Mic check, one, two

Hello? Is this thing on?  Because I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Hey guys!  Sorry I left you hangin' there for a bit.  I know your lives haven't been the same since I posted, and I'm really sorry about that.  It's just that I have 2 kids now and they want to be fed.....and changed....and played with....and then changed again. But I never gave up hope that one day I'd be back at it, and here I am!  I'm ready to spill every little detail of our lives.  I hope you're ready to hear it!

So Lucy is all of a sudden 6 months old.  I know, right?  Like literally, she will be 6 months old tomorrow.  And I have no idea how that happened.  But I'm not mad about it, because 6 months is a pretty cute stage of life.  Here's what she's been up to lately:

*Getting her 2 bottom teeth in
*Scooching on her tummy like a beached whale to get where she wants to go. (and somehow she always finds a way to get what she wants....that's my girl)
*Drinking only bottles of formula now....we made it to about 6 months of nursing and that was enough for me (even though she was a very easy nurser, unlike her brother)
*Starting solid foods, but totally not into them.  She's had sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, and zucchini so far with almost the same disinterest (except peas had the worst reaction)
*Obsessed with anything Jude says or does.  She just sits and laughs at him.
*Talks all the time (like her daddy....ha. ha. ha)
*Loves stroller walks and going to the park
*Loves attention and being held.  And if she's not getting either of the two, her screams are unlike any other.  I seriously think that sometimes the neighbors can hear her.
*Shares a room with her brother and it's working out amazingly. (And this momma loves that I only have one stop to make when I check them both a million times in the middle of the night....yes, even though I have the camera monitor)
*Is a great sleeper.  She gets up around 7 each morning, eats and then goes right back down for a morning nap.  Wakes again, eats, then sleeps again. Does the same thing one more time and then has a longer stretch of being awake in the afternoon.  She's usually ready for bed at 7 or 7:30 and will sleep through the night.
*Has to snuggle up with blankets when she sleeps
*Eats her toes (Jude calls them her piggies since Nana calls Jude's toes piggies so we often hear, "Lucy eating piggies, Lucy eating piggies!"
*Loves to hear her name

She's such a little bundle of joy.  On any given day we both just want to smooch the living daylights outta her.  She's so happy and loving, I don't know how we got so lucky!

But let's not forget our little Judebug.  You guys, he's hilarious.  And huge. He grew up in the blink of an eye. He's so grown up that when we go to the park he makes friends and plays with them.  The other day he and his friends were cooking acorns in an oven.  Of course I was watching the whole thing but he runs up to me all excited and says, "Momma, friend says no touch acorns too hot.  Cook in oven" He was so proud and then ran off to collect more acorns off the ground.  Then this other time, he found a friend who had a Lightning McQueen car at the park and we all know that if you're a 2 year old boy you immediately become friends with the boy who has the McQueen car, so naturally that's what he did.  Conveniently the friend had ANOTHER McQueen car so he spent the whole time driving it back and forth along the wall with his new bestie.  I just can't get enough of it!

What I could do without, though, are his little tantrums.  He's getting good at them, and knows exactly how to push our buttons.  He's a sneaky little thing and so we've been working very hard to try and stay on top of the discipline.  So far we've found what works best for us is when we say 'good choice and bad choice'.  He gets time outs when he makes a bad choice, so he's starting to pick up a tad on that.  But only a tad.  And sometimes I literally want to beat my head against the wall because he will take it as he can before he knows he's in for it (a time out, that is, and a really, really unhappy mommy).  I'll be curious to see if he listens to his teachers next year when he starts preschool, or if he'll be the teacher's son that doesn't listen.  Oh dear God, I hope he listens!  I'll be sure to let you know!

As a side note, Jude has this thing where he adds 'ias' to everything he says.  For example, I'm 'mammias' and then there's 'daddias' and 'lucias' and 'girlias'.  It's to die for cute because he totally made it up himself.

Alrighty, my loves, I better wrap it up for now.  Because it's late at night, and I'm sitting in bed on my laptop while everyone else in the house snoozes. And I'm slightly jealous about it.  But I promise you this.....I'll be back soon!  Until then, here are some random pics of my lovies!