Alli's First Nail Salon Pedicure

I've been painting Alli's toenails for a couple of years now, but yesterday I decided to take her with me for a real pedicure.  Unfortunately, time ran out and I didn't get one, but she did!  It was hard to judge if she liked it cause she was very quiet and just had this bewildered look on her face the whole time.  And I love how short she was on the chair.  Check out the picture:

But that night we got a babysitter, and Abby told us that Alli told her 3 different times that she got a pedicure "from a professional".  :)  I guess she liked it!

Baby Birds

I have a rule around the house:  tear down bird nests that are close to the house, unless they have already laid their eggs.  Well a couple of months ago I kept seeing this bird hanging out by the patio.  It took a while, but we finally found its nest and went to tear it down, but it had eggs.  So we let the family stay and they had about 3 beautiful babies (that we could tell - they really hid the nest well under our patio roof.)  Once the babies flew the coop, I told Kim we needed to get the nest down, but then he went on travel, and we didn't think much of it.  But one of those babies (I think) decided to reuse the nest for their own family.  Grrr...    So here we are going through round 2 of babies, only this generation is not doing well.

Last week, we found a dead baby bird on the patio under the nest.  He barely had feathers.  Poor thing. Then last week, Kim was on travel and I found another baby under the nest on the patio.  This one had some feathers, but very sparse.  Definitely couldn't fly, and it looked injured.  Natalie was sleeping and it was just Alli and I.  I was sad.  I was going to have to kill the baby so it wouldn't suffer.  I've never killed anything except bugs!  Ugh.  Alli wouldn't go in the house, she wanted to watch.  I explained to her why I had to kill the baby, hoping she wouldn't get too upset.  Then I got a shovel and chopped its head off, and immediately started crying.  Alli asked why I was crying and I told her I had never killed anything like that before.  She said "That's okay mom.  You had to do it.  And it's good, because then they will make more baby birds and then we can eat them!"  Oh my gosh.  I was a bit shocked at the lack of emotion, but she'll make a great hunter or rancher someday!  haha


The last baby fell out of the nest this weekend.  It could flutter, but not fly.  It had all feathers, and actually survived a whole night on the ground.  Bagheera apparently discovered the baby bird the nest day, so Kim closed the gate so he wouldn't be able to get the baby.  But after coming home and checking on the baby, all I found was a patio full of feathers.  We have no idea what got the baby, but that was the last of the family.  We really need to pull that nest down.  It is clearly not safe anymore!

Father's Day 2013

This was a Father's Day (weekend) to remember.  The stars and planets must have aligned, cause we just don't get weekends like this often.  It started with chores, or lack there of.  We didn't have much on our list of things we needed - a couple of errands and laundry.  That was it.  So Saturday we knocked out a lot of it, and then went swimming.  This was the start of the fun.

When we swim, I usually take Natalie and Kim plays with Alli.  Natalie and I only hang for about 20 minutes cause it gets cold just sitting in 88 degree water.  But she enjoys splashing and we do that til we are cold, and then we get out and warm up in the 108 degree air and watch Kim and Alli.  Kim and Alli were really funny and have made up several games.  Alli's swimming is getting better and better, and so playing games with her is more and more fun.  Natalie and I went inside to shower up and Kim and Alli stayed playing - for another 30 minutes!

And then we did something super unusual for our family.  We went out to dinner.  (If we don't cook, we usually grab take-out.  But this time we actually went to a restaurant as a family!)  We had a great meal and the kids were awesome, and mommy and daddy got to enjoy an adult beverage to boot.  Hurray!

Sunday the kids started the day by giving daddy the best gift ever - sleeping in!  Natalie woke up at 5:30am and when I nursed her, she fell back to sleep.  So we got to sleep an extra hour (on the chair).  Alli came in to the bedroom around 6am, crawled in with Kim, and fell back to sleep.  They got to sleep til 7:30am!!  This is a small miracle in our house!

Once we were all up, Alli got Daddy's gifts and presented them to him.  (See picture below).  Then we made home-made waffles with sides of bacon and sausage.  And with no real chores to do, we all went to the green room to play.  Alli and Mommy had a dance recital for Daddy and Natalie, and house was definitely played.  (I know as I did laundry later in the day I saw Kim, Alli, and Natalie all in the house in the green room.)  We just played and played, and that just made the day so special.

We got a call from the Belt's and headed over to their house for our dinner and swimming, so Kim and Alli got to play in the pool with lots of kids, and I still had Natalie.  :)  Everyone was exhausted by the time we got home, but we had smiles on our faces and just kept thinking about what a great weekend we just had!

Daddy's gifts:

6 Teeth!

Sure enough, the fangs didn't last.  Last weekend, Natalie's two front teeth popped through and they are already about the same size as the fangs.  She looks so old to me, and yet she's such a baby.

She can stand and hold herself up on things, but she is not pulling herself up to that position.  We have to set her there.  But she can still stand on her own a bit, which is pretty amazing.  We are still waiting for her to crawl.  She gets around, don't get me wrong.  Between rolling and scooting, she can usually get what she wants.  I think the crawling will come once she figures out how to get back to sitting after getting up on her hands and knees.  She definitely likes to sit and play (or stand and play).

Our happy baby definitely has started voicing her opinions.  She loves the outside, and if I'm carrying her while I close up the doors to the house, she starts complaining (cause she thought she was going to get to go outside).  So I usually have to go back out and we walk around the yard checking out all our plants.  :)

She has also learned the fun of hearing her "indian call" if someone moves their hand over her mouth while she makes noise.  She likes it so much, that now we go up to her and start doing the "indian call" over her mouth and that will prompt her to add the voice.  Cutie pie!!  Today at the lunch table we had 3 little indians making indian calls - mommy, Alli, and Natalie.  ha ha!

Last Swim

This weekend, we did what you always do in Arizona when the temperatures climb up well past 100 degrees.  We went swimming.  Saturday we tried something new - we went swimming *after* dinner, when the sun was behind the mountain and we were in all shade.  It was much colder than we were expecting!!  But the whole family was out - Mommy, Daddy, Alli, Natalie, and Bagheera.  Bagheera hasn't been swimming much this year, I figured it was because he has lost his hearing and is sleeping more and just didn't realize we were going to the pool.  But Saturday he was right there with us.  We threw his ball in the pool and he cautiously got in.  He swam to the ball and then turned around to come back to the steps.  He was grunting a big, but looked happy.  Kim helped him up the steps, but when he got to the top we had some problems.  His back legs just kept giving out on him so he kept falling.  Kim was still in the water, doing what he could to help the dog.  Alli was at the steps.  And I was trying to protect Natalie who was sitting on the top step splashing water.  I could just imagine a 75 lb dog falling on her!  We finally got him standing but his tail was lifted and it looked like he might go to the bathroom right there in the pool.  So I freaked out a little cause it would have landed on Natalie.  Kim tried to move him along but his back legs started failing him again.  Kim and I looked at each other wondering what we should do and what was happening.  My fear was stroke.  Kim got out of the water and picked up Bagheera and carried him to the deck.  He got his feet stable and then we watched him.  He started acting normal, and although the back legs weren't necessarily the most stable, he didn't fall anymore.  He was still excited to be around us, and even brought his ball to the water again.  He didn't try to get in though.

Today we went swimming again.  Bagheera came out and we had second thoughts about letting him swim.  He stayed on the top step but he didn't try to go in the water.  I splashed him a little bit so he could cool off but he didn't like that.  He left and went in the house.  :(  Poor old man.

His swimming days are over, and I'm sad cause those were some of his happiest times.  He always loved the water.  At least his last swim was with the whole family!!

Sisterly love

Giant baby attacks!

8 months!

Our Babbling 8 Month Old!

Today is Natalie's 8 month birthday!  Hooray!!!  She has started babbling over the last week or so, and it's really cute to watch her and Alli have a babble conversation.  Of course, Alli is so good at impersonating Natalie that I can't tell them apart if my back is turned!!!

Natalie is trying to get to her knees, but she is not quite there yet.  I'm thinking she'll be there in a couple of weeks, and then we'll see how long it takes her to figure out how to crawl.  It's coming!!

We weighed her today - 19 lbs!  No wonder my arms and back are so well defined with muscle!  hahaha


And, before those two front teeth pop through, I wanted to get some pictures of the fangs.  Unfortunately, Natalie has my curse where she is not photogenic.  Sorry baby.  So I got some fang pictures, which aren't very flattering of her, and then I normal one, which is much cuter.  (And for some reason, the fang photos came out stretched.  Don't ask me why!)  She's a very cute baby, it just doesn't always come across in photographs.  Exactly my curse - oh so cute, but not flattered by photos!  haha

Swimming Adventures

Every year since she's been a year old, Alli has had swim lessons.  We've done them with a lady in town, Donna, who comes to our house and teaches her privately.  Given the rolled edges of the pool, I figured swim lessons in our own pool would be more adventagous for safety.  This year, I decided she need the peer pressure of a group class, so we signed her up for swim lessons at one of the Scottsdale public pools.  The class I thought she should be in was full, so I bumped her up a level.  (I signed her up Friday, lessons start Monday.)  It's hard to tell what level she should be in, but the level I bumped her up to said "needs to be comfortable in deep water".  Hmmmm.....  So Friday I gave her the challenge:  Alli, we need to get you swimming before Monday.  (Really, it was just get her back to her comfort level that she had at the end of last year.)

Friday night we went to a friend's house for dinner and swimming.  They have a pool with a diving board.  "Alli - go dive off the diving board and swim to the side."  After about 2 minutes in the water, she was ready to go off the diving board.  After another 5 minutes of swimming, we couldn't get her to stop!  And she was swimming side to side, off the board, under water, you name it.  Sweet!  She's ready!


Today (Sunday) we did some swimming just Alli and Mommy while Natalie took a nap.  We had lots of fun, but our adventures took a different turn as we swam back and forth across our pool.  We became spider hunters.  Apparently our pool has become a big draw for quite a few species of spider (the smallest one the size of a silver dollar, and the largest the size of my hand).  So we swam, and we killed spiders, and we swam, and killed more.  All together we killed 4 (1 got away).  It wasn't my idea of a nice swim, but I feel like we are slowly getting our pool back after the long winter break, so I suppose this must be part of it.  Alli, once again, swam like a champ!  She is very comfortable in the water, and had lots of fun games for us to play, the last of which was "Shoot the board out of your butt."  Yes, that was the name.  Oh so proud.  It's because of me though.  I was balancing on a kick board, and if you lean sideways, it shoots up out of the water.  She said it shot out of my butt and thought it was hilarious.  Well, after 30 minutes of playing this game, she was a pro at balancing on the kick board and "shooting it out of her butt".  Hilarious!!!  What a goof ball.

Sister Love

Having two kids is definitely more work...  My transition to motherhood with Alli was a long, hard journey for me.  I had to learn that I didn't get to sit when *I* wanted to sit.  Nor sleep, nor eat, nor pretty much anything.  Suddenly, life revolved around the child and my life as I knew it was a thing of the past.

Alli is a trooper going through her own journey of older sister-hood.  But she is doing a great job.  She is such a great helper at times, but at the same time, has needs for me as well.  So when I finally think I have Natalie down and I can take 10 minutes for myself, the realization faces me that Alli has been patiently waiting for my time.  No breaks.  If I thought the transition from living my own life to being a mom was hard, so is the transition to having to share my time.  I suppose 3 would be easier because there's just no more time to give anyway!  ;)  We aren't having 3....

One of the rewards of all of this though is the love that the two girls have for each other.  You see it in every smile as they look at each other.  I don't think there is a day that goes by without Alli saying how much she loves Natalie and how cute she is.  And there is not a day that goes by that Natalie doesn't just stare at her sister and smile.  And all of that is worth not having a minute to myself!