Craft time

Since she still eats crayons, we don't break them out often but every now and then she manages to use them the right way :)

Valentine's Day preview

Brace yourself for the sweetness

PJ storytime at the library

This morning the girls got to wear their PJs to a special storytime at the library where the Llama from "Llama Llama red pajama" visited. Maja was pretty excited to see Llama come in but wanted nothing to do with being close to her. Of course I manage to forget my camera but a friend had hers and I was able to snap a quick shot of Daddy with his girls

Somewhat decent family picture

It doesn't happen very often that we all make into the same picture these days so I had to share... it was on Jeff's birthday.

Maja got tired of picking her own nose...

Almost 18 months

So many times I have to stop and remember Maja isn't even 1.5 years old yet! She just seems so big and "with it".

Lately she has been into all sorts of fun things... forts and flashlights, putting cream on her face and jumping on the couch. She also can say "Go" as in "Go away" and we hear that quite often... it's kind of cute actually. Remember her pinching comfort thing? well now she does it to herself which is nice when we are driving and I can't reach her.
She loves to take us by the hand to show us what she wants and still eats crayons so we don't venture out into craft world much. She breaks into a dance every time she hears music and climbs on just about anything she possibly can.

She is just fun all around :)

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

We love you!!!

Dinner time is party time

What kind of Mom would I be if I couldn't hold my baby, dance with my toddler and make dinner all at the same time???

Maja and Isla's first show

This morning we went to see a really neat puppet show with black lights. Really cute. Maja sat through the entire thing and it was an hour long. Even Isla seemed to be watching it (I guess the lights were just easy to track for her). It helped that we had great seats and were right in the second row by the aisle so full view of the stage.

They have a few other shows coming up in the future so I think I'll look into getting more tickets

Maja loves her some Gaga

It takes less then a minute

to go from this:

to this:

Big eyes

Getting there...

She is making progress with feeding herself

Here we go...

Maja has learned to say "Go" as in "go away". Every time you attempt to do something to her she doesn't agree with like wiping her face, she will tell you to "Go". I'm not surprised... that's what we use a lot... we tell the dog to "go" when he starts begging for food (and he does that A LOT) and we tell Maja "go" when she is getting into places she shouldn't be.
It's actually kinds cute hearing her say it... she also gets that little angry look on her face where she scrunches her nose and just looks adorable.

In the last few days she has also been heard saying "no, no, no"... she doesn't seem to be saying it in the right context though. We rarely say "No" to her and keep that for when she is really about to do something bad like pull a knife out of an open dishwasher, otherwise we just say "ah-ah" and redirect her which really seems to be working well in terms of her behaving and listening to us when it really matters. But we do sometimes say "no, no, no" when we are playing around and I think she picked up on that one because when she says it now, it's when she is just goofing off on her own.

Right now she is being super cute but I bet it will soon become one of those "terrible 2s-please stop it" kind of things

Bubbles

Little Gym graduation

Maja is moving from being a Birdie to being a Beastie next semester. I took these pics on Wednesday but we went again today to see her friend Heatley get his medal and I have some videos coming but I'll leave that for another post :)

Maja's new favorite toys

These are so cute, aren't they?? when I came around them online, I couldn't not get the bee. Here's where I got them from.

Paci addict

Maja never really took to her paci until she was about 8 months old or so... at that point it really became a necessity for her since it was right around that time when I stopped nursing her until she was fully asleep. We pretty much only used it for nights/naps and the very occasional meltdown while out and about. And then we went to Spain... while on vacation, we really pushed her... we were up and out the door fairly early and rarely made it back for nap which means she had to snooze on the go and we also stayed out late because dinner time is usually around 9pm. Of course we ate out every single night too and poor Maja wasn't too fond of that. However, we quickly realized that is she had her paci, she was good to go. So she pretty much spent the entire trip with a paci in her mouth... so much for trying hard on keeping up the limits.
When we got back to the US we started working on weaning her off it and managed to get back to the night/nap only routine but then Isla arrived and started using paci so Maja regressed back to square one. We didn't even try to fight it... it didn't seem fair so we let her have it.
Now that Isla is a bit older and Maja understands which pacis belong to her (they each use a different kind) we are able to make progress again. For nights she gets one paci for her and then her bunny who sleeps with her gets to hold the two extra ones. It's really cute to see her go up to him and give him her pacis. Also at night when she wakes up, she knows exactly where to go (we have a video monitor so i can see her looking around for her bunny).
At times we still let her have it at home but we try not to and she is pretty good about understanding it's only for occasional use. It looks like we are on the right road and won't end up with a 4 year old who still takes a paci :)

Isla smiling

Isla's 2 months stats

Weight 12lbs 6oz
Height 24.5 inches

Big girl :)

Sisters

They love each other so much. Isla turns her head in Maja's direction every time she hears her talk and Maja won't stop kissing and loving on Isla. If while out and about one of my friends wants to hold her, Maja will not leave their side as if she is watching out for Isla. They are adorable together... here's hoping it stays that way through their teenage years. Probably not, right??

Happy 2 months Isla!

and just to refresh your memory, this is a pic of Maja at exactly 2 months old

8 things about Isla @ 8 weeks old

I can't believe I'm slacking so much on the second kiddo... I guess it's true what they say right?? but you always think it won't happen to you

So here we go:
- she loves being kissed on the cheeks and that's when you can get the biggest smiles out of her

- she is very particular about how she likes to be carried and doesn't like to be in the "laying" position

- she has been reaching and grabbing her toys on the playmat

- like Maja at this age, she is a once-a-week kind of pooper... it's nice not having to change so many messy diapers

- she is a great sleeper... goes down at 6:30pm and only wakes up 3 times to eat before 9am. Usually around 1am, then 4am and around 7am.

- unlike Maja she thinks of nursing only as source of food not for comfort and prefers to snuggle up to someone and be patted on the back for that

- when she sleeps, she likes to turn her face into a blanket or one of the plush animals in there. She will wiggle around until she finds something she can bury her face in

- she is very laid back and not really fazed by much... Maja could be crawling all over her and bonking her in the head and Isla doesn't mind at all

Can't leave the girl alone for a few minutes!!

I was in the living room nursing Isla and after a few minutes of Maja being suspiciously quiet in the kitchen I went to check on her and the little stinker had gotten into the trash and was making a huge mess (I'm still wondering how she managed to keep it THAT quiet!). I guess she must have been hungry cause she was licking the empty yogurt container. Man, now thinking of it, I should have taken a picture!!

Here's a picture of the little troublemaker later on in the afternoon... she was eating pretzels and attempted to feed them to Isla. Very nice of her to share but Isla wasn't exactly pleased with pretzels up her nose and in her eye and mouth. I finally ended up getting her to share her snack with the dog which he happily accepted

This is what happens when you don't childproof your kitchen!

I opened one of the cabinets the other day and this is what I found:

Do you know how long she must have been working on this??? I've never seen her bring the blocks to the kitchen in bulk so it happened one by one!

Babywearing

I've been experimenting with different carriers and it looks like I found the perfect fit for Isla... she loves it and falls asleep within minutes. Today she slept in there for 1.5 hrs while I was making and then eating dinner. The only reason why she even woke up was when I took her out so I could change her and put her to bed :)

And here's what we have for Maja... a friend let me borrow this ring sling for our trip to Spain and I loved it so much that after returning back home I tracked down the person who made it for her on Etsy.com and lo and behold she had one more piece of that fabric left (my friend bought hers over a year ago!) I've tried other ring slings but none felt good and this particular fabric (it's all about the fabric!) worked wonderfully for us plus it's cute :). This is a picture of Maja zonked out in the middle of Madrid and another of us up on the Wall in Avila... we used it daily and she spent a LOT of time in it. When the new sling arrived right before Christmas (2 months after the Spain trip) and I pulled it out of the package, the first thing she wanted to do was get in it... how cool that she remembered it? she obviously really liked it too

Project "Isla's room" is underway

Better late then never but I'm finally getting my hands on it. Most of the painting is done and I just have to do the trim by the ceiling. We chose a really pretty peachy type orange and it looks awesome in that room.
Isla is doing so great sleeping that I think she is ready to be on her own. I think Maja's video monitor actually bugs her in our room so she will enjoy the peace and quite of her own space. We have another video monitor for her too so my usual paranoid self will be able to sleep at night knowing I can just open my eyes and know what's going on with each of them :).

While you wait for pics of the room, I leave you with this little beauty

Maja's new word

She can say "hat"... Isla's new hat came in the mail today (so stinking cute, just wait for pics!) and as I was putting it away, Maja followed me and began pointing at her head saying "hat, hat, hat".

Boy she learns so freaking fast!

She is also big on animal sounds. So far she can make the noises for:
- monkey
- elephant (her favorite)
- duck
- lion/bear (they both sound the same, haha)
- dog
- cow

Check out her head control!

Talking to Daddy

Maja's "whatcha talkin bout willis" face (in her defense, she does have a mouth full of apple)

Go, Pack, Go!

Isla rooting for her Pack while having a little snack (Daddy doesn't do so bad with the camera if you get him all set up, doesn't he?)

A funny fact about Isla and her birthday

Do you guys know who Isla Fisher is?? If not, here's some info.

Anyway, after seeing her in a few movies her name stuck and quickly became an option for Pinto... in fact, we never really considered other names... "Isla" was the first and all others never made the list because they weren't "good enough" compared to that one. As you know, our decision was kept secret until the birth.

Isla was born almost a week late and the day of, a friend of ours from our playgroup had given birth to her son two weeks early. She named him.... Fisher! she had also kept quiet about her choice.

Isn't that a funny coincidence? I took the first name and she took the last and both kids happened to be born on the same day

And here's a snapshot from yesterday... isn't she getting big??? almost 2 months old!!!

Happy New Year!!

Ok, one of my New Year resolutions will be keeping up with this blog! I officially commit to posting something everyday... even if it's just a picture or short comment

So... today's post is about Maja being 17 months and here are a few new things about her:

- she is now sleeping in her big girl bed!! It actually wasn't a planned thing... we drove to Millwaukee to buy a crib for Isla and while at the baby store, we saw this adorable little toddler bed and well... we ended up bringing it home with us. The crib is still in Maja's room "just in case" plus Isla's room is nowhere near ready but for 2 weeks now, Maja has been using her toddler bed.
So far so good, surprisingly from day one she did great and the only issue was a couple of days this week she'd wake up at 6 am and wouldn't want to lay back down in her toddler bed so I put her in the crib and she went back to sleep until 8am both times. Since then, I'm able to just put her back down in her own bed.

She likes to sleep with her baby and her bunnies. One of the bunnies sits in the corner and holds her extra pacis so she knows where tp find them if she wakes up at night.

And what's more amazing about it too is that she officially puts herself to sleep now. Both in the middle of the night (she has been doing that for about a month) and when going down. She gets her kiss, lights out, music on, paci in and Mommy leaves. She doesn't try to get out, she doesn't cry and peacefully drifts off to sleep. 

-  she learns new words incredibly fast... it's amazing how much she understands and what she can communicate between signing and speaking. She calls her doll Zizzy (her actual name is Lizzy) and she can say "sister" although that sounds like "tister"

- She loves to run really fast and jump and building with blocks is still her favorite activity

- She is showing interest in using the spoon and fork (the right way... she has been using them as drumsticks for months) although for the most part we still feed her

Happy 17 months baby!