Teeth, the sickies and scooting around.

Logan has both bottom front teeth breaking through! You can barely feel sharp little points. Isabel finally got her canines in. Those were tough. I think part of her biting was/is from teething. Logan is also trying to scoot around and is very interested in trying to pull up on things. He's not content just sitting on the floor. He needs constant interaction and stimulation.

Isabel and Logan have both been sick for a couple of weeks. I thought they were both well on the way to being fine, but Isabel came down with a fever. We saw the doctor today and got on an antibiotic for a suspected sinus infection.

A 2 word sentence! Logan starts on solid foods

Yes, we had a 2 word (prompted) sentence from Isabel. She said "Bye Brother." It was pretty cute. She now says "hi" and "bye" with a southern accent. It's ridiculously cute. We really need to get it on video.

Logan has his 6 month checkup a couple of weeks late on Friday. Oh.My.God. What a mess. I was there with Logan and Isabel for almost 2 hours. Jesus. It made me want to switch doctors. We were seen by Logan's doctor within 20 minutes of our appointment, but we had to wait an HOUR to get his vaccinations. I finally opened the door to the back hall hoping to see a nurse and ask to reschedule the vaccine visit because both kids had had enough. Instead I saw Dr. Frank who asked if I had been helped yet. I told him "not yet" and closed our door. I heard him chew out his staff. I must say, I was pretty happy that he found it unacceptable as well. That may have been the only this keeping me with the practice. After getting profuse apologies from the nurse about the delay we were told that they would call me with Logan's thyroid and PKU test results. These were the tests we had done at 2 weeks of life. I got a call from the nurse saying that everything was normal, but at Logan's 2 month appointment Dr. Frank couldn't find the results. I didn't think too much of it because we also paid for the extended newborn screen which included the thyroid testing and that came out normal, but I was pretty pissed that they still didn't have the TX screen results in his records. I was told they would give me a call after they talked to the Tx Dept of Health. No call back on Friday. Let's just say that we better get a call tomorrow. I reiterated to Dr. Frank that Vivian had hypothyroidism and was a bit concerned about Logan's weight gain, but he was very reassuring and said he's proportionate and that I shouldn't worry. If they can't find the results (and they better pray that they can) we'll definitely be retesting this week.

Logan started eating peas this week. He seemed to like them ok. We'll continue to introduce veggies once a week for a while and see how he does. So far, so good!

The Yuans visit, Thanksgiving and sitting up

We welcomed Mark, Chelsea and Elizabeth back to Austin for a visit the weekend before Thanksgiving. We had a great time eating BBQ, playing with the babies and catching up. Chelsea and Allyson even got to go out to see a movie! Elizabeth is a super sweet girl. She was getting over a cold, but was still super laid back. She had great hairdos and I tried to comment on her pretty bows hoping that Isabel would want to wear some, but that didn't work out. Here is Izzy giving Elizabeth a kiss and the girls climbing the stairs.





Logan has been sitting up without crashing for longer and longer periods of time. I put the bobby behind him and he'll sit for a long time before falling back or to the side. I wouldn't call him a complete unassisted sitter yet, but he's almost there!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving in Houston with Grandma, Grandpa, Grammy, Papaw, Uncle Greg, and Aunt Jennifer. The drive over wasn't TOO bad. We've been testing out different departure, feeding, nap times, etc hoping that we can get a combination that equals the least amount of screaming by the fewest number of people. So far no matter what we do Logan always seems to scream for at least 1/3 of the trip. Luckily Isabel has become a pretty good passenger. We ate a yummy turkey that took only 2 hours to cook in Grandma's convection oven, mashed potatoes, biscuits, green bean casserole, corn casserole, and lots of other goodies. Isabel really enjoyed the turkey and corn and ate almost everything we gave her. She even reached over and took the corn casserole off of my plate. Logan relaxed and had a little nap while we ate.

Turkey:






Friday morning Brian and I headed out at 5am to do some shopping. We got a LOT. Brian was not a good shopper and got cranky. I think when the lady at Baby Gap raises her eyebrows and gives you a look like 'wow, sorry you have to deal with THAT' it's time to go home. So I took Brian home and picked up Grandma and Grandpa for more shopping around 9am. I got almost all of my shopping done!

Saturday was Vivian's birthday and Brian and I released a few balloons and had spaghetti for dinner. The drive back to Austin was miserable. Logan screamed for 1.5 hours straight. I even crammed in the back seat for the last 2 hours of the trip and even that didn't help. That kid REALLY hates the car. As soon as we got home and he got out of the car her was super happy again.

Oh yeah, we also watched the Aggies BTHO t.u.! Thanks to Grammy and Papaw for the cool new A&M shirts.

My little elf:


Logan riding Fargo:

6 months! China! Grandma! Santa!

Logan is now 6 months old! His appointment isn't for another couple of weeks, so I decided to put his credentials into the growth chart calculator and get his percentiles. He weighs 14lbs 12 ounces by the doctor's office scale) and is 27 inches long (by mom's measurement). This puts him at 5-10th percentile for weight and 50-75th percentile for length. He's long and lean. After losing a bit of weight a couple of weeks ago he put on a pound in 10 days. I started supplementing with formula at night and just got my brand new amazing pump in the mail. Yay! Hopefully I'll be able to pump and give him breast milk at night rather than stinky formula. If not, it's not the end of the world. He just won't be as smart. Just kidding. :) The doctor wasn't concerned about his weight loss and didn't suggest supplementing, but I'm not used to these skinny babies and decided I would feel better if he gained some weight. Logan has seen the doctor for a little abscess on his bottom. If it doesn't get cleared up by next week we're off to see the dermatologist.

Daddy has been in China for the past 9 days. We're anxious for him to come home. Grandma has been here the entire time and has been a HUGE help! I would be committed by now if she wasn't here! I even got my hair done last week. Nice!

Isabel is still chugging along. We attempted to see Santa yesterday. It was pretty funny. I'll try and get the pictures scanned in and posted. Here are a couple before we left.

Jump! and blowouts

Isabel jumped for the first time this week! She's been trying for a long long time, but finally managed to get some air under those feet. It was so cute when she realized that she had done it. She was very proud of herself and was excited that we made such a big deal about it.

We went shopping today and had a nice morning at the mall. Of course I pushed it about 10 minutes too long, but it was fine. We decided to use the infamous G card and went to Waterloo for 1/2 price burgers. After we ordered I noticed a nice odor. Sure enough, Isabel had another one of her more interesting moments in her pants. I picked her up to change her and got a little....wet on my arm. Gross. I had an change of clothes in the diaper bag, so grabbed those and headed to the bathroom. I have never seen so much poop on a little girl in all my life. It was up her back to her neck. No joke. I gave her a bath in the sink and changed her. My shirt was so gross that I had to wash it out in the sink as well. As we were finishing up and washing our hands this lady walks in, turns right around and walks out. I hear her say "let's just go somewhere else." Ha! I don't think she appreciated the awesome smell that my 18 month old produced. Had we not ordered margaritas I think we would have just asked for boxes and headed home, but we weren't about to waste those $3 drinks! Turns out the service was pretty terrible and we couldn't get the check even if we wanted to. Isabel got a nice mid day bath when we got home. :)

Hello again doctor!

Let's see if we can get one week that goes by without seeing the doctor. Not likely anytime soon. We hit up Dr. Frank twice this week, have to go back on Monday and then have to go back the following weekish for Logan's 6 month check up. Monday we had the infamous 'finger incident' and yesterday I noticed some odd looking crap on Logan's booty. He's been especially unhappy this week and was up every 1.5-2 hours last night so I decided to take him in to get the boil checked out and make sure his ears are clear. Ears are fine, but the boil needs antibiotics and got cultured. Nice. I noticed that he's lost a little bit of weight, but the doctor completely dismissed my concern and says he's doing just fine. Part of me thinks maybe he should take my concerns more seriously, but the other part of me says that I worry too much anyway and is glad that he isn't pushing formula. I'm sure I'll bring it up at his 6 month checkup again.

Since Logan isn't sleeping much (hardly at all) during the day the house is an absolute disaster. Getting it thoroughly cleaned is at the very top of the to-do list for the weekend. I ordered the new Christmas tree online, so we don't have to try and hit up all of the stores this weekend in search of the perfect tree. I do have lots of birthday presents to get, so I'm sure we'll spend at least a little bit of the weekend shopping. The Circle C Christmas lights are hung! I can't wait for them to be turned on!

Halloween! and finger drama

It's time for another picture to send to Aunt Jenn!





We had a great time trick-or-treating Sunday night! We spend the day beautiful day in Fredricksburg with Grandma and Grandpa. Brian and Grandpa went to a museum for about 3.5 hours while Grandma and Allyson walked around. Isabel did pretty well until the end of the day when she got very tired. Logan didn't sleep much, but was ok if he was being held. I've decided that it takes at least 3 adults to shop with the kids. You need 1 adult/kid plus one adult for stroller duty. I think Brian appreciated some adult time to look at the war museum. One day Allyson will get her time....one day. Just kidding.....but not really.

When we got home at 6pm there were already kids out trick-or-treating. Since I didn't want to buy candy early and end up eating it I rushed off to HEB to get candy. They were OUT of the bagged candy. I had to spend $$$ on the nice full-sized stuff. We had some very happy trick-or-treaters at our house! Isabel was a very adorable flower. Another great costume by Grandma! She was pretty excited to pick out her candy and put it in her bag. She was really getting into it and was even acting like the super scary house across the street was no big deal until she saw the ghost lady with beady eyes that swayed. I carried her up to the 'witch' to get candy and the witch gave her a lollipop, so she was once again content and was digging Halloween. Logan dressed up in the skunk costume and looked ridiculously cute.







Yesterday at school I got a call from the director. I was thinking 'oh no, she's done it now. I wonder how many times she bit today.' I was wrong. She got her finger pinched in the back side (the side with the hinges) of a door. Apparently it was pretty bad and they had to open the door to get her finger out. I rushed over there to pick her up and found her pretty upset but letting Ms. Nicole put ice on it. I got her in the car and gave her a juice box and she seemed to be doing better, but the finger looked bad so I called and got an appointment to see the doctor. The doctor said he can't really tell by looking at it, but wanted us to get it x-rayed if she was still having a hard time by Wednesday. It still looks pretty bad, but Izzy is moving it and doesn't seem to be too bothered by it, so I'm going to skip the x-ray this time. All of her teachers called to see how she was doing and felt very bad. Brian said it was some form of baptist corporal punishment for her biting. Sometimes Brian is mildly funny.

Rice Cereal

Saturday to mark Logan's 5 month birthday we tried out some rice cereal. He wasn't a huge fan, but did better than Isabel (who just spit it out) did. We fed it to him around 5pm or so and he slept pretty well Saturday night. I remember when we added rice cereal to Isabel's diet it didn't make any difference with her sleeping habit, so I wasn't expecting much and was pleasantly surprised. When we gave Viv rice cereal there wasn't any difference because she was 7 months and was already sleeping through the night. Maybe the rice cereal will help Logan pack on some lbs too.

We had a fun weekend in The Woodlands. Brian and I were able to hit the spa twice and actually got to run together Sunday morning. We checked out the parade of homes in Woodforest and got a few pumpkins. Isabel was having an off day yesterday, so she was a bit fussy at the pumpkin patch. I wanted to get home early since we didn't get to The Woodlands until after 9pm Friday night and Izzy didn't get to bed until after 10pm. I think Sunday she was still recovering from the upset to her schedule. She did great on the ride home and was in bed at 7:15am and woke up at 8am!

Logan screamed for 2 hours on the ride home despite stopping to feed/change him. He just really hates the car. Viv and Izzy were the same way, so hopefully he'll grow out of it. I'll try to post pictures when/if I get them from my dad. We brought our camera but didn't use it this weekend.

Sleep Deprivation

I know why sleep deprivation is used to torture terrorists. Holy crap. We aren't getting any sleep around here and man is it tough. I have no idea how Logan can be up for hours upon hours with just a 20 minute nap or no nap at all. It's insanity. Someone (Allyson) has to hold him almost all the time. He'll tolerate the exersaucer for a few minutes at a time. If Izzy is hanging out with him he'll watch her on the floor, but she likes to try to roll him around, so we have to be very careful. Anyway, it's tiring. I do love the Ergo though. It's allowed me to get out of the house.

Yesterday was a particularly tough day since I had a doctor appointment way up North and Isabel is sick, so I couldn't send her to school. I had to call Brian for help. What was supposed to be a quick appointment turned into a 2 hour ordeal with unexpected testing. Having a mammogram while breastfeeding is not that much fun. Everything is A-OK though. Isabel started running a fever yesterday and has a gross nose, but other than that she seems ok. Tylenol and lukewarm baths make her feel better. She's been sick for 8 days, so hopefully she'll be better today and tomorrow before we head to Houston. Logan was running a fever a couple of days ago, but has been fine otherwise.

Isabel is really trying to say new words now. She says 'brofer' for brother, mama, dad, bird, ball, da (dog), mill (milk), and yesterday she said 'yellow' clear as day when Brian asked her what color her ball was. She says uh-oh all.the.time. Whoever taught her that one needs to be shot. EVERYTHING is 'uh oh.'

I think I might pull out the doorway jumper for Logan and see if he'll sit in that today. For some reason I think it might end up with Izzy trying to launch him in the air like a slingshot. Watching her rock Logan in the swing is pretty entertaining. Logan's eyes get huge and he goes a little white until I rescue him from almost doing a full circle around the bar. Kidding.

Big Bug and Tiny Bug's Doctor visits

Today Isabel had her 18 month appointment (right on time) and Logan had his 4 month appointment (3 weeks late). Both are doing great. Isabel weighed in on the big girl scale, so no more undressing her! She's 28lbs which puts her up in the 90 percentile for weight and 32 inches long which is about 60th percentile. Isabel's hemangioma (benign blood vessel tumor) is shrinking, but the doctor will have us see a dermatologist when she's 2 if it's not gone. He said they can inject steroid shots to shrink it. Ew. That does not sound pleasant. We'll have to think about if we really want to do that seemingly cosmetic procedure. I'm sure she would thank me when she's 13 and wearing her hair in a ponytail if we decide to have it done. I'm getting a little fond of the spot myself, so we'll see. We have at least 6 months to think it over.

Logan weighed in on the baby scale at a whopping 14lbs. Yes, you read that correct, 14lbs. That makes him in about the 10th percentile for weight. His length was 25 inches which is about the 25th percentile. What happened to our humongous baby?! I guess his 'gooch' nickname isn't appropriate anymore. He might be an attacking mid or striker now instead of a sweeper or stopper. :) Izzy is still solid defense! We got a prescription for 1.5% cortisone cream and some more eye drops. Hopefully his little tear duct will open up before his 6 month check otherwise we get to see a baby ophthalmologist

Isabel had to sit in the 'principal's office' and think over why it's not ok to bite friends. I guess she was hugging her friend and decided to chomp on his cheek. Great. Let's hope she doesn't get kicked out of preschool.

I won't bore you with stories about how Logan isn't sleeping. We'll just say he's not a good sleeper. At all. And leave it at that.

October 1st already

Wow, I can't believe it's October. Less than 3 months until Christmas! If it were up to me I would decorate for Halloween and then just skip over the whole Thanksgiving business and go straight to decorating for Christmas. Oh, how I love Christmas decorations. There's just something about the twinkling of colored LED lights that makes me smile. I even bought 2 packages of the C9's that we need to finish off the outlining of our flower beds at Costco a couple of weeks ago. As we learned last year after going to about 38 stores in search of the elusive C9 LED's, you have to get 'em when you see 'em! Our search for a new Christmas tree on clearance after Christmas failed last year, so we're getting one EARLY this year. I wanted to get one last weekend and put it up, but Brian said no. What a humbug.

In kid news Isabel is still super cute, but had a little pinching incident at school on Wednesday. Apparently she went around pinching kids and I guess got someone near the eye pretty good. Oops. She was probably trying to get more pizza as it was pizza day. Other than that she's doing great. She does love her sleep and gets super cranky if she's up before 8am. Yesterday she was up at 7:30 and it threw the entire day off.

Logan is sleeping a little better at night without the swaddle, but still kicking my ass during the day with his no-tiny naps. It's not a break if you only sleep for 20 minutes at a time kid! He's getting up 2-3 times at night, but Brian and I are still dragging out butts out of bed to workout in the terrible 5am hour.

I have a little project I'm working on that I'll post a picture of later on or this weekend. I'm going to take a picture of Logan and Isabel next to a sign and possibly a stuffed animal of some sort each month and send it to Aunt Jenn in Africa. I think it'll be neat to see how they grow each month. I really want this to take the pictures with:

It's a pastel critter chair from Pottery Barn Kids if certain Grandparents are reading. Christmas...hint hint.

Rolling over!

Logan rolled over unassisted back to tummy yesterday! Unfortunately he was trying to get a better look at the TV. Sesame Street was on and I guess he likes Elmo! He's been super smiley lately and has been sleeping a bit better. He still needs assistance at night 3-4 times, but he's only nursing once. Nice break for Mommy.

I bought these Extra Protection Pampers diapers because I had a coupon for them to use on Izzy. She needs 'night' or 'extra protection' at night. I had been using Huggies with good success and only getting leaks 2-3 times a month. Well, Pampers suck. They leaked each of the 4 nights I tried them. Not only did they leak, but a couple of times they exploded getting this white gel crap all over Izzy. It was so gross. I was having to give her baths in the morning. We actually had this problem with other Pampers regular diapers before and stopped using them. The Pampers Swaddlers for newborns are great though. Anyway, I emailed the company and they're sending me a $19.79 refund check! How great is that? It actually makes me want to buy other products from them. See what good customer service will get you?! I guess diaper and formula companies are huge on customer loyalty and will do anything to get you to start using their products. Formula companies practically beg you to get hooked on their stuff.

Ok, I deleted my breastfeeding vent because I sounded like a lacto-nazi. Here's a picture of Logan after he rolled over (and after I turned him back over).

Sleep Logan, Sleep!

Logan has been having lovely sleep regressions lately. It started with his naps and has moved into his night time sleep. Usually he's pretty good about sleeping at night and only waking up once to eat. It's been getting slowly worse and last night he was up almost every hour. Boo. Brian can swaddle him so that his arms stay in, but he's been really fighting the swaddle. I must not have the technique down because he always gets out of my swaddles. His 'naps' consist of several 15-40 minute sleeps during the day with lots of paci replacing. He must be exhausted, but just won't sleep for long stretches. We have our first baby playgroup today, so maybe I'll get some advice from other moms with new babies.

Isabel is doing great. She picked up 'uh oh' at school and says it all the time now. It's pretty cute. Her teachers stopped me this morning and asked me if there was a trick to getting her to go to sleep. Her progress reports are always good, but the last one said she "rubbed her friends back while he was taking a nap!" It was followed by "she's so sweet!" Hopefully she's not interfering with other nappers.

Seeing Aunt Jenn off

We were lucky enough to get a few house guests for a few days. Jenn and Adam came to visit before Jenn left for Togo via Philadelphia on 9/15/10. While they were in town I came down with a severe respiratory infection. Luckily I went to the doctor last Friday and got on steroids and an antibiotic so that I was feeling almost back to normal on Sunday. Unfortunately being sick Friday night meant that I missed date night at Fion. Brian, Jenn and Adam were troopers and took care of the gift certificate we had for me. Wouldn't want $40 of food and drink to go to waste, would we?

Saturday night Jenn, Adam, me, Brian and grandpa went to Mr. Sinus theater "The Matrix" while Grandma babysat. Since it was a 10pm showing we were able to get everyone in bed before we left. Monday night Adam and Jenn babysat for us while we met up with some old work friends for happy hour. I left very detailed instructions on how to care for each kiddo. When we got back we had an equally detailed report on how each baby did.



Nice.

This was taken from Isabel's daily report at preschool. Isabel has always had good reports and they usually say how helpful she was and how she holds the other kids' hands who are upset. It also always says that she ate all of her lunch. :-)




Wow, I need to learn how to format this blog. Sorry about the ghettoness of this post.

Sickies

That didn't take long! After a week at preschool Isabel brought home a nice cold. She started with a high fever and no other symptoms Friday night. That's always scary for us, so we didn't get much sleep and were constantly checking on her. She was acting pretty normal Saturday and her fever had gone down to just about normal so I thought we were ok. Sunday night she was snotty face. Ugh. Today Logan has been congested and has a bit of a runny nose. Time to pull out the old snot syringe! I'm sure Logan will be fine pretty soon. I think I had a bit of the cold, so I'm sure I've been passing on antibodies to him. Isabel is getting better too and decided that she needs to breastfeed too since she's sick. I got up at 4:45am to hit the gym, came home, showered, and took an hour and a half nap until everyone woke up. It was so nice to sort of sleep in on a rainy day.

We've been soaked with rain all day today and it's still raining! I HAD to go to the grocery store today, so it was fun trying to get Logan in the Ergo and Isabel in the cart while battling tropical storm Hermine. I love rainy days, but I really hope it's not raining tomorrow morning for drop off at school.

Eczema and preschool day 2

Oh how I hate eczema! All 3 of my kiddos have suffered from it. Vivian had the least severe case. Isabel has some persistent patches behind her knees and on her feet. We have to use hydrocortisone cream every single day to keep it from really flaring up. I'll be glad when this crazy heat is over and the weather turns cooler. It should help things. Logan hasn't escaped the wrath of eczema, although I'm hoping what appears to be eczema is really just a case of 'cradle cap' on his cheeks. We've started aquaphoring him up at night. He's a greasy little butterball after his baths like his sisters.

Logan has also started waking up again around 1-2am. Boo. It must have been because I posted about how good of a sleeper he is. So now I'm waking up at 1am and 4:45am to feed him in order to get to the gym by 5:15am. Awesome. He's taking little catnaps throughout the day as well, so it makes it extremely difficult to get things done.

Isabel had her 2nd day of preschool yesterday. I didn't see any tears when I left. I didn't try to sneak out, but I'm not sure she really knew I was leaving. Of course Logan was crying, so I couldn't stay. When I picked her up she was excited to see me. As usual Logan was crying. that boy HATES his carseat and riding in the car. I would love to have those kids that fall asleep in the car, but no, all of my kids hate riding in the car and would cry for a long long time before falling asleep. It's irritating to hear people say 'oh, we had to ride him/her around in the car to get them to fall asleep.' That sounds awesome to me. You get to go for a ride and have some quiet time to yourself?! What are you complaining about?! I guess if I had to take a car ride every time I wanted my kid to sleep it could get old. Anyway, preschool was good. Her report said she was 'happy and playful the entire time.' :) She only took a 1.5 hour nap and was miserable the rest of the afternoon. I hate that. She was SO overtired, but wouldn't go back to sleep. I went in her room, rocked her, sang to her and gave her milk but she just wouldn't stop whining and crying. I put her back down in her crib and rubbed her back. She was just about to fall asleep when Logan started crying. I picked him up and was trying to juggle holding him with rubbing her back. After I got a cramp in my leg and my arm became numb I had to stop. I left and let her whine for about 20 minutes, but she just wouldn't go back to sleep. I put in a SOS call to Brian and he skipped the gym to get home earlier. Unfortunately with traffic he only got home about 15 minutes early. On the up side Brian has learned how to make the perfect martini! OMG. Amazing! When we got the kids to bed I had a two martini night and then crashed at 9:30pm.

Preschool and Toes!

Isabel started preschool yesterday. It's a bit early as she's only 16 months, but when I had Brian go at 5am and stand in line for a spot when I was about 7 months pregnant and very very sick with food poisoning I thought it was a great idea. Now that Logan is here I still think it's a good idea, but it's hard to be away from her for so long! The program is 5 hours long 2 days per week. We had orientation Monday night and met her teachers. They were both super nice. Her room was smaller than I anticipated, but I think they go outside, for walks and into the playroom lots throughout the day. When I dropped her off I tried to sneak out while she was playing. Most of the other kiddos were crying and it was chaos. I thought if I could avoid a freak-out and give the teachers space to do their thing it would be better. I think they appreciated that I didn't stick around and hover, but as I was walking out I heard Izzy start to cry. :-( Since Logan was crying I had to get moving, but once I was in the car the big crocodile tears came. After a pep talk from Brian things were fine until I realized that I had to go back home, get her info sheet, and head back to school. I can't believe I forgot it. Important things like the fact that she needs 2 pacis to sleep are on it! I pulled back into the parking lot and saw the kids outside playing. I didn't see Iz because I think she was in the little mushroom house, but it looked like everyone was happy. I snuck around back and dropped her paper off before she caught me. When I came to pick her up she saw me, smiled and then had a meltdown. I didn't let it bother me too much because I knew she was super tired and hadn't napped. I also remember Donna telling us that if they cry when they see you it means they trust you and can let their guard down. She was back to normal when we made it back home. After a 3 hour nap she told Daddy all about her first day. He was impressed with the little hand prints she made on construction paper.

Logan is doing great. We thought about taking out the dream feed at 10 or 11pm and he slept until 5am the other day! That's 7:30pm to 5am without nursing! Two nights ago he was up a couple of times, but we managed to get him back to sleep with a little patting and paci placement. Last night he was up at 1:30am and went back to sleep, but he was up at 3:30am and needed to eat. Still not sure if I should add back in the dream feed or not. If I do I'm pretty sure he'll be able to sleep until 5 or 6am, but I leave for the gym at 5am and would need to wake him up to eat. I really hate doing that since we're trying to get him to sleep through the night.

Logan has also found his feet! It's so cute to watch him grab both feet and pull on his toes with both hands. He's super smiley and giggles when you make funny faces or tickle him. Last night at dinner Izzy was holding his hand and he was smiling at her. So cute!

Potty?

I hate to even post this, but Isabel has gone potty on the big girl potty 3 times! Two pees and a poop. I just sit her on and she does her stuff and gives me a look like "what, isn't this what you're supposed to do?" Of course this means that if I actually want her potty trained I have to actually potty train her. I've read that if you do it too early the kiddos usually revert back to diapers and rebel, so I'm not sure I should. Besides that, when you go hard core you usually have to stay home all.the.time until they get it. Humm....not sure what to do.

Clapping

So Isabel likes to clap. A lot. I make her watch the dancing segments on SYTYCD and at the end of each performance she will stop, turn around, look at the tv and clap. It's so cute. If she's drinking milk she will stop and put the cup down and clap. She really loves her clapping. She also claps at the end of any song that is playing (except in the car). For some reason she doesn't clap after I finish belting out a tune. I'm not sure why.

Transitioning to one nap a day

I'm trying to transition Isabel from 2 naps a day down to 1. My girl loves her sleep! I usually have to wake her up from her sometimes 2 hour naps and she almost always sleeps 12 -13 hours at night. It awesome! So why am I trying to move her to one nap? She's starting 'school' at the end of the month twice a week and she won't be able to get her morning nap in. I don't want her to be a complete mess, so we're trying to get her used to it. Also, I miss my little girl during the day! I feel like we're a slave to the naps and miss doing lots of fun things because of naps. Since she's 16 months old now she shoild be able to handle the loss of sleep. Last week went pretty well, but by Saturday she needed some extra sleep had 2 naps.

Logan is starting to sleep for longer periods of time if I put him down swaddled in the co-sleeper. I almost forgot that he also started reaching for toys. It's so funny to watch him batting at things. His current favorite is a little moose that I hang from his gym mat. He also likes to turn his head and watch tv. *sigh* There goes my catching up on crap tv while Izzy is sleeping!

Teething

Isabel is STILL working on those elusive teeth. She has just 2 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth. Her first top molars are trying to work their way down, but haven't broken through yet. I think she's getting used to the discomfort now, but last week she was really upset about it. She slept through the night again last night, so yay!

Logan is giving big smiles and the occasional giggle. Yesterday he was really cooing at me while we were trying to nurse. Super cute. I'm trying the 'dream feed' at 10pm out on him in hopes of pushing past the 1-2am feeding. It worked great with Vivian. She was sleeping through the night at 9 weeks. Isabel wouldn't wake up enough to nurse, so she continued her every 2 hour feedings until she was almost 7 months old. Logan woke up last night and ate and then slept until 3:15am. Progress!

I went to the gym and tried a class for the first time in a long, long time on Monday. I was so sore Tuesday that I could barely function. Squatting down to pick things up was torture. Izzy helped me out a lot with this. I might have had to wait 3 minutes for her to pick up the burp rag, toy, kleenex, etc, but it was worth it to not have to get it myself! I'm still really sore today, but I'm going to push through it and meet a friend for another class tomorrow morning if Logan's schedule cooperates. Setting the alarm for 4:45am isn't fun when you've been up feeding babies, but I need to get my butt into shape.

Vacation Time!

We just got back from a great Montana vacation! We were in the mountains most of the time and as usual the time their was way too short. Everyone commented on how much Logan looks like Brian. Isabel decided that she needed to get up with the sun most mornings, so she was tired a lot of the time. When she skipped naps she would get a little cranky, but overall was good. Logan was totally easy and just ate all the time. It was so much fun to meet Lucas. He's adorable and has the most amazing eyes. Brian and I compared them to amber. He liked to smile and laugh lots. I can't wait until next year when we'll have two 1 1/2 year olds and a 2 1/2 year old. Talk about fun chaos!

Giggle!

Brian got the first giggles out of Logan. He definitely giggled at Daddy twice today. It was pretty cute. I think it's Brian's emo hair that has him laughing, but that's just me. :)

Pointing

Isabel has learned to point and now points at everything. It's pretty cute to see her chubby little finger point away at the dog, milk, dad, mom, etc etc. Before she perfected this little pointing thing she was still getting her, ahem, point across, by using her whole hand and shoving it in the general direction of what she wanted.

Logan is still trying to figure out where he is most of the time. His favorite things include fans, windows and the dotted side of his cosleeper. He's pretty alert when he's away and has been giving smiles pretty much daily. While we were in Houston for a few days he decided to wake up every 2-3 hours again, but once we got back home he slept for two 4 hour stretches. Nice. He's now the proud occupant (well not really since he hangs out in our room) of a great newly painted and spruced up bedroom. It looks amazing!

Blogging!

I decided to create a blog after I realized that I was going to have to make up half of Isabel's baby book since I hadn't written any of her milestones down. Oops. Now that Logan has joined the family I realized I needed an easier way to keep track of things. Since our family is spread out all over the world I thought a blog would be an easy way to update people who care (all 3 of you) all at once.

Today Isabel is 14 months old. She's the greatest sleeper ever. She sleeps 8:30pm-8:00am and takes two naps a day around 10am and again at 3pm. She's not on a strict schedule, but typically this is what we do. She has four top teeth and two bottom teeth. She's been walking since she was 11 months old. She only says a couple of words that we can understand (mom, dada, da (dog)) she says other words consistently, but I can't figure out what they mean yet. She can point out her head, nose, eyes, mouth, belly button, tummy, toes, arms and hair and follows two to three step commands. She loves purses, bags and has recently decided that she likes her baby doll.

Logan is 5 weeks old. He's been lifting his head up for a few weeks already and is pretty strong. He pushed off of our chests often. He's not on a schedule yet and still sleeps lots at random times. He consistently goes into 'night' sleep between 9-11pm and will sleep for 3 and sometimes 4 hour stretches at a time. He will usually go back to sleep easily after being nursed, changed and burped. He's given me a few smiles starting last week, but they're still hard to come by.

Things have been going pretty well, although the house is a constant wreck and it's overwhelming to try and keep up with it. When Izzy sleeps I will usually wear Logan and frantically clean the kitchen and do laundry. When Izzy is up I try to just play with her since we haven't been getting out of the house much and I'm her only entertainment until Brian gets home. We do try to go somewhere once a day, even if it's just to the Starbucks drive thru.