More stuff

And now, for all of the random extra stuff I have:

Isn't this picture sweet?

And isn't this picture beautiful?

I MADE this dress! It's my first sewing project I've ever done by myself.

My Maggie.

There were never such devoted sisters...

Genevieve unwrapped that cadbury egg WAY too quickly.

This is in the middle of Genevieve signing "baby," for her baby sister.

Dark hair

Maggie and grandma

Daddy daughter #1

Daddy daughter #2

Gorgeous Genevieve

Yes, she still has beautiful eyelashes

Vivi's new shopping cart. She LOVES this thing. When she took it to the grocery store, two employees stopped to take her picture:

Look for "Sony Bravia paint" on YouTube. Your kids will LOVE it:

Yes, this hot tub was in my hospital room. It rocked:

Easter Fun

First, let's play a round of "Name That Baby." Can you name which is which?






And, just because I love this picture:



Maggie was born on Easter, so Genevieve had her egg hunt a little late. Actually, she had several egg hunts because she was so darn cute.

"If you think I'm sharing with you, you're crazy."

I was stupid enough to think she wouldn't immediately rip off the wrapper and stuff this whole chocolate egg in her mouth:

Margaret Joan Sweetwood

Our little Maggie was born on Easter. Compared to how Genevieve was as a newborn, Maggie has been a little angel. The delivery went well, and the recovery was 26 times easier than last time. My mother came for 2 weeks, my dad came for almost a week, and my mother-in-law is here until Tuesday. I've had so much help, and it's been great! My insanely long to-do list is now sanely long because I've had time to work on it, and Vivi has had lots of play buddies to help her adjust to mommy's new distraction.

Here are some pictures:



Vivi loves kissing Maggie:

Oh yeah, that's a good face:

Update

I know I'm skipping stuff, and I'll have to post more later that's out of order. But I'm just going to post the pictures and videos that are easiest to find because I'm lazy. :)

Family Home Evening last week. (Dani - there's a shout out to James)

You can tell we are not afraid of getting dirty in this family:





At least she helps clean up:




Lately I've been hosting a few play groups every couple of weeks. This last one I did was on April Fools Day, so we had a "silly" theme. I sent out Christmas e-vites, and we dressed up silly. We ate inside-out sandwiches (cheese on the outside, bread on the inside) and apples cut into funny shapes. Then we talked about how April Fools Day started, and how in France they try to stick a paper fish on someone's back without them noticing, and then they point and say "April Fish!" when they find it. So we decorated paper fish. It was a fun day:





I think mommy's silliest of all.



More signing:





My mom tells me that when I was a little girl, and they'd ask if they should have more kids, I would say, "No! I'm the baby!" I wonder if I'm gonna have a similar problem...



By the way, she climbed into these by herself. I was pulling baby stuff out of the garage, turned around, and there she was just happy as a clam. It was pretty adorable.



Fun with bubbles:

My Week

Please excuse me while I throw myself a pity party.

Last Sunday I signed up to clean the church building. We only have 1 ward in our building, so each family has to sign up often. The sign up was open, and I figured I could go during the day and do stuff I could handle with V, and then Ryan and I could do bathrooms etc. at night. So Monday morning, like a good girl, I went to vacuum the chapel. A) Those vacuums are heavy, 2) They are difficult to maneuver under all those pews, and D) It takes a good hour just to vacuum the floor in there, including up by the choir seats. I had also gone grocery shopping that morning with a very full, heavy, cart, and I just kept doing stuff I normally do. None of that sounds strenuous, right? I didn't think so either. But sometimes I forget I'm 30 weeks pregnant.

Tuesday I felt SO SICK to my stomach. It hurt so bad I could barely move, and the only time it didn't hurt was after I lay down for at least 30 minutes. I finally figured out that I had pulled some stomach muscles, and that's why I felt sick. So for the next few days, I either had to lift my baby through the pain (ow ow ow) or watch her cry angrily at me for not picking her up. One day I called in reinforcements -- an 11-year old in our ward who came over and played with her for a few hours.

Then Friday she woke up sick. SICK SICK SICK. Fever of 102, very sad, and not eating all day -- though she did drink a lot. Ryan came home from work and had to leave straight for the Klondike Derby like a good Scoutmaster.

Saturday morning, V was still SICK SICK SICK. Fever of 103, not eating all day, and drinking very little. SO CRANKY. Just crying and whining all day. It was EXHAUSTING! Ryan got home that evening.

Sunday morning, V AND Ryan woke up SICK SICK SICK. Ryan stayed home with V while I went to church because I just needed to escape my baby. She napped during church time, so when I came home I had another day of dealing with a sick baby and no hubby b/c he was extremely sick himself. She wouldn't eat all day, and she wouldn't drink. I tried water, juice, milk, kool-aid, popsicles, and jello. I had to tip back her head and forcefeed her spoonfuls of water every hour so she wouldn't get dehydrated.

This morning, V feels better. Not so hot, and she's drinking and even eating a bit. Granted, all she's been willing to eat so far are cookies and fruit loops, but I'm just welcoming the calories. Unfortunately, now I'M sick, and Ryan has an inspection and an important meeting, so he couldn't miss work.

The Tally:
# of calls to the nurse: 3
# of times we've watched Signing Time: at least 10. SO sick of it.
# of Disney movies we've watched: 5. Ursula really scares V.
# of times I've broken down sobbing: um...
# of milk bottles I've poured out b/c V held them like a teddy bear but never drank them: 4
# of hours V has been awake and NOT crying/whining in the last 2 days: I'm guessing 3 total. Max.
# of vacation days I'm gonna need after this: Give me a vacation hour, and we'll call it good.

Pity me.

My Baby's a Genius

Genevieve is now trying to copy pretty much any sign we do. She's figured out that signing GETS her stuff, and she loves it. Her latest discovery is "please." When she learns a new sign, I try to reinforce that she's doing it right. So when she first learned to sign "candy," I gave her an M&M every time she signed it. Now she's learned to sign "please," and of course, she mostly uses it with "candy." It goes like this:

Vivi: signs "candy"
Mommy: "What do you say?"
Vivi: signs "please" and giggles
Mommy: gives V an M&M and says, "Can you say thank you?"
Vivi: signs "thank you."

My baby is a genius:

For those of you that actually know sign language, you'll notice that she isn't actually doing any of them correctly, but she gets pretty darn close!

If you haven't checked the blog in a while, make sure you look at the next post to see fun pictures from Christmas!

Christmas in Raleigh

Ryan, Genevieve and I went to Raleigh for Christmas this past year. WE HAD SO MUCH FUN. V ate herself sick with Christmas goodies, and she still misses her family terribly. Here are some fun videos and pictures from our trip.

Christmas morning, Vivi and her cousins got pillow pets from Grandmere. Vivi got a penguin, but she ditched that in 0.2 seconds and stole Alice's pink pig. She LOVES this thing. Last week I hosted my first play group, and V was very possessive of it. One boy tried to play with it, and she stole it away and then hit him. We're working on the whole sharing concept.

Here Vivi is playing tug of war with Olive's pillow pet:



Can you tell V loves her Howington cousins? Jack was SO cute with her. He spent a lot of Christmas morning running up and tackling her -- always very gently, so she never got hurt. She thought it was so fun.



Notice how Vivi is completely happy sitting on Aunt Nelly's lap.



Isn't she the cutest thing ever?

A little over a week ago, Ryan and I took a little trip to Denver and Colorado Springs, both of us for meetings, but we also had a lot of fun. While in Colorado Springs for a school board conference, we stayed at the Broadmoor Hotel.

Let me tell you about this hotel.

It is a 5 star, 5 diamond hotel. It is the sort of place where you'd better be rich to stay there b/c you'll go broke just for all the people you need to tip, since you're not allowed to lift a finger for yourself. We stayed in the main building; the West building is across the lake. But don't worry. There's a bridge if you're aching to see the ice sculptures over there. Our room had a huge bathtub, huge shower, huge bed, separate office area (great to put the crib in) and everything we could want. At night they came around for turn down service and gave us chocolates and the list of complimentary events hosted by the hotel the following day. These events included, by the way, movies in their own theater. Ryan also took Genevieve to cupcake decorating one morning. It was kind of awesome.

If you're thinking the school district should be outraged to pay for that expense, simmer. It was the off-season, the week after Thanksgiving, and they give a huge discount to our conference because it's been there for 20 years, so it's not much more than staying at other hotels. And, um, it was totally worth it. :) As pretty much the only perk that comes out of being a school board member, it definitely lived up to my expectations.



On a more normal note, Genevieve has already learned to help mommy with chores:



Development Updates:

• Vivi has now learned to sign and say "hot." Last night I made the mistake of telling her her eggs were hot at dinner, and she spent the rest of the meal blowing on them.
• She also has learned "no," and I'm already missing the days when she would say yes to everything.
• She signs "brush teeth." That baby toothpaste must taste good because she loves it.
  

We leave for Raleigh in 4 DAYS!!!

Well, it is now 2:52 AM, and I've been awake since 11 feeling so sick I would give up my Christmas presents to feel better. OK, maybe not. But since I'm up, I figured I could give you some more updates on our Genevieve.

We are amazed by how much she is now communicating with us! Here are all the signs she uses now:

• food
• more - We haven't seen this one in a while. She's still just signing "food," but we're working on it.
• dog - We went to Old Navy last week, and they had one of those creepy mannequin family displays at the entrance. Part of it was a dog, and she walked right up to it and signed "dog" without any help. Of course, she pats her stomach instead of her leg, but we know what she means.
• book - She also says "buh." This is probably her most common sign. She does it every time we go in her bedroom. She LOVES her books -- especially the peek-a-boo ones with flaps.
• please - I was at school board meetings tonight, but Ryan said she signed AND said this tonight without any prompting. I can't wait to hear it. Ryan gets all the credit for this one because I rarely remember to teach her these good manners.
  
• all done - I have to prompt her a lot to do this one -- she still prefers yelling at me when she's done -- but we're working on it.

Sometimes I think she might be doing a few others, but I'm not sure yet. She also keeps doing one hand motion, but I can't figure out what it means. It looks like "clean up," but there's no way that's what she's telling me.

Here are a few more videos. This first one shows what a good little helper she is. She was so cute, sitting by daddy and handing him screws as he needed them. I distracted her when I pulled out the camera. Oh well.

This next one's from a while ago. I turned the box from Vivi's new carseat into a little playhouse. It looks very ghetto, but she thought is was the best thing ever.





This is from even longer ago, but it's cute, and I'm up, so here it is:



Yes, there's still a lot more to post, but for now I'm going to try to sleep again. Fingers crossed.

"Yeah"

I have SO many new things to post, but I'll just start with a few fun ones from our trip this past week. Ryan had meetings in Denver the first part of the week, and I had a school board conference in Colorado Springs the second part of the week, so we made it a family trip.

Here's a video from the Denver hotel room, where she spent most of her time chillin' in the sink:

Vivi is not a very good talker yet, but she loves saying "yeah." If you ask her ANY yes/no question in the world, she will nod and say, "yeah." It's pretty entertaining.




SO much more to post. But I'm tired.

My hilarious little walker

Yes, I know she only goes like a foot and a half, but that's pretty much all she does before she realizes that crawling is still a whole lot easier.

And now for the moment that had Ryan and I laughing until our stomachs hurt. I think she likes soda; what do you think?

Birthday Presents!

Sure, birthdays are fun. And birthday cake is yummy. But what's even better?

Presents!!

Here's V with her present from nana and papa. You can't tell, but she's saying "Thanks, nana" telephathically.



"Oh, toy, I love you so much!!!"



That thing is fabulous. It has so many bells and whistles it's sure to distract her when I plop her down in front of it so I can finally get something done!

We also got a package from grandma, grandpa, and grandmere. Vivi's favorite part? The box of popcorn. Please notice the pile of presents untouched off to the side:



Try as I might, I couldn't take her attention away from the box of popcorn. So I decided to embrace that and poured it all into a shallower box that she could sit and play in. She loved it:

"Yay!"



I cut off the lid sides, and it is now a "sandbox" in Vivi's room, which she plays in every day. As for the actual toys, we've been pulling out one every few days so she has one new thing to focus on at a time. She loves them and is getting pretty good at fitting a triangle into a triangle hole on one of the gifts. But I'm getting a little tired of hearing "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" from the barn toy on the fridge -- which has one button she won't stop pushing. All day. She LOVES it. But as hard as she tries, she can't match the front and back of the same animal. We'll work on that.

I'm adding this picture in here just so you can see how darn cute she is in pigtails. Plus, I want you to see how daddy babysits:


And I'll throw in some pictures from our last FHE to the town park before it got too cold.







This one I'm adding just because I love her little butt ruffles (Thanks Aunt Gale!):

Genevieve is one year old!

My little baby turned one on October 1st. Oh, how the time as flown. It seems like only yesterday we were still with her in the hospital. I don't miss that.

Besides, she's so cute NOW!

Before we look at all the birthday celebration stuff, let's admire her handiwork when she found mommy's lipstick. It's kind of amazing that she knew where to put it:





Genevieve's birthday wasn't the best of days, but she didn't care. She got cake! She didn't eat much of it because she was so busy playing with it:



Vivi got bubbles for her birthday. Let's compare enthusiasms, shall we?






But she finally caught on to the fun of it:




We also have lots of fun pictures of V playing with her gifts from grandma, grandpa, nana, papa, and grandmere. I'll wait a few days to post those because I don't want this post to get too long. And I'm bored of waiting for the videos to upload and process. But they're very cute, so check back in a few days!

Saint Louis Videos

Finally, more videos of my gorgeous girl.

This one is my favorite. We call it "The Aww Game." She just kind of picked it up on her own and LOVES it. How does it work? Just watch:



So. Many. Buttons.



One quick close up. Just 'cause it's cute.



V LOVES water. But hates pools. We think it's because they're cold. And yes, I know my baby is chunky. I love it.



This one's fuzzy because I had the video on the wrong setting. I was very sad because it's so cute. So I'm posting it anyway. She's pretty good on the telephone, isn't she?



Water spouts:



Playing in a fountain:



The magic house had this awesome slide. It was kind of squishy, so V could sort of stick to it and climb it all by herself. Then she even liked going down by herself! This video is the tail end of her climbing it. I tried to move so you could see her face after going down, but I blocked it. She was beaming.



The first video is my favorite. Which one is your favorite?

Saint Louis Pictures

Ryan had management training in Saint Louis last week, so we bought an extra ticket and V and I went with him. We had so much fun! Ryan's family drove down from Chicago, and we played in the city. I've got a lot of photos and videos, but this post will just be photos. I'll do the videos later. I realized as I looked through the pictures that they're pretty much all just Genevieve. But that's all you want to see anyway, right?

Also, I'm about to buy a Stage 2 carseat for V. Anyone have good recommendations for features or a model I should look for?

The Saint Louis zoo was AMAZING. It's my new favorite zoo, and we didn't even see half of it. Here's V in the children's area, playing with the water spouts. She LOVED it:


REALLY loved it:


Here's Vivi playing in the dirt and bark outside our hotel room. She loves getting messy:


We went to the most amazing children's museum, called the Magic House. I would have LOVED it as a kid. Here's Vivi playing in the water area:


Blake, Ethan, and V in the sand area:


My beautiful girl:


Public nudity (she rolled around in the dirt a bit and needed to clean off):

My Big Girl

This was back in July, but I couldn't post it. She's so big!



Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?



Very well, thank you.



V's favorite pastime:



More to come. Yay!

YAY!!!!!

Check it out!!! I can post again! what did I do? Wait. Weird, huh? It still just shows text until I actually post it, which is super annoying, but at least it works.

help me

Just in the past few days, I haven't been able to post videos. I go through all of the steps to post one, and then instead of the black box coming up, a line of text does. It says it's uploading, but then it doesn't. Anyone know what to do?

My little pianist

A musician in the making: