What We've Been Up To

Not much, actually.

I have made two photo books, which maybe I'll share.  We got Groupons for them...one is Braelyn's trip to Disneyland and the other is Birth-Baptism for Addison.  We're going to get more insulation put in our attic.  We go back to meetings in two weeks. :(  It's thunderstorming here, which is awesome.  Though if Braelyn wakes up from her nap because of it, I won't think it's so awesome.

But here's some more pictures!

My mom made the girls matching dresses.  Braelyn loves them.  In fact we wore them both last Sunday and this Sunday (today) so that must mean that she really loves them.  I'm going to post several pictures of these dresses to show how this "photo shoot" evolved.  First...nice picture, Braelyn's not really looking at the camera, so we do some more.

 Here, Braelyn is trying to push Addison's head away from the camera.  Not sure why.  She is looking nicely at the camera.

 We try some pictures with Addison not on Braelyn's lap, since Braelyn insists upon turning her head in what seems an uncomfortable direction.  Those photos are not memorable.  However, we tell her to get closer to Addison, using the unfortunate word "snuggle"...to Braelyn this means putting her head on Addison's head.  Here they are, "snuggling".

Then Nate gets Braelyn to laugh, which results in general silliness.  I have no idea what she is doing here, but Addison is apparently sleeping through it, or at the least, not impressed.

 Here's Addison!

 Braelyn LOVES ice cream sandwiches and has pretty much mastered the art of eating one without getting her hands messy.  It's impressive if I do say so myself.

 Addison getting some floor time, Braelyn is trying to entertain her. 

 More Addison!

 We glued cheerios to paper to do numbers up to five.  Braelyn's still not into numbers too much.  She can count to two. :-)  To do things (like jump or something) she counts "one, three, two"...ha!  We also did shapes.  They disappeared off the table by the next day because Hunter ate them.  Good thing I got a picture.  Also:  found out that our school glue is all dried up, so we used wood glue.

In looking at these pictures, it looks like Braelyn loves orange.  Maybe?  She has orange pajamas which she refused to take off one day (the day these pictures were taken), and the dress Mom made was orange.  Other than that we don't have much orange. 

Braelyn's started to really love to hold Addison and give her kisses.  It's a little scary because when Addison is in the swing and wakes up (I know, slap my hand, I let my baby sleep in the swing...blah safety rules about sleeping...we have a blanket in the crib too...oh the horror!), Braelyn runs to it and tries to get her out and picked up before I get there.  I don't think it would be possible for her to do that, but it freaks me out a little.

Baptism and Bartels visit

Addison was baptized July 14, 2013 at First Good Shepherd.  My parents and brother came in for the "event" and to see both the girls.  Here's some pictures...

Addison in her baptismal gown.  My mom made it for my baptism and we've used it for both girls.  She also made the headband and the quilt Addison is laying on.

The family of four.  Braelyn was sick and she looks particularly pathetic here.

The family with Addison's godmother, Karen.  Karen's husband Paul is Addison's godfather, but he couldn't be there.  Karen and Paul teach with us at school and are good friends.

The family with grandparents.

The cake and Addison

Braelyn and her cupcake

Braelyn "helping" Grandpa fix the garage wall

Uncle Christian with Addison

Uncle Christian sleeping with Addison.  She wasn't perched as precariously as it looks here.  I was not fearful for her life with Christian holding her while sleeping.  (just a disclaimer)

Sisters!  Sorry for the unrotated picture again.  Braelyn likes the timer on the camera, only she closed her eyes for almost every picture we took like this.

Grandma with the girls

Grandpa with the girls

Grandma and Grandpa with the girls.  Sorry for cutting off Grandpa's head.

Uncle Christian with Braelyn

It was a lot of fun having everyone here.  Braelyn loved playing with all her new playmates and I'm sure is missing all the attention.  We wish we lived closer.

Addison has started waking up only once a night, which is great except Braelyn was sick and was waking up during the night too...and staying up for hours at a time.  I think she's on the mend as she didn't really do that last night.  Hopefully we are over that.

Children's Museum...etc

We went to the children's museum yesterday since it's free for us with our Bank Americard on the first weekend of the month.  Nate and I get in free and we have to pay for Braelyn (and eventually Addison).  She had lots of fun.  It is much improved from the old one...it moved to a new location, though Braelyn was extremely disappointed that it did not have a bubble area like the old one did.

The water area was definitely her favorite.  She liked just going to the bin of balls and taking them and throwing them in the water.

The other part she wanted to play in for a while was the "town".  She especially liked the grocery store...playing cashier with Daddy.

Shopping for oranges...

 "Eating" her broccoli...

 Scanning the luggage at the "airport" for bombs.  Just kidding, they don't actually say what you are scanning it for, just that you are scanning it like at the airport.

 Cooking at Jamba Juice...

 She also liked the art area, but wasn't too interested in actually doing it.  They had a special "class" doing spray watercolor that we didn't get there in time for that I think she would have liked.

 And her other favorite, the toddler area had a "train" where if you pushed one button it made a train whistle sound.  She loved that.  There was also a slide in that area that was pretty fun.

We got Braelyn a sprinkler to run through...a "Fun Sprinkler"...that was the name of it on the tag.  Braelyn likes to run through it, which is a bit of a surprise since she doesn't like to run through the grass sprinklers.  Though this is more gentle I suppose.

Nate made this chalkboard for Braelyn to play with outside.  It was his idea and he made it.  I just helped with putting on the border and hung it on the wall.

Braelyn helping to give Addison a bath.  Excuse the nudity.

And finally, Addison's fourth of July outfit.  Surprisingly, our neighbors mostly stuck to shooting things off on the fourth and not for several days before and after.  Braelyn was very scared of the fireworks, so we didn't shoot anything off.  There was a random thunder storm here this morning and Braelyn was pretty scared of the thunder as well.  Braelyn had a "pretty dress" that she wore for the fourth, but the picture of that is on Nate's phone, so I'll have to post it later.  Or you will just never see it.  One or the other.

Let's play a game...

Which is Braelyn and which is Addison?

 

Or these?

Maybe one more...