Goggle Girl

Maren likes to put on these old welding goggles that Dad has in his nerd closet. She came down with them today and called herself, "Goggle Girl." LOL

Quite the Super Hero.

Fuzzy head

Lilly is enjoying a chunk of steamed sweet potato. Both my girls love these. I freeze them in a single layer and break some off when I need them. All you have to do is throw them in the microwave. Super easy and super healthy for them. 

What I really love about this is that Lillian's hair is getting longer and its sticking up a bit. Lil' fuzzy head.

She has been pretty fussy this week with a runny nose. We had tried it all and she was still fussing. Dad plopped her in front of a Baby Einstein DVD and we didn't hear a peep for the whole half hour. It was a welcome break from the EEeeee EEeeeee Eeee we've been dealing with. Finally a happy baby. 

Bath time fun

Note the pink washcloth on Lilly's back. Maren put it there. It's her cape :)

Maren loves baths. She loves them even more if Lilly bathes too. So cute.

 Maren really wants to play with Lilly and have her be like her living doll. I hope that they will really want to play together as they get older too. As for now, Maren keeps trying. 

Long mornings

Wednesday mornings we have ECFE (Early Childhood and Family Education) class. Apparently its exhausting. The kids get so tired out from all the excitement. Lilly doesn't make it home. She takes a quick morning nap in her car seat. So cute.

Luckily class isn't far away so Maren makes it home but barely. 

Feelin' pretty smart

Lately I don't have many great mom moments. Today I felt like I finally had one. Moms, you know when you take the kids outside and there always seems to be space between the mitten and the jacket sleeve where bare wrists show up. I decided no more. I had to problem solve. I pulled out a pair of tube socks, cut the feet off, and put a little slit near the top and, ta-da, gators. They worked perfectly! (Patting myself on the back). Feel free to steal this good one, gals.

Maren has two hats on - Dad calls her pumpkin head so she insisted on wearing her pumpkin hat.

Fine with me. Two hats on a day like this is definitely better than one.

Something else

Something else I dislike almost more than not being with my kids when there is a possibility that they may be having fun and I'm missing it and all the photo opportunities that go with it is - FORGETTING THE CAMERA!

We went to Great River Water Park last week and yes, I forgot the camera. I was going to grab it and forgot - imagine that. I was so bummed. Lillian was just crawling (scooting) in the water. She didn't care it was getting deeper as she went. I think she'd a crawled right under. It was so cute and she was in this all pink suit with a ruffle around the waist. It was adorable and, alas, I have nothing to show for it.

Maren loves the water and she kept me and Lilly moving as we followed her around. She is great! She was all over the place. Trying the slides and playing with toys. It's a great place. I recommend it wholeheartedly. Too bad I forgot the camera. (We went one time last year (when I was prego) and I forgot the camera that time too, nice work, mom.)

Recent art work

Often times Maren asks me to draw something. I don't indulge this anymore because coloring time ends up being mom drawing whatever Maren asks for.

This day when she asked me to draw Buzz Lightyear, I naturally had to decline. 

(I didn't think I'd be able to do it) I told her to try. 

She did. I was pretty impressed with the results.

I printed out a Buzz Lightyear coloring page for Maren after that since she was asking for one. 

He's under there somewhere.

Up to five

Lilly now has five teeth. It's been a rough go. They seem to bother her quite a bit.

I tried to get a good shot of all those teeth. 

Mostly you see the food on her face.

It's her roll

The masking tape continues to be a big hit.

LOVE

 Daddy got me roses for Valentine's Day. 

The marshmallow kind!

The hard, chewy, marshmallow kind.

Tee hee hee - almost gone.

Lilly is chewing on a key chain. She didn't get anything special for Valentine's Day.

Princess Jasmine

Maren spends a lot of her time in this dress up outfit.

She is singing "Prince Ali" 

Lilly is screaming

Avacado

You would not believe the mess that became of letting Lilly self feed avacado...

this is only the beginning:

Maren gets ice skates

I have a hard time separating from my kids. They have no problem separating from me. I hate to miss any time they might be having fun. Sunday I got to snap these pictures as Maren got ready to go ice skating again. It was her first time on her new ice skates. I have no pictures of her on her skates. I hate it. I did enjoy the forty minutes with only Lillian but I missed Maren's first time on her skates.

Checking out her new wind suit:

I think she thinks it has her name on it:

Okay, lets go!

Snowshoeing

We had a beautiful day to get outside.

MOMS club had the Nature Center on the calendar so we dressed up and packed up.

The exciting part:

we got to use the new (to us) SUV and the third row seat to go pick up a friend and her two kids.

It was the first time I got to drive it. I like it, a lot.

Here's Maren getting ready to trek

As I've said before, Lilly just likes to be outside -even if all she gets to look at is my hood.

Maren did really well. She was out with me for almost 25 minutes. 

And check out this old gnarly tree...

Towel twists

Bath time sometimes has to come after Sunday morning breakfasts. 

Dad makes eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. Dad and Maren like their eggs soft n runny. 

Hence the bath.

Afterward Maren wanted her towel on top of her head like mommy.

The simple things

Here is a video from early this year that makes me laugh. I thought I'd share it since I said there would be videos on this blog.

Free skate

Maren and Daddy wanted to hit the ice again this weekend. Maren is just going to try boots while she gets the hang of the ice. A hockey stick can help with balance too. She was very interested in everyone else having helmets, sticks, and pucks.

 Lilly gets heavy so I had to put her down for a bit. This snowbank worked well.

Eventually the lure of the snow mountain overpowered the ice.

That's about as far as she got on her own.

 At least she asks for help. Daddy brought her up to the summit. Air must be thin up there.

AAAAAAAAAAh-ttention span

Thursday we usually spend the day in Hudson. It's a nice break for me. I get help with the kids and don't feel obligated to cook, clean, do laundry, or pay bills (although I am sure it would be appreciated). Then if I need to run errands I can. So this week I perused Wal-Mart for about an hour picking up this and that (and getting 10% off). I spend a measly $20 and picked up some great stuff for Maren (and a few things for Lillian too).

Maren's ECFE teacher, Ann, thinks every kid should have their own roll of masking tape.

I finally got Maren hers.

She also didn't have any scissors of her own. Now she does.

She veeeeery intently worked with markers, tape, and scissors for about a half hour and only stopped because we needed the table to eat dinner on. These items are kept up in a special bin where I will get them when I absolutely need the half hour of sanity. Good buys mom, good buys.

Teeth = teething biscuit

Lilly and her first teething biscuit. She's working hard on that 4th tooth.

These are the nice organic wheat teething biscuits. Two seconds later it falls to the floor and we loose it to the dog, she's NOT teething, eerrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Cookies and Clowns

I love that these are the days of my life. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's way too much work, but what a joy to be home with my girls. While Lillian finished her afternoon nap Maren and I hit the kitchen for cookie baking. Just baking - I totally bought the dough. She enjoyed cutting shapes and rolling worms which sound like snakes.

Yes, she ate most of the dough.

She anticipates the flash and always closes her eyes. 

This is what I got when I told her to keep her eyes open: 

not exactly what I was hoping for.

Once Lilly got up and we had our snack we went to play in the basement. 

Maren went to the dress up bin. This costume use to me mine when I was little. 

Great Uncle Mike and Great Aunt Deb had it for their kids.

I believe my mom made it. 

 Maren enjoys sharing with Lilly. 

Lilly

Her new thing: hands on her head.

It's pretty cute except that she usually does it when she's eating.

She now has three teeth. Two on the bottom and one on top. 

She is still army crawling around but spends more and more time on her hands and knees everyday.

She likes to stand up but only pulls herself up on me. She is quite attatched. She fusses if I walk away. That's one way you know she's tired.

silly snacks

A chocolate Teddy Graham with peanut butter and pretzel sticks.

Banana, peanut butter, and broken pretzel sticks.

You silly monkey. 

I admit this was more me than Maren. I like bananas with peanut butter and then I decided I wanted something salty. Maren had asked for chocolate teddies so that's where those came in. Nothing like chocolate and peanut butter. 

Now I have to figure out how to wrap these all into one and put them on a stick to sell at the State Fair, if we get on the waiting list now we may have a booth by the time Maren has kids.