The Lesser of Two Evils

Abigail had such a fun-filled day today. While Sarah napped and Daddy worked on freelance the two of us went to watch GENESIS softball. We also spent a lot of time in the nearby playground. Afterward we went to a friend's first birthday party. Abigail played with toys, saw a dog, played in the water, ran around-a two year old's dream! With all this fun, though, came a missed nap.

We left the party around 4:30. Abigail fell asleep on the way home. This "nap" lasted 25 minutes or so.

She was not happy when she woke up. I gave her some milk and went ahead and fed Sarah. Well, Abigail ended up drinking her milk on the floor where she landed when we got home. The next thing I knew she was asleep on the floor.

We decided to let her sleep. BIG MISTAKE. She woke up around 7:00 and was even more upset than before. We offered her everything: a pear, juice, crackers, Veggie Tales, and even popcorn, but nothing really helped. I wanted to feed Sarah and put her in bed, but Abigail freaked out any time I went to take care of Sarah. She got so upset at one point that she threw up!

Longer story shortened: Sarah is fed and sleeping and I am sitting next to Abigail's bed waiting for it to be safe to leave-when she is sound asleep.

I think keeping her awake until her regular bedtime would have been the lesser of two evils. She would have been cranky in both instances, but a whole lot less if we had kept her up.

Lesson learned and noted for next time.

Photo Fridays 07.30.10

The other morning Abigail got up earlier than I had hoped, so Jonathan let her watch Veggie Tales in the living room. When Sarah got up, I brought her in the living room and sat her on the floor. Abigail then sat right next to her and, well, you'll see...


And, speaking of photos, my friend Krista of Krista Photography did a photo shoot with us a few weeks ago. She just posted a few of the pictures to her blog and even more on facebook. I am so happy with what she captured and how she captured it. I was worried because it was really hot that day and, well, I have two little girls who like to be in constant motion. But it went really well!

Thanks Krista! I love all your work, but especially these pictures (but I'm probably a little biased ;-)

A Mouth Full

Sarah's sixth tooth broke through the other day. They have come in so much faster than Abigail's did. I was looking back over old posts and was reminded that Abigail only had four teeth when she was 14 months old! Sarah is just over 9 months old. I tried getting a picture of her with all six pearly whites, but a picture from a day or two before the sixth popped through will have to do.

Sarah has reached another milestone as well, climbing! She had been occasionally pulling herself up into a standing position while holding our hands, now she uses furniture and toys to get up. She typically stops at the point where she is on her knees, but today while I was getting Abigail ready for her nap, she pulled to her feet in her crib. We better keep our eyes on her!

Photo Fridays 07.23.10

A couple more summer fun photos from the weekend. The girls and their cousins (my cousin's boys):

More Fun in the Sun

This past weekend we hung out at my Aunt's house. My Aunt welcomed us over to take advantage of her cool pool in the steamy heat.

Abigail would have stayed in that pool all night if we let her. She had a blast! She had even more fun than normal I think because we were surrounded by familiar and fun people and because of Abigail's new swimming helper. With her new "swim vest" and floaties she was able to kick and bob in the pool all by herself (with capable swimmers nearby, of course). She even jumped off of the diving board-well, she more walked off the board than jumped.

Sarah had fun in the water as well. She is also pretty independent in her tube, though I think she prefers to be held because she is more able to splish and splash in the water.

Thank you so much Auntie for your hospitality, we all had a blast!

The Incredible Edible Egg

Yesterday morning we gave egg yolks to Sarah for the first time. She seemed to like it at first, but later decided it would be more fun to play with the eggs rather than eat them.

Photo Fridays 07.16.10

9 Months

Today marks Sarah's nine month birthday! In only three short months she'll be one year old.
I feel like my "monthly milestone" posts have been pretty similar lately. Sarah army crawls like a pro and she gets everywhere! She has five teeth and one more on the way. She makes lots of noise: da-da's, squeals and even some ma-ma's.

This is a great age. Sarah falls asleep on her own, plays by herself on occasion, and laughs at her mommy a lot. I especially appreciate the applause Sarah and Abigail give me after I sing one of their latest favorite Veggie Tales songs.

I love my cuties.

Nap Time

I have to say that lately I have been very blessed when it comes to nap time!

Sarah takes her first nap anywhere between two and three hours after she wakes up for the day. Her morning naps will last one to two hours. She goes down relatively easy. It is rare that I put her down for her morning nap already asleep.

Afternoon nap time has been so wonderful lately. I almost hesitate to tell everyone about it because I'm afraid things will change once I make this public ;-) Around 1:15 I give Abigail some milk, change her, read her a book, and say "night night". For the past three weeks or so (except during vacation) she has fallen asleep only 30 minutes later. AND she sleeps for two whole hours! AND she wakes up in a good mood! Who could ask for anything more?

About 15 or so minutes after I get Abigail in bed, I go ahead and feed Sarah. About half of the time I put her down asleep. But if she's awake, she'll fall asleep 99 percent of the time in just a few minutes. AND Abigail sleeps through all of this!

Ahhh, it is just after 2:00 and all is quiet in the apartment...

This isn't a nap time picture, but it is sleep related. This is how both the girls sit when we read them a bedtime story.

Photo Fridays 07.09.10

Annual July Trip to Virginia - Day 5

We made our way back to Massachusetts on Wednesday. We left shortly after 9:00 AM. And, can you believe we only made one stop? You can call us crazy. We made really good time as a result. The trip only took us 9 hours.

It's funny because I ended up complaining a lot during this leg for whatever reason: Sarah whining, Abigail whining, Abigail putting her feet on the DVD player, the DVD player falling over and over, Abigail taking too long to fall asleep, etc. Jonathan and I talked about this once both girls were napping in the afternoon. I mentioned that if someone were to ask Jonathan which girl had a rougher time with the long-distance traveling he would probably say me!

In reality the girls did do very well during our whole vacation. Long distance driving is a lot to put them through, especially when we only make a few stops. They also did very well considering the really hot weather and the fact that they missed out on some sleep. We couldn't have asked for anything more. We are blessed with two great girls.

We had such a great time with the Kapaldo's and we look forward to future visits!

Annual July Trip to Virginia - Day 4

We took it easy Tuesday morning after a few busy days and late nights. Sarah had a nice full morning nap while Abigail had a morning swim in the kiddie pool.

Today was an exciting day for us. Grandma and Papa brought us to the mall to watch Toy Story 3. This was both Abigail and Sarah's first movie theater experience. We went to a really nice theater too-the screen was huge and there was stadium seating. We grabbed seats in the next to last row, which ended up being a really good place for us.

Abigail sat between me and Grandma. She was all set with a small cup of popcorn and her water. She was pretty excited at the beginning during the previews and the start of the movie. Further in, however, she started getting antsy. She wanted to stand up against the row in front of us-no big deal. But then she started trying to climb into the row in front of us. We just had to keep Abigail occupied and interested in the movie which involved snacks, musical chairs, and a few "oh wow Abigail, look at that!"'s.

Sarah did really well. She snacked on cheerios and had some water. Towards the end of the movie she was making a lot of noise, so Jonathan stood off to the side and held her. He held her so that she would be able to watch more of the movie, but she ended up dozing (she takes after me ;-). So he moved her to his shoulder where she took a nice little nap.

Toy Story 3 was really good. I'm glad we got to watch it with Grandma and Papa and that the girls had such a great first-time-at-the-movies experience.

Both of the girls fell asleep on the way home and managed to stay asleep as we transferred them back to bed. I even ended up taking a short nap. After naptime the girls spent more time in the kiddie pool before dinner. This was Sarah's first experience with a kiddie pool.

Annual July Trip to Virginia - Day 3

The girls got up at 6:30 on Monday, which was nice. Jonathan ended up taking the girls upstairs. I told him I'd be up in a few minutes. Well, that few minutes ended up being more like 90 minutes. I had fallen back to sleep "accidentally". Jonathan ended up taking the girls outside where they hung out with Grandma and Papa before breakfast.

We trekked to Culpeper, Virginia to visit with Uncle Aaron for the afternoon/evening. The guys worked hard outside in the heat while the ladies watched a movie. Well, actually, two of the ladies wanted to take advantage of the space and roam around. Sarah liked scooting to the back door and playing with a doorstop while Abigail enjoyed grabbing ice out of glasses, grabbing things put of kitchen cabinets, and also playing with the same doorstop.


Oh, and I forgot to mention that Uncle Aaron has a cat, which Abigail kept asking about periodically. She must think that all cats do is sleep (which is what we tell her a cat is doing when he or she isn't around). One thing we discovered though is that Abigail might be mildly allergic to cats (at least some cats). I don't think she touched that cat once, but she still managed to break out a bit on her face. I'm sure we'll find out more when we see the Allergist next week.

We had fun during dinner at The Sweetwater Grill. Even though we were approaching the girls' bedtime they were pretty good. Sarah screeched a lot and waved her arms while Abigail kept us all entertained. For dinner I had one of my favorites, the Drunken Rib-eye. It was great! After dinner we went back to Grandma and Papa's where the girls went quickly to bed for the night.

Annual July Trip to Virginia - Fourth of July!

Today was a long but great day. The girls got up at 5:45 and didn't ultimately make it to bed until 11-ish.

We started the day by going to church. Jonathan's family church was recently renovated and was very kid-friendly. We started off in the balcony for worship. After that it soon became evident that the girls were going to be a bit noisy. While we were singing Abigail sang along using her own indecipherable lyrics while Sarah screeched and squealed a few times. Thankfully there was an enclosed room that had a window looking toward the stage and audio fed in.

After church Grandma brought out the kiddie pool. Abigail spent the bulk of the afternoon in and out of the water. Her cousin Zachary also joined in the fun.

Zachary also met Sarah for the first time. He was so excited to see a baby. He was so cute asking his Mom if he could touch her. He even had a few opportunities to hold her.

After a great grilled lunch we packed our bags and cars to head to the National Mall for fireworks. Once we settled in and picked a spot we took the girls for a walk to kill time. We got back to our spot and killed more time. Finally, the show started! The girls seemed to enjoy it, especially Abigail. She let out a few "wow's" and identified colors. The cutest thing she said was after a multi-colored firework went off. She pointed and exclaimed "Birthday cake!"

Exiting the Mall and heading for the Metro is always a crazy experience. This is my 7th time joining the Kapaldo's and with each passing year the crowds on the train seemed to get worse and worse. I thought this year would be the exception. When we got on the train our entire group of 8 adults and 3 kids were able to get seats. Things, however, went down hill after that. How many people can you fit inside a DC Metro car? Apparently about a few dozen than you probably should-especially in 95+ degree weather. It. Was. Awful. It was such a hot, stuffy, sticky, sweaty mess. Thankfully Sarah slept through most of it and Abigail did great taking everything into consideration.

Despite the heat and crowds we had an awesome time celebrating our great country. I just love this family tradition and was happy that Sarah got to enjoy her first fireworks experience on the Mall.

Annual July Trip to Virginia - Day 1

I learned from our trip down to Virginia that no matter what resources or tricks you have up your sleeve, traveling long distance with two little ones is hard. We had a spacious van, a third row seat, Veggie Tales (DVD and CD) and snacks galore. But still I found myself ready to be done with the trip. The hardest part was probably the fact that Sarah only napped for a bit over an hour when she normally gets two naps adding up to 2 1/2 hours. So she required more entertaining efforts.

Abigail was clearly excited to be at Me-ma (her way of saying Grandma) and Papa's house. Both she and Sarah quickly made themselves at home. I was surprised to find out that Abigail remembered a lot about her Grandparent's house, particularly the fact that there were two birds in the room down the hall. She really liked looking at those birds!

Playground Fun and Photo Fridays 07.02.10

Yesterday was such a beautiful day. It was partly sunny and in the 70's. We took advantage of the great weather by joining Auntie Laura, Uncle Nick, Bridget, and Nonna for a trip to Lake Quannapowitt and the playground they have there.

Here are Bridget and Sarah strapped in and ready to go. I just can't get over how tiny Bridget is and that Sarah and Abigail used to be that tiny!

Abigail played with her Uncle Nick pretty much the whole time we were there. It was nice to relax a bit and not have to chase Abigail around. Plus, she loves playing with Uncle Nick (and I think Uncle Nick likes to play too ;-). I missed it, but my sister took a few shots of the two of them swinging. Apparently Abigail copied whatever Nick did while swinging. Cute!

This was Bridget's first trip to a playground. She took a nice long nap while everyone else played.

Of course Sarah's been to the park before, but has never gone on anything. This was the first time that she went for a swing. I think it is safe to say she is not a fan, at least not now. She also went down the slide with help from Nonna. I think though that Sarah preferred just hanging out with the adults and people watching (oh, and also chewing on her sunglasses).

It was a great day to get out. It was even better going with family and for once outnumbering the little ones 4 to 3!