Baths and Birthday parties

Here are the girls last week, during their first shared bath.


Elsa looking innocent in her Hello Kitty towel. This face reminds me of most of her baby pictures - deer in the headlights!


The kids love to sit on our bed and play with the blankets. Elsa always says,"I looove these covers, Mama!"


Today is not only my friend Trinity's birthday, but also her daughter Sophia's. So, this afternoon we went to Sophia's 2nd birthday party in Minneapolis. In the past, Elsa has been pretty quiet and shy. I've noticed this year at school that she doesn't seem to be as much, and the party today was further proof that she's definitely becoming less of a wallflower, to say the least. When it was time for cupcakes, she kept shouting,"I want to choose one, I want to choose!" She was so insistent, someone gave her a cupcake before the birthday girl even got to have her cake! During the birthday song, as I smiled at her and sang along, she looked me straight in the eye and yelled,"I'm NOT going to sing, Mama!". At one point during the gift opening, she went to the bathroom. I casually walked out and she followed behind, suddenly hollering to everyone,"I PEEEEEED!" Then clapped for herself. I had to remind her a few times,"It's not your party, Elsa!" :) She had such a great time, she didn't want to leave. And Sophia had so many new and interesting toys for her to play with, including a huge play kitchen - her favorite. Tim said when she got home, the first thing she said to him was,"Daddy, Sophia has a WONDERful kitchen!"

Sophia and Elsa eating their mexican feast (it was a Dora themed party).


Sophia and Elsa, excited to dig into the awesome Dora cake Trinity made.


Elsa playing in the upstairs playroom with Sophia's toys.

Happy St. Valentines!

In keeping with the theme of love, here are the kiddos looking quite lovey-dovey, of course.




Lilas first Valentines Day.


This Valentines day isn't quite what I had in mind. Both kids are sick. Elsa is such an excellent sleeper that this hardly phases her. She never wakes up and wants me, even when she's having coughing fits. Lila, on the other hand, is up two hours at a time, miserable and screaming from a minor case of the sniffles. It's amazing how different they are. Except...

Another set of lookalike photos:
Elsa, 5 months old.


Lila, 7 months old.


Elsa with one of her many beloved blankets. It doesn't matter which one it is - it just has to be a receiving blanket. She stuffs a good part of the corner into her mouth, and that's her comfort. Lila has gone from thumb sucking, to the pinky finger and ring finger. When she gets tired, she still likes to rub her fuzzy baby head.



Happy Valentines!

Quotes and cuteness

All is well in the household. Lila is getting bigger and happier by the day. She learned to clap this week! I'm too cheap to upgrade to Quicktime Pro, so you'll have to watch the video sideways.


Lila continues to be very smiley... unless she isn't. Her screech is closer to a dog whistle than anything else. It's so loud you almost can't hear it. Very wild. Here she is all bundled up for -20 weather.


Lila looking angelic with uncle Shane at a recent family shindig.


Elsa in Great-Grandma Vera's "rolly chair".


I don't know if i've been too busy with Lila or what, but it seems like Elsa's been talking the same way for quite awhile now. Just recently, her speech has changed. Her sentences are longer, and she's been using I, me, and mine a lot. To hear her say,"Mom! Come wipe the poop off my butt!" makes my day. That's a real sentence! Yeah, parenthood definitely changes you.

Other things she says? She calls me "Moms", or "Momski". I have no idea where she picked this up, but it's hilarious. She'll also randomly say,"You know, some people - just like to run around!" What? Where does she get this stuff? Every day it's a new hilarious phrase. And we swear she has a photographic memory. She can remember stuff that happened 6 months ago. The name of my childhood blanket (that I mentioned once), the name of the restaurant we went to for grandma's birthday in October, etc. She amazes us every day. The other day I heard her count to 20, even though I rarely count to 20 with her. The other morning she said,"Mom, this looks like Mickey Mouse!" I went to check it out, and she had three grapes put together so two (the ears) were on top of one (the head). Pretty cool.


A perfect example of Lila's faces. Here she is in the bath, with her normal face.


Now here she is with her face that she makes when she... has to go to the bathroom? I don't know, but it makes her face 3 times as wide! So cute. Did I mention we call her Butterball?!

Hollywood hair and a NEW video!

Elsa's hair is pretty long, but the stuff on the sides grows in slower so it's never all one length. It's always in her face. She fights us when we try to put ponytails and barrettes in, and when we do, her hair is so fine they fall out anyway. On Saturday we went to her preferred salon, Great Clips. Elsa sat perfectly still as the stylist snipped away. Here's the before and after.

Before:

After:

Lookout, Suri Cruise!

On Tuesday we took a trip to St. Paul to see my friend Sarah. We watched some historic events unfold on TV, had lunch at Cafe Latte, then went to a neat baby and kids store. Here is Lila with Sarah, sitting happily in some borrowed store merchandise.


If pressed, Elsa will run up to her sister and say "hi" or "boo", and Lila cracks up. She only does it for Elsa - she just loves watching her and getting attention from her. I finally have it on video for the adoring hordes. Besides her laughing, you can see how squirmy Lila is.



In other not-so-new news, Lila is an eating machine. If she sees you eating, she needs to eat some kind of solid food, too. She can eat 5 crackers in a row, down a 4 oz bottle, and eat veggies and rice all in a single sitting. And still, she wakes up 4 hours into the night wanting to eat more. The kid is a chow hound.

Elsa loves to play pretend, and has all kinds of imaginary friends. She sings and makes up words and takes care of her hippo all day. Just today, she informed me that Hippo said his first word. Meanwhile, Elsa has been picking up new phrases. My favorite from last week: "Mom, that's not cool!"

Playdates and baby fat

Elmo ended up being a no-go. School was closed because of extreme temperatures on both days we could've gone. Figures. Oh well, we'll have to try for next year. We still managed to have a great day. In the morning we visited with Grandma R., and in the afternoon Elsa's friend Cael came over for a playdate. Elsa played with bubble wrap while Cael rocked out on the drums. After, we went to the Village Inn for lunch. It was a fun day after all.



Last week I was busy making stuffed shells, when Tim suddenly appeared at my side.

T: Did you put all the cheese in those shells yet?

J: (without looking up) Yep.

T: Were you going to add cottage cheese, too?

J: (still not looking) Why would I...

T: Because I've got some right here!




Baby fat! Baby fat! I love me some baby fat.

Another photo, trying to fly out of Tim's arms. She's a wild one.


Elsa saw this and said,"Minnie! Minnie not bite Elsa's Barney DVD, Minnie!"


She mostly talks to Lila when she's scolding her, but lately she's been offering her some toys, too. Just today she said,"Elsa fed her a Cheerio!" I looked, and sure enough, Lila was choking down a Cheerio. (I'll have to get video of that - it's funny how one piece of cereal can be such a big production).
I've been trying to bring the two together and get Elsa interested in her sister, and proud to be a big sister. It started like this:"Look Lila, Elsa's eating French Toast. You can't eat yummy stuff like that yet."
Now all day it's like,"Should we tell Lila that Elsa's drinking milk? Should we tell Lila that Elsa's runnin' around? Should we tell Lila that Elsa's on the potty?"
I suppose translator is better than mediator. I know that'll be next!

The model baby and the elusive toddler

Looking back at photos from this weekend, it seems I only have one of Elsa that's usable. The rest are all of Lila, looking so cute I can hardly decide which one to post. So, here we go:

Lila eating one of her first crackers. They still mostly end up on her pajamas in regurgitated form.


Butterball in her beloved Jumperoo, flashing her biggest smile. You can totally see the double dimp on her left (your right) cheek.


Elsa running from me as I try to get a photo of her in her new snow pants.


I got her! The magic of the outdoors. I banged on the window and waved and she actually stood there smiling for about 10 seconds.



Whenever I feed Lila, she reaches for the spoon. Tonight I let her hold it and she was diggin it.


Tomorrow we have school, which we always look forward to. Thursday we go to 'Elmo Live!' with ECFE. More to come on that...

Lila is 6 months old, lookalikes

Hello! I'm Lila June and I can sit up!


After about a minute, I topple over.


That's right, our little baby is 6 months old already. She eats baby food, rice cereal, and tries so hard (without success) to feed herself Cheerios. It's good practice, though. We went to the doctor today for her checkup. Here are her 6 month stats:

Weight: 16 lbs, 2oz. = 51%
Height: 27.4 inches = 94%
Head circ: 17 inches = 71% (Aww, our little melon head!)

To compare: Elsa was 15 lbs, and also 27 inches. Her head was smaller, though.

Lila chillin' down the basement with the Firebirds.


Here are some more ever-popular lookalike photos.
Lookalike #1:
Lila at 6 months.


Elsa at 5 months.


Lookalike #2:
Lila at 6 months.


Elsa at 7 months old.


The kids sitting together, watching some TV.


I looked for more pictures of Elsa, but I don't have any new ones. She's still running from me whenever she sees the camera. What's new with Elsa? Well, she can suddenly tell the difference between her Left and Right. She likes to rhyme and make up words and play pretend. Her favorite toy is still her hippo, named Hippo. If you ask her its full name, she says,"Hippopotamus!" We got her another hippo at Kohl's but the original is still her fav. We asked her it's name and she said,"Sippi". At the time she was looking at her sippy cup, so I said,"Are you sure? What's Sippi's full name?" She looked at me like it was obvious, then said,"Mississippi!" She likes watching DVD's, but only has the attention span for about 1/2 hour. Her current interests include princesses and mermaids, Thomas the Train, and Barney. Potty training is still going well, but I hesitate to say she's potty trained. Last time I said she was, and then she totally regressed. But, i'd say it's been almost a month that she's been in Big Girl underwear, with maybe 1 accident per day if any. Not too shabby. These kids are growing so fast!