Pretty Princesses

Allie and Lily had so much fun playing dress-up! These matching princesses are very pretty, don't you think?

Teether Pacifiers

Dylan started chewing on his pacifiers just after he turned three months old, and the amount of drool has been increasing steadily ever since. I'm sure it will still be awhile before any teeth break through, but the teething process is underway. He really likes these two teether pacifiers, although he can only hold onto them for a little while at a time. I was excited to find this first one in the store because it's the same as his regular Soothie pacifiers, only with grooved edges for teething.

Four Months Old

Whew - the time has flown! I'm having a hard time grasping that Dylan is already four months old. In some ways he still seems so little and brand-new, but in other ways it seems like he's been here with us forever, as part of our family.

Sleepy Baby

It was getting close to bedtime, but Dylan needed to eat one more time before he went to sleep. So he was hanging out on the couch, happily looking around the room. Before we knew it, he had nodded off.

Dylan Rolled Over!

Dylan rolled over from his tummy to his back! It was last night while Lily was washing her hands after dinner. I laid him down on his tummy, stepped back from him, and he flipped right over to his back as if he'd been doing it for months. And that was it - he hasn't done it again since then! I think he just wanted to show me that he can do it, he just chooses not to. (Does that remind you at all of another child who lives in our house?) Instead, he's been trying really hard to roll from his back to his tummy. He's very close to doing that; he rolls easily onto his side and starts wiggling and stretching, so it won't be long.

Just like everyone always tells me, I'm finding that our kids will do things differently from each other - every kid is different:
Dylan rolled over for the first time on January 26th, two days shy of being four months old. Lily rolled over for the first time in August 2007, when she was about three and a half months corrected age. Dylan weighs 14 lbs 3 oz today; Lily weighed 9 lbs 6 oz when she rolled over. For Lily, rolling over was a big process that she worked really hard at (do you remember the slideshow of pictures I took while she tried so hard to roll?). For Dylan, it seemed easy and he just flipped right over. He's moved right on to trying to roll from back to tummy, while Lily kept rolling tummy to back for quite awhile before she worked on back to tummy.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of Dylan after he rolled over.

An important Blogger update for those of you who read my posts in a Feedblitz subscription:
I learned how to backdate my posts to the dates the pictures were taken (thanks Katie!), so now you won't get an email unless I publish the post right away. So if you're interested in all the posts, you should go to the blog itself once in awhile to get caught up (Dusty I'm talking to you). If you need it, the address is http://corningfamily.blogspot.com/. If you go there now, you'll find a whole bunch of new posts that you never received an email about. Sorry for the inconvenience, but this way keeps things chronological for me a little better - especially since I'm planning to order a "Blog Book" from SharedBook.com! Which, by the way, I'm incredibly excited about! I already received my book for Lily's CaringBridge site, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. Our blog can now be our printed family scrapbook too! I'm working on going through all my posts from 2008 to make sure there are photos to go with all my slideshows and videos, since those won't print in the book. I also added posts for January - March 2008, so my 2008 book will include the whole year, even before I started the blog. So you're welcome to go back and check those out too if you're interested - just follow the links in the sidebar. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!

Fun Saturday

We had so much fun today! We spent most of the day outside enjoying the beautiful weather. We went for a long walk / run this morning, with a pit stop at the park. Lily rode her scooter and her four-wheeler when we got home, while Dylan hung out in the stroller. Later we went to Mary Jo Peckham Park to play mini golf, play on the playground, and check out the pond. Then we played at Chuck E. Cheese's for a little while and then picked up some dinner to bring home. We had a really great day!

It's a good thing Lily was wearing her helmet this morning - she fell off her scooter and did a face plant on the sidewalk, hard enough to dent the front of her helmet.  That was a close one!

Lily had her own putter that was much shorter than this one, but toward the end of the game she preferred to use mine.

Lily has turned into a monkey lately.  Nothing on a playground intimidates her anymore, and she can climb on most things without any help.

It's funny how the kids take turns smiling when we try to take pictures of them together.  I suppose it will be that way for years to come.

As we were leaving the park Lily wanted to climb up this pole.  She tries to shimmy up trees, too.  Daddy helped her out and sat her on top, and she responded by saying, "Now can you put my feet up here?" ... She wanted to stand on top of it.  Daredevil.

The Zoo in January

Our membership at the zoo has been worth every penny! I love the fact that I can take the kids to the zoo for a couple hours on any random day without having to plan a big all-day adventure. The zoo is different every time you go because the animals are always doing something different. I've never been to the zoo in January before, but we went today and had such a great time! The weather was absolutely beautiful - you can't ask for much nicer than 70 degrees and sunny. This was the first time we saw Toby, the red panda, actually awake and moving around. Usually he's sleeping when we visit. The cheetahs were on the prowl, and the giraffes were being fed. Lily was having a ball, choosing to run through most of the zoo rather than ride in the stroller. We hadn't been through the building next to Toby in awhile (why can't I think of the name of this building right now?), so she also had fun going through the aquarium tunnel. Lily has recently taken a liking to the animal statues at the zoo, and we discovered a new one that was just placed at the zoo in the last couple of weeks - an orangutan! The orangutans are my favorite animals in the zoo, so of course I was excited about the new statue, but Lily was just tickled pink that she could sit on the "orangutan monkey"'s lap. We actually found the new statue on our way toward the exit - what a fun way to end our trip to the zoo.
Dylan slept through the entire zoo trip. Maybe next time he'll get to see an animal or two.

Picnic Table

Lily's first picnic at her new picnic table - peanut butter and jelly! She was so excited to eat at her new table, but you can see that she's scrunching her shoulders in the picture because it was windy and she was cold! But of course she said no when I asked her if she wanted to go inside to eat!

Highchair

We got Dylan's (Lily's) highchair down out of the attic recently. Until now, Dylan has either sat in his bouncy seat or been held while in the kitchen with us. But now with the highchair, he can sit up at our level during meals and see a little more of the action when Lily and I are cooking. He seems to enjoy the chair for its entertainment value - just wait till he learns that I'll give him food while he sits there!

Watercolors

This is Lily's first set of watercolor paints... I remember painting with paints like these when I was little. But I'm sure I rinsed my brush between colors, unlike the little artist in this photo!

Happy Birthday Lily!

Lily had a fantastic 3rd birthday!  She went to church in the morning and had her party at Chuck E. Cheese's in the afternoon.  For weeks beforehand, she was asking us, "Where is my friend Chuck E. Cheese?" and "Can I go see my friend Chuck E. Cheese?"  So as soon as we arrived, she literally pulled Daddy by the hand, right over to the stage to see Chuck E.  As long as Chuck E. was on the stage, Lily loved him.  She did not like the 'real' Chuck E. Cheese who came over to say hello to her during the birthday show.  She enjoyed her ice cream cone cupcakes, but she was too excited about playing games to bother with eating her pizza. She was a ball of energy the whole afternoon, until her tokens were gone and she was suddenly very sleepy.  She had such a wonderful party - thank you all for celebrating with us!

Here are some pictures of the birthday girl, and one of Dylan saying happy birthday to his big sister.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! Mommy and Daddy love you so much!

Hard Freeze... in Houston!

We laughed earlier in the week when the meteorologists warned viewers about the anticipated "hard freeze." Having grown up in Iowa, we aren't accustomed to freezing conditions being unusual. In Iowa, the ground freezes early and pretty much stays that way for months. Well.... We're not in Iowa anymore. And our pipes aren't insulated as if they were in Iowa either! One of our water pipes running along an exterior wall of our house broke during the freeze. Thankfully, the damage wasn't too extensive and Dusty and Randy were able to fix it relatively easily. Unfortunately, they had to miss out on going swimming with Lily while they stayed home to fix it. Lily had lots of fun swimming while Dylan slept through the whole trip to the pool.