As promised

I am finally getting around to posting some photos. I am also trying hard to take photos more often. One thing that is making that a bit difficult is that Otto has discovered the camera and loves it. That is fine, but now he has learned how to turn it on and if I am not careful he can delete pictures. Needless to say he has to be closely monitored while holding it.

Here is Mette in one of the dresses we got as a hand me down. It is quite cute and she is looking darling holding her hands.

This was the best of many attempts to get a picture of the two of them. Notice Otto is really Kimi, the Ferrari driver.

Smiles!

Check out those cheeks!

This is Mette stylin' in an amazing onesie that my friend Rachel made for her. As she said, "she may be a girl, but she is still a Faden and needs some race cars."

Pink none the less

Mette and I went to the hospital to visit Otto's buddy Leo's new baby brother. Since Mette would be the first little girl he would meet I thought she should look good for the occasion. This is an outfit from Nonna Jen that was perfect.

I gave Otto a haircut this evening and he is looking quite sharp.

Quote of the Day

Every day when eric and I are going to bed we recount all of the hilarious things Otto has said over the day. We really need to start writing them down and keeping a list. I am going to start a hopefully weekly post of his best quotes from that week. Some recent favorites include:

at the dinner table out of the blue, "wait a minute, wait a minute, I have an idea!"

there was no idea just a lot of excitement

in response to me trying to get him to come in for lunch, "no, no, no, mommy go inside and get lunch ready and otto stay outside with dump truck and play"

and here is why i need to start writing them down, I know there are more really good ones and I can't think of them now.

We had a fun day trip to the cabin today in the dreary weather and are looking forward to getting outside and playing in some dirt. Hopefully this week will have some moments of outside time!

Smiles

I received my weekly "what your baby is up to" email from BabyCenter earlier this week about Mette's 6 week of life. Same old, same old, she is growing etc... but they also mentioned that around this time most babies start to really smile. Not just I have gas or something else fun like that. I hadn't seen anything like that from Mette despite all the silly faces I make at her trying to coax out something. Yesterday morning while changing her diaper she looked at me, made eye contact and made the biggest grin ever! Not once, not twice but three times. She was clearly seeing it was me and enjoying it. I totally forgot how much you melt the first time they do that. I was filled with the immediate feeling of "she loves me" this little person that I have been spending every waking, and sleeping, moment with for quite some time now has decided that I might be all right. It is quite a wonderful feeling.

She went on to steal my heart by sleeping for almost an hour in the swing allowing me to clean the living room and kitchen, then eating and sleeping all the way to and through playgroup. And if that wasn't enough, she slept the whole way home AND stayed asleep long enough to eat lunch before she woke up!! That never happens. Then I went and had tomato sauce with dinner last night and she was up with gas and fussy for a lot of the night. We had thought that was something that was bothering her, but now we know for sure. Poopy for me, no pesto (garlic) and no tomato sauce. How am I going to eat pasta??

ok, must run, children are up....

Quick

I only have a short moment, but I thought I would jot a few things down while I am thinking about it. I just did my first pilates workout in ages and am sure to be too sore to think for the next few days! Anyway, kudos to me for successfully managing to take both kids to the grocery store today. That is quite an undertaking. One I think I might try to avoid if possible in the future. Still it went very well. Otto was an angel which made it go smoothly. The entire time he talked about how he was a race car or race car driver. He thinks the annoying Weis theme song they play all the time is "Lightning McQueen music" and starts dancing every time he hears it. It is quite adorable. He insisted on wearing his Ferrari outfit all day which made the trip that much cuter. He also told eric this morning that Kimi Riakonnen was inside him. Creepy and funny all at once!

Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting to mention, Otto had his two year check up. He is doing well. The doctor thinks language and cognitively he is about a year to a year and a half advanced. She was quite impressed that he knew his full name and address. Also his counting skills were a hit. He can also draw circles and lines thanks to my mom which the doctor was impressed with as well. His head is on the small side, but since he is not showing any developmental problems the doctor is not worried. He is 27 pounds post stomach flu and we think 34ish inches tall. He won't stay still enough to get a good measure on that.

Because he is growing so much we took him to get new sneakers this past weekend. There is a great shoe store one town over where they really take the time to measure your kids foot and find the shoe that best fits him or her. I thought we would be getting more Stride Rites but after trying on 5 pairs and not finding one the man felt "gave him the fit he was looking for" he brought out a pair of Sauconys. They are blue and orange so we called them the Bucknell shoes. They seemed to fit him the best and since that is all that really matters we got him the Bucknell shoes. I am fine with them, except for the fact that they are really big boy looking shoes. How can he have big kid shoes already??!! I will get a picture to show you, but it is really hard on a girl.

Mette continues to do well. Last night she did all three and four hour stretches and slept until 5 in the cosleeper. At 5 she wanted to play and it took awhile to convince her to go back to sleep, but she did so all was well. She is starting to be a bit more fussy during the day, but I think some of that is frustration about being a baby who can't do anything. As she gets older that will go away. She is still super snuggly and adorable so I don't mind.

I know, I know, I know

I have been remiss on posting lately, sorry. It isn't that I haven't been thinking about it, in fact I think of funny things to add all day long, I just haven't had the computer, the camera, the camera to computer cable and time all in the same space together. I am making up for it a bit with a bunch of pictures tonight. Before we get to those a brief recap:

things are going well. Mette is still adorable and we have decided to keep her. This after receiving her birth certificate, ss card and health insurance cards. Her black market value is quite high now. She is quite the little chow hound and is making new necks every day as well as loosing her chin. She also has some adorable thigh rolls now. All of these new developments make for fun places to clean. She has quite the set of lungs on her which she has been working a lot the past 24 hours. While we aren't totally sure, it is looking like no garlic for me again for the next year. She was NOT pleased with what I had for dinner. I am putting myself on a bland diet for the next week and then will go back to adding in fun stuff. Otto hated it when I ate garlic so it wouldn't surprise me if she did as well. Oh well, as my mom always says, this is just a moment in time, true true.

One thing in posting these pictures that I have noticed is that we really need to take more pictures. I vow to start with more of that tomorrow. I had lots of funny stories to share with you, but my brain is not thinking of any so here are some pictures and I will come up with more interesting facts soon!

Eric came into the living room the other day and saw Otto reading AutoWeek, this was not a posed shot!!

My mom and her brilliant idea to paint with water on paper. Otto thought it was great fun that he got to use grandmom's big brush!

Eric pretty much made himself at home in the window seat in the newly finished library at the cabin. Good thing there was room for Otto or no one would have seen him all weekend.

Mette and Eric taken by Otto

Grandpa Chris and Nonna Jen came to visit and gave Otto a great bike for his birthday. Grandpa Chris assembling and testing...

Nonna Jen snuggling with Mette

Classic fencing pose, in ferrari outfit that was eric's!!

My fam.

The next in the line of kids who have worn this outfit

Adorable

Pickle and Otto "washing hands". I took about 20 pictures of them doing this, it was adorable. They are really starting to move into playing with each other and not just parallel play. There is a water table in our summer future!

Otto is Two

So I would love to write a long post about how wonderful it is that Otto is 2 and how much he has changed and grown over the past year, but I can't.  Not that I don't know what to say, but I have been working on getting time to do this post for two days and I have only managed to get the photos uploaded before someone needs something.  So here are some great photos of his fun filled weekend with Ben, Shannon, Matt, Grandmom, Grandpa, GrandmaBah and his parents.  Dear Mette chose to sleep through most of the excitement.  How awesome is that!!??

Shannon with the little bundle of joy.

Uncle Matt makes a great vehicle.

Otto's totally awesome personal racetrack from Grandpa.

Running full speed ahead in his official Ferrari drivers suit from GrandmaBah

Driving what he calls a Ferrari from YiaYia and Papou

The Thomas cake....

true love

Keep this photo, possible the only shot of the four of us you will see.   Seems we only ever have pictures of Otto, sometimes with one of us in them.  This is a keeper.

Can you tell we have a toddler and a newborn.  Here we are with Shannon making it through the morning.  I was completely asleep and everyone else was watching Wallace and Grommit.

It must be in the genes.

Uncle Ben and Mette

Uncle Matt and Mette