T-shirt of the month club

What is the best birthday present you could ever think of? Did you say a year long membership to the t-shirt of the month club? You are right!!!! Here is the first one! Andrew gets to look forward to 11 more surprise shirts. A birthday present every single month!

Don't you think he looks beary nice?

Potty Pro

Mom why are you taking my picture???!!!! Because you are using the big potty!!!!

We put the hot pink baby bjorn seat inserts in this morning and already Chloe is using them. No problem! This is going WAY better than I ever expected! To put it in perspective....she usually goes through 10 diapers a day (I change them whenever she is even a little wet). Yesterday we used 3, and the third one was dry at the end of the day. Pretty awesome right?! The rest of the time she went in the potty. I just sit her on, and usually before I can get out a book or anything she is done!

In our world this is pretty fantastic! But sorry to those of you who don't have kids...hopefully we aren't grossing you out!

photo shoot

We went shopping, and Chloe got some really adorable new clothes. So I just had to do a photo shoot. As you can see Chloe was hysterically laughing through most of it! She is such a happy baby!Clap clap clap! Yay!

Even though she isn't looking at the camera, this might be my favorite one. She is just so tiny!

How did we get so lucky? We have the best little girl in the world!

Yum Pancakes

We took these pictures a few weeks ago, and I am finally sharing them! This was her first time with solid foods! We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast and made tiny baby cakes for Chloe. She loved them! It is so fun sharing new food with her!

Not all of the food made it into her mouth...most actually did not make it :)

The dogs also love that we are giving Chloe more foods. She leaves food carnage all around her, and they are more than happy to help us clean up. We do have to watch Chloe closely though as she loves to "share" her food with them. A lick for you and then a bite for me.... not hygienic.

Holy Cow!!!! She can do that too????

So I just finished reading Diaper Free Baby by Christine Gross-Loh. It is all about how to help communicate with your baby to know when they have to go potty instead of making them go in their pants and sit around in their own waste. Sounds logical right? As with every new baby related idea, I optimistically set out on this journey with the best of hopes. Chloe is smart so I thought hey we should try this!!

Never did I expect it to be so easy!!! Here is our darling little girl on her potty, looking at a picture book with her daddy.
Whenever we think she has to go, we just sit her down, and usually she goes right away. We read stories to her while she is on the potty so that it is a fun experience for her too.

We got her potty chair in the mail 3 days ago. We don't "catch" every pee yet of course, but yesterday she used her potty 4 times, and today already 4 more times and once at Nordstrom. Yes that is the most amazing thing...she waited to go to the bathroom while we were shopping this afternoon!! We went to all sorts of stores, tried on clothes and carted Chloe around in her stroller for at least 2 hours. By the time we went into Nordstom to change her diaper I expected it to be drenched. Oh no, not the case. She was bone dry....huh that's weird... so then I took her to the potty, and asked "do you want to go pee pee??" and she went! Wow, I can NOT BELIEVE she knows what I am asking her!! I wish I would have started earlier, who knows how long she has been aware of her potty habits....probably since birth- at least that is what the book says. Anyway, that was the best book I have read about parenting so far, and an awesome day as a parent! So cool!!!

Way to go Chloe!! (pun intended) :)

Oh Hey Mom!

So, Our daughter is now standing to greet us after her naps.... You can imagine our shock to see this! The crib has since been moved to the lowest level (now the edge is just above her shoulders), and toddler proofing of our entire house continues.

So cute, but wow is she changing fast! She is now what you would call a "cruiser". She can not walk on her own yet but can pull herself up against anything and cruises through any room by holding herself up and grasping whatever is near. She moves from object to object this way! So far she likes to pull herself up on the crib, baby gate, couch, dog (yes dog), and people. Wow. It was just a few days ago that she learned to stand.....

Iditarod Video

A video to get the full effect :) We took this one down the trail away from most of the other people. Pretty cool!

Iditarod Fever!!

When most people think if Alaska they probably think if the iditarod sled dog race. Well this weekend you would be right! On Saturday we went to the ceremonial start of the race over at University Lake. The mushers and their dog teams start downtown and go through the trails around the city lined with adoring fans and photographers from all around the world. We used to go downtown where they announce each team as they start with the tremendous crowds of people, food vendors, native crafts and more people. It is still a lot of fun to do that, but we found that if you travel a little down the course you can get a better look at the teams as they go by! And get a parking space.

A nice lady took our picture while we waited for a team to come by.


This is probably the most famous musher, Lance Mackey. He won the iditarod the last three years in a row. You could tell it was him because everyone went crazy, holding up signs and cheering his name. You can see people holding out their hands to give him five as he speeds by.

Here is rookie musher, Dan Kaduce. It was the best picture of the day. Our nice camera was out of batteries so I was using the (comparitively) super slow point and shoot....most times it didn't take the photo until after the team already passed. This shot was a my crowning glory.

Chloe wasn't super interested in the whole thing this year, so we had to find other ways to entertain her. It was bright so we gave her my sunglasses. Yay! Chloe likes them!

About 30 minutes in, our little angel fell asleep in the baby hawk. We wanted to be sure she would stay warm enough so poor Andrew put on by pink scarf to wrap around her. It did the trick, and we got a little "alone time" while she snoozed. Dad and sleeping baby standing above the race trail. (He looks pretty good in pink right?)

Look who woke up!!

I got a little baby time in too, don't think I let Andrew have all of the fun!

One last group photo, and we were off to lunch then home for a daunting home improvement project. Photos to come (I am waiting for the after picture....).

I am already looking forward to this next year when Chloe is totally mobile. Lots of kids were there sledding, and playing in the snow. It was pretty adorable!

More Standing

Now that Chloe has learned to pull herself up, I seem to always find her standing! She was playing in the office, standing of course! She also likes to crawl, and loves the camera!

She slowly eases herself down to sitting now, instead of the plop and cry from a few days ago.

She saw the camera and is now on her way to get it!

Too cute! It seems she is changing so fast. If I wait another week to post I will have missed all of these in between stages. Heck she will probably be reading out loud the next time I turn around! I am so glad we have a digital camera, there is no way I could remember all of this!

Off to bed. I have an early flight in the morning. I am headed to Fairbanks for a day trip. Brrrr.