St. Patrick's Day

This year on St. Patrick's Day, Henry asked about what St. Patrick's Day was. Try explaining that to a three year old! To make matters more complicated, James has a brother named Patrick whose birthday just so happens to be ON St. Patrick's Day! So Henry was convinced that we were going to see uncle Patrick on St. Patrick's Day! Except uncle Patrick lives in Phoenix and we were not going to see him that day. Ugh, all day long I heard, "Now are we going to see uncle Patrick? It's St. Patrick's Day!" All.day.long. So I tried distracting Henry by making some green food for the leprechauns ;) 

First up? Leprechaun food AKA vanilla pudding with green food coloring :) These pictures are awesome on so many levels. Henry is sitting on the counter, there is crap everywhere, he is wearing one glove (our attempt to get him to stop sucking his thumb), he is playing with an old birthday card, his hair is a disaster, and he is eating straight out of the giant bowl of pudding! Mother of the year, right here!! 

Henry just HAD to try it… with his finger! 

 Please ignore the yuck that is my messy house in the background! 

 I really did try to get him to use a spoon but he wasn't having it. 

 Look mama! I made an H :) 

 Goofball

We also made some leprechaun cookies AKA snicker doodles with green food coloring but I guess I didn't take any pics of that. Awesome mama that I am, I kinda forgot about dressing the kids in green for St. Patrick's Day. Oops! Henry had a shirt from last year that luckily still fit! Yay! But Spencer… yeah, not so much. She had NO green whatsoever. So I rummaged around in Henry's old clothes and found a green onesie! Not very girlie at all so I had to add some ruffly white pants and a white bow to her outfit. Not great but not bad considering I had forgotten all about it! 

My little leprechauns :) 

I just have to say again how cute it is that Henry LOVES his baby sister SO much! 

 A smile!!!!! Yay! 

Random cute Spencer pics :) 

 She seriously has the most expressive face! 

 Another smile!!! :) 

Love that toothless grin :) 

Comparing kids

I know that I am not supposed to be comparing my kids but it is SOOOOO hard not to! I find myself constantly looking back at Henry's blog to see what he was doing at Spencer's age. I am always saying stuff like, Henry never did this or Henry was always doing that. People ask me all the time if they look alike as babies and I feel like they do and they don't. So I wanted to do a quick comparison of my two babies at five months old.

Similarities -

Henry and Spencer both love to roll. (Not sure how to handle tenses here, past/present? I'll go with present because it it easier, just go with it ;) They are very mobile rolling from belly to back and back to belly with no problem. They both seem about ready to crawl at five months. Henry didn't actually crawl until about seven months so maybe I have some more time before Spencer does ;) Both are very vocal. Henry had a few more sounds at this point than Spencer does and Henry had started "saying" mama by five months. Both love baths, walks, and excersaucer time. They both have issues with bottles at times. Spencer is better than Henry was but she still has her days when she just doesn't want to eat. We'll see what happens when we try rice cereal in a few weeks! They both have amazing blue eyes :)

Differences -

Henry was such a colicky, cranky baby when he was little. There would be hours on end in the evenings when he would just cry and nothing we would do could help. We ended up singing and dancing with him just to keep him calm. Spencer is way more happy. There are very few times when she gets really upset. For the most part, she is a very happy little girl with such an easy going attitude. The only times that she has gotten really cranky were when her daddy was gone for the night ;) Daddy's girl all the way! Henry slept in his bassinet for a good three to four months before moving to his own room. He was very comfy in that little space. Spencer lasted in the bassinet for only a couple of days. This girl likes her space. Henry was done being swaddled after the first six weeks or so. Spencer still loves being swaddled even though she can roll over now. I've tried putting her down without the swaddle and she wakes right up. Henry was sucking his thumb pretty regularly by now and Spencer only rarely sucks hers. Henry had very little hair when he was born and it was very light. Spencer had a lot of dark hair when she was born, she's lost a lot of it now and it is coming in lighter.

Let's see some pics :)

Henry at about 4 months.

Spencer at about 4 months. 

Henry at about 5 months. 

Spencer at about 5 months. 

 Henry sucking on his toes ;) 

 Spencer sucking on her toes ;) 

Henry again

Spencer again 

So both babies have those cute, chubby cheeks and petite nose. I feel like Henry has fuller lips and longer eyelashes. On the boy! Go figure ;) Spencer has more sensitive skin. You can see her face is a bit more red. She drools so much that it causes a rash or chaffing on her face and neck. Henry never had that. 

There you go, my two babies. Both adorable, both sweet, but different and special in their own ways. And boy, do I LOVE them!!!! :) 

Hi guys, I'm back!

I promised I would be! It's Spring Break so it's time to catch up on my blog and my babies :) Here is a little update on both of them.

Spencer is now five months old! She is a big girl. At her 4 month check up, she was already 15 pounds. At the rate she's going, I need to dress her in cute outfits and take pictures before she outgrows them! She is getting quite strong and can do so much more now. She loves attention mostly from her daddy but she loves me and Henry too. She smiles and laughs now all the time. She can almost sit up on her own. She just never wants to sit still long enough to do it! She can push up on to all fours during tummy time which leads us to think that she may be close to crawling soon. She will work for a toy if it is just out of reach but just can't quite get moving yet. Spencer can roll over from tummy to back and back to tummy. She even does it in her sleep. It is kind of messing with her sleep as she still sleeps swaddled but rolling over sometimes wakes her up. For the most part, she is sleeping through the night. I cannot seem to get her on a schedule but she eats about 5-6 times a day about 4-6 oz each time and takes 3-4 naps a day from 1-2 hours each and sleeps from about 9 at night to maybe 6 in the morning if we are lucky. She is making noises and is close to saying mama…. ok I don't know that but I'm hopeful :) She sometimes sucks her thumb when she can find it. She is drooling buckets so she will probably get some teeth soon but so far, nothing. She is now wearing 9 month clothes and size 2 diapers. I cannot believe how big she is already!


Henry is growing too! He is going to be 4 in May! He is so sweet and smart. The questions he asks these days just completely stump me sometimes. For example, the other day he asked me what eyes are made out of. How do you answer that!? So I asked him what he thought and he said eyes must be made of out tears. He may have been upset with me about something and trying to guilt me with his cuteness with tears ;) He can count and identify numbers 0-100, he is working on writing them. He is really good at his 8's (make an s and close the gate!) and would rather do 8's than anything else. He knows all letters and sounds and some blends. He is great at sounding out but still cannot blend them together. Henry has gotten pretty good with writing his first name and we are working on the last. He can cut with scissors with help and LOVES to do crafts. He enjoys playing outside with his friends and his cousins. He is still working on riding his bike. He's just not sure how to push the petals. Henry has also found a new love in video games. His favorite at the moment is Mario.

And now for a zillion pictures, enjoy!

My little zebra baby! 

 Baker outfit complete with cowboy boots.

 Henry's first day of preschool. He was so excited :) 

 We lasted a whole week of preschool before we decided it was not the right fit for us. Thank you auntie Em for taking care of both babies for us :) 

 Daddy got a hold of the camera. Little Diamondback in training. 

 My little princess at 3 months old. 

 She was born with SOOO much dark hair. She's lost quite a bit of it. You can still see some of it here. 

 It is impossible to take a picture of Spencer with Henry getting involved somehow. 

 But oh, how he loves his baby sister :) 

The look on Spencer's face is priceless! 

 Since Spencer was getting so strong we tried her in the excersaucer. She loved it, but you can't tell from this pic. She loves chewing on that sun you see in the background. 

 Spencer loving on her daddy. 

 I love you daddy! 

 Ummm, no idea why this is upside down :( 

 Hee hee :) looks like my little princess has a crown here ;) 

 We got so many cute outfits for Spencer at her baby shower but she was growing so fast, she would almost outgrow the outfits before she had a chance to wear them! So I did a few photo shoots so I could capture her cuteness before she got too big for the outfits. 

Seriously, how cute is this girl!?

 Big, blue eyes and such an expressive face. 

 Here is another outfit we got from one of James's coworkers. So cute!!! We were running out the door on the way to visit James at work to show this beauty off. 

Henry is going to kill me for these next pics but I just could not resist. He had made a giant mess with something and I told him I was going to make him vacuum it up. And he agreed! He also just happened to be in his underwear at the time! 

Make sure you get under the couch there bub! 

 Such a happy little helper. 

 See! She is happy in the excersaucer! You can also see the fluffy dark hair fading more here. 

 Daddy and his two babies.

 James captured a double rainbow. 

 I think I took this because she had just discovered her feet. 

Henry wasn't feeling too well so I made him some cinnamon toast. It's not something he usually eats because he isn't really supposed to eat a lot of carbs so this was kind of a treat for him. I guess I never taught him how to eat toast because… well, this is how he ate it.

Ummm are you licking your toast?!

 Didn't you mama ever teach you that you are supposed to bite your toast?! Sigh. 

 At least he is cute with cinnamon all over his face :) 

My baby sister Emily turned 22 and we got her a cake from Nadine's. YUM!! 

 Spencer really wanted a taste. Sorry kiddo, maybe next year. 

 Of course, Henry had to help. Auntie was a good sport about it. 

 We couldn't find the lighter so James improvised.

 Time to eat! 

 The frosting is the best part! 

We had lent our Rock Band out for quite a while and we just got it back. Henry had to try it out! 

 Rock on dude! 

 He had to use everything at once! 

My mom got Spencer an adorable dress for Christmas but we didn't have any big occasions for her to wear it to. So we dressed her up and took pictures anyway :) There are quite a few, and not the best quality, sorry! 

Sweet baby! 

 Here you can really see how little hair she has left. But she's still adorable! 

 I swear she smiles all the time… just not for the camera! 

 There's a little smile! 

 And a little laugh :) 

 Bath time! 

 Baby girl had to try on daddy's hat. It's hard to see here because the hat is black. 

 More daddy and baby pics. 

 Chewing on that sun. 

Every night we have a little wind down time on my bed with the babies. It is so fun :) 

Big brother and baby sister, melts my heart every time.  

 Me and my babies. 

Henry has become a bit obsessed with taking pictures and videos. I totally blame myself because I run for the camera every two and a half seconds these days. So one day, I was putting Spencer down for a nap and I thought I heard the camera. Sure enough, I go out and Henry had taken, not kidding, over 20 pictures very similar to the one below. We had to have a little chat about asking mama before taking pictures. 

Why he had to take a picture (or 20!) of a glove, I'll never know. 

And then there are the times when I'll run to get a bottle ready or something and I'll come back and see Henry totally playing with and taking care of Spencer. It is so cute! 

James's birthday is the first week of March. I joked with him this year that we really need to move his birthday because I have so much to do at work that week, report cards, etc. I was able to throw together a cake and some cards. But that was it! Sorry babe! I'll make it up to you :) 

Happy 35th!  

 Tummy time! Henry enjoys it way more than Spencer does sometimes :) 

 Awww! So sweet :) 

And now I am caught up once again! These kids are growing so fast, I try to enjoy every moment with them which is why I am so glad I get these two weeks with them :) Boy they sure keep me busy!