Saturday, September 29, 2012

9 Month Comparison Pictures

They are just so different!

Annabel and Annika both at 9 months old.



I think one thing everyone can agree on is that they did come out looking slightly the same, Annabel was just a mini version of Annika!


Friday, September 28, 2012

Half Marathon Training

I checked back on my old blog to compare how fast I ran back in 2010 after having Annika to how fast I'm running now.

In my first week of training back in 2010 I ran 3 miles in 35 minutes.  That's a little over 11 minute miles.

Two weeks ago I ran 3 miles in 28 minutes.  That's just a little over 9 minute miles!

I swear its the endurance I'm building up running during the week with the double jogging stroller.  I'm super excited for my half marathon in November!  It's the same race I did in 2010 and I finished in 2 hours and 47 minutes.  My average per mile was over 12 minutes, almost 13 minutes!  My mom did die 4 weeks before this race and my dad was in the hospital PLUS I had a cold I was getting over so I'm hoping for major improvement!

In 2011 I did another half marathon at 2 hours and 27 minutes (beating my goal by 3 minutes!!).  Still that is over 11 minute miles.

I'm hoping since my current training runs that I do without the stroller I average anywhere from 9-10 minute miles that I can maintain that and PUSH myself in a race.  I think my last two races I was worrying about not being able to finish so I took it too easy.

Even with the stroller I'm currently averaging 12 minute miles.  There's just no way I should be doing 12 minute miles alone!

7 more weeks until I find out what I can do!!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

We Had An Anniversary

Yep I'm awful but Josh and I did have an anniversary back on September 18th, it was our 7 year dating anniversary!

Never would I have guessed that after that first date with the guy from the dentist office that we'd have 2 beautiful red headed babies 7 years later and have a pretty perfect life together (besides the whole not seeing each other during the week)!

Us back in 2008



So I totally tried to find an old picture of us and couldn't.  I forgot we lived in ancient times back in 2005 with our 35mm camera and no computer!  So I had to settle for this picture of us back in 2008, pre-babies :-)


And us now!! (well in August, it's the only group shot I have of us)

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Instagram

I love doing pictures on Instagram.  I think they typically look better than normal/boring iPhone pictures plus I like how they're framed and look old like my dad's old collection of pictures that I have.

Sweet Annabel.  We still can't figure out who she looks like!  But check out that pout!  She's going to have great lips!

Annika would like to inform the world "this is MY baby and she's cute!" (poor Annabel!)
 I see a future runner.  She ran an entire mile and I forced her to stop 3 times, 2 times to cross a road (holding my hand) and once to drink her entire cup of water.

Annabel, total and complete refusal to drink from a sippy cup.  I didn't have this issue with Annika, I handed her a sippy at 5 months old and she drank.  Here Annabel is waving a bottle of water which she threw on the floor because she also refuses to drink water, only wants formula!

Monday, September 24, 2012

GMO



I've watched "Forks Over Knives" and a few other food related documentaries.  We have slowly started cutting out processed foods and we rarely eat out anymore.  I don't eat meat but Annika does eat chicken.  We all eat seafood.  Josh doesn't eat any read meat anymore.

Please watch this video above and share it.  Companies have to label if they use GMO in other countries but not here.  This is a large reason why we are attempting to cut out all processed foods (even for the girls) and move toward a healthier organic plant based diet (I'm going to try to go Vegan next week but it's the eggs and feta cheese I'll have a hard time giving up!  Josh said if I come up with good enough recipes to eat he'll consider a Vegan diet also).

I'll be blogging as much as I can about our diet changes!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

9 Months (yesterday)

How did this baby get to be 9 months old already??


~Annabel can now pull up to stand on her own.

~She crawls with incredible speed!

~She says "dadadadadaaaaaa" and a few other sounds but nothing specific like "mama" or "dada" yet.

~Totally refuses to drink out of a sippy cup.  LOVES her bottles, baby food (mostly stage 3) and "puffs".

~No teeth still!

~Weights about 20 pounds and is a little over 30 inches tall as she outgrew her Chicco Keyfit 30 in height!  (Her head was less than an inch from the top.)  She's barely 5 inches shorter than Annika right now!

~Sleeps 12 hours at night straight through.

~Refuses to let us read her books, she always grabs them and tries to eat them!

~Loves her big sister, she always smiles at her and laughs.

~Wears mostly 9 and 12 month size clothes.  Outgrew all her 6-9 month onesies this month and now wears "real" clothes like shirts with shorts and little dresses.

~Still falls asleep the second I put her in the double jogging stroller when I go out for runs with the girls.  I swear she's never even see the course we take!

~Tries to climb up the stairs to the 2nd floor of our house!  Scary, so we have to put a baby gate up at the bottom and top of the stairs since she's very curious (Annika had a crazy fear of going down stairs on her own until she was at least 18 months old).

~Hair is getting longer, past her shoulders now but not getting much thicker.  We might give her a trim at home soon.


Saturday, September 22, 2012

Vintage

Things from my childhood are officially called "vintage" now.  How crazy is that??

This ballerina cake topper is being sold on Etsy and is considered "vintage".  I had these same exact ballerinas on my cake when I was 5 years old!

How are things from almost 25 years ago vintage???

I think I might order them for Annika's birthday cake though especially since this set has red hair!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Dance Class!!

Our crazy red headed monster is really starting to get this whole dance class thing. When we pulled into the parking lot of the dance school she yelled "yay, ballet!"  She just loves it!

She did GREAT today.  I only saw her once run around a bit and when the teacher's helper asked her to get back into line she did.

I did notice some of the other little girls not allowing her to stand next to them and one of them kind of pushed her away from her.  Annika is a bit more crazy and "in your face" than the other girls and it's just her personality.  Clearly not everyone likes that personality.  I'm sure when I was younger I wouldn't have wanted some crazy little girl running around me :-)  Luckily Annika doesn't take things personally or get upset so she just walked to the back of the line.  I'm glad that she doesn't seem overly sensitive yet with things like that.

After class we had some frozen yogurt at a shop down the street from us.  It was a nice treat.  Annika had chocolate with chocolate chips and strawberries and I had chocolate/cheesecake swirl with Oreo pieces.


I braided her hair again and she's actually the one that suggested the ribbons.  She handed them to me after I finished braiding and it did look cute.  She called it "ballet hair".  A few of the other mothers commented that they wish they could braid like that and one of the little girls told her mom she wanted her to do it to her hair. I might need to set up some braiding lessons with the other moms because none of them know how to braid!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Onesies/Running/Funny

Does anyone know where I can buy a plain black long sleeve onesie for Annabel?  I cannot believe that I can't find just a plain one anywhere!  They all say "Happy Halloween" on them or have some other sort of design on the front.  I need it for her kitty Halloween costume.  I already looked at Michaels and they only had t-shirts and not even any small enough to fit her.  I tried looking online but all I can find is wholesalers and I'm not about to order a box of 50 of them!

I'm hoping the girls can tolerate my running schedule.  Right now I take them twice week on a 3.5 mile run.  Next week it increases to 4 miles for 2 weeks, then 4.5 miles for 2 weeks and finally 5 miles.  Right now Annabel falls asleep the second she sits in the stroller but Annika starts getting a little crazy around mile 3.  The whole last 1/2 mile of my run Annika was trying to turn around to look at me and she kept saying "hug momma".  She wants a hug so she can spider monkey climb up me and get out of the stroller!  I don't know of anyone that can watch them during the week in the evenings so I just hope Annika can deal with longer runs or I'm going to have to start running a lot faster!

Sometimes Annika showers with me because I'm lazy and it's easier to clean her when she just gets in with me.  Josh used to take her in with him last year but had to stop because she was getting a little too curious and kept trying to touch him!  So we taught her to call her private area and everyone else's private area "privates" (we thought it was a lot better than vagina, she would probably scream that in public or something).  Today in the shower she was pointing out my "boo boo" (my c-section scar) and then tilts her head down and says "let me see your privates momma, let me see".  Uggghhh...she's such a curious child!!

Annika also told the cashier at Target last week that "daddy slapped my butt". We don't spank but about 2 months ago Josh went into the closet to grab his shirt and Annika picked up Annabel and dropped her (luckily Annabel wasn't hurt, she was just freaked out that she got dropped even though it was a short distance!).  So he smacked her butt and put her in time out.  For some reason just now she's decided to tell the world that "daddy slapped my butt".  I hope she just doesn't start saying it in ballet tomorrow!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Last Weekend

Uggghhh...how is it already Tuesday???  I'm such a slacker lately with blogging!

Annabel sat in a highchair at a restaurant for the first time.  She loved getting to look around.  We usually have her in her infant car seat but someone decided to grow too much and now she's too tall for it!


We still can't figure out which family member Annabel looks like!  Josh and I are thinking she looks like my mom but a lot of people are saying my dad.

I went braiding crazy this weekend.  I was so excited to realize that Annika's hair is long enough for all the great braids I know how to do!

Here is she playing at Whole Foods after we walked around the local farmer's market.  We were hot so we cooled off with some Whole Foods pizza and some warm soup for Josh :-)


I'm like crazy proud of this one.  I've always wanted to do this on her hair, or anyone's hair, and I'm glad it turned out good! 

Then so I wouldn't feel left out I did my own while talking to Josh on our porch.  It took me like 2 minutes and he couldn't believe how well it turned out and how fast I can braid.  


I learned to braid from one of my mom's hairdressers when I was around 8 years old.  My mom wanted her hair braided every once in a while so I watched the hairdresser and was just able to do it, just like that.  Then my parents bought me a book about braids so that's where I learned how to do the one I did on Annika and a few more that I can't wait to try on her!  Luckily now if I tell her to not touch her hair she actually leaves it alone!!

Today Annabel pulled up to standing on her own!  It was the first time that I've seen her do it but I guess Josh said he saw her do it yesterday.


Now she does it all the time.  Then she gets stuck because she can't figure out how to sit down and she freaks out.  Poor girl needs to learn how to lower herself to a sitting position! 

Friday, September 14, 2012

Dance Class #3

The teacher told me Annika improves every week!

Here are the girls before class.

Afterwards Annika told me she loves dance class.  She didn't want to leave, she was the last one out of the room today.  She was very quiet on the way home and I realized that this class makes her sooo tired.  Which is good, its using up some of her crazy energy.  I just love watching her having fun during class!

I noticed something funny in class today.  I think I'm the only mother that took ballet as a child because I'm the only one that sends their child to class without panties on!  I realized today that all the girls have panties hanging out from under their leotards.  Back when I was in ballet I hated even wearing panties when I wasn't in dance because I was so used to just wearing my tights and then my leotard!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Random Stuff

~Halloween is coming up!  Although I am not a huge Halloween person, I don't really decorate or buy like special candy or anything and I never, ever dress up, I am excited that I have two little people to costume this year!  I am making our own costumes, pretty much.  Annika will be Pippi Longstocking!  I've been waiting for her to be Pippi Longstocking since birth since she's always had red hair and now her hair is finally long enough to be be braided around pipe cleaners!  I have everything I need for her costume, I just need to put it all together.  Annabel will be a simple black cat.  I'm going to buy her a black onesie.  We have tights and pants in case it's cold (it usually isn't) and black Mary Jane shoes.  I will be buying her little black ears and a tail and then I'll draw little whiskers on her face.  A cat is a cute and easy costume for someone who is super shy and will probably require me to carry her the entire time while our Pippi runs door to door.

~In an effort to cut down on spending and save money for our road trip next year (we are FINALLY getting around to our Gaitlinburg/Asheville/Charlotte trip) I've decided that all clothing we buy will be 2nd hand.  Luckily there are a few local stores for me and Josh that are awesome for 2nd hand clothes (my personal favorite is our Goodwill where I buy Ann Taylor dress pants for work for $4!).  The girls are pretty much set for clothes through the winter (if we have winter this year) and there are a few local consignment shops around that I could always check out.  My only exception to this rule is if we can buy something new for under $5, which is possible, especially when Target has sales on tanks and tee shirts for me and the girls.

~A lady at Target yesterday came up to me and asked me how the girls both got red hair when my hair is BLACK.  I bought the wrong hair dye color, it said "medium golden brown" which actually translates on my hair to BLACK.  I told her that my husband has red hair.  I cannot wait for some of this dye to wash out.  I'm thinking on getting a more reddish color so that the girls and I look slightly similar in the hair department.

~I would just like to state that I am the world's worse Word with Friends player.  So if you are playing a game with me I swear I do not have some sort of learning disability, I'm just super bad at Scrabble.  I've one only one game ever, against Josh, and most games I lose by more than 100 points.  Whatever.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Busy Again

3 little creatures have been keeping me busy, which has kept me from blogging...hopefully will have some time to write a real post soon!


Friday, September 7, 2012

Annabel's Post

I rarely get to talk about this little sweet pumpkin but she's still here!


Annabel is such a chill, relaxed baby that there's really no dramatic stories or naughtiness occurring yet.

We do have a few newer things happening though!

She's trying to pull up to stand!  Just can't figure out how to get those feet on the ground and the legs straight.


She has so much hair that I've kind of given up on trying to control it!  It's long and wavy/curly and I love it when it looks crazy!  It gives her more character.

Annabel is a grabber.  I can't wear long earrings (not that I usually do anyway) and my necklace has been pulled on so many times that I'm surprised it hasn't snapped yet.  If she can't get my necklace she's grabbing the front of my shirt or my sleeve.

We also can't leave anything within her reach on the dining room table when she's in her hair chair, she'll just grab it!  Annika has even learned to stay away from her because she grabs her toes!

She has mastered crawling.  It's impossible to keep her out of the kitchen so I have to be very careful not to step back and step on her!  Sometimes I feel little hands reaching up my legs because she's trying to climb me!  She also likes to crawl around and follow me just like Bo, our dog, does.  


She's such a happy girl.  Never cries when she gets a bath or water in her eyes (ummm..someone else still screams like she's being murdered when water gets in her eyes), sleeps 12 hours, has incredible patience to just chill if we're dealing with an Annika meltdown, and she LOVE to laugh and smile.

I think her toothless smile is adorable.  I know I've shared this picture before but it's my favorite, it really shows off her personality.  Still no signs of teeth, at all!



Thursday, September 6, 2012

Ballet Class #2

Today we had Annika's second ballet class.  It was much, much better!!  I talked to the teacher the second I saw her and said that Annika has been talked to and said she will be a good girl in class.  I explained that I think she was just a bit excited last week and a bit overwhelmed.  She totally understood and said that she's fine.

I watched the teacher call roll first. All the girls have to sit on the red x's on the floor and Annika did it this time!  I also heard her say "yes" when the teacher called her name.  Improvement already!

Annika also waited her turn and followed directions.  You could really see her little crazy personality a lot during class with her dance moves across the floor!  But this week was different, she was behaving.

We only had one hiccup today.  Right as we were walking out the door at home to the car Annika tripped and skinned her knees, which also ripped her pink tights, the only pair I bought.....for $14.....Poor girl, she was even more worried about the tights than her one knee that was bleeding!  I brought her back into the house, stripped off the tights, put a band aid on her knee and ran out the door so we wouldn't be late.  I also reassured her at least 5 times that I could buy her a new pair (of much cheaper) tights tomorrow.  Annika decided to be super dramatic, limping (it wasn't THAT bad of a scrap), and telling me to be careful!  She holds out her little hands (like she's saying stop) and says "careful, careful momma, I got a boo boo".  She even went to bed with the band aid on still.

Then she talked about the penguin band aid the entire way to dance school.  Luckily she stopped talking about it when we got there and was excited to see the other little girls!

Here she is waiting for class to start, boo boo's and all:


And I swear we do still have Annabel even though my posts lately have been very Annika focused, a full Annabel post next!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Tricycle Riding Fun!!


Us after Josh finally caught up! 

Practicing a little bit in the house! 



Daddy helping her keep straight. 


Saturday, September 1, 2012

Dance Class Update

I received an e-mail back from the owner of the dance studio.  She said that Annika's behavior in class is totally and completely acceptable and normal for a child taking their first class and for a child who has never been in a structured learning environment!! I'm so glad that she understood where we were coming from with putting her into this class.

As for anyone who questions that she won't be 3 until November that is only 2 months away.  So she's actually starting this class only 2 months earlier than she should.  I actually told the owner this and she said it was fine, totally not a big deal again.  I think this may be in part that they want our tuition payment for the 2 months but she really didn't care at all that Annika is only 2 in a 3 and 4 year old class.  Also if you ask Annika how old she is she answers "Annika" since typically people ask her what her name is.  I've tried in the past to tell her that she's "2" but she always responds with "Annika".

The mother that told me that maybe Annika is too young for class was an old friend from dental assisting school.  I know her personality and she really has no filter at all on her mouth.  She never thinks before she says anything so I'm just going to ignore her.  I hope that Annika starts paying attention more in class and Josh and I have both had talks with her about listening to the teacher and waiting her turn in class.  I plan on having the same talk with her prior to class starting this Thursday and I also plan on directly telling the teacher that if Annika is too much of a distraction and really isn't pay attention please just remove her from class.  I hope that it doesn't come to that and I really do hope she pays attention this week.

The owner of the dance studio said sometimes it can take up to a month for children to really "get it" so she said we are fine for that first month and that it is up to us whether or not we want to keep her in the class or not.  According to her they never remove students from class, instead they try to correct the problem or will give us suggestions on exercises (such as taking turns) to do at home.  That makes me feel better.  The woman I knew from dental assisting school told me that the school has removed girls from the classes before which now I know isn't true!

So we're going to give it till the end of September to see if she gets any better.  I honestly hope she does!  All day yesterday she talked to Josh about how much she loved dance class and that it was fun and that she wanted to see the other girls.  It would break my heart to pull her from the class!  Today she even wore the shirt they gave me when we registered that has the name of the dance studio on it and she seemed so proud to even wear that!

I'll be sure to update again on Friday morning what the class was like Thursday evening!