Florida!

We made it to Florida. We haven't seen the sun much yet, but it is WARM enough to go outside. After a particularly cold and snowy winter, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to actually be outside!

pictures from Caroline (and my) actual birthday...

The birthday girl!


Blowing out the candles...


Mmmm...cake with FROSTING!

Putting baby Mary to bed in her new baby doll cradle...

Caroline's 2nd Birthday Party!

We celebrated Caroline's 2nd birthday on Sunday. It was a "Sound of Music" party. There were balloons, cupcakes, apple streudel, and Sound of Music songs. We had lots of fun. I CAN'T believe she is two. My baby is growing up!

For the whole series of photos, you can check out Shutterfly.

And for a quick video of Caroline dancing in her new tutu...

Clayton in a basket

Happy Valentine's Day!

All clean...for the time being, that is...

Singing "grace" at her teaparty with her dollies

Happy 6 Month Birthday Clayton!

Adventures in Eating

Lunch
- Sit Caroline in her highchair with 2 pieces of turkey, a string cheese, and some cut-up tomatoes. Encourage Caroline to start eating her yummy lunch.
- Sit Clayton in his Bumbo seat
- Clayton fusses.
- Caroline insists she DOES want salad dressing dip for her turkey. Quickly get dressing.
- Clayton starts bobbing up and down trying to get out of Bumbo seat
- Try to feed Clayton oatmeal but he's bouncing and fussing.
- Look over at Caroline who still has yet to touch her lunch.
- Encourage Caroline to take a bite.
- Try to feed Clayton cereal, but he wants to practice making the "bbbbbb" sound instead whenever he feels the spoon in his mouth.
"bbbbb" sound + baby oatmeal = baby oatmeal spit right back into your face. If you wear
glasses, this is even more fun.
- Try to wipe the oatmeal off my glasses. It smears and now is worse. (the shirt is already a lost cause. )
- Physically put a piece of turkey into Caroline's mouth.
- Again try to get the spoon into Clayton's mouth and get him to eat the food before he starts "bbbb" iing again.
- Caroline is still chewing the first bite of turkey...like 3 minutes later.
Tell her to swallow and put a piece of cheese in her mouth.
- Feed Clayton some more cereal + some carrot baby food. He hungrily eats it. While I go to get another bite, he eagerly puts his fist in his mouth. Carrots, drool, oatmeal cereal now coat his fist.
- Ask Caroline to eat a bite of turkey. "I don't want to. " She says and drinks her milk instead.
- Put another bite of food into Caroline's mouth.
- Clayton rubs his head (along with the carrots, drool, and oatmeal.)
- Feed Clayton some more. He starts eating a little better with only a few "bbbbs" in between.
- Wipe glasses again, try to wipe the food off his head and fist.
- Ask Caroline to take another bite. She is still chewing the bite from a few minutes ago. "OK, swallow, then take another bite, please " I say.
- Clayton fusses because the feeding has stopped. Feed him another bite.
- Caroline has finally swallowed. "Take another bite, please". Instead, she starts singing and doing the hand motions to "Itsy-Bitsy Spider".
-"Right now" I say. She makes fists and whines. She finally takes another bite...
- Clayton has eaten all of his cereal and baby food and starts to fuss. Grab his pacifier for his post-eating suck.
- Caroline has eaten some turkey (dippe din slad dressing) and is now rubbing her hands (and oily salad dressing)all over the chair and the tray.
45 minutes later, 1/2 the string cheese is left, but at least most of turkey and tomatoes have been eaten. We call it a day and get cleaned up.
This is lunch for a baby and a toddler!

company

We had friends, Bryan and Fiona, and their 5-month old Oliver over Saturday night. It was a lot of fun to get together with adults, especially ones that have kids the same age as ours!

Clayton is loving baby food!

The days of solid foods are here. Clayton loves his oatmeal baby cereal. I gave him carrots the other day (baby food of course) and that was a big hit too!

new word of the day - "frustrated"

Caroline's new "word of the day" is frustrated. I can't recall the first time she said it, but one of the most memorable recent times was when I was letting her "help" me make mac-and-cheese. She helped pour in the milk and put in the butter. I then opened the cheese packet and gave it to her to pour into the pot. Before I could even get a word out, she threw her arms up and bright orange cheese powder flew everywhere...all over my nice white (well, formerly white) cable-knit sweater... all over my pants...all over the kitchen floor...all over Caroline's clothes. It got pretty much everywhere but into the pot. (Needless to say, we had pretty cheeseless mac and cheese that night.) "Oh Caroline!" I groaned. She took one look at me and said "Mama is SO frustrated."
Caroline - you hit the hammer right on the head. Mama was definitely frustrated!

Griffin Thomas Wilder

Congratulations to Kathy and Rob (and big brother Owen) for the birth of Griffin Thomas!

God-daughters Sofia and Eva turn 9 months!!!!

What we've been up to...

Trying out our new double stroller... (I love craigslist.com. I found the exact stroller I wanted and for pretty cheap!)


Loving playing in the exersaucer...


Rolling from back to tummy for the first time...Yeah!!


Trying out painting for the first time...
(you can make toddler-safe paint with jello powder and water so you don't have to worry if they eat any by mistake!)


Playing in the snow with Daddy...

Dancin'...

Dancin' with Angelina Ballerina mouse

The injuns are getting restless...

With the frigid temps, it is too cold to take the kids outside at all. We've been pretty cooped up and have resorted to taking stroller rides (or as Caroline calls them, "doody rides") INSIDE the house.

Bad Girl Corner

When Caroline acts naughty, she has to go to "bad girl corner". Yesterday, while I was changing Clayton, she came up to me and confessed "I drew on the window with crayons." She took me to the living room window where, sure enough, she had made a little drawing on the window pane. "Caroline. Where are you supposed to draw with crayons?" I asked. "On the paper" she said. Without skipping a beat, she quickly told me "Mama, I need to go to bad girl corner" and marched herself over to the corner. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as my little almost-two-year-old daughter gave herself a discipline.

Goodbye to my childhood home

Well, as of this afternoon, the house where I grew up, the only house I have ever known, has been sold. I moved there at the age of four and lived there my entire childhood...until I graduated from college and got my first apartment downtown. It was my parents' house for almost 30 years. What this house means to me and the memories it holds cannot be adequately expressed in words. It will always be my family's home in my heart. I just wish I could walk through it one more time, slowly, deliberately, just as I remember it.

"Tinkle Tinkle Little Star"

Here is Caroline singing "Tinkle Tinkle, Little Star".

Growing with Mr. Bear

Growing with Mr. Bear - 5 months

2 Bears?

Growing with Mr. Bear - 23 months (almost 2! Yikes!)

Growing with Mr. Bear together

toys from my childhood

I had saved some little dollhouse furniture that I had adored as a child...with the hope that someday, I would have a daughter that would also like playing with it.

As fate would have it...I now do. :)

2 new favorite things...

Here are 2 of my new favorite products for kids...
I finally found a set of "child" silverware for when kids start using spoons & forks to feed themselves (and are beyond the rubber "baby" spoon stage). SO many of the ones out there have handles that are way too chunky, or the forks are so dull that you can't actually use them to stab food, or the spoons are so flat, they don't hold anything liquid. Here is a child set that is just like adult silverware, only a little smaller. They are great and Caroline was even able to use the spoon to eat soup by herself!
Oneida child & baby flatware

No more lost mittens when you are out and about. Here is a site that sells mitten clips (to clip your kids' mittens to their jackets) They come in a million colors and patterns.
Suspenders-online is the website.

Play Play Play

Caroline's favorite play activities these days are playing "kitchen", having a tea party, and playing with and undressing her baby dolls.

The good times...

Overall, Clayton is a pretty good baby. He loves to play with his toys. He loves to eat and drains every bottle we give him.



He goes to sleep really well too and looks so peaceful. The past 2 nights, he's done a little better at staying asleep. He woke up a few times, but certainly less than every hour - so it is an improvement!

Sleep

All I want this year is a little bit of sleep!
Clayton has never been a great sleeper. We trained him to fall asleep on his own and he does that famously, but he just doesn't STAY asleep. Since he was born, he would wake several times through the night. We would usually just need to "plug him up" with his pacifier.
This past few weeks, however, he has been waking up EVERY HOUR at night. That's right, I get to see every hour on the clock each night, ALL night. The sleep deprivation is finally starting to get to me.
The doctor thinks he is awaking because he is uncomfortable/itchy due to a sensitivity to milk proteins. We've started giving him this new formula (which unfortunately smells worse than a poopy diaper and costs more than truffle oil. Go figure.) We'll see if this helps his skin & night waking. We've also started to try the Ferber method of sleep training on him. We are praying that these changes will help. This is new territory to us because we didn't have to do anything like this for Caroline. The Baby Whisperer methods worked on her when she was really young so she learned to fall asleep on hew own and thankfully stayed asleep.
Keep your fingers crossed for all of us!

Happy New Year! 2008 is here!

Such a rough life...

...hanging around in our bathrobes all day.

It's all about the Sound of Music

Caroline continues to love singing songs from The Sound of Music.
Here are her latest renditions of De-Re-Mi and So Long, Farewell.