Addy's first haircut

Last weekend Addy got her first real (pay someone to do it!) haircut. I've trimmed her bangs in the past with mixed results and my mom has trimmed her bangs. But this time we went to Cookie Cutters. Cookie Cutters is this funny little place that has the kids sit in cars or airplanes while getting their hair cut and they can watch a movie, tv show or play a video game. They have playground equipment in the waiting area and the kids get suckers and balloons after their cut. Addy even got a fancy hairdo and princess sparkles in her hair at the end (which the gal promised would last several days. . . does she know our kid?! The hairdo was toast after one nap of hair-twirling.)

Addy did great. . . However, let it be said that she watched Curious George and perhaps didn't blink during her entire haircut. :) Hmmm. Maybe we should buy a DVD player for road trips! :)

Addy's mop before the cut. She chose to sit in a pretty pink car. Actually, I think Brad chose for her because she was overwhelmed by the place.

Addy watching Curious George.

Addy's pretty do.
After. . . my she's looking so big!

Addy playing on the playground while we waited for her 'baby's first haircut certificate' to be made.

Last night Brad and I went out on a 'date' to a concert in the park downtown. Do not picture 'Jazz in the Park' for you Denverites. This was more like a 20 something, tattoo wearing, mosh pit type concert. There were tens of thousands of people there and we took Elsie along for the adventure since she's still refusing the bottle. :) Addy stayed home with a sitter and luckily Elsie is so easy going. She hung out in the baby bjorn, ate a little, slept a little and people watched a lot. She did really well. Our next date promises to be a little more like a date. :)

Elsie is almost 3 months old and she is quite the talker. She loves playing with toys dangling in front of her and actually cried in her bouncy seat the other night until I put the toys up. Then she was happy. Good grief, my 3 month old gets bored. :) Today I took some video of her while Addy was napping and I had to take her downstairs for fear of waking Addy. Elsie has some volume to her.

July update

Where to begin. . .



I feel like I take so long to do these blog posts that by the time I get to them, I'm just reporting stats and facts. So here I go.


Addy is 22 months old already. She is SO tall that most people think she's well past 2. She's fairly shy when she meets people until she sizes them up and watches them closely. Then she chats up a storm, shows them her favorite toys and wants to play with them. She's pretty funny to watch because she is so talkative and has very amusing inflection in her voice. She loves to help with her baby sister and she is starting to show strong evidence of the months of training we've been doing. She's still a toddler who can throw a serious tantrum, but she's able to display great manners, clean up after herself and be really loving and sweet. She loves to say 'bless you' when someone sneezes and has started saying 'you're welcome' back to someone who says it to her. :) She's quite a piece of work.





Elsie Mae (aka Mae Mae, Mee Mee, Mee Mee Cakes and Elsie Mae Mae) is almost 3 months old already. She's growing like a weed and she loves to be held and talked to. She has a beautiful smile and she is coo-ing and 'talking' like crazy. At about 2 1/2 mo old we went in for her 2 mo check-up and she weighed 11 lbs 15 oz (75%) and was 24.5 inch long (95%). I can't remember her head circumference but her head was in the 50%. I'm not sure why we have such tall kids but like their Mama, they have tiny heads. :)



Something else we found out last week is that both our girls are tongue-tied. They are not very severe, but they do have heart shaped tongues and are unable to lift their tongues to the roof of their mouth. Finding this out has explained so much: why, as babies. they can't drink out of bottles, why my milk supply drops so fast, why they have lip blisters on their top lip, why they can't seem to stay latched on when they nurse and why they spit up so much. I'm a little irritated that pediatricians and hospital staff don't look for this condition and give moms a heads up so they can get it fixed earlier. It's actually a type of birth defect where the little part that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth doesn't recede enough in the womb. It's genetic and clusters in families. We're not exactly sure who in the family before the girls had it. There are no nerve endings in that part of the mouth and having it too tight can cause all sorts of problems. The lactation lady we met with confirmed the problem in about 10 seconds. Anyway, we got it clipped in Elsie last Friday morning. She did really well with the procedure and stopped crying as soon as I picked her back up. She started crying again when I put her in the stroller but as long as Addy held her hand, she stopped crying. Such sweet sister love!



Apparently it was a big deal for Elsie to have her tongue so tight. She has been playing with her tongue a lot more (we always wondered why Addy never really stuck her tongue out or made all those baby tongue noises babies are supposed to make) and miracle of all miracles. . . she drank 3 oz out of a bottle last night!!! This is a really big deal since Addy never did it and Elsie was well on her way to not taking a bottle either. Brad said she was sucking so hard on the bottle that it was bobbing up and down in her mouth! I'm so pleased we were able to get this fixed in Elsie and that it seems to be helping her.


Anyway, she is happy, healthy and so darn cute! And she slept 9 hours last night!!! Mama is happy too.

I've attached a couple of slide shows from the last few weeks. The girls and I spent a week in Gunnison with my parents while Brad was working in Denver and we returned to SLC in time for the 4th of July celebration in our neighborhood. In Gunnison I enjoyed having help with the girls, not having to cook and having good adult conversation. The girls enjoyed the special attention from Ba & Ma and getting to play outside a lot (once the mosquitoes died down a bit!).

A funny thing happened at our 4th of July neighborhood pancake breakfast. . . I recognized one of the fireman that was going to drive the fire truck in the parade after breakfast but I didn't know why. Brad knew right away, he was one of the guys who came to our house in the ambulance when Elsie was born. Actually, 2 of the fireman at the breakfast had been to our house but I only recognized one of them at first. I went over to talk to them and to show them Elsie Mae. They got a kick out of that! Elsie Mae continues to be the talk of the neighbors because she was born at home and it seems any time we go to a neighborhood function, the story must be told. :)