This photo was taken right before Caityn's first birthday. Now we have another birthday baby coming up on one year in just over a week! I can't believe Sean is almost one year old already. I think they look a lot like each other, but most people tell me that Caityn looks like me and Sean looks like Abel.
Sean is finally back to liking a bath. For a good month or so, he would only stand in the bathtub and cry. He seemed too afraid to sit in the water for some reason. And whenever I would try to wash his hair, the little stinker would hold his head over the edge of the tub, so that the water I poured on his head would end up on the bathroom floor. Thanks Sean! Well, he finally decided that bath time is fun. So now he and Caityn are still getting lots of water on the floor with all the splashing going on, but at least he is sitting in the tub again and loving it!!
Both kids have taken a liking to the piano. I think it might be time to think about piano lessons for Caityn. She likes to pretend she is playing songs and singing. Here she is really getting into the song she's singing. Sean is not so sure about his sister's musical talents.
Sunday night we had dinner with my family at my sister's house. It was "comfort food" night...Chicken Pie Shop pot pies. If you haven't had them before, you need to experience this at least once in your life...maybe only once in your life! The pie dinner is quite heavy and very starchy.
Anyway, after dinner, my sisters busted out the Wii and gave us their rendition of Radiohead's Creep. I wish I had taken a video of that!! Then everyone else tried out the drums and guitar.
Caityn tried out the drums too, but she was more interested in Aunt Kelly's old Strawberry "Fort"cake dolls.
Sean rocking out with the guitar
I'll spare you the video I took of my sister and parents and leave you with this photo instead. Believe me...you don't want to hear it!
Lately, Caityn and I have been spending some time visiting Pixie Hollow online after Sean falls asleep. Mary Cozymeadow is the fairy that Caityn created. She got to choose how the fairy looked, what she wore, and what her special talent is (she picked Tinker talent like Tinkerbell), and even her name from a list of approved fairy names. Mary is the name of her friend in preschool.
The website is pretty cute. You can make your fairy fly around and she gets special quests from Tinkerbell and her friends. The games and tasks were too hard for Caityn to do, but she still enjoys watching me do them for her. The fairies fly around in a chat room type place, so that there are other fairies flying around made by other people. They can request to chat with you and be your friend, but that seems a bit creepy to me. The fairies are all pretty cute, but you never who the person is on the other side of the fairy. It could be an innocent 8 year old or some creepy old pervert. Still, it's a fun website to visit and a whole lot better than watching that whiny brat Caillou on Sprout.
Last year Caityn wore her Crocs nearly every day. She LOVED them. I think that they are way overpriced for being a pair of rubber shoes, but they must be pretty comfortable for kids. I searched around on the internet to see if maybe some website had Crocs on clearance, and was surprised to find that the official Croc website had an outlet section! We found these cute Mickey/Minnie Mouse Crocs for around 50% off! They arrived in the mail yesterday, and both Caityn and Sean were loving their new shoes. Sean kept taking them off the shoe shelf and trying to put them on. It was very cute. Just don't tell Caityn that there were Tinkerbell Crocs on clearance. They were out of her size :(
This photo was taken exactly two years ago tomorrow. Remember when she was running at 9 months old! We went to the park with our friends, and she just took off!
The other day I thought it would be funny to gather up all our Little People and count them. I think I counted 29 people and 7 animals. Our army is ever-growing! Both Caityn and Sean love playing with the Little People. To eliminate some of the fighting, we divide them up - Caityn gets all the girl people and Sean gets all the boys. Sean loves to put the people in the cars and zoom them around. Caityn loves doing...well...whatever it is she is doing with them. I often find a gathering of girl people all huddled together in a circle. I think they are plotting something.
I just uploaded 74 photos from the camera onto the computer. Here are the best of the bunch.
Sean's 11 month photo with Snoopy. Only one more to go!!
Ready to go Mom! Let's go shopping!!
What Sean would look like if he were a girl
Loving the Merry-go-round
NOT loving the Merry-go-round
Little stinker figured out how to work the baby gate. Now we're in trouble!
Mom's night out with the girls
Caityn finally has someone in her weight class to ride with her on the teeter totter.
Baby Mozarts
Sesame Street zombies
We've seen a lot of sand this week! Two trips to the beach and a couple visits to the park. I've just about had it up to here with sand in my bed!!!
For those of you following the Sean saga, I'll have a full update soon. For now, things are going great and hopefully we'll have him sleeping through the night REALLY soon.
Have a great weekend!
Most of you probably already know the sleep issues we are having with Sean. I have just about had it with the frequent night wakings (and nursings) that occur each night. Sometimes as many as 7 or 8 times a night!!! In desperation, I started searching the internet for some sort of guidance. I came across a website with a questionairre about your child's sleep, so I just thought I'd fill it out and see what they would email me back. I don't know if it was the fact that they personalized the email by including Sean's name in the form letter, or the fact that it sounded like they were speaking to me, but something in that email nudged me to just let him tough it out.
So last night, I changed up his bedtime routine a bit. I nursed him about 20 min before bedtime and made sure he stayed awake, instead of the usually nursing him to almost asleep. We read books after the nursing, instead of before, then it was into bed he went. He cried for all of 1 minute, and then silence. It could not be this easy!
Well, after Caityn went to bed, she cried out for Daddy, and that woke Sean up. Such a light sleeper he is. I picked him up out of the crib, reassured him that all was okay, waited until he was calmed down, and back in the crib he went. No nursing. He cried for a total of 2 minutes. Are you kidding me? Who is this baby? Not mine!
I was feeling quite hopeful for the night to come, but of course he woke again around 11pm. I tried the same thing, but after putting him back in bed, he screamed like he's never screamed before. I was worried that all his screaming would disturb Caityn, so after 5 minutes of screaming we went in and took Caityn out of the room to sleep in our bed. Sean cried (well, screamed) then for about 10 more minutes. Okay...not too bad.
I tried to go to sleep myself, but then he kept waking up every few minutes, would cry and then fall back asleep. This happened several more times before he started up the bloody murder screams again. I could see this was going to continue for quite some time. He really is persistant. So I went in to take him out of the crib, and he fell asleep on my chest while I was holding him. Not wanting to have him scream again, I decided to sleep with him in Caityn's bed. He woke a few more times during the night, cried a little each time, but after comforting him, adjusting his bed covers, rolling him over, etc. , he would go back to sleep. No nursing...all night long...cold turkey!
The saga continues tonight...
This weekend we had absolutely gorgeous San Diego weather, so we got out and enjoyed it. Saturday we met up with some of our Fab friends at the San Diego Children's Museum. The kids had a great time exploring the place. Caityn said her favorite part was the bubbles. Sean was just happy to toddle around and get his hands on everything.
Then on Sunday, we went to Mission Beach to enjoy the warm sunshine. We walked up to the park by my grandma's house and just had a relaxing day by the bay.
And who can resist a naked baby butt picture!
No trip to Disneyland would be complete without a visit with Disney's most famous princesses. We decided to splurge a bit and have breakfast with the Princesses at Ariel's Grotto in the California Adventures park. Caityn was in awe of all the princesses in their beautiful dresses. The royal announcer definitely had Sean's attention too, every time he rang his bell to announce the arrival of another princess. Luckily, we were the first to arrive, the first to be seated, the first to be served breakfast, and the first to meet and greet with each princess. That worked out well, because Sean had had enough by the time the last princess made her way to our table.
Caityn and Princess Ariel (aka Little Mermaid). I was worried that she might flip out seeing LM without her mermaid costume on, but Caityn expertly explained to me that she wasn't wearing that because she wasn't in the water. Duh Mom!
Waiting for more princesses to arrive!
Daddy and Sean being silly.
Caityn and Cinderella
Caityn and Princess Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty)
Caityn, Snow White, and one of the dwarves
One of the things we definitely had to do while at Disneyland was visit with Tinkerbell. She had recently become a favorite of Caityn's and she was very excited to meet her. But each time we walked by Pixie Hollow, the line to meet and greet Tinkerbell and her fairy friends was REALLY long. The guy at the entrance told us it was about a 40 min wait. Yikes!!! We kept thinking that at some point the line should die down and we wouldn't have to wait so long. Well, the line never got any shorter, so on our last trip back into Disneyland, it was the first thing on our list of things to do. We all waited the whole 45 minutes just to see Tinkerbell and get some photos with her.
Caityn was very excited the whole time as the anticipation of meeting her idol grew. When it was finally almost our turn, we were up at the front of the line and we could see Rosetta, Tinkerbell's friend taking pictures with another group ahead of us. Caityn could peek through the trees and see Tinkerbell on the other side. It was very exciting! Finally...our turn to see Rosetta...and she bursts into tears and runs back to the stroller! What!!! Oh no...we did not just wait 45 minutes for you to change your mind! We were getting our picture taken with Rosetta whether she smiled or not! Poor Rosetta couldn't understand why Caityn was so upset.
Then after visiting with Rosetta we got to go around the corner and see Tinkerbell. It took Caityn a bit to realize that it was really her. Then she ran up to her and gave her a great big hug, and she was all smiles! I think she was extremely disappointed that we had waited so long (did I mention it was 45 minutes!!) and she thought she was only going to get to see a fairy sidekick and not the real deal. Boy, was she happy to finally meet Tinkerbell herself. We all got a good laugh out of that. Unfortunately, the pictures taken with our camera came out really dark, but we were able to copy the photos that their photographer took from the photo pass website. Shhhh! Don't tell Disney!
After Tinkerbell, we waited in yet another long line to go on the Autotopia cars. Caityn got to go twice. Since Sean was too little, they gave us a rider switch pass that allowed Abel to stay with Sean while I went on the car ride with Caityn. Then when our turn was over, Abel got to go with her again without having to wait in line. Good deal for Caityn! Then we ate an overpriced dinner, rode the rockets one more time, and said farewell to Disneyland. I should have taken a picture of Caityn's meal. It was a teeny, tiny cup of rice with even tinier bits of chicken in it and a cup of applesauce. The cookie that came with her meal was bigger than the dinner itself! That's okay...we were going to have a great big Princess breakfast in the morning.
We're back from our first family trip to Disneyland! So many pictures and stories to share, I'll have to break up the posts. We left for D-land on Mon afternoon right at naptime, hoping they would both nap in the car and be ready for fun when we got there. Well...Sean slept the whole way. Yay! But Caityn never even looked sleepy. She must have been too excited to sleep. After checking into the hotel, it was close to 3pm, so we headed into the park.
We decided to get the Southern Calif Annual pass since it was cheaper than buying two single day tickets, but the wait to process the passes was crazy long. Abel waited in the line while I took the kids for a stroll down Main Street and into Fantasyland.
The sight of the castle brought a few more smiles!
Caityn tried for several minutes to try and open this little door marked "Mr. Rabbit". 
If I had known it was going to take 45 min!!! to process the annual pass, I would have taken them on a ride, but we waited for Daddy before going on the first ride. It seemed really crowded in the park, but according to workers, there was hardly anyone there. I'd hate to go on a crowded day! We went on the Pinnochio ride first, because it had the shortest line, but I think that was a mistake. Caityn hated it!!! It was was too scary for her, and then she didn't want to go on any ride that was indoors. She only liked the outdoor rides, like Dumbo and the roller coaster in Toon Town. 
It was freezing (by So Cal standards) that evening, so we didn't stay very long. As we headed out, we saw Minnie Mouse, and the line to take pictures with her was surprisingly short, so we got a few quick photos with her. Caityn liked her quite a bit more than some of the other characters we saw that day. 
Jumping on the hotel beds was just as much fun as a Disneyland ride. Sean thought his sister was just hilarious!
The next morning, Aunt Abbey and Uncle Tore joined us as we headed back for more fun. That was a pretty rough morning. Everyone was kind of in a grumpy mood. Caityn didn't want to go on many of the rides. Maybe it was the lack of quality sleep? Those hotel beds were great for jumping, but not so great for sleeping!
Caityn and Mommy on the Dumbo ride.
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