VBS and pre-haircut hair

Cheryl up at the church took this picture of Joanna at VBS. Isn't she so precious?!!! Both girls were in their respective nursery rooms this year. I was in with Natalie volunteering and holding babies. It was a good week! Unfortunately I didn't have much time left for work so it was also a tiring week. Oh, well!

I got the girls a shirt (one to share) and myself a shirt. Who wouldn't love a bright green VBS shirt? Unfortunately a small was the smallest (size 4-6) so it currently swims on Joanna. From what I hear, though, children grow. She didn't wear it to VBS, but we did have to try it on. Here's my attempt at the whole 80's side "ponytail" for your shirt look:
On Friday Matt was off so the girls and I played hooky from VBS to hang with him. Joanna had an appointment for a trim and Matt took her so I could stay with sleeping Natalie at home. I can't remember why, but Joanna was really sweaty right before they left so I couldn't get a great "before" shot.
Mainly I just wanted to freshen up her length and get the hair out of her eyes.

You can check out the "after" shots in the 4th of July pictures.

Father's Day Mug

Here's the mug we made for Matt for Father's Day this year! He proudly calls it his "weekend mug" and enjoys his leisurely coffee from it on non-work days.

I love how it turned out!

Joanna provides endless entertainment.

Here's some for you. Joanna says/does the cutest things all the time. Sometimes I manage to catch them on video, but honestly I'm lucky if I just manage to write them down. So I've been writing a few things down as they came to me today.

• Joanna's been singing "Frere Jacques" constantly today. I think she has it stuck in her head. This is what it sounds like when she sings it: "faira shocka, faira shocka, faira shocka, faira shocka, faira shocka..." pretty much until she runs out of breath or gets distracted with something else. I'm trying to teach her the rest. No luck so far.
• She calls the exersaucer the "applesaucer." I think that's hilarious.
• She has a fancy word for tortillas. I'm going to try to spell it phonetically for you. "Tork-uh-tias." I find myself using this word -- I love it! This is what it looks like in my head: "torqueatillas."
• She says "Oh my doodness!" at appropriate times. Like this evening I heard her say it after Matt told her that Jonah got swallowed by a whale.
• Another phrase I hear that just sounds so grown-up is "Oh, that's right." Like I'll remind her that Matt's at work, and she'll say, "oh, that's right."

Here are some things Natalie's up to as well:

• She's scootching a bunch around here!
• She seems to always find shoes laying around to chew on. We try to keep them put away, but...
• I can tell she's ready to start eating. Rice cereal is on my grocery list. I was trying to hold out a little longer, but she's looking at me with those hungry eyes. :)

Traveling Tips

We're planning to drive to Nana and Popo's house later this month and were interested in some travel tips from pros (or anyone reading this). :)

The longest the girls have ever been in the car is probably about 2 hours... maybe, so this is new to us. My dad lives 400ish miles from here. I've made the trip many times, but never with kids in tow. We have a few ideas and plans for the ride, but we would love any suggestions for those of you who've traveled with your children/grandchildren. Any advice on what to bring/what to leave home or how to entertain a two year old and anything else that comes to mind would be helpful!

So think about it and leave a comment!

Trying the video again...

I cropped it, so there are a couple of places that skip. Pay no attention to the conversations in the background -- they have nothing to do with Natalie!

My mom, grandma and uncle Mark all got to see her tricks yesterday. She was really moving so I made myself vacuum the living room and pick up little things. I need to work on the playroom so that Joanna's stuff that's not baby friendly is up higher than Natalie's little chewy toys. She is really motivated by things across the way from her.

I don't know whether it's the new skill or a little cold or teething or some of all three, but Natalie had a pretty rough night (for her) last night. She had trouble getting to sleep and she woke up early. But she just woke up a few minutes ago (9:40am!), so she had a good chunk this morning, too. Hopefully she's caught up. THANK GOODNESS Matt is home today and helped with her last night/this morning so I could get my beauty sleep. I am so Oscar the Grouch in the mornings.

Scootching!

Today, July 2, 2009, Natalie really scootched for the first time. I've seen her kind of flail around, but this was purposeful, directional movement toward some toys. She did it once we got home, too, so I don't think it's a fluke! She's on the move! This video is like 3 1/2 minutes long, so you might just want to watch the beginning and the end to see her amazing progress. :)

***okay, the video's too big to upload directly to Blogger, so I'll work on something else. I may just take a smaller one later.

I'm off to vacuum -- she's going to be all over the place soon!

Click here to link the post of Joanna scootching. She may have been doing it for a little while by that point; I'm not really sure. She was almost 8 months old (and wearing a romper that Natalie's about to grow out of!). It's funny -- we were in the nursery then, too, and the videos are almost the exact same length.

Trapped

I'm feeling trapped at home this week, even though I'm not... let me explain. I'm volunteering for VBS this week in the nursery. I get to be with Natalie which is wonderful; Joanna's happy in her big girl class; and I can even slip over to the office for meetings, to get the bulletin proofed, etc. It's a little rough to try to keep up with my work stuff AND work in the nursery all morning. The reason I'm feeling trapped is that we leave the house around 8-8:15 and get home at 12:30-12:45. That's the entire good part of the day. After that we do a quick lunch then down for nap. Natalie's been fighting naps in the nursery (I actually think she'd do better if I wasn't there, but oh, well.) but taking remarkably fabulous afternoon naps -- like 2-3 hours!!! I'm hoping the streak continues today. Joanna's been napping well too, but she slept in this morning so we'll see. Anyway so the reason I'm feeling so trapped is that there's really no time for running errands. By the time the girls get up from naps, it's (hopefully) very close to when Matt gets home and time to start dinner. I'm exhausted at the end of the day when they go down, plus not everywhere I want to go is even open, AND I'm having to do all my actual work at home since I'm working in the nursery when there's nursery avail. for my kids. MDO STARTS NEXT WEEK!!! Sadly it's just for Joanna, but I'll take it! Natalie's easy going.

So I'm not actually complaining, just venting a little. I'm tired, but actually not as tired as I have been. The last couple of days I've taken naps with my girls and it has helped tremendously in the evenings with my energy level. In fact, I'm off to do that now!