Saturday, July 30, 2011

Mornings with Merrilee

Merrilee is such a good little girl.  Every morning we take her out of her crib and let her kind of roam around to play and do whatever.  Without fail, every morning we see a scene like this...


Merrilee will sit and read books for an hour at a time! She is usually very gentle with her books and we've only had one or two book casualties from moments of despair.  She'll turn the pages and "read" to herself.  She even does cute little voice inflections like she's reading in her own baby language. Lately her favorite book is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. She'll read it by herself, but she will also bring it to either me or Ben several times a day for us to read it to her. We are proud parents of our little reader! :)

Baby Stats

Last Friday I took both the girls to their Pediatrician for their respective 2mo. and 18mo. checkups. It was quite an experience taking two babies to the doctor in one visit...but the stats are in...

Alice is still itty-bitty newborn size to some people, but to us she is getting huge! ( I guess your perspective changes when you have a little 5 lb baby!)
Weight:  8lbs 15 oz. --> 2nd  %tile
Height: 21.88 in. --> 26.7 %tile
Head: 14.1 in. --> 0.78 %tile

Aren't baby proportions so funny?

Merrilee has slowed way down in her growth, but is still healthy and strong! I've never seen her more upset than at this doctor's visit. She liked the doctor ok, but she had some serious issues with the nurse who took all of these stats...she didn't like it either when the nurse was taking Alice's stats. Cute Merrilee, looking out for her little sister.  

Weight: 22.2 lbs --> 22%tile
Height: 31 in. --> 35 %tile
Head: 18.3 in --> 51 %tile

We love our girls!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Alice

Alice is growing like a champ.  She officially turned 2 months on Monday.  I don't know how much she weighs as we don't own a scale, but I take her in on Friday for her 2 mo. checkup, so we'll get the stats soon. Lately she loves looking at and smiling at her Mom, Dad, and sister. it is so adorable to see a teeny, tiny person have such grown up facial expressions sometimes. :) Alice is a very wiggly baby. It seems like she's always moving, but she is also pretty mellow in temperament. Although, she definitely lets me know when she's hungry! We love our little Alice and don't know how we ever lived without her in our family!
Our little wiggle worm

4th of July!

I know this is a little late, but we had a great 4th of July Weekend! My parents came down from WA and spent the weekend with us. One of the benefits of living in UT is people are so patriotic here! I love going through the neighborhood and seeing a flag in every yard and red, white, and blue painted all over the town! We had a fun time with my parents experiencing all of the festivities around here. At the park across the street from our house, there was a "Colonial Fest" where the park turned into a colonial village including a schoolhouse, broom maker, bakery, militia camp, lace maker, blacksmith, etc.  It was a lot of fun to walk across the street and feel like we warped back in time!

We also went down to Provo for the Freedom Festival.  Provo knows how to celebrate the 4th! We got in the patriotic spirit enjoying the hot summer day with vendors, music, historical sites/re-enactments, and wearing our red white and blue!

Exploring with the wheel of the Mayflower
Having fun with some prizes from some booths.
Burping the baby.  Just wanted to show how tiny Alice is...all of the pictures we have are up close so it is hard to tell how dainty this tiny girl actually is! :)
Cute. :)
We stopped and watched some of the "entertainment".  It happened to be a clogging dance group.  Merrilee LOVED it! She was dancing and running up to the stage and laughing the whole time! 
Captivated by the dancers.
Saturday night, after the kids were asleep, my parents stayed with the girls while Ben and I went and watched the Stadium of Fire Fireworks display. It was nice to get out with just Ben for the first time in a LONG time...even if it was only 45 mins. :)

On Sunday, July 3, Ben sang with the Orem Chorale in a patriotic service at the Scera Shell, (same park the colonial fest was at) featuring some of the founding fathers.  Unfortunately we forgot our camera so this phone pic is the only documentation we have of it.  This is the choir warming up...
Monday, the 4th, morning Adam and Ben woke up at unheard of hours and went down to Provo to stake out a spot for the parade. People around here are so crazy when it comes to the July 4th parade! People were camping overnight and the streets were already full at those wee hours in the morning! They managed to get a pretty good spot though and we all enjoyed the parade.

Enjoying muffins!

Merrilee loves her uncle Adam.

Loving the horses and making her "animal" sound...a mix between a "quack" and a "woof"
Awesome Star Wars flag display...

And the Star Wars Float (for some reason this was the only float we got a picture of!)

Isn't July the best!? Looking forward to this weekend to celebrate Pioneer Day! :)