Sawyer's 3rd Birthday

Our big girl turned 3 today!  And in honor of that accomplishment, she's had three days of celebrating.  It began on Friday, and she woke up thinking she was already 3.  She knew she was getting a party at daycare, and was all too pleased to begin the celebrations.  There were cupcakes, singing, a crown, some sort of special activity, and they even sent her home with a poster of pictures for us to see. 

On Saturday, she woke up equally excited because Grandma and Grandpa Harris were coming to town to help her celebrate.  She came with me to pick up her cake, and asked if she could have a "3" candle on her cake...of course I didn't say no!  She wanted to dig into the cake immediately, and wasn't pleased to have to wait for G&G, but we were able to sufficiently distract her until their arrival.

We hung up happy birthday sign for her.  She kept going and standing underneath it, pretending to read, and telling us it said "Happy Birthday Sawyer".

This year's theme was Hello Kitty. Initially we wanted to do Care Bears, or perhaps Barney, but it turns out that those weren't options.  Luckily, she is a Hello Kitty fan, so we went with that, and they made the cake nice and pretty for our girl.

While we were waiting for G&G Harris to arrive, we did let her open her presents from G&G Wallace.  It's amazing the difference a year makes.  She knew exactly what she was doing and was so excited.  Sawyer got a fun little outfit and some books. 

She immediately had Dad start reading the books to her.  Now all we hear is Amelia Bedilia, and Fancy Nancy said over and over again.  She just loves to say the names.

Grandma and Grandpa came around lunch time and the fun continued.  They brought more fun presents - legos which were a big hit with both Sawyer and Isla...and more books for our little reader.  These have now been added into the rotation and we've been through all these books several times.

Opening presents.  She got through everything in very short order, but has now spent the entire weekend playing with everything. I kept thinking it felt like Christmas because we had toys scattered on the floor both days, and some clothes laid out from her presents.

As for her big present, Sawyer got...a bike!  I had initially thought this was going to be a Christmas present, but Mark assured me it was better for her birthday :).  First time at the wheel...

She has not mastered how the pedals work yet, she prefers to push backwards to apply the brake, or will go forward with one foot, but then forgets to go forward with the other.  However, she has mastered working her little bell, clicking it constantly, and seems to love the bike in general.  So we'll just keep working on it to see if we can't get her riding.

Isla woke up just in time to see Sawyer's cake and help sing to her.

And this is why you hardly ever see me in pictures - my kids never cooperate.

Again it's amazing what a difference a year makes.  She wasn't scared at all with the singing and knew with no explanation how to, and that she was supposed to, blow out the candles.  When she was 2, she jumped in my arms when the family started singing to her.

All in all, great 3rd birthday.  Sawyer and I spent the morning doing crafts with her new craft bucket and painting.  She's been such a good girl that she got more cake at lunch and three books for her nap.  Her sister Isla is starting to wonder why more attention is not going her way.

And just because I'm so excited about it, I'll share that Sawyer wasn't the only one who got a present this weekend - we also bought ourselves a bit of a present - new kitchen appliances!!  It's been in the works for a bit now, and because three of our existing four have something wrong with them, and the fourth is functional but perhaps not running on all cylinders.  I'm mucho excited for their delivery on Wednesday! 

To Michigan and back again...

We had another quick trip up to Michigan this weekend, this time to Lansing for Mark's cousin's wedding.  Was certainly nice to see the relatives and we had a really good time hanging out with Ann and Ted at the bar that evening but we were sad to leave our girls too.  Rather than try to make it work with them at the wedding, they stayed home with our friend Kristan.  We put Isla to bed for a nap before we left in the morning and Sawyer was totally fine with us leaving, giving great hugs and kisses, but then running off to show Kristan all her toys which made it really easy to leave.  All in all it was a pretty quick trip, so everything worked out.
Not a whole lot else in our world.  We are getting ready for Sawyer's 3rd birthday this weekend, and just enjoying how big these two girls are getting.  Isla is standing on her own all the time now and really gets herself around a room.

Here she scooted on over along the furniture to say hi.

 Kind of a cloudy picture, but I just love the expression

She was recently introduced to the world of riding in the red car.  She's stood near it, played with it from outside, but Sawyer put her in this past weekend and drove her around the house.  She loved it.

Her and Sawyer have actually started to fight over who gets to sit.  On occasion Sawyer has opened the door and tried to pull Isla out onto the ground which starts all sorts of ruckus.  These two go from loving to hating each other in 2.2 seconds.  Sawyer got in trouble yesterday, timeout and then put in her room, because she closelined Isla.  Isla was standing next to our chair, and Sawyer ran from the kitchen, held her arm out, and barreled Isla over.  Needless to say I was not pleased.  I'd like to think someday she'll listen to me, but I'm just not sure that's the case.

As for our girl Sawyer, she typically drives us crazy and makes us laugh all in the same sentence.  I bought her some new hats the other day at Target which she modeled for me - though they may look better on Isla, even if not her size.  Our little lion...

Our little owl...

Finally, just one picture of Sawyer in her Notre Dame jersey.  She's started to dress herself these days, and selected her jersey to wear on Monday.  I usually try to let her pick one item, and then I get her to agree to the remaining items so that she matches and is dressed for the temperature.  She rolled into school so proud to show her teacher her jersey, and Ryan ran over and screamed, "I love your jersey!", while Gianna started singing "Bear down Chicago Bears" to her...so I now know who she learned that song from.

We've also been getting Sawyer ready for her big birthday weekend.  She's getting a birthday party at daycare on Friday which she's really excited about, and Grandma and Grandpa Harris arrive Friday night for the weekend.  I'm not sure what she thinks is happening this weekend but her teacher told me that she keeps walking around the class telling certain kids they can come over to her house for her birthday party this weekend, and others she tells them they can't come.  Such a little stinker.  Regardless, we actually have very little planned out, though I hope it'll be a nice fall day so Sawyer can test out her big birthday present - a new bike!

Fall Here We Come

I woke up this morning to a temperature of 37 degrees outside, and 64 degrees in my house! I know, I didn't think I read that right either, but it was mighty chilly. Didn't even think to flip the thermostat on because it's always just been so comfortable at night, but my little Isla woke up with cold toes this morning. Parenting fail...time to move to the fleece footie jammies for fall.

So I don't really have much to say. The weekend was fine, we went to the farmers market, played outside, and just hung out.  My patience was a little thin this weekend for some reason so my tolerance for whining, and kids crawling on me, and screaming was not good.  I can't remember which night it was but I remember that Mark and I just looked at each other with relief when both kids were in bed.  Other than that, not sure if I mentioned this before, but we recently went out and bought Sawyer clothes for fall.  She's not totally done but she now has enough pants, long sleeved shirted, and sweaters to get her through more than one week of school. I thought I had a bit more time before I got her a fleece, hat, etc. but that seems to be incorrect.  You'd think Isla needs nothing with Sawyer's clothes at her disposal but I found Sawyer had a lot of 12-18 months clothes for fall, and must have been rough on the 12 months because I threw many out.  I was able to fix that yesterday when I was downtown at the office.  My computer basically was dead with virus and hardware issues so I had a few hours to kill and hit up the stores for my girl.  Rest assured, Isla is now ready for fall too. 

Which brings me to this week.  I've been single parenting since Tuesday morning.  Mark is not far away - only about 20 miles west of here at training for work.  If we had a second car he probably could drive home at night, but they have dinner and drinks for everyone so it's good for him to participate in that as well.  He heads to Indiana University tomorrow for recruiting and will be back on Friday night...not a minute too soon for Sawyer.  This morning was the first time day/night that she hasn't cried and told me she wants her dad.  Perhaps it was because she woke up and said Mom - I wet the bed.  Oops.  Two nights ago Sawyer woke up at 1:30 and I had to retuck her in, and Isla was up at 5a and needed a quick snuggle before getting up at 6:30...so last night when neither required me to get out of bed, and I let Sawyer sleep in till 7:30 I thought it was going to be a great start to the day.  Until she said that.  Actually it wasn't bad, but just means that laundry day moved up.

Sawyer looked so cute in some of her new clothes and shoes that I took her picture before "school".  I see this as her Pre-School 1 school year picture.  While our situation is a little different in that she goes year-round and full day, she has this year and next before she heads off to Kindergarten...we think.  Sawyer actually misses the September 1st cutoff in Chicago so technically shouldn't go to Kindergarten until she's almost 6, but I don't think that's going to work for our girl, so we have to get the district to approve her to go early.  Who knew I'd have to think about these things so far in advance.

Isla happens to be wearing the exact same outfit from my last post (whoops!).  Aunt Jennifer sure does buy great clothes!  Stay tuned for her new wardrobe to be unveiled over the coming weeks...

She has an obsession with keys.  Cries hysterically if I try to take them away.  On a happier note, Isla is officially standing on her own.  Not even sure Mark knows that yet.  She used to do it occasionally not realizing she had let go, but now she seems to let go intentionally and can stand for a good amount of time.  I even thought she was going to take her first steps when I dropped her off at daycare today - she was holding onto a chair when she saw one of the teachers she loves.  You could tell she wanted to get over to her, and she considered and started to take a few steps towards her but at the last minute sat down and crawled to her.  Everyone in the room stopped and pointed, and was like, has she done that before?

While it's on my mind, my little Isla is still a little stinker about eating table food.  It's kind of comical because she will house a container of baby food but looks at cheerios as if they're trash.  She will eat puffs, yogurt melts, and these shortbread teething crackers I found (and no - still no teeth).  I tried to give her mini peas, little pieces of toast with butter and cinnamon/sugar, cut blueberries, pieces of noodles, peaches, bananas, avocado.  Of these, she licked a few pieces of toast, and put a few blueberries in her mouth before spitting them out.  The others she wouldn't even touch - not even to push them aside on her tray.  She literally picks around them and is careful not to touch them at all.  Between that and having no interest at all in holding her own bottle, I think she's taking this concept of being my baby a bit far.  And yet, I do love her so.

Mandatory Three Day Weekends

I would like to make every week a 4 day week because 3-day weekends are really nice - really, really nice.  I know, not a surprise to anyone.  Ours was a pretty uneventful weekend which also contributed.  No solid plans, and just kind of went with things.  Did our standard grocery shopping, laundry, etc.  but also just spent a lot of time chilling.  We watched movies, went for runs, played outside, did yardwork.  The best part is that none of it felt like a chore because there was no rush to finish anything.

That said, we did know that we wanted to get a few things done on the house this weekend.  We had ordered a picture for the living room a few weeks ago and it was delivered on Thursday.  Once that arrived, we finally got the bug to start hanging things on our walls.  In 11 months of living in this house, there's only one thing on the wall, and we didn't even hang it, we paid someone to do it for us!  So we headed out to the store in search of some picture frames for some recently purchased prints.  It was an eventful trip to the store with Sawyer wanting to run the aisles, and Isla wanting to push the cart.  Girl still can't walk on her own, but give her something to walk with and she's on the move...and stubborn.  I tried to pick her up and she cried.  I put her down and let her walk, and she was happy...until she fell and hit her head...and then she cried.  Ahh - such is life. 

This was my view as we motored through the store.

So the big project was hanging our gigantic picture above the couch.  Mark did not want to do it, so this girl took the matter into her own hands...measuring...re-measuring...having Mark help me hold it against the wall to check...and finally hanging the damn thing.  BUT - it looks great!  Can you tell that this thing is 70 inches long?!?  That's longer than me...so now understand this was no small project.

Doesn't it look great?  I love this room.

It only continued from there.  Mark hung a shelf in the living room for our new frame/print to sit on, hung pictures in each of Isla and Sawyer's rooms, and even decided to paint our bathroom a non-lime green color.  All in all, I actually feel like we're starting to make progress in making this house our home.

In between all of that Mark and I took a night out by ourselves.  We hit up a fave restaurant of ours downtown for some Columbian food and then hit up a show at Second City.  Was nice to get out without our little ladies.  I was distinctly happy about being able to eat with both of my hands, instead of feeding myself with one, and Isla with the other, and also being able to talk without being interrupted (by Sawyer).  We've now found a few different babysitters - two of which are teachers at daycare - so I do believe we may try to make this a more regular thing, rather than the blue moon thing it has been over the last year.

As for the girls, they were great the whole weekend up until about 4pm today.  I took Sawyer out on several of my errands, took her out for ice cream, had her do some crafts, help with yardwork and folding laundry throughout the weekend and she was happy as a clam...until she became a devil child who wouldn't stop crying, yelling, and hitting.  I'm typically patient but didn't take long before I had reached my max.  Even when she went to bed she was yelling downstairs at me, "Mom!  What are you doing down there?"  Ok - that one made me laugh, but seriously...where's the off button?

As I mentioned in my last post, Isla has found her voice and knows what she wants, when she wants it.  She is not patient and is no longer happy about sitting on the floor playing with toys.  Her attachment to me is starting to freak me out - and I'm starting to think Mark is using it to his advantage.  The minute he shows her to me, she cries for me to hold her, and so far, Isla gets what Isla wants.  If I'm holding her, she may go to Mark for a minute, but quickly insists on coming back to me. When I'm not holding her, she's climbing on me.  Operation cut the cord starts soon.  Other odd and ends, Isla still has no teeth!  She is 9 1/2 months and I still can't even feel where one is coming in.  I thought I could two months ago, but now I'm thinking I was dreaming because there is just nothing there.  Perhaps she's timing it strategically for Halloween?  Which reminds me - I am taking any and all ideas for Halloween costumes for Sawyer and Isla.  So far, I'm considering making Sawyer a cowgirl, and Isla a cow...but that seems a little mean.

Anyway, started to feel like fall here today, so we bundled our little girl up to play outside today:

Summer Fun

I have absolutely no business blogging right now.  I'm sounding like a broken record lately but I have too many things to do for work, and should really try to focus.  However, I'm easily distracted and constantly have a running list of to-do's going through my head, and sometimes I like to be able to cross them off so it's easier if I pick the ones that aren't going to take as long...writing a blog entry being one of them.  I write the blogs for family and friends to see what we're up to, but also so I don't forget what we've been doing.  As Isla's been getting bigger I find myself constantly looking back through the archive to see what Sawyer was doing around this time, what she was eating, how she was sleeping, and whether she was walking.  It's fun to compare, and oddly reassuring that I'm either not screwing Isla up, or I'm screwing her up equally to her sister.  Either or.

So anyway, Isla turned 9 months last Friday, and following her check-up at the doctor I found myself doing just that - comparing.  Isla weighed in at 18 lb 6 oz, and 26 3/4 inches.  I don't have the percentiles because I forgot to ask, but she's a good three pounds less than Sawyer and over an inch shorter.  Can't say I expected that because she was taller last appointment.  Isla was throwing a fit while we were there though so I'm already curious to see the 1 year appt, in case they just didn't get a good measurement.  Did you catch how I said "throwing a fit" - yes, our nice sweet Isla has developed quite the flair for dramatics lately and some hard core opinions.  While she used to eat whatever we gave her, she denies every single Stage 3 food I try to give her...and whereas Sawyer would eat it and cry at the same time, Isla refuses to even open her mouth, clenching it closed.  She is not at all digging table food, and on several occasions has made herself gag and throw up.  I'm not sure how the SLIVER of ripe banana I gave her did that, but whatever.  Other than that, Isla, gets real mad if I put her on the floor or walk away from her, and seems to yell? at me if I don't help her walk by offering my hands.  She is up and cruising with furniture earlier than Sawyer was, but not sure when she'll finally master walking - she's a far better crawler than Sawyer so the drive might not be there as much.  Isla is even starting to get more fiesty with Sawyer...though she also still finds Sawyer to be the funniest person she knows.

At any rate, the doctor's appointment kicked off our weekend, and after that it was a weekend of beautiful weather and fun things to do...to be told primarily through pictures because it's easier...

Isla has finally snapped back out of her up once a night trend, and is back sleeping through the night, so the girls woke up happy and ready to play.  Yes...Sawyer still puts her in the doll stroller, only now Isla loves it.

 

 We hit up some finger/sponge painting.

 Isla is getting into sitting on/riding her car

They help her get around...here she is pushing both into the family room

That Saturday morning I also did a 5k run in our neighborhood.  I've needed some workout motivation and since the race literally went past our house, it's not a hard sell.  Sawyer and Mark sat in the driveway and cheered for me while I ran by.  I'm not a runner like Mark, but I was pretty happy with how I did.

No rest for the weary...we headed out around lunch to a 1st birthday party for two twin boys.  It was a great Chicago summer day so we spent the whole afternoon outside hanging out, and Sawyer spent hours in the bounce house that they had there.  While the picture here doesn't do it justice, she was sweating from jumping so much and her hair was little wet ringlets.

And just because they are too cute not to show...the birthday boys starting to pounce on their cake. 

The next day we had some friends come to our house to play.  Kevin, Katie, Lucy, and Mia came over or a little play date.  Mia is not yet three months so she just kind of chilled but Lucy is 2+ yrs, and her, Sawyer, and Isla played in our playroom together.  At one point, I didn't even realize Isla was in there because they played so well together.  After a nice lunch, the party broke up for naptime...always nice when the kiddos are tired and ready to sleep!

Weather was too nice not to take advantage so after naps we packed the kiddos up and headed to a new playground at one of the elementary schools. 

Apparently getting over some of her fears, she's now a climber.

Getting in on the action

We've had great weather, but can tell fall is on it's way.  Before the 90 degree weather we got the end of this week, the nights were starting to get a little cooler.  Isla was dressed and ready to go rocking her hoodie and new shoes.

Sawyer's favorite thing to do - the swing

Isla is less sure, and preferred to keep an eye on Sawyer

Followed by her second favorite thing - the slides

Was an awesome weekend with great weather - makes you want summer to stay just like that.  Week has been pretty good too, though they always tend to be busy.  We kind of go into survival mode - eat, sleep, work/school...our extracurriculars go down significantly.  Heading into this long weekend we have very little planned which is fine by me.