Top 5 for January

Because I've been a little neglectful of my blog this month, I thought I would give you a synopsis of our January.  The weather has been in the teens as the high for the day all month with yucky inversion, grey, gloomy skies.  It doesn't make very many of us happy and wanting to get out and do anything.  But we have managed a few highlights for the month.  So here are our top 5 events of the month.

1 - Shane and I got to go to the Jazz game.  We were given 3rd row seats to the game and even got to eat with the Jazz 100 club.  The food was soo good.  I ate a ton...then you get free snacks at half time. The game was so fun.  I loved being so close up and sitting on the soft seats.  It was a fun date night that Shane and I got to spend together.

2 - We hired a nanny 2 days a week.  Between my work and everything Shane has going on, we decided we needed to find some babysitting for the girls.  Shane now goes into an office for work 2 days a week.  We considered finding someone we could take them to, or even a daycare but finding someone or place for just 2 days a week that had openings for 2 toddlers was a little crazy.  So we decided to have someone come to our house.  We interviewed a few people but ended up finding a girl in our ward that we are good friends with her and her family.  It has worked out so well.  Emily has been great and the girls seem to like her and everyone is getting along and adjusting well.  We are happy to have Emily, someone we know and can trust.  Emily...I need a picture of you and the girls (do you still blog stalk me?)

3 - Getting over sickness in our house.  Shane got the flu (like influenza flu...and yes he got a flu shot) It lasted for 10 days.  He got an ear infection, fever, cough, congested and just plain achy.  It was miserable for him and not very fun for me.  Since I didn't want it and certainly didn't want the girls to get it, we pretty much just had to stay away from him.  Which meant I was a single mom for a lot of that time.  I even slept in a different room for several days.  It made the evenings and mornings a little crazy around here.  I was certainly happy to get my husband back after 10 days.  I got a cough for a few days but felt ok.  The girls both got fevers a few days apart but they were pretty low grade and snapped out of them after about 24 hours.  So about 1/2 the month we just stayed inside and tried not to spread sickness while trying to recover.

4 - We got out one afternoon for a trip to the mall to ride the train.  We were going a little stir crazy being indoors so much so when we finally felt better it was nice to get out and do something a little fun.  The girls had a good time on the train and Siena kept waving her arm up and down everytime I would say choo choo.

5 - Because we've been sick and it's been so cold, we haven't really gone out in the snow but one Saturday morning we bundled the girls up and took them out while Shane was snowblowing our driveway.  The girls had a good time just looking around and then decided to go see dad at the bottom of the driveway.  Well what I didn't realize is they've never walked on a slanted surface before.  Their little legs started going faster and faster and they were trying to keep up until they just couldn't and each one fell.  Luckily they weren't hurt at all but it was seriously pretty funny to see their legs going so fast down the hill.  We'll have to work on that with them when there isn't snow and ice on the driveway.  And yes Aria still refuses to open her eyes when she's outside and the sun is in her eyes.

My Toddlers

A small update on the girls...not a lot of 'new' things they're doing lately.  But there have been a few that are in need of documenting.

SIENA HAS TEETH!!!  2 days before she turned 16 months, I finally felt a tooth about to pop through.  Miracle.  So happy I don't have to take her to a dentist to get x-rays.  She has been so much happier since that tooth and quickly after 2 others have come in.  Yay for teeth.  So Aria has 4, Siena has 3.  Now we can start working on the bigger teeth I guess.

Aria has randomly started crossing her fingers.  I've been trying to get a picture but haven't been able to yet.  It's so funny to see.  In the bathtub, in her high chair, walking around...you just look down and her left hand has her 2 fingers crossed like she's wishing good luck for something.

We've been trying to get the girls to learn some body parts.  Aria can point to her nose and just learned to stick out her tongue when you ask her where her tongue is.  If you ask Siena 'where is your ....fill in the blank.' she will point to her head/hair.  Doesn't matter what it is...so she doesn't quite get that concept yet.

Overall the girls are just plain getting older.  Every so often I just look at them and realize they really are just little toddlers now.  It's crazy how much older they seem to me all of the sudden.  They understand almost everything we tell them.  Many times, I say something not really thinking they understand and they turn around and do what I've just said and I just stand there kind of shocked that they just understood that.

They are into EVERYTHING.  They love their puzzles, which they're pretty good at, strolling their doll strollers around, chasing the ball all over the house, still love books, rocking on their rocking horse, playing on the couch, and making each other laugh to see who can have the highest pitched scream (Fyi...Aria does hands down!)

They LOVE playing and standing on the couch.  We try and try to tell them they can only sit on the couch but it never works.  We've even tried time out for a few days and it helped but they love to play and wrestle with each other.  It makes me nervous that they're going to get really hurt and even when I'm sitting right there, 2 of them going in opposite directions sometimes 1 falls before I can get to her.  So far no major bruises, just some scared little girls.  Not that it stops them for very long. I can't even get a focused picture of them cuz they're so fast.

Siena has this thing with one particular blanket, she'll drag it across the room to me and want me to put it over her so she can hide under it, play peekaboo and/or see how long it takes her to get it off.  Her smaller blankets do not provide as much entertainment so she always finds this blanket to use and it usually takes her about 5 minutes to drag the big thing over to me.

 We also moved them to one nap a day.  Their naps became harder and harder to get 2 into one day.  They were short and sporadic and it seemed one was always up earlier then the other and back and forth we went.  So we switched them to one nap.  It took Siena a couple days to catch on that she needed to sleep longer but now they're both sleeping 2 1/2 - 3 hours and it's heaven having them just sleep one time a day for a longer period.  Loving the one nap schedule so far.