness and you can't have her because she is all mine! ;)

Life With Two

First day on my own with both kids

I am often asked how the transition from 1 to 2 has been and how life with two kiddos is.  Let me preface this by saying that I am VERY inexperienced in this area.  I still find it easier to stay home most days and I have yet to master even going on our weekly grocery store trip with both kiddos.

However, all in all life with two is in two words: busy and sweet :)

Busy because there is a lot of back and forth.  I feel like I am constantly going back and forth between children.  I am often getting Amaia lunch and then feeding Haddon or playing with Amaia and then holding and interacting with Haddon.  Our times of all playing and being together are becoming more frequent, but I look forward to day when we can all play together or read books before bed together! 

Sweet, because honestly these kiddos light up my life.  I am thankfully beyond those horrid post-partum hormones and I just plain enjoy them.  Of course, I get frustrated from time to time, but I can honestly say that is a rare occurrence.  Haddon's smiles make my heart melt and Amaia's silliness and sweetness make me so, so happy.  And then there are those moments when Amaia is super sweet to Haddon and he smiles back at her and I'm just not sure that life gets any better than that. 

While having two kids is of course much more work than having one, the transition has been much easier for me this time around.  Amaia's newborn days stressed me out far more than Haddon's seem to be. I am just enjoying Haddon and all of sweet baby-ness.  Babies are so sweet and smiley and cuddly and wonderful.  And Amaia is such a good helper! She often fetches diapers, burp cloths, etc. for me. We sing bedtime songs to Haddon together, she turns on the noise machine for Haddon before he naps.  She is just a great big sister already.  So helpful and sweet.

I am also learning what works for us and what most definitely does not work for us.  For example, I learned that feeding Haddon right before Amaia is due for lunch is NOT a good idea!  I only made that mistake once and now Amaia always gets fed right before Haddon!!  I also learned that a video (on a almost daily basis) for Amaia while I feed Haddon is not a bad thing.

The other thing that has worked wonders for us is a schedule.  I have the type of personality that thrives on a consistent schedule and so both my kids have been on a consistent routine/schedule from the beginning.  Right after Haddon was born I put pen to paper and figured out a way I could work both their schedules so that we could have time in the morning to go out and run errands/see friends and so that I could have a block of time in the afternoon where both children napped.  This has worked beautifully.  I have an hour and a half of uninterrupted time in the afternoon that I can work and nap if necessary!  It also has made it so that I still have lots of planned one and one time with my favorite big girl, which is really important for her.

So there you have it....my thoughts on life with two 3 months in :)

Haddon at 3 months

Our big (not little!) guy is 3 months old as of yesterday!!!  I don't know his exact stats this month, but we know that he is not all that little anymore.  I am still squeezing him into some 3 month clothes, but last week I had to go stock up on some 6 month things last week for our tall guy.

Check out his wing span!

If I had to describe Haddon in a word right now it would be "sweet".  Maybe he won't appreciate this when he is older, but he is just such a little sweetheart.  He is very generous with smiles and coos.  He is making lots of sweet noises these days and he is so very patient and laid back as far as babies go.  Of course he is a baby so crying happens, but if he wakes up early or if I need to put his big sister to bed before feeding and putting him to bed he is most often totally fine with chilling on his playmat or bouncy seat and waiting until I am ready for him. He is so very chill for a baby and so smiley.  He just makes me so happy.  We love him a lot.

I have been hearing that he looks like his daddy a lot lately.  I agree!

He is still eating on a 3 hour schedule during the day.  We start our day at 9 and he usually eats, stays up for about an hour and then naps for 2 hours.  He is still a little inconsistent at night but usually sleeps from 6 all the way up to 10 hours at night!  If he wakes up early from a nap or at night he will usually go back to sleep if I give him his binkie.  He also gave the swaddle up as of yesterday.  I had been thinking that it was about time to wean from the swaddle and a couple days ago every time he would wake up from a nap his arms were out and stretched above his head, so I took the hint :)

He is still not a fan of bathtime or being in the carseat, which is unfourtunate.  I hope he sees that it really isn't that bad soon :)  He really likes his playmat and bouncy seat right now.  He loves to kick to his heart's content!  I often have to scoot him back up on his bouncy seat - he kicks so much that he is practically falling off sometimes!

I broke out the bumbo seat yesterday to see how he would do and as you can see we have some work to do!  But in true Haddon form he was not unhappy about it.

I have to admit that I was nervous about having a boy, but this guy....he is quickly stealing my heart!

Winter Days at Home

It's March, which means spring sunshine and temperatures have to be just around the corner, right?!?  I sure hope so! We have spent much of February inside allllll daaaay long!  I have actually grown surprisingly accustomed to be being in the house all day.  Home has just been easier with two little ones, lots of cold, snowy days and sicknesses that were passed to each and every member of our family.  Here is a little of what we have been up to at home lately.

Haddon did a lot of sleeping this month, which included getting a lot better at the whole sleeping at night thing - woot, woot!!  He also did a lot of being handsome and smiley and sweet.

I dressed my kiddos in matching outfits one day, just for the pure entertainment of it :)

Amaia did A LOT of singing and dancing this month.  She is just a ball of joy. I don't however have any photos of the singing and dancing.  Stopping for a photo is not currently on her priority list :)

In an effort to mix things up one day, I bundled her up, made her wear her mittens and ventured out to check out the snow.  As you can see by the expression on her face, she was not impressed!  Not impressed with the idea of wearing mittens and not impressed with the snow.  She took her mittens off about 1 minute into our exploration and asked to go back inside about 2 minutes later.  Surprisingly she was not even impressed by the hot chocolate I made her when we came inside or "lukewarm" chocolate in her case.  Maybe next year :)

Amaia and I also have done a few crafts lately, one of which was making her first valentine's for her loved ones.  We both had fun making these.

Our time indoors has been surprisingly sweet.  I have learned that it is easier to slow down and enjoy these precious kiddos when we have no where else to be :)  However, I also really can't wait to enjoy them in the sunshine in a few short months!!

Amaia turns two!

Well my first baby just will not stop getting older despite my commands!!  I still call her my baby, but Amaia turned two last week!! It is so crazy to think about how much she has changed in the last year.  She went from barely crawling a year ago, to running and climbing all over the place.  She went from saying maybe a couple of words, to saying what seems like everything!  She continues to win my heart more and more each day.  There just aren't enough words to explain how fabulous I think she is.

We planned on having a small party with just family this year, which turned out to be a good thing, because Amaia was unfortunately quite sick on the day of her birthday party.  I was really rather sad that she was sick for her birthday.  I am sure that I was much more sad about it than Amaia, especially since I am not sure that she really grasps the concept of a birthday anyways.  I think that any mom just wants the whole world to get excited for their child's birthday,  so I was sad that our low key party had to be even more low key due to the circumstances.  I just really wanted her to have fun and enjoy her birthday.  I do think she still had fun, but she much more subdued than her normal self.  We had some of Amaia's loved ones over for dinner, opened presents and topped the evening off with cake and ice cream.

In lieu of more sweets,  I made her a fruit rainbow.

Mommy and the birthday girl.

I still think she is prettiest little girl.

Amaia is starting to be a afraid of the dark, so she was a little freaked out that we turned the lights off to sing her happy birthday.  She made a quick recovery once we started eating cake!

And for my own memory here are some of the things that Amaia is all about at two years old:

*Singing songs ALL the time.  Her current favorites are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Ba Ba Black Sheep, The Alphabet Song, and The Ants Go Marching.

*Taking great care of her dolly.  Burping, brushing her teeth, and giving lots of hugs and cuddles.

*Any toy, song or game involving the alphabet

*Anything that has buttons to press

*She loves watching the Wheel of Fortune and always tells the contestants that they should guess "W"

*Wanting to know everyone's name.  This includes random people on TV, in the store and in her books

*Requesting to wear a dress almost every day

*Building and mostly knocking over towers

*David & Goliath.  We read her Bible most nights before bed and this is always the story she requests.

*She is a great at eating most things we give her, but her favorites include pasta, cookies (of course!), sweet potato fries, blueberries, bananas and yogurt.

Haddon: 2 months!

My little guy is 2 months old!!  He is growing, growing, growing just as little babies should.  I can barely keep the correct sized swaddling blankets around!  AND he is just barely fitting into his 3 month sleepers.  I am going to have to go out and get some 6 month sized clothes for him very soon.  I can tell that he a long and lean baby like his big sister and that was confirmed at the doctor this week.  Here are his current stats:

Weight: 12 lbs. 4 oz. (68%)
Length: 24 Inches (89%)
Head: 16 1/4 Inches (96%)

Apparently I have babies with large heads :)

The first couple months of his life have gone by so fast! And yet so much has changed over the past few months.  I know what I am his mom and would think this no matter what, but I think he is so very handsome!  He is looking more and more like his daddy all the time he is such a cutie! He has also started smiling a lot lately.  He has the cutest big, gummy grin.  It melts my heart.  As long as he is fed and well-rested he will smile every time I bring him up to my face and smile or talk to him.  I can tell that he recognizes Adam and I and it's such a sweet reward for weeks of hard work to see his sweet smile.

He is on a very consistent eat/sleep/play schedule during the day.  He eats every 3 hours during the day and then stays up for 45 minutes to an hour and then goes down for a nap.  The evening and nightime is unfourtunately not so consistent YET!   Sometimes he goes down great at bedtime and sleeps for 5-7 hours, and then there are some rough nights where its more like every 3 to 4 hours and he is just has a hard time settling down from about 9 to midnight.  But I know we will get there in time.

Haddon's doctor did NOT hear a heart murmur today either!!!!  This means that there is a very good likelihood that hole in his heart has closed on it's own.  We won't know for sure until going back to the cardiologist after he is year old, but this was such great news!  Praise God!  So thankful for my little guy.