Splash Pad Day with the Kids

A few days ago we went to the Fairfield splash pad with a few other friends. Madeline was uneasy about all the sprinklers at first but eventually started to like it. Jax wouldn't go near any of it. Silly kid.

I just got a new lens for my camera and I can't believe how much better it is than my old one! I'm actually enjoying taking pictures again!

Fancy Schmancy Girly Tea Party

Madeline's Tea Party


Sofia sharing with Madeline
Tea party in action
Madeline loves flowers!
Isn't this a great shot of Hanna?

Beautiful Sofia

Sweet Brynlee!

Cute Cassidy

Tea party from above

Lydia is a lady to be reckoned with

The girls

Madeline playing with the tea set she discovered when she woke up this morning.

One of the vintage teacups I got off Craiglist

Today I hosted a "Fancy Schmancy Girly Tea Party" for Madeline and five of her girlfriends in our ward, Hanna, Brynlee, Cassidy, Sofia, and Lydia. It was so sweet. The girls arrived all dressed up in their fancy dresses, necklaces, and guzzy-up accessories. They looked so darling! First we all decorated hats with flowers. Then we had the tea party with all the moms acting as waitresses for the little girls. We served them the tea (pink lemonade), ritz bitz sandwiches, peanut butter pinwheels, grapes, apples, baby goldfish, cookies, and mini cupcakes. Finally, after it was all over, we helped the girls all paint their nails together! It was so cute!

Thanks to all the moms who helped make this possible. Tawna donated her lovely teapots to my assorted mismatched craiglist teacups (such a find!), Kristi took a bunch of the photos here and did such a great job, and all the ladies helped with the food. You ladies are the best! Truth be told, I've been wanting to do a tea party ever since I found out I was having a baby girl, so this has been a long time coming! I hope the girls enjoyed it as much as I did! I'm pretty sure it was a success for Madeline, because she's been playing tea party all day ever since waking from her nap and asking if we can have another party. And speaking of naps, I think we must have worn her out with all the tea party fun because she actually asked if she could go have a nap afterward and went up to bed all by herself!!! Now that is a first!!!!

Lisa

A few pics

Madeline's new best friend, Hailey.

Jax eating!

Jax is really coming around in his eating! It's been so frustrating trying to feed this meal after meal and have him just purse his lips, turn away, and spit everything out - for months! Anyway, he's about to turn 9 months and I've been planning to talk about all this at his 9 month appointment with his doctor, but then he suddenly wolfed down two jars of food the other night! And not only that, but he seemed just ecstatic about it in between each bite! I was so excited I had James get a little bit of it on video. You can hear Madeline in the background too. This was a big moment for us!

Matt - The Undateable

Ha! This is so perfect. So my brother Matt is going to be in a new book coming out called "The Undateable." The book is coming out in February 2010 and is apparently going to be a humorous book about the things men do, wear, and say when it comes to dating/attracting women. My other brother, Mike, took this picture of Matt and had it posted on his Flickr site. The authors apparently saw the picture and wanted it for their upcoming book so they contacted Mike and asked for permission to use it. Mike, of course, said yes. A million times, yes. I'm sure all my brothers could have donated many other pictures to the cause. Congrats, Matt! What an honor.

Tough Love Week

So I've decided that it is tough love week for the kids this week. I am determined to get Jax eating and sleeping better and get Madeline feeding herself. I've decided that I care more about Madeline feeding herself than even potty training right now, so that is becoming priority #1. Here is how it is all going so far:

Jax: Last night I gave in and fed him one time that he woke up, but for the other two times I just let him cry. (Oh, I hate doing this!) And he did it - went back to sleep after not too long. And today, instead of nursing him right before his nap (I never got in this habit with Madeline, but I've fallen into it with Jax), I just went and put him up in his crib and shut the door. Oh, you should have heard the screams. I may have ruined his life a little bit. But, it only lasted about 10 minutes and he went to sleep! Wahoo! I am going to try and keep this up. Still not much interest in the applesauce I tried to feed him, but he did munch on a few puffs. We'll work on it more tomorrow!

Madeline: I strapped her in her high chair tonight and told her that from now on Mommy is not going to put food in her mouth, that Madeline has to eat food all by herself, even if it means staying there all night. So I made this white chicken chili dish (which she likes, is easy to scoop, and stays on the spoon easily - don't want to give her any excuses) and told her to eat her food. She dawdled like crazy like she usually does, played with her cup, painted food on the table (I'll work on stopping that later), sang songs, did ABCs, kept saying she wanted other things, asked for movies, kept saying she needed to go potty - all to avoid eating. She kept saying, "Mommy, help me. I can't do it." But I kept reminding her she had to do it herself. Meanwhile I cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, got Jax ready for bed, etc. and left it up to her. So guess how long her dinner took: 2 hours and 50 minutes! Can you believe a toddler can dawdle that long!!! She is such a determined little thing. (Can you see why we usually just lose our patience and start shoveling in the food for her?) When she finally finished her meal, I made a big deal of it, told her how proud I was of her, and let her have some ice cream for a treat (which she, of course, ate amazingly well all by herself). Maybe tomorrow dinner will be slightly shorter, who knows! But at least we made a step in the right direction tonight.

Jax at 8 Months

In keeping with my new blogging approach mentioned before, here is my list of everything I would like to remember about Jax at this age:

• His huge Jack-o-lantern smile of nearly 8 teeth - which is a lot for his age
• He's pretty small, hovering around the 20th percentile (Madeline was the same at this age)
• He is a extremely even-tempered, content, easy-to-please (an unbelievable change for us)
• He adores Madeline and lights up whenever she plays with him - even when she's doing rough or annoying things to him, he just beams
• His infectious belly laugh when you tickle him or hover over his face and play with him
• His lip smacking and teeth grinding - horrible!
• Wherever you put him down, he'll be at the other end of the house in about two seconds.
• How quickly he has learned to crawl and get around - I predict he'll be walking at nine months sometime
• Out of nowhere, he'll belt out a crazy loud scream that makes every hold their ears
• He and Madeline have yelling wars back and forth with each other
• He loves pushing his cart across the room and looks so pleased with himself to do this.
• The gate at the bottom of the stairs must stay closed, or else!
• He's not the best eater. Still eating 99.9% breast milk and rejecting all bottles, spoons, and other foods. Sometimes will gracefully eat cheerios or puffs. Completely making mom bonkers.
• Also not the best sleeper. Still wakes up every 3-4 hours at night. Mom is tired of feeling feels like she still has a 3 month old and is trying some "tough love" sleep training lately.
• He is starting to babble and speak "Jaxish"
• Cute chubby legs
• LOVES being in water
• His beach blonde hair - where'd he get that?? (some kind of in-vitro mix-up? J/K)
• His godzilla attacks on Madelines stuff
• He always needs to be held facing outward.
• He loves walks and being outdoors
• He's at the best baby age right now, in my opinion.
• So cute I want to eat him. :)