Going on a Safari

It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day here in Dallas, so naturally we went outside and went on a safari. We had to wear safari hats, at Gianna's request:

While Elia watched, Gianna searched for dinosaurs and giraffes:

I put a blanket down for Elia to crawl around on, and it was hilarious to watch her try to crawl on the grass. Every time she put her hand on the grass, she would look so confused and then just stay on the blanket.

By the end of our Safari she had ventured out onto the grass and her knees and hands were filthy! I hope the weather stays like this, it was such a fun time to be able to get out and play!!

Pictures of Late

Pulling up!!!

Enough hair for bows now! Aunt Shan, like the t-shirt?

I had to take this picture- they were sitting quietly together for maybe 10 whole minutes without any intervention! They are just about at the point where they play with each other. Gotta love sister love!

Being Silly

Sisters getting into mischief.

And again!

Trying to help with laundry.

Close Call

Last week, Elia had to get a routine finger prick to at her 9 month check up. On Monday, the nurse left me a message on my phone saying, "Hi Mrs. Rowles, please call me as soon as you get this message." A million bad things went through my head. My stomach kind of started turning into knots. Visions of cancer and weird random illnesses were running through my head as I hurriedly called her back. Of course, when I called her back, she was with another patient and could not talk to me. Finally, a half hour after I listened to the scary message, she called me back. "I just wanted to let you know that Elia's blood results came back clean. Everything looks normal!" I really wish she could have spared me the fretting and just said that very thing in the first message she sent to me.

Milestones

I have taken a small hiatus from blogging due to a broken computer. But I am back, and have a few happy things to report! Gianna is officially, completely potty trained. (YAY) Through the day, through naps, and even through the night! Every time she "goes" she says "I'm a little big kid now." I guess she recognizes that she is small but also grown up.

Elia is full out crawling and now, gasp, she is pulling herself up onto furniture. She is getting into EVERYTHING. Her latest favorite is turning the volume dial on our tv reciever around and around. She is eating more solid food and nursing less frequently and less enthusiastically. Why would she sit with mom quietly when she can get down and explore a whole new world? Her 9 month appointment went well- off the charts for height and 85th percentile for weight. I guess all that crawling and exploring is preventing her from staying off the charts for weight! She had to have a finger prick, which was so sad, and sad for Gianna to watch too.

Chris and I (w the help of Aunt Meg and Uncle Craig, thanks guys) just booked flights to go to Atlanta for Easter! It is an especially exciting time because Craig is converting to Catholicism and we will all be there to witness it. We are going to be there for a long weekend. Chris will go home before me, and I will stay out there for a little bit to have some Aunt and cousin time! I am a little nervous because that means I will be flying back to Dallas by myself with both girls for the first time, eeeek! So thats what is new with us. I will post some pics of the Rowles soon.

Sisters pt. 2, and more snow!

Our house after the big snowfall! SO pretty!

I have to dedicate this post to all the snowmen that are rapidly dying in my neighborhood. Yesterday, on our way to church, we saw countless, drippy, melty hunks of snow everywhere! The highest amount of snow anyone got in the DFW area was 12.5 inches. I don't think we got quite that much, but definitely more than 6 inches!
The worst part about the storm was that Aunt Colleen's visit almost didn't happen. Her flight was cancelled Thursday evening, then cancelled Friday morning, but she finally got here Friday night! So the weekend was salvaged and Gianna loved having Aunt Col and "Uncle" Bobby to play with. Playing in ths snow is so much fun, especially when there are lots of other people to go outside together. We made a family of snow angels on Friday night:

From left to right: Gianna, Chris, Moe, Elia

Chris and Gianna also went on a safari and made tracks in the snow:

I didn't take many pics of the girls with Uncle Bobby and Aunt Colleen, I am so bad about taking pics! Here are a few:

So glad Col made it!

Snow Day!

It snowed quite a bit here in Dallas today. Chris went in to work a little late to avoid the crazies on the road, so he took Gianna out to play in the morning. They made mini snow men. In fact, one for each person in our family :).

And got lots and lots of snow on them!

Then dad had to go to work, so later we ventured out. Why get brand new boots when you can make them for free out of plastic bags? And here Elia is wearing (carebear)socks instead of mittens.

I had to build a snow man of my own, and yes, I know it looks a little creepy, but! The only round thing I could find in the house was our neon orange golf balls. And G insisted we put a button on it as well.

It snowed ALL day long. And then Chris came home early. What a great day!

Sisters

This weekend, Aunt Shanny came to visit! We had a lot of fun just hanging out. She of course bought Elia and Gianna matching outfits, and so we wore those all day Saturday. Shannon and I got a much needed margarita (or 3) on Friday night, and we went hiking with the girls on Saturday. Its fun to watch Shan be so enthralled with the girls- she would get excited when naptime was over so she could see them and wanted to feed and diaper Elia and help G go potty. It was a nice break! Saturday night we had a little get together with a few friends and then Sunday was the usual church. I took Gianna with me to drop Shannon off at the airport Sunday night, and when Shannon said goodbye to her, Gianna got all misty and said "this is soo sad!" It was really cute, and Shan ate it up, but I think G was mostly putting on a show.

Shannon makes everything fun- even going to the grocery store with her is not a chore. I am so thankful for our close friendship, and I really really hope that Gianna and Elia share a good bond too someday. Its kind of hard to tell what its going to be like in the future since right now its mostly making sure Gianna doesn't poke Elia's eyes out and that Elia doesn't eat all of Gianna's puzzle pieces! But I can tell that G likes her- if Elia is out of the room (probably taking a nap) then Gianna is always asking where she is. And Gianna can get Elia to smile and laugh more than Chris and I can at any given time! They are too cute sometimes!

PS

Chris' method of feeding Elia is working out perfectly. For some reason, Elia hates spoons! She will keep her mouth tight lipped when a spoon is coming towards her, but if the hollowed out medicine dropper is coming towards her, well she just opens wide! So random!

Use the Force

I'd like to start with a thank you to Moe for picking up the slack. I really dropped the ball, or was forced to drop the ball depending on how you look at it. But thanks to her the whole world has been able to keep up with our two adorable children and occasionally their parents.



This is to all my parent friends....don't just tell your kids to eat their veggies...FORCE THEM! The last several weeks has been a battle of wills between me and the girls. Gianna has become the little 2 year old we dreaded; obstinate, energetic, distracted, and super smart. She is constantly testing hers and our limits especially at dinner time. If it looks like it has veggies in it she pics out the good parts and barely touches her food. Well that stopped about a week ago, thank you very much. We sat down at dinner, Moe made a yummy casserole or something along those lines and she refused to eat it, at least on her own, SO I picked up her bowl and spoon and made mild bargains for each bite: a bite for some juice, or a bite for some bread and butter. That soon devolved into an indifferent attitude, which escalated to threats on my part. No games, no puzzles, no movies etc, all the while i am spooning every bite and feeding her like a toddler. This has gone on for a week or so as we have stopped catering her meals and started making her eat ours. It still tries my patience, her resolve is stiff and strong (maybe a drink would help me....) but she finishes her dinner most nights now, veggies included, with far less bartering than when we started......

But her sister picked up where she left off. Last night Moe had some tutoring so I was on my own, with a rambunctious G who wanted to dance and march around the house and a hungry baby. I can't remember if Moe has talked about it or not but Elia hates food...or rather, she can't quit her mom. We have tried and tried and tried and she shows no interest unless it's a cracker or something she can hold. You can try to put a spoonful of something good up to her mouth and she is just refuses with tight lips. Moe has had limited success as well with her eating maybe once a day. Well last night E was HUNGRY and there was no mama for her to go to, and she wouldn't eat her veggies....that's where i stepped up my game. You can't force a spoonful of veggies past tight lips but you can do this....and it paid dividends...little E was happy for hours after that.

Low Key Weekend

Toofers!!!


G is going strong with potty training! No accidents in 48 hours!


This week we are going to work on the letter 'G"- so we filled a letter G with grapes and then got to eat them! She loved this activity.


A craft we did from our swap- tissue paper butterfly.

Papa started reading (paraphrasing) Narnia.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Elia is crawling! (w/ G helping)

School-time

I was completely inspired by my friend, "Jo Shabo" and so after reading her blog, I decided to do a few activities with Gianna. I just gathered a few things I had around the house:

I had a packet of arts and crafts pom puffs in 2 different sizes. So first, she sorted them into 2 different piles- little puffs and big puffs:

Then she sorted them by color into some little tupperware containers I had:

Then she used a melon baller (I don't have a little tongs) and put one puff in each cube.



I was amazed at how focused she was on these little tasks. She had more interest than some of my 3rd graders used to! I told her that this is "school" and that sometimes we will do activities like this. She is really excited about it! We will probably do a couple crafts next week that we got from our activity swap. Thanks Jo Shabo!

Busy week!

We have not sat down all week! On Sunday, we did the usual- church and football, and of course the uncles came over. That is always a special treat for Gianna and Elia, because they get so much extra love! Monday I whisked the girls off early morning to Gianna's pta playgroup. We did an activity swap- similar to this idea. Every mom came up with a craft to do with a 2 year old, made 20 of the same sets in a bag, and brought them to play group. Then we all passed ours out and presto- I have 20 different fun activities to do with G! I pulled one out tonight to do with her but everything requires glue and we dont have any-bummer.
On Tuesday we hung out with G's BFF "Lynn". We saw Lynn in December, and she had no interest in potty training. Well, she is potty trained now! So that sort of inspired me to take it back up again- uggg. So far its going ok- I have realized that you have to be ok with the messes or she won't be trained until she is 20! Lynn and Gianna played nicely and we enjoyed lunch together as well.
Wednesday I hosted my church's play group, and that was a ton of fun too! G's other BFF Soph, joined us and it was just a big party! I love getting together with my friends from church- hanging out with mom's that have the same faith as I is VERY refreshing! We are hoping to expand our little playgroup, so if there are any mamas out there that want to pray the rosary while the kiddos play in the North Texas Area (Carrollton Farmers Branch more specifically)- let me know!
Thursday we went to Elia's pta playgroup, which was hosted at the indoor playground at the mall. Gianna loves coming here and climbing all over the plastic structures. This was Elia's first time since she has learned to scoot- so she had a blast too. Then home and straight into the bath- I get nervous that those sort of indoor places are teeming w swine flu and chicken pox, etc. I have started doing baths with the girls during the day- it is something really fun for them to do and perfect when we can't go outside/get out of the house due to weather! Also, I feel like bath time wastes precious daddy time at night, so mornings work for us! Bath time lasted quite a while today! We made it to the mall and back with no accidents- this is awesome for me to report!
Friday we spent the morning with Gianna's friends, "Adam" and "Eve." Adam loves to be the boss and show Gianna what to do, and for the most part, G follows ;). Back home for lunch and nap- this week was full! I made Gianna a potty chart to motivate her for the potty- she puts a sticker up everytime she goes, and when she gets to the star, she gets to go get ice cream with daddy- which is an EXTRA special treat for her. The potty training process is a bit tedious. I have to constantly remind her and actually put her on the potty, and it seems when I get the tiniest bit distracted, thats when we have an accident!




Elia is scooting everywhere, much to Gianna's dismay. Gianna is always "making a gate"- putting a rolled up blanket or a pillow in her way so that she can't get to her toys. And just today she started going from her belly to sitting up on her own, so that means this weekend we have to lower the crib! My baby just won't stop growing up! Its going to be a cold weekend, so we are going to do lots of family time indoors.

G's Dance

Locked Out

Friday was our bi-monthly trip to costco. Gianna loves to go to costco to get the free samples. I love that Costco's carts have 2 children sized seats at the front. Anyway, we got through the store without any problems and both girls were in exceptional moods. Elia sat quietly, flirting with other customers as they walked by. As I was checking out, I noticed that my keys were not in my purse! Sure enough, when I pulled the cart up to our car, I saw that the keys were in my ignition. This is the only key we own for this car, and a new key costs $200, so I am usually very er, uptight, about making sure the key stays with me. So after calling Chris and freaking out a bit, a very nice Costco employee tried to help me. But her very measly piece of twine did not help. Meanwhile, Gianna keeps asking if she can get out of the cart, and Elia is starting to fuss because she hasn't eaten anything for 4 hours- a long time for her! I bribed Gianna with Gogurt and fruit snacks, but I was not about to go lug both girls back into Costco to find a private spot to nurse. So I did the only thing I could- I fed her a gogurt, and she loved it, thank goodness! Then, a man walking by noticed we were trying to get in the locked car and offered to help. He went back to his car and brought back the perfect tool for getting into our Honda, (hmmmmm, I wonder what he does for a living??) and the crisis was averted. Whew!

New Developments- and no camera!

Elia started crawling last night! My angel baby can move forward! Its a very funny thing to watch. She gets up on all fours and kind of rocks back and forth, and then pushes her knees and feet off the ground to propel her forward. So I guess its more like scooting. Gianna's new favorite game is making her "race." We get a toy that she really likes and put it at one end of the hallway and Elia at the other end and have her scoot towards it. Gianna's encouragement for her little sis is sooo cute! "You can do it baby" and "come on I know you can!" are just a few. And of course, I don't have our awesome new flip camera to document this! Hopefully we will get it back before Elia is full-on crawling.

For Christmas, Gianna got a magnet set where you can match animals and they make their animal sounds. You can also mix the animals, so you can create a pig horse or a duck sheep, etc. Gianna thinks this is way more fun. It has a song that sings to the tune of "A pig horse? You put the pig in front, you put the horse behind. Put them together and what do you find? A pig horse? That's silly!" Every time this little ditty plays (which happens every other minute while she is in the kitchen with me) she waves her arms in the air and sways her hips at the same time. This is why I need a camera- because its way cuter to watch than to read about. I will try my durndest to get that footage up soon!

Back in the swing of things

Coming home from a vacation takes a lot of adjustment. There is the laundry, the putting of things away and then for us, the time adjustment. Finally G and E are sleeping on a semi-normal Dallas time schedule. But then there is also getting used to the idea that you are not on vacay anymore. No more going out and having a great time without the kids, no more sleeping in because grandma took the babies in the morning, and no more watching Gianna run around happy as a clam with her aunties. And so normal life takes over here at home with grocery shopping and nap times and trips to the library instead of the glamorous life you lead when its all play and no work. Today after nap, while we waited for daddy to come home, we got out the double stroller to go on our daily walk, and darn, it was raining. So instead, I pulled the car out of the garage, put the g door down, and let Gianna ride her new bike around.

Elia got a kick out of being in the front of the stroller this time (and being able to see her sis ride around)- stationary of course!


Our trip to California was such a whirlwind of fun, it might seem that life here can be sort of dull compared to it. And yet I still cherish these quiet moments when the girls are happy being at home and just want to play. Makes coming home a lot easier!

Top 15 list of our California Trip

I could bore everyone with the wonderful, gory details of our trip, but decided to construct a top 1o list instead. It quickly turned into 15! In no particular order- enjoy, dear readers!


1) Sledding in Tahoe. Watching Gianna enjoy something I loved as a child was especially cool!


2) Gianna and Elia were Ana's show and tell for a day. All the kids were excited to meet them, and they were all so sweet!


3) Playing games each night we were in our cabin in Tahoe. Highlight- We were playing Cranium and I was trying to get my team to guess "temporary tattoo" by drawing it on a piece of paper for them. Everyone could guess the tattoo part of it, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to represent the word temporary with my drawings. Time ran out before I could get them to guess. When I told my team it was temporary tattoo, Mary looked at me (with a straight face) and said, "Moe, you should have drawn a picture of Ryan from The Office! Then we all would have known- he is a temp- temporary tattoo!" It took everyone forever to stop laughing over that one!


4) Taco Tuesday at Compadres. Highlight- taking a tequila shot with Vince and Becky!


5) Leaving the babies at home and going to see Avatar with Vince and Jenny. It is a beautiful movie! (yes, I know there was a political agenda, and some people hate it for that reason, but I took it for what it was- a night out, and a cool action movie!)


6) Meeting little Phoebe- it was so cute to see G dote on her! What a gorgeous baby!


7) Gianna and Marley's beautiful friendship: "Hi Marley, its me, Gianna! Do you remember me?" and "Marley is my best friend." and "Look mom, I'm sharing," as she shared part of her mozzarella stick with her.


8) Going to the KOC Crab Feed- yum yum. Highlight- watching Vince's face as a stranger smelled Phoebe to see if she had a stinky diaper-heehee.


9) Watching Gianna run around with her Aunties Ana and Beth. Chris and I hardly saw Gianna! She got to sleep in their room and there were quite a few nights we had to go in there and tell them to stop giggling and get to bed! Beth is determined to be Elia's favorite auntie, since we all know G's is Auntie Ana!




10) Elia getting her 5th tooth (3rd on top) and finally sleeping better afterwards. She has also learned to say mamamamamama and I am pretty sure she uses it in context!

11) Opening presents from Santa/Grandma. Spoiled spoiled is what we are! We got a cool hd flip video camcorder and G and E got lots of fun toys, puzzles and clothes. Highlight- Aunt Jenny made the cutest little apron/chef hat/oven mitt set for G.

12) Poker night- Chris and I both lost fairly early, but I love playing and talking with all the family and eating yummy snacks from Trader Joe's. Why are there Trader Joe's everywhere but here in Dallas??

13) Mary's fabulous cooking- enough said!

14) Catching up with my dear friend Annie the day before I left- for 3 whole hours at Starbucks!

15) Elia falling sleep on Mikey- too cute!

See you Rowles soon!

Tahoe!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a quick moment before it gets crazy here, but we just got to Tahoe a few hours ago. Gianna has been out in the snow in her snow pants and having a great time! We have a cozy 4 bedroom house rental that all the Napa Rowles, Dallas Rowles, and Albas (a total of 16) have squashed into. Little cousin Phoebe and Elia are passed around by all the aunts and uncles. Gianna is in hog heaven getting so much attention from auntie Anna and auntie Beth. We are about to sit down to dinner and afterwards we will all play some crazy, competitive family games!

I am writing the next day now. This morning we went sledding and even Elia got in on it! The above video is of Gianna sledding down the hill. Last night we played Cranium, which is hilarious to play when there are Rowles and alcohol present. We might go out sledding again soon, Gianna is having a ball!!!! During breakfast she couldn't stop waving her arms around in excitement and talking about the snow. I think the plan is to have a snow man building competition- more on that later!