This and that...

The girls continue to blossom and astound us. We got Laura laughing a few times, which is quite an accomplishment, given her propensity for crying. And while she sleeps through the night, the trick is getting her to sleep in the first place. But admittedly, I don't tire from looking at her and trying to get her to smile. She really is cute. Yesterday we went to a friend's retirement party and brought the girls. Claire was her usual charming self, acting like the ham she can be. Laura didn't cry the whole time. Several people commented how much the girls look like their father. For the girls' sake I hope that changes.

Claire's love of books and reading has been rekindled. I am sure we read a dozen books a day. The current favorite is Cinderella. Can you name the two step-sisters in the story (without googling it)? She even reads to froggy. Most of the time we can't understand what she is saying, except for the occassional "Once upon a time" and "Happy ever aster". We are still working, albeit not very hard, on the idea of using the potty. Currently she tells us she is going poopie after she has already gone. We'll get there.

But in general, the summer days are filled with mornings in our pool on the back deck, with me scooping out all of the "bees" aka bugs, and then she can enjoy the water. Our pool cost $35 bucks and then another $20 for chemicals and testing strips, but I am sure we will (or Claire will) get our money's worth out of it.

The past week has also been the playoffs for my hockey team. After losing 14-1 to our opposition, we had to beat them in two straight games to win the championship. As you can see from the photo, we did and we are champions for the AA division. I am sure Lynn is glad it is over, but the next season starts on June 14. No rest for the weekend warriors.

Until the next post.. their names are Drizzella and Anastasia.

m-a-r-k!

we have had quite a busy week. this weekend was our anniversary and mark treated me to an exquisite day - a scheduled (!) massage and dinner out. it was almost like mother's day.

the girls have been absolutely delightful. claire is now singing all sorts of songs - abc, frere jacques, row row row your boat, twinkle twinkle, and her all time favorite, happy birthday to you. she can count to 10 quite regularly, and once when mark asked her to count to 10, she replied, "11, 12, 13, 14!"it was so funny.

she has also taken to calling her father, "mark" when he exasperates her. like yesterday when he threw a ball at her (note: not to her), she said, "mah-ark!" hmm. wonder where she learned that one :). and, "don't do that, mark!" is another favorite when he is bugging her.

laura has been a doll. she is sleeping 12 hours continuously at night. she is still working on regulating her naps. but, she is a smiling, cooing delight.

i swear laura grew an inch the other night. she is growing so quickly and filling out so nicely. hooray for liquid gold!

i am really looking forward to this summer and fall when i get to spend more time with the girls without worrying about finding time to work. this time really does go by so quickly.

i will have mark post some pics later today.

Progress report

The kids keep growing. Laura is now 3 months olds and barely fits in her 3 month clothes. Fortunately, as a hand-me-down baby, she will get to enjoy Claire's former clothes for many years. She laughs and smiles regularly now and sleeps through the night - well if you consider 7:30pm to 5am being through the night.

Claire continues to amaze us. Today I asked her how many toes she had on her foot and she counted off each toe saying one, two, three, four, five toes! This past weekend the pool opened and today Magen took Claire to the pool. We also bought Claire a little wading pool for times when we can't make it to the main pool. The kid will sprout gills soon. And once she overcomes her fear of sand, she should enjoy the beach this summer.

two steps forward, one step back

well it seems as though three of us caught this lousy cold (claire, laura and me). poor claire coughed all night and laura was up every 3-4 hours. and now mark tells me he thinks he has gout. lovely. but, hey, colds come and go and mark can get meds to treat the gout (old dude's disease!). things could be worse.

i still have the most wonderful family. and i never take that for granted.

okay, back to sleep. well, maybe....

update: laura slept from 730 to 630 last night! hopefully sh was just up b/c she was sick. and claire and i made banana bread together this morning. it was great fun!

new photos from mother's day

about a week ago, laura started sleeping 10-12 hours at night. what a relief. she is still working to organize her daytime naps. she totally keys in on when she should fall asleep (9am, 1pm, 5pm) but she has a hard time staying asleep for more than 45 min. she will get the hang of it soon enough, i am sure.

we had a lovely mother's day. very relaxing with a little amateur photo session. check out the pis here.

laura is changing so quickly. she is a really sweet baby. claire is growing up by the minute. other than developing a cold yesterday, it was the perfect mother's day. but then again, with my girls, every day is a perfect mother's day!

--lynn

"Timeout" is not a game...

Today, Lynn put Claire in timeout. "If you pull that leaf off the plant you are going to timeout". That's kind of like the "wet paint" sign that makes you touch the paint to see if it is really wet. Off came the leaf. So, Lynn carried Claire to the timeout corner in the dinner room and Claire thought the whole thing was funny. She gladly stood in the corner, smiling at mom. How can you stay mad at her?

I wish want to wish all the mothers out there a happy mother's day, especially Lynn, Lillian and Dely.

Dress up

Someone turned 26 months old today. It's hard to believe. I am sure one day I'll turn around and Claire will be 26 years old. Next week Laura will be 3 months old. Both my children are absolute delights. After I got home from the dentist (no cavities!) Claire decided to play dress up with costumes we got from a neighbor.

You can see more pictures of our fun afternoon here.

Another milestone

So Claire and I were playing on the back porch after breakfast this morning and she announced to me that she had to go poopie. I asked her if she wanted to use the potty and she said yes. We went to the potty and I took off her diaper and shorts and she sat down and took care of business. Could this be the end of dual diaper changing?

Her vocabulary continues to grow each day and Lynn and I are constantly amazed at what she says. The other day she said, "I'm not going to eat my boogers". Genius!!!!

We are also working on getting Laura on to a schedule so she will sleep longer at night. As of now she is good for 6-7 hours at night, but not every night. She has also started to coo and smile. And she just loves when Claire comes over to play with her. We are blessed with 2 wonderful kids.