Time is flying.

I know I use that line in almost every blog post I write, but it is true. In the last couple of weeks, big things have been happening around our house and I am dying to share them.

Cameron has become quite the sponge lately. He is repeating almost every single word he hears and is finally starting to put together some sentences. His favorite and most used being "Nana house please." He will tell me when it is time to change Hannah's diaper "Didee change Hannah," and he will also tell me when he has gone to the bathroom, which hopefully means potty training is going to be going down pretty soon. (YES!) He still loves his sister more than anything in the world and loves giving her kisses. He is fond of the video game 'Just Dance 2' and encourages me to 'dance dance, mommy dance!' regularly.

Hannah is doing great. She just recently starting eating solid foods twice a day, something she loves. I bought some fresh fruit and vegetables and pureed them into my own baby food in an effort to save money. While it is time consuming, it is also rewarding. She has decided that she loves sweet potatoes, applesauce and pears. The green beans weren't as big a hit as I thought they might be, but we will try again. For my second batch, I pureed some bananas and have some carrots to try out. We will get her to eat more than her favorites, no doubt about it.

Besides the solid foods, she has started sitting up all by herself. She had started trying while we were at Jessica's house, but by now, she is almost an expert. She has also been holding her own bottles and feeding herself, and she is a better sleeper! I never thought the day would come. She takes 2 solid naps throughout the day and will sleep for a consecutive 11-12 hours at night. Of course, there are still the nights where she needs her pacifier so badly she screams, but she is getting better.

Resemblances.

There was a fun post on a mom's board I go to over the weekend. The point of the post was to compare pictures of yourself/spouse with pictures of your kids. Everyone always says that Cameron is the spitting image of his dad, and quite a few have said that Hannah looks like me. Here are the pictures that I posted for comparison.

I can definitely see what people are talking about from these pictures. Love it.

A very fun play date.

On Monday morning, I packed up the diaper bag, put coats on the kids and loaded everyone into the car. We were ready to make our hour long journey to Indiana to see our new friends Jess, Brooke & Molly. Jessica is a friend from a mom's online forum, and we have been planning this playddate for a couple months now. Time and sickness had pushed it back, but we finally were able to do it.

 

Cameron liked her dollhouse a lot.

 

Molly is 7 months old, Hannah is 6 months old.

 

She got a lot better at her sitting up while we were there!

 

Adorable.

 

They had the same outfit on, and it wasn't planned.

We had an awesome time. Both of the kids passed out in the car on the way home, and when Cameron woke up, he was running around screaming "GIRL? GIRL?" looking for Brooke. Too cute. We can't wait to do it again. =)

Hannah is 6 months old (& her stats).

Hannah turned 6 months old on Saturday. Can you believe it? Me neither. When she woke up, we gave the kids both baths and put her in a white onesie with her 6 month sticker on it, and took pictures. I can't believe how much she's grown. And she's starting to get more hair!

 This morning, she had her 6 month Well Child appointment. I was a little nervous, considering that the last time I took her, a different doctor told me that we needed to watch her weight. I was a little shocked.. especially since the girl weighed 9 pounds and some change when she was born. Give me a break. Needless to say, the doctor she sees more often assured me that she is doing just fine, nothing to be concerned about.

Today, Hannah weighed 18 pounds 13.5 ounces, which is in the 90-95th percentile.
She is 28 inches long, which is off the charts. She is tall.
Let's look at these numbers on the graphs.

She's getting so big!

And just for fun, here are Cameron's 6 month stats:

He weighed 17 pounds 8 ounces and was 26.5 inches long. Those numbers are both in the 50th percentile.

A productive weekend.

Last weekend was one of those ones that was pretty jam packed. Meaning I had a lot that I wanted to do. Friday night was spent browsing the clearance toy aisle at Target, hoping that I would find the Ultimate Buzz for 75% off. It was a bust.

This guy goes for $100 regular price. A deal finding website I frequent had posted that people were buying him for $25 on clearance. I stalked the 2 nearest Targets to me trying to find it, but unfortunately, I never got one.

On Saturday, we went to Chuck E Cheese for Josh's cousin Matthew's birthday party. Cameron always loves to burn off some energy running around there, so we take him. He loves Matthew, and his grandma was going to be there, so he was game. We stayed for a couple of hours and came home for nap time. While the kids napped, I ran a couple of errands. I saw a headband I wanted to re-create for Hannah, so I went to JoAnn's first.

Aren't those adorable? I did create a couple of my own (surprisingly easy!) and attached them to an elastic headband. A picture of Hannah coming a little later. =) I also went to Toys R Us for some new sippy cups and Old Navy to scope the clearance situation over there. There were a couple of things I wanted to get for Hannah in there, but after seeing her closet, I refrained.

Sunday, Cameron and I went grocery shopping while Josh and Hannah stayed home to play. While we were there, I bought some frozen veggies and fresh fruit to make my own baby food. I got a couple of apples, a pear, a sweet potato, and a bag of frozen green beans and a bag of carrots. More on this a little later. =)

After we came home and dropped the groceries off, I took Cameron to get his haircut. It was getting a little too long. He did an awesome job. Here's the funny guy before bed last night.

 

While the kids napped, I cooked some apples, pureed them and made Hannah some applesauce. She wasn't too crazy about it, it was pretty sweet. We mixed it with some other food tonight and she ate it. Cameron had a bowl and of course, he loved it. Tonight I steamed up some green beans and pureed those for tomorrow. The girl loves green beans, so I am hoping they are a hit. I much more fond of making my own baby food and saving the money for other things. 

To end the day, we had dinner at Olive Garden (much thanks to Jason for the giftcard. It was soo good). Cameron had his own ravioli and ate 3/4 of his plate. Plus breadsticks. He is getting so big. Hannah played with her Little People toys and ate a little of her applesauce. She also rocked her new handband. =)

Forgive the quality of the picture, it was taken with my cell phone.

Girl Power

Hannah has girl power.

 

And I have another picture to add to my blackmail pile. He loves everything his sister plays with.

Beautiful Baby.

I promise I don't favor one child over the other. She is just easier to take pictures of right now. =)

It's 2011.

It feels like just yesterday that I was 17. It had just become the year 2004 and I was counting down the days until my 18th birthday, then started another countdown until I graduated from high school. Now, I am 24. I am avoiding the countdown until my 25th birthday (although cheaper car insurance does sound nice).

2011 started with Josh and I being able to sleep in a little later than usual. Yeah, 8:45 isn't all that great, but we have kids that are up with the sun. I think I can count on 2 hands the number of times I've slept past 8 (while the kids have been around). It was great.

I have started my diet/exercise back up again, because let's face it. If you are my friend on Facebook and you look through my pictures, you will see that there are very few of me. For the past couple of years, I have been so insecure with myself that I usually refuse to have my picture taken. If you rewind 8 years, you will see me hamming it up in front of the camera. I was happy with the way that I looked then. At that point, I hadn't even had a thought of eating my problems away.

At the end of August, I started a big diet and joined a gym to start getting my exercise in. I was doing really well.. until the holidays rolled around. I gave up on my diet, and quit going to the gym, and have plateaued. Fortunately, the most I gained in the 2 months I slacked were 3 or 4 pounds, so it's not too much to lose again. My goal this time around is to quit with the procrastination. Let's recap how the diet has gone so far..

When I started the diet, I weighed 210 pounds. 8 weeks after Hannah was born (and I had already dropped about 35 baby pounds at that point).
When I quit dieting and exercising in November, I weighed 183. So that was 27 pounds in a little less than 3 months. Awesome, right?

Today, I weighed myself and I weighed in at 185. Let's talk about how I am going to fix this.

Josh and I pooled our Christmas money together and bought an elliptical machine and a set of free weights that we put in our basement. I heard great reviews about a video game for the Wii called Just Dance 2, so I bought that, completely aware of my lack of rhythm.

For the past few days, I have spent 10 minutes each day (sometimes night) on the elliptical machine. I know you're thinking "10 minutes? Big deal!" but this elliptical is not like any other that I have ever used. It is tough. I have gotten a little better at using it each time I have, so here is hoping I will be up to 30 minutes again in no time. I have also started using the 'Just Sweat' portion on Just Dance 2, and meet (if not exceed) the allotted number of sweat points (4.2 sweat points = 1 calorie) that I am expected to reach each day. It is a lot of fun to dance like an idiot and be burning calories. I am fond. =)

So keep up with me while I attempt to lose the 30 pounds that I am pushing myself to lose. My goal is to lose them all (if not more!) by June 1st. I would say that is a realistic goal.