Long overdue update part II: Miss Anna Lorraine

Our Anna is doing her usual awesome self these days and keeps growing and changing like crazy!! She now weighs 17 lbs. 4 oz. and will turn 6 months ON Thanksgiving....wow! She will try her first food so expect a fun post about that adventure! Anna is now 4 lbs. behind her brother at this age...she's our dainty little girl! She may be moving on to her convertible car seat soon...due to height not weight! We'll see at her 6 month appointment as she becomes too long at 30 inches!

Anna continues to nurse well, drink from a bottle well when I am at work, chill well, and overall, sleep well. She is still doing her 30 minute cat naps throughout the day and wakes several times at night, but as we all know, I am used to that! She sleeps SO much better than Eli did so I'm happy :) She rolls front to back & back to front without issue and loves to play with her rings & blocks. Not sure if I mentioned this, but she now has TWO teeth with more on the way, I am sure. Yikes!

She loves to be held and I bought a new ring sling to add to my collection of baby carriers. So far it is my favorite because it is adjustable and versatile. Love the fabric, too! Research can't say enough good things about babywearing, so I try to often. Babywearing is especially helpful when out & about and is a godsend for weary back & arms :)

Now for some adorable pics of our sweet Anna!

Some bling for our princess:

Anna likes to bathe in the Bumbo...it is awesome! She splashes with her hands and loves the water...yay!:

Anna meets Mr. Elmo!:

Is this how daddy ALWAYS gives Anna her bottle?? :)

Now this is entertainment:

One evening, Eli & I found it funny to dress Anna up in a variety of hats. She could have cared less!:

Anna is working hard at learning how to sit up all by herself! She isn't there yet, but she's getting close!!:

Watching the dancing trees:

A lesson in leaves:

And a little video:

Long overdue update part III: Mission Re-Organization

Those who know me know that I like organization and even better....RE-organization!! I just naturally look at rooms and imagine where things might look better and come up with a plan to get things "just right". I seem to go in little phases of this. Some may call it nesting, but it matters not if I am pregnant (which I am not :)! Anyway, being on a budget makes this more difficult, as I also imagine what fun things I could BUY to put in the room, but still fun nonetheless.

So, since we got an awesome deal on Groupon to get our carpets cleaned (which EVERYONE should sign up for...there are some awesome deals!), I decided what better time to RE-organize! My other motivation was that Anna will be mobile within a few months and I knew our toys needed a better, crawling-baby-friendly system...not to mention that we have a boy & a girl so there will need to be some way to separate boys & girls toys, to a certain extent at least. I am sure both will play with eachother's toys, but I can only imagine some of the future bickering among the two if there isn't some separation. At least that is my hope :)

In the living room, we re-arranged furniture and bought additional toy storage bins and shelves that not only are great storage, but look awesome, too! I also put all the "paper" books in Eli's room and left all the board books in the living room so Anna could have access to them, too:

This room is hard to arrange furniture in but this is by far the best. We even have a functioning end table which we haven't had for years as it was always hidden behind the couch:

Anna can gaze out the window as she jumps:

In Eli's room, we moved the toybox from the living room and his bed to the opposite side of the room. More play space now (not much, but a little) and toys are more accessible, too:

Our hall bath has always been neutral and no "theme" to speak of. As Eli is getting older, and now with Anna, I thought we should give it a "kid" theme, but I wasn't sure what. When Grandpa Bidney gave Eli his own sailboat for the bath, we decided that an ocean theme would be fun and gender neutral. Grandma Bidney helped get us started and bought some fun ocean items. I hope to find some cute ocean theme towel hooks, too:

Along the same idea of change, I made a big one and decided to venture into cloth diapering with Anna. We have been lucky enough to last almost 6 months with diapers that were gifts for Anna...wow, huh?! Eli is still not potty trained, and so the thought of buying diapers for TWO, kinda freaked me out. I have several friends who cloth diaper and to be honest, it always intimidated me. With Eli I was too overwhelmed with being a new mom to even consider the venture. But after researching it, I have found that the cloth diapering world is super easy, super fun, and SUPER CUTE!!! Long gone are the days of diaper pins and essentially they work the same as disposables, you just toss them in the wash instead of the trash!! So, all you mamas considering cloth diapering, give it a try...you'll see how cost effective, easy, and hey, environmentally friendly it is!! Now at our house you see a lot of this:

Lastly, I am proud to announce that after FOUR years of living in this house, we have FINALLY become a recycling household...geez...took us long enough, huh?!:

Have a great one!

Halloween & Trip to Iowa

First off, I would like to announce the arrival of my niece, Miss Katelynn Marie Bidney! She was born 10/26/10 and we were able to meet her last weekend! She is a doll and doing very well for her mommies :) It is amazing that Anna was once that tiny...in fact Eli & Katelynn had the same birth weight and I REALLY can't believe HE was that small once!! Anyway, here are pictures:

Eli meeting his cousin:

He has good practice holding babies from his sister!:

Uncle Eric and Katelynn:

The mommies :)

WOW....5 months difference is amazing! Anna was really into Miss Katelynn and vice versa. They will be forever playmates, I'm sure:


What is also great about having a girl cousin 5 months apart is Anna gets to play with all her toys first! We got to bring this one home with us and Anna loves it!!:

Most of our time was spent trying to make sure Sarah & Steph only had one thing to focus on: Katelynn! We also were able to visit with Grandpa & Lola. Unfortunately we don't get to see them often enough!! Here's pictures from our visit with them:

Pretending it is raining with Lola. Eli is all about pretend play these days!:

Watching "The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" with Grandpa:

Anna chillin' and trying on her winter hat at Grandpa & Lola's:

Now on to Halloween! Eli's preschool had a little concert and Pumpkin Party which was too cute. Here's a clip from the concert....is Eli a little ADD or what?!?:

Waiting patiently for snacks:

Anna had to wear her costume, too! Can you tell she is a bunny?:

Yummy!:

In Iowa, they trick-or-treat on Saturday so that it is not on a school night....smart, huh? So, Eli got to go TWICE!!! What a lucky boy.

Mr. Spiderman with Aunt Sarah & Katelynn:

Aunt Holly dressed up for trick-or-treat fun, too! What a cool aunt!:

Here comes Spiderman!:

He's a natural trick-or-treater...not a shy bone in his body!:

Oooo....scary!:

And we made it home just in time to go out in our neighborhood. We have a lot of older, retired people in our neighborhood who adore Eli. It is great that he is so loved in our neighborhood!:

Our neighbor, Peggy, giving Spiderman a hug...

...and some candy

One of Eli's best buddies is Ed. He loves seeing Eli & so we made sure to go to his house!:



Miss Anna enjoying the ride:

Eli & his buddy, Lance:

In other quick news, Anna is getting her SECOND tooth, right next to her first! She also weighed in at 16 lbs. 13 oz. on Monday....Eli was 20 lbs. at her age!! Phew! She is loving her bumbo & jumperoo and can sit for very short periods of time with the boppy around her before she topples over. Hehe!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!