Wordless Wednesday (Fair Edition)

 

 

 

Daddy's Hidden Identity

My phone has an annoying delay when you hit record so at the beginning I missed the audio for her pointing and telling me it's Sammy...though it's really not the point of me posting the video!

Summer Bucket List Update

Remember my Summer Bucket List. Summer is drawing to a close and we've done pretty good with our list. We still have a few weeks before the first day of Fall so maybe we'll get the last few items.

In no particular order:

• take the girls swimming at an outdoor pool
• the zoo
• the museum - it's been way too nice this summer to be inside. This will be a good Fall or Winter activity.
  
• the art gallery - same as previous
  
• make banana boats and enjoy them on the deck. Never had banana boats? You are missing out. Stay tuned for when we actually cross this item off the list, I'll document with instructions and pictures.
• have a bonfire
• find 10 new parks to try out
• take Presley for her first splash park experience
• have a picnic at the lake
• take the girls to see the mountains
• see a waterfall
  
• go for a drink on a patio with my husband it was our own patio but you do what you can, right?!
• visit the farmer's market
• go to a fair
• watch a parade
• go out for ice cream
• have new friends over for a BBQ

What's been your favorite summer activity to cross of your to-do list?

Friday Night Leftovers

• Thank you for the anniversary wishes. We did nothing special or out of the ordinary. Are we lame? No, we just have 2 kids 2 and under and no babysitter.
  

• Yesterday Samara stuck a raisin up her nose and I very nearly wasn't able to get it out myself. What is it with kids sticking things up their noses? What is so irresistible about it? Licking a frozen flagpole, I understand. Foreign objects up noses, I don't.

• Speaking of frozen flagpoles, have you ever licked one to see if your tongue will stick? Up here in Canada, I'm not sure I know of anyone who hasn't.
  

• I talked last week about being extremely conscious about car seat safety. Another thing to add to the list? Bike helmets. I see so many kids not wearing them while they ride their bikes. And, not wearing them while their parents pull them in a bike trailer. I admit that I didn't use to wear a helmet. I was too cool for that. As soon as we had kids? I got an egghead and I proudly wear it every time I ride my bike to model good behavior for my girls.

• I have been obsessed with chocolate this week. I haven't eaten it in a couple of weeks and visions of milk chocolate, brownies, chocolate cake and fudge are dancing through my head pretty much every waking hour.

• Check out the host of leftovers here.
  

4!!

4 years of marriage today...each year more exciting and memorable than the last. How did I get so lucky?

Wordless Wednesday (Same Outfit, Different Girl Edition)

Samara, 5 months


Presley, 9 months

9 months!!

Presley is 9 months today. 3/4 of a year old. I honestly can't believe it!

At 9 months, Presley is a crawling pro. She is FAST. She spends the day crawling to things she wants, pulling herself to standing, cruising along (and sometimes even standing unassisted for a few seconds), sitting down on her bum and then crawling to the next item. She is one busy kid. She even climbs the stairs now (hello, baby gate...how I've missed you). She is babbling a lot more and says "dadada" and "mamama" but I wouldn't classify her as talking yet as they really just seem to be noises she's repeating back to us.

Her favorite toys are her Little People farm and my old wooden blocks. She likes to look at (and eat) board books. She shows LOTS of interest in whatever her sister happens to be playing with at the moment.

Her favorite activities are going for walks in the Beco, the wrap or the stroller, unloading the dishwasher (I'm not kidding...if she even hears the dishwasher open, she comes a crawlin'!), having baths (but refuses to sit for them anymore) and being outside. She loves crawling around on the grass and inspecting leaves and twigs.

Presley has decided she is over baby food. I've been making all her purees to date and now she refuses them. She'd much rather have finger food and more often than not, she gets what we eat. Her favorites include muffins, banana bread, barbecued hamburgers, Cheerios and watermelon. She mistakenly had her sister's peanut butter and crackers last week and is fine with that. She is still exclusively breastfed and gets around 5 feeds a day that way. She's drinking water from a sippy cup easily. She now has 2 teeth to help her with all that eating.

Sleep. Well, we're all over the board. She likes to keep me guessing and will sleep 12 hours straight for a week, then do a week of 4am feeds and then toss in the odd 130am feed just to keep me on my toes. Just when I think she'll never sleep through again, she'll get back to it. I know we could just sleep train her (she probably doesn't need the night feeds) but we don't. So I don't ever complain about the night time feeds. She is a great napper and has 2 naps a day of a minimum of 2 hours each.

Presley weighs 17 pounds and 11 ounces which puts her in the 28th percentile. She measures 28 inches long which puts her in the 58th percentile. She is still wearing 0-3 month dresses and 3-6 month everything else. She's in size 2 diapers.

Things I never want to forget:
- how she makes a beeline for the door when she hears Shawn come home.
- how you can't wipe the grin from her face when you're pushing her on the swings.
- how peaceful it is to breastfeed your last baby in the middle of the night when the rest of the house is sleeping. It's just her and I.

Weekend Highlight

The highlight of my weekend? Samara and Presley playing so well together. It just melts my heart to see them getting along. Presley would crawl after Samara and Samara would run away squealing. Samara was such a good big sister always making sure Presley had a toy to play with and was really good about sharing. She would randomly go up to Presley, hug her and declare that they were buddies. This is a drastic difference from a week ago where entire days were spent hearing Samara say, "no, no, no, no, no!" to Presley every time she went near any toys.

Don't get me wrong, I know this doesn't mean it will be like this from now on. It was just nice to see!

What was the highlight of your weekend?

A Sorta Birthday

Today is a "sorta" birthday for Presley. Today she is 38 weeks and 4 days old. It doesn't sound monumental, does it?! But, it is exactly how long it took me to grow her. She has now spent the same amount of time on the outside as on the inside. It's hard to believe in that short amount of time we went from this:


To this!

Friday Night Leftovers

• Most of you know that I'm hyper about car seat safety. This means that whenever I see a baby/toddler in a car seat or see a picture of a baby/toddler in a car seat, I can't help but check if the clips are shoulder level like they should be. Most aren't.

• Saturday night/Sunday morning, Samara got sick. And continued to be sick until Wednesday. It was rough. So far, her stomach bug didn't make it to anyone else. PLEASE let it be gone from this family.

• Do you remember doing stupid things as a teenager? I'm definitely guilty. I assume the swings that were twisted at the top of the poles at our park the other day were a result of teenagers. I'm trying hard to remember what it's like to be young and foolish but instead I just know how much it sucks for a 2 year old to learn what it means when swings are "broken".

• Presley got her first taste of peanut butter this week. NOT on purpose. Long story but after smelling her hands and breath, I confirmed she had actually eaten it. Thankfully no reaction. I am VERY glad we don't have any nut allergies to deal with in our family.

• We're in the process of having our moving expenses audited. Good times!

• The farmer's market last weekend went well. Not fabulous but not terrible. I'm signing up to do some craft sales close to Christmas so fingers crossed I do well. In bigger news, a dancewear store in Lethbridge is now carrying my tutus!
  

• More leftovers? Head here.
  

Start The Day Off Right

We had a rough day yesterday. I was tired from rotten sleeps the past week. The girls were feeding off my negative energy and I just couldn't shake my mood. So, I was in bed reading by 830pm and lights out by 9pm determined to catch up on some sleep and have a better day today. I got up early this morning and took a long bike ride down to the river. It was just what I needed to start the day off right. I watched the sun rise and felt energized. Now it's 830am...Presley is still sleeping (!!) and Samara is happily eating crackers out of a water bottle (don't ask).

How do you shake a bad mood?

Wordless Wednesday (Future Beethoven Edition)

Banana Boats

When I mentioned that we were having banana boats the other day, some of you didn't know what that was. Here's a quick lesson!

Gather your supplies. You can put pretty much anything in them. Marshmallows, chopped up chocolate bars, chocolate chips, fudge sauce, M&Ms, caramel sauce, nuts...basically whatever you're feeling like at the time.

Cut a slit in the peel and open the banana.

Scoop out half the contents of the banana. Eat it. It's the healthy and guilt free part of this dessert!

You're left with the perfect space to cram your goodies in.

Stuff as many or as little treats as you want. Clearly I favor the "many" approach.

Pull the peel back over the banana to close your "boat" and pin shut with toothpicks. Looks like a boat, right?

Barbecue or heat over a campfire until outside is charred and contents are melted.

Open and enjoy!
A spoon is not always necessary!

What are your favorite fillings in a banana boat?

Dada?

Friday Night Leftovers

• We have been having the best weather this summer, I love it!

• Tomorrow I'm doing my first farmer's market for Neat Nat Style. I'm excited and nervous!

• Samara has named her favorite stuffed bear, Sammy. It's really confusing, especially since she refers to herself as Sammy and in the 3rd person. It goes something like this:

Samara: Sammy dancing!
Me: Oh, are you?
Samara: NO! SAMMY DANCING!
Samara: Sammy eating?
Me: Are you hungry?
Samara: NO! SAMMY EATING!

• Ew. I have no idea why Blogger insists on formatting the previous like that. I can't seem to fix it either.
  

• Presley has finally gotten her first tooth. Sammy (the kid, not the bear) got hers at 5 months so I've been waiting awhile for this one to show up!

• We've still been avoiding treats during the week. It really makes me look forward to something tasty to have on Saturdays. I think tomorrow we're having banana boats, yum!

• For more leftovers, head here.
  

Household Chores

I've admitted before to enjoying cleaning the house.  It's practically a sickness.  BUT, I don't enjoy it all.  The top of my most despised list?  Putting the duvet back in the cover.  I loathe doing it!  A close second is ironing.  We have practically nothing that needs ironing because I just don't do it.  When I was working in an office, I was guilty of buying nice button up shirts, wearing them a couple of times, washing them and then letting them sit in my closet for a couple of years until I donated them.  Yes, in hindsight, I should've just paid for dry cleaning service!

What do you hate doing?

Wordless Wednesday (Picture Recap, July Edition)