Crawling

Bridget started crawling on Monday and Tuesday - she can do pretty well on the area rug but slips more when she's on that slippery hardwood floor!!

Lily is learning how much faster she has to move to stay out of the way now!

Miss America...

Bridget has learned how to wave but instead of waving her whole arm and hand, she does a little turn of the wrist just like a 'Miss America' wave - it's so funny!! She's also crawled about 4 or 5 'steps' across the carpet now but hasn't taken off past that. I think it's only a matter of time now...Lily and Lucy better watch out...

Was so nice on Sunday that we spent some time outside. I took the girls out for a ride in their wagon. Bridget just soaked it all in! Seems strange that by the time we're outside much, she'll probably be walking - this summer will be a lot different than last summer was. I hope I have enough energy to chase two kids!

Lily went to her first movie in the theater this weekend. We went to 'The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything' - she did really well as long as the popcorn lasted and then we had to do a quick search through my purse for anything else to keep her entertained for the last 10 minutes or so. She's going to go see 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' this weekend with her dad and then her movie-going days will be over for a bit...hopefully she does well at that one too.

Our conversation on Saturday afternoon with Lily:
Lily: Dad, don't say that Mom is married
Mom: But, Mom and Dad are married
Lily: You are?
Dad: Yep, Mom and Dad are married
Lily: Well, then you have to kiss

I don't know who she's been talking to about this but seems to have it all figured out...

Trying to stay warm!

Cold, cold, cold here today. It's supposed to be -25 with the windchill tonight so I am staying snug in my house! We've been hovering around zero all week, they are saying maybe 30's this weekend so that will feel tropical for us!

Bridget is getting closer to crawling. She gets on her tummy and then gets really mad because her knees slip out from under her on the hardwood floors. If she's on carpet, she can get her knees under her and rock back and forth. We might have to pull out the big area rug for a few weeks here until she can master the crawling on those slippery floors thing...She's also started clapping and doing a bit of a wave for hello and goodbye. She had her 9-month appt on the 18th and she was 22 lbs and 30 inches long - over the 97th % for height and at the 95th % for weight so still a big baby! The doctor said we'd wait until her 1-year appt to do the allergy testing for her milk allergy so we have to wait until then to see if we put her on soy milk or just what. I'm certainly looking forward to the day when I can have a bit of dairy back in my diet but if I've stuck it out this far, I can do it another few months!

Lily and I are going to go to her first movie in the theater on Saturday morning. They have a special showing for kids and we're going with some of her friends, Jack and Jake. We're going to see 'The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything' - Lily is excited to go see the movie and to eat popcorn! Should be a fun experience and hopefully we make it through most of the movie. :-) Lily's favorite movie lately has been Charlotte's Web - she started reciting some of the lines out of the movie for me today and she really hasn't seen it that many times...guess they are listening much closer than a person thinks they are...

Am getting anxious for spring (all ready...) and thinking about what I'm going to plant in my flowerbeds and how I'm going to talk Dave into letting me put another flower bed in the yard...I might have to do that when he's gone for a day and it'll be a little surprise for him when he gets back! :-) Dave and I were talking about how this summer would be much different for us than last summer. Bridget will probably be walking and Lily will be able to drive her car much more this summer and her trike and things like that. Could be a busy summer chasing after them but will be fun to watch Bridget discover all those new things and watch Lily master some of the things that she didn't quite get last year (like steering, which is kind of important to the driving thing...)

Shoe shopping...with a 2-year old...

Lily has grown out of her wide array of size 7 shoes now so I took her to Target and we looked through the bigger ones, took us about 20 minutes of trying on as many 'Princess' shoes as we could find, rain boots, sandals to finally talk her into some tennis shoes. I did have to give in on having Disney Princesses all over the tennis shoes but at least they're tennis shoes. I love shoe shopping but Lily is getting harder to buy for now because she's getting an opinion now on what she wants to wear! This could be an indication of things to come in about 10 years...

Bridget actually slept through the night on Thursday night (Whoo Hoo!!) so I was very happy. She's fully transitioned into sleeping in her crib now, she won't settle down if I put her in with me anymore. Which is good but kind of sad too...I miss having her tucked in with me at night too. But she does definitely sleep longer and better on her own now. She's finally gotten used to sleeping in her crib and you can actually put her in there while she's awake and she'll listen to her fish aquarium toy and fall asleep. God bless whoever invented those little things...

We went bowling over the weekend with some friends from my work. Lily bowled a couple of times with her dad. Before we went, she was telling me about that she was going to hit the ball with the bat so I told her in bowling you have to knock down the pins and that I would show her how to do it. She said, no Mom, I will show you how to do it. No one can say she's not one independent little girl...

We also moved Bridget into a regular car seat this weekend as she was getting too tall for her infant seat now. We moved Lily into a booster with a back on it as well and she loves her new seat. She wanted all the kids from daycare to come out to the car this morning to look at her new car seat...but it was about -4 out so I said maybe on a day when it's a bit warmer out. Bridget loves her new seat as she can see herself in the mirror that's on the backseat's headrest. She squeals at herself as soon as she sees her reflection. :-)

Thankful

I was reminded today of how very lucky we are to have two healthy, beautiful little girls. A co-worker of mine has two little nieces who were recently born at not quite 24 weeks and one of the twins passed away late last week. The other is fighting to stay alive. As I read through the CaringBridge site (a kind of blog site specially for people in the hospital), I was really struck by how unbelievably blessed I have been to have such healthy babies and have never had to go through the anguish of having a baby go through anything like that. I gave my girls an extra hug today when I got home and thanked my lucky stars that they are in my life!

The girls are both doing great, Bridget rang in the New Year with me although I was a bit of an unwilling partier at that point. She was up until after 1 am on New Year's Eve despite my best efforts to get her to sleep. Dave and I laughed that maybe next year, we will actually get to spend New Year's Eve together! Dave and Lily went over to the neighborhood New Year's party until about 8:30 when Lily came home for bedtime. It took quite awhile for her to settle down and go to bed too

I've been thinking I need to start doing some planning for Lily's birthday in February, I was thinking I'd either do a Dora party or a Princess party as those seem to be her main two interests now. So I asked her which one and she switches back and forth daily on which one but now she's decided that what she really wants is a 'Lily' party with 'Lily' on her cupcakes...not sure how I'm going to do that but it is funny! I wonder if they sell 'Lily' plates down at Party America...

Bridget is starting to get closer to crawling. She can get up on her knees occasionally but she's not sure what to do once she gets there. She gets around pretty well by sliding this way and that but eventually she'll figure out it's way faster to be crawling. She does get fast enough that she sneaks up on Lily once and awhile and really yanks on Lily's hair - that's Bridget's favorite pastime in the world, pulling hair.