All Ana's favorites!

Labor Day

WELCOME HOME!

Well, the girls and I are home now for the long strectch of family and friends in September. The crew and I (dad, Ana, Taylor, Dexter) arrived late Saturday afternoon and have been jampacked full of fun with family and friends already. Dad left today and will be back up in 2 weeks to pick us up.

The girls are adjusting so, so......already made a trip the ER (Ana fell and bit through her bottom lip), haven't slept yet (Taylor has gotten her days and nights confused), and naps are sparatic at best (Ana is too excited to sleep during the day)...and today we'll throw a feverish Ana into the mix!

It's amazing though how much less stressful these things seems when surrounded by the abundant family and friend networks of support that I'm blessed to have here.

ANA is in HEAVEN with all her friends and cousins. She is amazing to watch as she runs from family to family yelling out and chasing all her cousins around. This will be hard to leave behind. With each new encounter you can see her little brain searching for those pictures in her head that we've shown her day after day to teach her the names of all her loved ones. Then she just stares for a minute as she puts 2 and 2 together, realizing that they now are REAL...not just pictures in an album.

Stay tuned for great shots from the trip.........

11 weeks

Who is Who?

There is an on-going debate in our house...do they or don't they look alike. We go back and forth.


WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Hiking the shores of Lake Lanier

Growing up So fast

Taylor sleeping away at 11 weeks old

A first for everything

And today...naptime brought another for Ana. It started out as a normal naptime routine. Ana sucks her thumb and asks for nigh, nigh. We go upstairs give her her beloved "two mimi's" (two blankets), read "Lullabyhullabuloo" (currently her favorite book) together and put her down...She then chirps for 10-50 minutes and eventually talks herself to sleep. Today, the same thing happened with an added twist. Instead of talking herself to sleep she got herself more and more worked up. After an hour and a half I decided enough was enough and went to help her relax only to find the funniest thing I've seen in awhile..

NAKED ANA!

That's right. Ana figured out how to take off her diaper, throw it over her crib and was yelling off, down, off, down. Now I know I probably shouldn't have reinforced this behavior with gut wrenching laughter, but how funny is that!!!!!! I guess we need to pay extra attention to what is covering her daiper upon bedtime...OR....begin potty training, which Ana has shown signs of readiness for quite some time now. 'Tis I whom is not ready!

Quick thoughts

I seem to have less and less time these days to get in good blogs with pictures for y'all (ha) so I thought in my few moments before our night owl gets reved up I'd share my latest and greatests in words.

Taylor really is getting just so big. She is finding her bliss more and more as we help her by adjusting her reflux meds, eating schedule, and learn what soothes her. Her latest favorite game is to play airplane over my head and laugh at my face...do you blame her. Personally I think she's laughing b.c she knows I'm about to get a nice warm and oozy reflux treat in my face. I'm desperate for smiles these days!

We have packed away all her 0-3 month clothes and are starting to find more and more 3-6 ones that are getting too short. She continues to love to be sweaty and hot, which is a good thing for GA. Although I'm a little concerned for the cool WI nights during our trip home. She also is starting to really coo back and forth. Ana now when asked what does Taylor say, Ana responds with a "oooo, cooo" (this replaced her original response- "WAAAA". kinda sad when your 1 year old says that!)

On that note, Ana is doing great. She has had some fun visitors and is talking and singing up a storm. She is such a great big sister and now likes to put the NUK in Taylor's mouth when Taylor fusses...we're working on her asking mommy first (you can picture the site of Taylor screaming, Ana running in with the NUK, aim a little off...Taylor screaming.....you get it). She is learning a few spanish words and thinks she's too cool when saying hello and good bye in spanish.

Our latest visitor was my great friend (the maid of honor in our wedding) Jessica, and her son Jacob. Jacob is exactly one year older than Ana (He was born March 12th 2005) and the 2 of them had a BLAST.

Next week we head to WI and I can't wait. I will be there for 3 weeks and Justin will come meet me at the tail end for a week. Taylor will finally get to meet all her loved ones and be baptized with great Uncle Jack. It is sure to be a great month ahead of us. My only concern is how difficult leaving again will be.

Stay tuned for shots.

Grandpa Toson and Sherry

Justin's Dad and friend, Sherry, stopped by for a couple hours Thursday night on their way through town. Taylor got to meet her Grandpa Toson and once Ana warmed up to him she was thrilled to show off all her favorites: the "big pool", the "big park", the "wee chair" and many others. They shared pizza, ice cream and a great time. Thanks for stopping by. We can't wait to see you in WI.

Party til you drop-

Playtime for Daddy and his girls

Braving the Braves

The Atlanta Braves VS. The Milwaukee Brewers

The Brewers were in town so we took the girls for some good old fasion American entertainment. We weren't too sure what to expect and if Ana, whom decided to forego her normal nap, would be in Baseball heaven or hell. And with Taylor, one never knows.

The result was incredible. Ana LOVED it. She sat in her backpack the entire time taking everything in, participating in lifes greatest cheer, the wave, and clapped for both teams...such a good sportsman! But of course Ana was a true Brewer fan with her hat from Nina. Who ever thought she'd be sporting it at a Braves game!

Taylor is 2

Months that is

Here are the results:

Head Circumference - 15 inches (25%)
Weight- 11 lbs. 10 oz. ( 75%) AMY WINS!
Height- 23.25 inches (75%) Justin and Amy tie!

REFLUX: She is now on prevacid in the AM, but we are switching it to dinner time to see if that helps the night time spitups and screams.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: Right on track! Taylor is smiling and cooing away at us during play time. YEAH TAYLOR!

EATING: We are being advised to "train" her tummy to take full feedings in the middle of the night in lieu of the current mutiple snacks...AKA let her CRY IT OUT & eat more during the day! YIKES...not sure how good at this I will be.
I'm told to think short term sacrifice, long term gain.

MOTOR SKILLS: The doctor would like to see her gain more tummy strength. I think with all the fussiness and holding she is not getting on her tummy enough.

SLEEPING: Dr. Hempel hopes the next 2 months will bring more movement and thus an increase in sleep times. We shall see :) :)

So, while we don't have to put her through baby boot camp, as we did Ana, little Taylor Lorraine has her work cut out for her.

Mommy's Home

Were Ana's 1st words this morning when I came into her room to get her. Last night I went out shopping ALONE & for myself. Ana called me and we talked...she asked daddy for me, but went to bed without mommy. So, this morning she was quite happy to see that I was home and shared her excitement with me!

Nana regains Ana's eye!

This past weekend my mom (Nana) came to see Ana and family. She was feeling a little bad b.c over the past month Ana has had to many visitors that Nana was no longer her favorite...but that has been fixed. Nana is it again!!!!
We had a great time and stayed quite busy- the Zoo, Helen, Dahlonega....here are some shots:

Quiet & content

outside in the heat!

Putting self to sleep

While this only lasted 10 minutes. I was so proud of Taylor....she put herself from COMPLETE alertness to sleeping all by herself. Look at her

Ana Do

Is Ana's latest and greatest constant request. And, believe it or not...she actually can do most things by herself now, which is making our life a bit easier. Here she she is feeding herself applesauce, which we had ban for quite sometime due to both it's abilty to create a mess beyond messes and therefore it's need for constant adult (aka mom) intervention..Neither of which I have the time, nor patience for right now. But, now that Ana has graduated to feeding herself messy food with a spoon ( a BRAND new development) 2 of her favorites are back- yogort "yo yo" and apples sauce "apple sauce"

Watch my Smile grow

Here you see Taylor's happiest moments. She is having a ball playing with Mommy and watching my mouth. She really is getting more and more moments like these.

Taylor's First Zoo Trip

This weekend while Nana visited we braved Zoo Atlanta with the girls. Not sure what we were in for so anything was game! And, other than lunch being a little hectic with a daiper explosion and trying to feed ourselves and the girls it was smooth as can be.


Here is Ana seeing all of her favorites and Taylor soaking up the GA summer heat snuggled close to mommy. She couldn't be happier...and either could we!