Third week of gymnastics

An
Ansley's the one in the red shirt.

So this was the third week of gymnastics and Ansley is absolutely loving it! I love watching her from the second floor window and seeing how she interacts without me around. She is very obedient and listens well to her teacher's instructions. And she looks so darn cute skipping around the floor to her little carpet square. Today's three rotations included rolling down the wedge, walking on the balance beam, and jumping on the trampoline. At the very end, the kids all came together and got to play with the parachute (I that's what it is). I think that was by far the favorite.

Ansley always makes me laugh because when we get there, we go upstairs to the room where the parents watch and when her teacher comes to get her, Ansley doesn't even say bye or look back at me. She just runs right to the door, where they enter a slide to get down to the floor. She totally forgets about me even being there. And every week she cries when it's time to leave "nastics" and she calls it. It's such a joy watching her have so much fun.

PS: Try to ignore the talking in the background and the reflection in the glass. That was me trying to keep Heidi quiet in her carseat.

Aggie gameday

Sunday was A&M's first football game of the season, so we packed up the girls and headed to campus to let them experience the Corps and band. Ansley has been every year, but I was so excited for her to go now because she is finally old enough to get excited about it all. And Heidi looked so cute just hanging out in her stroller in her first Texas A&M shirt. We headed home after watching the cannon fire and the band step off to watch the game at our house, but apparently a bad fire burned some of the cables of our internet and cable provider and I was told that it would be late that night or the next morning before it was repaired. That meant no Aggie football for me and I was so bummed since I love watching football and I had been excited for such a long time about getting the girls in bed and curling up with a blanket on my couch to watch. We turned it on the radio instead and finally during halftime the TV clicked on and we got to watch the Aggies win!

I couldn't believe how many people were on campus since it was the first game and was against SMU. There is always such an exciting energy on game days in this town, but I think it was even better because of the excitement surrounding our possible joining of the SEC and the ranking of our football team. It's funny, but I sometimes get so caught up in the day to day of raising babies that I forget we live in the same town as our beloved university. Football weekends are a big deal around here and I can't wait until the next!

4 Months

Heidi,

You're 4 months! Here are some of the things I love most about you these days:
-You absolutely adore your sister. Your sweet little eyes light up when you see her and you get a huge grin to show off your little dimple. She's also the only one you find funny enough to laugh.
-You have settled into a very predictable routine and that is making nighttime a lot easier. You usually go to bed around 8:00 and wake around 1:30 and 4:30 to eat. Then, you'll go back to sleep until around 7:30 or 8:00.
-I love your sweet little rolls and soft skin.
-I think you're taking after me in terms of your size. At your 4 month appointment you were 13 lbs, 12 oz and 50th percentile for height and weight. You wear anything from 0-3 months to 3-6 months.
-You have decided your swing is not so bad and will nap in it when you get fussy.
-Your big blue eyes that are the exact same color as Ansley's.

I love you, sweet Heidi Reese. What a precious gift you are to our family.

1st day of gymnastics & Heidi's laugh

And one more of Heidi...

Photo catch up

Potty Time, Day 1

Today we started potty training Ansley. Thank goodness my sister was here with me to help with Heidi since Ansley got every little bit of attention and energy I had. I have laughed harder at her today than ever and she has almost brought me to tears, too.

This morning I woke Ansley and brought her to the living room with her potty, sat her down in front of the cartoons with a cup of milk, and told her to stay there until she went. It only took a few minutes and then Mandy and I practically jumped up and down and praised her to the extreme. We emptied her potty into the big one, let her flush it, and she picked out a prize. I started with setting the timer for every 30 minutes for her to sit on the potty, but we pumped her so full of juice that she had a couple of accidents and I decided to do it every 15 minutes. A couple more accidents later I decided to go with 10 minutes and then got really discouraged. I did the math and realized that if she kept that up, we would sit on the potty 72 times a day. So, we slowed way down on the juice. For her nap, I put these plastic panty type things over her panties thinking those would keep her bed dry, but they didn't work. I woke her and she was soaking wet, so we're going with pull-ups during naps and diapers at night I think. We'll work on the naps and night time when she gets the day time training down. She did not have any accidents after her nap and was happy to sit on her potty as long as she got candy as a reward. I had Jeff stop and get Skittles on his way home so I could give her one little piece each time.

Like I said above, we have laughed so hard at her today. Here are some of the funny things she's said:
-"Here it comes!"
-"No! Don't say that!" - to Mandy when she asked if Ansley wanted to sit on her potty
-"No, I just want to hang out." - to me when I asked if she wanted to sit on her potty

I'm sure there will be many more funny phrases to come.

So, for day one, she went about 15 times on the potty and only had 5 accidents. I'm pretty proud of her!