Lily's 6 Months Old

I can't believe she's already 6 months old! She's doing great and I'm loving every day with her. She's moving up on the charts, but is still on the small side so it looks like she's going to have the same frame/build as Jake. She's coming in at 15 lbs 11 oz and 26" long. She'll be into solids before the twins as it looks like she's almost ready. She sure thinks she is and you better not hold her and eat anything. If she doesn't get a bite she gets very upset and lets you know about it.

I also took her in for pictures this morning to capture the 6 month mark. With the twins we did pics every 3 months, but I'm spreading that out to 6 months this time around :-). She did great, although was getting tired at the end. We also have one picture the studio is entering in a contest (they loved it that much) and we're hoping it'll get picked by corporate. If it does, the photographer gets something, Lily's pic will go in our local studio, and I get a $100 gift certificate. Woohoo! Go Lily!!!

I've posted several of the shots from her photo session on the left sidebar so be sure to check them out. She's such a cutie pie!

A Gummy Situation

Lily isn't teething yet, but her gums are swollen so out pedi thinks she'll be getting teething around 8 or 9 months (the twins were 10-1/2 months). Since her gums are swollen a bit, she is chewing EVERYTHING! She can't eat food yet (although she does get the occasional bowl of cereal or smooshed fruit/veggie) so one day I decided to give her a stalk of celery to chew on. I knew she wouldn't break any pieces off and choke, and since it's cold I thought it would feel nice on her gums. She LOVED it! She chewed on that thing till it was soggy and I've never seen a soggy celery :-).
I think food is in her near future though. She is really interested in my food and last night actually cried b/c I wouldn't give her a bite. The pedi said when she can pick food up with two fingers vs. a fist, she can have them. Won't be too long I'm sure!

House Rules

A few weeks ago, the kids learned about safety and rules and MDO. So, I got the idea to bring that home and establish house rules. Obviously we have had rules before now, but I wanted to put a few on paper for them to follow in hopes they would actually follow them at school (HA!).

I heard you should only have 1 rule per age so for now, we only have 2 rules, but they are very good rules. When they got up from nap one day, we reviewed the rules together and posted them on the wall (at eye level with the kids) as a reminder.

The kids know the rules, but don't always follow them. So when they break the rules, they get a timeout in the corner. Abby is also a good enforcer of the rules (not necessarily a good follower) and lets me know when Jake breaks the rules. It's easier for them to follow the second rule since it's a bit more concrete, but I think we're off to a good start.

A day or two after we posted the rules, I caught Jake going over the rules with "Turtle".

Cooking Corner

At this point in time, Jake's ultimate goal in life is to be a chef. We'll see how long it lasts, but for now that's all he wants to be. I can't even make a pitcher of lemonade without him hearing me in the kitchen and running in to help. He can start cooking classes at 4 (yes I've already checked them out) so if he still has a strong passion to be in the kitchen in another 2 years, I'll enroll him in his first cooking class :-), but for now, he helps me make dinner.

The other night I was making dinner and he really wanted to help. I was making tortellini and sauteing asparagus; both on the stove, so he couldn't help. But I decided to get him his own pan and the ends of the asparagus I had cut off. He was quite happy with that and cooked away on the floor. However, he quickly wanted to move his pan to the stove. I set him up on the counter and let him "cook" on the counter.

Once dinner was finished, I began plating everyone's food and he quickly helped serve his asparagus to everyone as well.

Commissioned Artwork

This week John had to move offices at work and it got him in the mood to "decorate" his new office. One morning on his way to work he asked for some of the kids' artwork to put up in his office since I gave all the grandparents artwork. I didn't have time to grab him any and said I'd pull some together during the day. After nap time though I figured we'd do some new original pieces of art for daddy's office.

I know Jake & Abby are as different as night and day and see it all the time, but it still amazes me at times. Their styles of painting are COMPLETELY different. I liken Jake to Jackson Pollock. He's such a free spirit. He mixes all the paints together to see how they blend and what new colors he can create. I love his artwork and he is definitely our more creative/artsy kid. Also, no lines for this little boy. If you give him a coloring sheet with something on it, he immediately flips the paper over and colors on the blank side.

Abby on the other hand is more of an impressionist. Granted she's not painting landscapes, but her technique is spot on! She's so careful, each stroke is made with a steady hand and she really plans out each stroke.

The kids LOVE to paint and to spice things up, we also painted with apples. I didn't get any pics of those, but they turned out great too, of course. I sliced two apples in half (different ways so we could see the different shapes they made:-) and stamped with apples. They had fun, but their true love is the brush.

Daddy left for work this morning with 4 new pieces of original art for his office. We love you daddy!

Blog Updates

I haven't been able to update the blog lately as the kids are messing with their afternoon nap and that used to be when I'd do my blog, scrapbook, etc. I think Lily's ready to drop her evening nap so I'm adjusting her schedule a bit and hoping the twins settle back into their nap routine. Jake has decided he doesn't like nap time anymore and now wakes up screaming, thrashing about in his crib after an hour or hour and a half (he doesn't do this in the morning when he wakes up, just nap time, not really sure what that's about). And of course wakes Abby up. So I haven't really had any time to do anything in the afternoons. But hopefully this weekend/weekend I'll catch up on things.

A Special Daddy-Day

This past Saturday we had a rare daddy day. John was able to spend the whole day with us and the kids had a blast. We didn't go anywhere, but still had fun. We started the day out by playing outside on the swings. Of course daddy always does things to the fullest and so he was pushing the kids extremely high on the swings. They LOVED it and were in tears when he stopped.

Then we came inside for some fun with pinwheels and fans. The kids have a hard time blowing the pinwheels but with the help of a fan they can spin them super fast. And you remember how much fun you had talking into a fan :-).

Then we headed off to Chick-fila for lunch and back home for naps. After naps we headed to the pool for a swim. We have to drive by the pool when we go to school and Jake asks to go every morning, so we took advantage of the 2 adult to 3 kid ratio.
On nights John makes it home before the kids go to bed, they love to climb all over him. It's funny b/c they don't do this with me, but just with him. They get super excited and hyper too. I think it's a dad thing b/c some of my other friends say their kids do the same thing with their daddy (and not mommy :-).

Lily's Started Cereal!

I had planned on starting Lily on cereal around 6 months (even though we started the twins at 4 months), but this past week she's been looking like she's wanted a bit more (she's 5-1/2 so she's close to 6 months :-). So, yesterday I gave her a bit of rice cereal. I don't think she ate much, she doesn't really know how to yet. Her tongue pushed most of it out of her mouth, but she was very curious about this new stuff in her mouth. It doesn't appear that she has the texture issues that Abby had (at least yet :-). And I'm hoping she won't have the same issues to new stuff that Jake had (he would revolt and stop eating all together every time we tried something new, the second time we'd try something though he usually did great).

However, I think this time around I'm not going to push baby food like I did the twins. They did really good on food and since they were on formula they needed the extra nutrients, but since I'm BFing Lily, I'm just going to give it to her every now and then when she wants it and not worry about trying to get in 3 square meals every day. Who needs that!