Grandma Great

My Grandma Tenney came for a visit a few weeks ago. She met her great granddaughter, Rowan, and saw just how big Liam is since she last saw him. She told me my cousins calls her Grandma Great, and I thought that was a great name for her, so we are going to 'borrow' the name : )

I took a bunch of pictures, and these are just a few of my favorite.

Grandma Great and Rowan smiling at each other.


Grandma Great reading to Liam.


All of us!

Happy 2 Months Rowan!

Rowan is now 2 months old, and she is blossoming into a beautiful baby. Her baby acne and dry skin has cleared up, and her new hair is growing in. It looks like she might be a blond after all. She is starting to kick her arms and legs, and she can nearly hold her head up all by herself! She will sleep in her bassinet at night now, which is good since she's nearly outgrown her lounger. She is happy to hang out and check out her surroundings, and especially loves her swing too. She looks into our eyes, and will smile back at us, and also 'talks' and coo's. She started to regress in taking the bottle, but we are still practicing and she has been better the last couple of times we tried. Today, I took her to the Dr. to have her 2 month check up, and she is now 11 lbs. 3 oz., and is 22 inches long. She is growing so quickly! She is wearing 3 month clothes already?! And her 1-2 diapers are getting small on her too! She continues to amaze us at how alert she is...she is such a sweet baby!!

Update on Life

You would think being home that I would have plenty of time to blog, but life has been pretty busy lately, and I feel like I don't have enough time to get all the things I want done before I return to work in about a month.

So, what's been going on....Let's see...After about a month of trying, Liam is starting to sleep in his toddler bed. He usually falls out before morning, but it's a good sign that he's understanding that the soft and comfy mattress in his room is for sleeping on : ) I found a slip of paper last night that came with his bedroom set that had 'Guard Rail' on it, so I'm going to call the company to see if they carry that item still. The other morning I went to get Liam from his room and he had taken off his footed pj's AND his diaper!! He was running around completely naked!! I am not sure how long he was doing this, but I'm very glad he wasn't poopy, that would have been a disaster. He had this mischievous grin on his face and giggled when I opened the door. A part of me was upset because I didn't want him peeing on the carpet, but another part of me wanted to fall on the floor laughing...I tried not to react too much because he likes to push my buttons and to make me laugh, so I didn't want him to make a habit of this. Needless to say, we will be putting a onesie on him at night. Rowan is now 8 weeks old. She is growing like a weed! We will find out next week how much she weighs at her 2 month check up. She is much more content to hang out on her own now, and she's starting to sleep in her bassinet. She smiles A LOT! And she's starting to coo, which just melts our hearts.

So other than taking care of the kidlets, I have also been busy with the house. I have been working on projects around the house that I've been wanting done since we moved in a couple of years ago. I have been cleaning up areas in the house. And we took a handful of artwork to be framed last week. And Mike has been hanging others around the house. We have also started to take our negatives of our China trip in '02 to Costco to get them transferred to digital files. We are planning to blow up a bunch of them and hang them on a large wall that is in our family room. That wall gets a fair amount of sunlight, so we didn't want to hang anything we couldn't replace if it faded. I am getting a little stir crazy being home, and I guess that is part of the reason why I've got this energy directed at fixing it up. But, it will be good to have these projects done before I go back to work, since then we will both be so busy and tired to get anything done! Anyway, that is just a brief summary of our life over the last few weeks.

Toddler Bed (Day 15)

So it's been 2 weeks since Liam started sleeping in his toddler bed, or rather sleeping on the floor. After he falls asleep we usually go in and put him in his bed, but he usually finds himself on the floor again before morning. He has not quite got the hang of the whole bed thing, but hopefully with time he will!

Rowan's Pictures

We received Rowan's pictures the other day, and we just love them...here is one of our favorites...


to see more click here:
Slideshow

Happy First Month Rowan!

This first month has flown by so quickly! I'm sure part of that is because of the holidays. It has been so nice to have Mike home to help out with the kids. Going from 1 kid to 2 adds a lot of work and often issues when they both need you at one time! There are many things that Rowan does that reminds me of Liam, but she is definitely her own little person with her own personality! She still has not taken to the binky which can be very difficult when she is fussy and we can't calm her. She generally likes to be calmed by being held, which is nice most of the time, but can be difficult when we need to get something done, and also to get some sleep. She does seem to be getting a little better about sleeping, but that varies night to night. She does not really like being on her back, and really does not like her bassinet. Unless she is deep asleep, she will wake up if we put her in her bed. We have noticed that she is getting a little better about hanging out as her awake time gets longer during the day. She has enjoyed her swing and bouncers a few times. After her belly button healed up we were able to give her her first real bath, and we recorded it. She seemed to like it for the most part. She seems to be a very efficient eater. She eats a meal in about 1/2 the recommended time to feed, and even then she sometimes eats too much and ends up spitting up!! I was a little concerned at first that she wasn't eating enough, but she is gaining weight just fine, so no worries there. We got her professional pictures, and they turned out so cute. We are sending out the announcements now. Rowan also had her first Christmas in her first month of life. She got some cute gifts from family, thank you! Sadly, she also has her 2nd cold, and she's just barely a month old! One of the downsides of having a winter baby, poor thing. Overall, this last month has been pretty good. We are definitely sleep deprived, and stressed at times, but then one of them will do something so cute, and it makes it all worth it.

Toddler Bed (Day 1)

So Liam officially started climbing out of his crib yesterday, and fast! We knew this day was coming, and knew he was capable of climbing out for several months now, but he had just not tried it until now. He generally was OK taking his nap and going to bed, so we felt it was safest to leave him in his crib. But in the last few days he has really been upset about nap time and bed time, and has started to fight us. Then after escaping his crib several times, we decided it was safer to transition his crib to his toddler bed. For his nap time, he fought us for a long time, we eventually just shut the door and locked it from the outside. After about 20-30 minutes he sat down by his crib. He put his blanket over his head like a ghost, and in the monitor we could see his ghost head wobble back and forth until he eventually fell over onto the floor. He slept for about 90 minutes. Not TOO bad I guess for his first time without his crib. Then this evening, he fought us again. We offered to tuck him in, but he would have none of it! We eventually just had to leave the room again. Mike went to check on him since we couldn't see him on the video monitor. He had fallen asleep on his changing pad that is on the floor! We both got a good laugh about that. Hopefully he will start to get the idea that the mattress in the room is the most comfortable place to sleep! These next few weeks sure will be interesting, if nothing else.