Toes

Toes sure are tasty...don't ya think???!!!!

Weekend Travels

In March we did a few weekends of traveling back to back.  The first weekend, we went to Madison and spent time with the Charbonneau's - Jason ("Charby") is one of Aaron's closest friends.  It was a nice weekend.  We did a few things, but really just relaxed together and caught up. 

We happened to pack a pair of jammie's for Addy that their oldest also had, so of course it was a good photo opportunity! 

Alexis (3) and Addy (22 months)

Both Aaron and Jason are such great dads.  It's awesome to watch them with their kids.  Like his wife Maryellen commented...knowing how crazy those 2 would/could get back in the day, it is funny to think that those crazy guys now have kids (3 out of 4 being little girls) and just fun to see where life took them.  :)



Blake & Addy Anderson; Alli (Allison) & Alexis Charbonneau

The next weekend in March we went to Green Bay to spend some time with Aaron's family.  We typically go to the U.P. every March, but it just seemed like a lot this year to make that drive around March, so we thought we would try and meet at a half-way point. 

Green Bay is perfect -- only 3 hours for Aaron's dad/sisters; 4 for us without stopping.  Sure beats the 7 hour drive that we have...which typically becomes 8-9 with our stops (poor little Addy is not showing signs of getting over car sickness anytime soon!). 

Unfortunately Tina and the rest of the Lindholm's couldn't make it that weekend - but his sister Tammy and the rest of the O'Brien's and Aaron's dad made the trip down.  Aaron also has relatives in Green Bay - his aunt/uncle Sue & Gary, and 2 their kids -- Dustin (Aaron's best man in our wedding) and Derek all live there. 

Friday night we stayed over at Derek's house.  I think I've blogged about them before when we went to GB after Vanessa's wedding last summer...Derek has 2 little boys.  His oldest, Tyler is a riot!  You just have to have a conversation with him -- I just can't do him justice.  He is on the go 110% of the time and total entertainment!

He has a Silverado that he wanted to take Addy for a spin in.  Not going to lie, I felt like I had fast-forwarded 14-16 years and some crazy teenager wanted me to trust him with taking care of my little girl in his truck on a date.  Crazy!

Anyway --- it's actually pretty cool and Derek made sure to run after them the entire time so that they didn't crash into anything, LOL!

Hey you two -- keep your eyes on the road!  (how cute is this??)

Saturday we checked into a hotel that has a nice waterpark.  Everyone came to the hotel for the day to take advantage of the water park and of course watch some basketball later in the evening!

In the kiddie pool!

Not so sure about it the second time around :)

After only a few minutes, Addy was over the kiddie pool, and on to their fun play area!

Peaking at someone in the fam and full of squeels!



Uncle Eddie catching miss Addalyn

Addy and Brandon also went down the big slides a few times and I took her in the pool with her floatie also.  All the pictures from the slides were blurry.  I think she sort've liked it and it sort've scared her at the same time!  

Hanging out Pool Side

Snack Break



Papa Lowell and Blake

I get so mad at myself when I come home and look at pictures and realize I hardly got any pictures of anyone.  I wish I had some of Addy with everyone (like her Papa and such).  Addalyn absolutely LOVED her time with Papa, auntie Tammy, uncle Eddie, Brandon, & Alesha.  She would go up and down the hallways of the hotel with them and really didn't want to sit still in our room.  Which was fine - she was entertained! 

I think we should meet in GB again sometime - it was a nice time and not TOO lengthy of a drive! 

Can't wait to see everyone again in May when we head to MI for Brandon's graduation.  Holy craziness....we have a nephew that is GRADUATING?  Say what??!!!!!!

5 Months

This post is a bit late, because Mr. Blake was actually 5 months a few weeks ago.  Buuuut, holy cow has life been busy.  Of course it is crazy busy on a daily basis with 2 little ones...but we've also been gone on the weekends and such, so not a lot of time to sit and relax and blog (or time to clean for that matter.  WoW!).

Life is good with this little man.  He is a very content baby these days!!  He looks at you with such serious eyes that MELT.MY.HEART.  (pretty sure I've mentioned that a few times on this blog!).

We have officially transitioned him into the nursery with Addy.  They do pretty well.  Addy is such a "mother hen" to him, always reporting to us when he is crying, smiling, rolled over, talking, needing a paci, etc....so for a while any noise he made would wake Addy up.  And, in the morning he usually woke her up earlier than normal.  I think she is starting to get used to him being there and willing to stay asleep if he wakes up earlier than her.  On the other hand, it takes a lot for Addy to wake up Blake.  He is sleeping before we put her to bed, and she'll talk, sing, etc and it typically won't wake him, THANK GOODNESS :)


He is such a sweet little boy, usually just observing and watching his crazy big sister run around like crazy.   He really has a lot of patience with her, and loves to watch her.  He sometimes smiles when she talks to him, but usually he just looks at her, like "here you are again, all up in my space"!  She gets right in his face (I mean RIGHT in his face) and says "Hi Blake, How are you?" and "Good Morning Buddy" and a bunch of other cute things that sound even more cute than necessary 'cause of the fact she doesn't have all of her words down yet.  :)

Blake LOVES his cereal too.  We are ready to move to other foods I think.  He fusses every single time we are done with it, like 'GIVE ME MORE PLEASE!'  I just am waiting for the 6 month mark I guess, not sure why though.  He starts each morning with a bottle around 6:30 a.m., then again at 10, 2 & 7.  He has cereal in between that around 8, 11, and 5.  He is growing and it shows.  He is starting to transition out of his 3-6 month clothes.  I'm excited to see his stats at his 6 month check up.

I can't figure out who he looks like.  Most days I see my side of the family in him...especially our nephew Drew when he was this age (minus the fact that Drew has brown eyes, some pics you could not even tell the difference!).  But then I will glance at him and totally see Aaron.  I think he has more "Tarara" than Addy did at this age though...

Blake discovered tummy sleeping this month also.  I will never put him on his tummy myself, but there isn't much I can do if he rolls to it in the night I guess.  And, since he sleeps through the night, I can't complain too much!  He has a somewhat consistent sleeping schedule.  He goes to bed each night between 7:15 and 7:45.  He's usually ready on the early side of that, it is just a matter of getting him in his jammies and bottle in when we've barely gotten home from work and done baths some nights...it gets a bit hectic.  He takes a morning nap around 8:30/9 and afternoon nap around 12:30.  He sometimes thinks he needs to wake up after only 40 minutes to an hour of napping...but we're working on that!

In the picture below, it was the first night that Aaron and I discovered him on his tummy.  He was sleeping later than normal in the morning when we were getting ready for work.  Aaron went to check on him and came to me saying "come look at your son".  Not only was he on his tummy, but on the OTHER end of the crib from where he started.  He is quite the wiggler in his sleep!


Officially no more swaddling after this...the animal blanket that he has his head on, was the blanket he was swaddled in for bed.  Silly man!

 

Blake Aaron - 5 months!



Now THAT'S a Shiner

Our poor little Addy got in to it with the toilet...and the toilet won.  Her and I were getting ready to brush her teeth and do her hair Saturday morning.  I was putting her step stool by the counter and I turned around just in time to witness her trip on the rug and fall right on the base of the toilet with the corner of her right eye.

As soon as I could get a look at her eye (after the tears had calmed) it was already purple and pretty swollen...so I knew it was going to be bad.  But O--M--G!  It got more purple through the day, even worse Sunday, and was like a PLUM color on Monday morning. 

My heart breaks when I look at her poor little eye.  The first time she looked at herself in the mirror with her eye bruised she giggled and just kept looking and laughing!!  Silly little sweetie pie!



Sunday night...about a day and 1/2 after the fall

 

Tuesday morning...it went all the way around her eye and finally started to clear in color in the upper eye.

 

Thursday night...starting to clear and get a bit yellow...(please excuse the messy yogurt face!)

 So, she's going to have quite the eye for a while.  The thing is, it looks SO much better - but it obviously still shocks people that see her for the first time.  That's always a fun :)  I totally wish it was my eye instead...makes me want to cuddle and love her (and, she MAY have gotten a few more Dora fruit snacks than normal since last Saturday!)

Wuv U Bwake

Miss Addalyn has quite the sweet side to her (of course she also has a naughty side, but thankfully that is shown a lot less than her sweet these days...hopefully it stays that way as we near her 2 year old days!)

Last night was one of those sweet nights.  She really does love her little bro.  Twice out of nowhere, Addy puckered up her lips and made the kissing sound, so I leaned him over to her and Addy gave him a big kiss on his forehead and then goes "I wuv u Bwake".  Too sweet!!

Then a little later she was saying "I want this, I want that, I want ____" over and over again (not in a bad way, just wanting help grabbing things to play with!).  I jokingly said, "I want a big sqeeze"!  She immediately stopped what she was doing and ran over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me the BEST. HUG. EVER.

I was on the floor playing with her and Addy goes "mama, piwwow?" and went and grabbed a pillow off the couch, then goes "mama, bwanket" and grabbed me a blanket - she asked daddy for some help with the light, and then said "nuh-night mama". 

Aaaaah, how I wish I could keep her right here at this age forever!



Addy loves this little man!!!

 

Of course we all know how in love she is with daddy!  No question there!

 

Cuddling in next to Blake -- sometimes she just wants to get SO close to him!

 



Four Months Down :)

I can't believe how quickly Mr. Blake is growing and how quicly the time is passing. We are already nearing the half-way point between months 4 & 5.  Crazy!  He is so much fun these days.  He is very smiley, he loves to talk (and Addy always gets excited and says "He's Talkin'" when she hears him), and has giggled a few times too.

We had to do some sleep training after my 3 month post.  We went through a time period where he was waking every hour to hour & 1/2 and all he needed was his pacifier.  I knew he wasn't needing a bottle because he had gone nights without one (and with sleeping through the night).  So, him and I camped out down stairs and figured things out.  He's been doing awesome!  Basically sleeps through the night.  He does use a pacifier, and has a few nights where he wakes and all he needs is his paci.  When this happens, it is much more manageable because we just get up, give him the paci, and then go back to bed - and it is only once!

Blake started cereal this month also.  We had started it actually right after he turned 3 months thinking he was getting hungry at night...but it didn't really do well with his tummy, so we stopped and figured we'd try again in a few weeks.  Now, he LOVES his cereal!...as long as you catch him before he's TOO hungry, because then he is not happy with the cereal.  His bottle just fills his tummy quicker :). So he's now eating cereal for 'breakfast' and 'supper' with 4 bottles throughout the day. 

Here are his stats at his 4 month check up:

Height - 24.8 inches (44%)

Weight - 14.6 pounds (42%)

Head - 16.9 inches (68%)



4 months old!



Smiley Guy!

Mmmmmm, cereal :)

I really like my jumperoo these days (even if my face doesn't prove it in this picture!)

Those eyes melt mama's heart!

 The first night that we gave Blake cereal - Addy INSISTED on trying it also...lets just say she didn't like it very well.  And unfortunately (for her...fortunate for us!), since it was his first night eating cereal we had the camera right there we got a picture of her face when she took a bit bite of it. 



She liked it almost as much as she did the first time she tried it when she was 4 months!

(rice)

Blake's Baptism

We had Blake's baptism during Saturday night's mass service this weekend.  My sister Shannon and her husband Chad are Blake's Godparents.  He looked like such a handsome little man.  :)

If this outfit isn't a "mini Aaron" outfit, I'm not sure what is!

Blake did wonderful during the service.  He didn't cry at all while he was being baptised. He just stared and looked around all content :)



Just finished getting the water poured over his head!

Father Tim with Aaron, Blake and I

Blake with his Godparents

G & G Bertucci - with Addy & Blake :)



G & G Tarara with Addy & Blake

Grandpa Lowell wasn't able to make the trip from Michigan.  We thought of you and missed you - but COMPLETELY understand how hard it is to make the long drive.  We can't wait to see you in March :)

After the service we had everyone over to our house for supper & cake.  We had a great time sitting around our kitchen table talking, laughing, etc until after 11 at night - definitely not something we usually do so late into the night.  Good company and good conversation :)

I made/decorated Blake's baptism cake.  I have to say I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.  I'm starting to get more successful in my cake decorating abilities :)



Mama, Blake and his cake!

Funny thing - when our niece Brynne showed up to church, her and Addy had the same dress on!  I had just picked it out for Addy this week and Shannon said she's had it for Brynne for quite some time.  My sisters Angela and Shannon end up doing that a lot for their girls...buying the same clothes without knowing/talking about it.  I guess Addy is now old enough to be in the same line of clothes of them so I'll start doing that too! 

Addy and Brynne in their matching outfits!