What's Eli Eating?

Chicken drumstick.


Asparagus.


Peanutbutter and jelly.


Gyro (with a rubberband holding it together).

Sleeping Issues

It's no secret, Sadie is an absolutely horrible napper. (I refuse to write about her nighttime sleep as I'll probably jinx myself.) I truly think she's a cat. She usually naps for about 20 minutes, if I'm lucky it'll be 30 and wakes up ready to go only to want to nap again an hour later! We currently have a very elaborate napping routine. First, I rock Sadie to sleep and put her down, she sleeps 15-20 minutes. Then, she coos and plays for 5-45 minutes. Followed by crying for 1-30 minutes. Then maybe sleeping for another 15-20 minutes. Sometimes, she's awake for an hour, so then I'll just go and get her. Today, this is what I caught her doing instead of taking a nap:

Sadie's Getting A Little Red

I think Sadie's hair is getting a little red to it, just like Eli's. In fact, Sadie's hair is doing exactly what Eli's hair was doing at this age: getting lighter and lighter and lighter. She doesn't have as much as he did at 6 months, but her hair seems to be filling in quickly.

In other news, Sadie got her first tooth last week. It was a very trying week and it seems to be continuing this week as the tooth next to it seems to be wanting to pop up too. And we're a long, long way from the 20 she's going to end up with! But, when you look into these big, brown eyes, all is forgiven.


Kind of starting to scoot. Actually, she likes to roll from place to place.


My little hippie.

Why I Love Craigslist

For those of you who don't know, Craigslist has on-line classifieds listed by city and state and further broken down into categories and sub-categories. I frequent the "for-sale baby + kids" section everyday and my children's wardrobe, toy box, and our storage unit is all the better because of it. Recently, there was an ad posted for a 6 month old baby needed for a budding photographer to take pictures of. I volunteered Sadie and her brother, of course. It turned out to be a great deal. The photographer spent over two hours with us, taking hundreds of pictures for free and gave me the rights to them so I can post them all over the internet and not worry about copyright infringements!! Here are some of my favorites:

Another Trip to Hocking Hills

How could we not enjoy the beautiful spring weather and spend the day at Old Man's Cave? We had a great time exploring the gorge and the waterfalls. Our pace is a lot slower than it used to be, but much more enjoyable especially when Eli shouts "Wow!" at every turn.

Sadie in the sling.


Eli in the carrier. We need to get one of these for Sadie.


Eli enjoying his favorite pasttime: throwing things in the water and saying "Splash!".


Peek! Just waking up from a nap in the cool of the shade with dad.

Happy Half Birthday, Sadie!

Awwwww......

More of Big Brother and Little Sister

Most of the time Eli loves his little sister and wants to play with her and have her do things whenever he's doing things. He also likes to help whenever he can. He gives her baths, hugs, pushes on the swings. He feeds her, helps change her diapers and get her shoes so we can go out and play. Sadie loves him too. She smiles at him and watches every move he makes. Lately he's been patting her on the head and saying "nice". It's so great that they are growing up together.


Eli going in for the hug.


Eli teaching Sadie how to dance. And Eli is a really good dancer, he learned all of his moves from me. You should see his one finger dance.


In one of the playgroups that we go to babies are popping out left and right. It's great that the first set of kids are so close in age and that the second set of kids are so close in age too. It's going to be hard to leave Columbus!

Happy Easter

Dennis and I used to have an Easter tradition of going on a picnic. However, since we've lived in Ohio our picnic plans have been foiled. Last year they were foiled by a break-in to our storage unit and we spent the day waiting for the police and filing a police report and this year mother nature had other plans: snow! We ended up having a nice warm meal sitting at our table with Grandma and Grandpa before they headed back to ND.

Oh, the joy of a first Easter Egg Hunt. Eli got the hang of it pretty early, but got distracted easily. It's really easy making an Easter Egg Hunt hard for toddlers. You just have to throw them out in the yard and they still can't seem to find them.


Eli with his basket full decided he should mow the lawn instead.

Eli loved dying eggs. His favorite part was throwing the eggs in the cup and yelling, "Splash!".

On Sunday morning, Eli woke to find that the Easter Bunny had hidden plastic eggs all over the living room. Eli knew it was going to be a good day when he got to eat jelly beans for breakfast.

The Easter Bunny also left a tee-ball set in Eli's Easter Basket.

He has really bad form (this is a good shot), but has the general idea of how to get the ball off the tee. And don't try to help him; he can do it all by himself.

I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of Sadie in her Easter Dress. Oh, my, gah... she was too cute. Maybe grandma will be a dear and send one to me and I can post one later (hint, hint). I'm just adding this so Sadie doesn't feel left out with all the pics and talk of Eli. She has been working really hard on sitting up straight. Her balance has really improved and I think she will be erect by the end of the week. Go, Sadie, Go!

Playing With Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa have been visiting for over a week and are staying until after Easter. I'm not sure who enjoys who more. Grandma and Grandpa sure get a kick out of Eli and Sadie, but Eli and Sadie sure do love having their Grandma and Grandpa around. Every morning when they walk in the door from spending the night in the hotel, Eli does this happy little dance where he kicks his feet, twirls in circles, points his fingers in the air, and says something that only he understands.

Eli and Grandpa monkeying around.


Eli cooking for Grandpa.


Sadie and Grandma at the Easter Egg Hunt.


Sadie and Grandpa enjoying each others company.

Sadie's Firsts and More!

Sadie has been busy trying out all sorts of new things. You've seen most of these firsts with Eli so they will look familiar. In fact, I think Sadie is wearing some of the exact same clothes (poor thing, it's so hard to have to share your wardrobe with your brother!) as Eli was wearing.

We started Eli on a sippy cup around this age. She doesn't get anything out of it, but she loves to hold it.


The weather was in the 70s this past weekend so we enjoyed the great outdoors a little bit. We are patiently waiting for a little green in the trees.


Eli leading the way.


Sadie's first picnic. If you recall, Eli's first picnic was when he was 10 days old. Sadie's got a lot of catching up to do.


Sadie's reflux has been terrible lately so the doctor recommended cereal in her bottle. Why give her cereal in a bottle when she can have cereal on a spoon? She didn't enjoy the first bite too much but really got into the next several bites. (That's Eli's arm; he's such a good helper.)


Doesn't everyone have a picture like this?


Sadie loves the bumbo seat.


Sadie sitting without the bumbo: the gorilla sit.


Sadie playing in the music center.

Another Trip To Cincinnati

Dennis is on spring break this week. This is the first time since we've been married that we haven't done anything exciting over spring break. I feel like we're letting the kids down somehow. But, Eli has just settled into his sleep schedule again after being off for awhile (he was getting up really, really early!) and Sadie is sleeping very well in her crib for most of the night and we decided we just didn't want to have to start all over again with the sleep training and decided to not do any over-night trips. We thought it would be fun to spend the day in Cincinnati going to the aquarium and children's museum again as Eli loved them both the first time we went.

Eli loves to sleep in the car.


Sadie, not so much. (At least she's past her scream-bloody-murder-every- time-we're-in-the- car stage!)


Eli enjoyed the aquarium, fish, bubbles, sharks and penguins. But it was very dark and he was a little scared of that. He didn't want to sit still as he always wanted to see the next thing that was around the corner. Although, he had to go through the shark tunnel twice!


Sadie was pretty fascinated too.


Look at the teeth on that shark!


There was too much to see and do at the children's museum. He loved every minute of the whole thing and I must have been too busy chasing him down as this is the only picture I took while we were there!

Sadie Went Swimming

We went swimming this weekend and decided that Sadie was old enough to join us. She was a little shocked at first, but she ended up having a great time.