Crazy Week

This last week was crazy on a lot of different fronts.  Going into it, I knew it would be busy - I had a lot of stuff due for work and we had friends coming into town at the end of the week to stay with us, so there's always the last minute cleaning and prepping you want to do.  What I didn't anticipate was the crazy storm we would get on Tuesday night that would knock out our power for 2.5 days.  Like every night, Mark and I put the girls to bed and settled in to watch some tv ourselves.  The power started to blink and a few seconds later there was an all out downpour outside.  The winds really picked up and there was lightning everywhere it seemed.  We honestly couldn't see much outside the windows due to the rain and wind, but figured no biggie - we'll just hit up some candles, relax and make it an early night. 

Fast forward to the morning and we see that we have some big limbs down in our yard, but no real damage, and the power is still out.  OK.  Bummer, but no big deal.  We were both going into work and daycare did not lose power and was open.  Stepped outside to survey the damage of the neighborhood and it was crazy.  There were several large trees down on our street, including one that missed a house by a few inches.  Several streets near us had to be closed due to downed power lines or trees across the roads.  It made for an interesting ride to daycare but we felt lucky to not have to deal with it.  We hopped on the train and thought surely we'd have power back by the end of Wednesday.

Mark and I followed reports of damage throughout the day, power updates, etc.  There was news that a tornado touched down in our town and damage pictures posted online.  I forgot to take some of our hood, but this one was online showing a house not too far from us.

We got home on Wednesday night and the power had not returned.  At this point, most of the food in the fridge was lost having risen to a non-cold temperature.  I set about emptying the contents of our fridge to avoid food rotting in it, and we were able to send a few things from our freezer to a friend's to avoid a total loss.  More candles were lit and the girls were unaffected, with the exception of Sawyer constantly asking for milk - and me not having any to give her.  Another night down, and we went to bed thinking/praying the power would be on tomorrow before our friends' arrived.

Nope.  Didn't happen.  I worked the next day from Panera, Starbucks, home (without power), etc. and tried to do a few things to make our house presentable without power.  They got in on Thursday evening and after we ordered out for dinner, we settled in again for a candle lit night.  They were such good sports, and we ended up having a nice night having a few drinks on the couch, but with a party planned for Saturday I'd be lying if I said I wasn't starting to worry.

I woke up at 4am when the power did click on, and gave a huge sigh of relief.  The day started well with the kids up early, Sawyer and Isla headed to daycare, and them into the city for sightseeing.  I was able to work from home and managed to maneuver a trip to the grocery store into my day to replace some of the contents of our fridge.  I pulled into the garage and emptied the groceries - went to close the garage door and learned the power and gone out again.  I was minorly freaking out on the inside that I had just shopped again and there was a chance I would lose these groceries too.  Luckily, power popped on in about an hour or so and we were good.  Crisis averted, but stressful all the same.

After that monster week, Mark and I were more than ready to relax and have fun with our friends.  They have three boys - 5, 2, and 9 months and Sawyer got along great with the two oldest.  After some initial shyness on Thursday they became fast friends and were running around the house.  Isla and Chase also hung out on the floor - though he's mobile, so he would often crawl up to her to touch her face or would just crawl away from her.  Friday night we took everyone to the carnival that was being held in our town.  We were surprised at the size of it and let the kids do a bunch of rides.  Sawyer did only two - and cried during both.  She was persuaded to try the merry go round...until she was on it...at which point she started bawling before the ride even started.  She stopped and then just look petrified during the ride.  We managed to get her on one other ride - the slide - but by the bottom she was crying again and that was it for her on rides.  It's a great little carnival so maybe next year she'll change her mind. 

Isla and Chase playing together...somehow I took next to no pictures this weekend.

On Saturday, we tried to have a low key day of going to the playground, having lunch on the deck, and taking naps because we had planned a small bbq in honor of our friends.  Again, the kids had a great time playing together and were running around all night at the bbq.  While Isla only made it till her normal bedtime, I think Sawyer went to bed around 9:30 or 10 that night.  The girl just didn't want the fun to end.  Think everyone had a good time catching up, and it was easy to put together so it left us thinking that we should have more get togethers this summer.  I forget that our friends don't see Sawyer and Isla too often so it was funny to see them interact.  Isla sat on a blanket for about 2+ hours just playing with rattles and staring at people.  She would make these loud yelling noises as if to remind people where she was, and then blow raspberries over and over - her favorite thing to do right now.  As for Sawyer, a few people asked about her raspy voice - whether it was always like that or just because she talked a lot at the party.  It is so normal to me that I forget it sounds different - as one person put it, it's like she's Kathleen Turner's daughter - which I found funny.  I have no idea where that voice came from but it makes her unique and I hope it stays.

Isla and I before the party. 

 Megan and I pre-party. 

We were very sad to see our friend's leave on Sunday.  It was a great stay and I can't get over how great the kids got along.  Sawyer and Isla were a bit off schedule so it was an odd day of just trying to relax for us.  At one point we suggested our cranky Sawyer go up to her room to read her books and were quite happy for the 2.5 hour break she gave us, plus it totally calmed her down and she was a different girl the rest of the day.  Now we're back to the grind, although this week is seriously slow compared to last week.  Looking forward to the long weekend for the 4th, and a short trip to Michigan to see Ann, Ted, Charlie, and Ben...

Fathers Day 2011

A big happy Father's day to Mark and all the other dad's I know, including my own.  I don't know that we made Mark feel as special as he is, but maybe some day we'll get there.  We did have a nice relaxing weekend together, and are just settling in for the night before Mark heads out to Minneapolis for a quick work trip.

Going to do a little "week in pictures" to help me write this post - Friday was a busy day for Mark and I and so it was the perfect night out to come home and take the kids to one of the town restaurants.  We had no idea it was a Friday car show night, but quickly realized when our town was packed with people and really old, cool cars.  Weather was warm so after dinner we checked a few out and found a new playground.  Both girls were having so much fun.

Such a strong girl - she wouldn't let go of that side bar.  I tried to re-situate her, but she went right back to grabbbing it.

Saturday was a typical relaxing day with a mix of cleaning, errands, and rest.  Sawyer continues to do everything that Mark does so it was no surprise that I found these two together on Saturday morning.  Anything that Mark is doing Sawyer either has to do, or ask about.  I am pretty sure Mark both loves and hates it at the same time.

Isla got lots of love too. I took this picture earlier in the week as we were getting ready to head to daycare. Isla was rocking a hat Grandma bought Alexa, that has since been passed to Sawyer and now Isla. She just looked too cute. I thought it appropriate because her daycare teachers are constantly telling me they love how she looks in hats and want me to buy some of those really big flower headbands for her to wear...which I can't bring myself to do just yet...even though I'm sure she could pull them off...I'm just not sure I want to be that mom.

Despite the threat of rain all weekend, the weather held and we got the lawn mowed and spent some time out playing with the hose and Sawyer's little pool.  Isla had no interest, but Sawyer enjoyed herself.  Here she is "helping" to blow up the pool.

Isla preferred to spend her time inside - out of the muggy air.  I mentioned last week that Isla was close to mastering "sitting up".  As you can see, she's good to go now.  Every now and then if she dives for a toy she ends up falling but we've plopped her on the floor and done things around her and she can stay up for ten minutes or more now.  Here she is doing her favorite thing - playing with paper...

I mean eating paper...

We headed out to a new burger place for lunch today to celebrate father's day.  Sawyer has been an incredibly good eater lately, and today was no exception.  She took down her cheeseburger slider, apples, and french fries.  She just kept telling us that she wasn't done yet and we couldn't leave.  With only two french fries left on the whole plate, we finally made the guy take her plate so we could be on our way.  I snapped a quick picture of our girl because she wore this skirt that I bought her on etsy...and I LOVE IT.  Such a stylish little girl. 

Other than that it was low key at home.  Played with our toys, took some pictures...

I was trying to get a picture of Isla in this dress - you can't really tell but it's a red seersucker dress with navy anchors on it.  Sawyer doesn't really get why we wouldn't want her in all the pictures we take, and promptly grabbed some chairs from her playroom - one for her, and one for her brown blankie.  Thankfully, Isla still finds Sawyer funny...about 80% of the time.

And - just a few extra random pics that I like.  Sawyer staring down the camera...

Happy...

Pictures of Pictures

This week we came into a bunch of new pictures of the kids I thought I'd share.  Our daycare does all these great activities with both Sawyer and Isla, and while I was secretly cursing under my breath as I ran out on a Tuesday night to pick up two picture frames that could then be decorated the next day because I somehow missed it on the calendar that tomorrow was picture frame/pajama day, it ended up being worth it, because I loved the result.  Sawyer's had a drawing of hers in it and is therefore a bit anti-climactic, but how cute is the one Isla's teachers did with her.  They helped her finger paint the wood, and then took a picture of the kids there that day.  In case you can't tell Isla is third from the left, and in a room with all boys.

We also got to see the pictures that were taken a few weeks ago at daycare photo day.  Mark and I happened to be picking the kids up together that day, and despite the fact that we said we needed to decrease some of our discretionary, unnecessary spending, Daddy purchased the largest package including CD.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining, I just think it's funny.  We both started laughing when we saw these pics. They remind me of true "school" photos that are slightly goofy but capture the personality quite well.  I will let them speak for themselves.

A classic Sawyer smile - it's all in the eyes for this girl.

Isla looking pretty grown up.  The coloring is a bit off due to the flash - her hair isn't that dark.  She's close to being able to sit up on her own for real so we should have more pictures of her like this.  Right now she's got it for about 30 seconds-1 minutes before tumbling over.

Another goofy smile, typical messy hair, and eyes that look through to the back of your head

They even got the two together for some pictures...

At any rate, we have about 50 of these pictures so they'll be up for grabs at all family visits this summer.  They also gave us about 100 stickers so our mail should be far more decorative over the next few months.

6 months old

So our little girl is 6 months old.  I took Isla to her 6 month doctor appointment last weekend and our little munchkin is no more - the girl is no longer smaller than her sister was.  Isla weighed 17.5 lbs and was 26.5 inches - 75% for everything.  She grew two full inches in two months, and is now a full inch taller than Sawyer was at this age, and a little over a half pound heavier.  Not that I expect them to be the same, but I find it so interesting to see how they are alike and different.

I've mentioned before that Isla is a roller.  She's continued to get better, and while not yet crawling (her butt is still not off the ground), she does scoot backwards, spins in circles on her stomach and just generally can make her way across a room.  I was telling Mark about how I went in her room at 2:20am and she was facing one direction in the right side of her bed, and at 2:26am she had done a 180 and was at the whole other side of the bed.  At any rate, I wonder if all this moving will mean she crawls early, and whether that means she'll be up walking early as well.  Sawyer crawled at 8 1/2 months if I remember correctly, but was more interested in walking, and therefore only crawled for about a month before she insisted we hold her hands and walk and by 11 months she was off an running.  Isla is so nosy and curious that I believe her walking may be the key to my losing the rest of this baby weight.

Isla is still not sleeping through the night but we're getting closer.  The other night she slept from 7pm - 6am, which I would take.  We just need some consistency.  It is sometimes tough to get her to eat enough during the day - she's just not interested somedays and pushes her bottles away - but then she's up screaming to eat anywhere from 2-4am.  We're rapidly approaching the point where we need to let her cry but she screams her head off so I find that tough to do.  I tried it on Friday night by letting her cry about an hour, but eventually caved and she took down 4 oz before she went back to sleep for the night.  The doctor told me I was spoiled with Sawyer being a great sleeper and thinks Isla's sleep patterns are fine and that eventually she'll just drop the bottle.  That's all fine and good, but I stand by my statement that sleep deprivation is a terrible form of torture.

Oddly enough Isla is a good eater of food.  While I have trouble getting ounces into her, she seems to love baby food.  She no longer cares what we give her - loves cereal, fruits, veggies, everything.  This is in stark contrast to the dramatics we used to get from Sawyer who hated cereal and any and all veggies.  The other weird thing I've noticed is Isla has no interest in feeding herself.  She refuses to hold her bottle and doesn't want anything to do with the spoon she eats from.  Sawyer could hold her bottle by the time she was 4 months and grabbed at everything we gave her.  I wonder now if I should have recognized this as Sawyer's independent streak in its earliest forms, and if maybe that means Isla will be more laid back, but I know I'm overanalyzing.

Isla is also such a happy baby.  She has a great smile and when she's happy will often just stare with her mouth gaping open in a giant grin.  We love it.  She does have some strong opinions though and isn't afraid to let us know.  She hates to be left alone and often makes a huge fuss if I leave the room, or lay her on the floor to play without her being able to see me.  The best way to see her go from happy to mad in 2.2 seconds is to just observe her with Sawyer.  You can see in the picture that she loves her sister, and often breaks out into a huge grin whenever she sees her, but Sawyer also makes her mad and she lets us know.  Sawyer insists on grabbing her hands and kissing them over and over which drives her nuts, and Sawyer steals every toy she plays with, again clearly not popular.  Can't wait to see how these two face off when Isla can really stick up for herself.

As for the rest of us, we are enjoying finally having summer here in Chicago.  The weather has been a little weird going from 95 to 65 in 24 hours, but today was beautiful and we ventured to a new park by our house.  We were all digging the time outside.  Sawyer is always better when we get her outside to run around and burn some energy - plus the girl has had some rough days lately.  She has always been a fairly defiant kid (too smart for her own good and always with an opinion on everything) but she's taken it to new levels lately, not listening to a word we say or her daycare teachers.  Miss Erica told me that she threw a chair the other day when they said no to her.  While she told me that Sawyer's pal D'Angelo threw a chair earlier in the day and she thinks that's where she got it from, I couldn't help thinking - my god, my kid is going to end up in anger management classes before the age of 3.  So we're trying to discipline more and stick to our guns.  This has meant that Sawyer has been thrown in timeout, sent to her room, and put to bed early on several occasions.  So far she is stubborn as hell and hasn't shown huge improvements, but we'll see how it works over time.  One thing that has made it very interesting is that even though she's 2 1/2 Sawyer understands and uses sarcasm pretty heavily.  I'm pretty sure she's just mirroring us so I'll blame myself for that one, but when we ask her to do stuff and she responds with some smart remark it's often SO hard not to laugh. 

With that I'm off to bed.  Fingers crossed I don't get woken up till 6 or so....

Homeowner Weekend

With our vacation behind us, we used this weekend to get caught up on a number of things.  Cleaning, laundry, trips to the Goodwill, and most of all - yardwork.  The yard is one of the things we like the most about having a house, but it can take some serious work.  We hit up our local hardware/gardening store three times within 24 hours - we've now got some new rose bushes and plants along our walkway, the bushes have been trimmed back, the beds have all been cleaned out and weeded, the ivy on our deck and pergola was tamed and is being attempted to be trained into growing correctly.  In other words, we had some crazy manual labor rocking at our house this weekend - and given the 90 degree temps we may not have picked the best weekend - but it looks so much better.  Sadly, we're not entirely done.  There are still several bushes to be trimmed, but Mark and I both have blisters and cuts and so we've called a hiatus.

While all this was going on, we also broke out the old swimming pool.  Again, the temps were hot and Sawyer was loving the new hose anyway.  I dipped Isla's toes in the water, but it was a bit too cold for her.  It's as if she's saying - this feels nothing like my bath!

Sawyer on the other hand was all for dipping her toes in, but didn't get her bathing suit wet at all somehow.  Sawyer spent a good deal of the weekend playing with our neighbor Sarah.  Sarah is going into 4th grade, and we learned this weekend that she likes spending time with us.  On Friday night she hung out in our front yard with us while we did some planting and trimming.  On Saturday she watched us from her yard on a ladder she pulled up next to the fence until I told her she could come over.  She stayed until Sawyer's nap time playing with the hose and pool.  On Sunday she also popped over within about 2 minutes of us being outside.  She likes to tell Sawyer what to do, which Sawyer isn't too keen on.  Several times she'd shout "NOOOOOO" to her, especially if she tried to take the hose from Sawyer so it was a little comical.

 Relaxing outside on the deck

Saturday we had some friends come over for a little impromptu dinner as well.  Our friends live in the same town as us and being only three miles away you'd think we'd be better about getting together, but this was one of our first.  It's so much nicer in the summer though when you can be outside and grill up some food.  PJ and Sawyer were playing on the chairs together. 

And with that, we're back to Monday and already looking forward to the next weekend.  We do have our new babysitter coming by tomorrow so Mark and I can go to a concert which should be fab - however with 100 degree temperatures forecasted the outdoor amphitheater concert sounds a little less appealing.  We'll see how it goes.

Buffalo: There and Back

So we've been back from Buffalo for a week but I just haven't felt like writing these days.  Still don't but I also don't want to fall too far behind.  We had a great trip five day trip and are already looking forward to going back in July.  It all started out a bit auspiciously - we left Wednesday morning packed with food, toys, videos, etc but within 45 minutes Sawyer threw up in the car.  It was like she forgot to breath, choked, and then couldn't stop throwing up.  Totally gross.  We're starting to think perhaps she gets a touch of motion sickness like me because she has only ever thrown up in the car.  Needless to say I must have known something was going to happen because I grabbed paper towels before we left, and had a spare outfit for each readily available.  Thankfully, things settled down after that.  It took us 10 hours, though with a 1 hour work call and Sawyer's illness that felt pretty good. 

As we do with most trips home, we jam packed the weekend with get togethers.  Most of the family came over Wednesday to Kate's for dinner, and then a few of us got together again on Thursday at Al's when my parents came in.  Sawyer was loving all the attention she got on Thursday and just ran from person to person.  I even remembered to break out the camera.

Sitting with Grandpa - do Isla and Grandpa have the same belly?

 Isla and Alicia dancing in the kitchen

 Sawyer cuddling with her dad

 Grandma and Grandpa cuddling.  Look how big Isla looks!

 Still hanging out with Isla

Friday we all got together and went to Mark and Jennifer's, especially so that the cousins could play together.  After some initial shyness they were all friends again...even willingly posing for pictures.  Luke and Isla are going to be special buds.  Every time Isla saw Luke she would laugh, and he seemed to get quite a kick out her attention.

Cuddling together for another one.  Can't wait till the summer when we have Kaitlyn, Lauren and Alexa and they can all play outside at the pool together!

Saturday was our busiest day - we had a baby shower for Aunt Katie in the morning which Isla and I went to, and then Isla was baptized on Saturday evening.  It was also Mark's and my 6th wedding anniversary, but the celebration was kept to a minimum this year due to all the other stuff going on.  All the pictures from the shower are on Kate's fancy new camera but we got a few from the baptism on ours.  Here's me and my girl getting ready to head to the front.  Isla's wearing the family christening gown, with her name sewn into the hem just like her other cousins who have worn it.  Cute as a button.

 The godparents - Sue and Jeff.  Huge kudos to Jeff who'd been sick but still made it to the church

 Sue and Isla hugging

Getting her holy water.  Isla's got some ab muscles on her because as soon as she was laid down girl tried to sit right back up and see what was going on. 

 Though she was a bit bored with the whole ceremony, Sawyer had the cutest outfit on - her whale dress.

One last pic of Isla with her godparents.   

One of our first family pictures!  I'm actually fairly happy with how it turned out.  Definitely not perfect but we all look like ourselves which I think it good.

On Sunday we had another long day - Mark had signed up for the Buffalo marathon.  He left REAL early to get downtown and Sawyer and I went with Katie and Ryan to watch later on.  Unfortunately the weather was about 90 degrees and humid so our waiting at mile 17.5 didn't work out well because Mark stopped at mile 17.  Uncle Ryan ran with his brother for a bit and so between finding Mark and Ryan we were tired by the time we got home.  Luckily we spared Isla from the heat, and she hung out with Michelle for the morning. 

Needless to say with all the activity the weekend went pretty fast - as it always does.  We spent Sunday night organizing and packing and were on the road when we woke up on Monday.  Mark and I were machines this time - made it home in 8.5 hours!  I don't have the first idea how I'm going to do this trip by myself in July but I've got some time before I have to figure that out....