Sleepy Boy

One day as I was tidying up lunch dishes, I realized I didn't hear the sounds of cars and various toys being thrown around in Liam's room, so I went to investigate. (Keep in mind this was only minutes after he'd been at the lunch table)...  Sweet little guy had climbed in bed, gotten his blankie, and konked out. Too sweet!! Hindsight showed that he was worn out from cutting two back teeth simultaneously.  He only has two teeth to go until his first set is complete..thank goodness! :)

Trolley!

The kids think taking the trolley uptown is equally fun to whatever we are actually going uptown to do! They have a blast.  Charlotte thinks she is big time when she pulls the "stop requested" rope above the window :)

The trolley stops at our apartment every 12 minutes, so we always see it come by when we are at the pool. Liam loves to shout (from the pool through the breezeway and atrium) "Hey Trolley!!"  So cute.

Swimming!!

Some video of the girl swimming!! She is rocking it~these are from several weeks ago!  Now she can swim all the way across this pool and back :)  She also goes on lots of "rescue" missions to retrieve Ariel from the middle of the pool.  Quite the little tadpole, huh?

She completed a six week swim lesson course at the YMCA, and got "most improved" in her class, but the real progress took place in our apartment pool with Daddy as main teacher.  She has gone from playing on the steps and not wanting water to touch her face at all...to jumping in with no swimmies on her arms, touching the bottom with her toes, then popping up and swimming to the other side of the pool.  We are really proud of her and happy for her to be able to enjoy such a fun summer activity!!

Future Drummer..

Um, needless to say, he had a blast.  :) I see a sound proof room in our future haha!

Baby Girl's Future Room

These are some factory images of the furniture we got on clearance!  We have tossed around all of the ways we could do furniture to figure out our most cost-effective method :)  There were probably a couple of different ways we could have sliced it, but we ended up deciding to convert our current crib to a full size bed for Liam's big boy room when we found this entire collection for only a couple hundred more than buying a second-hand crib would cost us!! Talk about easy decision!  So, we went to USA baby to look at the crib I was looking to get off craigslist and check the color, and found a clearance sale of not just the crib, but the nightstand and dresser as well! (the pics below show the hutch, too, but we didn't get that.)  We got the collection in the "Snowdrift" color that you see in the nightstand.  It is so pretty and we were able to tack on the conversion kit in the price, so we've got a complete bedroom that one of the girls will use from now on!

Baby Stuff!

Well, I've been searching on craigslist as the summer has gone on for some of the "baby gear" we had sold or that had broken..and today completed the process!

We had used our swing until it didn't work anymore, and it would have cost so much to have the motor replaced by graco that we just decided to look for a "new" one.  The bouncer/recliner we had was also so stretched out that the babe would have been resting her tootsies on the music/vibration motor, so we were in the hunt for a new one of those.. Fortunately, our first craigslist score was a product that does both!  It is a baby swing that not only does side to side And front to back swinging, but you can also remove the seat from the swing frame and use it as a baby papasan chair!  (an added bonus is that the pattern is verrry living room friendly!)  Plus, we saved $145 dollars off of the purchase price by going through craigslist!  (the key is to look for those people that barely used their stuff, so it is in better condition..and all of our purchases are in such great shape that it makes me a little sick to my stomach that we bought brand new the first time around! ah well, lesson learned :p)

Then, I had noticed on a friend's blog that her exersaucer was really neat: instead of putting the child in a seat surrounded by toys, this model has a toy table that the seat revolves around..this allows the baby to start out on those walking movements, and plus you can remove the seat feature and just have an activity table once baby can stand up and toddle around!! We love it!! The family we bought this from only used it for 6 months since their son walked early, and he was in daycare full time so he barely ever used it!  Savings on this item: $50!

Then today, we purchased a travel system that is perfect!! We bought the cadillac of strollers the first time around, and while it is feature-filled and smooth-riding, the graco quattro tour deluxe is also Gigantic!!  We had actually sold our travel system in order to have some $$ to put towards our double stroller a while back, so we didn't have an infant car seat or a single stroller.  This week, the perfect combo popped up: the Chicco Cortina system.  It is a very lightweight car seat that will be much less bulky than our old infant seat, and is rated extremely high on safety and customer satisfaction.  Love it!! (plus the fact that it is tan and Pink is an extra bonus ;p)  Even though Charlotte will probably be able to go to a booster seat in the near future (as soon as she hits 40 lbs after her birthday this winter), it still made sense for us to have the infant seat since they have changed the reccomendations and we'll be cramming in 3 car seats for a little while! Whew! On the way home from meeting the seller I looked in the back seat and felt like I was driving a little preschool van instead of our family Pilot! haha :D  We also like it a lot more than we would have if we'd had to purchase it new...we saved $235 by going the craigslist route..hurray!!

Just so this post isn't all words, here are some pictures of the stuff.

Sorry for the boring post~I was on a shopping endorphine moment haha!
We joked at lunch that now they will let us put her in the car since we have an infant seat again!  Baby girl, we are ready for ya anytime after Thanskgiving! :)

Baby Girl at 22.5 weeks!!

So, I don't want leave out this sweet girl from our blog too badly...Thus, an embarrassing picture of yours truly at 22 and 1/2 weeks!  about 4 more months to go!! *Maybe a little less, which wouldn't bother me haha!  I find out in 6 weeks if I have gestational diabetes again, which would be bad in all ways except for an improved diet, haha.. Well, we'll deal with whatever comes! As long as she is alright,  I can give up my favorite foods for 3 months :)

Salon Hair Cut!!

Well, after 3 1/2 straight months of pool time, Charlotte's hair was one massive, slightly greenish, tangle.  She had actually been asking to get her hair cut, and so it worked out well for us gals to go to the "beauty shop" last Saturday!  She did so well. She was such a big girl :) *and definitely thought so herself ;)*

Here are some pics of the big event!

Very Excited!!

Making sure she's supervising her stylist...

 Happy to be such a Big Girl!!

Happy Camper!! (although as soon as we got in the car she wanted her normal middle part back)

Sweet New Nephew!!

Harrison's Story

Love you, little man!!

Concert...

In case you can't tell, they are singing "Here We Come A Caroling.."  Well, at least, Charlotte's version.. Also, they are looking at themselves in the mirror on the opposite wall. Awesome!! Forgive the unsteadiness of the video: the camerawoman was snickering a little bit. :)