Our Little Dancer

The first song they danced to "Come and Get Your Love". Of course Isabelle danced beautifully. Pure perfection. Well maybe not perfection but she sure did look cute up there.

They did this adorable little move during this number where they kind of hugged themselves and then shimmied down. I definitely just completely butchered whatever the move was and made it sound so not cute. It really was though. Just take my word.

The second dance was to the song, "Fireflies". Its a current song on the radio. Of course I spend my days listening to Laurie Berkner so I had never even heard the song before. Now I can't get the song out of my head and I think it comes on in every store and restaurant we are in.

Every time I hear it I picture Isabelle doing her dance and skipping around the stage and it makes me smile. That would be the performance from the competition we did because she decided not to do the dance for the recital.

Nope, instead she did her own thing. Most of it was spent looking like this. I may not be a dancer but I am fairly certain this is not a dance move she was taught. Hands on hip, chin up in the air, lips pursed.

Nope, this is not a dance move this is the "I don't care what you want me to do I am not going to do it" move. Now that move she has perfected.

"Sing us a song you're the piano man"

"sing us a song tonight
well we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us all feeling alright"

Sweet Dreams

Many nights Isabelle will show up in our room in the middle of the night saying she had a bad dream. When we try to ask her what it was about she says she would just rather not talk about it. I never really knew if she really meant that or if she was just saying she had a bad dream hoping we would let her sleep with us.

This morning while we were eating breakfast she told me she had a scary dream last night. She said that her Sleeping Beauty Doll (her most prized doll) was in her laptop and she had really scary teeth. Then I did something that made her come to life from out of the laptop (she didn't have scary teeth anymore) and Sleeping Beauty was holding her tight and wouldn't let her go.

All day she thought about her dream. She kept asking me when she would forget about it. I wanted so badly to reach into her mind and erase it. At naptime I asked her if she wanted Sleeping Beauty in bed with her. She asked me why I would ask her that. Of course she wanted Sleeping Beauty. I just tried to brush it off..Silly Mommy, what was I thinking. We read stories and she says to me she knows why I asked her if she wanted Sleeping Beauty in bed. She says I asked because of her dream and she assures me she will be ok. "Don't worry Mommy", she says to me. It is becoming virtually impossible to get anything past that girl.

Tonight after she went to bed I told Jason about her dream. He told me 2 days ago she wanted to watch Taylor Swift videos on his iPad. When he searched for them this was the first video that came up

No wonder she had a bad dream! Eek! She just came out of her room now and said she is still thinking about it and had another dream. I think its going to be a long night. Hopefully she only has sweet dreams tonight.

To the moon

Tonight at dinner Isabelle leans over to Schuyler and whispers, "I love you so much, Buddy. I love you the whole way to the moon and back". And my heart was happy.

Smartypants

Sky has gotten to the point where he refuses to eat baby food...

Unless Isabelle is feeding it to him.

And I am very ok with this.

(Pay no attention to Isabelle and her Don Juan pajamas.. she has an issue with zippers being close to her neck. I have no clue.)

Miss Independent

This girl is about to turn 4 soon... and I really can hardly believe it. Every year around this time she starts to change. Its usually when we butt heads the most as she seems to start to try out her new skin and push for a little more independence. She is a master negotiator though. I mean WOW!

Some of the things she says are just hilarious. Last night we were watching tv and a car commercial or something came on. Well, of course, cool car = Jason wants it. So he says something like, "Oh wow I want that" or something to that effect. Isabelle replies back with, "You can't have everything Daddy. You need to be thankful for what you have." Jason was speechless (which doesn't happen often!).

She has also come with nicknames that only she calls Schuyler. Like Mr. Buddy....we have no clue where she came up with that! She also calls him Mr. Sky, (not sure what's up with all of the "Mr.'s"..she is very proper, I guess!) Skybaby, Skybuddy, Skysilly and a million other things that she just attaches to Sky. Of course he loves any name she calls him.

Gosh, I wish I could remember some other things she has said lately. Just hilarious. The weather was nice enough a week ago that we were able to go for a bike ride. I really missed that last year with Sky being so young and unable to ride in the trailer. Isabelle loved having him back there with her. I am excited for the bike rides that are in our future this summer!

Today we are going playset shopping. We found one online that we really like so we are going to go around to some local places. We're planning to get one that we can assemble ourselves, but if the deal is good enough for someone else to do it I am sure we will bite. We are capable though and you can get more for your money when not having to pay out the wazoo for labor so we'll see. Also, this week we had a quite a big delivery! I will have to upload the pics from my camera to share what it is!!!

Smiley Happy Baby

Wow so its been a little while, huh? We are all still alive..nothing too major has been happening. In the beginning of February Jason and I started doing P90X. It's a pretty intense workout program. We went from spending our evenings after kids went bed watching TV and surfing the net to working out. With P90X we are working out 6 days a week with Thursday nights being our day off. By the time we get done working out I am feeling pretty spent and blogging is the last thing I want to do. Then during the day it's busy busy with the usual kids and keeping up with the house type of stuff. Lately with the nice weather we've been spending a lot of days outside riding bikes. So I guess that's about it for my excuses.. I know, none of them are good excuses!

This little boy is growing up way too fast...but he is still my little baby. And, oh, is he a mama's boy! I do love it though I'm not going to lie. He does love his Daddy too though. When Jason gets home from work Schuyler just goes crazy. He crawls over to him as fast as his little knees will move and then climbs up his legs. Jason speaks and Sky just watches him with awe.

And of course you know he is crazy for his big sister. She is really enjoying him getting older and being able to play with him. He is so easy going and just goes along with whatever crazy thing she has him doing. I tell her it won't last long and he will develop an opinion about what he wants to do. I don't think she believes me though. She looks at me with this look on her face like, "yeah, ok, whatever you say Mom". Maybe she knows better than me that he won't have an opinion. That would be ok with me.. we have enough opinionated people in this house!
And smiley!! He is so smiley! So smiley and happy! Isabelle was a pretty happy baby as well so I know how fortunate we are to have 2 happy babies! He loves people and is soooo nosey! It is virtually impossible for him to fall asleep in public if there is something else going on. He needs to see everything that is going on and smile at everyone that comes within a 25 ft radius of him. He really does smile at everyone.. they don't even have to be looking at them he is just smiling away and so completely taken by them. It is my favorite though to watch people's reactions when they catch his eye and he is smiling at them. The first thing they do is smile back at him.. then they usually look around to make sure he isn't smiling and laughing at someone behind them making cooky faces or something..then they go back to smiling and waving and playing peek-a-boo. I'm a dork, I know.. watching my baby make people smile..it's probably a pretty weird thing to do..maybe a little self-indulgent, I don't know, but I guess this is my blog so that already makes me at least a little self-indulgent?? Anyway, some of those people though might have had the worst day ever or maybe they don't have anything in their lives to smile about and then in comes perma-smile Sky making them feel good about themselves. Yeah ok, I just read that all back through..I am a super dork. Smiley, happy baby.. you get the point I'm sure.
He totally thinks he is bigger then he really is. He seems to think he can stand by himself.. now mind you, he really can't. But he can't help but to pull himself up to standing and then let go of whatever he is holding onto. He should bend his little knees and sort of plop down.. does he do that? Nope. He pretty much just falls right on his head. The kid is bound and determined though to stand on his own. I think he still has a little while till he will be able to do it. I just pray he doesn't injure his brain in the process!

This is what he does when he gets tired. He will also rub this spot on my back near my shoulder or claw my neck. Love the clawing of the neck...its usually a reminder I need to trim his nails!
He may be getting big but he is still pretty tiny! I forget what he was at his 9 month appt but when I got home I checked Isabelle's 9 month stats and they were right the same. She was 25th percentile for height and weight and he is 5th percentile for both! I thought it was pretty crazy that for the same measurements there was that much difference in percentiles between boys and girls! I have so much to update on Isabelle too.. I promise it won't be forever until I post again!

My baby sister

now has a baby of her own..

Sometimes its still hard for me to believe that he is actually hers..

And she is now responsible for keeping another human being alive
which is kind of frightening to think about.. (just kidding ;o) )
She is doing so good..she has always been so good with Isabelle and Schuyler so I just knew she would be a good mom...and she is.
It's been so fun watching her as a mom, but so crazy all at once. I mean, remember her being born.. it makes me feel all mushy gushy and old all at once. ;o)
She is so young and has so many things going against her but she isn't letting any of them bring her down.. I am so proud of her for how hard good she is doing..
Now my little baby sister has a beautiful little family of her own... so CRAZY!!!

Sweet, Sweet Baby

Meet my new little nephew, Jaxton Mitchell


Seriously, he is so stinkin' sweet...so sweet! And what a good baby (so far ;o) ). He never cries. Never. No exaggeration. Happiest little newborn baby, ever. Of course he could be happy because in a house full of people there is always someone ready to cuddle with him.

And he smiles all the time.. they say its gas, but I know its because he loves his Auntie Jen.. afterall I am pretty much the most awesome Aunt ever! ;o)

And those sweet baby lips...

And look at all that strawberry blonde hair!

And those tiny, wrinkly feet. Do they get any cuter??

Don't let me fool you though, he has a stubborn streak. For example, have you ever heard of a newborn that does not like to be curled up in a ball...at all?? You try to curl him up (like most newborns absolutely love and prefer to be) and immediately out goes his little right leg and I get a pang of pain in my ribs knowing that little foot probably kicked the heck out of my little sister's ribs. Then out goes the left leg..all sprawled out just the way he likes it! I had all of these ideas for photos I wanted to take and he wouldn't cooperate at all. I'd curl him up in a little ball and position him and he would start grunting and then out would go the legs and then the arms. Jeesh. He's lucky he's cute.

See the resemblence??

Our Christmas

There were so many pictures from Christmas that I just couldn't pick a few so I did a slideshow of them all.

Christmas Eve we continued our tradition of going to Chops for dinner. When we reminded Isabelle where we were going to eat she said, "Oh Pap LOVES Chops!" LOL! Apparently he was really raving about it at Thanksgiving! She doesn't miss a beat, that's for sure! We had a great dinner and then headed home to unwrap our Christmas Eve jammies, sprinkle reindeer food on the front yard and get cookies ready for Santa. We also had to say goodbye to Chester our elf as he was going to be hitching a ride on Santa's sleigh back to the North Pole. Isabelle was completely taken in by the magic of Christmas. She was a little difficult to get settled down and into bed, but a reminder that Santa wouldn't come until we were all in bed settled her down pretty quick. ;o)

Isabelle woke up at her normal time between 7:30 and 8:00.. not sure when we will start getting woken up at the crack of dawn to open presents so we treasured still being able to "sleep in". Opening presents was so much fun...even Schuyler got into it! He was a natural at present opening! He loved getting some new boy toys but I think was a bigger fan of crinkling the wrapping paper. Isabelle opened each present and then took it out of the box and played with it for awhile before moving onto the next. She wouldn't even sneak a peek to see what a present was until all of the wrapping paper was off of the box. We would say to her, "ooooh what did you get?" and she would say, "I don't know.. we will have to see!". She just had a big ol' pile of gifts and when she was done playing with what she had opened then she would open another.

Isabelle must have been a very good girl because Santa brought her everything she asked for - the bitty twins, their stroller and the sweet lily castle. She had been such a good girl that Chester had suggested a gift for Isabelle for Santa to give her from him that he just knew she would love...and she sure did!

Christmas evening, Brad, Nicole, Adam, Mindy, Adan and Blair all came over. Isabelle was very excited to get to play with Adan on Christmas and show him all of her presents! And as always Sky was excited to get to see his buddy, Blair!

What happens when Jason and Isabelle are left alone for too long...

Sky at 6 months on his 7 month birthday

Yesterday Schuyler discovered he was the one in charge of moving his feet and toes. It was rather funny to watch. He bent over to eat his foot (naturally, because why not?) and it moved away from him.

He shot back up and just stared at his foot with his shocked look on his face. He sports this face a lot. I am not quite sure what that says about his personality yet. What I do know though is that I am really glad he isn't a female who will one day enter the world of eyebrow waxing and plucking only to end up with that shocked look plastered on his face forever. Whew..you dodged that bullet buddy!

Anyway, he just started at this foot that he has been chewing on for months now as if he was seeing it for the first time. Then he arched it back and seriously gasped when it moved. He just kept moving it back and forth, back and forth. All the while never taking his eyes off his foot (probably for fear that it was going to jump up and attack him..you really never know what those feet are going to do, you know.).

Then he started moving his toes. This was all just too much for him to handle (not to mention he had been sitting still for entirely too long) so he started doing the "Schuyler squeal" (which closely resembles that of the sound we imagine a pterodactyl would make) and resuming his normal, constantly squirming self while continuing to stare at these feet that he can now move.

Along with his newfound love for moving his tiny toes, he has also discovered the joy of tossing toys from the highchair and watching Mommy, Daddy and Izzy take turns picking them up.
The game's getting old Buddy, real old.

Still no teeth have broken through but that doesn't mean he is working on them. I was a little skeptical with how the teething experience was going to go because he seemed to be taking the same route as Isabelle (very whiney..not sleeping..just flat out AWFUL!!!) but a detour seems to have been made. At least for the time being. Boy are those gums swollen. I am wondering if we will have a gummy baby for much longer.
He sure is a happy little guy and boy oh boy does he love his sissy and Daddy! He goes nuts when Jason is in his line of sight and he will twist himself every which way when he hears his voice. It is so dear though. He loves when Isabelle sings and plays with him. She has been so great at including him in her little make believe world. I am sure that will all change when he develops an opinion or doesn't do exactly what she wants him to do or sit where she wants him to sit. But for now we are enjoying how they get along.

Sleep is going well too. Hallelujah! It's about time. We've had some rough goes with sleep for what feels like a really long time. Either he was up at night or she was up at night or one of them wouldn't nap well in the afternoon. It was a tired time in the Koons' house but Isabelle has been sleeping until 7:30-8:00 and so has Sky. He finally has his naps figured out as well. We turned the corner at around 6 months with some sleep normalcy and I hope we can continue forward without looking back. We'll see.. I shudder when I remember the run of sleepless nights we endured.

I don't remember his 6 month stats from his appointment...I would have to look at the paper and I am not sure where that is. I do remember he was still 25% for both height and weight and developing right in line with where he should be. We go back Weds for his second seasonal flu shot so I am going to have him weighed then. Hopefully I will remember that number. We'll see.

Will post pics from Christmas soon. I have to upload them all from the computer..maybe today.. we'll see.