Trés Happy

SOLD!!!

2012-02-18T19:54:00.000-09:00

Woohoo!!!!

Holy Cow! We sold our house! Now we just have to wait to hear back on our offer for the new house! Either way we are moving out in about a month!!!

Valentines Day

2012-02-15T22:09:00.000-09:00

Our Valentines Day this year was very different from any other year. It really isn't just about us anymore, it is more about our family and making it a special day for the girls. It was really pretty awesome.

Chloe got special nail polish which she picked out herself. It is super easy to get the dots, just dip a toothpick in the white polish and apply! Chloe loved her nails and looked at them all day!

Maddie of course is a little young for polish but she found a way to rock her own style.

This is completely natural. Every time I give her a bath her hair pops back into this mohawk. I don't even brush it this way, use gel or anything!

For most of the day we decorated Valentines. Looking back perhaps we should have done this earlier so we could actually mail them before Valentine's day, but oh well. Maybe next year :) Art took up pretty much the whole day. She was glued to that table. After her nap she ran downstairs and started decorating again. It was awesome.

Here are a few finished products. Glitter was definitely her favorite part! She called it "sprinkles" and couldn't get enough.

When Andrew got home we started making our special dinner. It was amazing! Also amazing was that I really didn't have to do much of the cooking. I prepped a little, but for the most part my amazing husband took care of everything! We are on a swimsuit diet so everything was healthy (well except the wine)!

Ahi and avocado salad

Ocean salad (octopus, seaweed, pickled ginger etc)

Coconut sticky rice

wine of course

Wasabi and black and white Sesame Crusted Seared Ahi

Roasted asparagus

Seared five spice scallops

And good company. The food was completely amazing. Chloe tried everything and especially loved the "shrimp" or as we call it, Seared Ahi. She probably ate a third of it. The coconut sticky rice was also a huge hit.

It is really fun to make a special dinner every now and then. I am so lucky to have a family who loves to cook, and to try new foods. If any of you would like any of these recipes just let me know (the only exception is the ocean salad as that was store bought). Every single thing was amazing! It will be hard to top this Valentine's day but I am sure when Madeline can actively participate it will get even better!

Before and After....Phew!

2012-02-12T22:11:00.002-09:00

Sorry we have disappeared! It has been CRAZY busy here getting ready to put our house back up on the market! We have been doing lots and lots to update, organize and most of all purge! Super huge thanks to Amber who flew all the way up from Oregon to help me out while Andrew was in NYC, DC, and Seattle for the longest business trip ever!!(nearly 2 weeks). Not only did she keep me company but she even scrubbed out my cabinets, helped stage the house (pretty much told me what to do with every room), and even cleaned out and organized my junk drawer. She must live by the motto "if you have time to lean you have time to clean!" or at least that was the motto of the 12 days she was here!

Well after all that scrubbing we have A LOT to show for it! A few Before and afters are in order:

Kitchen BEFORE

Kitchen AFTER

(New floors courtesy of my amazing parents!!)

Half bath BEFORE

(we did have a mirror, I had just taken it off already)

half bath AFTER

(amazing what a little paint and a shelf can do right?!!)

Staircase BEFORE

Staircase AFTER

(notice small children can no longer fall through the huge railing gaps thanks to Andrews handy work, new carpet no longer cascades down the wall, and of course no more 80's wood color!)

I don't have any more before and afters of these next rooms because mostly the big changes were in purging and organizing the madness that is life at our house.

More big changes upstairs with new paint color and new caulking that I did all on my own! Awesome right?!

Did a professional caulk that tub? No it was super Carmen! Thanks to my also-super parents for the amazing tile work.

This was a ton of hard work, and finally we are done (well pretty much). I can not even imagine what it will be like to just sit down, or to do something other than clean and renovate on the weekends, and really every waking hour. I have a few more photos of our now immaculate house but for now I am going to sign our listing papers and get some sleep! Wish us luck for a quick sale this time around!

8 to 16 inches

2012-01-12T15:37:00.000-09:00

It is still snowing and the forecast for today is 8 to 16 more inches.

This is the side of our driveway. Notice all the snow on the roof!

And here is a pic from inside! There is so much snow it is even covering some of the windows!

I don't mind it though because it is so darn gorgeous! And probably also because I am not the one out shoveling snow :) It hasn't snowed this much ever, so I am just trying to enjoy it!

Milestones for Madeline

2012-01-10T18:20:00.000-09:00

We have noticed Madeline eyeing our food lately, and realized that it is about that time to be introducing her to a larger menu selection. These are photos from her first time eating. I bought the organic carrots at a farmers market, steamed them, tossed them in the food processor and froze them into baby portions. Luckily she loves them! I mean really loves them! She was grabbing the spoon, trying to get more and more!

Chloe even got a chance to feed her baby sister! I just made her pureed butternut squash last night (week 2) and she also loved that! So far no allergies, so we will stick to the squash this week and try maybe beets next week. It will be interesting to see if Maddie will favor the same things Chloe did.

The second milestone for Maddie was watching her first Rose Bowl! Go Ducks!

She loved watching them win! Chloe was napping but got up for the last quarter. She really likes the touchdowns, and also repeating EVERYTHING her Dad says, and also the way he says it...... His comments to the refs become her comments.... He edited himself pretty "darn" quick :) It was pretty funny to hear a tiny little girl voice echoing Andrew's commentary though!

Andrew also celebrated a milestone: he joined the club of those of us missing our wisdom teeth. If you can believe it, he never had any pain. Doesn't that just kill you? He took the pan pills for a few days, because the dentist told him it is way better to take them to keep the pain away than to chase it, but when he weaned off still no pain. Some people have all of the luck. I don't mean to make it sound like I wanted him to suffer, but come on, it was like he had a filling! So not fair to the rest of us!

By the way it is still snowing up here. SO MUCH SNOW!!!! That is the BBQ hidden under 3 feet of snow. This is crazy! I have to get a picture of our house too! I will try to get it tomorrow!

A Hawaiian Christmas

2012-01-09T08:00:00.001-09:00

This year's Christmas Eve party theme was Hawaiian Christmas. We had leis for everyone, mai tai's, and endless supplies of Hawaiian food, like Jim's amazing kalua pulled pork sandwiches on sweet Hawaiian rolls, teriyaki chicken with grilled pineapple, fruit, cookies, cakes, it goes on and on...... It was wonderful! Lots of friends and family came over to share in the evening. It is just a wonderful event that Andrew parents put together each year.

It is nearly impossible to get a serious picture out of Chloe. Always a silly face!

Then after Christmas Eve was over, next came Christmas morning. Chloe opened a lot of presents.....I mean a lot! She loved every single thing! She also loves all of Madeline's toys, which is a bit of a challenge, but manageable so far with a little redirection :)

Here is a cool magnetic airplane block kit. Chloe had Andrew make probably 10 different airplanes that morning!

Lacing games for dexterity were a fun surprise as well!

Of course she now has new stuffed animals that she takes everywhere, names and talks to. Here is "other bear" and "special bear". She named them all on her own, and keeps their names straight. She knows just who everyone is!

By the way- Christmas eve is so much fun as a parent! (yes we have been parents for two Christmases before this, but this was the first year Chloe knew what was going on, so it made it extra special for us). We helped Santa stuff the stockings and put together a massive doll house. We stayed up pretty late- maybe 1 or 2 am, but it was just so fun, we couldn't help ourselves! The presents lasted for a week after Christmas. We let her open a few each day, just so that she would really appreciate everything people got for her and not get too overwhelmed. I try to pull out a different activity each day for her so she gets to play with everything, just not all at the same time. The toy mess would drive me totally crazy otherwise! Next year I think I will ask Santa for more storage!

Zoo Lights!

2012-01-07T13:59:00.000-09:00

We love the zoo. In the summer time we go at least every week, often times more. In the winter it is a bit tougher, since it takes a lot more prep to get out the door. For zoo lights we thought it would be worth the extra effort. It was a "warm" night.... about 25 degrees and snowing like crazy! The zoo had lights up everywhere, and it was fun too see it festive and snow covered. All of the animals are cold climate animals so they love it too!

You can see Maddie all bundled up in a snow suit, in the babyhawk, inside my jacket. She stayed super toasty! Chloe is in her new snow suit, loving the snow. She would have been happy if we just stayed in the parking lot; she was less into the lights, more into the snow.

This next photo was my attempt at capturing Andrew and Chloe, but with all of the snow it was difficult to get a shot not obscured by snowflakes!

And just in case anyone was worried, here is the after shot of Madeline. happy, safe and warm!

It was truly a white Christmas! In fact I heard on the news that we are headed toward an all time record for winter snowfall in Anchorage. It has been snowing pretty much every day, and I love it! Of course I am not the one who snow plows the driveway on a nearly daily basis.... Andrew may have a different opinion about this snowy record :)

Christmas activities

2012-01-05T16:23:00.000-09:00

It has been the busiest holiday season I can remember! Here is a recap of some of our activities:

Chloe picked out our amazing Christmas tree! They are spendy up here but worth it. Especially since ours is a month old now and going strong!

Maddie helped by sleeping and being adorable.

She did wake up to help us start decorating but her early bed time kept her from finishing with us.

Chloe however could stay awake all night, and LOVED putting up ornaments!

She also loves being without pants. It is a good bet that if we are at home there will be a full moon out.

putting up the star

Playing in the newspaper pile left from unwrapping all of the ornaments. This was our wintertime version of playing in the fall leaves. Due to Chloe's nudist tendencies this was the only picture I could post, but imagine her throwing the newspaper in the air, kicking it around and jumping in the pile.

Everyone says Christmas is best when you have small children, and finally this year I know what they mean. Kids find joy in everything! Chloe was fully aware of the whole thing this year from the carols to the stories to the presents. It was awesome!

Santa!!

2011-12-21T15:27:00.000-09:00

We just met Santa, well actually we saw two different Santas in one day! This one (try #2) was "nice" per Chloe so she was willing to sit on his lap for a photo. Yay!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!

Trying to get that perfect shot

2011-12-15T14:19:00.000-09:00

When photographing kids I think the best motto is: "It isn't the outcome, but the journey that matters". That or maybe "take as many photos as possible in the blind hope that jut one will turn out!". I try to embrace both mottos every time :) This was the outcome.

Drool is a constant at month 4!

Goofy Chloe. It is hard to get a straight face from her these days.

"Oh Geez Mom!"

Advent Calendar done!!

2011-12-13T13:58:00.000-09:00

I have been working on this project for entirely too long (about a month!). When I first had the idea for a Christmas tree advent calendar I searched the web for ideas and of course came to the conclusion that I could do it better than anyone else and it would also be super easy. A red flag should have gone up, but I somehow forgot how much time it takes to do anything at all , let alone a sewing project, with kids......

I picked out lots of red fabrics for the ornaments. This was a joint project with Amber who was in charge of making the green ornaments.

Then I designed and cut out all of the iron on decals for each ornament using my always awesome silhouette.

ironed the decals on to the fabric

added sweet white suede ribbon from the ribbon jar (Thanks Julie!!!),

turned the fabric right side in and sewed in circles with a piece of felt for structure

turned right side out

repeat times 24. (23 actually due to an unfortunate cutting mistake). Then I hand sewed each ornament closed, and made the tree and background on which the ornaments were to hang.

I found these awesome number buttons at a local store and decided to use them instead of ironing on the number decals I made earlier. Aside from the total pain it took to hand sew each button, I love how it looks!

the star is ornament number 25, and goes on for Christmas!

Here is what the project looks like all done! Super cute right?!

The "funny" thing is, after all of this work- Chloe wants nothing to do with the advent calendar. Apparently it isn't very interesting to a 2 1/2 year old. Swing and a miss, but hopefully next year it will be better received. You better believe that I am putting on the ornaments each day though! I love it!

baby Madeline

2011-12-02T12:09:00.000-09:00

I am trying my hardest to keep taking as many pictures of Madeline as possible so she doesn't have the typical second child- no photo syndrome. Sometimes Madeline looks so much like Chloe it is amazing. Can you tell the difference? Which is Chloe and which is Madeline?

Did you guess? The top one is Madeline and the bottom one was Chloe at the same age. It seems like so long ago that Chloe was so tiny! Long before first words and whole sentences. Every day really is better than the next. Chloe is quite the talker but every once in a while she gets her words mixed up and leaves us cracking up. The other morning Andrew asked her what kind of cereal she wanted and she replied "CRAP-PURPPLE-POP!!!!" (aka snap crackle pop) Kids are such a gift!

Maddie is always on her tummy now, and pretty much always drooling. Every time I put her down- flip- on to her tummy she goes. She doesn't like being on her back anymore. That was so one week ago :) Luckily she is sleeping much better again, allowing the dark circles and bags under my eyes a little chance to fade away. Last week she was up at least every hour all night long, sometimes every 30 minutes.... last night she was only up every 3 hours. It was amazing. I don't know what I am doing right but I hope I keep it up :)

Projects

2011-11-21T14:37:00.000-09:00

Tis the season for knitting, and I am in the mood to organize. Put those together and you get a project!! I searched the internet for knitting needle organizers and they were either too homely or too expensive. I am a do it your-selfer so I decided why not make a few knitting needle holders?! Here is the link I loosely based my design after. Isn't the internet awesome?!

The design is two tiered for straight needles as well as the shorter double pointed needles. I don't really use straight needles, and knit pretty much everything in the round so I use the upper tier for the circulars. I still need to add the number labels for each needle size, but you get the idea.

The whole things rolls up in a tidy little case :) This is much better than a whole mess of needles strewn in a bag. The colors make me happy too. So happy in fact that I decided to make two. The second one went to Donna who is also an avid knitter, and also organizationally challenged when it came to her needles. Now she blows me away with her typed up spreadsheets of needle sizes and lengths. I suspect this is only interesting to about one of you so I will leave it at that.

Chloe has also been creative lately building what she calls castles. When it is finished she grins and asks if she can knock it down. Repeat times 10.

Her latest engineering feat.

Snow Day

2011-11-14T21:27:00.000-09:00

This is what Alaska looks like now days....stereotypical gorgeous snowy Alaska!

With Halloween over and Thanksgiving around the corner we took down all of the spiders and bats and replaced them with fall leaves....... next year I will just skip the leaves and go right into the snowflakes!

Chloe loves the snow and will spend hours out there if she could! Powell is her favorite snow companion.

Madeline stays inside and enjoys the snowy view through the window :)

Look who is a skilled head lifter!!

Her newest achievement is grabbing her feet and playing with them.

And also smiling and giggling at herself in the mirror.

Chloe continues to hone her cookie decorating skills. The sprinkles are by far her favorite part!

The aftermath of Halloween cookies.

Gotta love the holidays!

WOOHOOOO!!!

2011-11-11T12:43:00.001-09:00

I finally did it!!!! Tuesday will be my last day of work!

It was probably the hardest choice I have ever had to make and I went back and forth over and over again over the course of my maternity leave. I even went as far as hiring a nanny for the girls so that I could go back to work (I love my job). Daycare is impossible to find for babies less than a year in Alaska. I suppose to my benefit our nanny quit before she started, leaving me short one nanny and back at square one on the stay home or work decision making dilemma. Well as you can see I finally decided!! It came down to this advice from a friend "You have your whole life to work but only a few years to spend with your kids when they are little". It is so true. I am happier than I have ever been and starting my journey in excelling at being a Mom! Yay!

Trick or Treat!

2011-11-05T08:22:00.001-08:00

As promised, a family photo! I am Foofa, Andrew is DJ Lance Rock, Madeline is Brobee, and Chloe is Todee, all from Yo Gabba Gabba. Chloe, Madeline and I wore our costumes all day, but some reason Andrew didn't want to wear his to work.

We had two trick or treating sessions. One down our street (maybe 6 houses) and then down Grandma and Grandpa's street (maybe 10 houses). We skipped a lot of houses because Chloe was having just too much fun in the snow. I took about 100 pictures that night and these are the few I was able to capture her in frame!

Eating snow, followed by laying in the snow, rolling in snow and running around in the snow.

After trick or treating of course there was lots of candy eating. She has a month's supply after just a few houses! When that runs out we have a year's supply left over since we bought two giant Costco bags and only gave out about 8 candies...to 2 trick or treaters :) Oh well, bite sized candy is great. Who wants to eat a whole candy bar?!

I can't wait for next year. Chloe is still talking about Halloween. I can't even guess what she will want to be. When I asked her what she wants to be when she grows up she said "a real firefighter", and Madeline will be a "writer". Kids are just so funny.

Snow before Halloween!!

2011-10-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

This is what we woke up to yesterday!!!!

There are bets every year whether it will snow before or after Halloween. I don't remember which one I chose, but I am sure excited to see the white stuff!!

It was the day before Halloween and we took Chloe to trick or treat street downtown to trick or treat at all of the downtown businesses. Since it was chilly we did not get ourselves decked out (we are saving it for tonight baby!!) but Chloe had most of her costume on! You can see the little bag I made for her too!

Chloe is Todee and Andrew is DJ Lance Rock from Yo Gabba Gabba! I am sorry to say we had to buy Andrew's costume as I could not find orange fur ANYWHERE!!

You can see Chloe had a great time, and she has the candy to prove it!!

This morning I dressed the girls up for a little Halloween photo shoot. Madeline is dressed as, and photographed with Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba. I knit her little costume and totally love it, especially the hat with horns!!

I just love Halloween! It is so fun to make the costumes! I can't wait to see what the girls want to be next year! Stay tuned for more photos of the whole family! Hopefully we will be able to get some good ones tonight!

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-27T13:53:00.001-08:00

We wanted to do something really festive for fall so we went to the reindeer farm!! No they do not raise reindeer to later become reindeer sausages, it is a wildlife refuge where they get to live out their days.

They also had ponies! Chloe got to pick which one she wanted to ride.

you can see tiny Madeline on my chest.

She also got to feed the ponies,

go on a hay ride pulled by a tractor,

and run around in a hay maze...you can see the tootsie roll bandit behind them. When you catch him in the maze he gives you tootsie rolls. This kid took his job way too seriously--- it was almost impossible to catch him (annoyingly so).

Luckily Chloe finally "caught him". If she wouldn't have, I guarantee Andrew would have made sure Chloe got her tootsie roll one way or the other.

We also found the lollipop clown in the maze. She was definitely Chloe's favorite part of the maze.

Back on the "hay ride"

We also went to the pumpkin patch where Chloe picked out our pumpkin.

for the most part Chloe just ran around like a crazy person....truthfully we did the pumpkin picking, or more accurately pumpkin "selecting".

If you look closely you will see we "picked" this pumpkin......but it is from Washington, via Costco. I guess they don't grow pumpkins up in Alaska.

A nice group shot....you can see it was pretty difficult to slow Chloe down long enough to get a picture.

Amy, Dustin and Annabelle met us there too. Amy is one of Chloe's all time favorite people, so leaving without her did't go so well......even though we we just driving in separate cars to go to lunch.

Treats do go a long way to keeping the peace.

Maddie all bundled up from the cold, and ready to head back home.

I think this will probably be a new halloween tradition.

Beachy Monday

2011-10-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

Even though our trip was short, we still made time to get out to the coast and I am SO GLAD we did! The weather was amazing (think 70's!!), and so was the company.

Maddie got to meet her great grandma!

and great aunt Emily too! (She met her great aunt Melinda too!)

After some time at Emily's house we went out to the beach to have lunch and play! I had a little problem with the camera settings (aka I don't really know how to work it) but I think the effect turned out really cool!

Every girl needs her shades!

It was such a fun day! Look a shot of me without a baby!!! Maddie was asleep in her carrier.

A shot of all of the girls! 4 generations in this one photo!

Everyone in one shot: Great Grandma, Great Aunt Emily holding Chloe, Andrew holding Madeline, Me, and Melinda!!

Just the fam. you can see Chloe can barely be contained in this photo. All she wanted to do was play on the beach!

Thanks for the great day everyone!

family time

2011-10-25T09:17:00.001-08:00

It was nice to have a weekend at home. We made it safe and sound to the grandparent's house, and got lots of great time with family! Chloe got to see uncle Alex which was awesome!

Chloe got to hold her baby sister :)

Grandpa got to hold baby Madeline too!

Chloe quickly found the rocking chair and rocked rocked rocked!

Grandma read lots and lots of stories!!

Grandma said she needed her glasses to read, so of course Chloe wanted to put them on so that she could read too!!

Chloe got some great time in the garden! My parents are such amazing gardeners. I think the green thumb skips a generation.

What could be better than digging in the garden?!

Although most of the pictures are of Chloe, we had a great time too-even though I don't have the photos to prove it!

first plane ride

2011-10-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

We made it down to Seattle for Maddie's first plane ride! She did awesome and so did we! Of course Chloe did great as always. We are so lucky to have such great fliers! I am still on maternity leave so this trip to Seattle was a little more relaxing for me (sort of). We were down for work for Andrew.... so I did have some "Single Mommy" time in the big city of Tacoma. We made the most of it!

We had an amazing hotel room right on the water so we spent a lot of time on the piers.

She has recently discovered pockets.....and loves putting things in them!

And she still LOVES running. She loves it so much that it is extremely difficult to get a non-blurry photo :)

After a morning on the piers we packed up an went to the Tacoma zoo. It was AMAZING!!!

Chloe loved the aquarium most of all.

I loved the tigers! Can you believe how close they are??!

Roarrrrrr!!!

Although I was a little nervous having the two girls on my own, it turned out to be a really really great day. Too bad Andrew wasn't there to see the zoo. I am pretty sure we had more fun than he did! At the end of the day we packed up our stuff, loaded into the rental car and drove down to Oregon to see my family. Again the trip went far better than expected, and the girls napped most of the time....after about an hour of kids music that is! Phew!

rest

2011-10-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

Catching some zzzzzs.

day at the beach

2011-09-29T17:03:00.000-08:00

Well much to my surprise there is a beach in Anchorage. I live here and never knew it existed!!! Furthermore Andrew grew up here and had never been there either! There is real sand but no palm trees :) It is a hidden beach, and it is within Kincaid Park. We had to hike a bit off trail and down a slightly treacherous steep section and the WOW there it was! It was so pretty. Cold but nice!

Chloe with her bucket and shovel in the parking lot, ready for the beach!

Glamour shot by Carmen...the leaves were just starting to change colors.

Super windy, but Madeline was snuggled in the babyhawk. She slept the whole time!

Playing on driftwood.

A shot of us girls. The part closest to the water was rocky. Chloe collected a bunch of cool rocks, so many that Andrew got to carry the bucket :)

They flew a kite during our snack break. Chloe got a turn too.

Chloe getting a lift from Andrew.

It was so much fun to go out to this little hidden spot, and we will definitely be going back. There were no other people out at the beach, probably because it is so very well hidden. Well actually we did see two duck hunters at the very end, which freaked us out because they had guns. Apparently you can legally hunt ducks out there this time of year. It doesn't seem right to me that people can hunt in a wildlife refuge, or in a park. Call me crazy. Good thing Andrew left his duck costume at home :)

Turf and Surf Weekend

2011-09-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

The other weekend we had quite the adventure. We went to Girdwood for lunch and a hike and then to Whittier for an afternoon on the boat! That is a lot for someone who calls making it to the shower a successful day, but it was gorgeous out and we didn't want to squander our sunny fall weekend!

To Chloe's delight Peter, (Elena's boyfriend) came out on the boat too! Watch out Elena, Chloe is after your man! She follows him around everywhere and doesn't let him get too far from her sight. He is her new favorite person.

I spent most of my time relaxing inside with Madeline while the guys tried their best to catch some fish. Chloe switched back and forth from the kitchen where Jim had a huge spread of treats, the back deck with the guys and wherever Madeline happened to be. Chloe probably had more fun than anyone!

Behind the scenes

2011-09-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

I think this pair of photos describes my life perfectly right now; not everything is as it seems at first glance!

At any given time crazy bed-head (or fill in the blank with anything else) is hiding just beyond view :)

color play

2011-09-18T17:54:00.000-08:00

Awhile ago I came up with the idea of melting my own crayons into toddler manageable (less breakable) shapes. The first time i did it, Chloe didn't participate much but this time it was a whole mornings activity. First we sorted all of the crayons by color groups: reds, purples, oranges, purples etc. here are the red/pinks. This was hugely fun for Chloe to do.

Next Chloe broke the crayons into pieces and put them in a bowl. Then when she had broken enough of them she put them into the mold squares. She was incredibly good at this. I really did not expect her to be able to do every part of the process by herself (well mostly on her own).

Here is the finished product. Reds and purples :)

Not only did Chloe like making the crayons, but she liked playing with them when they were all done too!

Madeline chilled in her vibrating bounce chair, and was content to check out the progress from her snuggly blanket.

Whoa, super cool!

Life is still very hectic around here, but I am getting at least slightly better at finding fun things for Chloe to do that doesn't involve taking care of her baby sister. Although if all we did was take care of Madeline I think Chloe would pretty much be in heaven anyway. She love her "baby Madeline".

Life at home

2011-09-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

Chloe holding Madeline

Chloe pretending to be a baby. She likes to be swaddled, and also likes trying to squeeze into the carry cot. I recently put her in the babyhawk and she LOVED it!

Andrew with Madeline in the babyhawk.

2011-09-08T14:54:00.001-08:00

Moo!

Eating a carrot from the organic produce booth. (Trust me this was the only healthy thing she ate at the fair, we aren't super parents). We (by "we" I mean Andrew) also found and purchased cheesecake in a cone (he says Chloe insisted), chocolate covered bacon on a stick, fried peanut potatoes with bacon ranch sauce, elephant ear-for me, and doughnut burger. Okay he didn't actually buy the doughnut burger but it was a close one! I was able to talk him out of it--- even the name screams heart attack.

She met the fire dog and got a fire hat, a hug and a pound dawg.

Shared a massive popcorn

Tripped out on her sugar high

Pet some baby sled dog puppies

Worked on hula hooping

and generally had an amazing time.

All this fun did end with a melt down but before that a good time was had by all! We also spent a really long time in the petting zoo and 4H animal barn, as well as at the tractor exhibit. Chloe loves her heavy equipment!

Hatcher's Pass

2011-09-06T14:30:00.000-08:00

On the way out to the fair we stopped at Hatcher's pass....Well it isn't really on the way it is 30 min past the fair but the extra drive allowed for more nap time in the car. We narrowly missed the rain, but did get to experience an extra dose of wind up there! The view is amazing, and it is so worth the drive out there. Too bad we didn't have extra time to enjoy hiking around.

Madeline was there too but is asleep in the car seat. If you look closely you can see Andrew is carrying her. It was way to cold and windy to get her out for the family pic. No offense Madeline! I am sure we will have plenty of photos with the four of us soon!

pictures from the week

2011-09-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

Baby number one (Chloe) did not prepare me at all for the perils of baby number two (Madeline). Holy moly, it is much tougher than I remembered. Most nights I am up 5-6 times or about every hour with a crying baby who may or may not be able to be easily soothed back to sleep. Some nights it takes more than 2 hours at 2 am, and multiple attempts to put Madeline back to sleep in her crib without her eyes popping open and screams shooting from her mouth. Every once in a while I get a good night where she sleeps in at least 2 hour blocks (like last night), and it is glorious! I LOVE the weekends, Andrew is here all day long and takes the morning shift with both girls so I can sleep. It is wonderful. Aside from the sleeping at night issue, life is pretty awesome.

Here is a picture following Madeline's first real bath.

Chloe is an awesome big sister, and loves to kiss her baby sister about as often as we will let her. With Amber's help I made the girls coordinating big sister and little sister shirts with my new silhouette (just like a printer except that it cuts instead of prints). They each have their initial on the back. Very cute!

I also finished a new pair of wool knit pants for Madeline. The pattern is linked here. They look a little orange/red here but in person also have a pink hue. The yarn is superwash merino wool so I can even wash them in the washing machine! Pretty awesome right?!

Baby toes

close up of the glittery shirt.

A hat I knit for Madeline when I was only a couple of months pregnant. I used some left over yarn from one of Amber's amazing knitting projects to make this adorable little tri-tip hat.

And pretty much the cutest picture ever. Chloe is constantly doting on Madeline. Here she is holding her hand as we drive to the fair. So flipping cute! Madeline is fast asleep but that doesn't deter her super loving big sister!

For the next few weeks I will probably just be posting pictures without too much narrative, as sleep is my number one priority these days....Well I suppose family is number one, sleep is number two, food is number three and personal hygiene (aka showering) is number four...... blogging and personal time didn't even make the ranked list. Oh and coffee fits in there somewhere too :)

Home

2011-08-16T15:28:00.000-08:00

We are starting to get a little used to what to do with a baby. She sleeps a lot (especially durning the day, intermittently at night). Other than that it is milk, diapers and burping. Those first few nights were really rough with little to no sleep but last night little Madeline slept for 1 hr to 2 hr blocks, rather than the 10 min blocks we endured the first few nights. The whole "you sleep when the baby sleeps" routine doesn't work when you have a two year old, so we were surviving on coffee and well more coffee. Sleep gives the world a whole new shine!

Andrew and Madeline. What a great Dad!

We will be trying to take lots more pictures as time allows :) The next few weeks we will be focused on enjoying our new family and having fun with our visitors and friends!

pictures

2011-08-14T14:35:00.000-08:00

5:40 pm

Don't I look happy? Thats because I have no idea what is in store for me. At this point my contractions were getting pretty close together, around every 4-5 minutes and Andrew finally convinced me it was time to go to the hospital.

6:00pm By the time we got to the hospital (15 min later) the contractions were now 3 minutes apart and VERY painful.

They took us into triage to see if I would be admitted, or sent home. It was about this time I asked to get the epidural because there was no way I wanted to miss out on the window of opportunity for a pain free birth. The nurse asked us questions and monitored contractions for about 30 minutes total. This process abruptly ended when she checked my cervix to discover I was at a 7. (10 means the baby comes out). I was admitted. I was not a screamer so I think she did not gauge the urgency of the situation.

problem #1 there were no birthing rooms. too many women were in labor at the same time.
problem #2 I needed a birthing room stat
problem #3 My nurse was not the best at time management, aka she was slow. really slow.

6:48 pm I was put into a wheelchair, and by this time tears were running down my cheeks and contractions were every 2 minutes.
problem #4 my nurse still had not sent my bloodwork (results are required prior to epidural)
problem #5 I was taken into a storage/ recovery/office room with no birthing bed or supplies. There was a regular hospital bed that was going to have to do.
problem #6. There was someone working in the office part of the room- problem solved- the pulled a curtain across my portion of the room
problem #7 These contractions were unbearable

7:04 pm I pushed a baby out in a storage room with no pain medication at all- yes it hurt a lot. The midwife barely got there in time to put on gloves. Literally I had to say "the baby's head is going to come out. You need to find her NOW!"

This would be about the time I said "I guess you were right we should have left for the hospital sooner"

Madeline Lucette came out fast and furious, but I am thankful for that because on the bright side, the pain didn't go on for too long. She was healthy and finally here.

Big long feet like her sister. 7lbs 2 oz and 19 inches long. She is tiny!

We made it through, and now she will have a great story about the day she was born. Looking back I am dang lucky Andrew finally insisted we go to the hospital otherwise he may have had to pull over on the side of the road to deliver a baby!

We are home and although exhausted, very happy. Chloe is already an adorable big sister! I am sure I have left out a ton of details, but I think I covered the main ones.

Finally!!

2011-08-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

Madeline Lucette Romerdahl is finally here! She decided to make her appearance on Friday night at 7:04 pm. She looks just like Andrew and just like Chloe did when she was a newborn. She is finally sleeping, and we are exhausted. Andrew will post photos soon! Story to follow as well.

Baby Prep

2011-08-10T21:59:00.002-08:00

For the most part we are ready for this little bundle of joy to arrive. We should be since this is day 2 past my due date. The baby room has been converted from (ugly) guest room to cute baby room.

AFTER

BEFORE (oh yes the walls were sponge painted)

Notice the super cute retro mobile. Donna saved it all these years from when Andrew was a baby!

I couldn't find changing pad covers that I liked so I made my own. I also made soaker pads to put on top to minimize the mess associated with diaper changes. Also I wanted to add some color to the room.

I made big mats too for diaper free time in lots of fun colorful fabrics.

We started the whole room with a bright green crib and built around that.

Chloe likes the crib a lot and is always trying (usually successfully) to climb in.

Aside from sewing and painting I have also been knitting up a storm. I am going to try some wool diaper covers this go around. We will see how they work. The idea is that they are naturally anti-bacterial and repel water, but are soft on tender skin. I am cautiously optimistic, but only enough to make one. I will knit more if it seems to work.

We put it on Chloe's Elmo to check the fit over a cloth diaper. Not bad. If it doesn't work out for the baby, Chloe can always keep it for her stuffed animals.

Of course I made another sweater. I found this yarn down in Oregon this summer and didn't know what I wanted to knit with it but soon decided that whatever I made would have to have stripes.

It is a little big for a newborn....probably more of a 6 month size, but it is hanging in her closet ready to go whenever she will fit into it. I just love it.

The bright red buttons really make it fun. We call it the Brobee sweater because it is the exact colors of Chloe's favorite yo gabba gabba character.

I made this sweater a while ago, and probably blogged about it, but I am just so excited to use it! This one should be her size and it is getting a little chillier than earlier in the summer so I will definitely get some wear time out of this one.

Hopefully soon we will have a post will newborn baby photos, but if not well wish me luck not going totally crazy!!! The anticipation is killing me!

Another trip to the zoo

2011-08-09T08:00:00.002-08:00

These days I am trying to be as active as possible to encourage this baby to come out and meet us. We go to the zoo a lot. It is fun for Chloe but it is also great exercise for me with all of the hills and gravel trails. Friday nights are concerts at the zoo, and we try to go as often as possible. It is mostly parents with their kids. Everyone brings picnic blankets, food and kids. The kids run around together and dance, getting out all of their energy before bedtime!

Chloe LOVES LOVES LOVES dancing so she gets all of our energy out before bedtime too! Andrew and I switch off, as her favorite thing to do is spin in circles.....whew it makes me dizzy!

This Friday she especially liked picking grass and throwing it at me. She would laugh hysterically and run off to collect more grass to do it again. She got me sitting down.

She also got me standing up!

It was a great night, and probably the most fun we have had at the zoo yet! I think we are averaging once or twice a week these days, and I have proposed every day going forward! We finally saw the polar bear awake, which was probably even more exciting for me than Chloe! Those things are HUGE!!! much like me these days :)

Tiffany and Todd's wedding

2011-08-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time at the wedding, and no one had a better time than Chloe. I thought I would share some more of the moments with you.

Back row seats at the ceremony....just in case we had to get a noisy toddler out quickly... Which we didn't have to do since Chloe was entertained by animal crackers, a glasses case, play dough and Donna's necklace. It was not easy work keeping her quiet though. She just wanted to run and play in their amazing yard. Thank goodness for grandparents!

Chloe met a little friend and they were inseparable the entire rest of the wedding.

They shared a chair for the toast and speeches, and they were laughing so hard we had to take them to go play so they didn't distract people. We were proactive-- We didn't get any dirty looks but figured when the father of the bride wants to make a speech we had better do our part to make sure everyone could hear him!

I may add photos to this post later, but don't have permission from the little girl's parents to post her pics yet. (although I wonder if they will call...my business card may have freaked them out- my job isn't exactly typical. Andrew said we should have given them his card instead....oh well) There are a ton of awesome pics of the two of them, so here's hoping. I also want to set up a play date, since they got along so well!

On the topic is business cards, I have heard the new trend is making playdate cards.... So they would have Chloe's contact info on them and our number/ email without the work stuff. Trendy Moms are apparently doing this--- I am a trendy Mom, so I think I will give it a try too! Way less intimidating than business cards.

appreciating family

2011-08-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

We are just so happy to have our family.

We haven't posted in a while because we haven't known what to say. Over the weekend our friends Corey, Hetty and their two little girls died in an airplane collision. It was such shocking and devastating news, none of us know quite what to do, or even how to really process that it happened. Luckily we have a sweet and wonderful little girl that keeps us smiling even when we are sad. Soon we will have two sweet little girls, although when the newest addition will be here is anyone's guess- I have proven I have no mother's intuition about these things. We took this picture at another friend's wedding Saturday night before we heard the news. I figured I had better post it before it is outdated :) We have more pictures but I will save them for another post.

We hope you all give your family extra hugs and kisses tonight and appreciate the ones you love.

Nap time

2011-07-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

Usually naptime is a pretty routine thing. Lately it has been a little different. It used to be fun- we would read a few stories and Chloe would get into bed and we would sing a bedtime song. Next everyone (lamby, elmo and chloe) get tucked in kissed and then I close the door. That was nice, but now all of the sudden Chloe does NOT want a nap- even though these days she needs one more than ever.

The other day Chloe didn't want to go down. I let her know that it was time to rest and Mommy was going to close the door. She screamed for a few minutes then I heard her start playing........ She was talking and laughing and playing for 30 minutes, then an hour, then two hours....Man she really wasn't tired so I decided that she at least had fulfilled some recharge time requirement (more like I had some recharge time!) and went in to get her. This is what I saw when I opened the door. Um crazy!!!! Her room is always always always clean, even when I go in after naps. Holy cow there were books and clothes everywhere, she was naked from the waist down, her potty was on top of her little table, her blanket was stuffed into a garbage can on top of her bookshelf, extra blankets were strewn about the room, her drawers were open and the only saving grace is that she was super happy with herself. Also I didn't leave any crayons or markers in her room.

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this. It was kind of what I expected to happen every time after we switched her to a big girl bed and can go about her room freely. One room trashing in a few months isn't too bad! It did take a lot of clean up effort though!

fun in the sun

2011-07-21T10:39:00.001-08:00

After work last night we packed up and had a picnic dinner at Lake Hood! Chloe loves to watch the float planes take off, and talks about it all the time so we try to make it out there as much as we can! It was gorgeous yesterday- 75 and sunny, so we were off!

There are lots of other things to do at the lake too! Like swinging! They also have a porto-potty there that for some reason Chloe ALWAYS wants to use. Ugh it is so gross, but she takes off running toward it when she sees it like it is an ice cream truck or something! No pics of that as we have to chase her down before she tries to go in by herself. Good thing I remembered the anti-bacterial wipes!

Splashing in the lake.

Building a sand castle with an adorable little boy. He was probably 6 or 7, and Chloe just loved him.

And of course watching the planes take off and land!

After our fun in the sun (and sand and water) we let Chloe have part of a chocolate chip cookie on the car ride home. This was the outcome. She is telling us she wants a brownie in this picture. Sorry- I think that is enough chocolate for one night!

Part of the fun of getting dirty is bath time to clean up! Chloe is showing me her "helmet". This little girl is hilarious! Her imagination is really developing, and she is just entering the pretend play stage. so cute!

Every stage is more and more fun. Although I do have to point out that Chloe is entering the terrible twos.......oh yes even this adorable little girl has her days! I wouldn't say that part of this stage is "more and more fun", but for the most part we are having a blast!

Lost and Found

2011-07-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

All of this baby prep does have some advantages! I get to find all sort of lost treasures in the rooms I am cleaning out! I am on to the office now, as the baby room is nearly complete. This has been by far the worst room to re-organize and de-clutter. I found this photo from the first time we went to the museum here in Anchorage this January. We went to the Andy Warhol exhibit and this photobooth was part of the installation. Beleive it or not, this is one of our few family photos!

It makes me excited for all of the fun family photos of 4 we have in our future. As always- we must start taking more pictures!

4th of July!

2011-07-04T22:02:00.002-08:00

Oh how nice it is to have a 3 day weekend! I had time to clean the house, and even pick some flowers. (These were actually welcome home flowers for Andrew) He was out of town for a week in DC for work, and we are SO GLAD to have him back!

Chloe couldn't wait for him to take her on a bike ride! You may remember that we got her this bike seat for her birthday. She absolutely LOVES it! It is pretty awesome for us too! She is safe and secure AND happy which is a combo that doesn't really go together that often :)

Here's a side view :)

Sunday we went to the Girdwood Forest Fair. It is like an arts fair with lots of live music, and even more hippies. It is pretty much awesome. Chloe really liked the music- dancing to the music, and playing with hula hoops while listening to the music. Catching a theme? Chloe loves live music! On the way out we stopped at the super playground, where Chloe spent all her time in the sandbox, digging with shovels, dump trucks and excavators. She loves her trucks!

On a mission to get the excavator from another little boy. Mission unsuccessful :(

After the forest fair we drove down to Whittier and went out on the boat. It was great weather, and nobody (talking about me) got sea sick. I took my traditional dramamine.....but this time somehow thought it was chewable, and let me tell you- if the package doesn't say chewable, don't chew it! Yuck! It was fast acting though! Chloe gets her sea legs from her Dad, so it was all good times for her.

We spent some time inside too. Here is Chloe checking on the baby :) She even kisses my belly sometimes, I think she is going to be such a sweet big sister!

This time our boating adventure took us to surprise cove, where Andrew heard that people had been catching halibut. Andrew and Jim decided to give fishing a go, and Chloe helped too. Donna and I read magazines, and I took pictures and entertained Chloe (when she wasn't busy fishing that is). The fishing must have been really good the week before because all of the halibut were already caught :) Jim did catch some sort of fish, but it was just a baby and got to go back with its family. They had a few nibbles, but no keepers.

We all had a good time anyway. Shockingly, Chloe was in great spirits all day, even though she didn't nap---at all!! When I tried to take her down to nap, she said "no -be on boat!!!" I guess the stateroom looked too much like a bedroom and not enough like a boat. She was not sleepy, and there was no convincing her she was on a boat, without seeing out the big windows. She stayed in good spirits the whole entire day, so we really really really lucked out!

She did fall asleep immediately (within maybe 4 minutes) of getting in the car. For those of you familiar with Whittier, we weren't even in the tunnel yet and she was already out cold! Crazy! And you would think that falling asleep at 7:30 in the car might mess with bedtime when we got home- you would be wrong! She went right to bed again there too! Wow, what a weekend!

museum weekend

2011-06-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

We had a fun day at the museum this weekend. Friday was almost 80 here, so I expected lots of great weather for the weekend, but it turned out to be cloudy and drizzly at night....so instead of the zoo we went to the museum! Every time we go it is different. This time Chloe got to touch starfish, and even a king crab (no pictures as I was super excited to get to touch them too.) It is so fun to explore with Chloe!

We see a bus outside

Pretty flowers. we smelled each color.

making music.

Mr. Potato head

Sure he has a mustache and a purse.

playing with people.

sound effects too? this is awesome!

"nap time" in progress

2011-06-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

As Chloe is officially a "big girl" now, We decided to make the switch to the "big girl" bed. The side came off the crib last week, and so far she is doing stellar! We thought she would be roaming all over her room at night and during nap times, wrecking havok on her dresser contents and loaded bookshelf but it never happened!

She stays in bed, and OMG even took herself to the potty (in her room) after one of her naps this week!

She sure seems to like the big girl bed, and we love it! It is so nice to read her stories in bed now, when before it was impossible to bend over the rails and make it through a whole story. Of course sometimes she doesn't want to go to sleep- like any two year old, and tries to follow us out of the room, but after a little whining she gets into bed herself and dozes off. What a good little girl we have! Yay!

Chloe is two!

2011-06-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

Like any perfect birthday, the day started off with a cupcake we made together the night before. Chocolate with pink frosting was Chloe's very specific request. She didn't really eat much of the cupcake but did enjoy the frosting very much.

Next up we went to Snow City Cafe for breakfast, where Chloe got her all-time favorite blueberry pancakes. She also got to wear her special birthday shirt. She knows her numbers so she can tell you she is two now! Holding up two fingers is still a little tough but she tries!

You may notice the binky has made a re-appearance....well that is a whole different post. She fell and hurt her lip big time so we let her have it to keep the vaseline in place and to help with the pain too.

After breakfast we continued the fun with our very first trip to the zoo! It was AWESOME!!!!! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Peters for the membership! Chloe absolutely loved the place. And so did we! We will definitely be going there A LOT this summer, and winter too!

You can get really really close to the animals...maybe too close.

There are cool boardwalk bridges, and trails that lead all through the beautiful wilderness to the different animal habitats. It is much less commercial than any zoo I have seen- I don't think there is even a gift shop.....more likely is that we didn't see it tacked away somewhere in the wilderness.

To Chloe's delight Grandma Romerdahl got to come along with us too.

She pretty much loved the entire place.

Checking out the tigers with Dad was pretty great too!

After nap time we had a little party for Chloe with Grandma and Grandpa Romerdahl, where Chloe got her very own cupcake with a giant candle. She LOVED it when we sang to her, and also loved blowing out the candle. She just wanted us to keep lighting it so we would sing to her over and over again. Of course we did it. You only turn two once!

It was a really fun family day for all of us. We really should do more Chloe-centric days like this. Of course she loves it, and guess what so do we!

Trucks!

2011-05-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

For those of you not aware: April was Donate Life month. A month to celebrate the amazing people who became organ donors, and saved the lives of those in need. Did you know that a single organ donor can save the lives of 8 different people?!! Well now you do! Anywho the point of telling you about donate life month was to talk about a fun celebration we did at Providence Alaska Medical Center. We gave out cake, thanked staff and talked to just about everyone that came through the lobby. I brought Chloe along to give out bracelets. She was a super pro! I have never given away so many bracelets before EVER!!!! After a few hours, the cake was gone and Chloe was spent. We walked back over the sky bridge to the car, with a 20 minute detour at this window:

Chloe LOVES trucks and any heavy equipment machinery. We watched them dig and dump the dirt into dump trucks. (They are building a fancy new maternity unit---not in time for me but still impressive)

It was pretty awesome. BTW this is the sweater I knit for Chloe :)

Later that night we went for our after dinner walk/playtime. Chloe collected a bunch of rocks along the way and distributed them on the slide. She likes the loud noise they make against the metal. She collected most of them again and put them back in her pail. I made this hat for her too :)

Since we were at the playground we had to go on the "WEEEEEEE" as Chloe calls it.

She also played soccer with a cute little boy she met there. For the most part she wanted to keep his ball, but after a while she realized it was more fun to kick it back and forth.

Another wonderful day in paradise!

Being Chloe

2011-04-29T20:23:00.001-08:00

It seems we do not take as many pictures as we used to, so here is a mix mash of the last weeks activities.

We uncovered a long lost toy from Andrew's childhood at the warehouse. It is a discovery toys marble maze. Oh my gosh I had the exact same one when I was little too, and now Chloe gets to play with it too! She LOVES putting the marbles in and watching them go all the way to the bottom. This occupied her for at least an hour straight when we first got it out. Now a few weeks later she still wants to play with it! Honestly it has been super fun for me and Andrew to play with it too!

On the weekends we get the paper, and Chloe has become accustomed to "reading" the comics. Although have any of you read them lately? They are not funny at all....I thought I remembered them being funnier when I was little.

Chloe also likes to do the dishes. Water is her all time favorite "toy".

Speaking of toys, we put some toy cars in her easter basket and she loves them! She loves anything with wheels: trains, busses, trucks, bikes. She does not discriminate! Don't you just love this super cool shirt she is wearing?! On my surprise girls trip to Portland, Amber and I made them for our girls with her silhouette machine. It is like a printer, but instead of printing it cuts! I love it! We made a few shirts with plans for many many more next time I am down!

This is another shirt we made. Chloe is modeling it during her post-nap cheese and apples snack.

And here is the back of the shirt.......... I am not sure why Chloe's pants are off, but now that she knows how to take them off on her own there is no telling what she will be wearing when I turn around.

Here is Chloe realizing that I am taking pictures of her. "NO pictures Mama!!!!!!"

She realized she was caught in the act. It is funny, sometimes she loves the camera, and other times she is so not having it! Obviously photo time was over for this day! Luckily after bedtime all is forgotten and the next day begins with giggles and a fresh start.

Surprise trip

2011-04-28T17:09:00.001-08:00

Recently I went off on a whirlwind surprise girls trip planned by my wonderful amazing spectacular husband, Andrew. He stayed home with Chloe while I was whisked away to Portland where Amber picked me up for 3 days of non-stop fun. I did not bring a camera, but luckily Amber is a professional photographer so she managed to take a few photos in between our late nights on the town, awesome meals, shopping, foot massages and constant art and crafting fun.

This is the massive hotel room Andrew got for us a the Benson in downtown Portland. Only problem was that they did not have a room with two beds (even though we called several times letting them know that was what we needed). Good thing Amber is such a good friend!

Here I am at Barefoot sage, getting an amazing 1 1/2 hr spa package courtesy of Amber (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!) including A salt water foot bath, a 30 minute lower leg and foot massage and a soothing paraffin dip. AMAZING!!! Pardon the i-phone photo.

On my last day right before we went to the airport I posed for an impromptu photo shoot in the Pearl District. You can all of see the pictures on Amber's website. Ah it was the busiest and most relaxing few days I have had in a long time! Thanks Andrew! I came back totally refreshed, and a little exhausted. It was perfect.

knitting is my new addiction

2011-04-27T10:17:00.003-08:00

So, as you may remember I said that I wanted to knit my own Christmas stockings this year. Well I have made progress and to my amazement figured out how to do it! Thanks to all of the help over the phone from Amber and from you-tube tutorials I have some finished stockings! They are really big, and super bright and happy. I have two more to go, but got distracted by other fun projects so they are on the back burner for now.

You can see the scale here. Chloe could almost fit in one of these they are so awesomely big!

This is one of my distractions. My first ever sweater! You can get the free pattern here! I made this for my adorable pregnant friend Amy and her soon to be born baby girl. I made the arms extra long so she could fold them up now, and fold them down later for a much longer sweater lifespan. I absolutely love the bright colors in this noro yarn. I actually loved this sweater SO MUCH that I went out and bought even more of the same yarn and made a bigger sweater for Chloe. It looks super cute on and I will post some of those pictures later on!

I had also been wanting to do a Baby Surprise Jacket designed by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I found a preemie pattern online and decided to use that one, since I wanted to use a thicker yarn and was afraid if I made the regular baby size it would be way too big. I love how it turned out and can't wait to see it on our little baby girl once she arrives! I was right about the sizing too. It looks like about 3 month size (from what I remember of tiny baby sizes). I think I will try the long sleeve modification next time, since we do live in Alaska after all! I used noro yarn for this too and love how the colors turned out. The quality of this yarn is so far above the quality of stuff you can buy at Michaels or other craft stores. I will NEVER again buy nylon yarn. NEVER EVER!

I am having so much fun learning to knit! I have made a few hats along the way too, and will be making more soon! I am so glad that I went beyond my comfort zone of scarfs and blankets. The outcomes are so much more rewarding. Although I am still a super beginner, I feel like I am off to a pretty good start! To anyone who wants to start knitting I say: you-tube is your best friend!!!!!

Melting snow

2011-04-11T21:08:00.005-08:00

Finally!! We can see some concrete! The days are getting warmer and the snow is slowly but surely melting away! For some reason these last few weeks of winter seem to take just forever to go away. There is still no visible grass in our yard, but some of our neighbors have some peeking out. We have been doing nightly walks after dinner, and it is the best part of the day- by FAR.

No matter how stressed I have been during the day (which is usually pretty frigging stressed lately), it all just melts away as we get away on our adventures.

Chloe has grown extremely fond of puddles and wants to be in them all of the time. We just bought rain pants for her yesterday so she could splash to her heart's content. The rain boots help but the way this little girl puddle dives we may need to get hip waders!

"Chase you Daddy" (or Mommy or Chloe) is a new game that results in lots of running, laughing and squealing. "Got you!"

"Chase you!" She says this when she wants us to chase her too. I think it is because we say 'Do you want me to chase you?'

There are swings in the little neighborhood park. Also a fav. Although I do have to say I must be old because swinging is no longer as fun as it used to be. I get dizzy after only a few minutes! Maybe I need more practice, or more dramamine :)

I wish there was audio with this pic. Chloe is squealing super loud! A lot of noise comes from those tiny lungs. Maybe opera is in her future.
Next stop after swinging was a quick walk home, bubble bath for Chloe and bed time stories. Another perfect night.

Snowy day activity

2011-04-08T09:51:00.004-08:00

We are still here, and this little baby girl in my belly is kicking happily away. It has been snowy and slushy and snowy and slushy lately so I have had to be a little more creative than usual finding fun activities to do. Don't get me wrong Chloe absolutely loves to go outside and play but it is Mommy who wants to branch out!

I don't know about other parents, but for me cleaning up the house is a constant and never ending chore. Lately I have noticed that crayons are a major contributing culprit. They hide everywhere. I wanted to put a stop to the madness of broken crayon bits strewn about. I remember when I was a kid my parents melted down the bits into giant crayons. They didn't remember how they did it, so I headed off with an idea, in search of a way to make it a reality. This is what I came up with!

Step 1: soak crayons in warm water, and the wrappers magically come off. The colorful wrappers were so vibrant and beautiful that I decided to dry and save them for later use in a painting. (The first attempt at this left me scraping and peeling off the wrappers for hours- warm water worked miracles!)

Step 2: rinse off the crayons and make sure any glue residue is removed. Chloe liked this step the best. Normally I would estimate about a minute or two on this, but Chloe made it into a 30 minute affair. Parenting tip: put towels under the "work station".
Step 3: break up the crayons into little pieces and mix however you want. I used a silicone brownie square mold to make my crayons but anything would probably work! Just make sure it is silicone so you can pop those puppies out when they are done.
Step 4: bake in the oven at low heat until all of the bits are melted
Step 5: Pop out the squares after they are cooled and solidified and play with your new crayons!
I did notice a little bit of the unpigmented wax accumulate on the tops of each of the squares so I just trimmed that off with a paring knife so that when Chloe colored she would see pigmented wax, not clear wax.

As for de-cluttering this worked wonders. NO broken crayons anywhere. Plus they are fun to color with :) This project was so much fun I went out and bought several boxes of new crayons to make even more colorful squares.

So much fun!

It's official!

2011-03-22T15:04:00.003-08:00

It is official, we are having a baby and we know the gender!!!! It was a fun morning at the doctors office as we got to see continuous ultrasounds for about 45 minutes. Andrew's parents were there, and so was Chloe. For almost the entire time this little bundle of joy was facing away from the camera. We got a LOT of back of the head shots! Here is one of the few profile pics. When we asked Chloe what it was she said "fish" then tired again with "mommy" then "daddy". I think she will figure it out when she can feel the baby move in my belly. Right now she just pets my stomach saying "gentle".

They also did a little 3D imaging for us, and again only got one shot that showed any part of the face. Pretty adorable right????? The baby slept through the entire appointment.

So what do you think does this baby look like a boy or a girl? Hmmmm........

.....

Well we are going to have to start picking out baby names for a ......................

.....

GIRL!!!!

What I want!!!!

2011-03-14T10:07:00.003-08:00

If anyone is thinking......What could I get Carmen and Andrew for their second bundle of joy- here it is!!!! My friend Amber is an amazing professional photographer, and just look at the amazing photos she took at a recent newborn shoot!!!! Seriously AMAZING!

check it out here!!!!

Also here is a pic from dinner at the Double Musky in Girdwood :)

Iditarod begins!

2011-03-09T09:39:00.006-09:00

Chloe enjoyed watching the dog teams come thru Anchorage last year during the ceremonial start of the Iditarod, but this year she LOVED it!

It was awesome! We had a sunny clear day, with temps in the habitable range around 32. Tons and tons of people come out to see all of the dog teams and their favorite mushers. Chloe loves dogs, and other kids so this was a perfect combo!

You can see her excitement as she sees a dog team coming up the trail.
I wish there was audio with this :)

After the dogs went by she would try to run after them saying "Doggies back! doggies back!" Luckily the teams came thru every few minutes so she got to see plenty of action.

We played in the snow during the down time. Chloe especially liked poking the snow with sticks because she saw some of the older kids (3 year old) doing it. Here she is making a tree. I know this because right after I took this picture she said "look mommy! Tree!" and signed tree. So adorable.
She also gathered plenty of snow (away from the dogs) to eat. Yum snow.
It was a pretty great day, and I think I had almost as much fun as she did!
We can't wait for next year!

Birthday Boy

2011-03-06T12:32:00.004-09:00

Andrew turned the big 30 last weekend and we had a BIG PARTY for him! We hosted the event at an awesome local restaurant called Spenard Roadhouse. This place was super awesome! We had a whole section of the restaurant reserved for our very large group. I am still not sure how I swung that, seeing as how this restaurant does not even take any reservations, but somehow they were convinced! The whole night was really a lot of fun.

As you can see we made some fun swag for the birthday boy, and although at the beginning he didn't want to wear it, by the end he was owning the look.
Elena and Donna helped me make the cupcakes and cake. We decided on a golf theme. I found an AMAZING recipe for coconut cupcakes and made the most delicious little bites of heaven. Elena is a whiz at fondant and made the fondant putting greens to top them off. They looked professional, and tasted so good!
Here is a close up of the cake that Elena made. The giant golf ball is actually a cake! I told you she is a whiz with fondant!
No birthday party is complete without a few embarrassing moments for the guest of honor. Elena supplied a full dose of laughter with this little gem of a gift.
Not only is it practical (did you know you can use a tv remote or answer the phone without having the annoyance of removing your blanket?) but it is also personally customized. "I'm 30"

I think this snuggie says it all- "its all down hill from here". Just kidding Andrew! Thankfully this has not made an appearance around the house yet :)

We all had a great time, and I can not believe how many people came! At the peak there must have been more than 30 people there for him. How awesome is that?! I wish I had taken a picture of the whole group. Afterwards we went to this weird tiki themed blues bar called blues central. Again I wish I had taken pictures. Imagine a vivacious 70 year old cougar giving Andrew a strip tease on the dance floor..... can't imagine it? Thats why I wish I had taken a picture! It was hilarious- the whole bar agreed!

Did I say I didn't have pictures? My mistake, here are a few. :)

Careful lady, he is a married man!

Do you think Andrew minds the attention?

I'd say he had a pretty good birthday! Happy 30 babe!

the imaginarium

2011-02-23T15:39:00.005-09:00

In our ever going attempt to do more fun things for Chloe we have been going to the imaginarium at the museum on an almost weekly basis. They have tons of really cool things to see and play with, for parents and for kids! The have a whole aquarium section, an energy section, a bubble section, and more. Chloe's favorite is the under 5 area where she can run wild and explore everything.Here the was a huge encased giant "roller coaster" for balls to go through. There are a few spots the balls come out and then the kids can put them back in and see where they go. I think I remember something like this at OMSI when I was little.
Of course there is no shortage of pretend play areas like this "tree house" with slide.
We spent a long time here :)
There was also a rock climbing area with a tunnel and yes another slide. It was pretty neat. All of the rocks are made of recycled rubber particles so it was not dangerous for little hands.
There are countless puzzles and activities to build dexterity and to challenge little minds. This one was a marble maze.
Here Chloe is exploring color.
Look everything is yellow!
This place is awesome, and like most other activities we discover, I wish I had know about this so much earlier! Chloe loves it here, and it is awesome to see her learn and interact with other little kids. It is a bonus to get me meet other parents too. We have gone several times, and I still don't think Chloe has seen everything yet!

A little photo shoot

2011-02-23T15:29:00.004-09:00

I was looking back and realized that I have totally slacked off on my mini photo shoots with Chloe! When she was a baby I was doing them all of the time. That was probably because it was easy to keep her clean, and she stayed where I put her..... but I am still up for the challenge. Plus this stage is way too cute to miss!

Chloe helped make a valentine for her Dad, then tried to pull all of the stickers off :)
I did not pose her. She just does this stuff on her own!

Ahhhh it is this happy little girl that makes it all worth it.

Bounce Bounce Bounce

2011-02-13T10:38:00.003-09:00

We are so busy during the week that we don't get to do as much Chloe focused activities as we would like. So on the weekend we have been trying to make a special effort to plan fun activities especially for her.

Here we are out to breakfast. In this picture I am asking Chloe to show me her big smile! The food took forever to get to our table, so there were a lot of distraction games while we waited for breakfast. I don't think Chloe minded too much!

Next we headed off to Bouncin' Bears. A new favorite, and GIANT hit! This place is basically a huge padded room filled with gigantic inflatable bounce houses, slides and mazes. Chloe LOVED it. Andrew and I got a bit queazy by the end because it was basically like being on a rocking boat for an hour, but Chloe could have stayed there all day if we let her.

She went down the big slide by herself! (over and over and over and over)
Jumped on a huge inflatable floor with Dad, and basically had an awesome day.
She ran all over the place! It was great for her to have a huge safe area to run wild in! The only down side was having to leave. She DID NOT like that part :) Nobody ever likes to leave when they are having fun! But her falling asleep on the five minute car ride home reassured us that we called it correctly.

We will definitely be going back but next time with dramamine for the grownups!!

Whoa Baby!

2011-01-29T17:10:00.003-09:00

So it is official!!! We are expecting a new addition to our family of three! Chloe's little brother or sister will be here in the beginning of August :)
We may be crazy busy now, but I suppose it is going to get about 3 times more crazy. We are only expecting one, but I hear having two kids is three times as hard. Heres hoping it is three times as fun!

ABC's

2011-01-26T10:03:00.000-09:00

Can you believe this??? I picked up Chloe yesterday from daycare and she was babbling on and on for the entire drive home. As usual she was the only one who understood what she was talking about....but wait....did she really just say what I think she said? What? Oh yes this song debuted yesterday! It is crazy what kids pick up! I sing to her all the time, but she never once sang along, so I was taken aback that when she busted out the alphabet on her own! She can make it to about K. Wow!

What a little genius!!

day in the life

2011-01-23T14:56:00.004-09:00

I wish I could say we have been traveling the country and that is why there are so few posts this month, but really I have just been exhausted! There is so much going on with work lately that by the end of the day all I want to do is hang out with Andrew and Chloe, make (or preferably just eat) a yummy dinner and go to bed. I also need to get back into the habit of taking pictures of the everyday stuff again! So here it goes!

Chloe is still as happy as ever, growing hair like crazy and learning words at a rapid speed.

One of our new favorite "snacks" is snow cones. Well really just snow scooped up from outside, but she will spend half an hour "cooking" it in her kitchen.
she likes eating it too :)
And here is something new: Chloe learned to take her shirt off. Sort of!
You can tell she is delighted by this new skill! When she is happy or excited she will run at top speed around the house squealing and jumping around.
Devouring her old favorite-- Peas. The new favorite thing for vegetables is to put them in her cup and "drink" them. Lucky this time nothing was in her cup. A few nights ago she asked for more broccoli juice (aka more orange juice in which to dip her broccoli). She loved it! I guess it can only be a good thing to combine her fruits and veggies!

Chloe is not always the perfect angel though...aside from being super cute and sweet she is also a crazy toddler. I mean super energized crazy! She likes to do anything that involves moving at fast rates of speed combined with making as much noise as possible. Below you can see her racing around the kitchen with a steamer pot. VERY noisy, on par with banging pot lids together. If it scares the dogs, even better!
And here is her cute fake smile. I get her to do this when we brush our teeth, and it stuck with her. It seems to be coming out a lot lately. Even though she is doing it on purpose I still think it is cute! It is usually followed by a hug and kiss for mommy!
I hope to be more diligent in the future capturing those little moments! Unfortunately lately I have been too busy cleaning up after those "moments". Milk all over the floor- no problem..... color crayon on the wall- be right there....... oh you can stand on top of the table- lets play with your new blocks over here on the floor instead.....the list goes on and on and on.

A Girdwood New Year's

2011-01-05T07:43:00.002-09:00

After the busy (and super fun) Christmas week we decided to get out of town and relax for NewYear's. Our friends were nice enough to lend us their cabin for the weekend, and we jumped on the opportunity. Just a 45 min drive away and we were in a totally different place. Girdwood is a snowy laid back ski town at the base of Alyeska. We all had the time of our life (especially Chloe). She learned to throw snowballs, and really loved throwing them at her Daddy!

Such a happy little girl!

There were some pretty deep snow banks, and Andrew discovered they were perfect to stick Chloe into.

And of course she loved it!

Even though the weather was a little rainy and slushy, we still had a great relaxing weekend in the mountains!

We had so much fun actually it was tough to go home! Thanks again Chuck and Farah for sharing your Girdwood escape with us!!!!

Aloha

2010-12-11T13:30:00.000-09:00

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts the last few weeks! Well there was a very good reason for this, we were on vacation in sunny Maui! Oh my gosh it was amazing!! The best way to show what a great time we had is to show you the pictures. We stayed with my friend Amber and her husband (BJ) and daughter (Tuesday or "Tu Tu" to Chloe) in a huge pimped out condo on the beach. It was pretty close to the size of our house but definitely nicer. Chloe had several favorites this trip:

1. the elevator. she couldn't get enough, we would ride it up and down just for her. Sometimes this ended in tears as we had to pry her out of it to go back to our room :)

2. the ocean. this was her first experience with big waves and warm ocean water you can get in. She would dive in head first if we didn't sprint after her mad attempts to run out to sea.

3. the sand. especially knocking down sandcastles- ours not other peoples

4. the hot tub pool combo. she would bounce between the two so often. I would estimate she switched about every minute or less. I guess we had to work off those Mai Tais somehow!

5. the flowers. she loved pointing out, touching and smelling the tropical flowers.

6. the birds. I can't beleive I didn't get a picture of her chasing the birds by the pool. There were tons of tiny birds that offered endless chasing opportunities for Chloe. She loved it.

7. TuTu her sidekick for the trip!

8. our undivided attention for two weeks!!!

It was an amazing trip and I can not wait to go back! It was so wonderful, I don't think I will ever go back to any other island!! AMAZING!!

more snapshots from paradise

2010-12-11T13:23:00.004-09:00

footprints in the sandfun with Dad
playing in the waves
running down the beach
playing in the sand
running from the waves
look what I can do!
up north overlooking gorgeous mountains and cliffs. it was so windy up here!
wet from the ocean
family photo courtesy of another nice tourist.

Ah so wonderful!

True sign of the holidays

2010-11-25T11:29:00.000-09:00

I really know it is the holiday season when Starbucks releases their holiday drinks. I know it may be crazy but I get SO EXCITED when this day rolls around!! I would say I get as excited for this a I do an actual holiday! I took Chloe there to help me celebrate this year. She had hot (warm) chocolate and I had a white chocolate peppermint latte.

Oh how I love my Starbuck holidays! Chloe did not drink much of the hot chocolate, but it is the thought that counts! She kept saying "hot" and blowing on the cup before drinking even though it was just warm. I didn't even think that she would connect the name "hot chocolate" with the word "hot". Too cute.

Winter Water Play

2010-11-24T13:20:00.003-09:00

We have been doing a lot of swimming lately at our gym here in Alaska. Chloe LOVES the water, and we got the membership pretty much just for her. (Although I should say Andrew has been using it all the time too---I am the only one who has yet to work out. no comments please)

It is just so cute to see a tiny girl in a ruffled swim suit squeal and splash in the salt water pool! Well she not only made us smile during this trip but made us bust up laughing, and lucky for you we caught it on film! I have attached the youtube post where you can check out the video in all it's glory. You can choose the quality to watch, just change to a higher quality (at the bottom just to the left of the you tube logo.) Sometimes you have to press play first to adjust the quality settings.

I have noticed that when I uploaded video here in the past, it didn't turn out so great so hopefully this will work better. Our camera is waterproof and even films under water so look for more fun videos soon!

Happy Halloween?

2010-11-24T12:14:00.002-09:00

Okay so some of you may remember that I was working on a Halloween decoration project BEFORE Halloween. Well, I got sick then had travel then got wrapped up in being a MOM....long story short, I didn't even come close to finishing it on time. Well the way I look at it, I finished it super early for next year! Here is the project:

cut circles (step 75 in the process)
I started out with a yard of each color of felt. It was too thin and floppy so I used spray adhesive on the back of each sheet and folded them in half for double thickness. I was left with nice thick and firm felt sheets. I then cut the felt into strips and then into squares of varying sizes. I then cut the squares into circles. (oh my gosh my fingers had blisters and I am pretty sure I sprained my wrist in this two week marathon cutting project). But I had a lot of felt circles to show for the pain and suffering of crafting.

Next I used invisible thread and sewed the circles into a long streamer. Really really really long streamers. I think it could wrap around the house :) I went a little overboard. Here is a mountain of sewn streamers.
Here is what they look like hung.
Hung by the fireplace with care...stockings may be more appropriate this time of year.
Anyway this project turned out great, and I would like to do it for other holidays but think I am going to give my fingers a rest this season and start again when I am sure I have enough time and wrist dexterity to finish the job on schedule. (Thanks for the idea Amber!!! Although I am not sure how you "whipped them up" in mere hours. I am definitely not ready to join your craft big leagues. I will stick to the t-ball league)

More snow!

2010-11-22T08:13:00.004-09:00

I am back from Washington, and again (as expected) Chloe did fabulous with Andrew! She just adores him! Since I have been back I have been the third wheel in the family :) We have not been taking a ton of photos lately because we have been so busy- sorry Mom! It is still super snowy out, and a little icy, but the holiday spirit is in the air!

Here are a few things we have been up to:

eating snow
eating snow

Chloe sleeping in the chariot while we ski. Andrew's sister Elena joined us for this outing! It was her first time on XC skis. Nice work Elena!

The temps are getting much colder now, down to the low 20's and teens. Brrrr. Luckily the chariot stays nice and toasty so we can still get outside! We hope to make it out for our annual Thanksgiving ski this year. It always feels so great to be out in the middle of the day celebrating the holiday as our own little family before the yummy holiday feast with the entire family. We really earn our calories too--- not a bad bonus!

let it snow!

2010-11-10T13:38:00.004-09:00

Winter is now here!!! I just got back from my great trip to Texas, and came home to snow! For those of you wondering Chloe did awesome with her Dad while I was gone, and is now sleeping through the night for the most part. I leave for a few days and Andrew fixes everything???!! Amazing parenting is all I can think of as the reason! That or luck.

There is so much snow I had to shovel the driveway......seriously! We of course jumped at the opportunity to get out the toys and start enjoying the world of winter sports! We took Chloe out in the chariot and did some great cross country skiing. It was socked in that day, but the snow was amazing!! Just minutes from our house, but a world away!
Andrew, a sleeping Chloe (in the Chariot) and our friend Scott posing for a picture about 45 min out on power line pass.
Me posing with a massive moose who was lounging by the side of the trail. He is much closer than he looks. We saw 9 moose that day in just 2 hours! It was awesome!!

Here is a close up of my new moose friend. Chillin' in the snow.

Andrew all harnessed up to the chariot, which has attachable cross country skis of it's own! Finally I can keep up with him!

The happy family all skied out and ready for some hot cocoa!
Chloe got her first taste of snow that day.

Mmm DELICIOUS! She would have stayed out there all day just eating snow if we had let her. Actually it is about the only thing she wants to do when she gets out there. At home she even wants me to go outside and bring her back bowls of snow to eat. Free entertainment---I like it!

The snow is just amazing up here! The trails were fast, and the snow is deep (relatively for this time of year...maybe 2 feet or so?). It is plenty deep for skiing, which is what I care about! I can't wait to get back out there. With Chloe's self enforced early bedtime of 6:30 pm, it makes it a bit tough to get out there after work, but I think we can make it work at least once during the work week and as much as possible on the weekends. I am READY for winter!

Also if anyone in the Anchorage area is interested in taking a knitting class with me, please let me know! I want to learn to knit Christmas stockings. Since I haven't started yet I may be looking at Christmas stockings for next year (like the Halloween garland I am still working on) but I still want to give it a try. I think it would be so awesome to have ones that I made myself. Sewing is cheating- I want them to be knit!

Happy winter everyone!!

Happy Halloween

2010-11-01T08:01:00.003-08:00

Happy Halloween from Elmo and her family!!

Chloe loved her costume. She wanted to wear it all the time! It was toasty warm and very adorable. Although Chloe did not really understand the trick or treating concept she did love the sucker she found in her bag, chewed through the wrapper and enjoyed. We also let her have part of a peanut butter cup! Holy cow she was HYPER after that! We have never given her candy before that so had no idea what to expect. Shocker she loved it! We will stick to healthier alternatives for the most part but she was pretty adorable running around as crazy hyper elmo! It was a fun Halloween, and I think years to come will only get better!

Halloween Cookies!

2010-10-23T13:00:00.004-08:00

It is FINALLY the holiday season. The leaves are falling off all of the trees, and are mostly bare already, the temperatures are getting quite chilly and the air smells like wood cracking away in fireplaces. We have a gas fireplace :( at our house so have to make a little extra effort to get the fall feeling inside. This year Chloe understands what is going on around her and I have gotten much more creative with our activities. We decided Halloween cookies would be a good idea to get in the spirit.

Chloe helped every step of the way. She helped fill the air with music...... She really likes making noise so this an awesome way for her to participate. You can see this was great fun!

She also helped measure the flour, butter and sugar, and got the very important job of dumping them in the mixing bowl. She is such a good helper!
Perhaps she had a little too much fun with the flour. I am not quite sure how she got so much on her face, but I guess that is what happens when you give a toddler free access to her own bowl of flour and metal spoons.
I should have taken a picture of the floor. Just imagine a white blanket of flour all around her covering the floor and also all of the pots and pans we keep just below this working surface.... Thank goodness for our Dyson!
We moved from play time with flour to play time with sprinkles. She really liked doing the sprinkles. But after decorating a few cookies with delicate sprinkles she realized it is much more fun to dump them on by the fistful!
And then she found an even more fun thing to do with the sprinkles-- EAT them!

"Who me? I didn't eat any sprinkles."

"Okay maybe just a few...."

The cookies turned out pretty darn good too! We made these cookies 2 more times after this because it is so much fun. But to be honest the clean up takes just as long as the entire cookie making process- which is a bit of a deterrent. Maybe I will just try easy sugar cookies next. Chloe can still put on sprinkles and I won't have to mess with the cookie press......but I do love my buttery spritz cookies. Yum! What toddler activity doesn't come with a bunch of clean up anyway right?!

Fall Weather

2010-10-17T10:26:00.004-08:00

We have been enjoying this fall weather the last couple of weeks. We are trying to get outside as much as possible because we know that it will be over way too soon. Fall lasts about 3 weeks up here in Alaska before winter takes over and the snow arrives. As of today it has actually snowed once (Andrew saw it downtown but I can not confirm). Nothing has stuck, and that is what counts.

Here are the highlights of our weekend outing. We walked a few miles on the coastal trail while Chloe napped in her cozy warm stroller.
I got a chance to push it too. Here we are at Westchester Lagoon. It was so clear and gorgeous that day. We could see all of the mountains!
Happy Chloe, awake from her nap and loving the outdoors!
She sees an airplane. It is a toss up which is more exciting.... dogs or airplanes :)

There was an exercise park (from the 70's) at the end of our walk, so we turned it into a playground for Chloe. She loved balancing on the beams and walking up the sit up inclines.Look what I can do!!
Super fun!
We also looked for leaves, and collected every single one in this grassy area!
What a fun day!!
Here's hoping we have a few more sunny clear weekends before the snow. Don't cross your fingers though....all reports are for snow today.

On a side note we are starting the weaning process. I would love to keep breastfeeding, but I have a few long trips coming up for work and will be gone for extended periods (2 nights one week and 3 the next). Not good for poor Andrew who, although Chloe loves him during the day, doesn't have the goods she is looking for at night. Last week I weaned to only milk at night and it was rough. The last few night we have been limiting milk to just before bedtime and only once more during the night.... Oh my gosh it is exhausting because Chloe is not happy about the changes, but it is slowly but surely getting better. Last night Andrew went in for all the midnight wakings- no midnight milk for Chloe. He held her rocked her and calmed her back to sleep both times. What a great dad! I know it wasn't easy because I heard the crying and constant "Milk Milk MILK MILK MILK MILK" from Chloe. It is so hard not to give her what she wants! We are hanging in there though and she is surviving just fine. I venture to say she is actually doing great!

Brr its cold!

2010-09-27T15:11:00.002-08:00

It is so so so frigging cold up here now! A lot of leaves have fallen off the trees before they even had a chance to turn yellow. The biggest shock---SNOW!! Well technically hail, and it did not stick, but it was white, and fell from the sky yesterday. Oh my gosh it is so frigging cold. I can not believe it! I think the high was like 42 yesterday. It is sunny and blue skies today, but still very cold. Good thing we stocked up on Chloe's winter gear this weekend, everything will probably sell out now that it is winter temps! Anyway all this talk of the cold reminded me of this funny video we made of Chloe. We did not teach her the sign for cold...they taught it to her at daycare, and we were shocked into laughter when she did it out of the blue! Always surprising us!

Chompers

2010-09-24T11:45:00.005-08:00

Chloe is nearly 16 months old and I finally got a picture of all 4 teeth! She smiles all of the time, but I finally caught her sitting still, for this exact moment at least!

Enjoying our dinner

2010-09-23T19:56:00.002-08:00

I think you can see that Chloe enjoyed her dinner tonight! Spaghetti with sides of beets and peas. Yum!

Even more fun than making a mess was cleaning it up!

Now she is off to sleep, and I am off to clean up the massive mess that was dinner time and bath time! Another day in the life :)

Best Weekend Ever!!!

2010-09-20T21:01:00.008-08:00

So this weekend we had quite an adventure. We went out for a day trip to Byron Glacier, not even an hour South of Anchorage. It was amazing super sunny weather, and nice just to be outside in September enjoying the fall air! And it was spectacularly beautiful there to top it off. I had seen glaciers before from afar but this was my first time actually touching one, it was also Chloe's first glacier experience.

Hiking in to the glacier Andrew had baby duty.

Exploring

finding the perfect rock to plunk into the water, was the highlight and mission of her trip.

Look Mom! Double fisted!

Chloe is seriously strong. She carried around rocks that were so big I didn't even think she could lift them!

Of course we also played in the snow!

Chloe recently learned the sign for cold, and did it when she touched the ice. Not only does she do the sign but her whole body shakes when she does it! So funny!

Andrew got a little more adventure with his hike up on the icy snow pack. We thought we would err on the side of caution and keep Chloe off the steep slippery stuff, although gosh it looked amazing up there. That tiny speck up there is Andrew.

Again notice how tiny Andrew is compared to the icy snow pack!
After Andrew hiked all the way over there he realized he had to get back, and the only way (or maybe the shortest way) was through the icy cold glacier fed stream.
Brr. He made it. Feet intact, all toes accounted for.

I had baby duty the way back. Good for my (aspiring) buns of steel.

Enjoying the hike back. The trail paralleled the glacier fed stream most of the way so we heard gurgling water, along with the breeze through the trees. Also the crunching of crispy fall leaves underfoot added to the serene sound scape.
I will close with my favorite picture. I mean really, does it get better than this? Amazing.

Rock On Some More!!!

2010-09-15T20:23:00.001-08:00

Inspired by her music time with Dad, Chloe can't get enough of the guitar room!!! (aka the guest room). She just loves it in there!Who me?
Trying to grab her pick from me. This was the only way I could get her to slow down enough for a pic!
playing the electric guitar. You should hear her latest rif!
I had to get a picture of her rockin' little outfit too. I would put it on her every day if I could.
Jumping on the bed. I guess this photo shoot is over!
She is such an active little munchkin! She never slows down, never walks anywhere (always runs-no joke), talks all of the time, laughs A LOT and loves to give us hugs and kisses. It is pretty awesome getting to live with such a happy girl. We are still hoping that she will start sleeping through the night though. It happens on occasion, but more often than not I am up two or three times a night. Ouch. Maybe it will get better when she isn't teething anymore---what is that like two more years???? Oh well, it s still awesome tired or not!

Rock On!

2010-09-13T19:33:00.003-08:00

Andrew loves to play the guitar, and he has been spending a lot of musical time lately with Chloe. It is pretty darn adorable to see them together, but especially when he is singing to her. So cute! (I used to play the guitar too, but haven't picked one up for years, maybe it is time I started back up again).

Learning to strum.
Oops, accidentally (on purpose) dropped the pick into the guitar. repeat. repeat. repeat. This was a fun game for her.
More strumming, and singing too!
Her giggles are the best.
Taking a moment to listen to daddy play.
Tuning up the guitar. What a great little helper.

This may be my favorite picture. Chloe was trying to squeeze the strings so hard she made this hilarious expression. She makes this face when she squeezes anything really really hard. For example when she "juices" any fruit with her bare hands, instead of eating it. :)

I also love this peaceful moment.

Life is good. We are back home, safe and sound, and finally back in the swing of things after our labor day week vacation. (pics to come later--editing all those pictures takes so much time!) Just enjoying the Alaskan sunshine for now, and not spending much time inside. It is the last sun we are likely to see up here for a really long time, and I don't want to squander a minute of it!

anyone in the market?

2010-08-23T15:48:00.004-08:00

a link to our house posting!!

I am shocked it didn't sell in the first day :) I shouldn't be though, it seems the universe is conspiring to make all potential buyers run for their lives. The first showing didn't even happen. The people didn't even want to come out of their car, said the agent who just came right in the house 25 minutes early. Very weird. #1 who just walks right into someones house?, and #2 dude, at least come check out the inside, we were sweating bricks to clean for the short notice showing.

Okay the second one was weird. It was this weekend. I took the dogs and baby for a walk while Andrew stayed at home to show the house. I was gone for 45 minutes, and wanted to be sure I didn't interrupt the showing. So the people were only there a max of 3 minutes per Andrew's exasperated story. They show up, it is a nice sunny day, which is great because the backyard is an awesome selling feature. Well they got more than they bargained for back there.

Apparently our next door neighbor thought it would be an awesome time to practice his giant Indiana Jones whip technique. I am not even kidding. Andrew said he had on huge leather gloves and had like a lion taming whip. WHAT??!! I have never seen him practice any whipping of any kind, ever, and he chose that minute to do it? Their kids also must have been hopped up on sugar because they too were in rare form trying to climb over the fence. UGH. COME ON!

All afternoon no-one was out, and they chose this literally 5 minute window to go outside and be weird. We didn't see them out again the rest of the day.

I can't say this was why the showing only lasted 3 minutes, but I have to guess it was a contributing factor.

Wish us luck going forward!

just like daddy

2010-08-23T15:31:00.003-08:00

So these are archive photos (from 2 weeks ago), but it was such a cute moment I had to share it! ...So what I remember of this day was that we were both exhausted- probably from all of the house work. Andrew took a catnap on the couch, and Chloe did the most adorable thing! She took the other pillow from the couch, threw it on the ground and laid on it, trying to copy her Dad. She would pretend she was asleep then bolt up with glee. This was super fun for her, and she did it over and over again, squealing and laughing most of the time. This of course woke Andrew, but I am sure he wouldn't have wanted to miss this anyway!
Too cute! Good thing we are always perfect examples for little Chloe and are always on our best behavior........ Well from now on that should be the plan, because she is one smart little girl, who picks up on EVERYTHING. Oh my gosh I would be so embarrassed (and I am sure "will be" is the appropriate term) if this little angel waddled up to someone and dropped an F bomb. Luckily "Dog" is her favorite word now. Very G rated around here from now on! :)

Occupying Chloe

2010-08-18T16:51:00.004-08:00

So our house is finally OFFICIALLY on the market!!! This means that we have to keep a spotless home 100% of the time. This has already been a challenge and we have only had the place listed for 2 days! The dogs constantly shed, (wishing we had a hairless variety about now), and Chloe is her usual tornado replicating self. I was trying to get the last pictures of our room, and Chloe kept trying to add a little action to the shots: see her contributions to my efforts below:

Dad's closet was a little too neat, so Chloe helped out by making it look a little more lived in. She sees him put on a tie every day, and it looks like she is trying to be just like her Dad.
Love this shot; she looks like she is finally putting her feet up after a long day at the office.
Posing for the camera.
I tried to bribe her with some of my necklaces, to keep her little hands out of Andrew's ties, and our drawers. It worked for a while.
Here she is coming to put one of the necklaces on me. What a thoughtful little girl!
Although having a little one around does make every job much more difficult, it is still worth it. Just look at this face. How could I resist such a cute little helper?
If you are interested, I will post our house pictures next.

good job Andrew!

2010-08-16T15:32:00.003-08:00

Just want to congratulate my amazing husband on finishing his first half marathon since Chloe was born!! Way to go Andrew!!!

Post race with Chloe. She was so happy to see him at the finish line!
The whole family :)
Chloe and I did not run this time, but we cheered the runners on from the sidelines at various points on the course. Chloe is an expert cheerer. She put a smile on every runner's face, especially her dad's!

It was another fun and busy weekend. Gone before we knew it!

Le French Baby

2010-08-09T08:15:00.002-08:00

Chloe always looks adorable, but these days she is looking even more fashionable than usual. She has a new French wardrobe from her Grandma Donna's recent trip to Paris. oh my gosh the clothes are so cute. The sizes are a little wonky and say 12-23 months, which seems like a really long time to fit, but here's hoping!!! I have her in a few of the new outfits here:

Chloe at Grandma and Grandpa Romerdahl's in her brand new jacket. (dress by Grandma Julie)
The back is the cutest! The pea coat button finish on the back just may be my favorite part!

I made an amazing discovery: Chloe loves to color. I know, you are probably thinking duh!!! But we did not have crayons for her until last week, because I didn't think she could put enough pressure down to make them color. As with most assumptions I make about Chloe I was totally wrong. I bought a bunch of crayons with the back to school price of 25 cents a box, who could resist.

I set up a coloring station at one end of the kitchen, and it is awesome. I mean AWESOME!!! She will run right over there, sit on her coloring mat (aka a giant flattened moving box) and color away for hours! Well maybe more like 10 minutes, but in still baby time that equals hours to me. She has taken the crayons to other areas, like the sliding door, and "gasp from Andrew" the TV. But they wash right off. No biggie!

Chloe has learned to stick out her tongue too! I just have to ask "Chloe where is your tongue?" and she sticks it out with glee. So freaking cute!
A good shot of another French outfit from Grandma Donna. The jacket again is my favorite! It is reversible, The inside is a cool textured purple fabric. I of course prefer the more wild pattern!
She has a hat to go with too!
We do let Chloe watch some TV (I know how horrible :) ). She really likes anything with animals. Here she sees a dog on the animal planet. As you can see she LOVES dogs! When she sees one she lights up just like this and screams "dog!!!!!"
Just being cute.
So much happens every day, it is hard to remember what is new and what not. But when I look back at the blog I realize that pretty much everything she is doing is new, and I need to (no we need to) do a better job capturing it all!!

Andrew got me a new video recorder (the size of my i-phone) for my birthday, so hopefully we will have more videos to share soon! I can just keep the camcorder in my purse all the time!

PS it has been raining here for weeks on end, can we get some of the nice global warming from the rest of the country please?????

Now that she has teeth....

2010-07-30T14:16:00.003-08:00

Another fun new activity!! Brushing our teeth!! This was after bath time this morning. She loves doing it herself.

It is so much fun to teach her new things! And the tiny tooth brush and tooth paste are too cute!

Teeth!!

2010-07-27T20:49:00.002-08:00

I finally captured a tooth on film!!! Chloe is so active these days it is a miracle any shots are in focus, or that she is even in frame. She has two teeth, top right and bottom right. I also see bottom left peeking out a tiny bit, so soon we will be able to say she has three teeth.Chloe found one of my old necklaces while we were packing up more things, and she loved it! I put it on her and she wore it all afternoon. Pretty funny. I think I will start looking for a baby safe necklace for her.

A bit blurry but shows the action!
I will keep trying to capture the elusive tooth photos, but in the mean time I am going to call it an early night. Holy cow this teething thing is really affecting my sleep.......Chloe wakes up all night long..... Last night I put her down at 8:30 and I lost count but I am pretty sure she woke up every hour between 11 and 3. Thank goodness she slept in until 8:30. I give her Tylenol before bed but it must wear off after a few hours. Poor thing. Baby teeth are WAY BIGGER and way sharper than I expected. The top one looks like an adult tooth in a baby's mouth. I just can't picture what she will look like with a mouth full of teeth. To me she is still a baby!

100th post!

2010-07-17T11:33:00.003-08:00

Hey this is exciting, it is our 100th post! I apologize for the long delay in reaching this 100 from the 99th post, but we are busy busy busy.

We are trying to get our house ready to put on the market, and Andrew is a regular slave driver! Not a minute of rest between playing with Chloe (aka following behind her just trying to pick up the debris from her baby tornado) and cleaning/packing/fixing/painting/caulking/sanding/sealing/scrubbing/mowing/oh yes and sleeping a little too. I always wondered why people don't fix up their house while they are actually living there instead of right before they move. Now I know. It is a pain in the @**!

Aside from all of the exciting adventures in house repairs, we also have some pretty big milestones to celebrate! Chloe got her first tooth, quickly followed by her second. She got one on the bottom and one on the top. They are barely poking out, but already she looks older to me!

Chloe also started her new (non-ghetto) daycare, and we LOVE IT!!!! Chloe gets to play with other little kids, and get this---they actually take her to the potty. She has had only one wet diaper in the last two weeks! I am going to send her in undies next week and see how it goes. Why not shed that bulky diaper sooner rather than later?!

Anyway, I am supposed to be packing up the office, so I better get back to it. Andrew is currently sanding the front steps so I am feeling a little bad about blogging on the Internet when I should be working until my fingers bleed. :) (Oh Busted he just came upstairs!!!)

Here are some pics from a recent hike on flat top. :) At least we can look back and remember when we had fun (as long as it doesn't cut into our house prep time).

Near the bottom, on the beginning of our hike.

About halfway. You can see the steep terrain below.
To our stopping point. After this it is really more rock climbing, and we thought it would be a good idea to err on the side of caution with Chloe.

That was a bit of a rough climb for Andrew :) He volunteered to carry the baby backpack. It is pretty strenuous without an extra 25 pounds on your back! But we made it! Yay!

Okay, now I am seriously going back to work! Happy Saturday everyone.

getting creative

2010-06-27T21:51:00.004-08:00

We had a very creative day today! Chloe got a new headband handmade by me (the felted flower is from a gallery), and the stretchy ribbon is from the ribbon jar. She doesn't seem to mind wearing it too much. for the most part it stays on pretty well!
We also got creative with Chloe's latest installment of her painting. Today we decided to branch out with cool colors.

The paint was about 50% on the canvas 50% other.
The finished product....for today at least

Chloe also got some exercise with Grandpa Peters. You may say he got the exercise with Chloe :) Both had a good time.

Then to round out the day Chloe tried on my shoes. She also tried on Andrew's shoe but of course we got a picture with the cuter shoes :)
Hope to have more fun soon!