.:Remi - Six Months:.

The Remster is six months old today! That's half of a year!

In Remi's five month post, I wrote that I thought she was figuring out how to roll back over from her tummy to her back. Total lie. She still continues to get stuck on her tummy and get so angry about it. Occasionally she will accidentally roll herself back over, but it's definitely not deliberate at all! She still sleeps with her sleep positioner, but somehow during her nap yesterday, she rolled over and was still in between the positioner, but on her tummy! It was kind of funny, although she was quite upset about it.

Remi's newest trick: sitting! I think she probably could have done it a lot sooner if I'd practiced with her more. I usually leave the boppy behind her, but she actually is pretty sturdy and doesn't really use it about half of the time. It makes her seem so much older to me! It is fun when she and Reece are sitting by each other, sharing a toy - I just love that they will start playing together more now!

Remi has never been much of a laugher, but she is starting to a lot more. She kind of has a belly laugh; not your usual baby giggle. It's pretty cute, and I'll do just about anything to get it out of her!

We're still doing well with sleeping at nite. I've continued feeding her at ten, before I go to bed, and at this point, I think it's more me being afraid of dropping it and having her wake up at 4:00 a.m. than her actually needing the feeding. She doesn't wake up and lately has barely been eating anything. After that feeding, I was putting her in her real crib in the room with Reece for the rest of the nite. But she went through a week or two where she kept waking up around 5:30-6:00 and squealing for awhile. Which is fine, but I didn't want her to wake up Reece! So I would grab her out of there and put her in the travel bed and she'd go back to sleep. So for the past few days, I've left her in the travel bed all nite to try to break her of that habit. Pretty soon she's going to have to be in the room with Reece full time, so we've got to get it all figured out!

We've also started food with her! Only rice cereal so far, and she is totally unimpressed. She gags on it and makes faces. So different from Reece, who was lunging at the spoon after her first initial bites. We'll probably try oatmeal tomorrow and see if we can get a different reaction! It's fun to have all four of us sitting at the table together, eating.

Remi is just the happiest, easy baby in the world! She is so sweet and loving, and we just couldn't be happier to have her as part of our family!

At six months, Remi likes:

- exersaucer

- smiling

- laughing

- eating

- light up seahorse

- rolling

- playing with toys

- feeling/grabbing/touching things

- watching Reece

- talking/cooing

- sleeping

- sitting

- sucking on hands

- baths/splashing feet

- grabbing/sucking on toes

- walks

- being kissed on face/mouth/neck

At six months, Remi does not like:

- binky

- bottle

- rice cereal

- being hungry

- being on tummy for too long

- being stuck in car seat for too long

- taking naps in car seat

Sweet baby girl!

.:Reece - 2 Years Old:.

Two years ago, our lives changed when our sweet Reece became a part of our family. I'm still not quite sure how two whole years have passed since then. It seems like it was just a couple of months ago we were doing her first birthday!

(Flashback photo from her first birthday)

Where would we be without our little Reecey girl? A whole lot less entertained, for one thing. I've never seen a girl with so much spunk before! Reece is contstantly on the move and on the go. Her pediatrician is always stunned by it when we bring her in. I wish I could just copy what she does all day long, because then I'm positive I could get rid of this baby weight/flab!

This is turning into a super FUN age and a super FRUSTRATING age. Maybe we'll just call it the 2F age.

Reece is hilarious. She will try to say almost any word, and she does this little tongue roll with a lot of her sounds, and it just makes us laugh everytime. (Tip: Have her say octagon for you. You won't be disappointed.) She knows SO MANY words, I won't even try to attempt writing them all down. She is getting good at communicating what she wants using simple 2-3 word sentences. That is, when she remembers not to whine. :) We're working on using words instead of whining. I think it's going to take awhile! She's really into labeling things/people, just because she loves to talk and is so proud of herself for knowing so much. And we're just as proud of her!

The way she says things is just as great. It's amazing how kids listen to parents and try to mimic tones of voice and expression. I swear, Josh has to feel like a million bucks every time he comes home from work or school. I wish I got greeted like that all the time!

Reece is turning into such a caring little girl. She is always giving us hugs and kisses - including Remi. When Remi is playing with something, Reece will take the burp cloth and wipe up Remi's drool, just like a little mommy. We go for walks every morning with my friend, and if Remi starts fussing, Reece will turn around and rub Remi's little head. It is so sweet! She also loves to share her drinks with her kitty and other stuffed animals. I love to catch her having little conversations with them and just watch her taking care of them.

We're still working on the nursery thing. She stayed in there by herself for an hour last week, so maybe we're getting somewhere. At least I know it won't last forever....(right???)

Reece is a total Daddy's girl. She loves her Mommy, too, but she is really close with her Daddy. They have such a special, sweet relationship, and it just makes my heart happy to watch the two of them together.

That all sounds like FUN, doesn't it?

Well, the only FRUSTRATING part about her age is the blooming of independence and realization that she has choices. I'm all for giving them choices, but it's interesting to see her figure out that she doesn't actually have to do what we say right away. She's definitely feeling out her boundaries. Her listening is also not the greatest. Another boundary thing as well, I'm sure. We just need to be more consistent with what our game plan is when it comes to that kind of stuff.

The FUN far outweighs the FRUSTRATING, and I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father chose me to be her mother, and us to be her parents. She's a special little girl, and I know she has wonderful things to offer this world. I can't imagine our lives without her!

At two years old, Reece likes:

- being silly

- jumping

- climbing

- laughing

- fake laughing

- running/chasing

- shoes and putting them on by herself (she usually gets the right feet, too!)

- "lips"

- lotion

- helping

- movies

- dogs/animals

- candy and all sweets

- craisins

- cereal

- baths

- books

- stickers

- coloring (especially with the whiteboard and whiteboard markers)

- her kitty and 'nite nite' (blanket)

- singing

- dancing

- showing off/getting attention

- being tickled

- washing and drying her hands

- Elmo

- Mano (Nemo)

- Frog (Princess and the Frog)

At two years Reece does not like:

- diaper changes (she has always had extremely sensitive skin, and lately the diaper rashes have been horrible, poor girl)

- being told 'no'

- not getting her way

- getting nose and face wiped (sometimes)

- shirts going on and off her head

Happy Second Birthday to our sweet girl!

.:Cousins:.

My brother Ben and his wife Sharon live in Oregon with their three boys. Luckily, Sharon's family is here in Utah, so we get to see them a bit more than we would otherwise! They were in town recently and we got to spend some time with them!

Cal, Reece, and Gray watching Ice Age

And again the second time we saw them!

Hudson and Remi

We decided to have a little naked baby photo shoot with Hudson and Remi (we missed having Jay here for it!) Remi is still a bit bigger than Hudson, but they could definitely pass for twins!

Reece peeking in on the photo shoot

Good looking kids! We had so much fun spending time with them while they were here! We only wished we all lived closer so we could do it more often!

And since Jay wasn't here for that photo shoot, we had our own little photo shoot with he and Rem this weekend. This was the best shot of the two of them.

The rest of the time, Remi was just all over in Jay's space.

.:Boise x2:.

Back in August, we headed up to Boise again to spend some time at Dani and Jefferson's. It was a much quicker trip than last time, made more difficult by the fact that Remi does not car to nap in the car anymore, but we still had a fun time. I wish Reece lived closer to ALL of her cousins!

The first day, we went to the Boise zoo. I really liked the zoo because you were really close to the animals, so it was easier for Reece to see them. It was also nice and shady which made it much more bearable as we were walking around. While we were there, this cage of monkeys was going crazy. Reece was loving it!

Reece and Andi by the elephant that sprayed water

Rem hanging out in the stroller....life of a baby

Carter, Reece and Andi having lunch

The other thing Reece couldn't get enough of was feeding the sheep and goats. That might have been the highlight of her trip!

Reece and Carter going down the slide together

We also spent some time in the backyard with the water table and the sprinklers. Reece didn't really get running through the sprinklers, but she did enjoy playing with the water table (or climbing on it as you can see from the pictures.) Josh had brought some water balloons up, so he and Jefferson were dads of the year and spent a long time filling them up for the kiddos, only to have the enormous supply depleted in about 15 minutes! Good dads!

We took a trip to the splash park one day, too. Reece was loving it! It was a nice way to spend the afternoon. While we were there, we stumbled upon some random kids fair type of thing, so we got a bunch of Otterpops and candy for the kids. Can't complain about that!

We even squoze (is that a word??) Rem into her swimsuit for our afternoon at the splash park. (That suit is 6-9 months, by the way. Healthy girl!)

I attempted to get a picture with both girls. As you can see, neither of them were interested.

We had a fun time, eating well and playing games. It's always great to get together with family!

.:Food:.

Maybe Rem is trying to tell us she's ready to start food...

And, just a cute picture of Reece because she's cute.