March Update

I haven't been as good about posting on here; for some reason, I don't seem to have as much free time as I used to!  ;)  Anyway, here's a little bit of what's going on here.

Eleanor is growing up more and more each day.  She has definitely transformed from a toddler to a preschooler, and I'm not sure when that happened.  She's about 90% potty trained now - just not overnight and of course there's the occasional accident.  She only wears pull-ups overnight now.  Also, I think Eleanor is officially done napping now; it's probably been two weeks since she last napped.  I still put her down for at least 15 minutes/day for a little bit of rest time, but then I let her get back up for some "quiet time" in her room.  She usually stays in her room reading books to herself for about an hour.  As always, she says and does funny new things every day!  The other day she said, "Arthur is as good as a lollipop" and then later, "Arthur is as sweet as a lollipop."  Funny, she mostly ignores him, but then she says sweet things like that about him.  She is also really enjoying school now (2 days/week) and the other day she said, "I can just tell Mama goodbye in the parking lot."  I guess she didn't want her usual kiss at her classroom door!  We registered her for 2 days/week again next year.  This girl is growing up way too fast.  Oh, and her latest obsession is the Three Little Pigs - she absolutely loves that story.  She says she wants a Three Little Pigs birthday party, so we'll see what happens with that.  It's still 4 months away though, of course.

Arthur is really changing every day!  He's turning into such a handsome little man.  We have started solids with him once/day and he loves food!  (I know, I know, he's not 6 months old yet, but he does sit up with just a little support and he was always grabbing for our food.)  No surprise there, huh?  He always tries to grab the spoon away from me and feed himself, and I have let him feed himself some pieces of avocado, banana, and really soft carrots.  Also, he's really on a schedule now, which makes me and my schedule-oriented self very happy.  Now with the time change he gets up around 7:30, naps from 9:30-10:15, 12:30-3:00, and 4:45-5:30.  Of course those times are not exact, but they're usually pretty darn close.  Also, after a very stressful month after his swing broke, he now goes to sleep easily on his own!  I can just cuddle with him for a minute and then put him down with his loveys, and he goes right to sleep with no crying.  It's extremely liberating.  He's in bed for the night around 7:15 and wakes up once around 5 or 6 AM to eat.  That is, unless the Angelcare monitor alarm goes off at 2 AM and wakes us all up like it did last night...  It might be time to turn off the motion sensor part now that he scoots to the edge of the mattress.

And of course, here are some pictures!  It's getting much harder to get pictures of Eleanor because she refuses to look at the camera most of the time these days.

Dr. Eleanor check's Pooh's ears

Arthur is working hard on his Spanish

Eleanor modeling her chickadee shirt I made her.  We've called her our Chickadee since she was just a few months old and she LOVES this shirt.

She cut her lip with a stick and Hunter thought it deserved a picture.  It looked much better by the next day.

Just being cute!  Thanks for the outfit, Buela!

Eleanor having a picnic on the porch...she refused to look at the camera

This tree is the Big Bad Wolf's house, just so you know

Baby in a basket!

Of course, once Arthur got out, Eleanor had to climb in!  She has ALWAYS loved sitting in baskets!

And a few videos...

 

5 months

I'm 2 days late posting this, but Arthur is 5 months old now!  What a big boy!  His latest accomplishments include rolling front to back all the time (he's only rolled the other way once), rotating 180 degrees in his crib, smiling at other people while I hold him and then burying his head in my shoulder and laughing as he hides, and sitting up all by himself!  (Well, sort of.  There's a video at the end.)  I took him to the doctor yesterday because we noticed some swollen lymph nodes (probably just because he has a cold), and he weighed in right at 17 lbs.

This picture had a funny angle and then rotated when I uploaded it for some reason, but it's still cute!

I know I already posted this picture, but isn't he just adorable?

Arthur sits!

Pictures

We had some visitors on our street.

We also had a visitor in our garage.

Painting two caterpillars sticking out their tongues and eating grass.

Sweet siblings

Speaking of caterpillars, Arthur LOVES this one!

Eleanor put on her shorts all by herself!  Hmm...

We were about to go to the library and I asked her to go get the library books out of the basket so we could return them.  This is what I found:

She was serious about that cupcake!

(At the zoo...)

"That bird is wearing a cast because he has a broken leg!"

Checking out the giraffes with her friend Elijah

We rode the train!

This picture does NOT show how excited she was.  She was thrilled!

Arthur loves the bib I made him!  My Etsy shop will be opening soon.

Amazement

My kids just amaze me every day with all of the little things they do.  I love my babies so much.

• Arthur just started rolling in the last couple of weeks and has now both rolled ways - exactly one time each.  It's like he wants to prove that he can do it, and now he's done!  :)
• It's so funny how my kids are alike in some ways and very different in others.  Eleanor didn't get her first teeth until 10 months, and she only had 2 teeth on her first birthday.  Arthur just cut his top front 2 teeth today, and I think I might feel one on the bottom coming in too!  And he's 4 months old!  Of course, this really makes no difference at all, but it's just interesting.
• Arthur has FINALLY learned how to self soothe, just in the last few days!  He has never really taken a pacifier for more than 30 seconds at a time, but now he likes to suck on two fingers.  He pretty much always goes to sleep like this:
   
• So far Arthur seems to love books like his sister.  He's already turning the pages sometimes when we read.  Okay, I think he's really just trying to get the page into his mouth so he can chew on it, but it's like he's turning the pages.  ;)
• And now for some Eleanor quotes...  Yesterday she was in the kitchen while I was washing dishes and said, "Mama's kitchen is as clean as a whistle!" 
• The other day she kept asking me to read her The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter.  It's her favorite story these days, and it's LONG.  We had just gotten back from our trip and I was trying to clean the house and get laundry done, so I told her I would read it to her later.  At one point she dropped the book on her toe and cried.  I tried to console her.  "Will Mama kiss the toe to make it feel better?"  I kissed the toe.  "Will Mama read Squirrel Nutkin to make the toe feel better?"  She's only 2 1/2 and she already knows how to manipulate!
• Today she randomly said, "Eleanor doesn't like people.  Eleanor likes to keep the door closed."  "You don't like people Eleanor?  Do you like Mama?"  "Eleanor likes Mama always."  Love, love, love this girl.  :)

It was 85 degrees at noon today, and we had a great picnic in the backyard.  Eleanor ate her lunch and then ran around collecting sticks and leaves, and Arthur just laughed and wiggled every time a gust of wind blew.  There are some days when being a stay-at-home mom is really hard, but I am so thankful for days like today.  :)

Our morning

Eleanor had to miss her first school Valentine's party today (not that she even knew she was missing it) since she was sick over the weekend.  She's feeling much better now, thankfully.  Anyway, here are a few pictures from our day.

Frosting Valentine's Cookies

 (Side note:  that's "Eleanor's Jungle" on the left.  Hunter found that giant container lying around at work - it probably used to contain cheese poofs or something equally disgusting - and decided it would be a perfect terrarium for Eleanor.  I got her some seeds and we planted them about a week ago.  I can't believe how quickly they grew!)

For some reason she kept saying that she wanted to eat her cookie in the chair and watch a video.  So, she got to watch about 10 minutes of Winnie the Pooh on YouTube.

"It's a crocodile!"  Do you see it?

February happenings

We've had a great month so far.  On Tuesday, the kids and I went to the zoo and we had such a great experience.  When we first got there Eleanor wanted to go see the warty pigs, her favorite.  The three little pigs were pushing straw all around their pen, so Eleanor said that it was the three little pigs building their house out of straw.  After that, of course, she also wanted to go see the wolf.  (And we actually got to see a wolf!  The wolves are usually sleeping when we go.)  She also wanted to see the giraffes, the monkeys, and the flamingos.  These animals are about as far apart as possible in the zoo!  Oh, and when we left the zoo I talked about all of the animals that we saw and asked her what her favorite one was.  She said, "The monkeys."  I said, "I thought the warty pigs were your favorite?"  She paused for a minute and said, "I have TWO favorites.  The warty pigs and the monkeys."

The giraffes were out to greet us!  

Eleanor got to feed one a cracker, but I couldn't get a picture of that since I was holding her at the time.

Arthur prefers to gnaw on giraffes

She enjoyed painting with marbles to make some Valentine's cards.

At Arthur's 4 month check-up he weighed 16 lbs (75th percentile) and was 27" long (97th percentile).  Maybe that explains why this 9 month outfit that I put on him for the first time barely even fits at 4 months!

(The cloth diapers help, of course.)

Eleanor got a scooter and she's learning how to use it.  She wanted to wear her Hello Kitty boots since it was barely sprinkling.

She wanted Penny to get on the scooter, but that wasn't happening!

"Tut tut, it looks like rain!"

A few other things of note:

• Eleanor loves to add "of course" to the end of her answers to your questions.  "What is your favorite animal at the zoo?"  "The warty pigs, of course."  "Do you want milk or water?"  "Milk, of course."
• Sometimes she narrates dialogue like she's reading a book.  She'll say, "'I want milk,' said Eleanor."    "'A tall glass of milk,' added Eleanor."  "'Can I go outside?' asked Eleanor."  "'I see a plane!' shouted Eleanor."
• Eleanor has a monster book that she has decided is too scary.  It was on the shelf in her room and she always said that she did NOT want to read that book.  Finally one day I asked her if she would like for me to take it away.  "Yes!  But do NOT take it downstairs!  [where most of her other books are]  Put it...  Put it...  Put it in Arthur's room."  

Arthur's New Friend

Starting around 5 or 6 months, Eleanor started sleeping with this little bear all the time:

I named it "Osito" (little bear) and it quickly became her must have security blanket.  We figured out just how important he was one time when I washed Osito and left him in the dryer, went out one night, and Hunter put her to bed without Osito and didn't know where he was.  Oops.  Now we have two identical Ositos.  ;)

A friend gave this little bear to Eleanor and she has always enjoyed him too, but for some reason he just doesn't do the magic of getting her to sleep.  I named him "fauxcito."

 A few months before Arthur was born, I decided to order this little guy.  I went ahead and got 2, just in case Arthur really does get attached and they stop selling this same bear.  Well, it looks like that was a good idea, because Arthur really seems to calm down when he clutches this bear!  He also likes to sleep with it on his face, which makes me very thankful for our Angelcare monitor.

Hunter named this one - meet "Boycito."

 Boycito is loved already.

[And yes, he will probably get a new name one day.]

And, just for fun: