The Arm, Part 2

As promised, here's a video of Brooke rocking out at Yogli Mogli with Aunt Jamie. And this is just a taste of her sweet moves.

Look Who's Talking

At Least One of My Kids Will Smile for the Camera

Look who's smiling! Melt my heart. I may have mentioned this, but ironically enough, one of the places he's happiest now is on the changing table. Brooke is still enjoying making us work for camera smiles.

I'm not even sure which outing this was. The poor kid gets dragged to so much. Thankfully he's still a good sport about it.

 

Brooke at the Arboretum with our friends Beth and Luke. We love that place!

 

Miles is also (usually) really happy in the morning. What a great way to start the day.

Brooke "helping" with the Three Musketeers.

He's not smiling in this one, but look at those eyes!

Change of Plans

On Saturday, we had back-to-back-to-back plans with friends/family who either live in or were staying in the city. Thanks to NATO (/protesters), all but one of those plans were cancelled. And of course, I didn't get any pictures of that visit (it was great to see you, though, Mary!).

We took advantage of the free time and beautiful weather by having some much needed family time.

 

We spent some time at the Lake/Forest Preserve across the street.

 

 

There's actually photo evidence that I was there - and Brooke's smiling!!!

 

That night we went to the Taste of Glen Ellyn. Brooke's going to think there are carnivals every weekend.

Just a motorcycle. No big deal.

The Arm

You thought I was exaggerating when I talked about Brooke's throwing ability. Maybe with a little work she can take after her mom and play right field in 7th grade softball.

Family

We spent a couple of fun nights in a row this week with Matt's family. First, we went over to Matt's grandma's for pizza. Brooke always loves it over there. It was Miles' first visit, but judging by how happy he was the whole time we were there (usually the witching hours), he's going to feel the same.

Occasionally, I'll have someone comment that one of the kids looks like me. I get excited, then realize that every time it's someone who's never seen Matt. 

  

Miles with Grandma Audie...

 

...and with Grammie Deb the next night.

When we told Brooke who was coming over, she said, "I'm sooo excited!"

They all lived up to the hype. We love our family!

The Carnival

 

Last weekend, Matt was at the wedding of our good friends Nate and Alissa. As much as I wanted to be there, I wasn't quite ready to make the trip to Savannah with a toddler and a 6-week old. Instead, the three of us ventured to St. Louis. The ride down went great...for the first 3 1/2 hours. Then, literally within 10 minutes, we were in stop-and-go construction traffic, Miles woke up hungry, and Brooke had to go to the bathroom (I tried to get her to go in her diaper but she wasn't having it. That's a good thing, right?). Almost 2 hours later, we made it. I think our days of making the trip in just over 4 hours without stops are over for the time being.

 

Of course the girls were happy to see each other. Unfortunately, Luke was sick so we didn't get to see much of him all weekend. We pretty much laid low the whole time, except for Saturday night, when we went to a local carnival.

 

Brooke is barely 36 inches, so she and Lexi were able to ride all the kiddie rides by themselves.

Brooke was not a fan of the spinning dragon.

Papa T was a little freaked out by how fast the merry-go-round spun.

This reminds me of that car commercial where the dad is talking to the little girl in the driver's seat, then all of the sudden she's 16 and driving. Go ahead and call me Debbie Downer.

Other than the spinning ride, Brooke really seemed to love all of them. She's been really into motorcycles lately, so this one was a favorite.

The swings were fun.

We capped the night off with a dance party.

Miles was there, too. Just chilling.

Parks and Recreation

We've been enjoying exploring the playgrounds in our area the past couple of weeks, despite some less-than-ideal weather. Brooke likes to name the parks. There's "Big Girl Park" (the playground at the nearby elementary school), "Orange Slide Park" (a park where I'm doing a Mom's workout with a couple of friends - let me know if you're interested in joining!), and "Beach Park" (a nearby park that has a huge - GAG - sandbox that she loves). She especially loves the parks that have areas for imaginative play, like little tables or steering wheels or storefronts. She shies away from areas where big boys are playing...if only that could be the case in about 12 years!

Brooke also got to hang out with Aunt Jamie the other day. They got frozen yogurt. Brooke likes to dance at the frozen yogurt place. Jamie got a great video of it - I just have to figure out how to get it from my phone onto the blog. I've never claimed to be tech-savvy! I'm working on it.
 

Zzzz's

Sometimes it's the end of the day and they're asleep before I think to get a picture. They really do look extra angelic when they're sleeping. Although, now that I'm looking at these, the camera phone pictures *might* make them look a little more creepy than precious...but trust me, they look precious.

The Kids

 

It still feels a little funny to refer to my offspring in plural form. They're both dangerously close to waking from their naps, so this update will be a quick one.

Miles continues to become more and more of a little person. He started doing a little smiling and cooing about a week ago, which was exciting. He seems (based on our foggy memories) to be stronger and bigger than Brooke was at his age. We won't get another official measurement until his 2 month appointment at the end of this month. I will say that it was around 5 weeks when Brooke was fitting into all of her 0-3 month stuff and Miles is easily filling out all of his.

He's not a fan of lying alone and having to entertain himself. I thought second kids were supposed to be good at that? Maybe he'll learn...

 

So far, he does a great job of sleeping when in his car seat, which helps when we're out and about during the day. Fingers crossed for a good first trip to St. Louis next weekend!

Sleeping and eating are about the same. Five hours is the longest stretch we've gotten at night. There's still at least a little spit up after most of his feedings. The evening seems to be his "witching hour" (unfortunately for Matt who only gets to see him then). Starting around dinner time until 9 or so, he really likes to be held and sometimes even then takes some creativity to pacify. He likes the binky but doesn't really hold it in his mouth himself, which presents a challenge. He also already seems to be moving more than Brooke at this age (I've decided to not even try not to compare them. It's inevitable. But we love them both for their unique qualities and personalities...blah, blah, blah.). He's been able to roll to his side. It's almost always the left side, which is also the way he turns his head frequently. He also escapes the swaddle regularly and wiggles all around the bassinet, which is funny because I'm pretty sure I could have swaddled Brooke until she was 2 and she almost always woke up in the same position we put her down in.

Speaking of Brooke, she's been enjoying getting outside this spring. We keep trying to feed the ducks in the pond behind our house, but they don't seem very receptive. We're keeping an eye out for ducklings! Brooke's gotten a little sassier these last few weeks. She stormed into her room and slammed the door the other day, yelling, "It's not THERE!" (what she thought people were saying when they say, "It's not fair!"  - not sure where she heard that one. Seriously.) I feel like it's now safe to say that she's potty trained when she's awake. A couple of accidents in her underwear freaked her out enough that now she goes on the potty - even when she has a diaper on. She still wakes up with a wet (and often poopy) diaper, but that'll come. Popsicles were one of the treats I bought her for doing such a good job on the potty.

She's also still really into singing and dancing. I need to get another video up of her rocking out. It's just so hard to remember to take pictures and videos these days. I now completely understand why the more children you have, the less photographic evidence there is of their existence.