Our Jr. Jay

On Saturday we headed off to the baseball game. We told Belle we were going early so she could get her face painted. Since our trip to Ontario Place she's been in love with face painting. We got to Rogers Center and passed a bunch of other fun stuff to do, but Belle threw a fit every time we tried to do something other than face painting. That was all she wanted to do. She sat so still that the lady gave her the "big kid" one and not the simple J they do for toddlers. After she had her face painted she was ready to enjoy the other activities. Like sliding on the inflatable toddler land. It was just for kids under three feet tall.
In the picture below she's laughing not crying. She did so good keeping up with these boys. There were a few times she got shy and the Jays Staff had to help her keep moving, but she did great considering how intimidating they must have been.
We got into the game and got Nick and Brooklyn settled. Then Belle and I took off to redeem her Jr. Jays passport from the morning. (They get stamps at different gates and then they get a prize). She received a mini bobble head! We also signed her up for the Jr. Jays club and she got a t-shirt, sweat bands, dog tags, visor, and a few more things I think. I'll have to get her to pose in her gear tomorrow. She also got some coupons for concession stands so we headed off to get a combo at the kids concession. As we arrived they ran out of hot dogs, (who runs out of hot dogs at a ballpark??). Me and three other very peeved parents then waited 15 minutes for them to cook our hot dogs. Sadly I'm not exaggerating. We missed a lot of the game due to the wait and the 25 minutes it took to walk to the stand at toddler pace.
Brooklyn seemed to enjoy the day as well. It was super hot so we were diligent in keeping the girls hydrated. One of our many juice box breaks.
This is Nick and his girls getting ready to run the bases. Belle bailed just after rounding second. She got right back up but the bridge of her nose looks like she was in a brutal fight.Stompin on home plate.

Afterwards we went to the Pro Shop because Nick needed a new hat and had a gift card from his birthday. Isabella found this dude and climbed up on his sneaker all by herself for this pose. She didn't say anything because there were people watching her and saying "She's so cute....". Belle clues into that and puts on this grin. It says "I'm humoring you." She kept on giving me the eyebrow wiggle until I took her picture though. She definitely knows what she wants.
Belle and Nick being cool dudes together. Notice the sweat band. Flash anyone back to the eighties?

After a long, hot, very fun day she crashed on the way home. I don't even think we were out of the parking lot. She slept almost the whole 45 minutes home and was ready for some more action when we got home.

During Bible College I made some great friends and then when Bible College was over me and my fabulous friends were scattered all over the face of the earth. I've lost touch with a lot of people, managed to maintain a few friendships over the internet and have been able to see a few of these amazing people since school ended.

It's always great for me when two of my fabulous friends from school get married. That way there's only one place to visit to see two people! For the last few years I've been able to see some or all of the Quick family once a year. It's been such a blessing to be able to see their family grow, and Matt and Charity are the kind of friends that you can skip over the "catching up" small talk stuff after a long absence.

This time we got to see the whole Quick family and it was such a treat to have their kids play with ours. Cadence and Isabella hung out in the nursery together and after the service were holding hands to drag one another into mischief. They were fast friends and even though their visit was about a month ago Isabella still asks for Cady every now and then.

Brooklyn and Levi didn't get to say anything we could understand, but they really enjoyed each other's company. Those eyes of Brooklyn's sort of look like crying eyes, but she's really smiling. I think we may have a few future husbands to choose from for that little tyke. Levi is absolutely adorable and it was super great to get to meet him!

I can hardly wait for next year's visit and I'm sure my kids are excited too!

Brooklyn's Crazy Back Crawl.

I really do not know how to describe this action of my daughter's except to say it's scary. She gets up on her heels and the back of her head like the middle picture shows. Then she reaches for what she wants like the bottom picture shows and then she sort of flattens out as she creeps toward the wanted object like in the first picture.


She has a belly crawl and gets around even faster that way. Yet when she gets fixated on something that she wants and she' s on her back she doesn't take the time to flip over to crawl properly to it she gets there on her back.

It's a little frightening the way her head folds under her shoulders having me completely scared that her neck is going to snap in half. It never happens, she just straightens herself out and scooches around to where she wants to go. It's crazy.


I haven't been able to catch it on video, and we flip her to her front when she does it to try and discourage her. Not because we don't want her to feel free to be herself, but she's lightening quick in the movement and trying to change the diaper on a kid doing this move is not easy.

At least we know her neck is strong. Seriously, what part of this girl isn't strong? UFC here she comes.

Not to be outdone, Brooklyn turned on the ultimate cuteness at her 6 month photo shoot. She does this crazy balance thing on the back of her head and her heels which I'm tyring to get pictures of, which is the explanation of the angle of this picture. She was laying down and the photographer actually moved the camera above her and took the photo. It was the first time that she stopped trying to eat the flowers during the session.
Her tongue was out all the time. She has since started babbling and now her tongue has to stay in so she can talk.
I usually don't dig the "artsy" pictures they try at Sears, but these ones were gems. Her toes really are cute, (which is hard for someone who hates feet to say!).
I love this picture for the smile, and also for her big toe. Some people hold up their pinkies, my girl is unique.

I took Isabella for her two year photo shoot and it was a good one. I let the photographer know that she isn't too keen on having to sit down for her pictures and she really likes props. We started off with the "2" in the picture and those ones were great. It was hard to choose which pose to go with.

Next we decided to try sitting/laying down, I'm not totally sure why we tried that. Isabella balked at all the poses, but since there were two sets of hands and I wasn't taking the pictures I did my best to get her to comply. There was a cute attempt at having her lay on a mirror, it was a no go. Then she tried some pictures of Belle's toes which were silly. Finally she
set Belle down like this and Belle was crying as I had predicted. However, she did the cutest thing ever! Isabella never sucks on her thumb. I have never even seen it in her mouth before. While she was crying she all of a sudden stuck her thumb in her mouth and we got this picture. Adorable, worth all the crying.

We got her all cleaned up again and sat her in the "princess chair", and she got some cute pics. The photographer tried to do the toe pictures again, but when Isabella got bored I didn't try to prolong the event. It was another great photo day.

Aquatic Gift Registry

Since Isabella loves fish soooo much we would like to give her an aquarium for her birthday! I must confess to being a little naive and thinking you just put some water into a tank and throw in some fish. Luckily we know Jeff and he's helping us create an aquatic paradise for Isabella to enjoy for years to come!

Here are the "fish things" that can be bought for the tank. All of these things can be bought at Big Al's .

Plants: various prices

Food: 8 Veggie Flake $17.99
Tetra Tropical Granuales $22.99
Algae Waffers $22.99

Lettuce Clip $2.99

Bio Support $6.99(sm) to $44.99(xl)

Water Support $12.99

Net

Thermometer

The fish tank is up! There's water in it! As far as putting fish into the tank we wont know if that is a real possibility until Saturday the 10th. As far as putting fish into it, it's a pretty delicate process and the fish would have to bought the day of. After some discussion and the reality of this endeavour sinking in, I've come to a conclusion. The best way to get some fish into the tank will be for Nick and Jeff to go pick them up and if you were wanting to bring fish just put the money in a card and it will be spent on the fish. (Does that make sense?). If there's more money given than the fish cost, it will be held until we add more fish or the fish need food. It will only be spent on the fish.

Jeff just finished showing us some fish choices to help us figure out what we want to populate Belle's tank with. I'll post some pictures of the fish we've chosen to go with as soon as I can find them.

Remember, no gift is required. The best present you can give is some of yourself! Instead of opening presents we'll be unveiling the tank. So if you do bring something not fish related, please don't be offended when we don't take the time to open it.

Thanks so much for helping us give Isabella something she'll treasure forever!

Children at Play

I recently got some good pictures of the girls at play. Isabella's play is becoming so grown up lately. I think I mentioned before the week she tore out all the diaper wipes one by one. This week I had her up in Brooklyn's room where they were both playing together while I cleaned their bathroom. I walked in to see Isabella wiping her teddy bear's bum and trying to figure out how to get a diaper on him. It was so adorable. She has also been teaching her teddy bear to use the potty, go down for a nap and eat. It's very cool to see her play out the parts she understands of each activity. She also now dances and sings all of the intros to her favorite tv shows, my favorite being The Backyardigans. These photos are of her from the Early Years Center where she is climbing up the slide, and down the steps.

Brooklyn is also starting to play more. She spends a lot of time on her back just looking at things trying to figure them out. She has started to hold onto rings and rattles. She kicks a bit at her hanging bar of toys. She can no longer sit in the breastfeeding pillow because she immediately wiggles out of it and somehow under it, which is not safe at all with a bigger sister around. Since she is so strong and has such great control of her neck, I tried her out in the exersaucer the other day. Very strong, and oh so tiny.

Nick and Brooklyn having a nap.
Brooklyn after her bath which she is growing to like more and more each day.
Isabella in her 'costume' for her friend Liam's 1st Birthday party. Not the face. Can we say 'Tomboy'?
Brooklyn moving in on Belle's territory.

Rolling, rolling, rolling! Brooklyn has started rolling over. She loves to balance on one side and watch the world go by. I haven't yet seen her roll over but I know she does it. We leave her in bed for her afternoon nap flat on her back and not on any sort of incline. When we go to get her she has rolled over to her front and is usually calling for us with all limbs flailing. I can't wait until I get to see her roll over.

She has also begun doing a lot of talking. She coos and gurgles and has this very petite sounding language all her own. When she starts to talk Isabella gets down right next to her and starts talking back in a sing-song sort of voice 'really brook-a-lyn, wow'. Nick was watching them do this interaction yesterday and commented how he can't wait until they start talking to each other. I'm excited too, although I'm a little frightened there might not be enough air time for the two of them to share. Our house is going to be a loud house one day and I can hardly wait.

Mischief

Isabella has been getting into a lot of mischief lately. This picture shows her finding the "hiding" spot for her crayons. We put them up because she has been coloring on everything again. So we take them away to only be used with supervision for a bit, then when she's diligently coloring on paper only we allow her to color whenever she wants. She found the crayons, wrote all over her table and then proceeded to bite the end off the brown one. Gross. She has also not been napping so well. Twice this week I went upstairs to find the entire contents of a package of diaper wipes strewn about her room. I was able to find containers for the first package, but most of the second package ended up in the trash. She decided to stash a lot of it in her toys and toy box and in the pages of books to hide the evidence. She got in a lot of trouble for that one. I still didn't learn my lesson though. I left a package of diaper wipes on top of her shelf in her closet, (which she can reach), it was unopened. The safety seal was still on the part you pull the wipes out of. She figured out how to open it and was in the midst of tearing them out when we caught her. Sneaky girl. She is learning to be quiet. She has also begun undressing herself in the morning before she calls us to say she's awake and she is climbing on everything. I can hardly wait for Spring, I think she has cabin fever already!

I know I said I would post here way more often about the girls, but the truth of the matter is that it's hard to find something to blog about everyday with them. They do a lot of pooping, eating, sleeping and crying. None of that makes for very good reading, with the exception of some good stories. So I will try to post more often here, but trying to do it every day was a rather silly idea on my part. I do have some cute pictures I just need to upload, so stay tuned for more cuteness!

Three Months Old
Brooklyn is now 3 months old! That information is completely surreal to me and for some reason hard for me to comprehend. On the one hand she seems so new, and on the other she seems to have always been a part of the family. I can't imagine our lives without her.

She is doing all the normal three month old things, especially being held. She just loves to be in someone's arms at every given moment. I can't get over it. Isabella loved to be with us all the time, but in her own space. Brooklyn wails as soon as we put her down.

But put her down we do and she sleeps through the night for 11-12 hours. She has begun to play on both her tummy and back in her Ocean Wonders 3 in1 Playmat and Tunnel, (the best toy we have ever purchased). She has started to stretch out of the fetal position while in the bath tub and melts us all with her coos and smiles.

This week Brooklyn has been pulling herself to 90 degrees, which amazes me. I know that most babies are doing these feats at this age, but for some reason I am amazed daily at her abilities.

Brooklyn is great. It's so nice that she's exiting the blob stage and entering the fun one! I'm so happy the next few months will find rolling over, sitting in a high chair and more slobber than one can wipe up! Yay!

Today Isabella did a somersault by herself for the first time! Way to go!

I just saw some amazing family pictures in honor of the new addition to their lives, (thanks T!), and it got me thinking about doing a family photo shoot. Oh wait, we've tried that. Even my uncle who is a photographer can't get Isabella to sit still. I am at war within me. I really want those awesome white t-shirt and jeans pictures of the whole family in the woods, but I think those will have to wait until my kids are in school and can sit still for seconds in the double digits. For example, we just wanted a picture of each girl with this bear. Brooklyn had to be held the entire time, (yep I'm ducked down behind him and camoflauging my arms), and when we tried for the same pose with Isabella this was the best we could get. Do you notice her launching herself off the chair! This picture of Belle and the bear is the best one because all the others are her on the ground in some phase of a wrestling match with the darned animal. At least in this one you can see her face and not just her butt after she whupped him. I wonder if I can purchase a straight jacket. I'll tell them it's for my sanity, and it is, even though Belle will be wearing it.

Ofcourse as soon as I say out loud that I'm going to do something, there inevitably comes up something to keep me from doing so. This time around an awful head cold! I laid in bed all day yesterday doing nothing but feeding Brooklyn and sweating. No jokes. Nick would bring me her so she could eat and then take her away. It was not a fun day. But now I'm back, sorta. For today just pictures.

To all the women...who independant.....

Isabella hasn't gotten much time to play outside this winter. We still do not have any snow, (minus the freak snowstorm the day Brooklyn was born and some flurries), but it has been grey and cold and very windy for the last three months. Each day we do take a small walk around our crescent to pick up the mail. It's a short walk when I do it alone, but takes about 10 minutes with Isabella. Most days we go for the walk just after Brooklyn falls asleep in the afternoon so we can leave her snug in her bed and not push her into the cold. On this particular day we took her with us, so I probably walked a bit faster than usual and instead of stopping to play on our stoop I went right in with Brooklyn. Isabella still wanted to play outside so I sat in the living room able to see her on our stoop and let her play. She said hello to everyone and everything, chased her ball for a bit and sang some songs. She then sat on the raised wood beside our driveway and just watched for about five minutes. Then she got too cold and asked to come inside. She had such a content look on her face and sees stoop playing as a real treat now. We're still holding out hope for some snow so we can do fun things like build snowmen and go sledding. But seeing as it's already January and we have green grass and confused flowers that are blooming, I'm not sure if it will happen. Until then we'll continue our walks and let Belle play on the stoop, all by herself like the big girl she is.

For 2007 I resolve to write a post about these two adorable girls each week day. They definitely brighten each day here for us, and will do the same for you I'm sure.

Here's an endearing story about Isabella to start off the New Year right. The other morning Nick took Isabella downstairs while I slept in with Brooklyn. I fell in and out of sleep a few times then awakened noticing how quiet it was downstairs. I thought to myself 'I must run downstairs and see what magic Nick is doing to


keep her quiet, perhaps I can use his trick this week.'. I came downstairs to find Nick passed out on the couch and Isabella quietly unwrapping and devouring a bag of Hershey's Kisses. She ate half the bag. I don't think I'll use that trick.

Brooklyn isn't doing many mischievous things yet, but she has begun cooing and talking. She can wriggle all around her playmat. She rolls up on to each of her sides and has begun pulling herself into sitting positions while we have her on an angle. That girl is strong! She's begun to make 'eye contact', (I'm not sure what she sees yet, but she finds someone and waits for them to notice her), then she smiles hugely. Isabella causes her to smile all the time!

Tune in tomorrow for another great moment.

Just a little bit of Brooklyn. She is 7 weeks old in these pictures. I don't remember Isabella being as strong as Brooklyn this early. Brooklyn already pushes up on her feet when you hold her vertical. She already holds her head up when she's playing on her tummy or you have her on your shoulder. She is alert, constantly following my voice around the room. She also recognizes Nick and Isabella's voices. She seems to "watch" tv already, and focus' on whatever action is being performed around her. It's hard to remember that she's such a new member of our family. Feels like she's been here forever already!

At the beginning of December we went to "Christmas with the Angels", a day for the kids at the church. The other staff members were facilitating crafts and such. Brooklyn had kept Nick and I awake the night previous crying from 2:00am until just after we left the house for this event. We kept her in her car seat and placed her out of the way in the VERY noisy gym. Minutes later she was asleep and slept for many an hour.

Isabella wore herself out good with a lot of running around. There was a movie room which she tried out for a few minutes and cookies which she enjoyed. The crafts were probably a bit old for her, but I had dragged the family to the event so we were going to try them all.






First we decorated cookies. They had it all very well thought out. The cookies were huge angels. The icing was in small piping bags and there were small cups of sprinkles and such for decoration. Each kid got a set and went to town. Isabella ate more than she decorated. She would put a sprinkle on then clap her hands and say "horay" and eat a handful.















The finished product.













We moved on to the only other craft it seemed she could do. The door hanger advent calendars. There were huge diagrams on the wall and buckets of the pieces. All you had to do was choose a design, pick up the appropriate pieces and glue them on. All three of us worked on this one. Then Belle brought it home and promptly tore it apart. Along the bottom there was double sided tape and you took home a bag of angel confetti pieces. The idea was to put one on each day.

It's hard to find activities for a 20 month old to do I think. It seems that once she hits three her motor skills are supposed to jump to new heights. We'll keep trying though, I'm sure she enjoys it, at least I hope she does.