sidenote......

When I first saw these photos, I had a range of thoughts.

My first thought was, "Look at my belly in this picture; I can't believe it's that freakin' big!"

Then I thought, "I am deleting these pictures and noone else will ever see them!" And then finally I decided that I would keep them and use them as a reminder to get to the gym more often. A couple weeks after these pictures were taken, I found out that we are having another baby! Yep, pregnant again with baby #3!

But come on! I'm like 3-4 weeks pregnant here! Right around this time, I had a woman ask me in the gym was I pregnant. I told her no and she asked me was I sure. Ha!

For some crazy reason, I get an immediate increase in girth around my belly area. Not that I'm usually flat and toned, with 6-pack abs, but come on I'm not that big! It also makes me a little embarassed to share just how pregnant I am. People usually ask first if I'm pregnant and then the next question is- how far along are you. I usually laugh while telling them, because I know the next response will be- wow either that's a big baby or you are carrying twins.

It sure looks like she knows what she is doing! She was stomping on the arrows and jumping all around, too bad the game wasn't even playing. It must be fun to be a toddler!

My Favorite Shoes

These are her favorite shoes. These are the shoes she spends umpteen times taking on and off. A couple of months ago I noticed that she always managed to put these shoes on the right feet.

I wanted to know if this was a fluke or did she actually know the left foot from the right foot. So, I waited until she was putting the shoes on and then I grabbed them from her, mixed them up and handed her the opposite shoe that she was getting ready to put on.

And do you know what happened! She switched foot and put the shoe on correctly.

So there you have it! At 22 months she knew how to put her shoes on the right feet.

I was playing with flash and my new camera and I told Cailin to get on the couch with Ariel to take a picture. And you know what? She did it! I couldn't believe it! Then she looked right at the camera and smiled. What a big girl!

20 months old!

My little baby is almost two years old. Where does the time go? You run and loved to be chased. You try to feed yourself with the spoon or fork. You haven't quite got the hang of it yet. You say lots and lots of words, repeating after everyone in the house. You are so funny because you pick up on everything. Yesterday morning as Ariel was getting ready for school, Jerry told you to go tell Ariel to "lets go". You ran to Ariel's door and screamed at the top of your lungs "LETS GO!" It was so shocking and extremely funny. I guess that's what we must sound like telling Ariel to hurry up and get dressed each morning.

It seems that younger sibling are born with the ability to annoy the older sibling. I didn't think that would happen because there is such a huge age difference, but you try your best to get under Ariel's skin. You will walk past Ariel and kick or hit her. You think it is funny to continue to put your feet on her even when she tells you to stop. You will try to step on her homework papers. You also want everything that Ariel has. If Ariel doesn't share with you then you come and tell on Ariel. The incident that sticks out is when we had just come from the grocery store and Ariel gave you a granola bar and she had some corn nuts. You wanted Ariel's snack even though you still had your granola bar. I guess your just a very smart for 1 1/2 year old.

Did I say how utterly exhausting it was trying to get her to sit still long enough to take her picture. This was the first picture taken and she up and on the move after that.

Then I found if she sat still then I couldn't get her to look at the camera!

Instead of sitting in the chair, she wanted to stand.

Then stand with no hands.

This was right before she fell off the chair. She didn't hurt herself because the chair is only about a foot from the ground.

Bribery with Goldfish crackers!

Trying to get Cailin to sit still long enough to take her picture proved harder than I expected. I tried bribery with Goldfish Crackers, but that didn't really work, because........

She wanted to eat the whole bag of them!

She loves her Melmo (Elmo) chair. Her absolute favorite character is still Narney (Barney), but Elmo is a pretty close second!

No....No Toys for me!

This is her preferred activity. She spends all day climbing all over the couch. She will even jump down from the arm of the couch.

Another activity is finding things, like this clothes basket to play with. Would you believe she has a bin full of toys at the end of the couch that she rarely plays with?!