Monthly Update

Since I'm only finding the time to blog about once a month these days, here's my one for August. It's fun to look back at my pictures from the last month to remind myself all that has happened. Those are only the things that I remembered to bring my camera and take pictures of too.

Let's see, since my last post in mid July, I celebrated my 29th birthday. I had to work the entire weekend of my birthday and much of my family had gone to Greece on a cruise, so it wasn't that big of a deal. It was also on a Sunday and those birthday's usually lack the pizazz of regular weekday birthdays. The major plus side of it was that we celebrated my birthday week and that turned into a birthday fort night celebration. We had a family birthday party for me and my older sisters the Sunday before my birthday and everyone came. Gwen had such a blast playing with all her cousins. Then, later that week we met up with my older sisters and their kids at the 24th of July parade preview. Or as Jonathan termed it: the 24th of July face painting extravaganza - since we pretty much spent the entire time in line waiting for face painting and balloons. It was still lots of fun.

Also during my birthday celebration we went to lunch at this Brazilian place in the Gateway Mall. It was fancier than we usually do and we brought the kids. We thought we were all prepared to keep the kids entertained: had the portable DVD player and brought cereal for Emily. Everything was fine until Gwen peed on the floor and Emily finished her cereal and was still hungry. Then Gwen spilled her drink and my drink on the floor, which just diluted her pee puddle and we decided we had better leave a REALLY big tip.

Well, despite some minor accidents, I'd say Gwen is potty trained. She even poops in the potty most of the time now. That was our biggest challenge with her. She's much better at it now, only now she insists on describing each bowel movement to everyone. It's much like when I go visit Grandpa Madsen these days. I hadn't mentioned on here that my almost 96-year-old grandpa got a hip replacement this last month after breaking his hip a few months ago. He's living with my parents now and we go visit at least once a week. Gwen loves to steal his Jolly Ranchers and calls him Mommy's Grandpa which I think is a great way for her to try to keep all her grandpa's straight.

Emily's growing and growing fast. She's rolling over from front to back and back to front. She gets up on her arms and pushes with her legs and manages to scoot herself forward a tiny bit. She'll be crawling any day now and I don't think we're ready for that. It's hard to teach Gwen to keep her smaller toys and objects away from Emily because Emily will eat them. It will be even harder when she's more mobile. Here's a cute story from today: This morning both the girls got up at 6:30. No, that's not the cute part. That's far from cute since I went to bed after midnight and Emily still gets me up once a night to feed. Anyway, Gwen came into our room and wasn't sold on snuggling with me but told me she was going to play with Emily. Emily was making happy noises in her crib in the corner of our room. Gwen climbed up on the rocking chair and right into the crib with Emily. That made Emily squeal with delight. Then Gwen decided to bounce up and down on her knees and Emily thought that was even better. Each baby squeal made Gwen guffaw. It was so cute to listen to them making each other laugh. I love my girls so much and each little moment like that one fills up my heart and makes me realize what life is all about. I miss them so much when I have to be away at work but I know that it's necessary right now and things will change in the future.

Sorry, I tried to upload a bunch of pictures, but the site is having a hard time with it. I'll try again later.