Dan & Van

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Friday, March 20, 2009

We had quite the crew of visitors during the first week of March. My parents, grandma, great aunt, aunt & uncle and their 6 year-old twins came down from the Midwest. We mostly just enjoyed the babies, ate yummy food, and relaxed. We were glad they could meet Brielle while she's still little and it was fun to show them our home! Thanks so much for the visit!

The best big brother ever

Joshua has made lots of progress with his language skills this month. Most importantly he's learned to say "Daddy!", much to Dan's delight! He'll mimic a lot of words if we ask him to repeat them, but his favorite words remain ball and shoes. He's also learned some new signs, including please, thank you and help, and he's doing a really good job of using them on his own. Josh is glad the weather is warmer again and he can enjoy the beach. He just plops himself down facefirst in the sand and kicks his legs and enjoys himself!

This rocker that I use for nursing used to be my great grandpa's. My grandma refinished them both for us and Josh really enjoys rocking like a big boy.

This may have been a mistake, but we sure had fun letting him play with the hose!

Very pleased with his big straw hat!

Look out when we're coming down the sidewalk...this stroller is a tank, but has let us get out of the house for some nice walks lately. If Brielle falls asleep then Joshua and I stop by the park to try to fit in a little play time as Sissy naps.

Taco mania!

These videos are short and sweet! Enjoy hearing Josh's words and see him dance.

Such a big helper!

Josh's words!

New sign language skills

Dancing

Update - Nearly 3 months already

Our baby girl is growing up so fast! Brielle is doing great. She's smiling, laughing, cooing, eating, and sleeping a lot. Joshua continues to love his little sister and has made up a sign language sign for her. I don't think we have a picture of it, but we definitely need one. It's so cute. I'm having a lot of fun dressing up a little girl and am so thankful for all the adorable outfits we received as gifts.

This is how Brielle likes to sleep!

Sunday, February 01, 2009

1 Month Old

I can't believe how fast the past 5 weeks have gone. It seems like the days go by slowly, but the weeks go by quickly. I can't believe it's Sunday again already. We eased into "normal" life. My mom left in the middle of January, making it just the FOUR of us...

...but Daniel was taking vacation, so he was around for most of the next two weeks.

The past few weeks have really been my first taste of managing Joshua and Brielle alone. It's a lot of work having two under two, but actually so far it's been easier than I expected (maybe I was fearing the worst). But, it's helped that both have been sleeping well and I've tried to focus only on the most basic tasks (keeping us all fed, clean, happy, and rested) and count anything else that gets done as bonus (cleaning, UF work, blogging...) But sometimes, it's hard for this task-oriented mama to not worry about the rest of my 'To Do' list!

Josh has had to pick up some of the slack and start brushing his own teeth and even cooking! :)

There's really not too much news to tell about Brielle - She's a cutie-pie, so I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking.

She's continuing to eat, sleep, and poop well. That's about all we can ask of her. Each morning Dan and I say, "Thank You, God, for another good night." And wait to see what that day holds. We are so glad she came to be in our family though and are falling more in love with her every day.

We haven't had too many outings yet since we are trying to keep her from being exposed to all the cold and flu viruses that are going around and because I haven't quite been adventurous enough to take them both out alone much yet. We have had some play dates with friends recently and that's been fun, especially for mom! It's nice to have a two-way conversation every once and a while. Josh does speak now - his first and only word - "BAH" (ball).

In other Joshua news, he's found his belly button and likes to show it off and found out that daddy's nose "honks" if you squeeze it. He also learned to give zerberts (raspberries) - pretty funny! For the past few months he hasn't been that good about eating his vegetables, but we've had some breakthroughs this month - grilled veggies, veggies in soup, oven roasted broccoli, stir fried veggies - we'd mostly been trying to give him the veggies like we eat them - just steamed and unseasoned - once we thought about it, we could understand why he was choosing the other dishes instead - he loves flavored, spicy foods - so by adding lots of garlic and some six pepper seasoning, we're getting more of "the good stuff" in him! Yay! Josh continues to be a wonderful big brother and has endless kisses for his Sissy - so sweet! And, we're so grateful he hasn't shown any signs of jealousy yet!