Backyardigans and the return of ChimpanZeke

Vegas has been gorgeous this past week so we've lived outside.  Here's just a couple shots of Zeke and Ashlynn.

Zeke has recently become a professional at climbing trees.  He is still my little monkey.  He just requests "need footstool" if he is at a part he can't climb by himself.  I am learning to restrain my protective mother bear instincts and just let him do things that one of these days are going to land him with a broken bone.  Today he was above my head in the tree and I could no longer even reach him...I was a bit nervous. He wasn't.  ChimpanZeke was in his natural turf.

 

 He calls this branch "the monkey bar."

Six Months

I have loved Ashlynn from the moment she was born.  She is such a sweet, happy, loving baby.  But now she is getting to the real fun stages.  So far, with both my kids, it just gets better and better as it goes.  It is crazy how fast six months has gone by, and yet I feel like she has always been mine.  Here is a little update on my special Ashlynn.

Ashlynn still loves it when we tease her with her binkie, she is starting to get ticklish in her toes and she loves when Zeke climbs up onto the side of her crib when she wakes up.  She loves Zeke and is very patient.  Zeke likes to play ring around the rosies with her and dog pile (neither of which is gentle at all, despite my warnings) but she seems to like it. 

She is almost always happy and is very free with her smiles.  She really makes us work for laughs though.  I can get her to laugh when I kiss her and then make a silly face and noise (kind of like an elephant noise), peek-a-boo seems to make her laugh too, and I discovered this week that she loves the swing in the backyard and will grin and laugh when I push her.

She likes to be outside.  The other day she was pretty discontent and would cry every time I tried to lay her down inside but when I placed her on a blanket on the grass she was happy. I brough her back inside and she cried so I took her back outside and she was happy again.  We've had picnics outside every day this week and she loves feel of the grass and leaves (and loves the taste of both as well).  Try as I may I can't keep her on the blanket (and that was even before she was crawling)!

She is a bit of a phenomenon in that I have a hard time getting her to fall asleep in my arms.  She likes to get a few snuggles and then I put her in her bed with really snuggy blankets and caress her forehead and then she'll fall asleep.  But we do still get some snuggles, thank goodness!  I love cuddling her.  I love it especially when she is really tired because she will look up at me or Trustin, whoever is holding her, give a big smile and then bury her face into us for a second and then repeat that again and again.  She does the same thing when she is nursing and those moments are among my very favorite.

She is not picky at all about food.  She has never made a face good or bad about any food.  The green beans were as happily accepted as the pears although she hasn't really been excited about any either.  She just eats it if it is there and doesn't really care if it isn't. Unless of course the food is grass, which may be her favorite green vegetable.

Yesterday I did her six month photo shoot.  She is beautiful inside and out!  I love you Ashlynn!

Enter Mischief Maker #2

The day has arrived.  Ashlynn will officially be 6 months tomorrow and she is celebrating the day by officially starting to crawl.  Well, scoot.  This video doesn't catch much (the toy was too close).  But she's been doing it all day.  I know we are in for another little mischief maker like her big brother.  How do I know?  Well, lets just say Ashlynn has only been "crawling" for about 7 hours and she has already managed to scoot over to Zeke's lunch and take a big bite of his meat and cheese sandwhich in the few seconds I walked away to get Zeke some blueberries.  She has had enough of that mushy stuff; bring on the solids!

The Reader's Digest of Our Life Lately

We have done a lot in the last month and a half.  I guess everyone has.  So here is just a quick summup.

 Visiting one of our favorite places in Las Vegas: The Bellagio.  So beautiful and the kids loved looking at everything.

 This is a shot of one of the precious little moments that we are blessed with every day.  If Zeke is awake before Trustin goes to work he insists on going outside to give daddy loves in the car and then through the window.

 We had an amazing time up in Utah with family.  One of the first nights we created a Mexican restaurant complete with Mariachi singers.

 I also recommend the joys of kids with glow sticks in a dark church gym.

 As we know, Zeke is resistant to nap time.  This definitely held true while we were in Utah.  One day his efforts of evasion included a vehement desire that we let him sleep in the doll bed...He claims it was comfy.  For some reason I insisted on the real bed.

 Ash had the pleasant adventure of trying baby food for the first time.  She's a fan.  She even liked green beans on her first taste!  I thought she was a clean eater.  See above: no bib, no messy shirt, no messy face...no mommy.  I apparently did not get my mom's genes for tidy baby feeding, because Ashlynn has never looked like this again.

 Playing the wii with Daddy.

 Merry Christmas!!  Here is Zeke's tired Christmas morning face complete with bed head.

Waffle maker for me.  Yum! 

 And here is out brave little fireman.  This picture really sums up the last month.  Would you like to offer a guess as to how many times Zeke has thrown up since Thanksgiving? 

Did you guess 16? 

Yep.

And he doesn't even have any illnesses associated with stomachs.  He just has massive tonsils and gags on his Flem.  (This is why Zeke is two and a half and I still can't give him apple slices or carrots without having a bottle of floor cleaner on hand, and why we love Zeke's bib with the large liquid catching feature)

First he got a cough which soon spurred him throwing up twice (or was it three times) in the car on the way up to Utah for Thanksgiving, one of which happened while Zeke was completely sound asleep.  And yuck.  By Sunday we took him in to the quickcare and he had viral pneumonia.  Fill in the rest of December with a plethora of coughs and throw up and you can end it with a diagnosis of severe sinusitis and four prescriptions.  Zeke is hooked up to the nebulizer a lot these days, but luckily we started calling it a fireman mask (sooo cool) and Zeke is such a little trooper with it.  I am so impressed by that kid.

 Here is Zeke and his buddy looking at the lions at the MGM.  You've got to get really close to see them properly.

And here's our fireman again this morning.  Playing toys, breathing medicine, and wearing a suitcoat that is about 3 sizes too big but which he was set on wearing.

The only other news is that little Ashlynn thinks she is ready to start crawling soon.  She is up on her hands and knees rocking every day.  So it could be any day (or another month!). 

We hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas!