Sharing

Happy Leap Day! Since this day only comes around every four years, I had to post something. I love that my kids love to share everything even their pudding!

I had given Emily a pudding cup as a snack the other day and I guess Colby felt a little ripped off because he crawled right over to her and begged for a bite. Emily asked if it was okay to give him a bite and I just laughed and said sure. They spent the next few minutes sharing the pudding and making a big mess all over their faces. I loved how every time Emily would give Colby a bite she would open her mouth as well.

This picture below is of Emily and me sharing paint.

I was painting some letters for Colby's room and Emily wanted to help. Instead of letting her paint the letters, I gave her a paper plate canvas and let her go to town. I made her a heart shaped stamp out of a toilet paper roll and gave her some pink and purple paint (her favorite colors). She had a lot of fun stamping and painting away. As you can see, her picture turned out really good and she was excited to give it to Dad when he got home from work that night.

Brushing our Teeth

Ever since we took Emily to the dentist a few weeks ago, we have been doing better at brushing her teeth morning and night.

Emily used to hate brushing her teeth but then we decided to let her brush her own teeth. She loves brushing her own teeth and after she is done, she is more willing to let us brush her teeth again (to actually make sure they get brushed!). We also got a little tooth brush for Colby when he got his first tooth. He brushes his tooth with Emily every day.

Colby loves brushing his tooth. Whenever I want him to hold still for a diaper change or to get dressed, I hand him his toothbrush and let him go to town brushing. He also has watched Emily brush her teeth for so long that he knows just what to do. He brushes back and forth and then leans over the sink and makes spitting noises with his mouth like he is spitting toothpaste out! He loves to rinse too.

I hope we are starting our kids off on the right foot with hygiene!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! We had a great Valentine's day full of hearts and way too many treats! We started out by writing Valentines to everyone:

Emily wrote her name on all of the Valentine's all by herself! After writing her name that many times, she hasn't wanted to write it anymore for the last few days.

We also made this fun Heart Garland for our windows.

I had a lot of help making this garland. Emily helped me sort the colors and staple the hearts and Colby helped by ripping the paper and messing up the sorted piles!

To accompany our Valentine cards, we made heart shaped sugar cookies. Emily helped by rolling out the dough with Dad and pressing the cookie cutters into the dough. The best part of the cookies though is of course licking the beaters after mixing up the icing.

We even gave Colby his first beater. He loved it. While licking it, he got thoroughly sticky and loved every minute of it.

As a Valentine gift, I made Russell chocolate covered strawberries. Emily helped me by adding the sprinkles and deciding which color of chocolate to dip the strawberry in.

And of course they both help Russell and me eat them! We gave Colby his first strawberry and he loved it. Strawberries are really juicy and stain clothes and high chairs really easily I found out!

We had a fun Valentine's Day. Russell gave me a gift certificate to the hair salon so I can finally get my hair cut and highlighted. I am excited! Now I just need to figure out what new style I want. Any suggestions? Unfortunately Russell had Fire Academy on Valentines Day so we weren't able to go out but we will soon I hope! Russell is enjoy Fire Academy and learning a lot about fires. He is also doing a lot of Physical Training (PT). His PT is a combination of Cross Fit and P90X. It is very high intensity workouts. I think he has lost a few pound and he is happy about that. Now if I can get motivated to work out with him too that would be great!

Writing Her Name

Emily has been practicing her name for the last little while. She is always spelling it to us. E-M-I-L-Y! She can even identify the letters in her name on other things like the cereal boxes, books, and signs on the road. She tells me "Look an E (or M,I,L,Y whatever she sees)! Like in Emily!" She is also learning to spell Colby's name too. She knows C & O and can identify them as well. We have also been teaching her to write her name. She is doing really well.

We had her practice writing her name on all of her Valentines. After writing it like 30 times, she was getting tired of writing but she was getting her name down. The last few Valentines were pretty sloppy because she had lost interest but some of the first ones turned out good. Here is one of her best ones:

She is really good at all of her letters except the "Y". She tends to write that one backwards or forgets to connect the lines. She is surprisingly good at the "M" which I thought would be the hardest letter. Emily loves making the dot on the "i". I can't believe how smart she is.

My friend, Trista, posted a picture of her little girl writing her name on her blog. When Emily saw her friend, Jaydee, writing her name, she told me she wanted to write her name "just like my friend!" So ever since then, we have been practicing. Thanks for the inspiration and motivation Trista and Jaydee!

11 Months and the Park

Colby is now 11 months old! Where has the year gone? He is getting so big and his personality is getting bigger too. Colby loves music and especially the piano. Here are some 11 month old pictures of our little Mozart:

Maybe he will be a prodigy and make us millions! Well right now he just likes to bang the keys. He thinks that is pretty cool. I love how you can see his one little tooth when he smiles. Emily wanted to get in on the picture taking too.

He can't quite stand himself up yet but if we help him stand, he will stand holding onto something for a while. Look how tall he is getting! Now that he can crawl, he is getting into everything! He can now reach the magazines on the end table, the stereo, all of the toys and the other day, he found the pots and pans cupboard. He pulled all of the pots out onto the floor and started banging them together. I gave him a spoon and he went to town drumming away. He thought that was so fun.

Colby is getting so smart too. He can show us where his head is, his ears, and his nose. Emily has also showed him how to "make dinner" by stirring a spoon in a bowl. He also can pretend to eat the "dinner" like she does. He loves playing Peek-A-Boo and will sometimes play it by himself with his blanket. He also loves his baby doll. He gives it hugs and kisses and pats his back and then throws the baby on the ground and laughs. He is so funny. I need to take a picture of Colby loving on his baby soon.

Crawling does have its benefits for us too. We don't have to carry Colby around as much because he prefers to crawl. That is until he gets tired and then he chases me down crying as he goes and wants me to pick him up. It is so cute when he wants to be picked up, he lifts his arms and reaches so high toward us like "pick me up!" Another benefit of crawling is that after crawling and playing all day, Colby is tired at night. He has been doing so much better at sleeping at night. In fact the other night he slept from 10:30 to 5:30!! For Colby that is amazing. Typically he only wakes up once during the night now around 3:30 am which is much better than waking up every two hours like he had been his whole life!

Speaking of sleeping, doesn't every kid have one of these pictures? We caught Colby sleeping on the job in his high chair after eating dinner and we had to snap a picture. Doesn't he look so peaceful?

Colby and Emily both love going to the park even if it is the "park" in our back yard.

They both love the swings and going "Super High!" Emily asks me to push her super high every time she swings. Colby just loves being pushed too. He especially loves it when I grab his legs and tickle them as he is swinging.

A few days ago I took the kids to a new park and had a picnic; they loved it. The park is not actually new but it was new to them. We went to the park that is down the street from the DI near the Station 6 Fire Station. It was a lot of fun and the Fire Fighters were checking off the Fire truck so as an added bonus Emily got to see the fire truck and the fire fighters waved to us. While at the park, we played in the sand and the playground. Emily even built a small castle in the sand:

Now that Colby can get around on his own, he discovered that he loves the park even more. He was so cute crawling through the tubes and going down the slides. He wasn't too sure about the sand at first but he soon learned that it was okay and fun. We had a great time at the park and it was a good break from a long day of being dragged all over town shopping with me. I hate shopping so I try to do it as little as possible. I ideally try to only go about twice a month and this just happened to be one of those days where it seemed like we had to go to every store in town. I was also glad to take a break and have lunch and play at the park.

This next month is going to be busy trying to put together a one-year-old birthday party! I can't believe my baby is almost a year old!

Seeing the Dentist

Emily went to her dentist and had her teeth cleaned for the first time on February 2! We take her to the pediatric dentist our dentist referred us to. His name is Dr Christensen and he seems really nice, friendly, and knowledgeable. Emily was so excited to go to the dentist and kept asking me all day if it was time to go yet. While we were there, Emily did great. She wasn't scared and did everything the hygienist asked her to. She was even able to get x-rays of her teeth.

The dentist chair was so big that Emily had to lay on the top part of the chair instead of the actual seat! Emily held really still the whole time the hygienist was cleaning her teeth. The only time she moved around was when the hygienist's arm got in the was of "Tangled," the movie she was watching. When the cleaning was done, the dentist looked at her teeth and unfortunately found four small cavities in her front bottom teeth. The dentist was not too concerned about them though because he said they were not that big and these type of cavities are very common in kids this age. He also complimented Emily on taking care of her teeth because he usually sees kids with many more cavities than she has. He decided not to fill the cavities but gave Emily some fluoride tablets to take each day and also some fluoride paint stuff to paint on her teeth once a month. We have to take Emily back in two months so the dentist can monitor the cavities to make sure the fluoride is helping and that the cavities are not getting worse. After picking a toy out of the bucket, we headed home to show Dad and Colby her pretty teeth!

February 2 was also my mom's 62nd birthday so we all headed to Black Bear Diner for dinner. The food there is so good!! We usually go to Golden Corral for birthdays but I was sick of going there so since I coordinated the whole thing, I told everyone we were going to Black Bear. I didn't hear any complaining so I hope everyone liked it as much as I did. My parents had just gotten home from a 2-week cruise to Hawaii! (Can we say Spoiled and Jealous!!) Anyway they had a great time and we talked about their fun trip while we were eating.