Brendan's 2 1/2!

and very much has a mind of his own. If he doesn't want to sit nicely for a pictures, he's not going to! He also refused to put down his two favorite things...his milk cup and "de do", i.e. his blanket.
He is becoming a very good big boy though. He talks up a storm, when he's not watching his favorite shows on PBS Kids. He is a wonderful big brother to Katelyn and often gets her to laugh & smile.
He can count at least to 10 reliably, and sometimes into the "teens". He knows how to sing the alphabet song and even reliably recognizes some letters, such as B, I, E, T. He has finally sorted out the difference between yellow & orange. His favorite things, after milk & "de do" are trains. We have a Thomas & a Percy engine that are played with daily.
Not sure on height as he hasn't been to the doctor since his 2 year appointment, but he's 27-28 pounds based on our bathroom scale. He's still a string bean in some 18 month clothes, but needing some of the length in 24 month clothes.

Indiana State Fair

Since Brendan is so into trains lately, we thought that it would be especially fun to ride the train to the Fair this year.

He got two previews of the train, as it was leaving the Fishers train station - one on Monday evening after having dinner at Megan & Allen & Gavin's house. He was definitely enthralled, although a little startled at how loud the horn was. He jumped a mile in my arms and buried his ears in his blanket. He kept asking "Where'd that blue engine go?" Katelyn didn't seem scared at all!

On Wednesday evening, we met up with Uncle Rob & Aunt Jenny for ice cream (& to see Baby Bobby's room!) and were in Fishers in time to see the train leave again. This time Katelyn was scared and cried...I felt bad. :( Brendan was still scared, but of course wanted to see it and kept talking about it too!

It was super hot & humid today, so we didn't think that we'd get to stay too long. We headed straight for the "Little Hands on the Farm" portion of the fair.


Brendan enjoyed looking at & petting the animals in the barn and of course the tractors!

Then we went over to the "Little Hands on the Farm" where he got to pretend to be a farmer. He really got into it!
Getting some eggs from the chickens...he calls eggs "apples" for some reason.
Then he fed some grain to the pigs & cows.

Harvested some vegetables from the garden.
Drove a tractor

Got some wool from a sheep
Milked a cow. Then they took all their goods to the market where they "sold" them and got some "Farm money" which they could use to buy some actual snacks to eat. Too cute!

Then we went to the FFA barn and got to feed some animals. He loved this too!


He thought that the pigs were super cute! He kept saying "Hi little piggies!"
Getting back on the train to go home
I'm riding a train!

21 Weeks

Katelyn's sleeping a little bit better lately. She's actually taking one "good" nap per day - up to 2 hours! which is huge for her. It's definitely making my life easier. Although, it is a process to get her to sleep, which is hard to do with a crazy 2 year old. :)

Katelyn's rolling around like crazy now and is pretty happy about it too! She's also pretty close to being able to sit up, which is good & bad. She keeps trying to sit up when she's laying down and gets frustrated.

Her favorite trick right now, is taking her paci out of her mouth and putting it back in. Her paci is probably her favorite toy.

Just some fun pictures

A Baby Shower for Jenny & Baby Bobby

My mom & I had a baby shower to help Jenny (& Rob) celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Bobby.
The invites...I got to use my Cricut to make the train cars.
Favors for the game winners
To continue with the train theme, Brendan shared some of his train cars for our centerpiece.
Guessing Bobby's birthday, weight & height
The food!
Natalie, Madelyn, Katelyn, Aunt Kitty & Kathy
Jenny and her friends

Virginia, Paula, Erin, Mimi, Julie, Annie & GrandBob
The cake...yum!

Katelyn & Carter playing
The gifts We asked everyone to bring a book for Bobby's library as part of their gift.

Bisia made Bobby a quilt to go with the theme of his room.
Quinn is helping Bobby get a head start on potty training with some Spiderman underwear!
A box I made for Bobby's books. I started one for Katelyn and it's still not quite done. :)

Guessing the baby food - Kyra was the big winner.

20 weeks

After some exhausting days and nights with little sleep for me & Katelyn, I've been doing some reading of baby sleep books. I'm currently working my way thru the "No Cry Sleep & Nap" books. Some of the suggestions seem to make sense and will hopefully help Katelyn sleep more and be a happier baby. Don't get me wrong, she is a happy baby, but when she's tired, she's a B-E-A-R!

One of her biggest issues are her "mini-naps". She will sleep for 10-20 minutes on average and then wake up. She acts bright-eyed, but a few minutes later is tired and cranky. What I've read is that some babies have trouble transitioning between the 1st & 2nd stages of sleep. The bad part is that the first stage of sleep can be quite refreshing and restoring at least briefly, so she doesn't seem to want to go back to sleep even though she really needs to. So, we're swaddling for naps as well as at night now and after I lay Katelyn down, I stay by her side and if/when she wakes up after a few minutes, I try to help her get back to sleep.

A terrible train accident!

Brendan LOVES his train cars...plays with them for hours on end. I often hear him saying "Oh no, train cars" or "Don't fall down train cars" or "Be careful train cars".

I put him down for his nap one day and came back into the family room to see this...