Twins

Aren't they cute, my little twins! Tanta Kat and Holly in there Matching 99 Luft Balloons t-shirts from Threadless, and I swear I didn't buy these when Holly was only 3 months old and have to wait over a year before I could put them to use.I love her in those little red tights I think it totally makes the outfit pop. Too bad I couldn't get Tanta Kat to wear a bright red matching skirt too. Here is my little rascal at the Farmer's Market.She loves strawberries it is like her new thing. We stopped there a few weeks ago and picked up a bunch of Strawberries, the famous Sarah's Pies (yum yum) and two boxes of fresh tortellini and yummy Garlic Cheese Spread.I am totally addicted to that cheese stuff, it doesn't last in the house very long I should have known better and picked up more then one container's worth.In fact that was my plan when I called Isabel last week to see if she wanted to join us there after the Albany Library Music Circle. She had to be the bearer of sad news, the Market was closed until next spring. So Sad.I was very disappointed. On the day pictured here, Holly got hungry in the car on the way home and she literally ate about 20 strawberries, it was the first time in a while she had really chowed down on them and she kept asking for more.Since I couldn't go to the farmer's market I picked some up at Trader Joe's but it was a little basket for like $4.99 they were gone in like a day and a half. So then the other day we were driving and what do I see?A woman selling strawberries on the side of the road, they were only selling like an entire vat of them, I think the equivalent of 12 of those baskets, but the box only cost 10$ so off we went with a million strawberries.We were eating them aggressively so they wouldn't go bad, Holly had them with her yogurt for breakfast, as a snack after lunch and a few times for desert after dinner. Joel even made me waffles for dinner one night with strawberries to use up the last of them, I had to gently twist his arm, but breakfast for dinner that night was so so yummy.Here Holly is hanging around the house, I think it was a night Kat was babysitting for us. Earlier in the day when she was still wearing the tights she put her "Holly" bag on as a little hat and she was the cutest little thing I have ever seen, it took my breath away.Alas, I couldn't get a picture of it, but she did it again that evening, so you get the idea. She wandered around all night with her hat on. She is such a silly girl, its like the red bucket she wears at Chloe's. She certainly has her own fashion sense. Maybe one day she will be on Project Runway.

Pirate Cove

This week we had a playdate scheduled in Union City at a place called pirate Cove Park. As you can see the little park is shaped like a Pirate Ship. What was nice about this park was that the ground was that soft rubbery stuff rather then sand, dirt, or wood chips.

It was a pretty warm day here in Berkeley and Holly was wearing one of her new Spring /Easter Dresses. But by the time we got to the park, even though it was very sunny the wind was blowing strong, so i put some tights and a sweater on her. Also I had to make sure she had her sun hat, because even though it felt chilly by now, the sun was high in the sky and I didn't want her little noggin to get burned.

We left home around 10:30 for a Noon plat date because I was planning on stopping at two different locations to pick up Craigslist items down near there. We found the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Superstar stage, which she loves for only 15$ an it normally retails for about 45$ She has played with this at Chloe's and loves the little mirror, will play the music and then kiss herself. Some might find it annoying but it continues to play songs sporadically for several minutes which she really likes and also re-engages her if she has wondered away from the toy.

The other item we picked up was a "Learning Computer" I haven't really busted it out yet, but found it at target for 41$ and we got it for 104 What is neat about it is it is a little Baby KeyBoard with shapes and some large Letter Buttons that fits on top of a normal grown-up keyboard. it domes with a CD with games on it, but mostly I wanted it for the keyboard. using it, Joel can figure out how it activates the keys below and then he can write his own computer games for Holly. So While it might be fun in its own right, in a little bit when she is old enough for it, it can be a prototype for Daddy games too.

We ended up arriving at the park a little late, it was about 12:20. Holly was supposed to nap in the car on the way up from 10:30-12:00 but she woke up late, around 9:00 and she refused to fall asleep. She also didn't want to drink her bottle with Motrin. Each time i stopped at a different location I would give it to her and she would drink a few sips or maybe an ounce and then push it away. For the most part she was content in the carseat and "rested" but never fell asleep.

The park had some neat climbing structures and a slide that I was able to put her on and hold her as she slide down, and that she tried to climb back up.

It also had a large area for her to crawl around and a few places where she could pull up, but overall it was not super "baby" friendly. the ship itself has a lot of openings on the platform, so while I followed her and let her climb up, there were gaping wholes she could have leaned back and fell through, so I didn't really let her stay up there and she couldn't really explore or wander on her own.

Then back on the floor there were a few non safe items like the end of a broken balloon which she picked up and I was able to take from her just before she put it in her mouth, so I had to watch her like a hawk and be at her side every second, which isn't her favorite thing. She likes the freedom to explore.

But I think for me the worst part of the day is that non of the other mom's showed up. 3 other's RSVP'd yes and then there were 3 maybe's In the post we talked about sitting in the grass on a blanket with the other babies and letting the older kids play. I think with the distraction of other kids she would have had more fun and not been so intent on exploring in ways that was not safe. But I was there from 12:20 - 1:10 and then left. Maybe they arrived earlier and left because it was so windy, or maybe they were all really late. But I was the only one in the park.

I got some cute pictures, but having to be just around the corner anyway to pick up the craigslist items made it worth it, it wouldn't have been worth the drive for just this park. Though I imagine when she is older things like the bars and peep hole and climbing wall and twisty slide will be a lot of fun.

Mid Week Updates

This past weekend was pretty busy. We had some friends, Tony and Tara visiting from out of town, here for GDC and scoping out the area in hopes to maybe move here. We met them in the afternoon and went to a cool SciFi bookstore called Dark Carnival. After we went to down town Berkeley, walked around checked out a comic book store and got some Gelato.



Later we met some mutual friends. Mike, Diana, and little Otter over at our house and we had dinner in. Joel loves to cook for friends and it is so fun to have people over for dinner. Especially when they have a baby for Holly to play with! Earlier in the day Holly and I went shopping at Costco to get some dinner supplies. I found some fresh salmon for 12$ and it was enough to feed 6 people, large portions (normally in a restaurant for 12$ each) Joel had just read in his Cook's Illustrated magazine some tips on how to keep it from sticking to the grill, and it worked like a charm. Everyone loved it. He also made some potatoes and asparagus from our veggie box and threw on some chick for me and a few Garlic Chicken Sausages for everyone to snack on.



I love Costco, when you can buy in bulk for some things you get amazing prices, and while for just the two of us, it would have been a waist, for a small gathering it was perfect. We also get fresh chicken breasts in bulk there and Joel will prepare some dinners and freeze them, for easy access later in the week. I also picked up some wine, which was a good deal and everyone enjoyed that. Holly and Otter hung out for a bit. He is only 4 months old, but a hit of the visit was getting to weigh him on our scale. He was hear about 3 weeks ago and gained 1.5 lbs topping out at 16.5 lbs, only 2.5 lbs lighter then Holly and she is a year old. He liked hanging in her little nest, and we tried him in the little red chair which he liked last time, but with the added bulk of his cloth diaper, he is too big for it now.. Its amazing.On Sunday we ran some errands and cleaned the house and rested from the week.




Monday was crazy busy. Holly had Therapy in the morning with Katie, it had been almost 2 weeks since she had seen her do to some reschedules and illness. This session was to be video taped for her to share with her colleagues and it was fun to work the camera and watch them play.After that Paige and Amy came over. Paige is 3. It was amazing having her. We joke about Holly leaving a path of destruction in her wake "Hollzilla" but Paige, in ten minutes did what it would take Holly an entire day to do. Every bag of blocks and toy was dumped out and she had a blast running from new item to new item checking everything out. It was certainly a glimpse into my future, and while slightly overwhelming, it was so fun.



She and Holly played remarkably well. Holly would follow her around as fast as she could like a little puppy wanting to play with and touch everything Paige was playing with. Paige has seen video's of Holly in the ball pit, and she wanted to try. I posted these on Wednesday but they don;t really do the experience justice. Paige would hide and bury herself under the balls and Holly would look for her. Then she would press her face when she found her, and then push her own face into the net and make a funny face at her. They did this over and over. Then Paige would dump out ball and Holly would hold them up for her to grab and Holly was laughing hysterically. She was having so much fun, I don;t think I have ever seen her laugh so much, she was utterly mesmerized by Paige and how much fun Paige was having in the ball pit.Eventually we had to wind things down, Paige had to go home for dinner with her Dad, Amy was a former co-worker of mine, so while we mostly talked mommy stuff i did get a few updates on my old job which was fun too. We certainly will be getting together again soon.



Then I was off to pick up daddy for the last day of our parenting workshop. Holly exhausted fell fast asleep in the car and slept the first 30 or so minutes of the workshop. Once she woke and we fed and changed her she was very cuddly. She likes to wake up slow and stay in my arms for awhile. But then of course Seth came and she just had to go and play with him. She was so well behaved. Now that she was pretty familiar with the space and had done the rounds she was happy to stay in the general vicinity of Mom and Dad and play with Seth and her toys.





Lots of the other parents had coffee cups and the little ones kept trying to get into them, so we gave them a cup of there own to play with, Seth was showing Holly how it works. They are just about the same age, I think Holly might be 1-2 weeks older. It is amazing watching two kids of the almost exact same age play together, the similarities and differences are so neat. At the end of the class when it was time to go, Seth gave Holly a hug. It was so sweet.



Well other then this Chaos, I decided that I would hang low on Tuesday I originally had a play date at a Bunny Farm and an Eye Doctor Appt scheduled, but the Dr. Called to Cancel, so I figured lets stay in and rest we can go see Bunnies another time, these play dates happen Monthly. It was a nice relaxing day which i spent most of it playing with Holly and reading a parenting book for my Playgroup / Book Club on Thursday. I will post more about that later.

Finally the weekend also had some sucky parts too. On Friday it seemed we may have forgotten to lock our car door, and when I went down to go shopping everything had been riffled through. I had about 20$ in change that was taken and sadly my GPS and cell phone charger were also missing. I was mostly mad that I lost all my addresses I had about 50 in there from all the stuff we had been doing, so it was annoying. It was hidden from view inside a compartment, so a passer by would not see it, I thought this would be good enough, even though Joel always tells me to bring it upstairs. But I guess with someone actually going through everything its not safe. Thank god though that my stroller, fast track, and Garage Door Opened were not taken, and nothing was missing from the garage. When I got to Costco I got a new GPS, so I am out 20$ Plus 169$ for the replacement, and a Pair of Sunglasses.

Sadly, however we are dumb, and the next night our other car got broken into. That is my "sports car" and the battery has been dead. When the grannies were visiting we had triple A jump it and i drove around for over an hour, then the next day they went to drive it and it was dead. We haven't even looked at it since, I haven't had time to deal with it. Well we aren't quite sure if it was too left unlocked, or if the person crawled in through the truck, which i can;t seem to lock when the battery is dead, but this time, it looks as if someone was "living" in my car. I heard noises about 1:00 Am and Joel had woken up, we looked out and saw something in the street that later we discovered were my floor maps. When he went to investigate and discovered it was torn up we called the cops. I made a report on both cars at this time. But inside we found a bag of leftover pizza, a sweat shirt and dress and shoes and even a wig. We don;t know if they had been there for several days or just that night, since we hadn't looked into the car for a few weeks, and the windows are tinted. I didn't have anything of value that I recall in there, so nothing seemed to be missing.

The next morning Joel cleaned all the stuff out. Then tonight, we were shocked when a woman knocked on our door and admitted she was sleeping in the car and she was so sorry and please don;t call the cops on her but can she have her stuff back. Joel told her it was in bags in the trash and she could go and get it. He said she didn't even look like she was homeless, but was very skinny and tired looking. it made me so sad. and in all honesty, I don;t think this was related to the theft from the night before, but then again, I am a very trusting person. Crazy Isn't it!

High Chair

So I have been feeding Holly in her little read Bumbo "like" chair, but she is really starting to outgrow it. She still fits in it technically, but she can almost tip it over when she is trying to reach behind her, so I have been searching for a Highchair.

My friend Tracey got the Chicco Sahara for her son Lucian and did a lot of research on it, deciding that this Chicco is the best one. Well I haven't had time to do any research, but almost never saw the Chicco's for sale used. New it is $139 and I wasn't sure I wanted to spend that much when there are simply ones you can get for $40 But this one has a recline, 3 positions, 7 heights, foot rest, three trays, washable, cushions, wheels... So maybe the features are nice to have?

So I have been keeping my eye open for it. I have seen a Preggo Something or another, often it retails for like $200, but a lot of people are selling it, and when i did some research there was a model that was recalled and I can never tell if the one that is being sold is that model.

Well, long story short, I finally found the Chicco on Craigslist, but it was really far away, like 30-40 miles, and I wasn't sure I wanted to make the trip. Well I found out that the location was near the SF Airport, and well, last week I drove there to pick up my mother, so we just drove a few miles further, and in the truck the Chicco went.. and get this.. Frugal Momma would be Proud.. only $60.. Less then half price and as good as new. I was excited about the deal, and I am enjoying the Highchair. I love the wheels, and though Holly is a little, "little" for it still, a pillow behind her back works fine, and she will grow into.

I love putting finger foods on the tray and letting her snack, and it is nice to be able to have the food on the tray, just out of her reach. She does drop more food into her lap then she did with the Red Chair, but I think that once she gets a little bigger she won't as much.

Eating has been going really well. She is eating 1/2 - 2 container's a sitting, she is snacking on finger foods, and we eat 2-3 times a day.. But then there are other things, like level 3 Pasta Premavera. She totally puked, each time I tried to give her just a bite of that. I guess the little chunks of foods, pasta in it, was just too much for her to handle, so we will continue to practice.

Random Thursday Update

The sleep schedule seems to have been working somewhat. I think part of the issue is that we need to also get Daddy on a good morning schedule. The days when Holly wakes up early on her own are the ones where she is down for a nap on time, rested for therapy, and the day goes smoothly. Days when she sleeps in and Daddy hits snooze, so she doesn’t wake up early, her whole day is off. She refuses her first nap, and ends up only taking one for the day. Sometimes I am able to get her down, if I try early like at 9:30, other times she fights it, because she has been resisting sleep all day. But even on the bad days, she has been in her crib asleep by 11:15 the lasted every day for the past week, maybe a little longer. I think since last Monday we started. And two nights she was asleep by 9:30 and a few by 10:00-10:30.

She has woken up twice though in the middle of the night, and her sleep is not always restful. Yesterday she needed a bottle but most of the time it’s her pacifier, or Mommy to rub her back for a minute. I know this is totally taboo, but we took one of her very flat and soft quilt, put it in a pillow case, and are using it as a pillow. She loves this and has been sleeping so much better. Her head is slightly elevated, and it sinks in just a bit and is very comfy. This I think has really improved the quality of her sleep.

On Monday we went to the parent’s class, but the Babysitter never showed up (sigh) so the parents each took turns, 15 minutes each to sit in the room with them. It was a bit of a mad house tonight, with quite a few older kids. It seems that everyone saw how calm it was last week and thought it would be great to bring their kids. Since Holly was only 11 months she came into the classroom with us. This was a bit amusing. She certainly had her way with the room. She crawled all around, dragged her toys all over the floor and was a bit of a menace. It was cute though; the other parents liked her, picked her up and rescued her when she was getting into trouble. There was a 7 week old there too and her mom put her down for a moment to write something down, and Holly made a B-Line for her. She Sooooo Wanted to see the baby, and play with her. The mom said it was ok, as the baby has an older brother, so she is a tough little girl. Holly lost interest s soon as I let her touch the baby, especially because she didn’t like me telling her gentle. The class was another introduction, getting to know ourselves and each other class, next week we get into the knitty gritty and talk about development and behavior specifics, but I don’t mind easing into it.

Holly is really making an effort to communicate. We played a rattle game on Monday. I would shake a rattle and then she would. I would shake two and she would shake two. She would chew on hers, so I would chew on mine and then she laughed at me. She would then quickly shake it, and I would follow. We had so much fun going back and forth. Well that night she had a communication with Daddy, through blowing Raspberries back and forth with each other. They did turn taking and volleyed back and forth for quite a while, like a whole little conversation in her language. It was so darn cute@!

On Tuesday Night we went to maybe our last Baby Brigade. Holly was such a good girl. She needed to be changed twice and had a bottle, but other than that she played in my lap. Crawled around my shoulders, snacked on pizza crust and had an ok but well behaved time. We saw Revolutionary Road. It was good, but it was really depressing. I can sum it up like this…. “It was about the endless, empty, hopelessness of it all . . . Life, in Suburbia, in the 1950s.”

Today’s session with Sally was a push. Holly didn’t wake up early, and didn’t nap, so by the time Sally arrived she was pretty cranky. We did some stretching, and we played with the pop up animals, although Sally’s can be opened by prying the top up, and well, Holly figured that out. So Sally has to tell her no and prevent her from opening them that way. Of course, she would find a way around doing it the “right” way. Last week Holly had some cool new toys, like a bag of little pillows that were all different textures, like corduroy, or stain, or shiny. There were several, ohh and fluffy, like a lamb. But Holly wanted to et them after feeling them, so we ended up taking them away, it’s not like it was something that would be easy for Sally to clean. Sally brought the Sensory Evaluation today for us to do, but Holly was so cranky that we decided against starting it. Hopefully we cn try again next week.

My mom arrived, we went to go and pick her up after Holly’s PT Session. She was waiting at baggage so once I got on the road; it was a super quick trip. Since I was all the way over near the San Francisco Airport, I decided to buy a High Chair from Craigslist. It was a Chicco Sahara, which I almost never see posted, but the seller was far away, but close to the airport. It is the one that Tracey and Lucian have, and Tracey did a lot of research on High Chairs, and said it was the best. I have been looking at them and really liked it but couldn’t make up my mind, because it retails for $139.99 and I could get a high chair for half the price, and didn’t know if I would use the features, 7 heights, 3 recline positions, super small fold, and two separate over the top clean off trays. Well I ended up getting it for only 60$ I was so excited it was like over 50% of the retail price. We tried it out tonight for Dinner, and Holly is still a little, little in it. The regular seat feels a little reclined so I needed to put a pillow behind her to get her up close to the table tray, so she wasn’t still dropping food onto her lap, but mostly I loved it. I like the features and it folds up small and is easy to clean, plus it will be wonderful once she begins to feed herself.

After that we went and picked up the Veggie box and then headed to Babies-R-Us. We got Holly a bunch of new Pajama’s, as she is growing out of the ones she has, fast. Then we took the plunge, and I finally got her a car seat, well Oma got her a car seat for her Birthday. Originally it was between the Britax Roundabout or the Maxi Cosi Priori, which is the same brand as my current car seat. I didn’t expect them to have that one, but they did, and I ended up not liking it. It was not very different from the car seat she currently has and when completely upright she is still pretty reclined. Well we needed some help to figure out how to do some stuff, and the Manager came over to help us, and he really recommended the Boulevard. This one was more expensive, but it went up to 65 lbs instead of 40. It also had a lot more head cushions, and comfort padding. After debating back and forth with all the pro’s and Con’s we went with the boulevard. But I think it will be really nice and last us a really long time. The Cashier recognized me, because I am in there all the time, and I forgot my coupons, and she and 15% off of one item coupon that she gave me, so all in all we saved like 45$ I was so excited, as that really made a difference in the price.

We went to a really fun play date over the weekend “Wine & Cheese” with Rhonda, Ryan, and Teagan. And then on Tuesday we went to Chloe’s. But since I have so many pictures from both of those, I will make them a separate post later.

Busy Day

On Friday Katie came over for another session at 9:00 AM. Joel almost forgot again but I happen to wake up at 8:45 and asked him if he remembered, so he went and woke her and got her ready. She is pretty cranky when she first gets up especially if she is woken up. But he changed her and let her get settled before giving her a bottle, it was actually about 30 minutes into her session before she started getting hungry.

We had a lot of fun during the session. We played with the ball push toy again and she is starting to get the hang of it. We also played with the peg board, and with the connector tubes. Also Holly has not learned how to put donuts on the pole. I was so excited a few nights ago when I saw this. She does it with two hands and is very slow, intentional and full of concentration. Although tonight she did it several times and even did a star or two so she is getting better by the moment. This was great news. A few new things we are working on is stacking blocks which she tried to do but isn’t super steady at yet and also asking Holly to hand us something, “Can I have that Please” and see if she hands you the toy.

We were discussing her Oral Motor issues with tie into her eating issues, which By The Way she isn’t eating again, she is taking maybe 3-4 bites of her food and then refusing any more. I might be able to bribe another 3-4 bites with puffs when then she gets smart and decides the puffs aren’t worth it and won’t eat at all, but back to the discussion on her Oral Motor issues. Katie is a little concerned with her constant chewing, not so much that she mouths things so much but the veracity at which she does so, and is worried she might hurt herself. She takes her chewy tube and instead of chewing on it she will bite down on the edge and then tear it out of her mouth pulling hard.

Katie tried this thing where she put pressure on her jaw bone to see if that would be something she liked and fill the need of the biting, but she did not like it at all. So then we tried swinging therapy, which is a lot more like swaying. We let her lie down on a big quilt then picked up the corners and swing her side to side. She loved this. At first she got all excited and was kicking and squealing, but then after a few minutes it made her very calm. Katie says this activates the vestibular system in the same way that biting does, so in the future when she is fussy I will try it some more. We did it tonight and she liked it but it didn’t calm her as much as I hoped but it made her cheerful when she had been rather cranky.

She got mad at me tonight while she was placing donuts and stars on their holders. I got excited and clapped and told her what a great job she did, and the first 1-2 times she liked this and it made her smile, but then she got upset later when I did it after. Wait… Now I have to ask Katie about his, because I think it is a developmental milestone, where she gets “embarrassed” by being the center of attention. I have a “The Human Baby” show saved on Tivo and one of them is on emotions, so I have to watch it now and try to remember what they said about this behavior, what age it starts at and see if this fits. But she kept putting the donuts on but then if I reacted she got upset and cried at me. It was a very interesting thing to see her playing and crying at the same time.

So the other thing we did today was go to swim class which was so much fun. Holly is splashing and playing in the water and she loves it. I scheduled a meet-up there, I am a member of a mom’s meet-up group and 4 other mom’s attended who I had met previously so it was really fun to see them again. Then we saw Sarah and Isabel who I haven’t talked about for a while, but Sarah and her mom are from our Mother’s Group, which I never go to anymore, but we made friends with Sarah and Isobel and run into them all the time, we hadn’t seen them for a few weeks so it was fun to run into them again. Then finally we ran into Heidi and Kareem. These are our new friends from Studio Grow, the one who is exactly 1 day younger then Holly. I was so excited to see them. It was there first time at Swim Class and Kareem really had a lot of fun. I think next time I run into them at Studio Grow I will have to exchange Emails with Kareem’s mom.

After swim class we decided to go on a shopping spree. It didn’t end up that way, I was only going to by some Dreft and Baby oxiclean but it ended up being much much more. Firstly we got Holly a Holly sized chair. We are very excited about it. She thinks it is only useful for using as a tool for cruising and pulling herself up, but if I put her in it she sits. She isn’t very graceful getting down, she sometimes turns like she does for getting off the couch, but other times she sort of lounges forward which is ok if she catches herself but once she bumped her head. It was in slow motion so she didn’t even cry, but I will need to keep an eye on her.

Then they had this sale of getting one Fisher price toy for 19.99 get a second one of Equal or Lesser Value for Free. So I found 1 toy for 19.99 and a Second for 16.99 then I realized the second one that I loved wasn’t actually fisher price but instead of putting it back I decided to get it anyway, because I liked it so much and Holly’s birthday is coming up soon, and then found a third one that was Fisher price. So the extra one I got was a gear toy, which you will have to wait and hear about after Holly’s birthday when she opens it. But the other two were ones we opened tonight. One is an Animal Nesting Box. There is a Lion, an Elephant, and a Zebra that nest into each other they are made of softish material that is cloth and very colorful and three dimensional. There is a little monkey you can put in the last box. The other toy was like a gum ball machine. It actually goes with the round balls Joel got holly for Christmas. You put those in the top and then hit a level on the side and it lights up plays music and the balls comes rolling out. Holly loved putting the balls in the top and she loved seeing them come out, but didn’t quite get that it was the lever pushing that made that happen.

I got her two sets of 12 month Pajama’s because she is getting so tall she is growing out of all of hers, and they were both on sale, one for 3$ and one for 6$ and then I got her 3 new pairs of socks that were on sale normally 2.99 each and instead 3 for 4$ I refrained from getting her any more cloths even though I really wanted to.

The next thing I got was the Frog scooper toy for the bathtub that collects and stores all of the bath toys on the wall. I thought this came with some toys and was disappointed when I found out it did not, but I did get her a few toys including another set of nesting containers that have fish on them and little holes for water to drip through. The smallest has 1 hole, then 2 and 3 and 4 as they get bigger in size. They are very colorful too.

Let’s see. Oh I also for her birthday, not yet opened got her some large baby Lego’s they were normally 24.99 and I got them for 13.99$ so I was excited about that.

I did also get the supplies I needed and ended up earning a 15$ gift card for getting three “cleaning” type items that were on a list that included the Dreft. What was most exciting of all was that any number of these wonderful items could be Christmas Present’s from Granny because we used our Gift Card and it cut the purchase price in Half, so for me it was a steal, and I didn’t feel bad at all about all the shopping I did, because I got deals, free toys, and used our Gift Card.

While we were there Holly did not want to sit in the cart, she was fussing and wanted mommy to hold her. We rocked in the rockers for a bit while I fed her and then later we were looking at the high Chairs and she really liked this one on wheels so I pushed her around the store in the highchair in front of me pulling the cart behind me and continued shopping like that. It had a toy that suctioned on the top and she was happy and content, at least until I had to put it back and we got to check out. Joel was very excited about all of my purchases and we immediately opened most of them, but Holly is still warming up to them and so while she played with them, she wasn’t that excited yet. But soon I am sure she will keep having fun with them.

I still need to get Holly a Big Girl Car Seat, and now I am pretty sure that I want to get her a High Chair, so I will keep an eye out for those, but I have a feeling it will be part of her Birthday Bootie. I mean her Oma and Granny are coming to Visit. The other thing I saw was a little table and chair set that was set up like a tree on each side and then the chairs were four animals, the Panda, Elephant, Lion, and Monkey. It was the coolest little kid table I have ever seen. I might have to get it and keep it in the garage for 6 months until she is big enough for it, but I am afraid they might not have this one in 6 months and well I have never seen one like this before. I will think about it and see.

Holly wanted to get Daddy's glasses so bad that when he took them off and put them in the swing she decided to lounge after them. I have one determined girl!