Hey Mom...look at me!

Earlier this week Maddy and I went upstairs to get Makena up from her mornning nap. Maddy always gets very excited when Makena wakes up, rushes upstairs, opens the door, and climbs into her crib. The girls play and laugh. I turned around after grabbing a few things to find this.

Ms. Makena was standing in her crib. Just standing there like its no big deal, like she's always been doing it. Only she hasn't and it was a big deal to mom!! So I whooped and cheered and there were laughs all around..and Makena knew she'd done something big then. Big smiles.

Makena is 9 months old tomorrow, February 28th. She is flying past those milestones and one happy baby. Crawling all over the place, pulling up and trying to climb on things, and just starting to cruise around the furniture. How did it all happen so fast?

Finally, we are done being sick. Pretty much two months of sickness for this family - way too long. But happy to report we are all well and getting back to a normal routine, crossing our fingers we can stay healthy for a few weeks.

Because these girls have been just a wee bit cooped up, as well as Mom! Hoping the weather stays nice over the next couple weeks, and we can get out and burn off some crazy energy.

Crazy Cat Stories

Simon is home!!!


Wow, we've had some kind of crazy luck with cats in the past year. For awhile there, I was sure we'd be blacklisted from any local area animal shelters. We had two cats in one year that went missing. Its rough sometimes with indoor/outdoor animals. First, Simon went missing in October of 2008. He was a cat who loved to explore and would be gone all day sometimes. I was heartbroken when he didn't turn up and felt like a horrible pet owner. I spent much time searching for him. I really thought he was out there, I just couldn't track him. We have a large ravine behind our house that leads up to neighborhoods uphill quite aways. I always knew he headed that way...its totally a cat magnet area.


So fast forward to April of 2009 and Wyatt goes missing. Ughh, seriously now I really thought I deserved some sort of ticket or punishment for losing two cats. By this time, life was so crazy with I, hugely pregnant, and wild toddler to handle, that I really didn't look long for Wyatt. Knowing Wyatt, I thought that if he disappeared he tangled with the wrong animal. Wyatt loved his food, he loved his home, and he came back several times a day to check on both. So when he didn't come home, I was sure he probably tangled with a coyote. And 4 months later he showed up literally across the way in the apartments. He was on the hunt for a mouse, and Michael went was out on a walk with the girls and happened to see him. Random and super lucky. He's home and now loving life as an indoor cat.



All this time, I still always kept an eye out for Simon. By now its been over a year since he's disappeared. And on Thursday afternoon I was taking Makena for a car ride to try and get her a nap. I usually head up to the neighborhood behind us, as its just a gorgeous area and I love to check out the homes. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small yellow sign that read "Found Male Black Cat" with details underneath sounding a lot like Simon! I felt totally crazy. Like, cat-lady crazy.....but I had to call. So I called and left a message literally saying..."this probably sounds nuts, but I lost a cat like your description over a year ago....."


And they called me back, didn't think I was nuts and invited me to come check him out. Believe it or not, all black cats look the exact same. Especially if they don't have any identifying marks..but after comparing a pic and talking about personality, I was 99% sure this was Simon. And the family was ecstatic.. Turns out he'd be hanging out in this neighborhood since last summer. They saw my signs but initially thought this cat was female, so didn't bother to call. A trip to the vet, corrected them on the gender of the cat. So that was when they posted a sign and I randomly drove by and saw it. Its definitely not a neighborhood on my normal route...so something was meant to be.





Simon is in the garage trying to get use to it all. We'll have a few days of getting use to the house, noises, kids screaming...and then we'll try and re-acquaint Wyatt and Simon. I doubt they'll remember each other - so I'm prepared for mostly a lot of hissing.

But my sweet black kitty is home. I missed him so. I feel like one crazy lucky cat lady. And I've definitely had a huge debit to my karma bank. :) I'll be sending those wonderful people some sort of nice thank you for taking care of my cat and posting that precious little sign!

Sickfest 2010 continues....

Yuck, today is day 47 of our Winter 09-10 sickfest(not that we are counting), at least one or all of us have been sick at the same time during past 47 days, Dad has managed to work only 6 days in the last 5 weeks. We have endured Pneumonia(actually Walking Pneumonia because I was upright and not in a hospital bed), bronchitis(more fun with coughing that you can ever imagine), Croup(your child does not sleep at night and has a cough that sounds like a dog choking on a small rodent), one cold for Makena and now Maddy is working on her second cold in the past month, toss in Maddy's second year molars and Makena cutting her first teeth and it's really enough to drive any sane parent mad. Lucky for us the flu has yet to make it's appearance.

It's to be expected with two little ones but it's getting rather old and costly. Other good news to report is Maddy can huck-a- lugie, she's watched her patents do it so many time that when she's outside she announces, "I spit....Agggghhhhh...Phuttttt". Meme and Pepe thought this was funny and as long as she does it outside I suppose it's ok and cute for now. (Her father went though a stage of spitting on the rug in the house after learning how to spit at scout camp in the 5th grade so it runs in the family.)

Despite all of this mess Makena is still on a tear. She pulls herself up on anything over a foot high and we have caught her taking a few steps while holding onto a table etc... It's exciting to watch. Her dismounts from a standing position have drastically improved and no longer involve the sound of her head bouncing off the rug and lots of tears. We've found her sitting up in her crib in the middle of the night with that perplexing look of "What the hell just happened?" on her face. She is all smiles lately and has a grin from ear to ear that lights up the grayest of our winter days.

Madelyn's favorite phrase to the delight of her father continues to be, "That come from my butt!" after she farts, or "That come from your butt.". that's my girl you know what possessive adjectives are :)

No stopping her now

Madelyn is on the left and Makena is on the right, about the same age on the nursing stool. Makena is simple delighted with new found mobility. I looked away from her for a moment this morning and she had hoisted herself into a standing position on a toy. Wow, this from a kid who's just learned how to crawl. She must be jealous of her sister and dying to do all the things she does. We have a few more spills due to her mobility but a few well placed pillows lessens the blows.

Madelyn loves playing with her cars, "On your mark, get set, Goooo!!" she yells.

Cutting Teeth

The fun never stops in the Potter house, both kids have colds and both are teething, Mom is sick but thankfully for the first time in the last month Dad feels like doing something besides making dents in the couch every night.

Makena's mobility has improved dramatically these past few days. She is starting to crawl all around the room now in search of new toys and items to stick into her mouth and eagerly focuses in on whatever her big sister is playing with. She'll take a few steps crawling and then drop to the floor doing an army crawl the rest of the way. Its so fun to watch her nervously put that knee/hand forward. We cheer and she looks up with big smiles.

She was all fussy the other day so I stuck my finger in her mouth and found her two bottom teeth had broken though the gums. That explains all the night wakings which have made life a bit rough lately. The poor girl has been fighting the sickies for a couple weeks, now has two teeth coming in and she is trying to crawl. Give it a rest girl - save something for next week!

She still loves to bounce in her Jumperoo, sometimes with the help of her sister. Since she's out of the infant car seat, she is now riding up-front in the shopping carts. She sits up there checking everything out and her eyes are wide open with amazement. I love this phase....where they are in pure wonder of everything and make shopping so easy. It doesn't last long before screeching and whining will begging. So I'm enjoying it now, while I can. Bedtime is around 6:00pm and we are almost down to two naps a day. She can sit up play for a length of time and can almost push herself up into a sitting position.

Maddy still is not an adventurous eater, she adds about 2-3 new foods to her 'OK' list per month. This month it's been rice, peanuts and frozen tubes of yogurt. Pretty basic stuff, but that's our picky eater. Ever helpful she still takes out the garbage for me every night and she's a wonderful gopher, fetching diapers, burp rags and pacifiers for her sister, without complaint. She loves to grab the play vacuum when one of us is vacuuming the floors and help out. We've also have watched her grab napkins when she spills water. Emptying the dishwasher is still a hit, she can figure out where most things should go but I always cringe when she puts all the glasses up on the counter for me.

Given the chance she will climb into her sisters crib at the end of nap time and bounce around with sequels of laughter to Makena's delight. She's also quick to round up toys for her sister or stick a pacifier back in her mouth. The neighbor's goats still appreciate her visits and offerings of old vegetables, "Go feed goats Dad!". Puzzles are still a favorite activity and after doing them a few times we are always amazed to watch her put all the pieces in. We are also entering into the land of negotiations, we'll suggest something..and she always has a comeback with a different offer. "Maddy, do you want some Mac & Cheese?" and she'll come back with "How about.... strawberry?" Oh yes, good times ahead for us since she's starting to figure that one out.

More fun things that Maddy says:

"Farts come out of my butt" (Wonder who taught her that.....DAD!!!)

"I want to see my poop, .....that big girl poop, Pheyyyweeeawww"

"Want to do Play Dough with me", repeated 1,234 times a day.

"Got you nose", says Dad, "put it back on!!!", says Maddy. This game took us a few weeks to work out with her, most of the time we would just get a punch in the nose when she tried to get ours. Now she steals her sisters nose and thankfully is more gentle.

"I want to jump off a bridge too", in reply to hearing her father say this phrase the other morning.

"I want to read books on MomDad bed", better than reading books on the floor in her room by far.

"I do that all by myself!!!!", on numerous occasions she will undo what we have just done or put something back just so she can do it herself. She has a mean independence streak in her to say the least. Now if we could just channel that energy to potty training we would be all set.

"It's going to be OOOOK Makena, OOOOK", this phrase gets used when things go to pieces around Makena's bedtime. I think it's aimed more at us than her sister.

Jan-Sick-uary

Janaury has turned out to be the month of the sickies for us. This is not the first year, but actually the 3rd year in the row that the month of January has proven to be filled with illness. I had hoped we just might break tradition this year. It was not to be as last Monday Makena came down with Croup. It was pretty bad week, half of it filled with a non-sleeping baby which made for some exhausted parents. Michael also discovered after a doctor's visit, that he had some nagging Pneumonia in his left lung. It was definitely a back to basics, kick our booty, kind of week - but I'm happy to report we are just about all healed up.

As if being sick wasn't enough for Ms. Makena, she was also determined to get up on those knees and figure out crawling. Personally, I would have chosen to sleep more..but not her. Nope, wheezing and moaning she was much happier rolling around and trying to crawl. She hasn't quite got it yet...but is pretty determined about it.

Another big step for Makena is moving out of the infant car seat and up to a convertible car seat. No longer do we have the ease of dragging her around in her car seat. But at 20+ pounds, that infant carrier was getting to be way too heavy to carry around. So onto the big girl car seat she has moved....and now things will get a bit trickier for us.


Madelyn has amazingly managed to escape the sickies this week. I probably shouldn't have put that in writing..I'm sure I just cursed myself. She spent much time at Meme & Pepe's house this week. And a big Thank You to them for helping us out. She is always full of piss & vinegar, as my mom use to say, and I have no idea how we would have made it through this week with out my inlaws help.

Maddy& Dad being silly at Rubys Diner

First time in a high-chair and all smiles about it.

Dad pulled out the Kelty to get dinner made

Makena's crib, according to Maddy, is purely for playing

Loving bath time

Almost crawling....with the cat on guard and ready for her

2009

Random Pictures from 2009

Its been one heck of a year, feeling much like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Starting out with finding out that we'd be having another girl and Maddy would have a little sister...and then waiting for this sister to arrive. And on May 28th with much anticipation, Makena made her appearance.

We were certainly off to the races then. Shortly thereafter, Maddy turned the big two and didn't we all know it - as she literally searches the house for things to get into..and Mom finds herself saying 'No Touch' about a thousand times each day. Mom and Dad were reminded just how exhausting newborns could be and put into an all new level of sleep deprivation + a toddler = complete chaos. But time marched on and soon baby was sleeping better, and the whole family was a bit happier.

As we came into Fall, it was much about just keeping our heads above water with managing nap schedules, keeping Maddy busy, and finding a daily routine for us all. The holidays came upon us and it was big fun this year since Madelyn is more aware of everything. Much talk about Rudolph and Santa, and 'reindeer on the ruf'. We made it.

We made it through 2009 and come out the other side with two adorable girls, a house still standing through much chaos, and 2 parents who are getting more sleep as the weeks & months go by. Makena is now 7 months and I can barely believe it. What happen to my newborn? Didn't we just get home from the hospital? I guess not..the days flew by in a blink of an eye. I'm sure this next year holds more chaos and hopefully many more laughs!

Just back from visiting the neighbor's goats....Maddy loves to feed the goats.

Up from a nap...and the face and hair says it all.

Trip to Leavenworth

Big Belly Girl

Pure Bliss

Dad started to remember just how tired newborns can make you.

Michael's nephew, Jr., came to visit - one super fun day out on Lake Washington.

Happy Mike

Maddy and Cousin Emily

Cousins Angelica and Emily up for a visit. Maddy had so much fun with them.

She's Two!

Checking out the summer flowers

I found my thumb!

Mickey needs a diaper change. This happens to be my (Karin's) Mickey which my dad bought for me at Disneyland when I was 5 years old. He is being well-loved all over again.

Giggles

Funny Faces


One of these kids is not like the other.... Meme & Makena look great and Maddy is not cooperating. Just a wee bit of attitude in that toddler.

Happy 2010 -May it be a great year for all of us!

X-mas

X-mas descended upon us this year with great anticipation that Santa and Rudolf would take the bait we left out for them. Madelyn really got into things this year, I told her that I hear noise on the roof when she woke up at 6:15am on Christmas morning and she yelled Reindeer. She was overjoyed to see all the presents hanging around under the tree and to see her stocking stuffed with gifts.

Family photo, Madelyn takes these with the camera remote, it's the only way we can get her to sit still long enough for a photo shoot.

Happy times with Zoe.

Quilt from Meme for Makena

Eating her way into a present

LOL - "Some assembly required(2hr 15min)"

The kitchen set from Santa was a huge hit.

The wrapping paper was flying fast and furious.

Ruldolf and Santa polished off the treats.