Cuter than a box of kittens

Back to Reality

We're back to the real world this week as my maternity leave is officially finished. Luckily, I'm only working part-time right now so Reina and Will go to daycare/preschool in the morning and then we hang out in the afternoon. It hasn't been too bad so far and I've enjoyed seeing my office friends again and having a reason to shower in the morning.

Why am I posting such an unflattering picture of myself? To illustrate how much Reina and her brother are alike. 90% of the time, Reina really enjoys being carried around in the baby sling/front-wrap thing. I can clean and cook and get stuff done around the house with her strapped to my torso like we are tandem sky-divers. She'll coo and spit up and sometimes even fall asleep. But she eventually reaches her limit, as illustrated above. The problem is that you only get about a 5 second warning before she blows. Will has the same hair-trigger temper. I'd love to blame it on Glenn's genetics but anyone who has watched a sporting event with any member of the Hansen/Dunlap side knows who to blame . . .

Not much else going on - Will wildly alternates between being very delightful, entertaining and affectionate to being obstinate, surly and angst-ridden. I feel like we are getting a preview of the teenage years. Fun stuff. This weekend we are going to attempt potty training. He's been really interested in using the toilet for #2 and he's been doing that daily for several weeks. (Man, isn't he going to love reading this blog as a 17-year old?!) Now we just have to get him thinking about the other thing. It might be a little early so if we aren't successful this weekend, we'll just back off and try again later in the summer. In the meantime, I'm stocking up on a big bag of M&M's, lots of cleaning products and a truckload of patience. Wish us luck!

Canyon

Today's post should be all about Canyon because my dear old dog turned 14 this week. Her life has certainly changed since I first picked her out as a 5 week-old puppy the month after I graduated from college. She's been through a lot with me, living in tiny apartments while I worked two part-time jobs, moving into my first house with me and keeping the backyard squirrel-free, meeting Glenn and eventually getting to live in his house and finally being there when we brought home Will and now Reina. Canyon was never a big fan of little kids and there are times when I'm sure she wishes that she could live on her own but she's such a great dog. She's never been agressive towards the kids and she even seems to like Will a little bit now that he's able to throw her ball and feed her whatever he's eating. Will adores Canyon (he calls her Nah-Nah) and I caught him reading to her the other afternoon. Luckily the camera was close by and I snapped a picture before he moved on to other activities. Notice how he made sure that she has a few books to read in her dogbed?

Canyon's slowing down a little bit but everyone assures me that she still has a lot of life left to live. She's still spunky - especially when we spot a rabbit on our walk - and loves to ride in the car. She's brought a lot of joy to my life and I'm happy that she's still with me. Happy Birthday Canny Dog!!

In other news - we had a great weekend with Glenn's brother and sister-in-law and their family last weekend. Mark & Maria generously drove all the way over from Omaha to meet Reina and we had a great visit. We snapped a few pictures of all of the kids - here's Ben, Will, Alena and Reina:

Alena - the offer still stands for you to come out and be our free babysitter all summer!! :)

Finally - a few snaps of Reina. I've been very lazy about dressing her in anything but footie pajamas. Last week we had a few warm days and I dressed up her for lunch with my co-workers. I even managed to catch a (blurry) smile.

While Dad's away

The kids and mommy will play! Last weekend Glenn went turkey hunting so the kids and I headed down to Fort Collins to spend the night with Aunt Vicky. We were in the midst of another big spring storm so we actually had to wait for the roads to open and once we got to Fort C, we had to find indoor activities that would burn off lots of toddler energy. We headed to a place called "Bounce" or "Jumpin'" - I can't remember which - that featured several inflatable slides, bouncy castles and other things to keep toddlers running. Will had a great time as is evidenced by his big ol' grin in this picture:
Reina didn't get to participate in any of the bouncy activities but she did pose like a baby model for her Aunt Vicky.

While we were in Fort Collins, we did a little shopping and had a great time just hanging out. Vicky's turning into a fantastic photographer and took these two pictures of Reina. The first is the look she gives me when she's getting hungry. Very beseeching, isn't it?

Here's the look we get when we don't respond to her hungry demands quick enough. This baby girl has her brother's temper. Ooops.

Springtime is slowly arriving to our part of the world. With the arrival of the ground squirrels in the big pasture behind our house, comes a pretty red fox. Will is very interested in the fox and we've been able to see him several times this week. When I asked Will what the fox's name was, he told me "Bap Bop" which is Will's name for his Grandpa Hansen. Apparently it's a verrrrry old fox.

Reina - 2 months old

Our little Reina girl is two months old already and had her check-up this week. She's doing great - she's up to 10 pounds 7 oz. and that's in the 55 percentile. She's 23.5 inches which puts her in the 95% for heighth. That was a bit of a surprise - she certainly doesn't get that height from me. She's starting to grow out of some of her infant outfits but only in the feet. The kid has big feet and long fingers. I'm thinking basketball star!

We drove down to Brighton on Saturday and spent Easter morning with my folks. We had a great visit and it was awesome to have two more adults watching the kiddos. It was the first time in a long time that Glenn and I got to sit through a whole church service together. The weather was typical Rocky Mtn springtime so we had an Easter egg hunt for Will inside. I spent about 10 minutes hiding the eggs and he spent about 90 seconds finding all of them and starting to eat the candy. It's virtually impossible to get a picture of him looking at the camera right now but at least you can see his Easter outfit. We don't have a picture of Reina's Easter outfit because she pooped right through five minutes into the church service. How do babies know when they are wearing something special (and expensive)?On Saturday we visited a wildlife sanctuary northeast of Brighton. It was pretty interesting but the wind was howling so we kept our visit short. I did manage to take a picture of the elusive Smiling Tiger.

Saturday afternoon we took the whole family to the Bass Pro Shop in Commerce City. Do we know how to have fun or what?! We have a picture of Will at Cabela's when he was a mere two weeks old. Reina looks less than thrilled in this picture but I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that she was at a sporting goods store.
Finally, another picture to display at their graduation parties. It's brother and sister bathing! Here's another example of how parents treat baby #1 and baby #2 differently. When Will was this age, we had the infant tub filled with lukewarm water, the special baby washcloths and his own soap. With Reina, if there's warm water and an extra set of hands - it's bath time!

Weather and child labor laws

We had a nice Spring blizzard here last weekend. Being a bit of a weather nerd, I took some pictures for posterity and for our relatives in the south. Despite being snowed in, we had a pretty nice weekend. Sunday morning the sun came out and the three of us (Reina was exempt from chores mainly because she can't hold her head up all the way - and the whole lack of upper body strength. . . ) tackled the driveway after church.

Here's the view from our back porch. And the front porch (before):And after:

Here we are violating child labor laws - the kid loves snow. He especially likes to eat it which leads to this . . . A face plant in the giant snowdrift behind him. . . we went inside shortly after.

In other breaking news - and file this one under "things I never thought I would talk about in public" - Will has pooped in the potty two nights in a row! Tonight he even asked to go to the potty which was a first. I think the fact that he gets a lollipop if he actually poops is helping to motivate him, but we might be on our way to potty training this 2 year and 1 month old. I feel like we are doing the whole potty training backwards by starting with the poop but I also feel like we should capitalize on any interest he does have. I hope I'm not jinxing us. If we are still working on this process in a year, no one remind me, ok? (I can't believe I just typed a whole paragraph about poo. Sorry.)

Smiles!

We've been getting lots of smiles from Reina but they are hard to capture on the camera. Here are a few attempts:

Here's a smiley picture of Will - he loves his bathtime!

It's been a good week at the Pauley household. Will's adjusting to his little sister very well. So well in fact that he offered to nurse her at dinner last weekend. We couldn't figure out what he was saying at first but when he lifted up his shirt and said "Baby snack snack" we caught on. He's going to love it when we re-tell that story at his high school graduation party.

In other embarassing stories, Glenn dressed Reina for me in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. When I got up, I put her in her bouncy seat and went about my morning. A little while later I picked her up to change her and noticed that her seat and herself were soaking wet. I couldn't figure out what happened until I felt her little bottom and realized that she was going commando - she didn't have a diaper on. Part 2 of this fascinating story happened last night. Will went to bed at 8:00, Glenn went to bed at 9:30. At 10:30 on my way to bed, I came upstairs and Will was standing in the hallway in the dark. I led him back to his room (have I mentioned that he's sleeping in a big boy bed now?!) and when I went to put him back in bed, I realized that his sheets and his jammies were soaking wet. Again, I felt for the diaper and realized that we had another diaper-less kid in the house. Glenn changed Will last so I knew who to blame. Apparently I need to be more specific with my instructions. "Glenn, will you change the baby/Will but make sure you put a new diaper on when you take off the old one?"

Here's wishing you a diaper-free weekend.