Shameless Promotion

For those of you that don't know, my sister Julianne and I started a small business selling jewelry on Etsy.  I promise I won't use this blog to do much promoting of our shop, but I wanted to just get the word out since we are just starting.  There are two exciting things happening right now:

1)  We are having a "Grand Opening" special!  The first 10 buyers will also receive a pair of sterling silver earrings absolutely free!  You can check out our esty shop at www.wexfordaccessories.etsy.com

2)  Four of our pieces are up for bid on facebook.  The auction began today and runs through Wednesday, Sept 28th.  You can find the information for the auction on our facebook page here 

Julianne is quite talented and makes some absolutely gorgeous pieces!  Here are a few samples of her exquisite craftsmanship:

So if you feel so inclined, then head on over to our etsy shop, and check out our facebook page!  Thanks all!

END OF SHAMELESS PROMOTION: WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR NOT-SO-REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG

Tell your friends!!!

Ok, now I'm really done!

5 Months

I can't even believe how horrible of a job I have been doing blogging ever since Kaylee was born.  You would think that having a beautiful little baby would give me plenty to blog about, not to mention a rambunctious little 2 year old, and you would be right.  Unfortunately my problem is not a lack of thinks to blog, but a lack of motivation.  I will try harder!! My baby is already 5 months old and I have hardly posted anything about her.  So, here is a little bit about Kaylee at 5 months, along with her monthly pictures:

* She is turning out to be a skinny little thing, just like her brother.  She started out in the high 50's for her weight percentile, and dropped to the 13th percentile by 4 months old.  Since her 4 month appointment she has actually been losing weight, so we are working real hard to try to get more food in her without having to switch to formula.
* She loves to smile, and will smile at strangers just as easy (if not easier) than she smiles at her parents.
* Although she smiles like crazy, she is pretty stingy with her laughs.  She tends to reserve most of those for Nathan, who has proven to be the best at getting her to laugh.
* She had been sleeping through the night since 7 weeks old, but has been having a relapse lately.  I think it is because she is hungry, as hard as I try, she just doesn't seem to want to eat as much as she should during the day, however she eats like a champ in the middle of the night.  Whatever gets food in her belly I guess!
*She never goes out of the house without a headband and flower, what can I say, I want people to know she's a girl!!!
* She still doesn't have much hair to speak of, but the little bit she does have is pretty blonde, except for a patch in the very back that is a bit darker.
* Her eyes are still a stunning blue and I sure hope they stay that way!
* She can roll from her back to her belly, but still hasn't figured out how to roll back.
* She found her toes recently, and most of the time she is in her car seat she can be found playing with them.
* This girl LOVES to suck her fingers.  Nathan gets quite frustrated by this because he wants to put her pacifier in her mouth but is often thwarted because her mouth it already full of finger.
* SHE HAS THE LOUDEST CRY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! No joke!  I have never heard a baby cry so loud, and it's not just when she is very very very upset, no, it is ANY time she cries. It still amazes me that something so loud can come out of something so tiny!
* She very much prefers to be held whenever possible.  This has been a difficult one for me, I have a hard time finding the balance between holding her too much and not enough.  I don't want her to get used to being held 24/7 because that's just not feasible, but I also love to hold and snuggle her and she loves it too!  Nathan was never really this way so it is very new to me.
*On a normal day she takes 3 naps that last 2-3 hours (sometimes 4), and then she sleeps about 9 hours at night (though she has been waking up to eat after about 7 and then going back to sleep for 2 more hours lately).  She eats about 6-8 times a day, and is USUALLY pretty happy the rest of the time.
* She is sooooo easy to put to sleep, as long as she is in a crib.  It is very VERY hard to get her to fall asleep any other way, which makes 3 hours of church pretty difficult.  This is such a bittersweet thing.  It is nice that all I have to do to put her to bed is swaddle her and stick her favorite bink in her mouth and she is totally content, however, it makes it really hard to go out of the house for more than just a couple of hours at a time.
*Most of all she has to be the most adorable little thing on the planet and just gets cuter every day!

2 Year Photos

We took Nathan to get his 2 year photos today.  His birthday is technically tomorrow, so here's to hoping that he doesn't change too terribly much in the next 24 hours! :)

He was pretty uncooperative, so I used jelly beans to try and entice him to smile.  Unfortunately I think that it made matters worse because he was not down with the "if you smile I will give you a jelly bean" thing, he had his own idea which was more like "I will kick and scream until you give me that jelly bean"  Here he is after he won the battle of the jelly bean:

This is the one we ended up buying, but as you can see it was so hard to choose just one!  I am just too much of a cheapskate to buy anymore though.

No these arent clouds

This wild fire is getting a LITTLE too out of control for my taste.  I walked out into my backyard to this scene this afternoon.  I suppose the windy day we are having is not quite what the firefighters were hoping for.

I have seen pictures from friends who live about 10 miles closer to the fire and they practically have flames in their backyard. Crazy!

Kaylee's Pictures

I decided to take Kaylee to get her pictures taken every month since I am for some reason terrible at remembering to take pictures on my own.  Time is flying by way too fast and I don't have much to document it by.  I figured at least this way I will have one good picture of her at each milestone.  I also want to be able to send monthly pictures to my sister who is on her mission, so I thought that this would be a good way to remember to do that.  Thanks to my friend Randi (who did monthly pictures of her little one) I am now in with the manager at sears and so she is able to swing a free portait for my wall, as well as mix discounts so I am only paying a few bucks for tons of pictures each time. Anywho, here are my Kaylee girls photos from last month and this month.  She doesn't last too terribly long during the sessions so we dont get too many shots, but we have been able to come up with at least 1 good one each time.

3 Months Old

4 Months Old

Another potty adventure

Once again Nathan BEGGED me to take him potty.  He pulled down his shorts and screamed until we gave in.  I know that he still has ZERO concept of what is actually supposed to be going into the toilet, so I figured that I would make him sit there until he peed so that I could show him what the potty was used for.  I thought it might be tough to make him sit for so long but boy was I wrong.  Here he is just chillin on the potty after about 10 minutes:

(I was not doing anything to make him laugh, he was just laughing on his own the goofball)

He spent the time making up lots of songs and trying to sing his ABC's (W is my favorite but I didn't get it on camera...it sounds something like du-be-dah). After about 15 minutes I decided to try and speed up the process by having him drink something.  I knew I had a big water bottle just down the hall so I ran to get it.  When I came back I saw that the toilet seat was a bit wet.  I CAN'T BELIEVE HE WAITED UNTIL THAT VERY MOMENT TO PEE!!  I tried pointing out what had just happened and gave him all sorts of praise, but I think he was totally clueless.  Oh well.  Hopefully he wont ask to go again until he is ready!

Nathan meet John

Tonight while I was tending to Kaylee I heard Nathan repeating a word over and over from another room. I decided to investigate.  It took me a while to find him, he wasn't in his playroom like I had thought, or the office which was my second guess.  The sound was coming from the bathroom.  The door was closed and the light was off but I was sure that's where he was, so I opened the door to the dark bathroom to find this:

Nathan had taken his shorts of and managed to climb onto the toilet (thankfully without falling in).  He was sitting there chanting "pooooop....poooooop" over and over again.  After I got a few pictures he exclaimed that he was "all done!" and hopped down from the toilet, threw some toilet paper in and flushed, and then asked me to wash his hands.  I guess spending almost every day with his potty trained friend is rubbing off on him.  However, he still doesn't quite seem to get the concept of exactly what is supposed to be going into the toilet.  I guess its a good thing that he isn't afraid of sitting on it, but I don't think I am ready to try potty training just yet!