Sleep is good!

We've been remembering how good sleep is at our house this week! Addy is sleeping very regularly in her bed now and may just be learning to like sleep. Her naps are starting to lengthen and her night-time sleep seems to be much more restful the past couple days. She's, of course, learning more and more too. This week, she's been working on learning the names of all of the shapes and she's discovered that her blocks fit in the square hole (and the star hole too... ha!) of her shape sorter. She also has been counting cars on many of our ventures out. "I love you" has become a regular phrase in her vocabulary and her hugs are frequent and easily given as well. Wow - almost two. Where did the time go?

Kennedy has been sleeping much better as well (thank goodness). Though she slept through the night right after we moved her into her crib, her nights were getting to be rather painful, as she would wake up three, four, five, six times a night crying. But no longer! Giving her just a couple minutes before going into her has fixed this problem! And Mom is so much happier! =) She's also almost rolling over from back to front as well, though she's still working on getting that arm out from under her. She's growing quickly as well. Kids sure speed up your life! =)

The negotiation techniques...

of an almost-two year old are brutal. Thank goodness the business world doesn't run that way! =)

Valentine's Week

This week, we made a stained glass heart and also baked a rice krispie treat for Dad (in the shape of a Hershey's kiss) for Dad. In the last picture, you'll see that Addy is filling the kiss with love! =) Also, we went to a couple playdates (and hosted one), went to the park, went swimming, went to Wiggle Worms, and went to a couple community activity times. We're keeping busy and we're ready for more outdoor time! Summer, where are you? =)

Triple Rush Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 dash hot chili powder
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1/2 cup cold milk

Directions:
1. Combine the chocolate chips and milk in a glass or plastic dish, and microwave on high, stirring every 20 to 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Mix in the coffee, cinnamon, and hot chili powder until the instant coffee has dissolved. Stir in the cold milk. Strain into 2 mugs. Thin with additional milk, if desired.

Adam - ***
Melanie - ***

(We found it was a lot better if warmed up again before drinking!)

Photo tag

Anna tagged me!

The rules: Go to the fifth photo folder on your computer and then pick the fifth picture you find. After you post the picture, you tag five friends to do the same and blog about it.

This is a picture from early January of 2008. (The fifth file is the fifth day that we took pictures in 2008). Addy was eating a lot of squash, carrots and sweet potatoes (as you can tell by her nose!!) and transitioning to table food. Just a random picture of a cute kid being herself. My how she's grown!!

I'm tagging all of my blog-gy friends out there. It's quick and easy and kinda fun too! =)

A new studio, a new blog!

Just Because is moving up in the world... literally. The photo studio that used to be in the basement in our house has now been moved to the main floor. This allows for a little more space during shoots and also allows for a better traffic flow in the house for clients. Here's a pic - not that you can really tell all that much from this... =) Oh, and even cooler (well maybe just as cool) is that all of the care package inventory fits very nicely just behind the background curtain (which would have been wasted space anyway), so Just Because is now all in one room, which makes my organizational self very happy.

Also, Just Because has a new blog too! Postings of many of my shoots will be able to be seen here - if you're interested!

Yay!

I think I'm in love.

I mean, let's not get carried away here or anything... vacuuming is still vacuuming, but it just got a lot better. (Click the picture to see the full specs!)

Being thankful

I'm going to rely on an email forward for today's post... and then I'm going to go and try to quick clean the house while the girls finish napping! =)

Adam and I have really been blessed with so much. While we sometimes probably take it for granted, we really try not to. Reminders are, of course, always good too though!


Even though I clutch my blanket and growl when the alarm rings. Thank you, Lord, that I can hear. There are many who are deaf.

Even though I keep my eyes closed against the morning light as long as possible. Thank you, Lord, that I can see. Many are blind.

Even though I huddle in my bed and put off rising. Thank you, Lord, that I have the strength to rise. There are many who are bedridden.

Even though the first hour of my day is hectic, when socks are lost, toast is burned, tempers are short, and my children are so loud. Thank you, Lord, for my family. There are many who are lonely.

Even though our breakfast table never looks like the picture in magazines and the menu is at times unbalanced.Thank you, Lord, for the food we have. There are many who are hungry.

Even though I grumble and bemoan my fate from day to day and wish my circumstances were not so modest.Thank you, Lord, for life.

They grow so fast...

Addy is very interested in labeling everything right now. "Dad's water" "Mom's shirt" Addison's socks" "Baby's diaper". It's really cute. And her vocabulary is starting to amaze us. She's now saying words that we haven't actually 'taught' her. Another of her favorite sayings is "Ohmygosh". Yep - she got that from me. Thank goodness I wasn't saying something bad! Ha!

Kennedy had her 4 month check up last week. All looks great - she's over 18lbs and 27 inches long. (Yes, I said 4 month check up). She rolled over for the first time on Friday and has started eating cereal (in the hopes that having something in her tummy will allow her to sleep more than 3 hours at a time - like when she used to sleep 10 hours a night a few weeks ago!). =) So many firsts!!

The things that you learn...

I've never been so busy with so little accomplished.

Adam assures me that 'accomplished' just takes on a different meaning during parenthood. He's right, I know. I know.

But still. =)

Friendship wreaths and purple cow shakes

"Jazz hands!"

Yum!!

Black Forest Cake

I'm behind! We didn't do 'dinner and a movie' night this past week - we're a little short on time around here lately. So, I'm posting one of my all-time favorite recipes. (Oh and I never bother with the cherries as noted here - I just use a can of cherry pie filling!). =)

Ingredients:
2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 (20 ounce) cans pitted sour cherries
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch, round, cake pans; cover bottoms with waxed paper.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, 2 cups sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil, and 1 tablespoon vanilla; beat until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake for 35 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Loosen edges, and remove to racks to cool completely.
4. Drain cherries, reserving 1/2 cup juice. Combine reserved juice, cherries, 1 cup sugar and cornstarch in a 2 quart saucepan. Cook over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cool before using.
5. Combine whipping cream and confectioner's sugar in a chilled medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form.
6. With long serrated knife, split each cake layer horizontally in half. Tear one split layer into crumbs; set aside. Reserve 1 1/2 cups Frosting for decorating cake; set aside. Gently brush loose crumbs off top and side of each cake layer with pasty brush or hands. To assemble, place one cake layer on cake plate. Spread with 1 cup frosting; top with 3/4 cup cherry topping. Top with second cake layer; repeat layers of frosting and cherry topping. Top with third cake layer. Frost side of cake. Pat reserved crumbs onto frosting on side of cake. Spoon reserved frosting into pastry bag fitted with star decorator tip. Pipe around top and bottom edges of cake. Spoon remaining cherry topping onto top of cake.

I scream...

you scream, we all 'say please' for ice cream!

Who likes packing?

I sure don't! I always feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off and then I always wonder if I have everything that's needed... and packing for kids on top of it has made the whole packing process even more stressful. But I found a great tool that will hopefully make it all better (I have yet to try it, but it seems promising). Enter in basic information about your trip and it spits a packing list and a to-do-before-you-leave list back at you. What could be easier?

Now if only entering the information about a trip to Hawaii made the trip actually happen! =)

A night out

Two weeks ago, Adam and I went out on a date – dinner and a movie – just the two of us. I should mention that up to this point, in Addy’s 22.5 months, we had been childless for a total of 13 hours (2.5 of which were the hours in the hospital before Kennedy was born). So, this was a pretty big thing.

The kids stayed at home with the sitter and watched The Little Mermaid. We had dinner at Outback Steakhouse, where we actually managed to keep our conversation relatively kid-free (oh, there was some kid conversation… but it wasn’t all), and then we went to see The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button. Weird movie. A little long and not the best thing to see the first night without the kids, I’d say – but a movie nonetheless. We got some coffee (hot chocolate for me) on the way home (gotta love those 24 hour Starbucks drive-throughs) and were home 15 minutes early.

It was a fun night. And it’s something that we need to do more often. Once a month would probably be better than once every two years. But we both missed the girls. I can’t speak for Adam, but I missed them more than I thought that I would. I was so excited to get home to see their beautiful sleeping faces.

Kennedy was out – oblivious to the changes in the evening I think. Addy had woken up just as we pulled into the garage, but was back in dreamland by the time that we checked on her a few minutes later. However, as we were getting ready to turn in for the evening Addy roused again. After we each went into her separately and snuggled a little, she still seemed a little uneasy. Just a little unsettled.

So, in quite a departure from the norm, I took her into our room and the three of us snuggled on our bed and read a few books. Addy, more settled after that, went back to her room for the rest of her night of beauty sleep.

It was the best 20 minutes though and a good ending to the evening. Adam, as he saw me bring her into our room, said to Addy “this is for us too.” He was right. It did us all some good I think.

We’re planning on some more nights out in the near future and I'm excited about them, but I think that it would be ok if they all ended like that one did - just our little family of four (or four minus one if Kennedy is out like she was this first time) reading in the big bed past bedtime. =)

Continually growing

Addy's favorite phrase right now is "take a bath". She says it more like "takeabath" though. We went swimming last week and she told most people afterwards that she had been to "takeabath". It's really cute - and sometimes she'll say it just out of the blue. She does love the water though, so maybe she's hopeful that if she says it, she'll be able to dive right in.

Kennedy has always been quite the smiler, but lately she's starting to smile with her whole face (if not her whole body). Her smiles now quite often include completely closed eyes and a wide open mouth and sometimes even raised shoulders. It's fun to see and you can't help but try to make the same face right back to her.

Two kids - lots of differences

So, Addison and Kennedy are very different babies. I'm amazed at how different two kids can be - kids that have the same parents and are less than 20 months apart. Their personalities are so much fun to watch develop.

Just off the top of my head...

Addison
-loved her pacifier
-didn't seem to notice if she had a wet diaper (or even a dirty one)
-could take or leave the baby swing (everyone told us that the swing was the cure to any cry, but that wasn't really the case with Addy)
-never really needed to be burped and only twice in her life spit up
-was a slow eater - she would swallow three times and then pause for a few seconds and then start again
-was a big baby (always above the 97th percentile in height and weight)
-didn't really respond to singing to soothe
-was always moving her feet (all of her old clothes (the ones that Kennedy is now wearing) have knobs on the backs of the feet from where she moved her feet against whatever they were resting against)

Kennedy
-will take a pacificer if it's handy, but prefers her thumb sometimes and sometimes prefers nothing at all
-is not happy about much at all in her diaper
-is very happy in the swing and will happily drift in and out of sleep in it, or sometimes just watch the world from it
-seems to always have a burp in her tummy somewhere and is sometimes like a mini-Old Faithful spit-up geyser
-gulps and never pauses - unless it's to choke a little (which of course may lead to the above mentioned issues)
-is a bigger baby even still (she's outgrowing clothes about 2 months ahead of the time that Addy did)
-responds to singing - it is a cure for most crying (she heard a lot more singing in utero though, because as Addy's gotten older, she loves music, so we're always singing now)
-is more of a stretcher than a mover (beware if she can't completely stretch out - she'll tell the world about it)

So, at this point, Kennedy seems to be the more mellow of the two, while Addy seems to always want to be a part of the action. We'll see if their personalities continue on those paths.

Whatever the case though, they are the most perfect little ones... and I'm continually amazed that we somehow got the smartest, cutest, strongest, fastest, and most wonderful kids out there (followed very closely by our friends' kids of course!).

Oh and though they are different in many ways, both of them seem to be able to wiggle out of Carter's Wiggle Proof Socks quicker than any others. Go fig. =)