A Warm Day in February

What do you do when the thermometer reads 40 degrees and it's sunny outside during the middle of a Chicago winter? You bundle up your two babies, load up your double stroller, get the dog and go for a walk in the park. So what if we had to dodge some icy patches on the path and people raised their eyebrows at me as we walked by. Cate was so excited to get outside and sat happily for the whole ride.

Timmy fell asleep and after we walked Zeke, we went to the playground. Cate had the place to herself and ran around, went down the slides and on the swings. It was a nice reminder that Spring will eventually arrive.

In other big news, Timmy officially rolled over, from back to front, today for the first time at five months and one day old!

Five Months Old

Our little Timmy will be five months old this week. He is getting SO big. He only wore six month clothes for a couple of weeks and has moved on to 9 month clothes now. He is such a sweet, happy little guy. He loves to coo and talk and snuggle. We thought that he was going to be one of those babies that we heard about who just knows how to sleep on his own...we were wrong about that. Although he does really well sleeping through the night and has for a long time, he has trouble putting himself to sleep on his own, so we are starting to really work on that and it is really hard but we are hoping for easier bedtimes in the near future!

When I was trying to take Timmy's picture, Cate kept trying to get in there and talk to him, tickle his feet, etc. so I finally let her "hold" him on her rocking chair. She is kind of a mess with peanut butter on her face and only one of her piggy tails in, but she loves her baby brother and thinks that if the camera is out, she should be holding him for the picture!

Cate at 5 months

First Pigtails!

Cate let me put her hair into two messy pigtails this morning. She looked at herself in the mirror and said, "oooohh". Very fancy.

Snowball Fight

Snow Storm

The snow has been falling all day here, so before dinner, I decided that since Grammy and Pop were here to watch Timmy, I would take Cate outside to play in the snow. Tim got home just in time and when he found out what we were doing, he changed his clothes right away to come out and entertain Cate in the snow. She laughed hysterically at the dog and loved watching us throw snowballs at each other. Tim would tell Cate to put her arms up in the air and then pelt her with a snowball...she thought that this was a riot.

Cooking with Mama

On Sunday I decided to make a cake with chocolate frosting. I have no interest in chocolate frosting from a can, but homemade frosting is worth the effort. I had Cate in her high chair and as I made the frosting, she played with spoons, spatulas and bowls. When I finally finished, I decided to give her one of the beaters because the frosting isn't very thick and so there wasn't much on the beater. I handed to it and she said, "ooooohhhh" and proceeded to find every last drop of chocolate. It was a yummy treat!

First Video

Uncle Dennis and Aunt Nadia sent us a Flip video camera for Christmas which was such a great gift. They are so easy to use. This is my first video upload because I tend to make the videos too long and then blogger won't let me upload them. I need to work on my editing skills but we have been using the camera a lot. I also need to work on remembering not to talk while I'm taking the video because it is really annoying to listen to your own voice!

Ok...after publishing this post, I can see that the video keeps stopping and it is really grainy. Any tips for uploading video from anyone out there?

Big Shoes to Fill

Cate is obsessed with shoes. She likes to open her closet and just say, "hi!!" to her shoes and she loves to wear our shoes as well. Here she is trying to walk around in her pajamas in Dada's huge gym shoes.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Grammy made her yummy chicken noodle soup last weekend and brought some over for us. Since dinnertime crept up on me as usual tonight, with Cate doing the sign for "eat" at 4:45, I decided to see if she would eat soup. I figured it's a good, easy choice for dinner for her because all of the food groups are right in one bowl. Usually when Cate eats, she likes to use at least one utensil, sometimes two just for the fun of it. Evidently, she likes to eat soup with her bare hands. She systematically ate the noodles, barley (not easy), carrots and chicken, in that order and then rejected all of the celery. She took one bite of each of the sweet potato fries that I made her then tossed the rest aside and when she was finished, she asked for a banana (or anana, as she calls them). She ate the whole thing. I would love to know what makes Cate decide to eat something on a given day and why she finds certain things so repulsive.

After dinner, I decided to give Timmy a bath and enlisted Cate's help since Daddy was not home yet. After I got his towel out, she emptied the whole drawer and brought all of his blankets into the bathroom with us.

I don't think that Timmy was the most relaxed during his bath with Cate hovering over him repeating his name over and over, but he didn't complain. He snuggled up afterwards in his froggy towel.

Luckily a few minutes after we finished with baths, Tim got home and whisked Cate downstairs so that Timmy could go to bed in peace!