Pictures!

Sorry everyone for not posting pictures in a while. In order to catch you all up, here are the links to my pics on Picasa.

June 09 - Lydia and Daddy; Kathryn's shower

Summer 09 - including the kids with Daddy on Father's Day, some really cute ones of Lydia, Dylan in the new closet at the condo, my birthday, 4th of July, berry picking, Lydia starting solids, fun in the pool, Uncle Matt and family's visit, Brian's visit, the Gillespies' visit, and the church retreat

Our Trip to FL - Daytona first this time and then Panama City (see blog entry here)

Kings Dominion - Martin's company rents out the park for a day every Sept - we went for free; Dylan's best gal pal Anna's daddy also works for the same company so we all went together

Fall 09 - Saladas' visit and Dylan's crazy hair

Camping - at Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park with the Vanes and the Burks

Peas Porridge Hot, Peas Porridge Cold, Peas Porridge in my Mouth, 9 months old

This is the little ditty we sang to Lydz (her nickname) this weekend. Green veggies are not the fav but they go down easier than pureed meat. Cheerios, on the other hand, are all the rage with Lydia these days. She still only has 4 teeth so there's a lot of sucking involved in eating them but she loves them. She just recently got the pincher grasp so we've been trying to give her more table food in tiny pieces. She even ate some mixed veggies. Dylan NEVER did that. Lydia loves to eat bananas and apples from her little mesh bag thing.

Lydia had her 9-month doctors appointment yesterday. She weighed 16 lbs 10.8 oz (20th percentile), was 27 inches long (30th percentile), and her head measurement was in the 50th percentile. She went up a lot since her last appointment and she weighs more than Dylan did at this age and is exactly the same height. I just moved Lydia into her 6-9 month clothes.

Lydia had been waking up twice per night pretty much since June. A few weeks ago I tried to "correct" this by not nursing her when she woke up the first time. I also would do a dream feed at 10pm before I went to bed. After a few rough nights of not going back to sleep after waking at 2am, I think we might have settled into a better schedule. She gets up around 4am and I feed her and she goes back to sleep until 6 or 6:30am. Dylan was in this schedule for a while back in the day and its fine with me for now. Lydia is a better napper than Dylan was but I think she sleeps a little less at night.

Lydia is crawling faster now but her crawling is much more a means to an end rather than the past time it was for Dylan. He was everywhere. I was just looking back at some pictures, and even in his crib in his sleep he was all over the place. So I'm hoping that this is an indication that Lydia won't be quite the crazy kid that Dylan is. I love my crazy kid but two of them would be really had to handle. Lydia does squirm when getting her diaper changed like Dylan did though.

Lydia is still a ridiculously happy baby. She didn't even cry when she got her shot yesterday. She puts up with way too much abuse from her brother too.

Thirteen Things for Thursday

I think I'm just Facebook deprived...can't FB at work and no time at home to be on computer...so these are probably more like my status updates for the last week or so.

1. One reason I'm not on the computer at home as much is that Martin has been watching his DVDs on the computer since we can't seem to play them on our TV and DVD player. The issue is that the power went out last week and now the TV is searching for a analog signal, which is needs to do a channel set-up, and not finding it. Without the channel set-up, we can't set the TV to the right channel for the DVD player. I'm feeling the pain of being technologically behind. Maybe we should just go ahead and get the HD TV we've been thinking about buying. I just hate spending so much money, thinking that I'll regret the purchase.
2. I did get a new phone though! I've had the same cell phone for 5 years! These things weren't made to last this long. The phone is starting to not hold a charge so I got a new one. Had to get the free one though. I'll still have to pay to have my numbers changed over though. Grrr.
3. I forgot to mention that we saw the shuttle launch while we were in FL. It was soo cool. We were 80 miles away and the shuttle was just a ball of fire in the sky but it was still sooo cool. We watched it all the way across the horizon in the night sky and even saw the boosters drop.
4. I really wish someone would explain double coupons to me. Do most stores only double coupons less than $1? My Safeway doesn't even advertize the fact that they double coupons so I wasn't figuring them into my price calculations. After experimenting with the Sunday coupons for the last 2 months, I think I'm going to use them on a more limited basis - only use coupons for $1 off (or $.50 with doubling) off 1 item or diaper or cereal coupons. Those are the only things that seem worth the time I'm taking cutting and organizing.
5. We got an offer on our condo and may have another offer coming in tonight! Seems as though a lot of first time homebuyers are making offers now to be able close before November 1st to get the tax credit. Sweet November - no more double mortgage payments for us!
6. I'm doing some initial calculations based on what I think we will get for the condo. I'm conducting an analysis to see if it would have been cheaper for us to rent the past 5 years than to buy. I think we're going to come up about even. At least we didn't lose money, and we received lots of intangible, unquantifiable benefits from owning the condo. For instance, I don't think we would have been able to rent as nice of a place, at least for what we would have been willing to pay in rent.
7. Wow, a lot of my 'things' are about money. Hmmm...
8. We tried giving Lydia meat yesterday - pureed chicken. She didn't like it. We'll try again. She's practicing picking up cheerios and putting them into her mouth. She's eaten one but mostly she just examines them.
9. In my research for this article that I'm writing at work, I found out that the name of first person to ever receive a federal deposit insurance payout was Mrs. Lydia Lobsiger. She received a check for $1,250 on July 3, 1934 when her bank, Fondulac State Bank in East Peoria, IL failed.
10. I had a coupon for a McCafe at McDonalds so I got one. I don't recommend it - at least the iced ones. It was 80 percent ice.
11. I also have a coupon for this music store near me - $5 off, no minimum purchase. I'm going to buy reeds for my clarinet and maybe start playing again with friends from church.
12. I just bought my dad a Father's Day gift last night. Only 3 months late. Pam, tell Justin not to worry - his birthday gift won't be that late.
13. Sunday we made our 3rd trip to an amusement park this summer - Kings Dominion for Martin's company picnic. Went to a wave pool there for the first time in years. Good times but I'm done with amusement parks for a while.

Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long....

This was the theme song of our vacation and of really the last few weeks.

• Life is a highway and it keeps going even when you're on vacation and that helps describe how I feel now that we're back - lots to catch up with.
• The all night long part is also indicative our nights as Lydia continues to wake up at least twice at night. The 5-7am period is particularly difficult for sleep. (I'm trying white noise now and it seems to have helped a little but she's still getting up twice. I'm going to try not feeding her at night now.)
• Dylan has been singing this song because it's from the soundtrack of his favorite movie - Cars. While we were on the 800-mile stretch of highway from our house to Martin's parents' house, which bares the name of Dylan's favorite race car - #95, Lightening McQueen - we pretended we were in the scene of the movie where McQueen is trying to catch up to "Mac" after he falls out of his trailer. "Mac, Mac, wait up." Then we would catch up to the nearest tractor trailer and say "You're not Mac!" That entertained our little chatterbox for a good portion of the trip.
• We made it to FL in one day and with one speeding ticket. It was me driving. My first speeding ticket in almost 17 years (my first was when I was 16). We were listening to The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again and I guess I didn't realize how fast I was going. The very polite Southern police officer gave me a ticket (although he decrease the speed he clocked me at so I wouldn't get any points on my license) and told me to have a great day, but to slow down a bit.
• We didn't ride any waves in FL but we did go to the beach once and Dylan "went under" in the ocean, with me holding him. Lydia seemed to like the beach - she ate some sand and sat and splashed.
• Lydia started crawling while we were on vacation. She won't have to ride as much now - she can move on her own! She also cut another tooth on top and turned 8 months old!
• While we were visiting Martin's parents we took highway 4 over to Orlando and went to Sea World for 2 days. Dylan loved it. He still shouts "Shamu, Shamu" around the house. They had an Elmo show that Dylan and Lydia both enjoyed. Sea World was a great place to take the kids at this age. And they even had nursing mothers rooms where the moms get free bottled water! A+ for family friendly-ness!
• On our last full day in Daytona, Martin and I got to go on a date while the kids were napping. We went mini-golfing for the first time since Dylan was born and shopping and out for ice cream. Life is good.
• We then took highway 10 over to the panhandle to see my sister and her family. Dylan and Steven had a ball playing cars and monster trucks together and jumping on beds and into the pool. Dylan jumped into the pool with his swimmies and went under all my himself for the first time this summer. He and Steven also got to sit in one of Uncle Rob's helicopters!
• On Sunday, after visiting with my parents a little who had come to my sister's for a visit, we hopped back on the highway and headed home. This time we broke the return trip up into two days and stopped in Charleston, SC to visit a friend of Martin's from college for lunch.

Lydia is 7 months old!

Wow, 7 months. Here are some pictures of her in the last month.

Wedding Dance

I can only imagine how long their rehearsal was...:)

CNN article on how this "went viral."

Lydia Update

Lydia had her 6 month appointment on Friday. We were a few weeks late because I couldn't get an appointment earlier than that. She weighed 13 lbs 12 oz (10th percentile) and was 25 inches long (20th percentile). Her head circumference was in the 40th percentile. She's just barely beating her brother who weighed 13 lbs 11 oz at his 6 month checkup but she had an extra 3 weeks. See here and here for my blog entries about Dylan at the time.

Comments from the doctor: "she doesn't miss a beat, does she?" - in reference to her doing basically on cue all the things he was asking me if she does; "she's really active."

Lydia cut her first tooth on July 18th and her second one last weekend. There may be a third tooth on the way too.

We started cereal on July 4th and we've tried rice, oatmeal, and wheat so now we're moving on to veggies tonight. The doctor wasn't concerned about the weight because he says it's normal for breast-fed babies to level out a little at 6 months. He just said to give her 3 meals of solids a day and make sure she's getting 20 oz of milk. I'm confident that she's getting the 20 oz of milk (I wasn't with Dylan though) and now that we're onto veggies I think what I'd do is veggie OR cereal in the morning and then same for lunch and then cereal at dinner. Hopefully we can get some more food in her so she'll sleep better. I think she's getting up because she's hungry. I've given her some "dream feeds" at 10-11pm and then she makes it until 5am.

Lydia wore her first cloth diaper last week. I had put off cloth since we were so crowded in the condo and didn't have a good changing station set up for her and when I did try them she was soaking through them because the size that fit her wasn't big enough to sop up all the pee. The funny thing is now she's almost out of the second size diapers that I have and into the third size which is what Dylan still wears. The range on these ones are 13-25 lbs. So now I have to decide whether or not to 1) potty train Dylan, 2) move him to disposables, which makes sense because he uses less diapers than Lydia, 3) buy more cloth diapers in the third size or 4) buy more cloth diapers in the fourth size for Dylan. I might do some combo of these options. I also really wanted Lydia to wear a cloth diaper for her 6 month pictures - we did this diaper pic with Dylan that I wanted to recreate with Lydia. We tried to get them taken on Saturday but silly Mommy didn't think that trying to get a teething baby to take pictures 18 hours after her shots was a bad idea at first. We're going to try again next Saturday.

[Another side note about cloth diapers. I really like them for poop but not so much for pee. Maybe my wraps have just lost their ability to keep the wetness in so maybe I will buy more/different ones. I wish I had had Lydia in cloth though for a few blow outs that she had. We would have save a few cute outfits.]

Lydia likes being in the pool. We've had her in a number of times now. She's also really into holding and examining and chewing on one toy at a time. This also works with her hands when Mommy forgets to bring a toy for her. Maybe I haven't given her enough tummy time but she doesn't seem too intersting in moving around on the floor. She likes to sit and play. I like that. I need to get unpacked before I have to start baby-proofing again.

You want condo?

While we were dating, Martin and I went to Wendy's one night for a snack. After we pull up to the place to order we hear the voice from inside the little box say something we did not expect. In fact, something that we didn't even quite understand at first. "Youwancombo?" Huh? Was he speaking English? Later we figured out the voice was really trying to say, "Welcome to Wendy's, would you like to try one of our hot delicious combo meals today?" But somehow that got shortened into "youwancombo?" Perhaps the person was new and had not been trained in polite and articulate English. But then we have gotten the same greeting at different Wendy's at different times since then. It has become somewhat of a running joke between the two of us. So now as we put our condo on the market, we have a question for you... "youwancondo?"

Please feel free to forward the link to anyone you know who may be looking to buy a 2 bedroom condo in the Washington DC metro area.

Pictures

Some pictures to enjoy (including Lydia's first time to the pool) while we're busy moving.

Six months old

Lydia is six months old today. This pictures are from about a month ago though since I didn't have time to download the most recent ones from the camera before the move. Today is moving day so it will be an exciting half birthday for Lydia.

Lydia has just started sitting up by herself for long enough for me to say she's sitting up. She loves sitting up because she can hold toys better and see more of what's going on.

Lydia continues to be the smiliest, happiest baby! She is so pleasant and hardly ever cries.

The last few nights she has been getting up a lot (twice per night). I'm wondering if its the excitement of the move, etc. Maybe when we start rice cereal this week that will help her sleep.

Her doctors appointment isn't until the 24th so no stats for now. I'm going to try to schedule her six-month photo shoot soon.

How appropriate...

that this article was published on my 33rd birthday. You know you're old when baseball players your age are past their prime.

Trying to get all the May pictures up before July is here...

Dylan saw me writing on the calendar we have hanging on our wall and wanted to "write on the wall" too. Thankfully I had hung one of his drawings up there too. He did go off the paper but we are painting the whole place before we move so it wasn't a big deal.

Here we are at the Nationals game. I bought Martin tickets for his birthday but the game wasn't until May 17th. Phillies won so Martin was happy.

Here's Dylan at his friend Anna's 3rd birthday. This was the best picture I got unfortunately. We had a great time at the party and really hung out there the whole day. Thanks Anna (and Jessie and Bob!).

Cooking eggs

33

So I guess I'm really "in my 30s" now. No denying it. As of today I'm also behind on my goal of being in 1 state for every year of my life. Unless you count being in an airport in TX for a few hours, but I don't. I don't have any states that I could easily pick up either. Here are the ones I have left: HI, OR, AZ, UT, ID, NM, TX, MS, AR, KS, NE, IO, MO, ND, OK, CO, NV. I'd like to do a trip to the Grand Canyon when the kids are older so that will knock out a bunch. And then HI for my 50th birthday. North Dakota is going to be the hard one.

Anyway, I'm having a good birthday. Lots of really sweet well wishes, getting to take my time in the shower, going out to lunch, shopping, pool, and ice cream cake! (Also mixed in with laundry, waiting for the plumber to come, and packing but hey, that's not so bad.)

Two ohf 'em!

Dylan likes to say "two ohf 'em" (two of them) whenever he sees multiple things, usually big diggers on the beltway. He also says that about Lydia and him when I'm holding both of them. Here are two pictures of the two ohf 'em taken at the new house.

New House

There are more pictures of the house on the Internet. Email me and I'll give you the address to Goggle. I tried to take some pictures of the yard and the family room which weren't on the web. These are the best I got. You can also see Dylan's new hiding place in the kitchen (note to self, get locks for those cabinets) and the kids and Martin and his mom in the living room.

Doing Stickers with Grandma

As you can see this was a multi-day activity. Grandma to Ocean City for a conference and stopped by on her way to the conference. We took her out to dinner for her birthday and showed her the new house too.

Mother's Day

Before Father's Day rolls around, here are the pictures from my first multi-child Mother's Day. Martin cooked me and my friend Patricia (whose husband is away at military training) lunch, complete with smooties for dessert, and brought us flowers. It was a surprise for me. Dylan and Lydia bought me a pineapple slicer and a gift card to LLBean. We had a great time hanging out together with Patricia and Richie.

Lydia and Grandma

Post-haircut computer pictures