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!

Four Months, Eighteen and a Half Months

Timmy will be four months old on Monday; he is getting so big so fast! He is such a sweet baby, as I type, he is cooing away at his blue light mobile in his crib. He loves to have someone to sit and just talk to him, he is a really good sleeper (most of the time) and is generally very good natured. He is rolling from front to back, doing little baby crunches in a futile effort to sit up and has almost gotten his thumb into his mouth. In the last few weeks, he has gotten very interested in Cate. He loves to sit and look at her, but she is usually on the move, taking care of her baby, so he doesn't get to look for long!

Cate, at 18.5 months has a lot to say...all the time. She babbles at us constantly and throws quite a few real words in too. Her favorite words, the ones you can always get her to say even if she doesn't feel like performing, are, "dada, TT (timmy) and mama" in that order. If you get her going, she will move on to others like, "guh (dog) meow, hi, bye-bye, car (said with a boston accent), sit, come, mimi (grammy), pop, and night night. She does a few signs as well, most importantly, please. It's her own variation, but it is much better than the grunting that she used to do when she wanted something. When we walk through Timmy's room to get to the playroom, she holds her finger to her lips and says, "SHHHH" just like I do. Then she proceeds to yell, "Hi Teeeee, Hi Teeee Teee!" as we pass by him sleeping in his crib. She likes nothing better than the chance to hold her baby brother, as you can see below!

Counting

Cate has so many new toys to play with, but after leaving her for a second to put Timmy in his crib, I found her playing her favorite game...counting barrettes. She loves to dump them all on the floor and then imitate the intonation of counting while she puts them all back in the bag. This can keep her occupied for 15 minutes.

C

A new look, a new name

I have finally started working on the much needed changes to this blog. I mean really, Timmy is 3 months old; he is sick of living in Cate's pink world. I'm not sure that I'm really happy with this new layout but it will have to do for the moment. I decided to keep the web address the same for the sake of simplicity, but change the title of the blog to include Timmy.

When I started this blog when Cate was born, I wondered whether or not I would keep it updated. I have found though that this is the easiest way for me to keep track of milestones and now that I have two babies, I really do not have time to keep up with a baby book...or two. I am hoping to periodically have this blog printed into some sort of book (on my long list of things to do) so that Cate and Timmy can look through it someday and not only see all of the pictures we took of them, but be able to read our thoughts on the events pictured. Thanks for reading with us!

Christmas and Sledding

It is really hard to take care of two babies and get great pictures at the same time. I'm kind of disappointed with our Christmas pictures this year, but oh well. We had a great day and tried to take some video of Cate and Timmy too.

My smiley little guy. He loves to sit and look at people. He just talks and coos until he's hungry or tired.

Cate in her adorable pink hooded vest from Aunt Mary. It is so warm and cozy and she didn't mind modeling it for us. Of course she was trying to let the two dogs in who were a nuisance while we were opening gifts.

Opening gifts with Daddy

Not a great shot, but she really loved this slide that we got for her. It's a good size for Cate. She loves slides and when we showed it to her after her nap, she went down a million times yelling, "Pie, pie pie pie" I guess that's sort of like slide...

Last night our friends, Tom and Allison, came over with little Elizabeth who is 2 1/2. We have a huge sledding hill right behind our house so the guys took the girls out. They came back with really chapped cheeks but had a good time anyway.

Cate's new snowsuit...it's a bit big... but ever since last night, every time I go to the closet to put her coat on, she wants the snow pants on too.

Breakfast with Santa

This past Saturday we took Cate and Timmy to see Santa and Mrs. Claus. We sat with our neighbors and their 2 year old daughter, Haley, and everyone had a good time, ate pancakes and colored pictures. Then it was time to take pictures with Santa.

Here's a picture of Cate on Santa's lap last year:

and here's a picture from this year:

I guess it would be scary to sit on some strange man's lap. She would have nothing to do with it. After Santa left, we got her to sit in the chair and hold Timmy for a few shots, but she was already mad.

The last Few Weeks

We had a great, relaxing Thanksgiving last week. It was so nice to have Tim home for four days and to be able to do a few fun things with the babies. Cate got to see the Christmas tree at my parents' house after her Thanksgiving nap. She just kept saying oooohh, ahhhh. We told her that it was hot and not to touch it....so far it's working. We decided not to put our tree up this year because Cate is just into everything and we have enough going on with the construction in the house.

Grammy bought Cate and Timmy the cute, matching Christmas pajamas in the picture, but getting a good picture of them is next to impossible. I thought of trying to use one for a Christmas card, but I've now moved on to a new plan.

Cate was very excited to hold Timmy, but Timmy never really feels the same way, so the expression on his face is not as adorable as it could be!

Christmas card photo attempt

Watching football with Pop

Attempt #2...doesn't Timmy look thrilled?

Admiring the tree

A visit from boyfriend Casey...I think that this was the only moment that Cate smiled during his entire visit...not one of her better mornings!

Morning Smiles

Timmy gave us his first smile about a week and a half ago at 7.5 weeks, but this is the first time I have been able to capture it. He slept well last night, about 7 hrs in a row, so he was in a great mood this morning. Cate thought that he was hilarious and kept "asking" to hold him. We let her hold him in her rocking chair and she just kissed him over and over and kept saying "Teeee Teeeee" which is her nickname for him and any other baby or doll that she sees.

At first, I didn't think that Cate and Timmy looked alike at all, but now that he is more expressive and a bit more filled out, I see glimpses of Cate in him every now and then. The last picture is of Cate at about 2 months. I can see similarities in their profiles although hers is still a lot chubbier than Timmy's!

Timmy's First Halloween

Halloween was pretty low-key around here this year. Timmy did get the day off to a great start though by sleeping for two 3.5 hour stretches last night! We put Cate's giraffe costume back on her and she didn't mind at all today. She never even pulled at the hood or fussed. She just put it on and ran around outside in the leaves. It was pretty chilly this afternoon, so Timmy stayed in the house, but he wore his festive pumpkin shirt from my friend Jamie.

As you can see, Cate was once again delighted with the chance to get to hold him and she cried when I picked him up again. She just kisses him and puts her face next to his and imitates the tone that we use when we talk to them. What cute Halloween pumpkins we have!

A Very Solemn Giraffe

This morning Cate, Timmy and I went over to Grammy's school for the Halloween parade. All of the preschoolers were dressed up and sang songs, so I thought that Cate should put her costume on too. She never cracked a smile the entire time, but she didn't really complain either. It was a pretty warm morning, so she might have been a bit hot in her giraffe costume. Timmy slept in his stroller the whole time. I didn't quite manage to get him dressed up; as it was, I was literally running around the house to try to get us all out the door since Cate slept until almost 9 this morning. Doesn't she make an adorable little giraffe?!

Fall Days

We have not had much Fall like weather around here, but the last few days have been nice. Yesterday my mom and I took Cate and Timmy out for a walk in the park with Zeke and afterwards, Cate had a great time playing in the leaves in the back yard. Here are a few shots of the day.

Whenever Cate sees Timmy in his stroller or in the crib, she says, "Hi hi hi hi"

All bundled up!

One Month Old

Baby Timmy is one month old today!  Here he is getting ready to watch the Hawkeyes beat the Badgers yesterday.

Then we decided to try to pose Cate and Timmy to take a picture for a birth announcement for him.  It's not easy to secure a one month old in the lap of an almost 16 month old.  Cate was so funny though because she was so excited to get to hold him.  This was the first time we let her try but since Timmy's arrival, she's been practicing with her dolls.  She was never really interested in dolls before, but now she carries them around the house, patting them on the back and kissing the tops of their heads.  She was more than happy to hug and kiss Timmy.  Of course she  threw in the occasional eye poke or head squeeze, but she was cute nonetheless.  Unfortunately, Timmy doesn't look very happy in most of these pictures so I don't think they'll make it to the announcement.  Thanks to Meredith for the adorable little outfit for him!

Relaxing After His Bath

Timmy is about three and a half weeks old and is getting big fast!  He is more and more alert during the day and seems to be taking in his surroundings.  Over the weekend, I thought that he had turned the  corner in terms of night sleep, he still woke up twice during the night to eat, but actually slept in between the feedings.  Last night was a setback as I'm pretty sure that he was up from 12-4:30 and then was up again at 6.  Let's hope he gets back to sleeping tonight!  Here are a few pictures of him just relaxing after his bath in his cozy dinosaur sleep sack from Grandma Diane.

Two Weeks Old

Timmy is two weeks old today!  I had started to think that he was settling into a good sleep pattern...just waking up around 2am to eat, but last night he woke up at 2 and stayed up until 6.  Hopefully tonight will be better!  Here are just a few pictures of the last few days.  Timmy spends most of his days bundled up, sleeping in his basinet or swing, so I don't have very many good pictures of him yet.  He's wide awake in the middle of the night, but I'm not really in the mood to get the camera out then!

Cate likes to say, "Hi hi hi" to Timmy when she sees him but also likes to give him a (really hard) pat on the head and push his swing...really hard.  She is definitely displaying some signs of jealousy and is having some trouble adjusting to having to share mommy and daddy.  Luckily, we have lots of help from Grammy, Pop and Grandma to ease the transition.