One day this summer

One day this summer Jordan grabbed my cup of water off the table and decided it looked like the perfect place to stick her foot.  I caught her sitting in her little chair having a BLAST dipping her foot in the water experimenting with dipping each foot and her hands too.  It certainly kept her entertained for quite some time...until it tipped over and we had to clean up all the fun.

Look how much fun she was having!  Sometimes I miss being entertained by such simple things.

The girls

My mom just got back from a really long trip with my grandma.  They were gone nearly a month taking a road trip to West Virginia to visit relatives.  My great aunt got the girls some West Virginia University shirts so I snapped a picture today while they were both wearing them.  Jordan was so excited to wear hers today!  She's so goofy in pictures lately.  She gets a funny grin like she wants to smile but she's nervous to.  In some other pictures I got I asked her to smile big so she opened her mouth really wide, then got distracted watching TV and forgot her mouth was open.  It was quite comical.  

Amélie was having a blast taking pictures.  I took a massive amount of pictures and in all of them she was looking at the camera with a big grin.  She's become a little crawler in the past month.  It's fun to see her moving all around exploring...until she finds cords plugged into the wall or the dog toys (gross!).

My little sweetheart.  She looks and feels so much better when her hair is pulled back, but I'm usually too lazy or she's too much of a stinker!  :)

And this one here is getting some hair that needs taming on a daily basis too.  I'm going to be busy doing hair from now on!  I'm seriously SO thankful for all the hair tutorials available online.  I've learned so much!

Giveaway winner

And the winner is....

#3 - Kelley

Congratulations!  Be on the lookout for an email from me.

silly girls

Giveaway!

For 5 years, General Mills has partnered with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Foundation to bring breast cancer support to local communities, and this year they are making their annual donation of $2 million to the foundation to advance breast cancer research and support education and community outreach projects.  General Mills' donations will be divided between two important Komen programs:  the Treatment and Assistance Program, which assists women in securing care they otherwise may not be able to afford, and Prevention Research, which helps unlock the keys to preventing breast cancer.  This month Sam's Club stores are featuring exclusive pink packaging on some of your favorite participating General Mills products in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and by purchasing said specially marked packages you can help decide how half of that contribution will be donated by voting at Pink Together from now until April 14, 2012.  Voting results will be announced on Mother's Day 2012.

One of you lucky readers will be receiving a $25 Sam's Club gift card!  Don't get discouraged if you don't have a Sam's Club membership because the gift card may be used at Walmart as well!  To enter please simply leave a comment on this post and include your email address so I can contact you if you're the winner.  One comment per person.  I will be closing the contest on Monday Oct 10 at midnight MST any entries after that will be deleted.  I will announce the winner Tuesday.

*Disclosure:  The information and gift card have been provided by Sam's Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

Oops, I did it again

I just couldn't seem to get that last hair style to fix correctly so I went back and had her change it up for me a bit.  Here is the result:

Quite a bit shorter but I love it!  I'm still working on figuring out how to get it as perfect as my stylist did (ha!) and thanks to Kate at The Small Things blog, I think it's going to happen.  She has a similar style only a bit longer and some really good hair tutorials!

Someone got a haircut

ME!  I've actually been sporting the shorter style for a couple months now but last night it got a tad shorter and I realized that most of you haven't seen me with my new short style yet at all so I had Brandon take some pictures...and we got a little carried away.

Cookie monster

 Apparently Cookie Monster is in disguise because Jordan claims these banana pieces are him.  Here are the body parts as she explained it to me.

Kid's imaginations make me chuckle.  I love seeing their creativity and how clever they are!

To be honest, at first I was a bit annoyed that she was making a mess on the table and was about to tell her to stop but before I got the chance she told me that she was making Cookie Monster.  It wasn't until she said that, that I decided to let her go ahead with it because it really isn't hurting anything; I was going to have to wipe the table up regardless and it wasn't intended to make a mess.  This is what I try telling myself when I get too uptight about things.

some fun things we've been up to lately

I saw this cool bubble blower thing in an issue of Family Fun magazine last year and we finally got around to doing it a few weeks ago.  It's a really cheap project.  Take an empty water or soda bottle and cut off the end, rubber band on a wash cloth (I used a baby wipe), wet the wash rag down then dip in dish soap and blow!  Super easy, super fun.  Here's a video of us doing it, the bubbles can hang on for a long time but she kept stopping and wiping them off.  

This was a fun project I recently found on the blog hands on:  as we grow.  Start by pouring baking soda onto a cookie sheet and let your kid play in it if they'd like by drawing shapes and letters with their finger while you dye vinegar with some food coloring.

Then using a medicine dropper, turkey baster, spoon or any other thing you can come up with squirt colored vinegar over the baking soda and watch it bubble and fizz.  This kept us entertained for about 45 minutes.

We got pretty lucky with this next project.  The people who lived in our house before us left behind quite a few things and this peg board with colored pegs just happened to be one of them.  I used this to keep Jordan entertained one day while I was cleaning up and when she said "ok, Mama, me done."  I looked over and found this:

Why I haven't worn make-up in a week

This little munchkin found my mascara and went to town with it all over her face, arms and...

...the toilet.  Yes, my mascara that I had just opened and used for the first time that morning took a dip in toilet water after being rubbed all over someone's face and all over the toilet seat.

 Here she is with her "masterpiece."

Someone got a hair cut

I can't say I was completely ready for it but we decided to get Jordan's hair cut for the first time and even up all the natural layers.  We had it cut to the top layer which means it is pretty short...I'd say she got about 6 inches got chopped off!

She was such a good sport sitting there.  I was very proud of her for sitting so well.

All finished (this was the best picture I could get at the time) and she got a "prize" and a balloon.  She and the dog were quite entertained by the balloon the rest of the day.

Just a little Amélie treat!

Jordan stories

She found this costume in her closet & decided she wanted to wear it instead of a normal outfit.

Background story for the conversation with Jordan this morning:

After my shower I heard she was awake so I went in her room to say good morning and let her out of her room.  On a daily basis when I open the door to her room in the morning or after nap she always pops her head out of her tent (she's been sleeping in a tent she got for Christmas instead of her bed for several weeks now) and says excitedly, "Hi Mama!"  It's the sweetest thing.  Anyway, this morning I went in with wet hair since I had recently taken a shower and when I popped my head into her tent she noticed right away that my hair was wet and this brings us to the conversation we had:

Jordan (as she is reaching up to touch my hair):  "Mommy hair wet"
Me:  "Yep, I took a shower before I came in here and got you"
Jordan (thinking):  "Me hair wet take bath"
Me:  "Ya!  Your hair gets wet when you take a bath, doesn't it?"
Jordan:  "Ya, Daddy hair wet he take bath too.  Nooo!  Daddy take shower.  Ollie (the way she pronounces Amélie - which has become her nickname, along with Emmie)  hair wet take bath.  Aboot (the way she pronounces Bogart) hair wet take bath too."

I like to watch her process what I've just said and then think and concentrate so hard on what she is responding back to me.

She has been using words like "really" and "so" for emphasis.  She tells me when she really, really likes something, sometimes repeating the word "really" 4 times to really get her point across.  And the way she says she is SO, SO thirsty or SO, SO happy is just so funny to hear come out of her.  I am in disbelief sometimes with how "big" my little girl is getting not just in this but so many other ways too.

Found this "decoration" in her room after nap time

She is super picky about her water and milk.  She will only drink ice water.  If the ice melts, she will no longer drink it and begs for ice.  And her milk has to be "Brrr milk," in other words it has to be cold.

A peek into our day yesterday.  It's finally gotten warm enough to turn sprinklers on!

And it was thoroughly enjoyed...for hours!

Amélie

My baby is growing up so quickly.  I  love watching her grow and learn new things each day but it sure makes me sad how fast it is going by; it makes me want to have a ton of kids so I can always have a baby!  Babies are so much fun!

This little girl is still pretty small compared to other babes her age.  She had her 4 month check up yesterday (she is almost 5 months, we are running a little behind schedule on her appointments).  I thought it'd be interesting to compare Amélie and Jordan's stats at 4 months.

Weight:  Amélie 11.8 lbs - 4%,      Jordan 13.8 lbs - 49%

Length:  Amélie 22 inches - 40%,  Jordan 24 1/2 inches - 60%

Head:     Amélie 38 cm - 23%,       Jordan 40.2 cm - 30%

As you can see Amélie is on the very low end of the weight chart.  The doctor said that we will keep and eye on it but as of right now she is not concerned because Amélie has had a steady increase in weight and she looks very proportional.  She's just a long, skinny little thing.  I wish everyone could meet her!

Painting accident

So much for Jordan and I trying to paint our nails today.  I'm still working on trying to get this off the carpet, my shirt, my arm and the table.  Maybe this needs to remain an outdoor activity?  SO FRUSTRATING!

More cacahiya please?

This is how things happen a lot at our house.  It's perfect to put Amélie in her Bumbo seat and set her on the table during meals so she can be part of the family.

We've offered a reward to Jordan for having 100% accident free days when it comes to going potty and that reward is this tasty chocolate cereal with marshmallows.  Jordan loves it and is always asking for "caca-hiya" (translate as chocolate cereal).

Today when her friend was over I put two potties in the bathroom so they could each use one (you know, power of suggestion, or maybe it's just that peer influence).  When Melody's mom went in to help she found poop in one potty so she went to have her daughter use the other one and there was poop in there too.  I guess Jordan decided halfway through that she needed to switch potties?  I wonder what gave her that idea but it certainly cracks me up whenever I think about it.

A favorite

I was going through some old text messages the other day and came across one from my mom that was typed as though it were from Jordan and it said something like "Hi Meemee!  I miss you and I'm so excited to come see you and Daddy and my new sister!"  I had to read it a few times to figure out the Meemee part and it made me sad that I had already forgotten that it was Jordan's way of saying Mommy so I'm putting this on here so that I won't forget again!

It was so funny because she used to only call me Momma but one day she started saying Meemee and it took us a week or two to figure out why she was calling me Meemee.  Brandon was the one who figured it out.  He and Jordan were in the car and after he said Mommy, she repeated "Meemee."  Duh!  It took us too long to figure that one out, how frustrating I'm sure it was for her.

Amélie

This little one is so smiley, so talkative and so much fun to have in our lives.  We love her so much!

Like any baby, she loves to be naked.  And just like her sister did, she LOVES her changing table!

I've been trying to get started using cloth diapers again.  With Jordan, I was so excited to start using them that I started before we even came close to running out of disposables.  I was so excited that I apparently was easily able to overlook the frequent leaks as I adjusted to having to change diapers three times as often and I didn't mind the smell that overtook her room and the extra laundry.  This time around, however, I am really struggling to look past all of that!  It is getting better as I get used to them but it still is such an adjustment.  I have learned a little trick that seems to keep the smell down in her room and that is VERY helpful!  And I've begun doing a load of laundry every day and that really helps me to keep up on everything, including diapers. So that's not so bad.  And the leaks have really seemed to be less once I accepted that I need to change her more often and figured out a new way to place the inserts.  So I guess it's really not terrible.  I'm really learning to like them again although I'm not sure I'll ever be as gung-ho about them as I was in the very beginning.  I have no idea why I just went on about that!  But one more thing:  I forgot how BIG cloth diapers make a baby's butt look!  It's so goofy looking!!

I have my computer back out in the main living area (I had moved it into our bedroom but realized it was so hidden away that I wasn't uploading pictures or blogging very often at all...out of sight, out of mind.) so hopefully that means I'll be more consistent with my blogging again!

Earrings & Tapout

About a month and a half ago one Saturday, we had a wedding to go to in the morning and a UFC fight card to watch in the evening.  I wanted the girls to wear their TAPOUT gear that day for the fights but wasn't so sure about it for the wedding but I didn't want to change them midday so I decided to dress up the outfit by giving Jordan some fancy hair and clip-on earrings.  She looked so cute!

Then, on a whim, we decided we should get her ears pierced!  On the way home from the wedding, we stopped at the mall and got them pierced.  It was such a quick decision, which is usually not at all how we do things but it's one that I don't regret.  Jordan has done so well, and they look so good on her!  During the piercing, her bottom lip stuck out in a pout when the first side was done, then after side two the pain really "kicked in" and she started crying, then the lady asked her if she wanted a sucker and she stopped crying and sucked away on her sucker.  We looked in the mirror and she was super proud and that was pretty much the end.

Here is the real thing:

And here is my sweet baby in her Tapout.

more quick Jordan stories

Yesterday Jordan really wanted to go outside.  I let her know that she needed to eat lunch and take a nap first then promised she could go outside when she woke up.  She obliged.  When I heard her awake after her nap I opened the door to her room and she came running out heading to the back door and shouting "Outside!  Outside!"  I started laughing then quickly reminded her that she had to get some shoes on first.  She has always been such a lover of the outdoors.  Sometimes when she'd be crying when she was a baby and I couldn't figure out what was wrong I would just take her outside and she would immediately stop and be perfectly content the entire time we were out there.

This morning I was cleaning Jordan's face after breakfast when I hear "...two, three, four."  and see her moving her little pointer finger along.  She was counting the pieces of cereal that had fallen into her bib and when I looked in there, sure enough, there were four pieces.

This kid loves cheese.  She asks for it at nearly every meal and at random times throughout the day.  She will sneak it off the counter whenever she can.  I often times find her stealing grated cheese off the plate that I've kept a little too close to the counter's edge.  This particular day she went straight for the block of cheese.  I turned around to this: