The Winter Olympics 2014

The Winter Olympics just ended...actually they ended a while ago but I'm just now getting to this post. I can usually take them or leave them but Bill gets really into watching.  Avery loved watching the ice skating and also liked to recreate her own Olympic games.

 

She did downhill skiing with her golf clubs. 

Ooh!  Nice form, sis!

Avery really wanted a gold medal so Bill made one for her.  This is why I love my husband.  He totally indulged her.  He would announce that she won the gold medal, and Ave would proclaim, "thank you, thank you" as she bowed.

 

Sis won one too!



Chloe is 6 months!

My sweet Chloe is 6 months old... half a year has passed since she was born.  How can that be so?  This past month has been so much better than the last.  She has gotten back on track in the sleep department, her personality is blossoming, and she is such a joy to be around.

Taking a still picture of her smiling was an impossible task.  She wanted to blow rasberries and check everything out.

Rasberries and a shirt lift...hubba hubba

Are you really still taking pictures of me?

 

Here's the latest-

Stats-
Weight- 17 lbs. 6 oz- 71%
Height- 26.75 in- 76%

 

Eating- Chloe is eating a new fruit or veggie for breakfast and a cereal for dinner.  She has tried and so far loves rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, and squash.  She wasn't in love with eating from a spoon at first but by the end of the month, she was a pro!  I nurse her still about 5 times a day.  I had been supplementing an extra two ounces at night with pumped milk in a bottle but just dropped that since she is eating solids in the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeping- I am so, so, SO thankful that this is better.  Chloe goes to bed around 8:15-8:30pm, wakes around 5ish to eat, then sleeps until around 7:30-8am.  At the beginning of the month, she got in the habit of waking up around midnight so I had to do a little more sleep training to end this.  After 2 or 3 nights, she no longer woke up.  If she does wake up in the night, she has been doing well putting herself back to sleep quickly.  Her naps have gotten more consistent too.  We are down to 2 naps a day- one in the morning around 10:30 that lasts roughly an hour and a half and one in the afternoon around 3:30 that lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

 

Clothes- Chlo girl is wearing size 3 diapers still and wears 6-12 month or 9 month clothes.  She can still fit in some 6 month outfits but most are a little snug. She is a big girl!

 

 

 

New this month- eating solids, "swimming"- while on her belly she picks up her chest and it looks like she's swimming, sitting for a little while on her own, banging things on her high chair and watching for our reaction, loves playing peek-a-boo, grabbing at anything and everything she can get her hands on, doing rasberries all the time

 

Ave and Chlo have started to play together, and it is so sweet!

 

Watching old home videos.  Avery could watch these all day long.

Ave has wanted to feed Chloe a bottle since before she was born.  This made her feel so proud!

Poor Chloe may have gotten a few bubbles in her belly

Starting to like the excersaucer now that her feet touch

Coco the bear came back home for two days. This champion mom didn't remember until around 7pm the night before so we all got to take some pics with him!



I can't get enough of my girl!  She's been around for 6 months, but I now can't remember life before her!

 



Valentine's Day

I have loved Valentines for the past several years because it is just a special day to celebrate our family.  We don't do anything extravagant or exchange gifts but I just love the simple, sweet time that we spend together.  This was our first Valentines with Chloe, and I am still so thankful for my family of four! 

 

Random sidenote- I ordered this outfit for Avery.  She currently dislikes pants.  We can get her to wear leggings but she generally would rather wear nothing on bottom. 

 

 

She ended up not wearing this for Valentine's Day.  I only got her to wear it for a few hours at school the week before V-Day.  I felt so frustrated that I spent money on an outfit that literally got worn for a matter of about 5 hours.  This girl and her clothing stubbornness!  Oh well, I guess I like what I like too.

 

Anyways, back to Valentine's day.  On the actual night, I decided to make a nice dinner at home.  It sadly ended up with me trying to rush and get dinner made while Bill held a particularly fussy girl for the entire time.  During dinner, we both crammed the food in our mouth as quickly as possible so that we could get our girls to bed.  Since we got married, we have always had chocolate fondue for dessert on Valentine's day.  I had everything ready to make it that night.  We decided to forget about that plan, put the girls to bed, and have a heated up chocolate in a bowl version for dessert. These are the days :).

 

The night didn't exactly go as I had invisioned it but I guess that is life with a 3 year old and a baby!  We will have many more holidays in the future.  The next night was so much smoother so we decided to get out the fondue pot and celebrate a little late.  It ended up being so much fun and will always be a tradition that I treasure with my family.

 

Even when things don't go quite as planned, I still love going through this crazy life with these three!

Avery's Princess Ballet Classes

At the beginning of the year, Avery started princess ballet classes at Progressions Dance Studio.  Every 8 weeks the class learns and practices a dance that goes along with one of the Disney Princesses.  Avery started in the Snow White class.  To say that she was thrilled about starting ballet would be a huge understatement!

 

I really don't think that there is much cuter than a little girl in a ballet outfit!  I took a few pictures on my I phone of her first day of class.  They didn't turn out great but you get the idea-

 

They warm up and do some ballet for the first half and then change into their princess costume and practice their dance for the second half.  I have loved watching her classes.  It is too cute seeing little girls dance their hearts out.

 



 

 

At the end of the 8 weeks, the studio puts on a Princess Showcase where all the classes perform their dances.  The showcase took place last Saturday and was beyond precious.  I absolutely loved every minute of it!

 

Getting her crown put on by her teacher

She felt so proud!

 I wasn't really sure what we'd get from Avery since she's never danced in front of a crowd before.  There were teachers on both sides of the stage doing the moves so that the girls could watch them.  She probably got about half of the moves but smiled so happily the entire time. 

 

 

 

 

 

I think my cheeks hurt from smiling so much during the performance.  After she danced, the other classes did their dances and then we took some pictures.  Avery was very fortunate to have so many people come and support her.

 





 

Afterwards, we celebrated by getting some frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf.  Thankfully, we were the only people there because Sophia and Avery got very crazy energized from all the sugar!

 

 

Poor Chloe desperately wanted some of my frozen yogurt.  Soon my girl, soon!

 

 

It was such a fun day to watch my oldest girl do her thing.  It goes down as one of my favorite days as a parent to date!