Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Randoms

~I swear that I am the biggest dummy when it comes to baby wraps and carriers. We have a Maya Wrapand I used to have a Moby Wrap but for some reason I can't find it. I never used either with Annika and after struggling with the Maya Wrap for the past hour I give up on it too. When I put Annabel in the Maya Wrap tummy to tummy her head ends up right under my chin and her lower body/legs are past my waist. So if I were to carry her in it she'd bump her head on my chin the entire time and I wouldn't be able to sit because her lower body is in my way. I think that it's because the girls were both very long babies and I am very short! I may have to try a Bjorn carrier since I see so many people succesfully using those, maybe I can find a used one for cheap someplace.

~My aunt from Arizona is coming on Thursday and will be staying with us till Thursday. We're looking forward to her visit. I will have to take the girls, by myself, to the airport to pick her up which should be interesting. I haven't taken them anywhere alone yet!

~Potty training has stopped for now still. We are going to possibly try again next week. I'm going to put panties on her again but to save myself from cleaning up pee from the floors, couch, and chairs I'm going to put a waterproof diaper cover over the panties. I figure she'll still feel the wetness from the panties but I won't have a mess! Hopefully it works. She keeps asking to use the potty but I still don't think she gets it.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Oops!

Did I really allow myself to go almost a week without a blog post? It's really not like me at all but my hand are full lately and I'm not complaining at all!


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

I'm Fat

This article is so sad to me. It's about a 7 year old girl that tells her mother that she thinks she's fat.

I only hope and pray that our girls never come to us at such a young age telling us they think they're fat. I want them both to have high self esteems and have a good body image. I want them to be healthy and smart and not have to worry about things like this!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Pronouncing Names

I've been asked a few times how we're pronouncing Annabel's name. Nope, it was not smart of us to name our girls with names beginning with "Ann" and then expecting people to say them differently.

Annika is On-i-ka. The "A" sounds like an "O" since that's the Swedish way to say it.

Annabel is Ann-a-bel, the way it's supposed to be said.

Josh can't keep them straight, he's calling Annika On-a-bel and calling Annabel On-i-ka and occasionally he'll get all of our names right, even me, he's called me Annika twice this weekend.

I'd just like to say that we're sort of lazy and we never made it past the "Ann" names in the baby name book.

Also these girls are getting off easy with an easy last name. My maiden last name was this (no relation) and trying to tell people how to say it and spell it (ours was spelled with two "ss" before the "on") was HORRIBLE! So if these girls have to correct people on their first names it's fine with me! PLUS, people calling me ChristinE instead of ChristinA has always driven me nuts too!

Friday, January 13, 2012

The Pixie

I have long debated on whether or not I'm daring enough to try a pixie haircut. Right now I don't really have a "hairstyle". I have a mess. I haven't had a trim or cut since around August when I sort of gave up on my hair. My hair looks thin (it never used to be) and extremely unhealthy. I used to have pretty wavy hair but now it seems to have lost almost all of it's wave except for a naughty little piece of hair on the side of my head that keeps wanting to stick straight out! I need to dye it again because it appears that my hair is about 30% gray...I'm 28, how does this even happen? Genetics I guess since my mom went gray early too but I think she was around 30.

Here are some of the styles I like for pixies and then my lame reasons for being too scared of them:

I think my hair probably isn't straight enough for this one but maybe if it's this short it would be fine:


This one I think my hair would flip out the wrong way and I'd end up having to do too much styling:
I do think this one is cute and it gives me a good idea of what a brunette looks like with a pixie:
Again I think my hair wouldn't lay so flat like this but it may now that it appears to have changed textures it might:
One of my favorites since it isn't as short as the first cut on Emma Watson but is still pretty short:
I like this one too even though it's super short:
I like that she shows you can still style a pixie with a headband:
Which one do you like???

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Random Stuff

~The girls are both napping at the same time=wonderful

~I've already picked the theme for the joint birthday party Annika and Annabel are getting, rainbows! Thanks to Pinterest, my newest addiction, I have found a ton of ideas and should actually get some of them done by mid-November. Since Annika's birthday is November 7th and Annabel's is December 22nd we've decided to do a joint birthday party sometime in late November/early December for our family and friends to come to. On the girls actual birthdays we'll still do cake at home for them but the parties are going to have to be combined due to Annabel being born so close to Christmas.

~Annika has been very sweet to Annabel today. Annabel is always spitting up, not a lot, but she typically has a little spit up running down her cheek and Annika lightly dabbed it off with a bib. She was very careful. I never leave the two of them alone at all because I'm afraid that Miss Independent will try to pick up Annabel by herself since she's always very excited to help with everything from feedings to diaper changes.

~I've hit a plateau with my weight lost. I'm still being careful with what I eat but now it's time to incorporate exercise. My doctor said I could start exercising and walking (but to be careful with running until 6 weeks) as long as my bleeding doesn't pick up and as long as my incision doesn't hurt. Luckily I have no bleeding and my incision doesn't hurt at all! I've started the Supreme 90 Day System and I'm on day 3, which is REST! The first workout was chest/back and my chest still hurts and day 2 was "ultimate ball" which was a lot of ab exercises on a ball which was soooo hard! We bought the DVDs from Sports Authority and it was only $9.99 which compared to P90X is a great deal! I can't wait to see what my results will be in 90 days!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Potty Training: Day 2

Quitters...

Let's just say we've had a zero percent success rate in two days.

Things Annika does well:

~She holds her pee for long periods of time (5 hours this morning until all hell broke loose).

~She can pull her own panties up and down.

And that's about all.

So why are we quitting?

Josh left for work at 3:30pm today which also happened to be the time Annabel needed to eat (she's on a timed scheduled during the day so that she'll learn to sleep at night). So he took Annika to the potty around 3:25pm and they sat there for 5 minutes and she did nothing. She had just peed on the floor around 3pm so we figured she was empty....hahaha...

At 3:31pm I was feeding Annabel and then Annika goes "oh no" and I realized she peed on the dining room chair, the suede dining room chair (this teaches us a lesson about having things that are too nice with children). So I ask her to go to the potty. Then she comes back from the bathroom and sits in another dining room chair and pees again. Then she pees on the floor. Then she runs to the bathroom and pees on Bo's dog bed. Then she comes back crying and pees on the kitchen floor. Then she's running around crying and covered in pee and slips in it and hits her head on the sliding glass door. After that she stands in the middle of the kitchen takes off her shoes, squats and pees again ON HER SHOES....

Now it's 3:35pm....no joke. All of that happened within 4 minutes and I'm pretty sure she peed a gallon or more out. Then once I finally finished feeding Annabel I take Annika's dirty panties off and there's a turd in them.

So the lesson we've learned in these two days of potty training, we need both of us to be home during it. There's no possible way for me to potty train her on my own because this is the 2nd day in a row that all hell breaks loose when Josh isn't here. So we're taking a break from panties but I still plan taking her to the potty in the mornings, before nap time and before bed to practice. We'll try the potty training again with panties in a few weeks when Josh has a 3 day weekend so we can stay home and really focus on it with both of us here.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Potty Training:Day 1

Uggghhh....yep, it was THAT bad....

We bought Annika panties last week at Target and she quickly opened the package and put them on:



And just as quckily she laid flat on the floor so I couldn't get a good picture, as usual!

Today was the first day we put the panties on for real. All last week she's been saying "ewwww" when Annabel gets her diaper changed so I've made it a point to let her know that only babies wear diapers and big girls wear panties and go pee and poop on the potty.

She stayed totally dry for 2 1/2 hours this morning after she woke up. Then when we were out on the back patio she was hiding in the corner a little too long so when I asked her what she was doing she informed me "poo poo de poo poos mommas" (I don't know why she's added "de" to the middle of ALL phrases and an "s" to the end of momma, baby and daddy).

So I got to scoop poo out of Hello Kitty panties while explaining to Annika that poo goes in the potty, not in panties.

About an hour later (after me asking her every 5 minutes) I caught her squating in the kitchen peeing.

Three hours later (again after asking 100 times if she needed to pee on the potty) she peed on the living room floor 5 minutes after Josh left for work (it's his first day back since Annabel was born). Of course, I'm feeding Annabel a bottle and she's being difficult. Normally Annabel eats 3 ounces of formula, well just because Annika peed on the floor Annabel decided she wanted to eat 2 bottles all of the sudden and acted like she was starving! So I couldn't clean up the pee right away which means my OCD Annika had to clean up the pee herself, with a baby wipe, then after she did clean it up she wringed the wipe out on the living room floor (wood luckily) and then wiped her mouth with the pee pee wipe all as I watch in horror with Annabel screaming to eat more!

Now we are currently on panty #5 and no pee or poop has seen the toliet yet. I keep showing her that if she does go on the potty she'll get an M&M but we'll see how that works...

Patience....right?

Monday, January 9, 2012

Annabel Pictures

I'm far to lazy/tired/exhausted to do anything more than use the bathroom and play on Pinterest so here are some new pictures of Annabel.

Today should have been Annabel's birthday since my c-section was originally scheduled for today!















She's just so tiny and elf-like to me still!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Question and Changes

So how do I get involved in this Pinterest thing that everyone is doing now? I've tried to stay away from it because I totally don't need a new Internet obsession but I keep seeing people post so many cute ideas of toddler crafts and activities that now I want to do it! If someone could invite me please do, if you need my e-mail address let me know but I know that a lot of you already probably have it or we're Facebook friends and it's listed there.

If you noticed I changed the title of my blog to "Raising Two Little Reds" since Annabel's hair does appear to be reddish, just a different red than Annika's. It's hard to tell in pictures but it's a much blonder red while Annika's is just plain orange! I just love having two little redheads!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Random Updates

I'm actually getting a second to myself to update my blog. Clearly this year I am not going to blog 365 days, I did it last year and back in 2009 but I have already failed and today is the 4th...I think it's the 4th....I just realized it was Wednesday a few minutes ago.

~Josh has been home with us since Annabel was born. He goes back to work next week and I think we'll be just fine. I've recovered from this c-section 100 times faster than the last. I'm still not pushing it but I really feel great!


~I've lost half my baby weight already! I gained 45 pounds total so I have about 20 more pounds to go! Since I haven't really done any work to lose the first half I'm feeling pretty good about losing the full amount before I go back to work in March.



~Sunday I would have been 38 weeks but instead Annabel was 11 days old!





~Tomorrow we go to Annabel's 2 week check up. I'm curious to see what she's gained in weight so far. She already seems bigger to me.




~Speaking of bigger we put Annika in her old single jogging stroller to go for a walk yesterday. She looks so much bigger than the last time I jogged with her, way back in May!



~She's also trying to stand on her head and all kinds of other fun stuff. Annika has really started talking a lot!



~We bought The Rack to start working out with and Annika is using it as a jungle gym, she has no fear!



~Annika and I also made some chocolate chip cookies the other day and had tons of fun!




~We are working on a better diet now (after I say we made cookies...). We've been having lots of salads, fish and chicken (cooked in the crock pot) lately. We're trying to stay away from all processed foods by not buying any additional. I refuse to throw away what we have so we're trying to use it all up and just not replace it.

~Annabel is going through a growth spurt, already! She's been taking her bottle almost every hour or at least every 2 hours. She was doing really well with having 3 or 4 hour stretches but now she seems like she's starving after 2 hours! I've tried increasing her ounces of formula but she doesn't seem ready for it, she always falls asleep!

And that is all! I hope to update again soon when things calm down more!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Pictures

Since I have no time to blog here are some recent pictures...

sisters:



sweet sleeping baby:
daddy and his girls:
me and Annika making cookies today:
Once I have 2 free hands I'll make a real post!