Park Time!

We spent the afternoon at the park and boy was it fun! Cole had a blast playing with all the kids there. He found one girl that was about 3 years older than him and he followed her everywhere. He would grab her had and take her all over the playground. They went down the slides together, they looked for moles and just had a great time. She was such a sweetheart and you could tell she probably had younger siblings because she had so much patience with Cole. He was upset to go but we told him he could chase the geese, which he did and he managed to get all but 3 in the pond and he didn't get bit! I kept waiting for one to go after him.

Siena went in the swing for the first time. She was just like Cole. She liked it at first, for like a couple of minutes and then she wanted out. Each time I put her back in she wanted nothing to do with it. Cole has only been on a swing a few times since then and I would imagine it will be the same for Siena.

Check out the hair on this little guy. He by far has the best static hair I have ever seen come out of a slide!

They always find the pots and pans!

The never ending pile of laundry

Can someone please remind me why I thought it was a good idea to take a break from laundry for a week or so.

There's about 10 loads there and that is a king size bed. And if it doesn't seem like that much laundry then just add a baby to the middle of the pile.

Told ya it was a lot of laundry!

Sleeping update

So after blogging at midnight this morning, I got ready to go to bed and as I walked into our room at 12:15am, Siena woke up. She sleeps in a play pen in our bedroom but every night ends up in bed with us. It never used to be a problem but she now is constantly moving around, sitting up, falling over and head butting us on accident. So I am slowly working on getting her to stay in her crib. I wish so much that we had an extra bedroom to put her in away from Cole but we don't right now. So from 12:15 till 1:45am she would stand up and look at me and I would lay her down, and with in seconds she would be up again. Sometimes she was crying, other times she was trying to touch me. I hid under the sheets so she could not see me (didn't help). Finally at 1:45 she was asleep and I was finally able to drift off, or so I thought. Cole woke up screaming again, not as bad as thursday morning but still very upset. This time he wanted Mike. So Mike slept in Cole's room until about 4:30am when he woke up and came back to our room. At 6:15 am Cole was back up and heading into our room. We tried so hard to get him back to sleep and no such luck. We all go up at 6:45am. I'm tired. :-)

Lack of Sleep

So for the second day in a row one of the two kids was up at 4:45am and not going back to sleep. This morning it was Siena and at least when she wakes up she is "usually" pleasant. Yesterday morning it was Cole who was up at 4:45am and he woke up swinging, literally. We both woke up to the sound of Cole crying, fairly loud. Mike got up first and went in the room and was back quicker than ever. Cole had started screaming, hitting Mike and pushing him out of the room. So I got up next and received the same treatment. I went back to bed as well.

Normally in this case it would be ok for us to leave him to screaming in his room (tantrum style) however my sister was sleeping on the couch because she was going to be babysitting that morning. I felt horrible because the first time she was here Siena put on a night time show, the second time she drove from Reno early in the morning and that didn't work either. This time around I thought for sure she would get some sleep. So with respect to Andrea we had to keep Cole quiet. Mike went back in again and tried reasoning with Cole but he was out of control. So I went in and sat with him. He continued to flip out so I wrapped him in a blanket and pinned him to my chest while I laid down. This was not what he had in mind and was continuing to freak out. Finally after 5 minutes of holding him he got away from me and sat at the end of the bed and stared at me. He tried to hit me a few times and I threatened the loss of TV / movie / Lego privileges which got him under control. He then did a total 180 and was practically crying, like scared crying and made me lay down next to him and he cuddled up real close to me and wrapped his arms around me and kept asking me not to leave him. He would kiss my face repeatedly while telling me not to go. I asked him if he had a bad dream and he said "yes, I crying, bad frog"

After that I was able to convince him to go into our bed so I could at least get another hour of sleep before getting up for work. He had to be next to me, which is very unusual for him when he sneaks into our bed. He never went back to sleep, he just laid in our bed holding on to me and staring at the ceiling or me. When it was finally time to get up I needed to shower. Cole wanted nothing to do with me leaving him so I asked him if he wanted to take a shower with me. Normally he would say no and run away, he never takes showers with me, but he said yes and got in with me. He wanted me to hold him the entire time which was difficult! After that, he woke up his Aunt and we made blueberry pancakes before I left for work. The rest of the day he was clingy as well, especially when I got home. He told me "i love you mommy, I love you all day." That night he was constantly hanging on me which is so out of the normal for him. This morning he snuck into our room before Siena had woken up and had to sleep right next to me again. I was basically at the bottom of a dog pile between those two kids. Cole was pretty sweet all day today as well. He did ask me a few times not to go to work. He has woken up like that a few times before but this was by far the worst of them.

And here it is - Midnight - and I am up writing a blog post instead of sleeping. Hopefully I am not up again in 4 hours and 45 minutes.

Guess whose babysitting today?

The lunchbox(es)

Last week we were out shopping and came across a display of lunch boxes. I was in heaven and I knew Cole was going to be super stoked. He first laid eyes on the John Deere one and it was love at first site.

But then his eyes wandered and he found the Transformers one. Transformers have become a huge part of his life lately with Mike and Cole watching old cartoons on Youtube at night. He was torn. He wanted both. I wanted both.

So we bought him both. He is happy. I am happy. I love those little metal boxes. He likes to carry his snacks around in them.

The nats are back!

What started out as a simple bug bite Monday afternoon turned into this Monday night

And ended up looking like this Tuesday afternoon. This swelling on his neck it isn't as bad as it could be.

He says it doesn't hurt and he isn't itching at it but last year when this happened it started out mild like this (yes this isn't bad compared to last year) and then each time he gets bit it gets more swollen. We are not taking him to the ER this year to get told to give him benadryl and some antibiotics. We did the antibiotics for like a day and a half last time and it really didn't do much.

Siena first birthday party!

On Sunday we celebrated Sienas first birthday!!! To prepare for the ocassion Siena decided to start walking the night before. She still crawls but she will stand for a brief period of time on her own. It is still hard to believe she is 1. My baby grew way to fast. But I do have to admit I am having a blast with her. She is a total crack up and she is really getting her own unique personality.



Oh my cute skinny jeans!!!

Those curls are killing me! Cole's hair did the exact same thing. I held out as long as I could before cutting his hair. I am super excited I don't have to do that with her!!!!

We had a total of 19 people over at our house. I am surprised that we fit that many people in our little house. Our cousins the Oill's came up, Dylan and his family came over, our neighbor Charlie and of course the grandparents.

I totally dropped the ball on this party. I will admit it. I suck. I felt horrible but I am just not one of those creative crafty people. I need to be better about that and I promise for next year I will decorate something and actually make her a cake. My mom totally saved my butt this time and at the last minute provided the cake, sandwiches and veggie platter. Thank you so much mom!!!!

Cole and Dylan wanted to help with everything. They were very serious about the candles. Cole kept walking around telling Dylan that they were going to blow out the fire and then he would stop, make big cheeks and then blow.

Siena picked up on the present opening pretty quickly but she was soon taken out of the equation by the two boys who were determined to open them fast. "Little baby can't not open presents"

After everyone had cake and ice cream and opened presents we took Siena outside to trash her birthday cake. The two things that were most important for this to be successful were a not tired baby and sunlight. The light was crap and Siena was soooooo tired. I am not thrilled with the color of these photos but I had to work with what I had.

Happy First Birthday Little Baby Grill!!!! (that's how Cole says it)

Happenings

Siena has been cracking me up lately with her showing off. The other night in the bath tub she would lean over and pretend to eat the water and then pop up and smile at me with this mischievous grin, as if she were checking to see if she was in trouble. She is also starting to mimick me and will hold her hands up to her face (one on each cheek) and give big smiles. She says "mama" a lot and loves to give kisses. She is still working on keeping her tongue in her mouth.

Siena is getting closer and closer to walking. Last night she turned away from the recliner and took about 4 steps to the music table. It was like she had forgot that she could not walk! She also likes to use the walls as support to get where she needs to go instead of crawling and will even go down the stairs like that.

Now she judges the distance and decides if it is worth the effort to walk or crawl.

Cole's newest saying is "That's cool". If he asks you a question and you give him and answer he says "oh, that's cool" It is a total crack up!

Cole also speaks in double negatives. There were some little dinosaurs under his bed and he asked me to get them "mommy, I can't not get my little dinosaurs, I can't not reach them with my two hands"

The baby gate

I had the gate elevated so the cats could get in and out with out having to jump over and Siena really wanted into Cole's room. The gate was up to keep her out because she will not stop eating legos and Cole really wanted to play with them.

She finally figured out that there was a hole under it but still can't figure out how to get under it. I know it is only a matter of time.

This is her fake cry face when she doesn't get what she wants. It's pretty cute if I don't say so my self!

Where did spring go?

These past few weeks have been amazingly beautiful!!!! The rain is headed our way now and probably will be for weeks. It was fun while it lasted!

Workshop Photos

I posted my favorite pictures from the workshop on my white daisy blog. You can go here to see them or click on the logo on the right and pick blog.

Dairy trial not going well

So I thought for sure Monday night that we were going to be in the clear with the dairy. Siena was in love with the yogurt I was giving her. She would eat and eat and eat. Monday night she was up a little bit more than usual but no gas. Tuesday I continued on with the yogurt and tuesday afternoon she started with slight reflux symptoms. He naps had been 3-3 1/2 hours before the dairy introduction and by tuesday she was back to not napping well. That night she was up every 10 minutes or so crying and farting. So as advised by the Dr. we stopped all dairy starting wednesday and wednesday night continued with gas and crying. Last night she slept much better but this morning she is having a little reflux symptoms with vomiting up after she eats. It is maybe a 1/4 worth of liquid at a time. This is following a similar pattern to when I did the soy experiment and it took about 7-10 days for her to get back to normal again. I hope she will out grow all of this!!!!

Eating my words

When I was pregnant with Siena, I said multiple times that there is no way this baby could be any more active than Cole was. I am so eating those words now. Siena is insane. She is getting up on to so many more things than Cole ever did at this age, granted though, most of this items he didn't have access too.

It's like overnight she went from cute cuddly baby to crazy climbing toddler. As of today she can now climb into the bath tub, on top of her walker, she can walk from the couch to the coffee table with out having to kneel down first, she can climb on to the couch, recliner (from which she then stands on the armrest and looks out the window.

Here is Siena driving the toy car. Notice that she is not sitting down. She planned this up all on her own!

Easy to predict

If Siena is left alone sleeping in our bed it is guaranteed that when she wakes up she will have those little things at the end of the sting for the blinds in her mouth. I need to get them put up and out of her reach.

Cole falls asleep while eating again

So I hope you all don't think we eat dinner so late that Cole can't stay awake. This video was at 7 o'clock at night. He had been sick all morning and didn't take an afternoon nap and he was busy playing with grandma and grandpa all afternoon. So needless to say he was very tired and very hungry.

70 degrees in February

I am amazed at the WONDERFUL weather we are having this week. For the middle of February it is absolutely perfect! I am sure a month from now we will have a snow storm. ha! The kids are having a blast playing on the deck.

Siena loves any toys she can get in her mouth. This mallet was an ok toy until a few minutes ago when Cole clocked her in the forehead with it. Now he is in a very long time out (I am assuming he will just fall asleep) and Siena is developing a nice little egg on the side of her face. Ok, now back to how things were before the injury.

This deck has been a total life saver for me. I could not have asked for a better "gift". The kids love to play on it and Cole has a flat, safe place to ride his tricycle. He rides laps for hours.

Siena is usually not to far behind Cole in the walker. We put up extra deck boards around the center square so they can't accidentally fall in the center.

And of course no day is complete with out some sort of involvement of an alligator. The alligators are always being fed something. Today it was "flowers" (grass).

One of Siena's favorite games is playing chase. She loves to be chased in the walker. The alligator chasing her is a new thing.

But as you can tell they are both totally loving the chase!

Cole was on look out for "camels" he then told me that the camels were chasing cats.

After awhile we went next door to see grandma and grandpa. Cole had been over there all morning and wanted to go back.

"Why you taking pictures of me, mommy?"

Onyx so desperately wants some one to throw the stick for her. Cole usually ends up taking it and hiding it in the bushes or the cages that are kept around some of the bushes so the deer don't eat them.

Another favorite game of Siena's is to give a toy to you and then wait for you to give it back. She could play that game for hours. She waits to reach back for it until she hears you say "thank you" when she hands it to you.

She also got to go on horsey rides with grandpa.

Cole spent the morning planting flowers with grandma.

Lots of stair climbing was done as well

And finally. Can you guess what this is??????

It's the 8 foot tall rosh bush that was taken from our yard and planted in it's new home. It's been pruned quite a bit.