Changes are a-comin'! Month 6: Two under 2

Well I had most of a post typed out last week and somehow it didn't save any of it. Bummer. So here we start again. Changes, I say. Are we pregnant again for the 3rd summer in a row?! Heck no. Hehe. Are we moving? Nope and I really don't want to for a long time. Did either of us lose our jobs? Nope, thankfully we're holding our own. It's not that dramatic I suppose, but in the nearer than farther future, we're going to be switching blog locations to a place that may host images and videos a lot easier than this one. It'll be an easy name change, so no worries to my followers. Gary and I are also going to start our own blog featuring things from finances to parenting to product reviews. Pretty much all things that encompass our daily lives. We have a lot of ideas and things that we truely believe in, so what better way than empty our brains than into a blog! I know, it's another thing to add to our never ending lists of projects but we're shifting gears and finalizing other projects in the near future, so stay tuned for that possibly starting up in the fall.

More summer pictures of the girls!

The girly girls are doing well. Miss Izzy is a droolin' machine, saturating a couple bibs a day. She's well on her way to her first tooth. I don't see any yet, but they are workin' their way up! She began her crawling just over 2 weeks ago and today, she's army crawling like a mad fool and getting up on all 4's with the cute little rock babies do - working her way over to wherever Anna is and wanting to eat whatever toy she's playing with. I can imagine those 2 in 2 years whispering secrets and running up and down the stairs, giggling the whole way. Can't wait! We began more solid food this weekend for the Izmeister - squash to start and on to peas! We got a screwed up face the first bite, but after that, loved it! After we get through all the veggies, we'll start fruit. I'm sure she'll love it just as much as Anna does. She's been sleeping good at night but usually cat naps during the day, so that's alright - she doesn't like to miss anything! She's still our little cuddlebug - her morning naps on Sunday are in the arms of mommy or someone else. Love it.

Ms. Anna has an ever expanding vocabulary which now entails parts of the alphabet (jklm), parts of 1-10, calling her clothes "cute", knowing what belongs to her, mommy, daddy and Izzy by pointing at a vehicle (which the van is Anna's), "glasses", "anana" for banana, "flower" and the other day I heard her say one of her friends names Owen, she goes "Ooooowwwwwwehh", so cute! Her poor little mouth is going through a growth spurt again of her 4 eye teeth. We had a few days of Tylenol and hearing "piiiiieee" (which is pipe) for comfort. But one has broken through so hopefully it'll be a little easier on her. She still loves to read her books (especially on the potty and the potty book at that!), her new thing are these 2 little babies that you can put hats and clip on clothing along with feeding them a "ba-ul" (bottle) and putting them to bed. She has 2 and usually shares one with Izzy, so she can eat it of course. She's a great, big sister and loves to make sure Izzy has the same thing she does, like a blankie or book or baby. She loves it when Izzy bats at her face or eats her nose. You can see the bond they are making already.

Mom and dad are doing well. We've hit the beach a couple times now (when summer decided to show up), had a picnic in the park, finishing up some freelance projects and in the midst (still) of putting our basement back together. We're enjoying watching the girls play and grow each day, trying to remember all those little things they do now and will slowly fade away as time goes on, making our marriage even stronger, our financial situation that much better and encouraging each other to be better parents - can't get much better than that! We're headed up to Beaver Island in a couple weeks and we're so excited for this mini-vacation. A long weekend of relaxing (or me finding little projects to work on), swimming and enjoying the beautiful views.

A few updates of the basement

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Gary, Christie, Anna and Izzy

Summer pics!

Summer is finally here! Here are some pics to enjoy of the girly girls!

It was the summer of..... 2009!

Fifth Month : Two under 2

First off, I'll post pictures soon, I promise! Maybe tonight. :)

We're in the 5th month of two under 2. Crazy, that Izzy's almost been here for half a year already! We couldn't imagine our family without her anymore. She's scooting, yes scooting, across the floor using her little feet to push her to where she wants to be and she's ony 5 months old! She sometimes gets the hands to work with her feet, but they usually work independently right now. She smiles at you from across the room, dimples and all. She's been on oatmeal for just over a month now and is slowly figuring out how to use her tongue to eat. In a few weeks we'll start introducing veggies - we'll see if she takes to them as well as Anna did. We also did the "cry it out method" about a month ago and it only took a few nights and she's been sleeping through the night ever since! Lovely for mom and dad, for sure. She flails her limbs when she gets excited, loves Grandma Tiemens hair as she giggles from her toes, she rolls all over the place and loves to find all of Anna's puzzle pieces to chew on. Teething for sure. She squeals when she gets to play with Anna (or rolls near her) and just follows her every move. I think Izzy is going to do things even earlier than what Anna did. She's very passionate about her bottle as even when we carry her up the stairs with her bottle in our hand, she grabs it and pulls to to her mouth ready to eat. If she even sees a bottle, she stares at it as if where going to float over to her. So cute. She's certainly a happy baby.

Anna is amazing us each day too. She studies every move we make, like how something opens, what button to push, how to use a napkin or how we say a word. It's like every moment she has, she wants to learn. She say's her ABC's really well, is starting to put 2 words together and has lessoned her "no" and timeouts lately. I'm sure that'll go in waves. She loves taking our finger and walk us over or pull us down or tells us to sit where she wants us. It's so cool that she's starting to really communicate with us and she's remember things we did a few days back. Like last night, she pulled me over to the stairs and patted the step for me to sit down. She brought over a catepillar car. Then I remembered we did that the other night where I rolled it into the kitchen and she'd bring it back to me. Smart girl. Or she's grab our finger only to walk a couple steps and then pull for us to sit down by a puzzle to do with her. Then last night was great! Gary brought out her beanbag chair and she flopped down in it. He picked her and the chair up to drop it back on the floor and she'd giggle. Then she'd said "again"! Hehe, that was awesome. She's having the typical toddler issues with dinner by not always eating something she's like a week ago, so we've been telling her that that's the only food she'll get tonight. She doesn't seem to mind, but we give her a snack a little later and tell her she got on b/c she ate dinner good. So far dad's a lot better at dealing with that than I am. :) I have guilty mom syndrome. She loves being outside, sometimes bringing us her shoes and saying "side" as she walks to the door.

We're trying to enjoy outside when it's not over 90! The sprinklers have been turned on a few times - Anna likes it half the time. Weird. We planted a small veggie/herb garden to see what happens. So far the tomato plant is huge but some of the others have had their leaves eaten. Most of my flowers are planted - still trying to find the time to spray paint my pots again to get the remainder on display. A few new bushes and perennials have been added this year. In the fall, some dividing and transplanting will be in order. We're looking to get some rock for the sides of the house (since the house didn't come with gutters!) yet this summer. We're hoping to finishing painting the basement this weekend (guest room: fresh day, living room: starless night and pure white) so we can start moving stuff back down there... oh, and we can't forget the 52" tv that has to go on the wall. :) We'll just have some little projects to finish up this summer, the rest can wait till fall/winter (can't believe I just said that). In the meantime, we're going to try to get the beach and the lake whenever we can. At the end of July, we're heading up to Beaver Island for what seems may become a yearly event. Fine by me! It's awesome up there.

We're all healthy, cool and thankful for our jobs and life. It's busy at times (well most of the time) but we wouldn't want it any other way! Here's to a wonderful summery weekend!

Love,

Gary, Christie, Anna and the Izmeister

5th month: Two under 2

We're in the midst of basement refinishing, with the mud and taping finishing up today! It looks great, dirty, but great! We're going to get the spare room painted this week so when the fam comes up this weekend, they'll have a semi-private and clean room to sleep in. With the sale of the truck, the purchase of the longed for TV's and all the special wiring and set up in the living room of the basement, I've decided to decorate the spare room with no direction (except that it'll flow with the colors of the living room and carry the chair rail through the room) from Gary. Not that one or the other gets the ultimate say over room, it just defaulted that Gary put a lot of thought into his networking and surround sound, so I declared the spare room mine. :) So with my cronic blog reading, I've been inspired to do the room in a beachy, coastal decor. Very soft, washed out colors, with all of the accessories repurposed from the thrift store and a homemade headboard. So excited! As with everything with 2 little kiddies, it'll be a process, but at least I have an idea to work with. The living room will have a 3/4 chair rail with the bottom being white with trim to create some dimension and above the chair rail will be a deep shade of navy blue. With all this, built in desks and cabinets (all still to be determined as we keep finding new inspiration for what we realy want to do with our all purpose living room), a living space, plenty of storage for all our crafty, computer, kid and house stuff. Yay!

As for the kiddies, they're doing great! Izzy is getting better with sleeping through the night, but only one time still works for us if that's the way she is. She sleeps like a little frog with her legs on the sides of her as opposed to Anna's method of butt up in the air. Both extremely cute. Izzy started on oatmeal a couple weeks ago and seems to love it! Although she doesn't quite get how to take food off her spoon other than using her tongue like she drinks her bottle, but most of it makes it in her mouth! So we thought Anna was a quick learner, Miss Izzy has figuring out how to use her legs or leg rather to scoot herself closer to whatever she just lost or wants. She's only 4 3/4 months old and she's starting to figure out the whole crawling thing! I'm going to video that this week. She's getting to be a big girl, looking more like a baby than a newborn. Her little giggle and bright smile is always something to brighten up our day. It does go by fast, but I'm glad to still have an itty bitty thing around the house. :)

Anna is growing up more and more each day. She's learning new words every day, seems to know what a sentence is but doesn't have the right words to put it all together yet. She's adding new animal sounds with the latest being a tiger, lion and bear all growling the same way, but so cute. She does a monkey, snake, horse and sheep really well too. She can repeat the alphabet very clearly except for a few letters. She's taken to what sound like singing these days. Love it. She still loves "no" and seems to get frustrated with little kids and tends to bite to get our her frustrations. So immediately mom got the book out "Teeth are not for biting". Hehe. But we found she bites herself and starts bawling. Don't get it. She gets "ouchys" a lot and needs them kissed a lot. So with all that said, we've started working in timeouts and that's seemed to be quite effective. She gives hugs and kisses (when she wants to) very well, helps out with giving Izzy her pipe back, giving her the small Elmo to play with while she plays with crazy Happy Birthday Elmo. :) She likes to play with Izzy, but then it turns into what can I get away with by stepping over Izzy, stepping on Izzy's limbs, ramming her pipe in her mouth and pulling her hair. She doesn't know her own strength but knows that timeouts follow if she continues mauling her poor little sister.

Gary and I had our first kidless weekend (Izzy's first time overnight somewhere else)! We headed to Detroit as neither of us had spent much time over there. We got a river view room in the Marriott, walked the riverwalk, did some shopping, relaxed and hit up a Tiger's game and a great dinner at Detroit Beer Co. A well needed, rejuvinated weekend for the parents while the grandparents and Aunt "She-ya" enjoyed spoiling the girls over the weekend. Back to reality, but excited to start painting the basement and getting ready for family this weekend!

Hope everyone had a wonderful, rain free weekend! Hopefully summer will start soon! I'll post more pictures soon (and maybe find a better way to get pictures up faster)!

Love to you all,
GCAI

Enter Spring: Two under 2

Spring pics of the Tidd's!

Oh man, have I said before that we're a busy family? We are. With 2 little girls sending my worry up and down with sickness or pain, parents with full time jobs, family and friend get togethers and just life in general, I feel like I forget to breathe sometimes. I know someday I'll look back and wonder where those days went, but in the midst of it all, my head spins sometimes. I really don't mean to start each post speaking like we don't enjoy our life, because we do so much! Despite the busyness, we have such an amazing time together as a family.

Last Monday (5/11), Izzy rolled over that we saw with no help from her back to her tummy. Well Thursday (5/14), she was rolling all over the place, back to front, front to back, she's got it down. Then at G&G Tiemens house, Grandma got her to giggle for the first time on Sunday (5/17)! I knew the time was coming and I was so looking forward to her little giggle. Just as adorable as Anna's and a little deeper than her sister's. What joy she's brought to this family. Her watching your every move, making sure you aren't too far away. Her smile and big blue eyes. Her cute head of hair, that is currently thinning and getting a little lighter. Her love of sleeping on her tummy/side, her contentment of watching TV with daddy and snuggling with mommy in bed. Her needing the touch of mommy and daddy - she loves holding our fingers. Her excitement when big sister plays near or with her - such huge smiles and flaling of limbs. We had her 4 month appointment last night - all is well, even with her cronic spit up problem. Doc said "wouldn't you have something to spit up if all you had was liquids and you laid on your back most of the time?" Point taken - worry somewhat removed. :) She's a whopping 12 pounds, 7 ounces and almost 24" long. Our 2nd little peanut.

Little miss Thang...er...Anna is doing well too. She's quite selective in her food choices these days. She likes things one day, but the next, nope. She'd rather eat fruit (I know that's good) than anything really, but we're trying to break her of eating what's put in front of her. Dad's better at dealing with that than I. She's learning new words daily, even hourly. She can say hi (whomever's on the phone), love you and bye bye on the phone with people. So cute and little human like! Her hair is getting longer, not thicker, so I'm able to do more things with her hair which is fun (and challenging)! She loves digging in the dirt with her shovels, doing puzzles, reading books and exploring everyday. She amazes us and frustrates us in a matter of minutes, but we can't imagine life without her.

Gary and I are still very thankful for our stable jobs, being able to provide for our family, pay off all our lingering baby bills/home improvement bills with our return on top of doing some fun things for us too. We're still working on getting the basement finished, mudding and tapping next week! So this weekend will be basement emptying weekend. Yippee! With all the craziness of life with the girls, we're taking a mom and dad weekend in a few weeks to Detroit. We're looking forward to that!

Hope this find all of you well!

Love,
Dad, Mom, Anna Lynn and Isabella Clara

Sweet Anna and a sleepy Izzy

Driving to daycare/work this morning, I sneezed. Just me and the girls in the van. Without hesitation, Anna goes "blesss yoouuu.....". Twice. We say that to the girls and to eachother, so it was only time when she would do it back. I thought that was the sweetest thing. Then she smiles with her toothy grin and chubby cheeks. Love it.

Doesn't matter where we are, if she finishes all of her Fruit Loops, we take the last bit off our plate or take the final gulp of milk in our glass, she opens her arms and says "alllll goonne....".

She doesn't do this as often, yet, unprompted, but we say "love you" right to her and she goes, with her lips all pursed "lloooovv yooouuu...." and sometimes with a "too" at the end. So cute.

We drive by two sets of cows each morning and afternoon. The one farm has just a couple cow statues by the road and before I even realized they are there, she goes "cow". And the 2nd farm, before we even see the cows now, the silos high in the sky, she know's there are cows and declares it. I tell her they are eating breakfast or dinner.

Also this morning, Gary was right in front of us as we turned our opposite ways. She knew that was him and said "bye daddy" and waved. What a sweet girl she is (despite our "uh oh" reports from daycare on a couple biting incidents - she gets a little fiesty with the kids sometimes or she's just defending herself).

And our dear sweet little Izzy slept from about 9pm to 6am this morning. I woke up at 6 and said to Gary, she slept through the night! I went to check on her, picked her up and moved her into our room and she stayed sleeping! I know I keep saying this, but maybe we're on to something!

Just wanted to share the joys of the Tidd house for the week. :) Happy Wednesday!

4th month: 2 under 2

Little Miss Izzy is starting to come into her own these days. We altered her sleeping schedule to go down with Anna and she'll wake up around 2-3am to eat and back down again. We've been putting her in her bouncy seat after she eats, but as of last few nights, she doesn't like it anymore. I think she's too confined and wants a bit more freedom. So now, she sleeps on her side between padded bumper things, as peaceful as can be (except last night when she started to get my cold!). This morning she slept until about 3:30.....are we heading to a full nights sleep? I hope so!

She's really starting to develop her personality too. She's a smiley little girl that absolutely loves to talk up a storm! She might be our "mom, mom, mom.... this is what I did today..... mom, mom, mom..... can I have this." Hehe. She can roll on her side from her back and may have rolled over on to her tummy on her own the other morning. Here's the story: Anna's playing in the living room while we start to get lunches ready for the morning. Izzy's on the floor near Anna (she loves watching her play) with her little rattle around her wrist on her back. We're making lunches and I hear Izzy struggling a little, so I go peak my head around the corner to see Izzy on her tummy, Anna standing next to her, holding the rattle up in the air... that's still attached to Izzy's wrist. Poor Izzy, her little face was in the carpet trying to turn over while Anna just stands there, knowing she's doing something she shouldn't be. So we're not sure if she rolled over and then Anna took the rattle or Anna took the rattle which flipped Izzy over.

She's blowing bubbles and usually wants to stand up rather than be craddled now. Gary and I talked about that last night, how big she's getting already! As much as we're ready for her to be on the same schedule with Anna, we sure do love seeing her little personality come to life and learn all these new things. Her little face is getting fuller (and that really makes her almost no neck disappear - poor girl!). She's eating 6 ounces usually and sometimes with rice cereal, so she'll be our "chunk" as in bigger than Anna but still a peanut.

Anna's testing the waters of what to eat and what not to eat. We had a crying episode the other night at a burger joint in town. We got her a hot dog, which she'd been eating the last week or so, she took one bite and saw our fries. We gave her one. Then we tried reasoning with a 1 year old with take another bite of hotdog and you can have another fry. Nope. Endless crying. A few things stopped her from crying, but it carried on until we got the road where we would turn to go to a furniture store we wanted to check out. Gary decided that we weren't going to let that stop us from going there. More crying. At the store, guess what, she was a perfect angel. Blah. With that, the next morning I heard a lot of rumbles in the tummy of the small child. Someday we'll win the war (prolly not), right now, we're trying to win just one battle once in awhile.

We're know back down to only 2 vehicles at the Tidd house! At the Grandpa Tiemens Car Lot, we sold the beloved blue Dodge Dakota. It spent it's first 10 years of life with Gary and now it's on to be someones beater. Oh well, Gary's happy. This money was already spoken for long ago by getting his coveted flat screen TV's. So money in, money out by the weekend. :)

Well that's the current state of the homestead. We're hanging in their constantly trying to find the balance of life. :)

Hope everyone is having a good mid-week!

Gary, Christie, Boog and Izzy