Potty Time

Well - I will have to say that generally, I do not take well to being woken up in the middle of the night. But last night was the exception. Lydia was really restless last night - she even woke up three different times between 7:00 - 11:00 p.m. (very unusual for her). But, she woke up again at 4:00 a.m. She was screaming "Mommy" through the monitor so I went in to check on her. She immediately asked me to pick her up and told me she needed to go potty. This has happened before, but I went through the routine. Usually, when we get to the bathroom, she tells me "no". But last night, she let me put her potty seat on the toilet, take off her pajamas, and take off her diaper. Then, I set her on the toilet and sat down on the floor to wait. She usually just tells me that she wants down. But then, to my amazement, she actually went potty! I almost did a little dance right in the bathroom at 4:00 a.m.! Of course, I have been promising her a surprise if she went potty in the toilet, and I couldn't disappoint. So, down to the kitchen we went to get a couple of M&Ms. Then, she needed water. By the time she was back in bed, it was 4:30 a.m. But I was so excited! We will see if she will continue to tell me when she needs to go potty, but we had our first success! Yeah!

Here is a picture of Lydia and Hannah from a couple of nights ago! Lydia is really enjoying "holding" her baby sister - she loves to play Mommy! Have a great weekend!

 

First Allergic Reaction

 

Today has been an interesting day! First of all, we have a new cousin in our family. Chase Howell Rieke was born at 9:31 a.m. this morning. He is the newest addition to Brian's sister's (Brooke) family. They already have one little boy - Blake - who is 6 weeks younger than Lydia. Lydia can't wait to go and meet her new cousin!

Also, I have a funny Lydia story to share from earlier today. Lydia has a little play kitchen that she loves to play with. She knows that the oven in the real kitchen is hot and that she isn't supposed to touch it (even though she loves to try to when Mom isn't looking). But her play oven has turned into a bedroom for her bears. Earlier this morning, she put Hamley in the oven and told him "Night-night Hamley." About half an hour later, Lydia was looking for Hamley, and I told her to look in his "bed." She went straight to the oven and opened it up. I asked her if Hamley was still night-night to which she matter-of-factly replied, "No Mommy, Hamley (is) hot." Of course, I should have known!

Then, at lunch today, I gave Lydia a little bit of ranch dressing to dip her ravioli in. She loves anything that she can dip her food into. She also had ranch dressing on Friday evening, and she got some red blotches around her mouth when she ate it on Friday. But I assumed that it was just a minor skin irritation. But guess what - she had the same reaction today when she ate the ranch dressing. I called the doctor's office, and the nurse told me that she was probably allergic to some preservative in the ranch dressing. At least she only had a skin irritation and no wheezing or other breathing reaction. Let's hope that this isn't a new trend - but we will be avoiding ranch dressing from now on! :)

Hello World

 

Hannah turned five months old last Thursday. How time flies! I took her to the Mommy & Me store at Shawnee Mission Medical Center to get her "official" weight. She is 15 pounds 14 ounces - she gained an entire pound from her 4-month appointment! She definitely likes to eat - I jokingly call her my "chunky monkey." She is getting closer to rolling over. She will now roll to either side but not all the way over - I am not convinced that she will roll over. She is such a laid back baby that she is just content being exactly where she is placed. Oh well - no rolling means it will be easier for me to keep her contained (at least until she starts to crawl)!

I Like Poop

Okay - so I apologize for the title, but that has been my life lately. Let's just say that Hannah used to be like clockwork. She pooped once every four days for the first four months of her life - it wasn't pretty when she did but that was her routine. However, over the past two weeks, she poops almost every time I change her diaper. I can't figure it out. But today, when we got home from Kindermusik, I was changing Hannah's diaper - expecting the expected poop. However, it was just a wet diaper. I must have smiled really big at her and said "Amazing!" and Hannah just started giggling. It was so cute. I kept saying the word "amazing" and of course, Lydia began to chime in, and Hannah just kept laughing. It was a good way to start the afternoon!

 

I Love Bob

Today, Lydia and I went to her Kindermusik class. She has definitely started looking forward to the class each week. She has a favorite song that she can't wait to sing each week. But the best part of the class for her is at the end - if she was good in class, she gets a stamp on her hand. They have a different stamp each week. Today, the stamp was a happy face. Lydia was so good today that the teacher gave her a stamp on both hands - she was so excited. But the funniest part of the whole class was as we were leaving, Lydia looked at me and said "Mommy - two Bobs!" At first, I was confused. But then I realized that she thought that the round circle with the face inside looked like Bob the Tomato from Veggie Tales. Lydia has not watched any Veggie Tales videos, but she loves a Veggie Tale book that we have called "God Made You Special." Anyway, she thought that the teacher had given her two "Bob" stamps! I am pretty sure that will be the highlight of Lydia's day! Here is a picture before we left for Kindermusik!

 

First Day

Today was a big day in the Howell household. Lydia had her first day of "school." This year, Lydia is enrolled in a Children's Day Out program on Thursdays at Lenexa United Methodist Church. I guess I was expecting her to be somewhat upset leaving Mommy but no such luck. She walked right into the classroom without even telling me goodbye. I guess I should be relieved that no tears were shed! :) Here are two pictures that we took before we left this morning. Enjoy!

 

 

Powerful Video

So I decided that I had to share this link to a You Tube video that a gal from our small group sent to me yesterday. It is a really powerful dramatization by Nicole Johnson. She is the dramatist for the Women of Faith conferences that are held throughout the country. It definitely helped put into perspective the "invisibility" tha I sometimes feel - I am building a great cathedral for Him to take up residence in. May Lydia and Hannah be a living monument to Him and Him alone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YU0aNAHXP0

Swingset Debut

I thought that you might enjoy a few more pictures of Lydia from last night on the swingset. She absolutely loves it - you can tell by all of her smiles. You might also see Hamley joining her in several of the pictures - she is quite attached to him.

 

 

 

 

I also have a funny Lydia story to share from last night. Lydia started a Kindermusik class two weeks ago, and it has taken her a couple of weeks to really warm up to the class. But there is a little song that we sing that goes:
The carpenter's hammer goes rap, rap, rap
And his saw goes see, saw, see
He hammers and hammers and saws and saws
And builds a house for me.
She loves to make the actions for the hammer and the saw, and we were having fun singing together last night. However, at the end of the song, where it says "And builds a house for me", I pointed to myself. However, Lydia took one look at me and very seriously said, "No Mommy, I'm me!" Such is our life right now! :)

Labor Days

Well, we managed to have a crazy Labor Day weekend, but it was definitely a lot of fun! I thought that I would post several pictures of what has been happening at our house over the last few days for you to enjoy!

 

On Friday night, we went to Lawrence to have dinner with Brian's aunt, Jane, and his cousins, Steven and Daniel. Steven is married to Sara, and they have a little baby Jacob. Jacob is on the left in this picture. He was born on May 9th, 2008 (so just about a month after Hannah). But he was also born at 29 weeks so he was tiny when he was born. He spent several weeks in the NICU and is now almost 7 1/2 pounds. You can tell how small he is compared to Lydia and to Hannah! Daniel is married to Rebecca, and they are expecting a baby at the end of October. We had a lot of fun catching up with all of them over yummy enchiladas that Steve made for us. We hope to do it again soon!

 

The next picture is the task that took up most of our weekend. We managed to put the finishing touches on Lydia's new swingset (thanks in large part to Brian). We stained the swingset, put on the tarp, reinstalled the fort panels, and replaced the swings. As you can tell, Lydia has been in absolute heaven all weekend - especially when her swing went up! We spent several hours swinging this weekend - I am sure it is only a prelude of the many weeks ahead!

 

On Sunday night, we had a picnic with our small group at Robert and Krystal's house. As you can tell from the picture, Hannah was definitely a hit! She loved all of the attention and all of the extra hugs and kisses! The kids had a blast playing outside!

 

I thought I would add this picture as well. This is a picture of Lydia's bear, Hamley, eating lunch. Lydia is really into having all of her animals eat lunch too. In fact, today I had to insist that human food was poisonous to bears in order to get Lydia to eat her lunch. She is so generous that she just wanted to use her food to feed her bears. :) But it was a battle to get her to eat her lunch. We will see if this trend continues! Have a great week!