Growing Up

So much has been going on in the Yates household recently. We just got back from a week in Maine but I'll blog about that and put up pictures later. I haven't put them on the computer yet! The semester finally ended and Wayne and I were both so glad. Of course, I started my summer classes the very next week so I didn't really get much reprieve but they have been going really well. A lot less time consuming than I thought which is great and I can work on it just at night, after the girls are in bed. Jordyn is growing up so quickly. She talks so much I can't even believe it. Her favorite and really only TV show is Little Einsteins and she is learning so many words and fun things from that. Her two favorite words are "migration" and "oklahoma". A cute story though is that she told me yesterday that her belly was hurting and when I asked her how it felt her response was "it feels booby-trapped Mommy", another word from Einsteins! Last week we had a big milestone; after potty training for two months she had 10 days with no accidents! I couldn't believe it and was very excited. Of course we made a big deal about it and she got a new book to celebrate! She has just started the why phase but she usually doesn't just say why. It's more like "why you doing that mommy?" she wants to know everything that is going on. She has been so helpful with Landyn recently, even more so than usually which is so wonderful to see. She loves to hug and kiss her and bring her toys. We're still working on sharing but I'm starting to see improvement which is really encouraging. She really is growing into such a sweet girls who loves to hug and kiss everyone that comes over, who hugs her babies and reads books to Landyn. One of her favorite phrases is "I love this Mommy" and has been saying that about many things. I could go on and on about her but I wont. I'm just so proud of the pretty little girl she's becoming. Of course we have our frusterating moments, and sometimes entire days but she is such a great girl and we love her so much!

Landyn is growing in leaps and bounds too! She will be 6 months tomorrow and I can't believe the changes just in the last week and a half. In the last week and a half she has cut her first tooth, started sitting up, begun crawling and finally started eating other baby food besides cereal (twice a day instead of once). I think she's hitting a growth spurt and she's become a lot more hungry recently. She is still so mild mannered and patient with everyone, it's wonderful. She loves to play with Jordyn and follows her all around the room. Before yesterday she wasn't crawling but she could roll and spin anywhere just to make sure she had Jordyn in her line of sight. Her tooth is coming through really well and while we had a few rough weeks waiting for it to break the skin she still did so well. She just started crawling yesterday and I got it on video today so hopefully I'll post it soon. It's very amusing and really hard to explain how she does it. Of course, she wants to chase Jordyn's crayons which doesn't make Jordyn very happy because as Jordyn says and Mommy usually says too, "she's very very little for crayons." She's also begun sitting up. It's only about 15 seconds at a time but she's getting better every day and I've been helping her practice! She'll be sitting up for minutes before we know it.

I just can't believe how much my girls are growing up. It's hard sometimes knowing that we might not ever hear that word said wrong again or know she won't need us to pick her up and carry her to her toys because she'll be getting them on her own, I'm just trying to memorize all the little day to day things before they're gone forever! Depsite the nostalgia I'm so loving all the changes and being able to see the girls they are becoming. It's amazing how much more I love them every day. Being a mom of two is great and we're really falling into a great routine. Having them both in bed by 9:30 isn't too bad either. We had a great time seeing some of you this past week and look forward to seeing a lot more of you this next month for our next vacation. We love you all!

Final Stretch

It's the final stretches for classes and I'm so glad. Wayne and I are exhausted all the time it seems! But two more weeks for both of us and it's finally over, until August for Wayne and only two weeks for me. Then I start summer classes so I can graduate by the end of the summer. Math tutoring work has been picking up too, making life a little more busy but it's been great. We've recently had 90 degree weather and so we've been swimming and spending a lot of time outside. We have almost finished the back patio giving the girls a place to place with two swings, a sandbox, a pool and lots of toys! We just added some deck furniture to our outside deck and recently plants to the front garden. It's been really nice and we've been enjoying being outside every day for almost a week. It's nice to have those outside play places when it's too hot or mommy is too tired to walk to the park! It's been such a long time since updating, to much to go over but both girls are doing great. Jordyn is thinning out again do to all the outside activity and talking so much. She can put such huge sentences together. The other day after hurting her knee she told me "Mommy need bandaid. Make feel better." I couldn't believe she had just said all of that. Landyn is growing in leaps and bounds too. She can prop herself sitting for a few seconds at a time. She's always trying to sit up and rolling like crazy. She can roll both ways now and spin all around too. When you put her on the floor you never know where she'll end up. Well, thats the short version of the update. Hopefully I'll keep up on it from now on but chances are I'll fall behind again. Enjoy the pictures. I know there aren't tons but check out my facebook for a lot more! We love you all.

So here's the long awaited video. There's a lot of stuff in it. Landyn talking and rolling. Jordyn tells her colors and no, we didn't practice ahead of time. She really does just know them! A glimpse of what it's like at breakfast and a fun song Jordyn learned with Grandma on spring break. There's some more fun things too like playing in the mirror and just being silly. Hope you enjoy!

New Changes

To those of you who check our blog regularly, sorry about how long it's taken to get a new post up. Those of you with kids know how difficult it is to find time for anything, and just add two parents in school on top of that and it's almost impossible to do anything else besides school and kid things. So, I know it's been long and I apologize. Because of that it's going to make this blog full of information to fill you all in.Let's start with this weekend. It has been a whirlwind with a lot of new changes in our lives. Landyn started rolling over! Since she did it about 6 times in a row we were able to catch it on camera. Jordyn was very excited as well because she has been showing Landyn how to roll and trying to "help" her roll over for some time now. We couldn't believe she was doing it and she seemed very happy about it! Landyn also started cereal this weekend. I've been feeling like a lot of times after eating she's still hungry so what better way to fill her up than cereal. Again, Jordyn has been very excited and wanting to help feed Landyn. She also keeps saying she wants a bite but as soon as it's about to touch her mouth she changes her mind. The biggest change this weekend happened when we decided to potty train Jordyn. She has been very interested in the potty for a couple of weeks and been asking to go so we decided now was as good a time as any. We used a method called potty training in 3 days, which I highly recommend. By day 2 Jordyn had only one accident and day 3 brought on no accidents along with waking up dry from a 10-hour sleep! Today, day 5, has been a more trying day as the first half of the morning she decided she didn't want to go on the potty and had two accidents but now we are back on top of it and she's excited again about going and getting an M&M for a reward. I know there will still be accidents and frusterating moments with this but I'm so glad to be over the hurdle of potty training.

In other areas of our lives, Jordyn, Landyn and I were able to go home to NY for spring break. We were gone 8 days and we missed Wayne like crazy but really had a fun time. We all started off sick and so the first few days were a little rough and they convinced my brother he never wants to have kids! It's easy to convince someone of that when you have two screaming girls climbing in your lap and having nothing make them happy! But after the first few days they both just jumped into life there and it was a lot of fun. It was Landyn's first trip so I enjoyed showing her off to all of our family. Having all my siblings there as well as my parents was great too because it gave me some time to go out to lunch with friends, take a nap one day and do some shopping without having to carry anyone around the store! We were sad to go and Jordyn is still asking when Grandma and Grandpa will come!

Wayne is now in the middle of two online classes that are taking up a lot of his time. He's so great about it though. Most of the time he won't even start his work until the girls are in bed, forcing him to stay up late but he does it to spend time with them and help give me a break and for that I am always thankful! I am also in the thick of two classes with tons of work. Pretty much all my free time is taken up studying and I am just trying to focus on the end and stay as positive as I can. For those of you who know me, you know how difficult that is!

We are loving our life and really enjoying our girls. Landyn is really developing a personality and is awake and alert a lot more. Jordyn has really been enjoying playing with her now that she can hold toys and smile as well as sit-up (when propped). It is really fun to see the two of them interact together. With the warmer weather, we have had some days in the 70's we have been able to go to the park a few times and that is always great too, to have a change in scenery. We are really looking forward to May, the end of school and the start of two one-week vacation trips where hopefully we will be able to see a lot of you! We miss you all and thanks for keeping up on us. I'll be posting a video hopefully later tonight or tomorrow. I'm still working on it!

It's Been a While

Hey everyone. I know I haven't posted in a while...life has been busy, but I thought I would post a quick update. Classes are going well for me but they're keeping me busy with studying and homework. Wayne has been quite busy at work with a lot of huge projects and his classes start next week so please keep us in your prayers as we are flying through this semester! The girls have their check-ups on Monday so then we'll be able to let you know how they really are growing. Landyn has been starting to sleep through the night which is great! This past week has been a whilrwind. She slept through the night Sunday and Monday but she was very restless and while she didn't cry to eat she wasn't all that happy so I gave up and fed her Tuesday night when she woke up. Then Wednesday night she went to bed at 10 and wasn't up to eat again until 7! She did that again last night too so I think this might officially be the new schedule which makes me very happy. I've still been waking up to check on her since my body is on that schedule but I'm sure I'll soon be sleeping through the night again.

Jordyn has been doing well too. She's definitely getting very dependent and opinionated which can be very frusterating but at the same time she can be the sweetest thing. She is saying more and more new words and growing in leaps and bounds. She's getting very good at counting and can now recognize some of her numbers as well thanks to her number puzzle from Uncle Kirk and Aunt Jen. She's been obsessed with coloring and wants to do it all the time. Her coloring books are filled with scribbles. Well, thats all for now but I'll try and keep up with this better in the future.

Updates

Life has been going well in the Yates home and we are moving into a comfortable and easy routine. Landyn eats 5-6 times a day, giving Jordyn and I a lot of time to spend, just the two of us. Some mornings we just hang out while other times we do special things such as crafts or a little t.v. I've ventured out a few more times with both girls to both the grocery store and the library. Both trips went really smoothly so I think we'll keep going out from time to time. Jordyn has really adjusted now to Landyn and rarely ever gets jealous or angry with her. She does feel she needs to be included and be doing whatever Landyn is doing as you can tell from the picture above. In short, our life has been going very smoothly and most days are stress free. I'm loving being a mom of two!

I've also posted a cute little video of the two girls. Jordyn counts! She doesn't know 7 or 9 but she knows all the rest. Then just some cute video of the two girls spending time together. They just get along so well and this video shows it. Enjoy!

Landyn's Update

Landyn is now a month old and we really can't believe it. Sometimes it seems like we had her just yesterday while other times it seems as though she's always been a part of our lives. She is such a wonderful girl, so full of interest at the things around her. We definitely see both Wayne's and my temperament in her. She is often so laid back and happy to just be, but when she gets angry she gets so unbelievable angry and screams at the top of her lungs! We'll let you guess whose temerapment is whose!

She is very patient with Jordyn and doesn't often get upset. Jordyn tends to trip on her or accidentally drop toys on her. Once she covered her face with a blanket, something I quickly put a stop to. In all that Landyn just seems to take it in stride and not really seem to mind it. She doesn't have a doctor's appt. this month so we can't tell you her exact weight and height but I know she is definitely growing as some of her clothes are now getting too short and too tight!

Really the only things Landyn does are eat and sleep and both she does well. She eats only 5-6 times a day, only once in the middle of the night, and loves to sleep. We've been having to keep her awake for a while after eating otherwise, she'll sleep all day and come night time she'll be ready to play. Thankfully, we've been nipping that in the bud.

She has a very strong neck and when put on her belly or held over our shoulder, loves to look around and see everything she can. Her favorite expression is a frown but she also likes to just be wide-eyed and take everything in. She is a complete pacifier baby and is alreayd dependent on it, just like Jordyn was. The frusterating thing is that she can't keep it in her mouth and so almost every time it falls out, she cries. Hopefully that stage will be over soon becuase we're both tired of popping it back in a million times and also tired of just leaving it out and listening to her scream! We can't seem to wean her off of it though.

She really is a great baby and we are so thankful for the added craziness, sweetness and cuddles that she's brought into our lives. We couldn't imagine life without her and are excited about how she will continue to grow!