Sick

All in all the kids are doing well, but they both seem to have a constant cold. This weekend started off alright, but Bella was not feeling well after she got up from her nap. She was cranky and did not want to go outside to play in the snow. When she said she didn't want to build a snowman we knew something was up so Robin grabbed the thermometer and sure enough she had a temperature of 103. Kevin and Maria's baby, Calvin, came over for a few hours so they could go out to eat for Maria's Birthday with some of their friends. Calvin was the easiest of the three kids, he was content to play by himself and did well with eating. Evie was excited that there was another baby in the house, but Bella seemed indifferent about the whole situation which was fine with us(could've had something to do with feeling under the weather).

Saturday night I slept in Bella's bed with her of course for a few hours and then Robin replaced me for the last few hours until Evie woke up. Bella was pretty weak today again and her fever went up and down all day. It peaked at 103.6 and was down below 98.6 for a period of time. She actually cuddled up with me and watched a whole movie(The Princess and the Frog) in one sitting, something that has never occurred before. We also watched a lot of Dora the Explorer and started the movie Aladdin. Bella seemed to be feeling better by the end of the day and hopefully will be feeling better tomorrow so she can go to school.

Evelyn is battling another ear infection. This is her 2nd ear infection in two weeks, her first one cleared up. She is gaining new skills, pulling herself up on everything and everyone (she often crawls to me or Robin and will pull herself up by grabbing our pants). She has not said much besides "Hi Dad" thusfar, but Robin, Bella,and myself have been holding our hands up and hers and saying "Touchdown Iowa" and then clapping and saying "Yeah." This morning when we did it Robin and I both swear to goodness that she said "Touchdown Iowa" in a weird voice. Robin claims that she actually heard it twice, we tried to get a video of it with no luck.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

The new hot club (really hot club with Bella's 103 degree fever)

Calvin after eating carrots and pears in Evie's chair.

Evie and Calvin chillin' in the gym.

Calvin in the gym and Evie posing for her senior picture.

3 Year and 9 Month Check ups

Evelyn and Isabella had their checkups last week. Evelyn had her 9 month check up and Bella her 3 year check up. Isabella is in the 75% for height and weight (38 inches tall and 33 lbs.). Evelyn is in the70% percentile in height (28 inches) and 30% percentile in weight (18.5 lbs.).

Evelyn's Leaps and Bounds

A little after Christmas Evelyn really started crawling and now there is no stopping her. She loves her new ability and loves moving around. She has even started pulling herself up on things and taking steps while holding on to something.

Here is one of her first times crawling



Isabella isn't so impressed that Evelyn can move around. She's not happy that Evelyn can get into her stuff and Isabella's stuff is the only things Evelyn is interested in. Isabella says, "Evelyn's crawling!" in a tone that sounds like she's tattling on her. Or she just screams and says "Evie's coming" and throws herself over her stuff. We are really working on sharing, or having Isabella pick out something else for Evelyn to play with. Isabella usually just finds the closet thing that she's not interested in and throws it at Evie.

Here is Evie walking with the shopping cart. She stops to wave "hello", which we think is just so cute!

Bella's 3rd Birthday

Still trying to catch up on the blog, this post is almost a month late. Bella got to celebrate her 3rd Birthday with lots of family. Grandpa Groves came down for the day and Grandma Linda, Grandpa Jack, Aunt Jill, and Uncle Joe drove in from Ohio. Uncle John and Aunt Kristy stopped by for Bella's favorite lunch (sandwiches) and some Birthday cake. We got Bella a Dora the Explorer cake since she has really been enjoying Dora lately. Bella told us she wanted a brown and purple cake so they put a purple frosting trim on the cake and added a brown tree. Evie tried to upstage her big sister by crawling for the first time. Bella got to open lots of presents for her birthday and then the next day as well for Christmas.



Bella looks pretty bored after we sang Happy Birthday. She didn't want any of her cake.








She was playing with the Ipad with Grandpa Jack and I do not remember why she got angry(that is the problem of waiting so long to do the post),but Grandpa Groves got some good pictures of her sour face.
















The two pictures below are Bella opening some presents and Bella showing us how old she is.

Potty Humor

Wrote this up on 11/22/2010, but forgot to ever post it....

For a long time we have made halfhearted attempts at potty training Isabella. She started doing alright with peeing a couple months back, but refused to have a BM on the toilet. When she moved to the three year old room in October she really became much more interested in going on the toilet as many of the children in that room were potty trained. She began having all of her BM's in the toilet. Over a weekend we were able to wear underwear all day except during nap and overnights and had no accidents. Bella really wanted to wear underwear that Monday to school so we decided to let her and has done great. She rarely has had any accidents and now only wears a pull-up overnight and it is dry or only a little wet.

You can't go through potty training with a bunch of humor. Of course the fact that I'd just blogged about Bella's BMs is funny enough. Other funny stuff:

Bella refuses to throw the toilet paper in the toilet after she has a BM. She says "I can't see the poopy, no cover it up!" if you try to put toilet paper over it. She likes to watch it while she flushes.

One day Bella went up behind Robin and pulled Robin's pants back. She said "Any poopy in there, Mama?" Robin explained to her that you don't just walk up to someone and look down their pants (even though we were doing it to her all the time). Bella replied "I was just checkin'"

Robin went in one morning to wake up Bella. Robin was dressed and ready for work, the first thing Bella said to her was "Mama, you wearing underwear?" Robin said "Yes, I am wearing underwear". Bella said "Let me see it!"