Gracie Rolls Over

I just wanted to document that Grace rolled from her belly to her back today for the first time. I was cheering so loudly the first time that I think I scared her! She did it several times tonight too. Yay Gracie!

Some more pictures from my phone taken today:

Just playin'

This is the first thing he wanted to do when he woke up. He kept saying, "hold her" over and over and then he sat in the place where he was holding her before.

I love this dress! I bought it when we were only weeks pregnant, before we even knew we would be having a girl!

He wanted Grace to join him in his crib after he woke up from his nap today.

Nichole came over tonight to have dinner and hang out with us. Here she is reading Jack a book - The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown. This is his favorite book currently. At the end of the book, all of the animals go to sleep. He loves to look at those pages and say, "shhhhhhh". There is another book that we read quite a bit that has a simple shape on each page. Yesterday I was asking him what each one was. He knew circle, square, triangle, and star. I was impressed...and shocked! I know we've read that book hundreds of times, but I didn't know he was actually retaining that information.

Siblings

I got a little overly confident after I got that one picture of the two babies together. I took some more pictures that I thought were worthy of sharing!

Matching jammies! Jack is so excited while Grace is so "chill".

Kisses for my baby sister

<3

Jack showing Gracie how to do "tummy time".

Still loving my exercauser

This is my fav!

Firsts

Holy Moly! First picture EVER where both the kids are looking. What an accomplishment! hahah, even if Gracie looks like she is being squeezed to pieces! :)

Grace laughed at me for the first time yesterday at the mall. She also played in her exercauser for the first time today. She loves it! As you can see in the pictures, so does Jack...who used to HATE it when he was a little baby. He knew that meant he was confined to one area. I used to put it in the bathroom so I could shower and get ready. When he got a little bit older he would try to lunge himself out of it.

Not Yet

Okay, this will be my last post of the day. You would think I have nothing to do around here today with all of these posts! I just laid Jack down for bed. After I shut the door I heard him say, "Where's Mama? Where's Mama? Buh-Bye?"

This absolutely cracks me up. He started doing this about a week ago, and I still laugh every time!

A timeline

Jack at 18 months:

Grace at 3 months:

Jack's appointment went well. His doctor said he is on the growth curve to be at least 6 feet tall. He was impressed with his vocabulary and his behavior. He came in right after Jack had finished having a fit - ha! He had to get 1 shot, and he is well on the way to being completely immunized. When they gave him the shot, he let out a high pitched scream and cried for a bit. He doesn't typically cry for his shots, but I think he is way more aware now and was confused as to why the nurse would stick him! He also woke up from a late nap EXTREMELY crabby! I think it was probably from the shot because it's not like him to act that way. Yay for no more shots soon!

We stopped by the preschool to get registration papers to get Miss Grace enrolled. They will still stay home with me until I have to go back to school. August 18th will be their first day back. Jack went and visited his old teachers and classrooms. We went to the large motor area where all his classmates were playing. He walked up to a little girl and waved his hand at her. Then he went ahead and hugged her, backed away from her, then kissed her cheek! hahah, we might be in trouble when he gets older! ;) All of Jack's previous teachers loved Gracie, and of course, commented on her wild and crazy, long hair. They each held her and seemed excited to be getting her as a new "student". Now, if only she would consistently take a bottle! We tried again yesterday with no luck. We are going to try one a day to get her used to it, but she definitely was NOT having it yesterday! She just screamed until she got her way.

Gracie's next well visit will be next month when she is 4 months old. She did have to get 2 shots yesterday. She cried until Colin picked her up. The shots didn't really phase her sleeping or behavior at all yesterday.

And I just got word from Colin that he gets promoted July 13th. So proud of him. He worked very hard preparing for the tests and did well. He will be the engineer which is far less dangerous than being a firefighter since he won't ever have to go into a fire. He will be the one driving to calls and controlling the hoses at fires. Congrats to him!

Talking Gracie Girl

This was a couple weeks ago, but shows Gracie making her cute little talking sounds. She's gotten a lot louder since then!!!!

Jack has been really into coloring the past couple of days. It keeps him occupied for a long time! This video doesn't really show that, but it's kind of cute. He can hold the crayon properly and make lines on the paper. He still uses his left hand most of the time. My friend Amanda and I sat at Tijuana Flats catching up for a good 2 hours yesterday with both my kids plus her newborn baby. It was great! He kept focused on coloring for lots of that time.

Happy Father's Day 2010

This is Gracie and Jack at the exact same age. She's a little peanut!

Hello! We wish all the dads out there a very happy Father's Day!

This is just going to be a random update. I've been looking forward my friend, Anna's, visit with her family for a couple of months. They were in the Clearwater area on vacation, which is under two hours away from us. They were going to rent a car and drive over for the day. Well, the morning they had planned to come for a visit we noticed Jack's eyes were very goopy. Turns out that he had pink eye, so they didn't come. Very disappointed, but hoping to see them this summer if we get to come up. Here is a picture of the pink eye at its worst. Poor guy. It really didn't seem to bother him though.

I also forgot to mention in my last post about when we were going back to our hotel room after the wedding. It was around midnight and two (very intoxicated) ladies stopped us. They were oo-ing and ah-ing over the babies. All of the sudden, one lady asked, "Where did you get her from?" I didn't quite understand the question. I don't think Colin did either, so we just sort of paused. Then she clarified that Grace must've been adopted because her skin is so dark. Funny people.

I started this blog a while back as a way to keep family and friends up to date on our happenings since everyone is so far away :(. It turns out that now it is more of a way for me to document everything the babies are doing. It definitely also keeps people in the loop about our lives. But, I really don't keep a baby book and Lord knows I don't scrapbook, so I really hope that the blog doesn't sound like I'm bragging about my kids. I just need to document things...

Having said that, Jack's language is literally exploding! He is putting two words together more and more. He says words that we didn't even know he knew. Today I was sitting on the couch with my feet on the ottoman when he looked at me and said, "under" then crawled under my legs. He is getting better at communicating to us what he wants, so that is nice. He is so good with Gracie, always loving on her. I think they will be the best of friends. Jack does so good at nap and bedtime going to sleep. This has been an ongoing struggle with him for a long time. But now, all of the sudden, his crib isn't a scary place. He just lays right now and goes to sleep. Usually when he wakes up, he doesn't even cry. This morning we woke up and he was just chatting away in his crib. I have no clue how long that had been going on. Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned Operation: Lose the Paci before. We started that the day before Katrina and Jessica came. Well, both of their babies take pacis and I didn't want Jack or them to be miserable, so I decided to prolong it until they left. He started to get a bumpy red rash around his mouth, so we just stopped giving it to him cold turkey. We had a rough time for about 2 days, where he cried and asked for it quite a bit. Now, he still asks for it every now and then and reaches in Colin's pocket for it. But, finally, he is OFF the paci!!! He loved that thing for all of his year and a half, let me tell ya! He used to be such a cuddle bug when he had his paci, but now he really doesn't cuddle up and lay his head down on me anymore. :( His absolute favorite thing right now are books. Yay, it does a teacher's heart good. He loves to be read to, and he will even sit and flip through pages pointing out and identifying things on the pictures too. He's become quite the swimming these days, as you will see in the pictures. The child has no fear of water. He will jump right in regardless if someone is standing there to catch him. He knows how to hold his breath too. He loves oatmeal as you will see in the last picture of him.

Gracie is doing great too. We made the transition into her crib about a week ago. It was so sad. For some reason I got very attached to having her right next to my bed in the night. But she's doing just fine in her crib, and I can see her on the video monitor any time. Bedtime routine usually is bath, pajamas, eat, and then I lay her in her crib. She usually will fuss and/or jabber away in there for at least 15 minutes, and then just go to sleep. Much different than Jack who had to be rocked to sleep before we could put him in his crib. haha! She found her fist, and if you lay her on a blanket that is usually what entertains her. She stares at her fist and moves it all around. She loves to watch Jack play. She squeals and squeals a lot. She loves to hear her voice. She has finally outgrown (I'm guessing) the throwing up phase. It's been 5 weeks since she has done it...such a relief! We made it through my two days of work away from each other! The first day she refused the bottle, so I came flying home on my lunch to feed her. The second day, with a different type of bottle, she took it like a champ! I wanted to cry, I was so happy. We literally almost had to leave a movie in the middle of a date night because she wouldn't take the Avent bottles when my parents were here. The new kind are the Playtex Drop-Ins nurser. Simple fix! My sister is going to watch the kids for our 3rd anniversary on 7/7, and we will actually be able to have longer than a 3 hour date!!!! So exciting! She is just our happy happy girl!

More pictures for your viewing pleasure:

I will update more this week after Jack's 18 month (How did that happen?!?!?! Wasn't he just born?) well visit appointment.