LietzauFamily

Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Gabe and Lily love you!

We are having a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend.  On Friday, we (Lily and I) went to Gabe’s school and volunteered for his Valentine’s Day party.  Mike made 48 gluten-free, nut-free, but super yummy heart-shaped sugar cookies.  They were a hit!  The kids played a version of pin-the-tail where it was a heart they had to stick on a life-sized picturethey drew of their helper teacher.  They made heart-shaped decorations, passed out Valentines (Gabe had cute home-made ones with a picture of him and Lily inside), and did a huge dance routine for the parents:

Dance Movie - Big File!

It was super cute, and that’s only a couple minutes – it went on for at least 6 minutes (it took me a while to get my camera out).  What a great way for the teacher to make the kids work off some steam.  Gabe’s in the back on the left side, in a red shirt.

Lily was a huge hit at the party – all the parents, kids, teachers had to look at her and pet her head (let’s hope she doesn’t get sick!) and just in general coo at her.  And she was her most charming self – smiling her biggest smiles and was such a good baby all party long.  Yay!  Here is her Valentine’s Day outfit:

Lily's Valentine's Day outfit

She’s becoming a bit of a squirmer – hard to get a picture of her.  She’s starting to practice rolling over.  She can get close – on her side – but can’t quite get that arm tucked up so she rolls all the way over.  But she’s working hard so it won’t be long!  A close up of my little cutie:

Such a sweetheart!

Another Valentine’s Day outfit she wore this weekend was pajamas – Gabe’s old jammies that he wore in his first Valentine’s Day card.  So if you still have it – you can compare them.  Lily is 4 months old, and Gabe would be at least 8 months, maybe 9 months in his picture.  Here’s Lily:

Lily in Valentine Pajamas

Lily really likes her thumb, and 9 times out of 10 it’s her left thumb (Is that a preference? Will I have a lefty?).  She soothes herself to sleep, or tries to eat it when she’s hungry.  It’s a nice little trick she’s learned.  I took a little video of her sucking her thumb in her swing – she’s pretty much asleep.  But it’s cute!

Lily sucking her thumb.

I also took another video of Gabe and Lily cuddling.  I was sitting with her on the couch and Gabe asked if he could hold and cuddle her (how cute!).  So I handed her to him and he talked to her and patted her head.  He really liked it.  I snapped a small video of it, but it’s a bit dark.  Also, it made me realize how squeaky both Gabe and I get when talking to babies!

Gabe and Lily Cuddle

Seeing this made me decide to get a little Flip.  I like our camcorder we have, but it’s as old as Gabe, and not as easy to take around and whip out at a moments notice.  It’s also quite the process to get the videos off it and “webify” them.  I tried using the built in movie camera bits with my regular still camera, but I wasn’t to happy with how the videos turned out.  So hopefully the Flip will work for us.  Stay tuned!

Today we had a very fun sledding and skating adventure!  We bought skates today (it took us 4 stores till we found some – most of the stores were out of kid skates this time of year!) and decided to test them out.  So we loaded up Lily in her little sled, grabbed the skates, and headed out to the park.

Gabe and Lily head to the park.

Lily was kind enough to let Gabe put his skates in the sled he didn’t have to carry them (plus she’s so small she still had lots of room in the sled).  Gabe was very excited to pull Lily to the park.

Lily likes her sled.

We had just barely enough snow on the roads to use the sled.  The last few days have been very warm so the roads have mostly melted off.  But there was just enough along the edges, except for crossing intersections (SCRAPE across the bottom – ah well!)  Lily is wearing the bunny snowsuit Angie got her for Christmas.  Between that, and the tiny sled, everyone we passed went, “Awwwwwww!”

Have fun at the park!

Once at the park, I took over pulling Lily to the skating rink while Gabe took a few runs down the sledding hill on his sled.  By the time I’d walked to the rink, he was ready to go.  It went well – Gabe only fell down a couple of times.  I wiped out on the first step on my skates (the slush from the warming house to the rink was SLIPPERY).  After that, we both skated very nicely, Gabe shuffle skating, with me pulling Lily on her sled.  I didn’t get pictures of the skating on account of having my hands full (and trying not to fall down).  Next time!

I was playing around with our camera and taking short little movie clips.  It works pretty good, but I had to find some video software to edit and create movies that I could share.  After a while, I got it working and I’m glad because it’s pretty cute!  I’m going to have to take more of these “action shots” of Gabe and Lily.

Here is a movie of Gabe on his Ezy Roller.  He got this from Grammy K. for Christmas and has really got the hang of it now.  He zooms around so quick, and doesn’t crash into things that often…

Ezy Roller Movie

This movie is of Lily playing on her play mat.  She really likes to kick the windchimes, and bat at the little parrot.  The super cute kimono sleepsack is from Katie (she always manages to find the most unique and sweetest clothes!) and is one of our favorite bed time outfits for Lily.  Sleep sacks are just so cute!

Playtime Movie

Tell me what you think of these little movies.  Should I make more?  Any suggestions of what you want to see?

Gabe was building a fort (Cranium Fort – one of coolest toys, but they don’t make it anymore).  He was having so much fun, but he wanted company – so he went and found some!

Who is in your fort, Gabe?

View the Fort Adventure photo gallery below to see who joined Gabe in his playtime fun!

Fort Adventure

Gabe finds a friend for his fort adventure!

6 Photos

 

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday.  We had a  crazy-busy one.  Wednesday (23rd) we went to Indiana – we were planning on going down the 26th, but Snowmageddon came to town and the roads were suppose to be terrible Thursday-Sunday, so we left early.  We had good driving conditions until just after the Illinois line but before Portage, when everything go slick and snow was blowing mixed with sleet.

We saw snow blowing up in the median and thought it was a plow truck on the opposite bound lanes, but then realized it was a truck and trailer barrel rolling (side over side) through the median right towards us!  We slow downed carefully (not wanting to start spinning uncontrollably) and thank goodness the truck stopped about 20 feet from us.  Talk about heart pounding.  The truck landed right side up, and didn’t look damaged, so hopefully the person was okay, although pretty shaken up I bet.  A snow plow came up and stopped so I know they were going to help the driver.  So scary!

We made it in one peice, and after that it was a fun whirlwind of party after party – we had short ribs one night, beef tenderloin the next, then ham, then turkeys – with all the trimmings.  So much good food I think I came home 5-10lbs heavier.  Good visits with everyone.  Only thing I really regret is not being able to go and see Angie and Dad’s place (as they both live in the same housing development).  I really wish we could have done that.  Next time.

These are the only pictures I took while in Indiana:

Aren’t they cute?  That’s Elianna – my cousin Travis’ little girl who is 3.  It was nice she was there, because otherwise there isn’t anyone near Gabe’s age in my family.  On Mike’s side there are 5 cousins all pretty near his age, but usually when he goes to Indy – no kids!  Kelly’s little Shelby is just a year old, and that’s all the cousins right now.  Someday there will be more, but he’s going to be so much older then them.  Now I know how Travis must have felt with all his little cousins.

All in all it was a great visit.  The only downside is we all got sick!  Boo!  It was inevitable though – all the people, all the places, all the germs running around.  Poor Lily got her first cold:

Poor thing!  It just breaks your heart when itty bitty ones get sick.  They look so pitiful!  Get better soon (and the rest of us too)!

I want to hear your best Timberwolves howl, and let’s howl at the moon:

That’s the moon at the Target Center where we saw a Timberwolves game.  SO MUCH FUN!  Gabe and Mike had gone earlier as a father/son evening when our neighbors gave us tickets (they had a recital to go to instead, so they gave them to us – how cool are our neighbors?).  They had so much fun, we decided to go again, and when Gabe got a free ticket through school, and reduced tickets for adults, we just had to go!

We had a blast – we had excellent seats (they upgraded us to really good seats for free, even though we already had reduced tickets – such a nice ticket agent).  Gabe loves all the atmosphere and drama.  When the game starts, all the lights go off, and the moon lights up, then everyone starts howling (very neat) and then the announcer introduces the players.  Once the game starts, there is also a howl-o-meter, which comes up whenever the opposing team shoots a free-throw.  So we all howl like mad, I guess to throw them off their shot, but even if we don’t, it’s pretty hilarious.  Gabe gets so into it – I’m surprised his voice isn’t hoarse by the end of the night.

The Timberwolves won too, and they won the last time Gabe went – but have lost pretty much every other game this year.  So if they want to win more – maybe they should give Gabe tickets to the games – he seems to be pretty lucky!  Gabe knows most of the starting players, but at this age, his favorite “person” is Crunch – the mascot.  He got to sit on “Christmas” Crunch’s lap and Mike snapped a picture, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out:

Too bad it’s blurry – it’s a funny photo.  The Timberwolves Dancers would hop out of the photos when little kids posed with Crunch, and hop back in for the adults and teens.  I guess they thought Gabe was big enough because they stayed in his photo – hah!

Such a great night – and thank you to Jacquie and Carol who were nice enough to watch Lily!

Not to leave Gabe out, I took a few pictures of him in a similar get up to Lily’s 2 month photos.  I going to use them to make a little photo montage of Gabe and Lily for Christmas.  This is the best one of Gabe:

He’s such a cute kid!

Lily is now two months old! I took waaaaay too many photos.  I plan on taking photos of her every two months (so 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months) for her first year wearing a white onsie and on the same quilt.

Lily at 2 Months

Isn’t she a cutie?!?  We all just love her to pieces.  She has become increasingly social in the last two months, smiling at everyone.  She especially lights up when she sees her big brother Gabe.  She just adores to watch him. Of course she really loves her Mama and Daddy too, but it’s different.  Mama means food, and Daddy means cuddles, but Gabe means entertainment!

Lily at 2 months

Pictures of Lily at 2 months of age.

20 Photos

 

Every weekday Lily and I walk Gabe up to the bus stop (corner of Winsdale and Toledo).  It’s been really cold lately (-10 to 5 degrees in the morning), so I’ve been really bundling up Lily – two blankets, one thick flannel, the other super thick and fluffy polar fleece – and tossing her into the sling Kelly borrowed me.

All Bundled Up

On most days, that keeps her nice and toasty.  The -10 day we had to walk Gabe up and run back home – it was way too windy and the chill cut right through.  Some days I have her wear her winter snow suit, when she’s all awake.  But if she’s sleepy, blankets are the way to go, because I can lay her down to sleep in her crib once we get home (that usually the case in the mornings).