St. Patrick's Day

Well, we had a fun meal here at the Amey house, although I'm not sure it could be called "Irish" in any way! Here was my menu:

Chicken "Paddy" sandwiches with shamrock garnish (green pepper)

Rainbow Salad - RED strawberries, mandarin ORANGEs, YELLOW bananas, GREEN grapes and BLUEberries

Pot o' Gold (corn)

Leprechaun Fizz - rainbow sherbet with 7-up

For dessert, I made mint chocolate chip cookies using semi-sweet chocolate chips and GREEN mint chips which I purchased in Wichita, Kansas at the Nifty Nuthouse. If you're ever in the area, it's a neat place to stop and find a treat.

When I was discussing my menu plans with Ben, I asked him if he could think of anything that was an "Irish" food. His suggestion:

It made me laugh so I thought I'd share :)

The Many Faces of Wyatt

Some pictures of both kiddos taken in the past few weeks...

Mr. Smiley!

Happy to play with toys

Picturing Mr. Burns from The Simpsons here... Excellent!

Happy with Dad

Concentrating

Sharing a swing with cousin David

The Many Faces of Lila

Monkey face??

Cheese!

At the park

Enjoying chocolate cake and ice cream (takes after Mommy!)

Wearing Daddy's boots

Riding a "bike" at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Five Months

No stats this month, just pictures. Wyatt is a pro at rolling over. He's also a drooling king - no sign of teeth though. Unfortunately, he's still not sleeping the greatest at night. For some reason, he likes to wake up around 1 or 2 a.m. and just be awake. Not on his own, of course. If he was content to just be awake in his crib, we wouldn't have a problem really. No, he likes either my or Ben's company. Usually Ben gets up with him (I have a great hubby!). After about an hour, he's ready to go back to bed. Then he'll wake up again around 4 or 5 wanting to eat. Anyone have any suggestions on how we can get him to sleep longer? We've tried letting him cry, but he is stubborn and will cry for a long time! Plus he is just a short way down the hall from his sister, who we want to keep asleep. So we're open to suggestions. On the bright side, he takes good naps for me during the day and is usually a very happy little guy for us. Here's the comparison shots.

Lila

Wyatt

Lila

Wyatt

Sesame Street Live

Here are some pictures from our trip to see Elmo and Friends live at the Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie a couple weeks ago. My camera batteries died shortly after we got there, but I'm not sure I would have gotten great pictures anyway. It was dark in the theater. Lila was entranced and watched silently the whole time -- after the first couple minutes when she had her face buried in my shoulder, that is! There was a little girl in the row in front of us who was jumping up and dancing during all the songs. Lila finally clapped along toward the end. The next day she was retelling some of the story, so I know she was listening and having a good time, just in her own quiet way.

My sister went along with us so she might have some better pictures... and she might even post some on her blog (hint, hint). It was a good time. Just about every character from Sesame Street made an appearance. The show was about 1.5 hours with a 15 minute intermission. During the intermission, two men came in with HUGE bouquets of Elmo helium balloons. Pretty soon there were little Elmo heads floating everywhere (I'd have taken a picture but by then the camera had died). Shortly after that, there were a few Elmo heads floating to the ceiling :) Thankfully, Big Bird came on over the loudspeaker and asked everyone to stow their balloons below their seats for the second part of the show so we could see. We did not get an Elmo balloon... they were $10 bucks! We actually managed to leave without buying any merchandise.

On the way to the theater with little Elmo in tow. (I made sure we brought him in case Lila asked for an Elmo they were selling. I wanted to be able to say "you have Elmo in the car." But she didn't ask for anything, yay!)

Keeping her eyes on the stage, looking for Elmo.

Family pic

What the stage looked like before the show started.

Happy Birthday Ben!

February Developments

It's been awhile, or at least it feels like it's been awhile since I posted an update on what's happening here. Lila is back to loving her bath time! The bath paint really did the trick because it got her in the tub and focused on painting, not her fear. After the first time with her diaper on, the next few times I let her keep her diaper on but then said I was going to take it off to wash her bottom right before she got out and she was fine with that. Then the next time I told her she couldn't wear a clean diaper in the tub (since she had just gone potty on the toilet) so she got in without one, but still wanted to stand up. Then the next time I said "if you sit down, you could paint your rubber duckies" and she sat right down! Since then, we have had some baths where we don't even use the paint. Yay!

I also quit fighting her on nap time because no matter what I tried, she either didn't fall asleep or didn't stay in bed. So finally I decided maybe she didn't need a nap anymore but she needed to have "room time". She has been very content to stay in her room until the timer beeps (usually 2 hours) and a few times this week I have checked on her and she has fallen asleep on her own! Wyatt is starting to take longer naps during the day, too.

His night-time sleep is still not great, but we are working on it. We moved him away from Lila's room so we can let him cry a bit more before we go get him. I am hopeful that by next week he will be much better at putting himself to sleep. He is sleeping on his tummy now; I was hoping that would help him not wake up so much at night but it doesn't seem to have changed anything. Time will tell.

As far as developments go, he is rolling over like a pro now. He rolls very easily from his back to his tummy. He's also reaching for things, drooling a lot, and can focus on things farther away (like Lila). Still smiling all the time too. Here's some pictures.

Lila reading a book to Wyatt.

Reaching for toys.

Wyatt almost always rolls on to his tummy now if I lay him down.

I took this picture today. It is so nice here and earlier Lila was outside playing. She pulled her wagon out to give rides to Elmo, Cookie Monster and Ernie - then couldn't resist getting in herself!