March 2010

Addy and her friend Lilly having a picnic in the front yard on a nice day
Alivia didn't waste any time figuring out how to climb!

Alivia celebrated her 9 month birthday by taking her first steps! Nice to have her walking, but she gets into so much more stuff, which big sister Addy doesn't always appreciate!

We have a tooth!!

Liv loves to get into EVERYTHING now that she is mobile!!

Is she her daddy or what?

So, FINALLY, yesterday Alivia's first tooth popped through. It seems like she has been teething forever! But the first one on the bottom front came through yesterday and it looks like the one next to it won't be too far behind!

I can't remember if I posted this before, but Alivia has started to stand on her own already! She can go from a crawling position, to a squat and then she can balance and stand up on her own!! I'm just waiting for her to start taking steps. She already loves to pull herself up on all the furniture and pull things down! She has gotten pretty good at crawling also! She can move across the room quickly either to get something that she wants, or to follow us to another room! She is growing and changing so fast!!

Happy 2010!!

This is the "Uh,mom, she's touching me" picture! :) Livy just loves her big sister Addy!!

Playing out in the snow this past week. It got up to about 40 degrees! Yay for melting snow!!

New Years Eve activities. We ran out of time at Christmas (and had too many other sweets around!) so we decorated gingerbread men! Oh how our New Years Eve's have changed....

Addison decided she would join Alivia in her crib. So she pushed over the rocking chair and climbed on in!

Yum, oatmeal and bananas!

Christmas Day night. I think Addison was coming down from her sugar high after all the cookies she swiped off the table!!

Outside building a snowman after a big snow in December

I made finger paints for Addison. They turned out pretty good! I did find out, however, that they are really only good for that day. I had tried to store them (maybe I should have put them in the fridge), but they got kinda stinky!

This summer I made sidewalk paint also, and that turned out really well too. I like making Addy things like that. 1. Because its cheaper than buying the Crayola stuff, and 2. I like knowing exactly what is in them just in case she decides to eat some of it. I don't like all the chemicals, etc!! Let me know if you want any of the recipes that I have used!

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Happy New Year to all of our blog followers!! Amazing how fast the last 10 years have gone by. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we were celebrating the new millennium.

Anyways...the holidays were good for us here in the Scharlau household. We actually had a pretty quiet holiday season. My family was in Florida for the holidays, so we celebrated our Christmas with them last weekend. So we had Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day to ourselves. Christmas Day night was spent at Tom's moms for the big Scharlau family Christmas.

Christmas was more fun this year than in the past. Having kids make Christmas so much fun! Addison was into looking at Christmas lights and decorating the tree this year. She really enjoyed opening her presents (and everyone elses), too. Santa brought Addison a play kitchen for Christmas, which she loves. Her favorite things to make are eggs, pizza and coffee! She's very cute to watch while she is "cooking"!

Our little Addison...hard to believe she'll be THREE soon! What a fun (but very trying at times) age. She is a very smart little girl and amazes us all the time with the things that she says and does. She is very good with her colors, shapes, etc., so we have been working on our counting, singing songs and learning to share. Sharing with her little sister mostly. I'm not sure yet if Addison likes being a big sister. Sometimes she is very sweet to Alivia and wants to hug her and play with her. Other times, well...she is just not so nice. Taking things away from Alivia, pushing her away when she gets into things. I'm sure its all typical for a 2 1/2 year old. Those of you with kids who watch Sesame Street may have seen the episode about "mine-itis". We definitely have a case of "mine-itis" in our house! Everything belongs to her, even if its not hers. I'm sure it will only get worse as Alivia gets older and gets into more of Addison's stuff!!

On to Alivia. Livy is now 7 months old and is a girl on the move!! She has finally figured out how to coordinate her arms and legs and get to where she wants to go by crawling! The first week of January she started taking a few "steps" crawling, but on Sunday (her 7 month birthday), she took off across the living room! This past week she has even started pulling herself up to standing on toys or other things on the floor, she hasn't made it to the furniture yet.

Alivia has been on solid foods here for a few months, and she loves to eat! I've been trying to make some of her food. I haven't been as diligent about it as I was with Addison. Time seems to be a factor these days, so I haven't done as much as I would like.

Livy just had her 6 month(7 month) pediatrician appointment this past week. She is weighing in at 17 lb 4 oz.(60th percentile) and is 29 inches tall(99th percentile)!! The doctor said she is as tall as the average one year old. Which would explain why she has now moved on to the 12 month clothes! Luckily she has grown at about the same rate as Addison, so we haven't had to buy much of anything for Alivia. Hopefully we'll make it to the end of the winter here without having to buy anything new!

The girls have both had mild colds this past week. Just a couple of runny noses. I'm hoping to make it through the winter season without having any major illness. I feel we are pretty lucky to have made it this far with just ONE cold each! (Now that I have said that, I'm sure we'll get something!)

I'm very ready for spring to be here. I think we are all tired of being cooped up in the house. It's been too cold to be outside much. Addy loves to be outside and enjoys playing in the snow. The last few days have been a little warmer (into the low 30's), so we have ventured outside for short periods of time. I wish we could get her outside more often to burn off some of that energy that she always seems to have! I'm ready to be outside more too. I look forward to my flowers coming up and to doing some planting and rearranging around our yard.

I hope this post finds all of you doing well!

Not too many pics of Addy recently, mostly Alivia.

Alivia is a girl on the move lately! She is rolling all over the place and getting her little hands on anything within arms reach. If its not within reach, so has no problem trying to dive out of our arms to get what she wants! She makes her way around the living room, playing with Addison's toys. Which doesn't really make Addy too happy, but I guess she'll have to learn to share, huh? :)

No teeth yet for Livy, I keep checking! I'm sure they will be popping through soon!

The girls are keeping us so busy...between our work schedules and taking care of them, life is flying by. It's still hard to believe that Christmas is right around the corner!!

Christmas is fun this year. Addison loves the decorations, she's very excited to get ornaments on the tree. We opted for a real tree again this year. I think we will try to hit the after Christmas sales for an artificial one for next year. Addison loves all the lights on the houses too. There are always a lot of "OH!'s" and "WOW"'s coming from the back seat!! :)

This post is kinda choppy. It's late and my brain is functioning a little slower...

Hope everyone is healthy. We've been good here. I'm hoping to keep it that way through the holidays!!

Livy is growing quickly! Such a big girl she is! 5 months old and she is right in those 9 month clothes! At her 4 month appointment she weighed 16.3 lbs and was 27 1/2 inches tall! She is such a happy sweet little girl. Livy loves to watch her big sister Addison, and loves to snuggle with her momma and daddy. We've started on rice cereal and a little applesauce, which she is really taking too. She loves to grab the spoon to help shovel it into her mouth. It would be great if most of it got into and stayed in her mouth, but she's starting to get the idea.

Alivia is a mover, just like her big sister. When she's on her tummy, she's already getting those legs moving like she's ready to crawl. I'm sure she won't be stationary for too much longer!

What a great day to go to the zoo! This past Sunday was such a beautiful day, we had to go spend a couple of hours at the zoo! We got to see the new tiger cubs that were born in July. Addy had fun watching them play.

Helpin' Mom rake leaves, such a big girl!

My little bumblebee's!!
Halloween was fun this year. It didn't take long for Addy to catch on to the whole trick-or-treating thing. We let her have a few pieces of candy too, which she gobbled right up!

I had to post these...it's amazing how much they look alike! The top pic is Addison, the bottom one is Alivia. They are definitely sisters!! :)

Long time, no blog

So I realized it had been 6 weeks+ since I had posted anything. I've been feeling guilty about not taking the time to put new pictures up to share with our friends and family! So here I am!

What's new in the last 6 weeks... I started back to work August 31st. It was good to get back to work, and good for our family to be back in a regular routine. I am still working MWF 12 hr shifts, which are long, but the schedule works for us. Addy and Livy go to a new babysitter on Mondays. They are the only two girls with three other boys that are right around Addison's age. The girls seem to do very well there, and its gotten easier for me to drop them off on Monday mornings, knowing they are in good hands!

The girls are both growing and changing so much. Addison makes us laugh all the time, she is a very funny little girl. She has such a great personality! She is very smart and we feel she speaking very well for a two year old! Addy is a very active little girl. She won't sit still for more than a few minutes. She LOVES to take care of her babies and stuffed animal friends. Trouble is, I keep running out of diapers for Livy because Addison has diapered every baby and animal in the house! (she's very good at putting them on too, they look better than my diapering job on Alivia!) Addy is such a good little mommy, she'll make a great babysitter someday!

Alivia has turned into a very active girl herself, very wiggly. She rolled over for the first time a few weeks ago, which I think was at about 16 weeks old. (I have really lost track of the weeks) Which was the same time that Addison did. Alivia is such a sweet girl. She talks and coos, blows raspberries, smiles and giggles. We feel very blessed to have had two such wonderful babies! Alivia definitely has a different personality than Addison. I can't describe exactly how, but it will be interesting to see how they are as they get older. Alivia tried rice cereal for the first time a couple weeks ago. She does alright with it. It seems most of it ends up all over her face and hands, but she'll get the hang of it.

Last weekend we went and picked out pumpkins. Addy wanted to take ALL the pumpkins home I think. Not sure what she is going to be for Halloween yet. I'll be sure to post pictures post-Halloween though.

I guess thats it for now. I'm very tired and need to head off to bed.