Adventures in Gardening

BEFORE shot...April 15, 2008

AFTER shots- July 23, 2008
You've gotta LOVE the toothless Cabbage Patch Kid!


How great is this!?! When we planted our garden in April, we had two small Watermelon plants and were really hoping to yield a few fruits out of that. Little did we know that WATERMELON CAN TAKE OVER YOUR GARDEN, SIDEWALK, BACKYARD, etc...it's unreal! Good thing that the other plants next to it all died early on and there was plenty of room for it to grow. Unfortunately, there still aren't ANY Watermelons growing...!?! We're not sure what to do about that- any ideas out there? Here's a picture of Planting Day and another one from this morning-Hilarious...

Sisterly Love...

After about 5 months of life as a "Big Sister", Elise FINALLY wants to hold Ainsley and get pictures taken together. We've tried 100x, but to no avail until earlier this week. (I think, once again, it's the influence of 5 year old friend Kristina who LOVES Ainsley) and all of a sudden, Elise keeps asking us to put Ainsley on her lap, she spontaneously kisses and hugs her, etc...and it's so precious. Elise really is so tender-hearted. She gets sad very quickly if someone has an "owie" or if somebody around her seems upset. She's constantly hugging us, kissing us, hugging Gus, etc... I pray that gentle spirit and tenderness continues as she gets older.

Three good shots

Just thought I'd throw two quick pictures up that we took in the last week or so...both so cute. I'll post more later. I'm trying to finish painting a bathroom, clean the house, and prep the kitchen for the COUNTERTOPS to be replaced tomorrow morning! YEAH!

"big girl" Ainsley is now happily eating bananas, sweet potatoes, peas, and applesauce in addition to nursing! She LOVES food!
Elise STILL loves to play in the sink! On those days when I need to just stand still for a few minutes and "be ok with a mess", we pull her stool up to the sink, clean out the dishes, and let her go to it!
This was a little toy that she was working SO HARD to share with Madelyn F last week. I was proud of Elise...she loved the little doggy on a string, but was pretty good at letting Madelyn have a turn, too.

Pooping, Creeping, Sitting...all in a weeks' work

While Elise was working on potty-training all week, Ainsley has also hit some milestones in the last 10 days. At 5 1/2 months, she's able to hold herself up in a 'sit' position (after we place her there)-it's really more of a tripod with two legs and one hand propping herself. She loves to look around and see what Elise and Gus are doing, mainly. She's also started "creeping" - the little commando-crawl on her belly that precedes crawling. If a toy or book is just a few inches out of reach, she'll wiggle a few times until she can reach it! It's so cute. Yes, the picture below shows the Creeper in action- she got to Adam's shoe just in time to leave a healthy amount of spit-up in it for us. Hilarious!

ps-I didn't let her chew on the shoe very long...that's gross. But I had to get a picture of it first!

Overheard....

As the "Potty Week" draws to an end around the house, I'm ABSOLUTELY exhausted, but so thankful that Elise has totally gotten the hang of the potty- I haven't changed one of her poopy diapers since MONDAY morning 9am!! That's something to enjoy a glass of wine over. =) We've also had some VERY CONCENTRATED time together in the midst of that...leading to some of these comments:

Elise to Daddy during bathtime, "I had hard day, Daddy"

Elise to Mommy after nap today, "Mommy, my diaper hab tinkle". "That's ok, elise. You can tinkle in your diaper during naptime." "I know, Mommy. Big girls do dat, too"

After poopy on Thursday morning, she carried the 'training potty" to the bathroom to dump it, but first said, "Hi Poopy" as she walked.

As she left her breakfast to go potty, she turned back and held out a hand to the cereal, "Wait right here, cereal and nanas, I go potty now"

She's also taken to being very possessive of our family members, for example:
"I love My Ain-swee, mommy. She so pretty"
"There my Gus. He play wif me"

I know there are more, but those are the few that come to my mind right now. So funny. Coming into motherhood, I had no idea how much fun (AND SO HARD, some days!!) a two year old and another infant can be. I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Tourists, who us?

On Saturday while Erica F and Madelyn were here, we went into the Historic part of town and had a GREAT time just wandering around like tourists... we actually did get turned around at one point,

but still saw some AMAZING old-school architecture and gorgeous homes.



Ainsley and Madelyn were happy in their strollers for the 3 or 4 hours, just attracting attention from little old ladies wanting to "oohh" and "ahhh" at adorable babies. It was fun. Enjoy!

POTTY time!

Elise decided yesterday that she wanted to be potty-trained and she's doing it! After MONTHS of casually discussing the potty and all that goes with it, she finally agreed that it is a good idea to not wear diapers anymore. I wasn't prepared mentally or with the correct bribes in the house, but we made do. With ONLY ONE accident yesterday afternoon, she's used the potty almost 15 times in just over a day. Her first comment the first time she went #1, "oohhhh, mommy...it Yeyyow (Yello, with no "l" sound!)" . Funny that she hadn't made the connection that urine was yellow before. Her first #2 on the potty was this morning and that one makes me VERY HAPPY! Her comment, "woah. BIG One, Mommy." It was. With two suckers, new paints, several pairs of big-girl underwear, a glow stick, bouncy ball, a balloon, and strawberry smoothie as her rewards, she's LOVING this! She's so proud of herself and gets this fantastic look of BLISS everytime she starts to go....=) How fun.