March Family Photos

Here are my favorites from our family photos!

February

Wow....this post has been a work in progress over the course of a few weeks! February felt even shorter than it was! We continue to feel the impacts of having 2 kids in daycare! We were hit with colds/fevers 3 weeks ago and we were slammed with the flu 2 weeks ago! We are fairly healthy at the moment and looking forward to some warmer weather and to leaving the cold/flu season behind! We also can't wait to get outside and get some fresh air!

We did have a nice weekend in mid-February and I took the girls out for a stroller and wagon walk! Lydia screamed the entire time that I was putting her snow clothes on and as I was forcing her to sit in the stroller! But as soon as we started walking, she was laughing and had a blast! Lydia loves to look out the windows in the house and will stand on her tippy-toes on the top of the register and pull herself up on the windowsill, trying to see outside! Makayla got outside a few times! She just loves to play in the snow and sled down the little hill that Chad made in the front yard!

Now that Lydia has mastered walking, she's been working on climbing and jumping! She loves to go up and down the steps and will take-off towards the steps if we ever leave the door open when we're in the basement. I've been trying to teach her to go down on her belly or on her butt and she's starting to figure it out! One day I was leaving the house to go somewhere, so I went into the garage and got into the van. After I had gotten into the van, Makayla opened the door to the garage and Lydia snuck down the 2 steps and into the garage! I looked up from the van and saw Lydia bolting down the steps! Yikes!! At least she knew enough to get down the concrete steps safely!! Lydia also loves Makayla's toddler bed! She likes to climb up on the bed and try to jump! She also likes to swipe Makayla's water!

Along with her climbing, Lydia seems to have a new understanding of her surroundings and is starting to mimic what we do and is trying to communicate! She will stick her arm out and point to what she wants and make a babbling, grunting sound! She knows how to grab a tissue out of the box, hold it up to someones nose, and then go throw it in the garbage. She has also been eating us out of house and home! She loves bananas, especially when she gets to eat the whole banana, just like Makayla! She also loves the Crunch Berry cereal that Makayla twisted my arm to buy! Lydia takes all the berries out and hoards them in her little fist until she can eat them! Lydia loves to follow Makayla around and tries to do everything that Makayla does. She also loves to "test" Mom and Dad by standing on the fireplace mantel or pushing buttons on the DVD player! We just installed Lydia's new car seat in the van and flipped her around so she's facing forward! Now she likes to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the van with Makayla! Lydia has also started to nod her head up and down if we ask her a question. The best is when it's about 7pm and we say "Do you want a bottle?" Lydia will just nod her head up and down and get all excited!

Lydia also surprises us every day with how much she understands! One day Makayla was singing and dancing to the song "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" on her toy laptop. Lydia was watching and enjoying the music. A few days later I was singing that same song with Lydia and all of the sudden, she jumped up and ran over and grabbed the laptop! She remembered that the laptop played that song! :) Here's Lydia having fun with one of her toys!

Makayla continues to amaze us with her vocabulary and what she knows! The other day, she rolled her eyes at me! I don't think that Chad and I do that, so she must have learned that at school! When she was so sick with the flu, I was trying to change a very icky diaper. I put her in the tub and stripped her down to her diaper. Then, I wasn't sure how I was going to take the diaper off without making a huge mess, so I just stood there for a minute thinking. Makayla just looked at me and said, "Now what, Mama?" in a rather mocking tone. She's also likes to be the parent to Lydia and tell Lydia "no" and tell Lydia what to do! She'll say "No, no Lydia, you know better!" because we always say that to Makayla! :)

Makayla recently got upgraded from a toddler bed to a twin bed! She's very excited to have a new bed! She also sleeps much better in this new bed! I'm not sure if it's more comfortable or warmer or what, but she has started sleeping through the night pretty consistently now that she has this new bed!
Makayla and I had fun making homemade pizza one day. Unfortunately, the crust tasted kind of icky, but at least we had fun making it!I bought Makayla a pair of sandals for her to wear for Easter and and she insisted on getting all dressed up so that she could wear her new sandals!Here's a photo of Makayla wearing her new favorite PJ's! These were a gift from Great Uncle Gary and Great Aunt Sherry!

Makayla also loves to run around the house completely naked! I've spared you those photos, although they are quite funny! As we wrap up February, we are looking forward to celebrating Lydia's 1 year birthday on 3-4-11! We are also looking forward to getting outside for more stroller and wagon walks in March and we're excited for an Evers' family trip to the Wilderness Waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells!

January

We started out 2011 on a sad note. My Grandpa Sandoval passed away and then 2 weeks later, my Aunt Ginny Sandoval passed away. We had just returned from celebrating Christmas in Michigan when Grandpa died. So we unpacked, did laundry, packed back up, and headed back to Michigan. The funeral was nice and I'm glad we were able to be there. Unfortunately, we didn't make it back to Michigan for Aunt Ginny's funeral. Instead, we were praying for her and my family from here in Wisconsin. Please keep my Grandma and my family in your prayers!

We got hit with the stomach/intestinal flu in mid-January. Lydia and Chad started out getting sick on a Friday and I got sick early Sunday morning. Luckily, Chad and I weren't sick at the same time an somehow, Makayla didn't get sick! The girls have been fighting colds off and on all month and Chad got hit hard with a cold the last week of January. He's finally starting to feel better!

We did have a few fun days in January! Here's a photo of the girls just hanging out and eating goldfish crackers! Lydia gets jealous when Makayla has a snack cup with goldfish and she gets mad until she gets her own! We took Makayla and Lydia to Wild Air (http://www.wild-air.com/) and Makayla had a blast! She even climbed up the biggest slide, all by herself! One Friday, the girls and I visited my friend Louise and her daughter, Ella, and son, Jayden! Our kids are very close in age, so we like to get together for play dates every few months! Unfortunately, we forgot to snap a photo this time around! We also watched the Packer's win the NFC Championship with some good friends, Tracy & Andy, and Scott & Lynne and their 2 children, Andrew and Evan! Makayla had a great time playing with Andrew! We enjoyed a yummy Italian dinner together after the game!

Speaking of the Packers, one day Makayla excitedly commented on Chad wearing a Packer shirt, so we realized she recognized the Packer logo! It must be from all the "Packer shirt" days that she had at daycare and that I always ignored because Makayla doesn't have a Packer shirt! So I dug out this outfit that I bought a while back on clearance and that Makayla spotted in her closet and she had fun dressing up and cheering on the Packers! She'll have to get all dressed up for the Super Bowl! And in the meantime, perhaps I'll buy her a Packer shirt so she can participate in the "Packer shirt" days at school!And while Makayla was having fun cheering on the Packers, Lydia and I were having fun trying on some yellow hair!

Makayla got outside to play a few times, although the many days of single-digit temperatures limited her outside play! Makayla likes to help Dad plow the driveway when it snows! She rides in the truck with him and must enjoy the ride! She's also learned how to pedal her trike in the garage and is eagerly awaiting some spring days to get outside with her new-found skill! Makayla continues to be quite the chatterbox! She listens to everything that we say and picks up on things so quickly! She likes to ask me if I have any patience! When I say that I don't have much patience left, she tells me to go get some more! She also came running into the kitchen one day and said, "Lydia's bothering me! She's testing me!" Makayla loves to sing songs and lately, she's started to enjoy watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse! She sat and watched it all by herself for 30 minutes last weekend! Prior to that, she would never watch TV for longer than about 5 minutes before she lost interest! So I'm glad to know that if I need to keep her occupied, at least she'll watch a little TV now! She also loves doing puzzles and can do most of her 24 piece floor puzzle by herself! We're still working on Makayla's potty training...she did great over Christmas, but has been hit-or-miss the last few weeks! She gets some chocolate (usually M&M's) every time she poops in the potty! Lydia now recognizes the M&M bag and comes running from across the room to get herself a bowl of M&M's too! She'll eat hers up and then try to steal Makayla's!

Lydia is walking/running/climbing and getting into everything these days! She can crawl up the entire stairway from the basement and she can climb into the bathtub on her own! I turned around one day and found her standing on Makayla's little picnic table in the basement! The table is now folded up and put away! She loves to crawl up into Makayla's toddler bed and then tries to jump on the bed (hmm...she must have learned that from her big sister!). Lydia loves music and will bop up and down trying to dance to the music! We also think she said her first word, "Dad" a few nights ago! She pointed up at a photo of Chad on Makayla's shelves and said "Da". She did it several times, so we believe she was trying to say "Dad!" Lydia also loves to get into the crayons when Makayla is coloring! She will sit and color for a few minutes, but pretty soon she starts to chew on the crayons! (If you look closely, you can probably see the bit of blue crayon in her mouth in this photo!)

Well, this blog post is ending up being way more writing than my normal posts! I'll have to be a little better about taking photos in February!

Winter Fun

We took Makayla tobogganing, but she was a little scared, so we decided to try the little sledding hill that I used to use as a child! After a few tries, Makayla enjoyed it! The morning after we had gone sledding, she woke up and said, "I go up a hill?" She wanted to do some more sledding! We got over to the hill/park several times while we were in Michigan!

Christmas 2010

Here are some photos of us on Christmas morning!Here are the girls in their matching PJ's! Of course, they did not want to sit still for the photo!
Here are the girls with Grandma and Grandpa Sandoval!
Lydia didn't really notice the Christmas tree at our house, but she just loved the ornaments on my parents Christmas tree! Good thing my mom bought some plastic ornaments for the lower half of the tree! :)
I was always very careful not to let Lydia get into Makayla's goldfish crackers (from a choking standpoint)! However, one day Lydia got into them when I wasn't looking and gobbled them down without a problem! So now she gets her own snack cup with goldfish! She knows exactly what's going on when she sees the snack cups come out and she better get her own or we're going to hear about it!!
These shopping carts were one of my favorite gifts that I got the girls! I think I enjoyed them more than they did!
Makayla just loves this puzzle that Aunt Julie and Uncle Tim got her! She can do a good portion of the puzzle without any help...as you can see below!
Here's a photo of Makayla and Lydia with Nana and Papa and all of their Evers cousins!This was Makayla and Lydia's favorite thing to play with after we spent an entire day celebrating Christmas and opening gifts! (This prompted me to put away some of the gifts I had bought and save them for a rainy day!)

Making Cookies

We did some baking while visiting my parents in Michigan! Makayla had fun helping us make cut-out cookies! Her favorite part was the sprinkles!

Look Alikes?

Here's a photo of Makayla now (28 months) and me when I was 36 months! We showed this photo to Makayla and she insisted that it was her in the photo!

2010 is coming to a close!

Wow! I can't believe the year is almost over! We've had a whirlwind past few months and I've been horrible at keeping this blog up to date! So here's a quick recap of what we've been up to lately! Makayla has been learning tons of new words and phrases and has no problem telling us what she thinks or what she wants! About a month ago, she decided she wanted to start sitting on the potty, so we had a pretty easy time potty training her! She still has a few accidents, but is about 98% potty trained! Lydia is a little ball of energy! She started taking some steps in late November and is now toddling around the house! She follows Makayla around and wants to do everything that Makayla does! She has 6 of her 8 front teeth and 2 more that have almost cut through. She had a rough time with ear infections and we went through 4 or 5 rounds of antibiotics between September and mid November. She got tubes in her ears in late November and it's helped tremendously!
We had two fun visits from Grandma and Grandpa Sandoval...one in October and one in November! We also took a trip to the Wisconsin Dells with the Evers' family. Unfortunately, Makayla got the flu and we had to head home early! I've been back to work since the end of August. I'm working 4 days a week and find it's a good balance. I use my Friday off to either spend time with the girls and have play dates or else run errands and try to keep up with everything around the house! My Fridays off were also a wonderful blessing for getting Christmas shopping done! Chad has been pretty busy with work too and did some traveling in October. He also keeps busy with our rental properties!
Well, that's a quick recap of us! Here are 2 of my favorite close-ups of the girls! These were taken a few days ago..Makayla is 28 months and Lydia is 9 months old!