Puppy dreams

Here we are at the last Sunday in February, and the sun is shining outside. That gives me hope that the weather will break, and this winter is getting close to being over. I am ready for spring. I'm sure this is a common sentiment.

As I am sitting here typing, Laura is headed upstairs to put her baby (doll) down for a nap. Her babies crib is located in Laura's room. This is a common practice these days. Every time I take Hannah upstairs to put her to bed or down for a nap, Laura follows suit with her baby. She is quite the attentive little mommy. She proceeds to return downstairs and tell us to be quiet; her baby is sleeping. She has been playing house regularly lately, giving her baby stroller rides, feeding her baby a bottle in her rocking chair, and putting her baby in her bouncy seat while Laura gets her lunch ready in the kitchen. Hannah also tries to play with babies when she sees Laura doing it.

Hannah has been under the weather this week. She is still not feeling well. She has a bad cold. So yesterday she took two long naps and then went to bed at 7:15. That is totally not like her. She's a little trooper though. She's a little fussy, but that's about it.

Friday night Laura was watching Angelina Ballerina, her most recent favorite. She was all dressed up in her Cinderella dress and pink heels. After the show, she performed a fabulous "click clock" dance for me. I videoed it. I will try to post it on here so you can all see it. It was awesome!!

Laura also learned a new game this week. She plays tag. She loves to touch people and say "tag". She thinks it's hilarious. The highlight of Laura's weekend was a surprise visit by Papa and Grammy. They were headed to a birthday party for my grandma Wilson, and they picked Laura up to go with them. She had a ball. They are planning to come down next weekend to spend the night while Matt is in TN. And Laura is already excited and talking about her sleepover with Papa. That will be interesting. Also on a side note, Max, my dad's lab puppy, is going to be in a cage in our garage. Nugent, our cat, ought to love that. Should be quite entertaining. Laura, of course, is very concerned about Nugent's safety.

Speaking of pets, a while back, Laura was chatting away to Matt, telling him random thoughts. She said, "I wish I had a puppy. I wish I had a walking puppy, like Max." That about broke Matt's heart. See, she has been asking for a walking puppy since before Christmas, and we bought her one of those toy walking puppies for Christmas. It was not what she wanted. Matt and I have been very tempted lately to get her a real puppy, but we have resisted so far. The snow storm helped deter us this week and bring us back to our senses. There is no way either of us are going to walk a dog every night, especially when it's crappy outside! For now, Laura will have to get by with Max and Joe Joe, Uncle Alan's dog. She loves Joe Joe too.

Here are a couple of pictures of Hannah this week. She has become quite skilled at pulling herself up and loves to play at her activity table. Notice her little pigtail! I will try to post the dance video in a while.

Monster Cookies

I'm sitting here enjoying one of the most popular of my families' recipes, Monster Cookies. My grandma Prochaska makes the best monster cookies anyone has ever tasted. We look forward to them and hoard them whenever possible. Well we got an opportunity last night. My parents visited, and my mom made a batch and brought them. They have been and are glorious. Even Hannah was victorious in scoring one. Laura had the cookie tin on the living room floor, and Hannah trucked over there with lightening baby crawling speed.

We had a great week. The weather finally turned mild, which gives us hope for spring. Laura played outside several times at school this week and one evening at home. It was a nice change of pace. One day this week at daycare, Hannah was having a buggy ride, and Laura's class was outside at the playground. Laura spotted Hannah and got all excited and yelled, "that's my Hannah!" Hannah was waving at her sister. Hannah is continually growing too. She is pulling herself up all over the place, and she wants to be doing whatever Laura is doing. Yesterday, Laura and Hannah were crawling next to each other, racing their way over to the toys. So cute. Laura is so good with her. Laura started playing with her baby doll and feeding her, and Hannah was playing in the play kitchen too. Hannah is down to one bottle a day. She is quickly moving out of babyhood.

Laura quote of the week:
I had just taken a shower, and Laura says, "I'm going to get you dirty with my boogies!" Nice.

Laura got a camera for her birthday several months back, and Matt is putting all of her photos on her own website. He is not editing them, as they are from her perspective. Here is the link.

http://dticreative.com/Laura/Welcome.html

A Year Has Gone By

Well, our little Hannah has turned one year old! Can you believe it's been a year already?? I sure can't believe it. I feel like it was just yesterday that we were heading to the hospital early on that Friday morning. It has been a great first year. Hannah has slept through the night in her crib from nearly the beginning. She has been a very laid back child, just going with the flow of life. She is not demanding in general and loves to explore her surroundings. She has grown so much just in the last week. She is now crawling proficiently, motoring her way all around the living room and kitchen. In fact, I was working in the kitchen. And one moment she was playing with the letters on the fridge, and I turned around to her playing in the cat's water dish. Lovely! She is starting to pull herself up on things too. I am sitting on a stool in our kitchen right now, and a few minutes ago, she crawled over and pulled herself up on the stool. She's engrossed in Yo Gabba Gabba right now.

I made her a birthday cake yesterday, the traditional teddy bear. (I made the same one for Laura). She got pretty messy, but she really didn't like the cake. I think the sticky icing frustrated her. On the other hand, Matt and I have enjoyed it. It is our favorite, chocolate.

Laura and Matt have had a rough couple of days. Laura got the flu on Friday, and Matt followed shortly after her. Thankfully, Hannah and I have managed to dodge it so far. I'm not counting my chickens though. Laura is sleeping in the chair right now. Poor little thing is still running a fever. Tamiflu has done a good job in general of taming it though. Laura has not puked since the first day. She has had moments of energy, but she is definitely not herself. I'm hoping she doesn't have to miss her Valentine party tomorrow at school. One cute thing, Laura has been really into playing "house" with her babies lately. Well, Hannah always is trying to take her baby, or her bouncy seat, or the baby doll's pacifier, and Laura gets so frustrated. It's so adorable.

Snowy and Icy Week

I couldn't be happier this week to be at the weekend. The winter storm we had this week made for a bit of chaos in our home. Matt and I worked from home on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I have an awesomely flexible boss, for whom I am very thankful. And I of course enjoy the extra time with my girls that working from home allows. But I think the chaos got to Matt. We were switching off with the kids as each of us had conference calls throughout the two days. Matt was having a hard time being productive, and we all had a little cabin fever. But we survived, and thankfully we never lost power. This is such an anomaly these days for winter; it has snowed here since the first week in December. I say for these days because it seems like that was a norm when we kids in the 80's. Hopefully, spring will come in March this year :) I can hope, right?

So during our two days home, Laura did some coloring. She was watching Angelina the Ballerina on TV, and Matt drew her an "Angelina" to paint with water colors. She just loved it and painted it pink. (of course) We were praising her, and she told us that she was a "little arter." She was trying to say artist. So cute.

I think she was happy to go back to daycare this week and see her friends. When I came to pick her up last night, she said "No, Mommy. Not yet!" The class was just getting ready to go out to the muscle room, and she, Caitlin, and Celia were planning what they were going to play.

Hannah had a good first week in Infant II too, even though it turned out to be a short week. She ate the regular food at lunch and loved it. I'm sure that she loves sitting at the table with all of the other babies. I remember that in that room, that is the major social event - everyone sitting at the table eating meals. It is adorable. Matt and think that she "crawled" officially this week. She doesn't do it consistently, but she does manage to get all over the living room in her scooting fashion.

Well, I hope you all survived the week! Enjoy your weekend.

PS. Laura is looking through her baby book right now. She loves to look at pictures when she was a baby.