Siblings for life

I love that Raleigh asks to sit with Leah.  He is such a good big brother.  Even though sometimes he can be a monster, he is really good with Leah. Every once and a while, he will kneel next to Leah and say “Come on Leah!”

Other things that I’ve heard out of Raleigh’s mouth are:

“Clap your hands Leah!”

“Dance Leah!”

“Wake up Leah!”

“I will hold Leah.”

“Oh, she’s so cuuuuute.”

“Come play Leah!”

Those are just some of the adorable things that Raleigh says now. Yesterday when I sneezed, Raleigh said “Bless you, Bless you Mommy!”.

A proficient little stinker

The terrible two’s have struck us. In the past week, we’ve seen the following from Raleigh:

All out tantrums…on the floor flailing hands and legs all about

Complete refusal to take naps

Excessive and dangerous climbing attempts

He even managed to push a big TV down from his entertainment center in his room.

The TV incident nearly gave me a heart attack.  Raleigh was wearing red that day, and when I went into his room to investigate the noise, I saw the TV with a flash of something red under it. Raleigh was nowhere in sight and he was making no sound at all. He didn’t even say “uh-oh” when the TV fell. So, immediately, my brain imagined Raleigh under the TV crushed, knocked out, bloody. I’ve never felt so horrible in my whole life.

Raleigh, it turns out, was just as shocked as I was (hence the silence) and he was in the TV compartment of the entertainment center, in the place of the TV, which was why I didn’t see him right away.

Now, his TV has been removed. We also had to put is mattress on the floor, he started to climb on top of his toddler bed/crib rails. So, the crib is up in our room and we’re going to go Twin mattress shopping later next week when, hopefully, the flooding has subsided. Leah will get Raleigh’s crib mattress, and Raleigh will get a fabulous twin mattress on the floor until his climbing stage subsides a bit.

And we’ve been keeping our eyes on him a bit more lately.

Above: Raleigh attempting to reach for his big black train that we took away from him because he was throwing it.

Below: Raleigh attempting to reach for his awesome big crayons that stain everything and his paint. These are put high up because they need to be supervised activities. Notice Raleigh’s crib mattress on the floor. Before we did this, he was standing on the railing of his crib leaning up against the wall attempting to reach these things.

  

Above: Raleigh playing on the awesome track that I designed and put together for him. Seriously, there are endless possibilities when try to make train tracks on this train table.

Below: Leah found her thumb!

Flood update

Luckily, our house is on the higher level ground in Fargo, so we are not expected to have to evacuate, but others are.

A small portion of Fargo (near Lindenwood park) needed to evacuate at 3 am this morning.

A large portion of Moorhead has been directed to evacuate. You can go here (http://www.areavoices.com/springflood/) to read about the announcements that I’m getting via the web.

Good luck to everyone out there who is struggling with building dikes, or creating sandbags, or who have had to evacuate.

I have a few coworkers who are in risky flood zones and I am constantly thinking about them. I just want this flood to be over so that we can start to rebuild the community again.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Harry!

 

For those of you who know me personally, you may have heard me mention a very long bicycle trip that I went on when I was 16. Well, my Grandpa Harry was the reason that I was able to have such an amazing experience.  He purchased a touring bike for me, he paid for the hotel stays and the food, and it was his fabulous suggestion to take the trip in the first place.

It was close to a 1500 mile bike trip and it took us 23 cycling days to complete.

Above: Grandpa demonstrating the strong headwind that we were biking into.

Below: Grandpa on his bike with all of his panniers on.

Above: You can’t tell that it is me, but I am standing on a the bridge over the Red River in Grand Forks. This was the summer after the 1997 flood there.

Below: Not sure what Grandpa has in his hand but he sure looks excited.

Above: Grandpa posing with the bicycle that he bought me. ( I still have it and I still love it)

Thanks Grandpa for such a great experience! And Happy 80th birthday!

Cutie Patootie

More smiles all the time. I love it.

She’s also getting better at belly time.

What do YOU think?

Do you think she'll be a TomBoy?

Or a Girly Girl?


I just haven't had any indicators ;)

P.S. The bonnet in the last pic was handmade by Grandma Deb. She looks absolutely adorable in it when she smiles. I do need to learn how to tie a pretty bow though.

Are you kidding me?

Yesterday it was raining...this morning we woke up to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Now, this afternoon, about 1 foot of snow has accumulated on my deck, cars, and sidewalks. Ick.

We were supposed to be traveling to my parents today, but waking up to a travel advisory quickly squashed our hopes today. We're hoping to leave bright and early tomorrow morning now.

I took these pictures at 7 am, this morning. We have a lot more snow now.

Red River Flooding

Every spring, the Fargo/Moorhead area deals with some level of flooding. This spring is different. We're supposed to be dealing with not just "some level" of flooding but record flooding. And a few days ago, we were hit with the news that this record flooding was 2 weeks earlier than our city had predicted.

Volunteers have been showing up by the thousands to help create and distribute sandbags. It is times like this that it is fairly obvious how many great people we are surrounded with. Some businesses close up shop to recommend that employees help with the efforts, some businesses still pay employees even though they are out volunteering.

My mother even said that she knew of some people from her area (3 1/2 hours away from here) that are in the FM area to help with the sandbagging efforts.

Josh went out with his brother and two of our friends last night to sandbag and he'll be out there again tonight.

Our house may not be at risk, but there are so many others whose houses are already flooding or at a severe risk of flooding.

Please keep all of the areas that are flooding or at risk of flooding in your prayers.

For pictures of some of the flooding and the effort to reduce the flooding, please visit http://www.davearntson.com/

You can also read about this subject at www.inforum.com.

Haircut: The after picture

I'm totally happy with it. I know this isn't the best picture, but how could I ignore that cute baby head and ears in the picture. Plus, you don't want to see a higher resolution of my face, you might see that I haven't plucked my eyebrows in a while, or you might see that I'm not wearing any makeup. :) I'll try to post a picture of my hair when I wear it curly next time.

Haircut: The before picture

I'm all about change. I've never been attached to my hair and I'm always OK with getting it cut. Hey, it'll grow back anyway.

I've been growing my hair out since before I was pregnant with Leah in hopes of getting it all cut off to donate it to Locks of Love. That requires 10 inches to be cut off though. And that is what I am hoping to cut off today at my 4 O'clock hair appointment.

This is the before picture:

Not quite sure how that sneaky boy got in the pic :)

How do you make your soda pop?

So, the hubby and I are really into making things ourselves these days. We've started to make our own bread daily, and we're now attempting to make Ginger Ale and bottle it ourselves. I'll take pictures of the process another time, if this one is successful and I'll share with everyone. Until then, you'll have to be okay with more pictures of my children.


Jenna and Raleigh playing trains. In this picture, Jenna had hidden almost all of Raleigh's trains under her sweatshirt and was saying "Where are your trains? Where did they go?". And Raleigh just wanted to find Terrence the steam roller.

It's not a trip to my IL's without Grandpa Steve trying to teach Raleigh the Banjo. Raleigh wasn't wearing pants because they kept falling off of him. All of his pants fit him really well when he wears cloth diapers, but when he is in disposables, they fall right off.


A great picture of Aunt Soni with Leah.


And a great picture of Leah's Great-Grandma Sarah.

OMG! This was hilarious, and this picture just can't capture that hilarity. I should have had the video camera. My FIL was reflecting light on the wall and both Nelly and Raleigh were trying to get it. This had my FIL in histerics.

And finally, Raleigh enjoying his bouncy thingy.

Back from Jordan

We just returned yesterday from a trip to visit my in-laws. It was our first big trip with Leah, and she did very well on the long journey. She woke up twice to feed and be changed on the way there, and she woke up only once on the trip back.

We were in a hurry to get back because Leah had her 2 month doctor check-up. She weighs 11 lbs 4 oz now and she is a bit longer than 22 inches. She is only in the 10th percentile for head circumference, but the doctor wasn't worried at all.

One of the reasons that we made the trip to Jordan, was because my MIL had back surgery recently and we wanted to be there to help support and cheer her up after surgery. Her surgery went very well and now she is using a back brace and a walker when she gets around the house. You can see that Raleigh enjoyed the walker.

Raleigh also had a big suprise waiting for him. His very own Big Wheel.

Here's a pic of Grandma Steve holding Leah. I took two pictures of the two of them. In one picture, Leah looked good and Steve was caught off guard. In the other picture, Leah was caught off guard but Steve looked good. Can you tell which picture I chose?

I'll have more pictures and stories to post of this trip later.

Leah's 2 month picture

I can't believe that she's already 2 months old. It goes incredible fast. I have to return to work in the first week of April.



Meanwhile, I'm enjoying spending time with Leah. I just love our photoshoots. In the picture below, you can see Leah wearing the newly fashionable giraffe bracelet. BTW that pose was all Leah's idea...she's such a natural. :)

Below: Leah at 10 days old

Below: Leah at 2 months old

Raleigh and Leah: Brother and Sister

Such a smiley baby

This is what I love. When babies start smiling. We can pretty much get Leah to smile any time we want by just staring into her eyes and smiling back at her. She is smiling a whole lot more and cooing a whole lot more than Raleigh ever did at this age.

She's already practicing her girly charms. Oh boy! This one will melt hearts. I can just tell. :)

Focusing on my first child...

ugghhhhh! When is winter going to end? A blizzard dropped a whole heap of snow on us this past week. And Raleigh can only tear up the house so much. I think that he, and us, are ready for him to play outside again.

We're trying to come up with more crafty things to do indoors, so that he's kept busy with something to do.

We played with playdoh the other day.

Ok, I played with playdoh while Edward the train (#2) pretended to be Gordon the train (#4) while carrying blobs of playdoh around the table.

I keep thinking/hoping that Raleigh will start to show interest in other non-train toys. But there is no sign of that. Raleigh, it seems right now, would be a perfectly content little boy if he had his trains, his blankets (yellow, light yellow, blue, pink, and dark pink), and some Kix. Yup, the "Kid tested, mother approved" kind. Here's a news flash, I'm no longer "Mother Approving" the Kix. I want him to eat eggs and bacon and potatoes and oatmeal again.

Every morning he wakes up and says three things.

1. "Good mornin', Good mornin"

2. "Water, Mommy?"

3. "Kix, Mommy?"

Ok, well, the other day he did eat some waffles with syrup, but that's not any better thank Kix. He is getting better with a fork though.

The other day, he just had to try on Leah's hat.

Grandma Deb brought some bubbles with her when she visited last. Raleigh kept asking if "Blow bubbles on Gordon?". When I would only blow bubbles in the air, he tried to catch them on Gordon.

Then, the other day, Raleigh emerged from his Bedroom holding my phone, with it flipped open, and he said.

"I'm talking to Gramma."

Luckily, he hadn't actually called anyone, or ordered any new ring tones before I got the phone away from him.

Then we actually did call his Grandma Deb and during their conversation, Raleigh did this to the phone and said.

"I'm hugging Gramma."

Too Cute!

Toys for Leah

Leah was 2 months old yesterday. She is doing very well. She eats a lot, but not during the night. She has been sleeping 6 hours straight almost every night for the past 3 weeks. I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm very happy.

We've been trying to give her more tummy time recently. I think that Raleigh had a lot more tummy time when he was her age, but we find it hard to put her down with Raleigh jumping and running around all the time. Here's a cute pic of her on her tummy looking at some toys.


She is also smiling a whole lot more, which just makes me melt.

She is still doing the "Superman" pose. I forget when Raleigh stopped doing this, but I hope she does it for quite a while now because it cracks me up every time I see her do it.

She has found her hand and she'll suckle on one of her knuckles every now and then. She's gaining a bit more control with her hands and arms. They aren't flailing about like they used too.

Big brother, Raleigh, is doing really well also. He seems like he's grown a foot in the last two months. He towers over the other kids in his swimming class. Everyone assumes that he's already 3 because he's so tall and he talks so well. I'm not ready for him to be 3 yet though. Here's a cute pic of him lounging on our bed while I was changing Leah. I swear he looks like a teenager here...if it weren't for those car slippers... :)