Shine On Bad Guys!

Two kids, we're not there yet.  We hope that someday we will look back and be proud that we managed it well.  We might be managing it now, but I wouldn't say well.  Lilah has made a break for the street on two occasions while I've been on the couch breastfeeding.  Tonight alone she cut herself with a CutCo knife, spilled milk on the floor twice, and the baby threw up on me-- all in the span of about 45 minutes.  Not winning.  My only winning moment was when Ben got puked on last night-- like a lot.  I brought him a dish towel.  I thought it was kinder than the small paper towel he brought me when Lilah spit up all over me two years ago.  Pay back :)  But he was a good sport and even let me take a picture.

Proud Dad Moment... This is real love.

Lilah is probably one of the funniest and sweetest girls but has had more challenging moments over the last few months.  We've worked on some household rules as a result of hitting at daycare and Lilah recalls the rules now saying, "I no hit. I hug."  Another rule is not yelling and stomping her feet.  But we'll get there.  She is two after all.  The classic methods of discipline have thus been not too effective, but she doesn't seem to mind her time outs too much.   Luckily she balances it out with uber adorable moments and being utterly lovable.  Some of the absolutely adorable things she is famous for currently: 1) Throughout the day and during dinner we hear Lilah's little voice sing "Shine!" (aka Katy Perry's song "Firework).  She learned it from the Madagascar movies but the girl is obsessed with the song.  2) Bad Guys.  Everyone is a bad guy (except me... woo hoo!).  Rooney is a bad guy.  Daddy is a bad guy.  Anyone in a book is a candidate to be a bad guy.  3) Feeding ducks, but mostly eating all the bread herself.  " More bread!  'ere you go!  Bye duckies!  See 'ou 'morrow!"  It's seriously makes me tear up it's so cute. 4)  Loving bedtime and bath time.  Where did this child come from?  She loves to be tucked in and read to.  So sweet!  5) Saying "walk away" to someone/dogs when she is upset with them.  It's hard not to laugh, honestly.  Where do they learn these things?!
6) Being an awesome big sister!  She LOVES her new baby.  She always wants to address the baby's crying-- someone needs to hold her or stick a paci in her mouth.  She helps me pump milk and is very curious about everything the baby does.  But most of all she kisses Adeline, sings to her and shares her toys with Adeline.  I hope these two are super close when they grow up.

Big Sister-ing

Adeline has been a charming baby but was born a month old.  She was alert alert from the get-go and isn't very fond of sleeping when not in someone's arms.  My nighttime sleep has ranged from 3.5-5.5 hours most nights and there hasn't been any napping at our house.  It's been a busy maternity leave... how did I ever do all of this while working full time too?!  How will we ever do it all when I'm back to work with two kids.  Lord, help us!

What wouldn't you do for this sweet face?!

Too cute at 1 month!

I also got to make a trip back (when Adeline was 2 weeks old!!) to see friends and family.  I did a job interview and yay-- got it!!  But most importantly, Adeline got to meet her Nana, Papa, great grandparents, her special Lincoln aunties, and the Millers!  Well worth the chaos!

Nana's new house

Nana time

Adeline and Nana

Papa playtime!

The proud grandparents

Snuggling with the Gaga

Uncle "Tray-vor"

Val Schroeder in Iowa City

Uncle Jeff

Aunt Carrie and Reagan

Mas big sister time

My Rocky Mountain Monkeys

Who would be insane enough to take a 6 week old baby and a 2 year old roundtrip on an airplane to Colorado for 9 days?!  The Nelson Family.  Yup.  We are C-razy.  For future reference, don't let a 9 month pregnant person make these kind of decisions.  But thank goodness we did it, it was a great trip overall!

The Graney family was very generous to let us invade their brand new Denver home in Stapleton.  We fell in love with their swing for Adeline and enjoyed watching Lilah and Patrick play.  Lilah might have told their sweet dogs, Charlie & Gus, "no lick-a my baby seester! walk away. walk away."  Poor guys, they were just trying to be nice.  Stapleton was a lesson in how well they can do family neighborhood planning-- it was amazing.  The parks were phenomenal, the splash pads, the sidewalks... what a neighborhood!  Too cool.  Way to go Graneys!  And thanks for the widely inappropriate VooDoo donuts.  Loved them.  Sorry I ate them all.

Patrick and Lilah ride it up

VooDoo Donuts.  Wow.

Ben's inappropriate donut.  It was deliciously inappropriate.

Stapleton Parks... it's pretty nuts.

We enjoyed 3 days in Denver seeing my brother, Tyler, and showing him his new niece, Adeline!  He of course was majorly proud and excited to have both his nieces in Colorado.  We also got to see my cousin, Kelly, and her kids, Colton & Eli.  We somehow got 4 small children to sit through a meal at Old Chicago while we all caught up.  The Denver Zoo also made the list and was fantastic!  I sadly taught Lilah that a Big Horn Sheep was a goat.  She referenced the "goats" throughout the trip... fail.  But the rest of the animals I correctly identified... mostly.

Kelly and Eli meet Adeline

Uncle Ty and his crazies

Uncle Ty and Adeline

Denver Zoo

Elephant Show

We took our newly minted 6 week old Adeline, Lilah and a jam-packed rental car to 8,000 feet to Vail Village where we stayed 5 more days.  It was beautiful!  Thankfully no one was affected by the altitude.  We took 2 great hikes (complete with Lilah in the backpack), consumed large amounts of fruit snacks, did white water rafting, village shopping, attended a beautiful wedding in Beaver Creek, and mostly enjoyed some downtime.  Both Trevor and Tyler came out to enjoy some uncle time with nieces and have fun in the mountains.  The boys golfed Eagle Vail and thoroughly enjoyed the pretty course.  My mom and I ventured out with wee-ones to some pretty beautiful parks.  Lilah discovered that riding a bus was pretty much her favorite thing, that and squirting herself with a water gun.  Bopper spoiled her with a trampoline, bike rental, ice cream and pretty much anything else she wanted. :)  On our last night we celebrated Frannie Bruening and Paul VonderFecht's wedding which was gorgeous and danced the night away!  Thankfully my dress fit and we had the best babysitters anyone could ask for--Gaga and Bopper!

Booth Falls Hike

Our hiker- stylin' with two Elsa bandaids on her forehead... she refused to take them off.

Pretty wildflower meadows

Aspen forests

Vail Mountain bungee trampoline... someone LOVED it!

Gondola ride with Bopper and Unc "Tray-vor"

Her favorite Dragon book with Gaga

Ford Park

Sort of getting the bike thing... 

The beautiful VonderFecht Wedding

Ice cream

Bopper Duty

Wedding ready

Lionshead Village in Vail

More of the Village

And of course we had to take a picture of the bus!

To say the ride home was stressful was an understatement.  Both kids were really pretty good, but our combined exhaustion was a little destructive.  Lilah missed her nap.  Rooney had a few accidents in the house when we got home.  And it was my last day of maternity leave :(  Vacations are hard.