My Big Girls!

They are changing so much these days!  Here are some videos from the last few weeks!

One of Sis' first times standing without support - she's now cruising everywhere, standing on her own all the time, and attempting her first steps.  Slow down, Sister!



Lara on her trike, without being pushed by Daddy!

Lulu "talks," lots - her favorite noises are this weird cackling laugh sound and blowing bubbles.



Still our #1 food lover!  She also likes "uh-oh" moments when things fall, and she gets to look over the edge to see where they've gone.  Adorable.



Lara's getting good at her letters!

If you listen close, you can hear the happy-cackle-thing I was talking about.



Waking my happy girl up in the morning.  Love this moment, when she's slept well the night before!

Rockin' the Cloth Diaper

Made the switch a few weeks ago, and it's working out great.   Who knew cloth diapers could be this cute?!

p.s.  If you look very closely, you can see how long her hair is getting in the back (using the term "long" loosely here...but at least we're making progress, right?).  Also, her first two teeth on the bottom!!

Mother's Day 2013

Best Mother's Day ever!  Flynn took Lara to pick out some chocolate, flowers, and even a new outfit for me!  We don't normally exchange gifts like that, so I was surprised.  But my favorite present was Lara's card, which she dictated to Flynn - she said,

Dear Mommy,

I love you.  I love how you clean up my room.  I love you all the way up to heaven.  I will never stop loving you.  Will you read me Tinkerbell?  You are a very good mommy.  There are some flowers on your card for Mother's Day!  Snoopy and a little bird, too.  

Love, Lara

Hilarious!  And wonderful.  Who would've thought it could be this encouraging to receive a Snoopy card?!  The pics below are of the kids after church.  Lou was looking particularly angelic in her yellow smocked dress (which used to be mine, and which Lara also wore to church on my 1st Mother's Day)...Seriously, doesn't it look like she's posing as a cherub in the picture below?

Then we walked inside, I stripped her down and put her in the high chair to feed her...left the room for 2.5 seconds to get the cheerios, and came back to find this:

So much for the whole angelic-charade, right?  Standing up in her chair for the first time, cackling with delight at her discovery, beaming at Lara who thought the whole thing was hilarious, and (not shown in picture) peering over the edge of the chair and contemplating throwing herself off the back.  This is just SO Louisa. 

Lara spent Mother's Day dressed as Bumblebee Boy from the David Soman series...For the last week, she has refused to take the costume off.  She sleeps in it every night, and we've been out to breakfast, to multiple stores, to the library, out for ice cream, around the neighborhood, etc...Not pictured is my costume, as her side-kick Ladybug Girl.  It was her idea, and consists of me wearing one of her pink tutus on my head (obviously, that screams "Ladybug," right?).

My Crawler!

A virus has been making its rounds in our house for the last few weeks - add in a double ear infection for Lou and her first tooth and you get one pretty miserable baby!  So not too many smiles these days, but the pics below are an exception.  I took pics of a friend's son last week and had Lou with me, so snapped these of her.  Love this sweetie!

Wooster Square

Lara has been really sick, poor baby, with a high fever!  She's pretty much a zombie, and if you ask her how she feels she just says, "Coughy."  

Anyway, have been on sick-duty taking care of her, so didn't get a chance to post these...but here we are last week, when we headed to Wooster Square to see the beginnings of the cherry blossoms peeking out.  We found a new park that we really love, had a rousing game of hide and seek (turns out Sis isn't great at hiding - or seeking, for that matter - go figure), ate our picnic (surprised Lara with a cherry lollipop to celebrate the cherry trees!  Enjoying that she still gets crazy excited about a dum-dum...), and wandered around the neighborhood...basically, we just enjoyed the fact that it's no longer freezing in CT.  Cause for rejoicing in this household.

Louisa is 8 months Old!

She's a mess!  We adore her!  

Likes:

- Crawling

- Climbing the two steps from the playroom to the kitchen, then sliding down on her belly

- Pulling up to a standing position - especially pulling up on the Incredi-block (the only toy she really likes!), her crib, Pilgrim, and anyone who happens to be nearby.  

- Drinking water from a cup

- Trying her hand at finger foods - her favorite right now is sucking on frozen green beans.  Odd.

- Lift-a-flap books - the only books that hold her attention

- Saying Mama!  She loves to crawl to me and say my name so that I will pick her up.  It's so exciting to hear her talking!  Flynn's accused me of being smug that her first word is Mama, and I freely admit to it.  I was way down on the list of Lara's first words (proof: she was saying "turtle" regularly, before she said Mama), so I am basking in this.

Dislikes:

- Not moving.  Unless I'm holding her, she must be on the go all the time - either messing with something or under(my)foot.

- Having her diaper changed and getting dressed - it gets so bad that Flynn sometimes has to pin her while I get her ready.  Can't quite understand it - how can someone who weighs less than 20 pounds come so close to conquering two adults?  Ridiculous.

- Prune juice.  I sometimes have to sneak it to her in her cup (for reasons we won't go into at this time...).  It's pretty sad to see her get excited at the thought of water, then quickly realize that something tastes very, very wrong.

Nicknames:  Snoopy, Snoops, Snooper, Snoopy-Snoop  

Lara and I call her these a lot lately.  Like, A LOT.  Partly because she's always snooping around and messing with things, partly because she poops so much.  I'm actually hoping these names don't stick, for her sake...Future Louisa, I apologize if you are 22, applying for jobs, and having to explain why your mother calls you Snoopy.  Also, I'm sorry for the whole prune-juice thing.  It's a dirty trick.

 The Snooper In Action:

Crawling up the stairs.  She was SO proud when she figured this out.

I have to watch her like a hawk in the bathroom - she loves to stand on the side of the tub and thinks she can climb right in.

This one was a team effort.  I leave the room for 2.5 seconds - Lara knocks the laundry basket down, Sis throws the towels out, then crawls inside to bite the wood.

She loves crawling into small spaces...

...but isn't pleased when she gets stuck.

She pulls up on the dining room chairs so she can suck and bite the sides.  It's kind of an adventure when you sit down in our house now, because the sides of our chairs are often crusty, slobber-covered, or sticky.  We just kind of go with it.  

Notice the trash she has clutched in her fist.  For Louisa, one man's trash is always a treasure.

Her favorite item in the house.  Don't even want to think about what the germ-count is on this thing.

Flynn hates this - she's totally into his books now.  In this pic she's going for the Ethiopia guidebook, so I think she has good taste.

Thought I should include at least one picture of Snoopy-Snoop playing with something she's supposed to.  It does happen on rare occasions.

All In A Week's Work

Lou has taken off this week (and left a tired mama in her dust - but that's another story...).  She started crawling on her hands and knees a week ago, and is now climbing up and down the stairs, feeding herself finger foods, saying her first word (Mama!), and pulling up to a standing position.  It's been a whirlwind - every time I turn around she's doing something new.  Lara was so much later on these motor skills that I can't get used to it!  Seriously, stairs and standing up when she's not even 8 months yet?  Lou is EVERYWHERE - she literally crawled out of her bathtub on Wed. night.  I was sitting on the side of the tub helping Lara go potty - when I turned back to Lou, she had crawled out of her baby tub into the big bathtub, in order to mess with the drain.  We are now done with the baby tub.  

She is just going to be one of those kids who is into everything - favorite things right now are the dog food and waterbowls (loves to lick both of these), the kitchen mat (wants to be underfoot while I'm washing dishes so she can suck on it), the toilet, every outlet in the house, all of Flynn's books, our shoes, small items that are easily choked-upon, the trashcan...and I could keep going.  I've been staying up at night praying semi-panicked prayers for her safety and my sanity because she is determined to be right where she shouldn't be at every minute.  And she never stops moving.  

I finally gave her finger foods yesterday, and that gave me a bit of time to get things done - she sat in her exersaucer in the kitchen, and after about 30 minutes was totally adept at picking up cheerios and loved it.  She's also working on drinking from a cup, so she practiced with that for a while, and enjoyed sucking on an apple slice....Anyway, food buys me a bit of time when I know she's safe and occupied - but other than that, I am on following-around-baby-duty all the time.  Loving it, marveling at her strength, proud of my girl...but can't keep up with this one!

Crawling up stairs.

First time pulling to a standing position!  She's now pretty adept at this, and pulls up on everything in sight.

First time trying finger foods.