April 2011

Happy April...I'm a little slow to post this because we took a 10 day trip to Texas in early May! We all had a blast and the kids did great on the airplanes! Congrats to my brother, Jeff Sandoval, who earned his PhD in Computer Science at Rice University! More to come on that trip in a separate post....

April was still a pretty chilly month in Wisconsin, although the kids did get out side as much as possible! They both LOVE being outside. Chad recently bought a swing set for the kids, so watch my May post for some photos! In the meantime, here are some pics of our adventures in the backyard!

Here's Makayla helping Chad plant some little trees! I'm afraid these little trees are going to get trampled by the kids, but hopefully a few of them make it!
Here are the girls in their toy house! Makayla likes to put the bark chips in the little sink (where Lydia is standing) and Lydia likes to put the bark chips in her mouth! She loves it even more when you tell her "icky" and try to take them out of her mouth!!

Here's a photo of Lydia splashing in the rainwater that collected in the little sink!
Lydia loves to take Makayla's stuff and run away with it. Here's Makayla chasing Lydia to get her crocs back!

One of the first times we took Lydia outside, she spotted the neighbor's rocks. She thought it was a bunch of balls and she ran over to take a look (and a taste)!

I took this photo one morning because the sunrise was just beautiful! The photo hardly does it justice. The trees were just glowing in a bright orangish-yellow color!

We had a fun play date with Ella and Jayden! Here's a photo of the kids...it was funny trying to get them all to sit still and look at the camera!

For some reason, we really didn't take a lot of photos in April. Even though we didn't take a lot of photos, I did keep a list of a lot of the amusing things that Makayla has been saying these days!

We were outside playing one day and I showed Makayla some of my daffodils that were starting to bloom. She told me that the flowers had been sleeping in the ground and that the sun woke them up! Then she began singing a song about the sun called, "Mr. Golden Sun!" A few days later, Chad had called diggers hotline, so there were flags all over our yard. Makayla went outside, saw all of the flags, and told me that the flags must have been sleeping in the ground too!

Makayla is learning about her favorite things. Makayla likes to tell me her 2 favorite friends are Breckyln and Lydia. Brecklyn is a friend from school who Makayla loves to play with! One day I moved a lot of baby books from Makayla's bedroom into Lydia's bedroom. Makayla noticed this and was kind of upset. I was trying to explain to her that these were baby books and she had lots of her own books. She grabbed one and ran off with it and then turned to me and said, "Mom, this is my FAVORITE book!" Then she marched off to her bedroom with it! One day she told me that I needed to share with Dad because he was my favorite!

Sometimes Makayla likes to tell me strange things that I know can't be true. One day she couldn't find her "Brown Bear" book, so she told me, "Dad must have sold it!". (This was shortly after Chad sold our boat.) One day she told me that Chad had been carrying her on his shoulders and that he scratched her eyes on the ceiling! Hmmm... One evening I asked her where her sheet from daycare was. She said, "Lydia ripped it so Dad threw it out!" So later that night I was asking Chad what the sheet said before it got ripped and he told me it was not ripped and he did not throw it out! Hmmm.... One night Makayla woke-up in the middle of the night and she peed the bed. I went into her room and she did not want to get out of the bed. I tried to explain to her that she peed the bed and we needed to change the sheets. First she tells me, "Mom, that's just my water, it leaked!" (She has a sippy of water in her bed) So I checked and the sippy still looked pretty full. The she still didn't want to get out of the bed and I explained that there was pee in the bed. Then she tells me, "Mom, that's bath water!" Hmmm....

Makayla also likes to be a little mother-hen to Lydia. She will tell me all the naughty things that Lydia does and she'll talk to Lydia like she's the mom. She likes to tell me, "Lydia isn't listening" when Lydia doesn't do what I ask. She will repeat things I say to Lydia. She will say, "It's okay sweetheart" and "I know sweatheart" when Lydia is crying. She always wants to help me change Lydia's diaper and get Lydia dressed. I think if Lydia would hold still, Makayla would be a pro at changing her diaper! One day, Lydia threw her sippy cup of milk on the floor. Makayla picked it up and said, "You're all done with this!" and put it in the fridge!

Lately, Makayla really likes to read the book, "The Cat in the Hat." One day it was thundering pretty loudly, so I told Makayla to listen to the thunder. I said, "The thunder goes thump and bump!" She looked at me and asked, "Are the Cat-in-the-Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 up in the sky?"

Chad got me some flowers for my birthday and Makayla and I were admiring them together. She was asking me the names of the flowers in the vase. When I told her, "This is a daisy", she looked at me funny and asked, "Where's Donald?"

Lydia is continuing to be more vocal. She clearly says, "ball" and she'll say, "dad" and "water". In the bathtub, if you ask her where her toes are, she'll smile and laugh and grab her foot and lift it up! She also likes to play peek-a-boo by putting a blanket over her toes! Then I ask her where her toes are and she laughs and moves the blanket!! Lydia has very little fear and does her best to keep up to Makayla. Here's one final photo of Lydia climbing up on the register in order to see out the window! She's become a pro at at this...and all sorts of other climbing lately!

March 2011

March was a fun month! We celebrated Lydia's first birthday and enjoyed a quick visit from my parents! We also spent a weekend at the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells with the Evers Family! Other than 1 crazy snow-storm in mid-March, we're starting to see some grass and we're getting some warmer days!

I've gotten out a few times for walks with the girls! Yesterday Lydia thought it was hilarious to kick her boots off her feet as I was pushing her in the stroller! She just laughed and laughed every time I had to stop and pick up her boot and put it back on her foot! Today she thought it was hilarious to pull off her mittens and throw them outside of the wagon! Again, she just laughed and laughed every time I turned around and saw her throwing the mitten overboard!

Chad has had his eye on a newer boat and luckily, he just sold our boat today! So over the next month, he'll be busy checking out the new boat and hopefully, purchasing it! Makayla has been excited to go boating. One day she told Chad, "I'm all done with the snow, let's get out the boat!" She's also been admiring the new boat on-line with Chad. One day I was talking to her about our red boat and she said to me in a very know-it-all voice, "No, Dad is going to buy a blue boat!" She was very excited when Chad brought the red boat home from the storage shed earlier this week. She came inside and told me that we needed to build a bigger garage because both the boat and Dad's truck did not fit into the garage together!

Lydia has really started enjoying dolls this month! She likes to feed her doll a bottle or spoon feed the doll some pretend food! She also likes to take the doll in and out of the toy stroller and she tries to push the doll around!Makayla likes to put diapers on about 6 of her dolls and stuffed animals and then she'll go through and change the "poopy diapers" on each one of the toys! She has a toy garbage can which she fills with all the "poopy" diapers! She wraps them all up, just like I do when I change a diaper. Then she gives me the bucket of poopy diapers and I have to open them all back up for her so that she can use them again!

Lydia and Makayla are getting old enough to periodically play nicely together! However, most of the time they just taunt each other! Lydia will grab something that she knows Makayla is playing with and she just laugh and run away as fast as she can with it! Makayla will grab things away from Lydia and push or hit Lydia. Lydia is learning to push back and sometimes she pulls Makayla's hair. Sometimes, when Makayla grabs something from Lydia, Lydia will just look at me and put on a good crying show, hoping to get her toy back!

Here's a photo of me and the girls chillin' before bed one night! We weaned Lydia of her bottle this month since she seemed to be getting up a lot in the middle of the night wanting a bottle. She might have slept better a few nights, but she's full force into teething right now, so she hasn't been the greatest sleeper! I felt both of her top 1-year molars coming through in the past 2 weeks...hopefully the bottom ones cut through soon so she can sleep a little better!

Makayla has been pretty hit or miss with her potty training up until the last week of March. Actually, she gets the potty training concept, it's just a matter of her deciding she is ready! All of the sudden, she wanted to wear underwear all the time, day and night! She stayed dry all week at school, but had a few evening accidents at home. Last night was night 3 of wearing underwear to bed and she stayed dry all night! The first 2 nights she woke up wet in the middle of the night and we had to change sheets and clean her up! She must have remembered last night because she made it to the potty in the morning! In the past, she's gotten up to go potty in the middle of the night...so again it's just a matter of her deciding she's ready! Sometimes, I will remind her she's wearing underwear and I'll ask her if she has to go potty. She'll just say, "I'm fine Mom!" in an annoyed voice! Unfortunately, she's not always fine and she'll have an accident shortly after my questioning

Lydia LOVES Cheetos! She always wants more than 1 on her tray. Here, I gave her 4 at once and of course, she had to hold all 4 at once and try to eat all 4 at once!Lydia also doesn't like things cut up into pieces. She was using her front teeth to gnaw up a grape today...so I cut a few in half and gave them to her. She just took the cut ones, looked at them, threw them on the floor, and then pointed back to the bowl of whole grapes. I think she thinks they look like balls, which are one of her favorite things right now! She has a few favorite balls that she carries around the house. And she wants anything that looks like a ball...including apples and tomatoes that are sitting on the counter!

Here's a picture of Lydia and Grandma Sandoval! Lydia's 1st birthday was on March 4! We celebrated the following Friday with family and friends! Here's a picture of her cake: (which I would love to take credit for, but unfortunately, I did not make it...in case you are wondering...)Lydia wasn't too sure about us singing to her and it took her a few minutes to figure out her cake, but once she dug in, she loved it! Lydia had lots of help opening her gifts, which was fine with her! She was more interested in this big box that one of her gifts was wrapped in!We had a fun play date with my friend Louise and her two children, Ella and Jayden! It was quite amusing trying to get all the kids to sit still for a photo!Some of Makayla's new phrases are "taada" and "look everyone!" She'll say "look everyone" as she holds something up and slowly turns around to show it to everyone in the room! She also is very observant of when Chad, me, Lydia, and her are all in the same room. She will say, "we're all in here!" I took Makayla outside after our crazy 12+ inches of snow and we had fun trying to walk in the snow and then falling over in the snow and making snow angels! It was one of the first times I actually got outside with her...typically Chad takes her outside and I stay inside with Lydia!

Lydia is starting to be more verbal too. She can pretty clearly say: Mama, Dada, hi, and ball. There are a lot of things that I think she is trying to say, but that aren't too clear! For example, she will also say "tickle,tickle" as she wiggles her fingers by my neck! She also says "whoa" when she falls down! She loves to chatter and one of her favorite babbles is "doobaa" which she says about 5 or 6 times all strung together. She will say that and then I will say it to her and she will say it back to me! She uses sign language to say "more" and "all done". She can wave hello and bye. She will shrug her shoulders and hold her hands up when she is looking for something. She can also nod her head yes and shake her head no! She loves to hear us say "no" and then she'll just laugh at us! She likes knocking over a tower of blocks and she absolutely loves playing downstairs or taking a bath! If she hears either of those words (downstairs or bath) she drops everything and goes running to either the steps or the bathroom!

After daylight savings weekend, the girls got into weird sleeping patterns! Lydia was going to bed around 7:00pm and getting up at 5am! Makayla was not falling asleep until 10 or 10:30pm and we were dragging her out of bed after 7am!! Chad and I were getting tired of burning the candle at both ends! We've finally got them back to both getting up around 6 or 6:30, which is a decent time! And when we are lucky, they are both asleep before 9pm! Sometimes I think Lydia sleeps less than Makayla does...especially with her recent transition to only wanting to take 1 nap a day! Sometimes all she takes is one 90 minute nap! Makayla would sleep over 2 hours if we would let her! We started limiting her to 90 minutes so that she wouldn't be up so late at night!

Well, the girls continue to keep us going non-stop! Check us out again next month! :)

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!