Dolls

We have officially reached the doll stage with Meredith. Every day, Meredith plays with her dollies and dresses them up. She then puts them in all the places we put the baby. I spend all my time unstrapping dolls from the car seat, bouncy, and the swing. I'm just hoping that she never gets to the American Girl doll stage because I do not want to spend that kind of money on a doll. Many of her dolls are second hand right now. Whenever I see a nice clean Cabbage Patch doll at the thrift store for $2.99, I pick it up for her. I can't fathom spending $100+. Ack. I hope that day doesn't come.

We just visited Santa today and Meredith told him she wanted an Easy Bake Oven and some dollies she can dress. She also asked us why Santa has claws. That made me laugh.

For your entertainment, I took all these pictures on the same night after Meredith went to bed.

Yes, Meredith buckled the dolly into the car seat herself.

Elmo gets dolly treatment in our house.

The Exersaucer gets some love.

And the Bumbo.

And the swing.

And finally, the play gym. And yes, Elmo is wearing a dress.

Ice Skating

It's that time of year again...time for skating! We decided to put Meredith in skating lessons again this year. We had the intent of enrolling her in the same class she finished up with last year but she accidentally got enrolled in one level up (which is a class intended for ages 5+). She did fabulous! Look at all those bigger kids she skates with and she keeps up and is better than 3/4 of the other kids in the class :-) She is the little one in the black helmet and pink GAP hoodie below. She even skates all by herself in the practice area after each lesson. I actually had to bribe her with Halloween candy to get off the ice last week and she scolded me for putting my foot on the ice without skates.

I think she might be ready to start mites hockey next fall.

Check out the video below. They are practicing jumping. She is the one on the far left in the pink GAP hoodie.

Look how happy she is after she is done :-)

Happy Halloween!

This year Meredith chose to be a witch for Halloween. Ironically, her best friend from next door chose to be a witch too and neither of them knew about it until they discussed it. We went trick-or-treating with them last year and it was so fun to see the girls transform from itty bittys who didn't even know how to trick-or-treat to two girls who run from door to door and giggle and take turns ringing doorbells. It was so adorable.

As much as we want to move, living in a townhouse has a lot of advantages on Halloween. You can cover way more ground in a lot less time with going from house to house. And our neighborhood has lots of kids so we had lots and lots of trick-or-treaters. It's kind of fun to watch the progression of 3-6 year olds from 5:30 - 7:00 and then the older kids up to teenagers who don't even wear costumes from 8:00 - 9:00. Shouldn't costumes be mandatory if you're trick-or-treating? I don't mind the teenagers looking for candy, but put a costume on already.

Here are a couple pictures of Meredith and her friend.

And sweet, little Anna. She didn't have a costume, but she had a great outfit.

And just for kicks,this is a picture of Meredith when she was the same age as Anna. I think they look so similar.

Welcome Bowen Dean Schwake!

Congrats to my brother Ben and my sister-in-law Angie on the birth of Bowen! He's a little cutie :-)

That's me with my new nephew and new hair color.
Cousins (Meredith refused to get on the bed for a picture - I just LOVE the disagreeable stage she's going through now). Look how big a baby grows in just 3 months. Anna looks huge and I can't remember her being so tiny.

Ben and Angie checking out a baby of the bigger variety.

Grandpa and the girls. I had to threaten Meredith in order to get this picture.

Random cute pictures

I just thought I'd add a few more random, but cute pictures.

I'm impressed at the meal I have made for her in this picture.

Emma Krumbee's

Last Saturday we headed down to Emma Krumbee's in Belle Plaine. For the fourth year in a row, it was a glorious day to spend there. There's so much to do and Meredith loves it.

All these pictures are going to be of Meredith. I don't think I took a single one of Anna. She was sleeping the whole time.

They have this giant hay stack that you can climb. Mer loved doing this but she managed to get hay all over in her pants and down her underwear. She couldn't even walk without it poking her. I had to take her into the ladies room and take off her pants to get all the hay out of her butt crack.

Then, they have a track where you can ride these John Deere trikes.
Here she is swinging on the tire horses.
Oh, and the music tent. Picture a 70-year-old man playing the saxophone, piano, etc. and singing kids songs. All the kiddos get to get up on stage and take tamborines, bells, sticks, maracas, etc. and play along. I'm pretty sure we were in the music tent for 45 minutes. Kids would come and go and there was Meredith still up on stage.

Mer took a ride on the barrel train.
If you've never been to Emma Krumbee's, they do a scarecrow festival every fall. People create 'scarecrows' and they are all on display throughout the grounds. I think this one was my fave.

Things that excite me now

You know you're deep into mommyhood when diapers and highchairs excite you. Heck, I'm still on this high about cloth diapering. I LOVE it. I really wish I had done this with Meredith. I can't ever imagine putting a disposable diaper on my baby again. That's how much I love it. I even ordered Meredith some overnight pocket trainers that pull up like underwear to use instead of pull-ups (she still wets at night). As long as I'm doing diaper laundry twice/week, I figured that I might as well get Meredith in cloth at night and quit wasting money on disposables. I figure I'll get back my investment on the trainers in about 7 months and Anna can use them when she's older.

We don't really need any more diaper supplies for Anna, but Best Bottoms just came out with a new color and a new print. I had just had to get them and my purple and owl diapers arrived in the mail today. I love them!

I recently got a new highchair as well. We used the Fisher Price Spacesaver with Meredith and we hated that thing. It hogged up a whole chair. It was a pain in the rear to move around on our heavy chairs. And worst of all, the side handles on it made it so you couldn't push it up to the table to use as a booster. We made the decision long ago that we would not be using it again and we were going to invest in a new highchair. I was going to get a traditional highchair but then I started reading about Svan highchairs and I got hooked. They adjust up and down, and back and forth. The tray and infant seat come off and it turns into a toddler chair that can be pushed up to a table and it can be adjusted as your child grows. What a genius idea! And have I mentioned how small this is? It's tiny and takes up very little space. The only problem is they retail for $340. I wasn't about to spend that much but I was able to hunt one down on Craigslist and I got this pretty little thing for $110. I can't wait to use it. I really hope I like it because I'm stuck with it now. I'm not too worried though because all the reviews of this highchair rave about it.

Swimming Lessons

We recently started Meredith back up in swimming lessons. She has taken a few sessions at the YMCA but we dropped our membership there a few months ago. It was nice, but we just didn't get our money's worth out of it. That left us three options for swimming lessons. 1. $200+ for an 8 week session at the Wise Swim School. 2. $90 for a 7 or 8 week session (can't remember) for the non-member rate at the YMCA. 3. $56 for an 8 week session through the school district 196.

That was really a no brainer so every Saturday, we go to Scott Highlands Middle School for her swimming lessons. She's in the second level of their Aqua Tots program. They only have 4 participants in each session and 2 instructors. We figured we'd test it out to see what we thought. So far, it seems to be a pretty good program. I'd love for Meredith to be able to be comfortable in the water by herself next summer.

She smiles!

Smiling is something every mommy and daddy look forward to when they have a newborn. She started smiling around 6 weeks old. And I guess she's not a newborn anymore. She's just a regular baby now. I now notice other newborns that are smaller and younger than Anna (like at Target yesterday). Ack. They grow so fast.

Cloth Diapering

I've been meaning to write a post on how the cloth diapering is going. I remember back to when I was tossing around the idea of cloth diapering. I was traveling a lot back then so I spent hours and hours in my hotel room researching the benefits and different ways of cloth diapering. When I made the decision that I wanted to cloth diaper, it was February and I was in Nashville. I came home and I told Greg all about what I wanted to do. I hadn't mentioned anything to him prior to that.

Cloth diapering has come a long way in the last 10 years. There are so many options and different types of cloth diapers out there to choose from. The diapers I decided to use are called Best Bottom diapers. It's a diapering system that consists of using a waterproof shell with snap-in soaker pads. The waterproof shell is one-size. It has snaps that adjust the length of it so it can fit your baby from birth to potty training. The shells can be reused before washing as long as they haven't been soiled. When I change Anna, I just unsnap the soaker pad and snap a new one in and put it on her. Dirty diapers get stored in a waterproof/leakproof zippered wet bag that gets tossed in the wash on laundry day. I usually wash diapers every third day.

I never knew this until I started researching cloth diapers but cloth diapers rarely leak! They contain even the runniest newborn poops. Anna is almost 8 weeks old and I have yet to have a pee leak and I have had just one small poop leak out the leg thus far. When we used disposables on Meredith, we were constantly battling blowouts up the back and out the legs and having to change her cloths almost on a daily basis. Honestly, it's a night and day difference.

I've had a few challenges with learning how to properly clean them. There are so many factors that play into cleaning diapers such as the kind of water you have, the kind of washing machine you have, and the kind of detergent you use. I battled some ammonia smell issues recently so I have really gotten to know our washer in the last two weeks (which is good because we paid a lot of money for a nice machine so it's best I know how to use it). I've had to do a lot of experimenting with different cycles, rinses, detergents, etc. I think I've got it perfected though and we aren't having any more stinky issues. Her diapers smell clean and fresh all the time.

It was an investment up front (but not as much as I would pay for disposables for 2.5 - 3 years) and assuming they are in good condition when we potty train, I can resell these for 40-60% of what I paid for them new. There is a good resale market for cloth diapers.

I am so happy with my decision to cloth diaper this time around. It really is easy and I enjoy it too. I love that I am not clogging landfills with diapers. Knowing the benefits of cloth, it makes me feel so good to put cloth on Anna's bum instead of disposables. Plus, they come in all sorts of fun colors and prints and they are oh-so-cute! I am happy with how the Best Bottom brand of diapers are working for us so far.

This is the outside of the waterproof shell. You can see all the snaps to customize the fit.

This is the inside of the shell and a soaker pad.

This is the inside of the waterproof shell with a soaker pad attached.

Here is a close up of the waterproof lining.

And here is the cute model. Cloth diapers are sooooo cute!

Chuck E. Cheese

This year with a brand new baby, a small house that isn't condusive to entertaining, and not wanting to plan for a party, we looked for options that required minimal thought to have a party. That's where we came up with Chuck E. Cheese. It was perfect. Kids love it! And to be honest, it didn't cost us much more than it would have to just have the party at a park and buy all of our own food.

Mer really had a good time. I'm glad it worked out so well. We may have to consider doing it there again in the future!

This was my big 'Mom Fail' moment. What kind of mother only puts three birthday candles on the cake when their child is turning four???

She got a lot of Hello Kitty which was good. She loves Hello Kitty. And I love it too. My influence might have slightly rubbed off on her. I love how the things I loved as a child are still around.