Zoe and Kylee Updates

 Getting more comfortable...hopping around all by herself!!!

 Notice the "bunny ears"...I have no idea where Zoe learned that already!

 Kylee enjoys hanging out on Zoe's bed...

Auntie Diana bought a super cute outfit for Zoe for her birthday...she looks so BIG!!!

The last week before Daddy was off for the summer was a quick, but extremely busy one...as usual!  We could not wait until Daddy was home for the summer.  It is nice to have an extra set of hands and patience to take care of the kiddos.  I really have no complaints. 

Kylee eats, sleeps, and you know what like clockwork...She only cries when she is hungry, just about to fall asleep, or needs a diaper change.  Most of the time we are able to take care of those things before she cries, so hopefully she continues to be laid back.  Both girls seem like they are growing like crazy...I am already missing the tiny baby that was born a little over 2 months ago.  Kylee is beginning to smile a lot and watches her sister go everywhere.  She is also cooing and she is ticklish, so she is starting to giggle too...it just makes me melt!!! 

Zoe is continuing to expand her vocabulary and is amazing how creative she is.  Melt downs are escalating, but as we talk to a lot of our friends they have had the same issue around 3 years old.  It makes Shaun and I second guess our parenting from time to time, but we get through it because we know it is just a stage she is going through.  As long as we continue to let her know it is not acceptable, she is learning. She got used to the pool in about 2 trips in.  Now she hops around, puts her nose and mouth in, kicks a bit, and floats in a tube.  We are still trying to encourage her to go all the way under the water and to "swim" more to get more comfortable.  In a month or so, we hope to put her into a swim lesson with 2 other kiddos and have her feel comfortable enough with the water, so she can focus on swimming skills.  



Our Pool

Shhhh...Sister is sleeping!  It's time to swim!!!

Our Little Peanut and her New Pool

Soooooo Excited!!!!

Daddy and Zoe

Kicking

I got a super deal on this pool, so I couldn't pass up all the fun we could have.  After last summer I was browsing in Target and happened to run into the pools on clearance.  They are 2-300 dollar pools and I saw the tag marked $49.99.  I also had a coupon for 10 dollars off a purchase or 75 or more, but we had to get the essentials still.  So, I look at it as a 40 dollar pool.  What a deal!

We put it together between last weekend and now and Zoe was so excited.  We filled it on Friday night and Saturday morning and Zoe could not wait!  Saturday was overcast in the morning, so we were trying to tell her to wait a few days until the water warmed up, but that is just not a reasonable  request for an excited toddler.  Daddy told her he had to balance the chlorine before she could get in and she agreed.  Once Daddy gave the go ahead, she was gung-ho until..........she felt the water!  Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!  It was freezing!  I was not going anywhere near it and she just cried because of the temperature.  I felt bad so I ran the hot water in the house and poured bucket after bucket of hot water into the pool until Shaun said it was a little better.  Zoe tried again and was thrilled to go in with Daddy.  It was still cold and she shivered from time to time, but still loved swimming.  We will have a fish by the end of the summer, I am sure.  Once they were having a ball, Mommy got brave enough to go in too.  Of course we had to make sure the baby was sleeping soundly.  It was nice to have fun with Zoe and give her our undivided attention for a little bit.

First Official Bath!!!

 LOVIN' the Warm Water

Big Sis Looking On

Kylee got her first official bath.  I know it seems like it is really late to be finally bathing her, but the umbilical cord stump just fell off on Tuesday morning!  So that night I was eager to give her a full bath and forget that sponge-bathing.  Kylee loved it!  She sat there and soaked her little self and stayed nice and calm throughout the whole bath.  While she bathed, Zoe watched on just to make sure her baby sister would be okay and that Mommy didn't forget to clean anything.  I think Kylee now realizes, "Ooooh, bath time...that means massage time after, Yippee!"  When she finishes her bath, we usually lather her up with lotion, just as we did with Zo, and I massage her little legs and arms and she smiles and coos at me.  She LOVES the massage part!

Memorial Day Weekend

 BBQ/Swimming at Papa and YiaYia's for Papa's Birthday

Playing with Steven and Kiara

Memorial Day Weekend is always a great time to go swimming and Zoe got her opportunity at Papa and YiaYia's house.  I am always uncertain about how Zoe will react to new things, even though she swam all summer last year.  Well...she was so excited to go swimming, she wouldn't even let Shaun finish eating.  She got right in and loves playing on their steps.  We are stoked because we worked on her pool for the backyard this summer and were hoping she would want to spend a lot of time in it.  (The pool is an above ground pool with a metal frame...about 2-3 feet deep and 12' in diameter...best part is I got it at Target last year, after summer, for $40!!!  It retailed over the summer for $300!)  It was Papa's birthday, so Zoe also got to help Papa blow out his candles and eat a whole bunch of delicious goodies.  Happy Birthday Papa!

Also, Monday we went to a BBQ at Jeff and Wendy's new house and Zoe played with Steven and Kiara after she warmed up to them.  She had a blast!  They were tossing her in that big pillow up and down and she would just cracked up.  They were such good sports because Zoe had them playing everything and they just went along with it.  She is still talking about playing with Steven and Kiara.  

Sisters...

 Little Sis, Big Sis

Kylee wasn't too happy about a ton of pictures that day, but Zoe is always thrilled to take pics with her sister!

Very alert and observant, like her big sis...

We are definitely enjoying our time with the girls.  Kylee is growing like a weed.  I think much faster than Zoe, but we will officially find out in a couple of weeks at her 2 month well baby check up.  She is so observant already and is always looking at her surroundings.  We are working out a schedule for her, but she is still pretty much calling the shots.  She is starting to sleep longer.  Yeah!  If I am lucky, she sleeps a 5-6 hour sift, then a 4, so I get 2 good 3-3 and a half hour shifts of sleep plus a little more before Zoe wakes up.  I will take it!!!  We are on count down for school...can't wait until Daddy is home with us!!!  I am going to start pumping and training Kylee to take a bottle, so Shaun can take one feeding at night :).  More sleep for Mommy!  Shaun can't wait either because he was able to feed Zo from the start, so he is eager to be able to help out at night.  That has been quite an adjustment for Shaun because he feels so helpless at night. 

Zoe has been a great big sister, but we can see some of the affects it is having on her emotionally.  She has definitely become a good tantrum thrower.  I think she is starting to wake up to Kylee's little noises, so some days I am not sure how well she is sleeping.  She has been waking more than Kylee in the middle of the night...she just got the other half of those HUGE molars in the back bottom.   They were already in but the back half of each of the bottom molars came through, so that increased the whining.  She is getting better each day, so hopefully the top two will ease their way in and not make a big stink.  I will cross my fingers!  We heard she is in at our school preschool.  Yeah!  The administrator said the teachers said she was shy, but will give her a chance...they will see...she just needs time to warm up to them and then they will be sorry they ever said that :).

By the way...a BIG thanks to Kris, Meghan, Khloe, and baby Kaitlyn for the super cute big sis, little sis shirts!!!  They are perfect! 

The Life of the Umbilical Cord Stump

Holy Cow!  Kylee is 7 weeks, 2 days old and her lovely umbilical cord stump just fell off!!!  As parents of two, we didn't think that something as little as the umbilical cord stump would be a different experience than Zoe's.  We know that every little one is different, but this?  Really?  Zoe lost her umbilical cord stump within 2 weeks of her birthday, so we anticipated the same with Kylee.  Kylee wanted to be different than all others and hang onto hers for quite a long time!  (Hopefully this is not a sign of future attachment issues :) )  To me, it is a pretty gnarly thing...not to mention when is stays on for 7+ weeks!  At 3 and a half weeks, I took her into the doctor because it had changed and I thought that it was infected.  The doctor said it was fine and it looked good.  He said it would probably fall off by the end of that week.  NOT!!!  Try 4 weeks later!  Well...what really bugs me about the whole thing is that we have not given Kylee a full bath yet.  Poor thing!  I am a fan of schedules for the kiddos and this has killed me!  We FINALLY can bathe her at the same time (or a little earlier) as her sister and put them down around the same time.  My goal is to have that routine in place prior to going on vacation.  We'll see!

Zoe's First Tee

 "Watch the ball."

 "Good swing!"

 "We said, watch the ball!" (Notice:  Zoe's eyes are CLOSED :) )

Zoe had some birthday gift cards, so one of the things that we decided to take Zoe shopping for was a baseball tee.  Well at the toy store they had a couple of choices.  I asked Zoe if she wanted a red/blue one or pink/purple one.  Well...as you can see the princess needs everything pink/purple.  Shaun has made a prediction that Zoe will be our little dancer and Kylee must be our athletic one.   We shall see!  Anyways, Zoe's boy friends can play ball really well already, so Zoe tries it at home when she is not intimidated by their athleticism.  She is too cute, but we sure do have some work ahead of us.  The concept of sports is a tough one for Zo.  Isn't that skirt cute???  Tasia was visiting from Montana and we found it on clearance at Baby GAP.  Definitely not a baseball outfit ;).