Snuggle Baby

Janie meets Jackson

This week we had a fun visit from little Jackson (2 weeks) with his Mama and Grandma. He is such an adorable little baby! Janie seemed pretty interested in this younger guy, and since his parents, Peter and Christina, are pretty great friends, her Mommy and Daddy would surely approve. It will be fun to watch these little sweeties grow up together.

Halloween Weekend

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Grandpa Mark's Special Pumpkins 2010

Grandpa Mark's pumpkin tradition continues this year for both Clara and Janie, although since Janie's pumpkin had to be started before she was born, hers says "Baby Gem." Clara was the lucky cousin this year since her pumpkin grew to be the biggest, has a nice shape and great stem.

Clara with her 4th pumpkin from Papa - she even had one when she was in Mama's tum.

Janie's first pumpkin from Papa

Clara also has a special pumpkin that she helped plant with Grandma Carol while Mommy and Daddy were in London this spring.

Janie's First Bottle

Janie has been a great nurser from birth, but at 5 1/2 weeks old Mommy got out the pump and Daddy got to feed her a bottle. Unsurprisingly, she attacked it aggressively and cried when they took breaks to burp. We were also concerned with how much more Janie spit up than Clara ever did, but have now learned that is more of an issue of abundance of milk and a child that enjoys eating than any digestive concern.

C & J Hanging Out!

We were all hanging out in the bonus room the other day and I snapped a few photos of my sweeties that captured little nuances of who they are right now.

Right away, we noticed that Janie has the sweetest, yet kind of pointy, little tongue that she sticks out so cutely from time to time. She right on the verge of sleep here when she made this sweet little face.

Julie taught Clara the "mermaid pose" when she was taking the girls picture last week and here Clara is trying to work it. As much as we tried hold it off as long as possible, Clara has fully embraced all that is Disney, especially the princesses!

I liked this photo because it shows their size difference. I know it wont be like this for long, because Janie is much like Clara in that her growth is on the top end of the charts. Clara continues to grow like crazy and while she is only 2, I am purchasing 4T, sometimes 5T clothing!!!

Clara is such a little book worm. She LOVES to be read to and memorizes stories so that she can read them on her own. It is fascinating how quickly the memorization occurs at this age. Today she corrected me when I accidentally swapped out to for at while reading one of her books !?! I sure hope we can continue to foster her love of reading in her! We are so proud to watch her sit quietly with a stack of books for 40 minutes or even read one of her favorites to her baby sister!

Our Janie Bug is such a great sleeper! She lets us have a nice long stretch at night right now and still sleeps a lot during the day. Her yawn is just so sweet!

Playgroup Halloween Party

We have been attending the Highlands Playgroup for almost two years now. The group has gone through lots of changes in that time, but we always enjoy the good friends and fun activities like the Halloween party. This year Clara was so excited to be Dorothy!

Scout has been REALLY into dress up lately and had turned another dress up costume into her version of Dorothy and wears it daily! We let her look at lots of other fun options and while she was swayed for a little while by Ariel, and still likes to dress up like a witch, she has been dead set on being Dorothy for weeks. Mommy, being the life-long Wizard of Oz fanatic wasn't exactly sure I was ready for this. It is not the year (with J's arrival) for me to attempt to make a Dorothy costume or even have the rest of us dress up as corresponding characters, which I would LOVE to do someday. When we started to look at costumes, I turned up my nose at many which were not at all authentic looking, some with sequins all over (don't even get me started about the sequins and dress up clothes situation in our household), others that were not even recognizable as Dorothy with random colors and flair all over the costume resembling more of a toddler pageant outfit. While it is a little big, the one we found was indeed acceptable and Clara is over the moon! The costume has been hanging in her closet for a few weeks and when she finally got to wear it, she felt so proud. She walked around playgroup completely in character, telling everyone that she had a dog named Toto and she lived in Kansas - it was absolutely adorable!!

We dressed Janie up too, but she spent almost the entire party asleep in her seat so Mommy snapped this shot of her in her pumpkin shirt once we got home.

The kiddos enjoying snack and getting ready to do song time.

Clara decorating her very own pumpkin with stickers! Stickers are currently another one of her favorite things. She now has the motor dexterity to be able to effectively peel stickers from their backing all by herself and therefore can be entertained with sticker projects for hours. She will go through a whole page of stickers in a matter of minutes.