Cousin Sleepover!

I stayed over at Linnea and Cam's the week of Thanksgiving to watch Gwen and Sonja for about a day and a half. Most of that time I was by myself and was kind of unsure how everything was going to go with 4 kids under 5. To my delight, it was a lot of fun. I only forgot one thing, which incidentally was also the only thing I had to remember, and that was Gwen getting picked up for pre-school. Oops...lucky for me, we ran upstairs and Gwen is very fast at getting dressed :) Besides that we had a lot of fun and here are the pictures to prove it...

Addison loved sitting and standing on this old sewing machine table of our mom's.  Don't worry, I locked the wheel so it would not spin :)

Caroline is so good at standing now that I can get several pictures taken before she goes down to the floor

Gwen and Sonja

I decided I wanted to try and get a good picture with Addison and Caroline using the self timer on my camera.  I had about 10 seconds to set the camera down, grab the girls and attempt to get a good picture.  The funny thing about this one is that they don't suck their thumbs so it is one in a million that they both put their thumbs in their mouth and using the opposite hands. 

A good picture of Addison's teeth!

An attempt at a cousin picture....cute!

Breakfast time.  Addison and Caroline had already eaten so they were happy as clams just watching Gwen and Sonja eat.

Sonja pushing Addison in her doll stroller.  Despite Addison not looking like she is having much fun she actually was and would get mad at me if I tried to take her out.

Then I had the genius idea to have Caroline push Addison.  How cute!  Again, they were both having fun despite the picture.

Of course we had to make a huge fort!

Addison and Caroline practicing their walking skills across their kitchen floor with a stool and a chair.  They are actually pretty good at walking with things like this to help them out.

I'm looking forward to many more cousin sleepovers!!

11 Months!

Addison and Caroline are 11 months old today!  1 more month until they are one!  I really can't believe it.  Something else I can't believe is just how much they learn each month.  They are both excellent at crawling, standing and taking a few steps to cruise around furniture.  At this point though, if they need to go more than a couple steps to get somewhere else they still get down, crawl over and then stand again.  If they hear music they will start to dance and love to push the buttons on their toys.  They brush their hair with their hairbrushes and if we say the word clap (not show them) they will start clapping.  They also like to play "so big" and their new favorite game when going to sleep is to throw their pacifiers out of their cribs.

There are some things that they do individually but I find that the other one is usually close behind to do the same.  Caroline will sit and "talk" to objects.  It sounds like she is actually saying sentences but of course we can't understand them.  She also is getting better at imitating sounds.  Scott and I are convinced that she can say hi when she chooses to repeat it after us.  When she chooses is the key phrase for most of what they do.  I am thinking we are not too far off from Caroline officially saying her first word!  She also makes many silly sounds using her tongue which are both cute and entertaining.  You might want to watch out if you are in Caroline's path to something because she will grab everything in her way and throw it behind her.  Watch out!  Addison is making more sounds these days too.  She also will try to share her pacifier with you and give you a kiss!  She also enjoys pulling her burp cloth over her eyes and pulling it down to play peek-a-boo.  She has also started to point to objects in a book .  It continues to amaze me how much they learn and grow each month.

This past weekend we turned back our clocks for the time change.  I was curious to see how they would do with this.  It actually did not seem to phase them one bit changing their schedule by an hour.  It has been great and they even slept in this morning!  Here are just a few random pictures from over the past month.

More than ever they love playing with each other.  Now that they seem to be understanding things more I am trying to introduce them to the concept of sharing.  We'll see how long it actually takes for them to get it but doesn't hurt to start early.

Typical Addison, playing with something in her mouth.

Playing with their baby cousin Nolan

Swing time

Caroline

Addison

Caroline doing yoga or a headstand?

Notice that Addison is not playing with the pig in her mouth but the block in her hand.  She is so silly.

Looking outside at GG's and Great Grandpa's

See you next month at their ONE YEAR update!

October!

October 16th was Scott's 30th birthday! To celebrate we did an open house for his friends on his birthday and the next day we had family over. I didn't end up getting many pictures since I was running around the whole time but here are the few that I do have. Happy birthday Scott!!

Here is Scott with cake #1.  You can see another one of my decorating projects in the background.  There are 3 window panes that I cleaned off and put pictures behind the glass.

Gwen and her cousins

All 4 cousins having fun together

4 generations!

Addison and Caroline's 1st Halloween!  They were Bears cheerleaders, Scott was Mike Ditka and I was Walter Payton.  It was a fun Halloween weekend!

They were not too thrilled about this picture

Caroline trying to grab Scott's mustache

Addison and her football

Halloween at church.  Here is one of their friends Ellie as a flower.  So cute :)

After church we went to Linnea and Cam's to go trick or treating.  Here are Gwen and Sonja as a ladybug and bee.

Sonja was very good at stinging people.

And here were are trick or treating dressed a bit more warmly.

Sonja trying on Scott's mustache.  Looks good!

Happy "Diamond" Birthday and Decorating

I am a bit behind....



My mom's birthday this year was on 10/10/10! She has been calling this her "diamond" birthday for a while now. We had fun celebrating this special 10/10/10 b-day.

We gave her 10 2 liter bottles of pepsi.  For those who know my mom, this was a perfect gift!  We all brought one out to her one by one.

Here she is with her diamond present from my dad, an opal and diamond necklace.  Good job catching on to her hints :)

Just a random picture of Caroline.  She loves putting this in her mouth because it has a hole in the bottom and makes a whistling noise when she breathes in and out of it.

Finally I am pretty much done with the girls room!  It took some good motivation (Scott's b-day weekend) to finally get this done.  In this picture you can see the curtains I made as well as the corner shelf with the cute flower light.  There is one on the other side too of course and when they are both lit it gives the room this purplish pink hue.  Total girls room.

I got this idea from a house my Grandma told me about on a house walk about hanging clothes as decoration.  I thought their preemie clothes would be perfect for this and I LOVE how it looks.  It is also a reminder of how small they were which I just can't believe looking at these clothes.  So cute.

At this point there is only one little blank area on a wall that I might hang their dresses from their baptism or keep empty and wait for some art projects to hang.  Otherwise, I am so happy with their room now.  I love hanging out in there with them so much more.

This is how we normally find them in the morning now that they are experts at standing.  They have so much fun with each other already!

Goebbert's Farm

Elsa and I headed over to Goebbert's Farm last Friday. It is a great place with lots of fall activities including a random travelling zoo. I was just happy that the girls were old enough to enjoy it more. It makes me really excited for the zoo next spring. All though, with the travelling zoo you are able to get so close it almost make it better. Almost.

It is crazy to think that only a year ago at this time Linnea and I were posing for a pregnant/pumpkin comparison picture.  Now look at them :)

I am so lucky to have these girls in my life!

Mama and baby giraffe

One of the piglets came over to say hi

Elsa had Caroline and she enjoyed looking at the animals.  I held Addison and she was brave enough to stick her hand out to touch some of the animals.  I of course did not let her because who knows what would happen with her little fingers but it was interesting to me that she did this considering that just weeks ago she was afraid of big dogs.  Go figure.

Llama and no, they did not spit at us.

Monkey eating a pumpkin

This was the most random animal there in my opinion....a water buffalo.  Now I have the veggie tales song stuck in my head.  If you don't know what I am talking about you should look it up because it is cute. 

I got them these little perfect sized pumpkins.  Adorable.