6 Month Photo Shoot

Dylan is 6 months old today!  It's hard to believe.  He has burrowed his way into our hearts and made our love grow a hundred times over.  Marissa adores him and he is such a little sweetie.

We love you, Dylan!  Happy 6 Months!

Mommy & Me Monday

Danny helped me get a few pictures with the kids this weekend.  Marissa didn't really want to sit still or look at the camera so we didn't get very many of her.  Dylan was a little ham for the camera, though.

Dylan deep in thought

Still love his baby blues <3

Just rollin' around

The rare picture of Miss Marissa

Dylan 5.5 Months, Marissa 21.5 Months

And finally a few Mommy & Me Pictures!

Kisses from his two favorite ladies ;)

Dress Up

It has officially started...Marissa likes playing dress up.

She has started wanting to pick out her shoes for the day.  One morning Danny got her dressed and she came out of her bedroom with shoes that did not match her outfit at all.  I asked Danny what he was thinking and he said Marissa picked her shoes out...so, we let her wear them.

This morning I put her hair up and she started crying and pointing to the basket where we keep her necklace, hair ties and a few bracelets.  I asked her if she wanted her necklace and her face lit up and she was so excited.  Then she picked out a bracelet to put on.  Sometimes she goes in her closet and points at certain outfits or pajamas that she wants to wear, it's pretty cute.  I wasn't quite expecting for her to want to play dress up at such an early age!

Cloth With 2

Well, we're almost 6 months in with cloth diapering two children.  We have saved so much money and I feel that we're really getting good use out of the diapers.  They are holding up well and I still love a fluffy butt just as much as I did when we first started. :)

I've been using a new cream, recommended by my friend Sophie and I love it.  Danny does too because it's hands free.  The GroVia Magic Stick is a little pricey (about $14.00/stick) but it lasts a long time and works great.  Dylan has not had a single diaper rash in his almost 6 months of life!  Marissa still gets rashes when she is teething but it is a great preventative when she isn't teething.

Our wash routine has picked up a bit.  In order to have enough for daycare I'm washing every other day.  It's a good routine and we don't run out of diapers.  I've had several friends make their way into the world of cloth and so far everyone seems to be doing great with it! 

I will be sad to one day sell of my cloth stash...Marissa is starting to get acquainted with the big girl potty but Dylan still has a ways to go! And who knows...maybe one day I can convince Danny to have a 3rd.  :) Ha, ha...I better not push my luck!

Happy Father's Day & Random Ramblings Sunday

Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful Fathers out there!

I haven't had much time to blog lately; I have been so busy with the kids and working.  We had a cook out yesterday with my parents, my brother, Danny's parents and 3 of his nephews.  We had a nice time and the weather was beautiful.  It was a perfect day for smoking pork and salmon on the smoker, drinking wine and eating ice cream cones!  The kids played with bubbles, sidewalk chalk, kicked the ball in the yard and did some races to burn a little energy.  Marissa was wore out and slept great last night!

We're winding down after a busy weekend.  I was scouring Facebook and reminiscing on Marissa's and Dylan's pregnancies and births (thank you Facebook timeline for making that so easy)!  There have been lots of new babies and pregnancies on my Facebook news feed and I am so excited and happy for my friends that are making their way into parenthood.  While parenting can be hard, like really really hard, it is so, so worth it!  I realized that in the whirlwind of becoming a new parent, I missed a lot of the encouragement and love that friends left for me during my first few days as a new mom.  I didn't realize the outpouring of well wishes that I had received.  I need to find a way to print out the comments and capture them in Marissa and Dylan's baby scrapbooks; so they will know how many people loved and cared about them when they were born.  :)

I can't believe that in just a few weeks Dylan will be 6 months old.  During the early days of sleepless nights and around the clock feedings it seems like you will never sleep again.  Then BAM your baby is almost 6 months old, rolling over, smiling, laughing, holding things, trying to sit and you light up his whole world when you enter the room or he hears your voice.  Add in a little girl that tests your patience but melts your heart all at once and you truly begin to wonder where the time is going.  Marissa will be 2 in just a couple months.  Yesterday, she went pee-pee and poo-poo on the big girl potty for the first time.  We were so proud of her!  She got a "toope" (aka a cookie) because she was such a big girl!

She still adores her baby brother

I know people think I'm crazy for planning to have 2U2, but I really enjoy the crazy, sometimes hectic life we live.  I don't get to drink a cup of coffee without changing a diaper, I don't get as much sleep as I need, I don't get out of my pajamas most days that I'm home with the kids, my house isn't as clean as I would like (though my mom begs to differ) some days I live for that second cup of coffee and I'm not as together as I once was...but life is good, I've got two sweet babies that I would give my life for, a husband that loves me and the fairy tale that I've always wanted.  While it may not be castles, rainbows and blue skies, it's close enough for me!

We built a fort today...she took all of her crayons, her coloring book, Teddy and Minnie Mouse under the cover shortly after this picture was taken.  She loved it when Dylan and I joined her; it is so cute to hear her giggle when she gets excited.  

Friday Phone Dump

A phone dump will have to do since I left my DSLR at a friend's birthday party...sad face. :(  So here's a rare picture of me and the Mr. together. :)

Marissa has been such a busy body lately.  She keeps us on our toes.  She is starting to repeat what we say a lot more.  She is such a smart little girl.  I feel like her little brain is absorbing so much right now.  I don't know how we will have a 2 year old in just a few months.  The time is flying by!

Here's what Miss 21 Month old Marissa is up to:

Colors

-Can Say: Yellow, Purple, Green, Blue, Pink, White

-Can Point Out: Yellow, Purple, Green, Blue, Pink, Red, White and sometimes orange

Numbers

-Can Say: Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and sometimes Ten

-Can Point Out: 2, 3, 5, 8

Letters

-Can Say: A ton...She can repeat the alphabet up to about J.  She also likes to "sing" her ABC's and at the end of the song she goes "now now now now" for "now I know my..."  Super cute!

-Can Point Out: B, M, O, R, T, X, Y and a few others at times. She isn't always consistent.

Shapes

-Can Say: "Cewcle" (Circle), Star, Heart

-Can Point Out: Circle, Star, Heart, Triangle, Square

She runs everywhere now, she loves running up and down the hallway.  She can jump and she loves spinning in circles.  She likes to "sing" rock a by baby when you rock her and she loves to be tickled.  She still likes helping out with her baby brother and she can now say "burp" when she pats him on his back.  Her eating habits are all over the place.  One day she loves peas and broccoli and the next she won't touch it.  She loves spicy food, she's definitely my kid!  She is definitely a daddy's girl and likes to push buttons.  She's starting to figure out just how much she can get away with.  The "terrible two's" should be interesting, though I hear it's actually the three's that are hard. :)

And Mr. D...  Oh Mr. D.  What is there to say?

Well, let's start with going back to about 4 months when his sleep went down the drain.  He was doing so good, sleeping through the night, such a happy little guy and then...the 4 month wakeful happened.  He progressively got worse at sleeping, was waking like a newborn, screamed bloody murder when I got out of his sight (can we say Momma's boy?!) and definitely gave us a work out.  We are slowly getting back to a normal sleep schedule.  It's been a little over a month of sporadic sleep so I hope he continues to improve.  There were many nights he slept in the swing or in our bed because there was just no other way to console him.  While Danny tried to help out as much as he could, the only thing that would really get him back to sleep was to nurse him.  So I think he may have had a little growth spurt mixed in, too.  He is still having a little bit of separation anxiety when I leave the room but he's getting better.  He's still a happy little guy and he is just too darn cute to be mad at.  

He is starting to hold things and he is getting better at putting his pacifier in his mouth.  He likes sitting up but he can't do it on his own yet.  He likes the jumper but his legs are a little short right now so we have to put a pillow under him so he can jump.  He also likes being tickled.  He has the cutest laugh!  He pouts his lip when he gets upset and that's probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. ;)  We've taken a break on solids; he isn't interested so I'm not pushing it.  He just holds the food in his mouth and then spits it out so we'll come back to that when he's ready, there's no rush.  He is wearing mostly 6 month clothes, some bigger, some smaller, depends on the brand.  According to our home scale he weighs about 16 pounds now.  He's our super chunk!

Summer is just about here and we've been pretty busy!  The weekends fill up so fast during the summer.  I look forward to taking the kids to the pool, having BBQs with friends and meeting all of these new babies that everyone is having.

Baby Camden Has Arrived

My friend Kristin who I did maternity pictures for had her baby early, early this morning.  I'm so excited for them!  I hope they find their journey into parenthood as rewarding as I do.  If I ever get my camera back (I left it at a friend's Birthday party) I might get to take a few pictures of an itty, bitty, squishy baby!  Hopefully it will keep my baby fever in check if I get a little baby fix. =)  It's hard to believe that when Marissa was Dylan's age, so 5 months, I was already getting baby fever and wanting a 2nd.  As you can tell...I didn't wait long for that wish to be granted.  Congrats again Sean & Kristin!

Happy Birthday Baby Camden!