The Arnolds visit

On Saturday, the Arnolds came over for a visit and dinner.  They were under the weather and missed our BBQ on the 4th, so we did it Saturday instead.

The kids played really well together and were cracking each other up at the dinner table.  Thanks for coming to visit!

Anna

Olivier

Mason



Dancing Queens

We've been having "dance parties" around here lately!  It seems to help Natalie get some energy out - we dock the iPhone on the stereo system and let her listen to dance music.  She usually insists on wearing her Dora dress, holding her wand, and wearing a crown!

Rhys joins in on the dancing sometimes, but this particular night she was more focused on seeing if I would let her chew on the door pulls!

Natalie was trying her hand at being a ballerina here...

Baseball & visit with friends

We went up to San Jose to visit Ari, Ricardo & Sebastian June 29th - July 1st.  It is always fun to get the kids together to play and visit with adults after the little ones are in bed.  (and since I know you are reading, Ari, thanks for a great weekend!)

Here's a "family" picture at the game - Natalie never wants to cooperate these days.  And Rhys was asleep.  We had great seats - we were up in the top section in the sun for the first half of the game, but the shade crept down to our row!  Perfect for an afternoon nap!

We had a little adventure getting to the game. We rode CalTrain up to SF.  We missed the speed train, but since we got on at the first stop, we were able to get seats for everyone and the kids did really well!  I think this was the kids' first train ride - if we rode one before, I can't remember where.

It was a nice relaxing weekend.  And the kids did great in the car!  We stopped at a park on the way home and let Natalie run around a bit.  Rhys was so jealous, she wanted to be able to run around too! 

Camping - June 22nd - 24th

I'm a little behind on updates!  We went camping June 22nd - 24th out at Lopez.  We have taken Natalie before, and Rhys went when she was 3 months old, but this was the first time we've been in a while.

The first night was a bit of a disaster! We had the noisiest neighbors! The general rules are something like no more than 2 tents and 8 people per site. Our neighbors had somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 people, and at least 7 tents on their site. They were playing music really loudly and their friends kept joining the party at all hours. Every time a new person would come, they would shine their headlights on our tents while they setup in the dark. At 11, I took Natalie down with me and we asked them to turn off the music. And they did - for about 30 minutes. Around 1am, the girls were both screaming, none of us were sleeping, and the neighbors were no where near done. So, we jumped in the truck and headed home! It was only a 15 min ride, we got to sleep in our own quiet, warm beds and in the morning, we made hot coffee before heading back to camp! Actually worked out well.

The second night went much better. We weren't the only ones that complained and they were told by the rangers to cool it. We were able to sleep fairly early.
We checked out the water slides in the afternoon; Natalie was having a blast. She was able to go up the stairs onto the kiddie slides by herself and land in 3 feet of water, no problem (made mama a little nervous, but we were right there watching). Rhys hung out with me on the sidelines.

We had Smores after dinner both nights - Natalie kept saying marshmallows were "really sticky!" She thought eating outside, playing in the dirt, playing in the tent, and sleeping in a sleeping bag was pretty fun. She and Tali really enjoyed going in and out of the tents, and jumping on the beds of course!

We booked what we hope to be better sites for next month! We'll try our hand at it again, and hope for better neighbors!

Birthday Boy & our 4th of July!

Happy Birthday, David!

 Our attempt at getting a good sister picture - quite difficult!

I love Natalie's expression on this next picture..

1st 4th of July, and she's a happy girl!

Great Grandma Pauline and Grandma & Grandpa joined us for lunch!  It was too cold to sit outside, so kitchen table it was.

Corn on the cob kept Rhys busy for a bit!

And a special red, white & blue treat for dessert!

We're headed to another BBQ and 4th of July party. I'll update later if we get any other good pictures.

Rhys @ 11 months

I can't believe in one month we will be celebrating a certain little girl's 1st birthday!  This year has flown by incredibly fast (even if some of the days felt like the longest ever due to lack of sleep and cranky babies!)

Rhys is generally a happy baby!  She cries when she wakes up in the morning (always starving), and she'll fuss if she is hungry at meal-times or if she doesn't want to get in the car, but she generally calms herself down quickly...usually sucks her thumb.

She has started "talking" - if you talk to her or if she sees something she wants, she starts sort of grunting "uhh" to communicate with you.  She's also starting to sign!!  She's been waving bye-bye for a while (I think that was part of last month's post?), today when she finished lunch I asked if she was "all done" and she waved her hand!  This past weekend she was "giving kisses" too.  I had my face close to hers and she leans in with an open mouth and tries to kiss!  We went for a quick visit to Grandma & Grandpa's the other night and they were telling her bye and went in for a kiss, and she opened up to give them kisses right back!

She is suuuper close to taking her first steps - definitely not ready for a full walk, but she is constantly standing, cruising around furniture, pulling up to her toys, pushing her doll stroller and she'll hold my fingers, but most of the time she is barely holding on.  If she really wants something she sort of lunges towards it but forgets to move her feet.  Guessing she'll start baby steps around her birthday. (although, I totally thought that with Natalie and it took her 2.5 more months! so who knows!)

One of Rhys' favorite activities these days: emptying out the wipes container.  I've caught her doing it a few times now; today I actually grabbed the camera before I stopped her.  She was in luck too - Daddy just refilled it this morning.

Rhys is still nursing in the morning and before bed at night.  I gave up pumping during the day at work about a month ago - too much work for such little results.  Rhys was using up my freezer supply pretty quick, so I asked the Dr. about introducing cow's milk.  He said it was fine if she hasn't had any reactions to dairy products.  So, last week she got about 25% cow's milk mixed in with mom's milk.  This week the ratio is about 50%; next will be 75% and she'll be onto cow's milk during the day by 11.5 months.  The transition is a few weeks quicker than with Natalie, but not too far off.  I'm pushing for her to take a sippy cup, but she's not too happy about it.  I guess I shouldn't be too surprised after the fit she threw over bottles initially....hopefully by the time she is getting only cow's milk, we will be rid of the bottle. That's the goal, but might not happen.  We shall see!

As far as solids, the girl loves to eat!  She'll usually try something at least once, she may not take it the second or third round, but she usually eats it the first time.  She's had chicken and tri-tip this week - gobbled them both up!  Loves yogurt, raspberries, blueberries, peaches, banana, pretty much any fruit she's given.  Also loves green beans, peas, and carrots.  She's not too sure about eggs (yolk only) - they are hit & miss.  She'll usually eat bread, but the 2nd or 3rd chunk end up on the floor.  I need to re-try pasta with her.  She kept spitting it out when I tried before, but it might have to do with the self-feeding; with the exception of yogurt, she wants to do everything herself.  I was holding off on pasta again until she had a few teeth, but that doesn't seem to be happening, so maybe I'll try cut up pieces and see how she does.  She really likes Cheerios, especially out of the snack-traps.

We've been doing decent in the sleep department!  Rhys is down around 7:30pm and up again around 6:30 / 7am.  Natalie's been going down around 8/8:30 and wakes up whenever Rhys decides its time to wake up.  This has been the only downfall of them sharing a room so far.  But, it's good for them, right?  I thought by now they would both be used to the other noises, but guess not.

We are still dealing with the clingy phase, but it does seem to be getting a little better.  For a while I couldn't even set Rhys down, but now she'll usually tolerate it for a while, especially if she isn't hungry or tired.  She plays independently with her toys until she realizes I am gone...then she tracks me down and clings to my leg.  Makes house chores interesting; today, for example, I had to vacuum the house with her on my hip.  19 lbs of baby while pushing a vacuum is no easy task!  She's definitely a mama's girl.

Our house generally looks like a toy tornado went through it.  Between Rhys and Natalie, I'm not sure who is faster at taking all of the toys out of the toy box!  Constant battle to keep things neat, but I suppose its just our phase of life right now!

Stats at 11 months:
Height: 27 inches
Weight: about 19 lbs
Diapers: Size 3
Clothes: Size 12 mo
Shoes: Size 2

Can't help but laugh

I put Natalie on the potty before bed tonight and she was just sitting there, taking her time (probably stalling so she didn't have to go to bed). I told her to hurry up.

She started wiggling side to side on the potty and said "hurry up pee-pee, hurry up! Get out of my butt!"

Made us laugh - although it's one of those things you don't want to encourage, but it was too funny not to laugh!

Rug Dr

Had to rent a Rug Dr for the first time ever (although I assume it won't be the last time!)

We've been really working on potty training with Natalie. It seemed like it was really clicking today. Had a few pees in the potty before we left the house at 10am, she stayed dry while we were gone, another success when we returned and even a poop before lunch! Things were going great!

Then it was naptime. She initially didn't want a pullup on, but she was still talking for a bit, so David went to check on her. She was trying to get a pullup on by herself. He helped her and left the room.

I ran some errands and came back to a quiet house. David wasn't sure she napped, but said she had been quiet. Quiet is generally not good! I heard her moving around and went to see if she was ready to get up, she was standing in the middle of her room, surrounded by toys, her pullup, and little piles of mess, everywhere. And she said, "mama, I pooped". Yes baby, I see that...I'll spare you the pictures. (didn't take any either..)

We had been thinking about cleaning the carpets anyway, so this was just a nice little boost of motivation.

Somehow she managed to not get any on the door or walls, very little on her bed. Just everywhere else!

Natalie got a bath, and the floors got the Rug Dr.

Definitely two steps forward...let's just hope it was only one back!

For the rest of the day, Natalie relived the story...I tried not to bring it up or get mad about it because I could tell she knew it was wrong and we want her to keep trying.

This potty training business is for the birds! Definitely the hardest stage yet, but we backed off for a while and she does seem more interested and aware now, so we shall see..!

On the move

Oh man, we are in so much trouble!

So far today Rhys has tried to eat chalk off the art easel (and she keeps going back to look for more when I turn my back!)

Then she proceeded to throw most of her lunch off her tray to the floor and laugh. She thought this was hilarious!

And just now before her nap she played with the blinds in the livingroom. Tug, pull and then giggle.

She also practically ran across the livingroom while standing behind the doll stroller.

I have a feeling this is only the beginning...bring out the child-locks!