singing and dancing

This video begins with IJ playing his guitar while wearing his pajama pants on his head and his pajama shirt as pants.  There are a few clips of IJ and ZJ dancing and it ends with IJ running into the room to join ZJ, with a stolen food processor piece (I was using it in the kitchen).  This part is especially hilarious to us because his dancing looks ridiculous and you can see his annoying habit of pulling the neck of his shirt down, which he does repeatedly.

gonna be an Auntie!

My bff C is expecting her first baby and last weekend was her shower.  I tried to take advantage of us all looking cute and took some pictures with the kids. 

ZJ does the "I hate taking pictures" scowl even better than mama.




Yeah, this was the best of this set.  At least two of us look good.



2.9.13

This is C and I at my baby shower (for IJ) and hers, almost 4 years later.

My Valentines

2.6.13

Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts.





2.14.13

ZJ is 16 months old!

2.6.13

The biggest change this month is that ZJ has become a complete monkey and entertains herself by climbing on everything.  In her brother's room she uses his box of cars to stand on and reach the higher shelves of his bookshelf, in her room she uses a piano to reach her higher shelves, if given her wooden push toy she parks it next to cushions in order to climb on top of it, in the living room she uses toy bins to climb on top of and run around on the coffee table and in the kitchen she repeatedly scales her high chair and now stands on the handle of the under oven drawer to reach the stove.

ZJ loves to be outside and squirms and fusses until she's put down when out there.  She wants to be everywhere her brother is and runs to follow him.  When we drop him off at school she wants to play in his classroom.  She is just starting to say "bye" and wave in his classroom even though she's been doing these things for months, she is shy and doesn't like to in front of strangers.  She loves to say "hi" and wave to her family members all the time.  Her interest in the dogs has increased and she loves to gently pet them.  She likes having her teeth brushed and when she hears it mentioned she says "Awwwww" until we brush them.  She is able to use her shape sorter with some assistance.  We started working on pointing to her eyes, ears, nose and mouth when I asked her to and she seemed to be getting it but then she started grabbing her ear no matter what part I asked about.  She is a sweet, cuddly girl and has been coming up to me and giving unsolicited hugs for months, but will now hug her daddy and brother when asked to and sometimes unsolicited.  She can't hear music without dancing to it and looks super cute when doing so.  She loves to look through books now and when in her room will point to her books and say "more" over and over to be given books to look through.  She has started closing her eyes and smiling really big, just to be cute and entertain us.

Her naps have become very consistent lasting 1-1.5 hrs beginning around 12:30 pm each day.  If she doesn't fall asleep breastfeeding she falls asleep within seconds of rocking on the rocking chair.  I attempt to nurse her to sleep at 7 pm each night but she rarely falls asleep until we rock.  She is sleeping through the evening much better than she was and typically only wakes once before I go to bed.  She still wakes several times during the night, mostly in the early morning.  She wakes for the day between 6:30 and 7:30 am.  Her appetite for food seems to have increased recently and I'm now putting her food on a plate instead of just on the table.  She  dumped everything out for a few days but got over that pretty quickly.  She does still throw food on the floor to her right when she doesn't want it or is full.

ZJ had one mild cold this month.  We had a well check with the pediatrician group that hadn't seen her since she was a couple weeks old.  Since we're not getting insurance reimbursement for the naturopath/MD we switched to, I decided to start using the pediatricians for some of her care.  This doctor thought her heart beat sounded off, so we saw a cardiologist who agreed and did an EKG which also indicated a problem.  We then went back for an echo which showed four distinct heart defects.  We are going back soon for another echo, sedated this time, to look at a few things missed the first time.

January 2013 Pics

IJ likes to make play dough monsters.


ZJ is climbing...


and climbing...


and climbing.








IJ doesn't think he can draw so he doesn't try.  NJ decided to work on some still life with him and demonstrated how to break it down into doable steps (IJ's work on the right).






















IJ's teacher recorded a story he told in class.








IJ is suddenly obsessed with this doll great grandma brought from NJ.  He tends to pretend it's ZJ and generally treats it kindly.