More Birthday Celebrating for Maddie

This past Saturday, we ended Maddie's birthday week by meeting our good friends, the Arvesens, for a playdate. It was a chilly day but the sun was out so that helped. We went to this *great* kid-friendly restaurant called Phil's Icehouse. It's a casual burger and fries place with a nice-sized outdoor playscape. Maddie and Erica played for a while and then we went inside for lunch and finished off with Amy's Icecream, which shares space with Phils. Yum!

Thanks to the Arvesen's for their company and birthday presents. Fun day!

Maddie Turns Two

Yesterday, Maddie turned 2 years old. Holy cow! My baby is a beautiful little girl now. She amazes us, impresses us and fills our lives with so much joy.

We've been busier than usual since Carly's birth so we opted not to have a big birthday party for Maddie this year. But Maddie's preschool celebrates birthdays so I made brownies for the kids and visited her class during lunch time to take pictures. The class sang happy birthday to Maddie and seemed to enjoy the brownies I made. It was very cute.

Eric came home from work early and we had dinner and ate more brownies. We sang happy birthday to Maddie again since she likes the song so much and opened presents from family.

I think Maddie had a fun day.

Awesome

In typical Maddie fashion, she's waited until two days shy of her 2nd birthday to have a speech explosion.

Over the last several months, Maddie has added new words to her spoken vocabulary but been very selective on when she'll speak or repeat words. She's been able to understand 99% of what Eric and I say to her for a long time, but would use gestures instead of speech to communicate.

So, it's exciting for us to see her finally getting comfortable speaking and putting words together to form sentences.

Today during dinner, she said a couple of new words, so I responded with an excited, "AWESOME!". Then I asked Maddie if she could say awesome. Maddie looked at me with a huge grin on her face and repeated, "AWESOME!". She said it again several more times during dinner without being promted.

Totally Awesome.

Baby Smiles

Carly has been smiling for a few weeks now, but it's hard for me to capture the cuteness on camera.

Here are a few shots of Carly smiling (with eyes open too!) at 7 weeks old. These pics are proof that Carly does a little more than just sleep in her carseat all day as current blog photos show. :-)

Theme Song for Christmas 2010

My newphew, Mason, received a dancing snoopy toy for Christmas and it turned out to be a BIG hit with Maddie and cousin Ava too. Lots of fun was had dancing with Snoopy.

By the time we left San Angelo, even Eric and I were humming the Peanuts theme song.

Christmas 2010

We spent Christmas in San Angelo, TX this year with all of my sisters, brother and their spouses, kids and my parents too. What a wonderful weekend of yummy food, lots of laughs and watching the kids play together. BIG thanks to Mark and Whitney for hosting all of us and my parents for spending so much time in the kitchen.

Excited about her Dora purse from Grandnee and Grampa:


Opening Presents:


Ava enjoying a chocolate cookie:


Maddie enjoying a chocolate cookie:


Kitchen Crew: (Yes, I know I did the least work of everyone. :-)


Carly enjoying a Christmas nap:

Visit with Santa Claus

This morning, I took Maddie and Carly to see Santa at a the iconic Kirby Lane Doll Shop. It's a small shop that sells all sorts of dolls and doll houses and has been in business in Austin for almost 30 years. My friend Michelle suggested we try out this santa to avoid long lines at the mall. It worked out perfectly.

Unlike last year, Maddie wasn't scared of Santa and sat on his lap for a good 10 mins. Carly slept through the whole meeting but got to sit on his lap too.

We had a fun morning. Thanks for inviting us out, Michelle!

Carly's One Month Check-up

Today I took Carly to the doc for her 1 month check up. Things looked good and she's growing and gaining weight nicely. Probably our biggest challenge with Carly so far is her sleep habits. She struggles with a bit of acid reflux and doesn't like to lie on her back. She'll only sleep for periods of 1 hr or so in her bassinet and prefers to sleep upright. So, she spends some time sleeping in her car seat (where she sleeps for 3 hrs straight) and some time in her inclined bassinet. Our goal is to get her to stop sleeping in her car seat as soon as we can so her little body can stretch out better.

Stats:
Height: 22" (75th%)
Weight: 10 lbs, 8oz (75%)
Head: 36.5 cm (25%)

Note: At 2 months old, Maddie weighed 10 lbs, 4 oz. It will be interesting to see if Carly is chubbier than Maddie since Maddie's always been so lean.

You Can't Find Me!

When Eric or I are trying to brush Maddie's teeth, change her diaper or do something else she's not in the mood for, Maddie loves to run into her room and "hide" under her bed quilt. I think it's so funny because she sits upright and thinks we can't see her. Cracks me up every time!

Tummy Time

Maddie joined Carly in her tummy time exercises (and she watched The Wonder Pets at the same time).