Our Week

Walking has become much easier!

Tuesday: was informed from daycare that at nap time Annabelle was snoring so loud she woke herself up.
Cole continues to be his happy smiley self. He is really starting to smile and coo. Every once in a while it even seems like he is giggling.

Wednesday: we went over to a friend's house to look at their double stroller and ended up buying it.
Annabelle was unsure if she wanted to play with the three little kids (they are 3 1/2 years old). There was a gate at the house separating the kitchen and living room; we were in the kitchen visiting and all three kids were in the living room. Annabelle kept looking through the gate. After she had warmed up a little bit she wanted to go play. We opened the gate and she put one foot in and then changed her mind. A few minutes later she wanted to go play again; it was pretty funny. She never did make it in to play but she did throw a fit when we left so that was fun.
Cole slept through the whole thing.

Thursday: Brian and went to a banquet for the Red Cross and has a great time getting out of the house with no kids. We now have a goal to go out to eat or do something just the 2 of us at least once a month.

Friday: Nothing exciting - TGIF. We are all ready for the weekend.

Saturday: Went for a walk in our new stroller and everyone had a great time.

I can't remember what day this happened but I have to post it. Brian gets Annabelle dressed in the morning. The other day she same out wearing carpi's, you have to remember that Annabelle has short legs and we are dressing her in 2Ts so they are also a little big, so really they look more like high water pants then carpi's. Anyway I commented to Brian that maybe she should wear pants because it was not suppose to be very warm that day. His response back to me was "well it isn't like they are going to go outside." So off to daycare we went. Sometime that morning I got a phone call from Brian while I was at work. He told me that he saw some of the daycare kids out for a stroller ride and Annabelle was with - short pants and all. He said he felt pretty bad.

Nap Time

Cole showing off his charm
Annabelle talking on Daddy's phone. She will say hello, then babble some random things, say good bye and close the phone - scary!

Annabelle has been in the toddler room since January and have not had the negative reports that we use to get her last month or two in the infant room...I think that might be coming to an end. I go over to the daycare everyday to feed Cole on my lunch break. When I go at 1:00 Annabelle is usually sleeping and the caregiver are sitting in the hallway working on lesson plans or drying the dishes from lunch. When I am done feeding Cole Annabelle is normally awake. Today is the 2nd time that one of the caregivers has seen me in the hallway and told me what our sweet little girl is up to. Apparently she has been waking up first and while the caregivers are in the hallway she walks around the room and pokes her friends in the nose and either says "up" or "all done". You can look at this two ways: one - she should not be waking up the other kids in her room or two - someone should maybe be in the room so when she wakes up they can find something productive for her to do. I am hoping they will figure that out. I still find it hard to believe that she is the first kid to do some of these things - but daycare just seems to be amazed at what she does.
Cole is doing well at daycare. He is still the only boy in his room and he has been charming all the workers. I hear almost daily about how cute his smile and dimple is. I think he has everyone in that room wrapped around his little finger. He does have favorites when it comes to people - it is kind of funny. There are nights at home when he is in a mood and him and Brian are like oil and water. No matter what Brian does Cole will just not calm down, if anything he will scream louder; I can usually pick him up and he will quite down. Daycare told me the other day that there are times when he gets mad that there is one girl that will try to calm him down and he will scream louder, then the other girl will pick him up and she is able to calm him down.
At least our kids keep daycare interesting!

Crap

Annabelle said her first naughty word on Thursday. I was strapping her in her car seat in the morning and we were trying to get to daycare and work. Things must not have been going well, I can't even remember what happened, but something wasn't working and without even thinking I muttered, "crap" Annabelle didn't miss a beat and repeated it. I haven't heard it again so hopefully it didn't stick with her. Brian was pretty excited that it wasn't him that taught her the first naughty word, what a proud moment for mom :)
Brian also spent his first evening alone with both the kids this past week. I had a staff meeting for a few hours and I will be honest I was a little nervous how things were going to go. I know he can do it but I just kept imagining both kids screaming and things just not going well. When I came home at 8:15 both kids were sound asleep and the house was picked up. Annabelle had even had a bath before bed. I was impressed - I told Brian that maybe I need to leave more often.
This weekend we are spending a quite weekend at home. By the end of the week Annabelle seems to need to spend a day at home with Mom and Dad. Today we ventured out for lunch and went out for Chinese. It is the first time we have gone out to eat with both kids. It went great. Cole slept the whole time and Annabelle loved the food. About all she ate was Lo Mein, I put a few things on her plate but all she seemed to want was the noodles off of Brian's plate. She had the same thing on hers but they must have tasted better off of Brian's plate.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I am getting so big!

Daddy and Annabelle

Lunch Time

What a beautiful March day! It was close to 80 degrees today and we took advantage of it! We had the windows open all day and even now at almost 9:00 they are still open - love it! We had a nice relaxing morning. Cole woke up about 7:45, ate and then fell back asleep. I held him for awhile, it really doesn't get much better then when you are holding a sleeping baby who is all nestled into you. Annabelle woke up about 8:45 and then she sat on my lap and snuggled for a little while. It is so nice after a long week at work to be able to have one on one time with both of them. The rest of the morning we played together and Annabelle did a great job playing by herself while we got some housework done. Cole did a good job also. He is so content most of the time hanging out where ever we put him. There were a few times today where he would just fall asleep in his bouncy chair - one minute he would be looking around and the next minute he would be sleeping with out making a peep. Brian and Annabelle did spend some time playing outside before lunch. After lunch Annabelle, Cole and I all took a nap and Brian was called out to a grass fire, and still isn't home yet. After nap time we had a snack and headed back outside. We went for a stroller ride which was interesting because we don't have a double stroller for the two. I walked about a mile pushing each of them in their own stroller. It must have been quite the sight when we first started out but by the end we had it figured out. Afterward we let Charlie out in the back yard and played for over an hour. It is so nice to be able to get them out of the house and have some fresh air.

Once agin Cole is taking it all in.

Annabelle loved the swing!

Locked Out

Cole was super excited to be outside

I don't think I have ever been so scared as a parent in the past 19 months as I was today. I went to feed Cole this afternoon like I always do. When I brought him back I warned the girls that it was probably going to be really close to 5:30 when I come to pick up Annabelle and Cole, daycare is open until 5:30 but most kids are gone by 5:15. I did end up getting stuck at work until 5:25 and I quickly packed up my things and went over to daycare. I looked at my phone and 5:27...3 minutes to spare, I went to open the door and it was locked. I tried the other door - locked as well. I went back to my car and called Brian to ask if he picked them up. I knew I had to work late and we had talked about him possibly picking up the kids. When he answered I asked if he had Annabelle and Cole. He said no and I started to panic and told him ok and hung up, looking back on it I probably should not have hung up on him. I went and tried the doors again - still locked. I tried calling the daycare and there was no answer. Now I was starting to get worried. I looked around the corner of the church to see if the secretary of the church was still there, if she was that would mean one of the front doors should be unlocked or at least I could call her to let me in. She was gone. Tried the doors again - still locked - not sure why I thought it would be any different. By this time I was starting to panic and all sorts of thoughts were running through my head. I then called a friend of mine who works at the church and is on the board for the daycare. She did a good job of trying to keep me calm and suggested I try a certain door - it was open! As I walked through the church making my way down to the daycare I kept praying that Cole and Annabelle were there. The lights were on in the daycare area, which made me feel better, as I turned the corner I could see Annabelle at the other end of the hall. Relief! By the time I had found my way to the rooms they had realized what they had done and one of the girls was coming back from unlocking the door. She apologized and told me that all the kids from her room had left and she thought they were the last ones. Annabelle and Cole were in the infant room and she didn't know they were there. My legs were still shaking after I had both kids buckled in the car. I called Brian to tell them I had Annabelle and Cole - which he had no idea what was going on so he was a little confused, I don't think when I called him the first time I told him I was trying to pick them up and things were locked. Looking back I am not sure what I thought happened to them -thoughts flashed through my head that a random person picked them up or someone from the daycare took them - both I know are extremely unlikely but strange things happen. To top off our night once we got home it was so nice out we decided to go outside while Brian grilled supper. We had Cole set in his car seat so we could put him in to the stroller and Annabelle was all ready to go. I opened the door to take one of them out and in a flash out went Charlie. The garage door was open and Charlie was not wearing a collar. He ran around in the garage for a bit while I tried to bribe him back into the house - no luck. I started to shut the garage door and just as it was about to close he snuck underneath and took off down the street. I drove around a little looking for him and didn't even see him. When I got back Brian said he would go out for a little while. I didn't have very high hopes. Brian came back about 5 minutes later with Charlie in the back seat. What a night!

Cole is starting to roll onto his side - exciting! Annabelle is chilling in her chair after a long day at daycare.

2 month check up

Cole had his 2 month check up yesterday and he is a healthy growing little boy. He weighed in at 12 pounds 8 ounces which is the 71 percentile and he is 23.75 inches long, 79th percentile. I was a little surprised at his weight, I thought he would be heavier. I am not sure where he gets his height from because height does not run in either of our families. When the nurse picked him up to carry him to the scale she said, "he feels more like a 4 month old than 2 month old" thats our boy! He also had 3 shots yesterday and seems to be handling them ok. He was a little fussy last night but once he fell asleep he was out. He woke up at 2:00am to eat and we didn't hear him again until 7:00am. Cole has been at daycare now for about 2 weeks. Things seem to be going well. We have our routine for dropping off 2 kids and picking them up. I am very lucky that Annabelle wants to be so independent. She asks almost everyday to walk as soon as I get her out of the car seat. I have had to carry both Annabelle and Cole in together but it makes life so much easier when she walks by herself. The only down side to daycare, besides the fact it is not me spending all day with them, is that Cole doesn't seem to sleep much. It makes me wonder how well the other babies nap while they are there. So far Cole is still in a pretty good mood in the evenings but it would be nice if he could get a couple hours of sleep during the day. Life here has been our normal crazy of having two little ones but we are still enjoying 99% of it. There are times when both Cole and Annabelle are tired or hungry that things get a little tricky but usually the problem is solved in 10 minutes or so and everything goes back to being fairly calm.

Annabelle likes to wear Cole's hats.

Oh, What a Cute Baby

Cole and I took a trip to Fargo today with one of my girlfriends. One of the highlights of going to Fargo is going out to eat. We decided to go to the Olive Garden for lunch and it started out great. We sat down, gave Cole something to eat and before we knew it our salad and breadsticks were here. Our food didn't take much longer so I just set Cole in his car seat so I could eat. He sat there just looking around like the good little boy that he is and then all of the sudden you could hear him farting away. Katie finished her meal and was going to hold Cole until I was done. I went to lift him out of his seat and his leg was all wet...yep those were not just farts...we had a blowout on our hands. Not to worry I was prepared,I grabbed the diaper bad and went to change him. We got into the bathroom and I took off his socks and then his pants and oh my did we have a mess. His whole lower body was covered in poop! I proceeded to start cleaning him up and a lady walked over and said, "Oh, what a cute baby" then she must have seen the mess because her next words were "my what a mess" and this point Cole must have decided that she needed to see what else he could do so he let 3-4 sneezes go and by the time he was done he had snot hanging out of his nose. He was quite the sight! After that lady didn't really have much to say and went on her way. Cole already has a way with the ladies :) I did get him cleaned up and into clean clothes and we had a very enjoyable rest of our day.