In the Summertime

I must get myself to bed, but I wanted to post these cute little videos of the girls at the pool in Ohio this past weekend.

Mollie is VERY cautious about most everything, pools and water definitely included. She barely wanted to wade in the baby pool until all of a sudden she saw Natalie going down the slide all by herself. Then she said, "My tun! I side!" So I kind of ignored it for a bit, but she persisted, so Brad took her down. The first time, the sounds she made were less than enthusiastic, but that little thing trucked herself right back up and wanted to do it again - and again - and again - and AGAIN. I am not exaggerating AT ALL when I tell you that Brad took her down about 30 times, I took her twice, and Sheila took her probably 15 times. I think Mollie went down the slide more than anyone else!

Here are a couple clips of Mollie sliding and RUNNING back to the stairs.




Natalie had an absolute blast and has no fear of the water. In fact, I wish she had a little more fear, but we're working on it. :) She keeps her trusty Puddle Jumper on (as does Mollie), and she's good to go. I was proud of her sliding all by herself with her cousins. She (like her dear old mom) is not quite as coordinated with the sliding and ends up completely dunking herself at the bottom, but it doesn't phase her one bit!

Newborn TWINS

About two weeks ago, my friend Jesi (who is also Natalie's dance teacher) gave birth to twins! So exciting! Even more exciting (for me, not for her!) is that I got to photograph them with our friend Heather! We had a blast, and the babies were amazingly squishy and bendy and sleepy and sweet. I'm finally ready to share some of my favorite images from our session. :)

Potty Training 101

So my whole idea of posting every day hasn't been perfect, but I have posted a LOT more than I was, so that's good! :) When I wrote HERE, I was more than frustrated with attempting to potty train Mollie. We gave up the 3-Day Potty Training method later that day (which, as I said, was day FIVE). We went directly 100% back to diapers and decided to try again maybe after her birthday. End of story.

Fast-forward 8 days, and who is showing MAJOR interest in the potty? Mollie. All of a sudden, out of the blue, after 8 days of ZERO interest. Yesterday she spent the entire day in panties and had no accidents. She even woke up dry from her nap and overnight. She's not initiating it every single time, but we're only suggesting going at the "usual" times, like before and after naps and bed, before we leave the house, the same times that we would tell Natalie to go, with maybe an extra "before mealtime" thrown in. We are just in shock that it could possibly be this easy (although those five days were H.A.R.D., still not as bad as months or even weeks of accidents).

Tomorrow, she'll wear panties at daycare! We're really hoping that she does well there! Fingers crossed! I can't believe my baby may have just basically potty-trained herself! :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering what's been taking up a lot of my time, get a load of these sweeties:



More to come SOON!

It Was a GOOD Day

I think I missed another day yesterday, and I'm exhausted now, but I wanted to say today was a GOOD day. Most days are good days, but today was an especially nice one. No one big particular reason. Just good stuff in general.

Night!

Little Miss Observant

So after I noticed how dirty Mollie's face was on the way home from work today, Brad said that that when he picked her up, she had a rock in her mouth. I said,"You put rocks in your MOUTH?!" and Mollie replied,"Yeahhh." I said,"Oh Mollie, we don't put rocks in our mouth!"

Fifteen minutes later when I was getting her out of the car seat, she said,"Wocks in a mouf. No NO! Wocks in a mouf. No NO!" I started giggling and repeated to Brad what she said. Then her eyes got big with this puppy dog look, and she said,"Hi laffeen? Hi laffeen? (Why laughing?) I just told her it's because she was cute - which is TRUE! :)

06/05

It's been a long day. Hmmmm I feel like just stopping there. :) I'll have fulfilled my daily blog commitment, right?

Here's an interesting tidbit:

I've been doing monthly meal plans for a few months now, and I love it! We save money, eat out less, eat healthier, and throw less food away! Win, win, win, and WIN!

These were on tonight's menu:

Baked Lump Crab Cakes with Red Pepper Chipotle Lime Sauce
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/04/baked-lump-crab-cakes-with-red-pepper.html

and
Baked Seasoned Fries with Skinny Garlic Aoili
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/02/baked-seasoned-fries-with-skinny-garlic.html

and
Sweet Corn on the cob.

YUM!!!! Everything was so yummy! My crab cakes looked nothing like the photo, but they were still good. :) My fries looked very similar to the photo and they were amazingly yummy!

Now I'm trying to remember if anything happened today that was especially noteworthy for any particular reason . . . OH! For the second time, Natalie helped hang up clean laundry on hangers! This is SUCH a HUGE help, and it makes her feel like she's SO BIG! I told Brad we need to make it a Sunday night tradition for everyone to help with laundry that I've washed over the past few days. Mollie's not too helpful yet. She tries - with washcloths. She holds them up like we do, then says "FOWD IT. FOWD IT. FOWD IT." While she attempts to fold it, and it's just about the sweetest thing you've ever seen. I pretty much died from the cuteness. Then she started stealing all the socks and tossing them in a corner. ;)

Mary Poppins Dansical

The end-of-year recital this year at Victory Dance was Mary Poppins Dansical (similar to a musical ;)), and that - along with the fact that my friend Jesi teaches the girls in Natalie's age group - really clinched our decision to start Natalie in ballet there this year. She LOVES Mary Poppins. So her class' song isn't one that you'd recognize from the movie or anything, but she got to dress as a baker and it was super cute!

We'll start with the video - this is from the Thursday dress rehearsal. They were cuter today with the audience to oooh and ahhh over them, but you can't record during the actual show. :-/



And then photos at home after she got ready:














Then waiting to go on at the church:








And then afterward:




Oh, and LOOK! TWO posts in ONE day! How impressed are you? ;)

Popsicle Time!

Thursday when Brad took Natalie to her dance recital rehearsal (video of THAT to come soon!) Mollie and I played in the backyard. She enjoyed her first outside Popsicle of the summer and kept asking to go in the "wa wa," so we put on a swimsuit and she never did even dip in one toe. Can anyone tell me why a 4T bathing suit fits my 23-month-old (whose 24mos/2T pants fall off!) better than my 3.5yr old? Answer: swimsuits are crazy!

















P.S. I've posted something on the blog 4 days in a row! I'm on a ROLL!

Zoo Day!

Brad took the girlies to the zoo today while I was at work and sent me these pics from his cell phone of the girls with all of the different bronze animals. Made my day! :) Then they picked me up at we had lunch together! The girls were sweaty, sunscreen-smelling, and happy. :)

When I got in the car, I asked Natalie if they got to see the new baby elephant. She said, "Yeah! But I didn't get to ride it." :) :) :)

Oh, and here's a quick video too:

Untitled from Sarah Billheimer on Vimeo.

Miss Allie

I recently got to take more fun newborn photos of a sweet new little one whose mama is one of my good friends, Kristin! Her firstborn, Kate, was actually one of the first newborns that I ever got to photograph HERE. Miss Allie is a total doll - such a sweet, laid-back baby already at two weeks! She really didn't want to sleep for us, she wanted to just observe, so I got lots of shots with her big pretty eyes!http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif















Congrats Kristin, Beau, and big sis Kate! :)

Memorial Day Week

Here's how we've been spending our Memorial Day week. It's like a weeklong event in our household since daycare is closed this week for teacher training. :)

Oh, and before we get to the pics, I wanted to say: we are DONE with the three-day potty training thing with Mollie. She.is.not.ready. Although, we've created a lot of potty interest because now her babies go potty all the time, she is starting to tell me when she pees in her diaper, she's a bit happier to sit on the potty (before bed, naps, leaving the house, etc), and she wants to wear "moush pannies" AKA Minne Mouse panties. :) So it's a work in progress, and that's a good thing.

Now the photos...

OK I know they don't look thrilled, but I think it's because I was attempting to make them stand still for a photo before they could get in the pool. :)




This little blow-up pool? May very well be the best $10 we've ever spent. :)






Who says you can't wear a nightgown and fairy wings in the front yard after breakfast? Not us!






I'm kind of dying with the cuteness of this last one. I could not for the life of me get Mollie to stand right next to Natalie, but it's pretty endearing like this I think. :)