Janie Keeping Warm

Janie looking all sweet and snugly in her special hat Auntie Dianne made for her. She is also snuggled up in the cozy blanket Dianne made for us when Clara was born. Wonderful gifts that we sure appreciate on these cold days!

Christmas Cards

I love sending (and receiving) photo cards! I use them for invitations, thank you cards, birth announcements and of course, holiday cards!! I like finding the right photos, selecting a cheery design and fussing over the details to make the card fit our family. I have done this enough through the years that I have become picky about the sites I use for my cards. I have found one of the best sites to use is Shutterfly.

A friend of mine, whose blog I try to follow, recently posted a neat deal on holiday cards available to bloggers through Shutterfly. I decided to check it out for myself and was invited to participate to receive free Shutterfly holiday cards – Yipee! Okay, so now I have to decide which card to choose.

Shutterfly has SO many great card designs to choose from and they make the personalization process super easy and fun. We have yet to have our holiday photos and are hoping the kiddos will cooperate long enough for us to capture some this weekend when we get our Christmas tree up. After that the hardest part will be deciding on a design. What do you think? Feel free to comment and let me know which ones you like best or visit the Shutterfly site for additional ideas.

I am drawn to the designs that have more than one photo because they look really cute, but also because there is a really slim chance of getting a good photo of all of us looking at the camera and this type of design will give us a little more room to work with.

This one has the traditional holiday feel that I am typically drawn to.

These have a fun, playful and more modern approach to a holiday card that I find refreshing.

These will look great with black and white photos, and I already have some sweet B&W shots of the girls that would be fun to use.

Help... with all of the great card options in this year's Shutterfly collection, I just can't decide!

By the way, Shutterfly does so much more than photo cards. We love their photo books and I am impressed all of the different photo gift ideas they offer: calendars, puzzles, stationary, jewelry and my favorite, Christmas tree ornaments!

*** Season's First Snow ***

Without any significant snow last year, Clara was so very excited when the flakes started falling today. She couldn't wait to get outside and stood by the back door to watch the snow fall. I am so thankful for my friend Cindy who picked up the snowsuit for Scout a few weeks ago. Clara stayed warm all bundled up in her Arctic exploration!

First task... trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue!

Then she tried to made a snowball, but it just stuck to her gloves.

Next... Clara made her first snow angel (although she has been know to make sand angels this at the beach)

Having a hard time moving around in all her winter gear.

After getting all of her stuff rounded up and on her, Clara stayed outside for less than twenty minutes before deciding she was ready to come back inside. I wasn't ready to bring Janie out so I stayed close to the back door to keep an eye on Janie. Hopefully next time we go out in the snow we can venture out farther and maybe meet up with some of the neighborhood kids for some snowy fun!

Gem is 2 months old

Can you believe it... Our little "Gem" is now 2 months old!!

Janie weights 12 lbs. 3.5 oz., just a half ounce behind Clara at this age, so she is gaining weight faster than her big sister did. She is 22 3/4 inches long and is in the 75-90% percentiles so our pediatrician is very happy with her growth. While she has always been good at holding her head up, she now has very few wobbles and looks around a lot when she is doing her tummy time.

Janie Bug's biggest development in the past month has been her growing repertoire of expressions and sounds, most of which are happy. She shares more and more smiles with us every day, the kind that you can become happily entranced in and are glimpses of the personality she is developing - So much fun!

We learned last week while giving her a bath, that she has seemed to find her all out scream that is louder than her normal cry. She is usually kind enough to give us lots of warning calls before she breaks out into a full cry, but she isn't fully convinced that the bath is a good thing, especially when we tried to squeeze one in when she was sleepy - whoa! She let us have it!

Gem has more wakefulness during the day now, with a few short cat naps and several solid naps. She likes to ride in the car seat, stroller or Bijorn carrier and does some great sleeping there making it easy to take her on outings during the day, that is if we remember to bring everything that she and Clara require for outings.

Janie's hair is starting to rub off in the back and on the left side of her head a little. Her eyebrows and eyelashes have grown in a lot and those pretty eyes continue to be BLUE! We are still wondering about what color hair she will end up with, but it still seems to show up reddish in a lot of photos. Whatever combination she ends up with she will be beautiful!

Janie is 8 weeks old!

This past week, Miss Janie has become even more expressive and vocal. She has the best little coos to go along with her adorable smiles allowing us to have fun baby conversations. She now recognizes us from further away and we can watch her track us as we move around. All of this new found interaction is so very rewarding to Mommy, Daddy and Big Sis!!

Potty Success...Again!!

Since Janie arrived Clara's potty training regressed a little. We expected this but the sticker charts and candy rewards were not helping us get her back on track so we upped the ante a little and created a sticker chart to see if she could be accident free for a week. If she did, she earned a special Barbie doll. The reward system has worked wonderfully and tonight Clara received her reward!

Clara's sticker chart - Our Scout was so proud of herself!

Baby Sitter Barbie helps potty train little Kelly.

*And yes, you are reading the packaging correctly, Kelly goes #1 & #2 in the potty and you get to flush it away!!

Our Burrito Baby

Bedtime with Clara

Bedtime for Clara begins with jammies and teeth brushing...

Then a story...

Then a song...

Despite our routines, bedtime rarely is easy with Clara. Almost every day we get 15 different excuses or stalling tactics. Most of the time we are firm, but every once in a while it is nice to just enjoy her and who she is now, knowing that one day we will be dragging her out of bed and begging her to share these special moments with us.

Goodnight, sweet angel! Mommy & Daddy love you!

Gingerbread Playdate with Logan

I am lucky to have such a wonderful friendship (25 years in the making) with my pal Christy. She is so much fun to be around and is always doing fun things for us. Like today, she showed up with this fun gingerbread house kit for the kids and a batch of cookies - AWESOME!!

Even sweeter is watching our kiddos build their own friendships with one another. Logan and Clara play really well together and have the sweetest conversations. It was so much fun to watch them decorating this gingerbread house together.

Like the gingerbread house we attempted last year, a lot of the candy (and frosting) was "sampled" by Miss Clara, but she managed to get more of the candy on the house than off.

Logan didn't want to get too messy and carefully decorated his side.

Clara on the other hand, covered her pieces with lots of frosting, licked some off, then smashed it on the house, creating more of an abstract effect. She was tickled with her creation and getting to share the fun with Logan!

Daddy & his Gem

After dinner (which Janie typically sleeps through), Gem and Daddy have their time to bond. It is pretty sweet to watch them make faces at one another. Daddy still gets lots of great smiles out of his littlest gal and after this play and a diaper change, she falls right back asleep in his arms. We love this part of her current routine!

Such a fun age...

Scout loves playing dress up these days. She really gets into her characters and sometimes requests that we refer to her as whoever she is dressing up as. Lately it has been Snow White or Dorothy, but when I showed her this pair of cowgirl boots that I purchased at our neighborhood garage sale a while back, she immediately wanted to pair them with a dress and be Taylor Swift. Later that day, I let her watch one of Miss Swift's videos and she loved dancing around in this outfit. I am anxious to see who she'll want to be next week...

Fall Fun

We are so lucky to have had some beautiful Fall days and are attempting to make the most of them with walks and trips to the park. Today we went to one of our favorite parks outside of our neighborhood.

This continues to be Clara's favorite place at this park. She leaves the seat in the dining car briefly to go and get other kids to come and play with her and sometimes she is perfectly happy to watch all of the commotion of the park alone from this spot.

Clara jumping in some crisp leaves!

Janie stayed in the Bjorn carrier while we were at the park, so mom snapped this photo of her once we got home. She has the sweetest little smile and does the cutest nose scrunch too!

Our Little Princess...

Baby Dream Photography

Personalize a free digital greeting card

Things have been a little crazy in our household lately and I have been meaning to post more of the beautiful photos we had taken with Aileen from Baby Dream Photography. We are thankful for her help in capturing the beginning to the story of our sweet little Janie Caroline. I am so glad we had these taken when we did, because she has changed so much already. And so have I, by the way...

Our lil' Gem is 7 weeks old!!

Grandma Elaine's 10th Great Grandchild

On Sunday, we made our first trip to visit Grandma Elaine since Janie was born. Grandma & Grandpa Stevens met us in Auburn as well. Grandma Elaine's decline is consistent and while she was sleeping soundly when we first arrived, once she was awake she was absolutely delighted to cuddle a baby. Although she asked the same questions ("Now, how old is this baby?") and made the same comments ("Wow, look at those big hands!") about Janie several times, her maternal instincts with infant care were still sharp. It was nice to see Grandma this way!

Janie was sharing so many smiles that afternoon and we were all eating 'em up!

Our attempt at a 4 generation photo - although Grandma isn't looking at the camera, this is the best one we got. We'll have to try again at our next visit.

*Clara and Janie have their Seahawks dresses from Auntie Michele on. Too bad their support appeared to be conversely correlated to the outcome of the game that day.

6 weeks old!

Janie Caroline

Janie is 6 weeks old and such a sweetie! Our lil' Gem is still a wonderful sleeper and eater and loves to be snuggled. She seems to be a happy little gal, especially after eating when she shares lots of sweet smiles which warm our hearts. As we go through the different milestones with Janie, it is hard not to want to compare her with Big Sister Clara at the same age. When I put Janie in this sweet little outfit that Grandma Carol bought for Clara, we saw it fitting to take a picture and compare it to the one we have of Clara in the same outfit at six weeks old. At times Janie really resembles Clara, especially in some of her expressions, yet other times they look so different. Sometimes Janie's hair looks really red and her eyes are still really blue!!

Clara Natalie

It is crazy to think that over two and a half years have gone by since this photo was taken of Scout. We sure wish that we had purchased our current camera sooner because there is definitely a difference in quality from our old one.

Another sweet shot of lil' Janie

Sharing her beautiful smile!