Monday, December 10, 2012

Visit with Santa

The Jolly Old Elf visited our ward Christmas party this year and so the kiddos made their yearly request. Ember's conversation with the man in red went something like this.
Santa: What would you like for Christmas?
Ember: Presents.
Santa: What would you like in your presents?
Ember: Um, just red presents.
You can't argue with that. I did finally get it out of her that she wants big puzzles. That is better than the Barney dinosaur she wanted about a month ago. We will see what he brings. Steele didn't much feel like talking this year. Maybe next time...

8 Months

Steele turned 8 months old last week and he is as cute as a button. He has lately taken to getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth but has yet to master any forward motion. He is getting good at going backwards and we often find him on the opposite side of the room from where we set him. He has developed quite the sense of humor and loves to laugh. He thinks his sister is absolutely hilarious. If she comes into the room when I am putting Steele down for a nap he will watch every step she takes and will often burst into uncontrollable laughter. It is cute to see how much he loves her. We are reaching the point where he is more able to get at toys and Ember doesn't love the idea of sharing. It makes me nervous about how it will be once he actually can crawl. He has his two bottom teeth and his top ones have looked like they are about to burst through at any moment for awhile now, but, alas, no dice. He is getting so that anything that is within arms reach he will grab and hang onto, this includes hair, skin, glasses, blinds, dishes full of hot food, toys, and all other grab-able objects. He can be a handful but he is really a sweet boy who loves to be held and to see the world around him. We love him.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Christmas Card Out-takes

So, I had high hopes for sending out Christmas cards this year but as of now I have pretty much decided that I am much too lazy/cheap this year. Prior to my current state, I was gung-ho about it and actually even took the appropriate kid pictures in preparation. Here are some of our favorite/funniest in no particular order...













Monday, November 5, 2012

7 Months

 Steele reached the 7 month mark today and is still as cute as a button. He still has very little interest in crawling but does like to be on his tummy quite a bit more now. He can pivot with the best of them and will try to get toys as long as they are in arms reach. He can roll over but doesn't really like to very much. He got his first tooth and is probably going to get another one (or three) soon. He was pretty irritable with teething: whining most of the day and waking up several times at night. If you look close, you can see his pearly white in this one.
 He is loving his solids lately. He loves everything I give him and just laps it right up. He is moving on to fairly thick foods pretty well and rarely has a problem mashing most things in his gums. He loves to eat.
He is starting to complain when you take things away from him and has toys that he likes and those he doesn't. Some of his favorites are Ember's bead necklaces from her dress-ups. He loves to chew on those. He also loves his toy pianos, his jumper, fabric books, and some stuffed and plastic animals. He is our cute little man and we love having him in our home.

Happy Haunting

This was the first year that Ember really understand what Halloween was about and it was a lot of fun to see her face light up with excitement. She decided that she wanted to be Thomas the train for Halloween and she couldn't have been happier with her costume. I wanted her to choose a costume that was a little more girly but as she reminds me, "I am NOT a princess". So I didn't force it on her. I did have her dress up in a different costume for dance class since I can't imagine her trying to do ballet in her Thomas costume.
 Steele was hard to convince, but I did finally win in the end. He was Sully from Monsters Inc. and was happy to chew on his monster hands and grab at his monster feet. We had a good time trick-or-treating. Ember is not a sugar girl, which I am so glad about. She will only eat two or three pieces of candy a day and then she is done. It is great. Anyway, here are the pictures.

 




Monday, October 8, 2012

6 months

Steele is now 6 months old. He is growing so much. He can pivot around in circles on his belly and sits up nice and tall by himself but hasn't figured out how to move forward. He hates laying down and will lift his head the entire time I am changing his diaper. He is very ticklish and will give a chuckle almost every time I dress him. He doesn't have a very loud laugh, but he does laugh often. It is almost as if he is laughing so hard he doesn't make a noise. I think he must be teething since he is drooling like a faucet and is extra fussy. Even extra fussy though, he is still an easy kid. Ember came running into the room today yelling, "Mommy, he's crawling". Steele was laying on his belly pivoting and Ember was sure he was crawling. She was beaming with pride. He is a lucky boy to have an older sister who loves him so much. He adores her too. He watches her and wants to do what she is doing. She can usually get him to laugh if she is laughing. They are so fun together.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

3 Years Old

Ember turned three last month and was so excited about it. Her animals have been having birthdays about every day for the month before and the two weeks since. Since Josh had to work, Ember, Steele, and I went to the zoo for the day. We had a lot of fun seeing all the animals and even got to ride the train. She loves the zoo but absolutely adores trains! That evening when Josh got home from work we had dinner then opened presents and had cake and ice cream. The cake was kind of a flop. I was trying to make a Percy the train cake, but I didn't end up having the time I wanted to do it, so Ember helped me decorate it. It was a fun day and she is so excited to be 3 years old.


The real birthday party was a few weeks ago, when we visited the happiest place on earth! We went with some of my family and my brother-in-law's family and almost never saw any of them. Not that we weren't looking or were trying to avoid them, but it just didn't work out that way. Ember had the time of her life and LOVED all the characters, especially Minnie Mouse. I think there were tears when she met her. It was the highlight of the trip and by far made it worth every penny. She was a little afraid of Captain Hook but not until after she met him, then she wanted to make sure that he didn't come near her. She loved seeing Mater and Nemo and meeting Goofy, Donald Duck, and Mickey Mouse. Her favorite rides were Pirates of the Caribbean (she wasn't afraid at all and sand a pirates life for me all the way home), the tractors in Cars Land, the caterpillar and the boxes in Bugs Land, and the roller coaster in Toon Town.













Tuesday, September 11, 2012

5 months

Steele turned 5 months old last week and I barely remembered. He is getting so big and developing so fast. He has rolled over from his back to his stomach once but that was two weeks ago and he doesn't really show signs of wanting to do it again. He can sort of wiggle to move a little on his belly and often turns around or moves forward a little but it isn't really intentional yet and he probably won't crawl for awhile yet. He is a wonderful baby most of the time although he does like to be held quite a bit. Luckily I have time for that right now. He is grabbing for toys regularly and anything else that is within arms reach including Ember's hair. We gave him his first rice cereal the other day and he seemed to do pretty well with eating it. He will swallow some of it which is all I expect for now. His hair seems to be thinning some and his eyes look like they are going to stay blue. We think he sure is cute.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Emberisms

Josh asked Ember if she was a mimic and she replied, "No, I am not a cake".
Ember loves to ask me to sing songs about anything and everything. One of her favorite is the Ember song to the tune of BINGO.
"There was a mom who had a girl and Ember was her name-o. EMBER, EMBER, EMBER, and Ember was her name-o".
I was Measuring Ember one day and told her, "You are 3 feet tall" Ember replied, "I don't have 3 feet. I have two feet."
While I was sitting at the piano she said, "Mommy move over so I can get in the way."
"Welcome to the bedroom. I am taking care of you."
Josh refers to Steele's wet toots as sloppy joes.
Ember told me one day "I am not allowed to make mistakes." I hope she doesn't really know what she is saying.
Ember wanted me to get out of bed one morning. She asked, "Do you want to get off your bed and stand up on the carpet with me?"
(while putting a puppet on her hand) "I am putting my hand up your bum."
"I want to go to the pool with the moving water" (AKA the beach)
"The little Kleenex is walking and chewing on a booger."
One day I walked from the kitchen to the bedroom and Ember came running after me crying "You are too far away." I think she is going through a clingy stage because for awhile she wouldn't let me leave her sight.
"Please don't be a family. No, don't be a family."
"I am not laughing, I am chuckling."
And for the best one:
Ember was under the covers on our bed pretending to be an airplane. Since her head was covered she didn't realize where she was and fell off the bed. When she jumped back up she said "The plane landed. "

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

4 months

It is amazing how fast this little guy has grown. He had his 4 month appointment yesterday. He is 16 lbs 6 oz (78%) and 25.5 inches long (72%). He is healthy as can be and the doctor was impressed with how strong he was and how well he could stand. At the appointment Ember was very concerned when they gave him his shots. She said "I don't want them to hurt my little brother". She really loves him as jealous as she may be of the attention he gets. She is starting to want him with her more and is concerned about where he is and what he is doing. It is cute. He is starting to drool and chew a lot so it seems like teeth might show up soon. He is also turning into quite a chatterbox. He seems to want to tall nonstop. One night when he was having a rough time going to sleep, I went in a dark room and held him for awhile. He coo-ed at me for about 5 minutes very intently then he nestles down and fell asleep. I guess he just needed someone to listen for a little bit. He is starting to like toys a little more and seems to like the fabric ones more than the plastic type. His eyes are still very blue and it seems like he will keep them. He is smiling and giggling now and has the cutest dimples. We love our little boy

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Projects and More

I have been keeping busy with a bunch of projects lately. I made this menu from an old mirror we had hanging on our bathroom door. I hated how the mirror made the door hard to close so I pulled it off, spray painted it with chalkboard paint and ordered vinyl lettering to add to it. I love how it turned out. I found the idea here.

 I also made this skirt for Ember. I got the pattern here. It was pretty easy and I think it looks pretty cute.
 I did a little photo shoot with this guy and actually got a few smiles. He is so much fun and seems to be pretty photogenic.
 This little girl is not quite as photogenic but every bit as cute. I have to try pretty hard to get a good picture of her. She hates to stand still to get her picture taken and wants to look at the pictures right away. The best pictures are those when she doesn't realize I have a camera out, but then she isn't looking at me. Occasionally she will actually look at the camera for a split second if I am lucky.
Speaking of this little girl, she is getting to be quite opinionated and has quite a temper. I hope it is just a phase because it isn't much fun. When I picked her up from nursery yesterday the leaders told me, "She is going to be a drama queen isn't she?" Not quite what you want to hear from someone who has been watching your child for the last two hours. I was more than a little embarrassed.
She has decided that we are no longer allowed to call her Ember and she picks a different name every so often. Recently she has been Percy, the green train from Thomas and Friends. Before that she was Otto, a robot from a book we got at the library. She has been Mickey Mouse, Mater, and a bunch of other characters. You would think we watched a ton of TV, but we accidentally threw out the cord to hook our
TV up in the move and haven't bothered to replace it yet so we don't watch any. Occasionally we will put on a movie or let her watch something on YouTube. It is so funny how quickly she internalizes the characters she sees and becomes them. We will read a book once or twice and suddenly she is that person and is telling the story about them over and over. Everyone has been telling me not to discourage it since it is part of her imagination but I am wondering if there needs to be a limit since she goes into a fit if you call her the wrong name. I guess we need to work on being more polite. Maybe we should do something like she has to be Ember when we go out of the house or something. Anyone have any better ideas? I hate to discourage her creativity but I also don't think she should be allowed to throw a fit because someone called her the wrong name either.
Update-We have been making sure she gets a nap every day and that seems to have calmed down the tantrums a bit. She has had a little cold and has needed the extra sleep. She is much more pleasant to be around since.

Monday, July 16, 2012

3 Months Old

Steele is now three months old and he couldn't be cuter. We are getting quite a few big smiles now and he seems to be happier than ever. He doesn't quite know how to grasp at things yet but he is much more interested in toys and his surroundings. He loves to stand on my lap still and is getting better and better at it.
He has been sleeping a ton lately so he must be going through a growing spurt. He gets so upset when he has to wait a few minutes for his food. It is positively hysterical. You would think it had been a week since he ate last, not 3 hours or so. Ember is getting more interested in him and this morning she came in and asked if she could give him a hug. She even rocked him for a bit when he was sitting on his chair. Admittedly, it was quite the wild ride for him, but I love that they are starting to interact more. He will stare at her very intently and that is about all so far. I am sure they will have fun together soon.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Two Months Plus

So Steele turned 2 months old last week. He is now 13 lbs 7 oz (87th percentile) and 23 inches tall (54th percentile). He is growing like a weed. He still wants to eat all the time and wakes up twice at night but he seems to be getting into a routine and things are settling down a little. He has been a pretty easy baby so far although he does like to be held a lot. He is getting to the point where we can just put him in his crib when he is tired and he will fall asleep-which is wonderful. He loves to have something soft on his cheek when he is going to sleep and will rub his face against his blanket to feel it. If he doesn't have a soft blanket he has a hard time sleeping. He has started smiling some and does a tiny bit of very soft babbling. His most recent discovery is his hands. You would think they were made of sugar by the way he sucks on them. They are de-lish. I love that he found them because often when he starts crying and I can't get there right away, he will find them and settle himself down. Hallelujah! We do love our little guy.