Andrew freestyling on his choo choo train mic

If you have a few minutes, you've gotta watch this. This is Andrew singing his bowling song (using his train microphone)... inspired by Dancing Queen.

Almost Perfection

Today started out perfectly. Andrew and Caitlin let us sleep in until 8:45am. We hustled to get ready for our 10am Stake Conference and it was done by 11:30am. Yay! A break from 3 hr church is nice sometimes.

After that, Andrew took an awesome 2 hr nap while Kevin & I made dinner, cleaned up the house, and snapped some photos of Caitlin in her Sunday outfit (courtesy of Bryant & Candice).

Jessie, Timmy, and the Heymans came over for an early Sunday dinner and we enjoyed chatting and food while the crazy kiddos played and played.

Kate & Andrew were SUCH goofballs and LOVED each other tonight.

They jumped and jumped on the trampoline and giggled and slammed each other like they were hosting their own WWF Smackdown. Kevin got a little bit of video footage. Jenny & I were both a little nervous that the trampoline was going to go flying over.

Kate & Andrew even played up in Andrew's room alone without any fighting for almost 45 minutes. That is UNHEARD of if you've been to my house in the last two months. Little dude usually has a really hard time sharing.

After Kate left, Andrew said, "Can Kate stay at our house forever?"

After too much food and yummy dessert we said goodbye to everyone and Kevin led storytime before bed. I walked in to find everyone snuggled together so I had to run and get the camera to get a picture.

The only element of our day that was not awesome was the excruciating wrist pain that I have that has continued to keep getting worse. Frosting a cake this afternoon was so terrible and I grimace at the thought of picking up Caitlin, her carseat,... and basically anything else heavy. It is also painful to put weight on my wrist when I push off the floor to try and stand up. It has been decently painful up until now and today was the worst! I'm thinking maybe I have some sort of tendonitis? Has anyone else had similar pain after having a new baby?

All in all, the day was great though! We are so lucky to have such fun family members living close by!!

Completely Smitten

I am so in love with this little cutie that I just can't grab the camera from across the room most of the time because it would mean putting her down! I haven't taken nearly enough pictures of her, so I tried to make up for that a little bit today.

This is what her hair looks like after bed and after a bath- totally precious

I love to snuggle my little Catie-bug, baby Cate, Miss cutie (whatever we choose to call her that day)... ALL. THE. TIME! I can't get enough of her little coos, smiles, and the way that she kicks her legs and throws her arms all over the place.

This is her favorite pose. She did it in utero... and she was born with a bruise on her face because this is the pose she was making when she entered this world. So darling!

She just figured out how to suck her fingers this week and last night Kevin and I just watched and watched her... how boring, right?... Not at our house! ;)

I love hauling this cutie with me everywhere... and I'm building up my biceps muscles quite a bit because she is growing and growing! We love every chubby ounce of her.

Making faces at mom!

Today Caitlin got to come with me to her first baby shower and last Saturday we spent the day shopping. I'm sure she'll be my little buddy for many more fun outings... and I love it!

I love her adorable smiles... and even better, I love that Andrew is smitten. Today he just stood by her swing while she was sleeping and gently rocked her and said, "I'm just making her happy mom." She is such a lucky little girl.

Andrew also scurries from whatever he is doing if I ask him to be the trash man and pick up diapers... and especially if it is play time.

He taught Caitlin how to whack all the animals tonight on her play gym... and guess what? She stared that big giraffe down for about 5 minutes and then started whacking away at it too!... and she whacked the elephant and did some kicking. We were so excited. We are moving into the world of a longer attention span!

I am already longing for an itty bitty baby. This one is moving too quickly into a little girl for my liking! I wish we could freeze time right now because I am enjoying every single second.

Fortunately I know it will just keep getting better and better. We feel so blessed. There isn't a day that goes by (even tough days) when I am not grateful for the precious and crazy kids we've been given.

Anyone want to take a gander at how many times I used the word love in this post? If you already stopped reading I wouldn't blame you!

Caitlin-week 8!

This is a great picture to illustrate Caitlin at 8 weeks.

She is a heavenly sleeper. Last night she went from midnight to almost 7am. She would've gone back to sleep until 9 or 9:30am after eating, but we had to be somewhere at 9am.

I am crossing my fingers that she keeps this up and our trip to Newport in a few weeks doesn't ruin it.

Just in case you are jealous that I am getting so much sleep... remember, I have a crazy toddler who likes to wake up during the in-between hours. It is almost torturous to know the sleep I could be having if he wasn't to blame :) I plan to torture him relentlessly when he is a teenager and all he wants to do is sleep (maybe sing the BYU Fight Song at the top of my lungs like my dad used to?).

Other info about Caitlin at 8 weeks...

- She has found her hands and loves sucking on them

- She still isn't a pacifier girl. She sucks it to fall asleep sometimes and then spits it out... unlike Andrew who would cry every time it fell out of his mouth.

- The eyebrow cradle cap is going away. Yay!

- Her bewitching hour is waning... but man can she smell up a room!

- She wears size 2 diapers and size 3-6 month clothes

- She loves to be swaddled and is double swaddled at night.

- She loves to watch Andrew dancing or singing... and he loves to cheer her up by making up songs for her.

- She is starting to push up when she is on her stomach... though she'd prefer to just lie there.

- She loves smiling at her "friend" in the mirror.

- When she is lying on her back we can pull her up to a sitting position and her head comes with her (instead of being all floppy).

- She is content to just chill in her chair or swing and watch Andrew and I play.

- She smiles a lot and loves to coo and "talk" with us and cuddle! We love it!!

Road trip across the Bay

Today we packed up our car bright and early and headed across the Bay to Sausalito for a trip to the Bay Discovery Museum at Fort Baker. I have been somewhat terrified about taking both kids on long day trips (anticipating tantrums and lots of crying in the car), but I decided to get over it and do it anyway... I hate feeling like I can't do things or need someone else with me to help me. Today was empowering.

We made it across both bridges and over to Sausalito in about 45 minutes since we went during off hours. We met up with my friend Priya and her two kids (ages 2 and 4 months) who live in the city.

First stop... instruments! We could've stayed here all day.

Andrew is a little monitor these days and one girl was drumming with 4 mallets... he informed her that she can't use 4 and that she needed to share. She disagreed. Fortunately her little sister decided to be nice and give Andrew some mallets so that he could play the xylophone.

Andrew has been all about being a frog lately, so the Tot Spot was a hit (for a short stint... he is almost too old for this room now). This morning he jumped around the house with a laundry basket on his head being a frog. Whatever keeps him occupied while I shower is fine with me!

He loved the water area too. Fortunately he's a little OCD so when I tell him to not get his cute big brother shirt wet, he actually listens... and only got a little wet... not drenched, which was what I was expecting.

The weather was insanely gorgeous. There was a light breeze and I was warm in my light sweater- mostly because I was carrying my little chunk in the Baby Bjorn. The view from the playground was awesome.

My little digger had a grand time... although he kept sucking on random things (arm of the shovel and handle on the broom). Yuck! I really hope he doesn't come down with some weird illness this week! With the number of weird things he sucks on he is probably immune to everything now anyway. :)

The art room held his attention for the longest period of time... although he was more interested in cleaning the painting area than actually painting.

Squirting with the water bottle to clean the walls.

Andrew and Paige played in the sand area a bit as well... but Andrew was so excited about all of the new activities that he barely stayed in one place for long. Fortunately Paige didn't mind moving around a lot!

Painting together

Andrew continued his trend of climbing to the highest point to scare me (this one is for ages 4 and up... but he climbed up and down it so easily that I couldn't say no).

After a few hours, we said goodbye to Paige (or "Paigey" as Andrew liked to call her) and Ryan (Caitlin's future boyfriend :))... and then we went to some other exhibits while our buddies went home for naps. The train room was a huge hit... especially once the daycare groups left and Andrew had the entire huge train table all to himself! He also liked collecting all the crabs.

There were no other kids in the wave room, so I played with Caitlin while one of the workers had fun showing Andrew how to build boats and float other cool items in the water.

We ended the day with a trip to the "money machine"... Andrew's favorite part of the museum. You put coins in and they are donated to the museum... and they go around and around. He was SO ridiculously excited about this thing that we almost had our first tantrum of the day as we tried leaving.

The only hiccup of our adventure was when Caitlin decided to scream the entire way down Van Ness to 101. Now, if you know the city and know Van Ness, then you would probably want to do the same thing anyway. There are SO. MANY. LIGHTS!! We hit basically every single red light! Andrew and I wanted to scream too. Instead, we just looked at each other and smiled and I said, "Caitlin is really cute when she cries, isn't she?"... and he agreed!

Little man spent the rest of the drive home keeping me informed of how Caitlin was doing.

"She's sleeping now mom"

"Caitlin's eye's are open now. She's happy"

"Caitlin is being a grump mommy"

The other highlight of the day (during the screaming) was when we were driving down Lombard and I reached into my purse to get Andrew another fruit snack and I discovered an UNOPENED small Cadbury mini-eggs bag. It was like a miracle and totally helped me stay happy for the rest of the drive... even when there was an accident on the Bay Bridge.

Now that we have survived a full-day trip solo to Marin we can totally do anything. ;)

When I asked Andrew if we had a good day today he said, "Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't."

???? Okay?

Love my little buddy! When we got home he said "After you feed baby Caitlin and she takes a nap, I want to cuddle with you and watch a show mom."

Yay for cute and cooperative kids!

A bright sunshiny day!

Can I reiterate how much I love California? Especially when it is this beautiful in January. Last January was not as gorgeous. We are making sure to take advantage of every second and play outside a lot!

We made it to our first park of the day this morning. Caitlin napped in the stroller while Andrew came up with all sorts of crazy games for us to play together. Beach volleyball is his current favorite. We used a jungle gym as our net and a small basketball as our volleyball.

We also played slide skeeball and baseball (with his small basketball). He actually made contact with the ball several times. I was amazed. Maybe he'll skip t-ball and move straight to baseball!

We came home and headed to our neighbor's house for a lunch playdate. The kiddos made their own pizzas.

Andrew basically grabbed all of the cheese (for everyone's pizza) and put it all on his pizza. He is a cheese lover just like me. :)

Crazy pizza chefs!

Sampling the goods

While little dude napped, Caitlin and I did some tummy time. She actually lifted her head up a bit to check herself out in the mirror. She's usually not a fan of tummy time and just lies down and licks the blanket.

My little cutie pie with crazy hair!

Our late afternoon adventure included a trip to a different park. I snapped pics of Caitlin while Andrew roamed around and tried to give me a heart attack by climbing high things.

Finding her yummy fingers...

So excited to be getting so much attention

Trying to scare me to death

Let's just hope the Spring-like weather continues. No one can be grumpy while visiting dozens of parks with dry slides... with the sun shining !

Good Day

Knock on wood (because it could still change)... but overall today was a good day. I love days like today.

We hosted playgroup this morning. It was a small group this week but boy did we have fun. We jumped on the trampoline, played with the electric train, launched the stomp rockets again and again, ate snacks, and played outside in the Spring like weather.

The kids were cracking me up with their goofiness during snack, so I had to snap a picture... or two

We also tried out a sorting game with pom poms. My family room was a disaster and they were in heaven.

Queen sorter

The main successful event of playgroup was that I didn't have to change any diapers since we were ALL OUT! Caitlin also slept for a good chunk of the time, which was an added bonus and allowed me to focus on the kids.

The rest of our day was pretty normal, but went well. Emergency trip to Safeway to stock up on the essentials that I neglected to buy on my Saturday shopping trip (apple juice and diapers)... and everyone behaved themselves.

Then we played a heart counting game before naptime.

Naptime actually lasted a really long time for Andrew, so I got a nice break to cuddle with Caitlin... and then we made it out on a run to the park before dark. I even wore short sleeves. Wahoo! Of course no dishes or cleaning happened today, but oh well!

Kevin made the two of us brownies once the kiddos were asleep tonight (Caitlin was just napping, of course, before her 9-10 bewitching hour :)). Now let's just hope she decides to go to bed a little earlier tonight than last night and the day will end beautifully.

Goal for tomorrow= take more pictures of Caitlin!

Sunday Photo Time

Kevin has a meeting every week after church, so we usually go home and goof around. Today we did a little photo shoot.

Andrew wanted to make sure to get his camera time... and then he wanted to see what he looked like afterwards.

relaxing in Caitlin's boppy

showing off his shooting skills

... and then we took lots of pics of Caitlin

After awhile being a model wasn't so fun...

So Andrew decided to swing in and save the day by bouncing his "froggy" (pacifier) on Caitlin's head

He didn't get the desired effect, but thought he was pretty funny nonetheless.

We spent the rest of the day enjoying the beautiful weather outside and eating a yummy manicotti dinner.

I love Sundays. Back to the grind tomorrow :)