A letter to my daughters on their 1st birthday

Catherine & Emily,

I cannot believe how fast the 1st year of your life has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was elbowing dad in the back and telling him my water broke, and now you've been with us for an entire year. You brighten each and every one of our days and we are such proud and grateful parents. Dad makes fun of me because every 3 months or so I declare, "THIS is my favorite age!" You both do so many new things and are learning things so fast. It's been amazing to watch you grow from a tiny helpless newborn, to a toddler who can express emotions, walk, and be independent to an extent! You are both so curious about everything - and who can blame you?! It's a pretty cool world out there!

Catherine - my eldest, by an entire 2 minutes! You are such a happy and content baby. When sissy does something that you deem funny, you laugh from your gut. Which makes sissy laugh, and me laugh, and daddy laugh and soon the whole house is in hysterics. You love playing peek a boo with sissy especially. You also like playing with your toys alone sometimes. It's not rare to see you off to the side studying something and playing with a toy yourself quietly. You are so very good at fine motor skills. You can pick something very small up and put it right back. You seem to be very meticulous about those sorts of things. You can also point very well! When I ask you where I am, you point to my face! When I ask you how old you are you point "1". You also love to clap. All I have to do is say "yay!!!" and you clap!!!! You also LOVE TV! We watch the Disney channel during the day and you especially seem to love Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Octonauts. And at night you love Wheel of Fortune!  You are also a wonderful eater. You love to try new things. The only food you seem to dislike is bananas. I think you got sick of them. You still sleep pretty well! You have had some rough nights, but I think that's when you have a tooth coming in. You have 8 teeth by the way. You can take 1 step at a time, but you're not quite walking by yourself yet! But you can surely cruise around with the help of your walkler! You look JUST like your daddy. Everyone, even complete strangers, comment that you look like him! And you love him very much. You are a daddy's girl. You light up like a Christmas Tree when you see him walk into the room!!! You are an amazing and beautiful girl, Catherine. You have a wonderful personality and we are so lucky to be able to call you our daughter.

Emily - my baby! What a funny little girl you are. My gosh, do you have a personality on you! When you are happy, you are SO happy. When you are sad, you are SO sad. When you are angry, you are SO angry! :) You are also SUCH a momma's girl. You cling to me constantly, and I can't say I dislike it ALL the time! It's nice to know you love me so much! You are a tiny little thing - about a pound and a half less than sissy! But do you sure make up for it! You can WALK miss Emily, you can WALK! It amazes me every time I see you choose to walk over crawl. You just walk around the house like it's no big deal. You are even starting to run! You get so excited. It's funny to watch you walk too - you keep your arms right out in front of you like Frankenstein! But whatever works, little girl! You get bored with toys pretty quickly and always like to be on the move. You love to go new places and see new things. You want to get into EVERYTHING...especially things that you shouldn't get into! You also love to clap when I say yay and wave "hi" and "bye"! You honestly couldn't care less about TV. You never so much as glance at it! In terms of food, you get bored with that really easily too. You don't like very much! Some of your favorite foods are chicken nuggets, cheese, mashed potatoes and fried chicken. You also like to snack on goldfish and cheerio's. You sleep like a ROCK. I honestly don't think you've woken up in the middle of the night since you were 8 weeks old. Even if sissy is screaming or you have a tooth coming in, you just sleep through it. It's amazing how well you sleep. You do need your lambie and paci to help you sleep though, but me and dad think it's cute. You love to hold and stroke your lambie's ear. You have 5 teeth with a 6th coming in right now! You are a beautiful and rambunctious little girl, miss Emily. You keep us on our toes and we love it. We are so lucky to have you as our daughter.

Well girls, you are awake in your cribs so I'd better go get you so we can start our day of FUN! I made you cupcakes for later on, and we have presents to open!

Girls, I love you both so much. Please never doubt or forget that. You are my world and you bring so much joy into this family. You are healthy and happy and we couldn't ask for anything more. We love you.

Love,

Mom

New Playset!

Have I mentioned my little girls are spoiled?! Look what grandma and grandpa C. got them for their 1st birthday!!!!

To say I was shocked and elated with this gift is an understatement!!! A little back story - my dad used to own a company that sold these sets. This was the display model in the indoor showroom. When I worked for my dad I sold these playsets and always coveted this set. It was custom built and I always thought it was just the coolest thing ever. I wanted it even before I was pregnant!!! After my dad sold the company earlier this year, I was bummed because I knew he wouldn't have the ability to give us this playset. Or so I thought. About a month ago Brian called and said "guess what?! The playset is ours!" Apparently my dad told the new owner of the company that the playset didn't come with the business, as it was going to us!!!

Brian did an amazing job putting it together, too! He got it done SO fast! He brought the left tower home 2 weekends ago and set it up with the help of his dad, then he brought the rest home yesterday and finished it with the help of a friend. It really only took him a few hours total to get it all together.

The girls are absolutely going to love this when they get older! So many things to do and play with. A great way to build their imaginations. Even right now they have fun with it! They swing on the baby swing, play in the playhouse, go down the slides (with our help of course!) and climb on the ladder.

They are lucky, lucky little girls!!!!

We have a walker!

Little Emmy can walk! It's crazy, I am in shock every time I look over and see her WALKING instead of crawling! She can't go very far, and she still chooses crawling over walking for the most part. But she is really getting the hang of it! Here's a little video:

And we can't forget about Miss Catherine! Although she doesn't walk on her own quite yet, she can stand all by herself for a long time actually! And she can walk while we hold her hand SO well. She is just a little nervous to make that FIRST independent step...but I am sure she will soon!!!!

Homemade Teething Biscuits

These teething biscuits are wonderful! My girls absolutely love them. They are quick to make and a healthy snack for your little one! I give these to my girls if they are being fussy, and they just carry them around while they play. Every few minutes they stop to take a "bite" then go back to playing! And they are rock hard so they really need to work to get a piece off! I usually make a batch of these then keep them in the fridge, because what could possibly be better for a teething baby then a yummy, hard and COLD biscuit!

Ingredients
        (source:  http://greenlitebites.com/2011/10/25/homemade-teething-biscuit/)

-100% whole wheat bread
-unsweetened applesauce (I use homemade)
-cinnamon

 Directions
Cut crusts off your bread.

 Using a rolling pin, roll the bread out to as thin as you can get it!

 Smear 1 side of bread with applesauce. You can add your cinnamon to the applesauce before you spread it, or you can sprinkle it on top of the applesauce.

 Roll the bread up with the applesauce side being the inside, as tight as you can, and put it seam side down on a paper towel lined plate.

You'll want to play around with cook times. I find that for my microwave, it takes 1 minute 30 seconds to reach the desired hardness, but please be careful and do this in increments. I usually do it for 1 minute, then turn it over, then another 30 seconds. But keep an eye out and just do 15-30 second increments until you know how long it will take in your microwave. Just FYI, this thing WILL catch fire if you leave it in the microwave too long. Don't ask how I know this....thankfully no damage was done! :) Also I find that it's best to microwave just one biscuit at a time. I've done 2 at a time before and they just didn't cook as evenly. These will also become very hard as they cool.

Enjoy!

Receiving Blanket Flats

Yes, Emily can stand up by herself! She can even take 1 step at a time!

Annddd...so can Catherine! Yikes!

If you're like me, you got 150 receiving blankets as shower gifts, baby gifts, etc. They were GREAT when your baby (or babies!) were just that...newborn babies. But what the heck do you do with them after your babies are past the newborn stage?! Turn them into DIAPERS! You all know I'm a cloth diaper fanatic, but I recently discovered that you can use receiving blankets as "flats". All you do is fold them up a few times and you have an awesome, lightweight, breathable diaper! I put these on the girls in the mornings after they have been sleeping all night, to sort of let their bums breathe a little! I also like putting them in these on hot days and just let them run around in this diaper and nothing else. Keep in mind that there's no waterproof outer layer with these diapers, so if you're going to put these under clothes or if you're going out, you will need to put a cover over it. But if you're just hanging out around the house, skip the cover and just let baby go au naturale! It will let their bums breathe and catch any accidents that might happen!

So do you want to learn how to do this?! It's super easy. Just get a receiving blanket, any kind will do. (I like fun prints myself!) Then watch this video!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8vo-u5rl1M It's called the "origami fold" and this video is very well done and easy to follow. It takes some practice to get really good at folding the diaper and getting it on baby, but once you get the hang of it, it's SO easy! After mine come out of the laundry, I just fold them all up and put them in a drawer so they are ready to go when I'm ready to use them. Good luck and happy diapering!

4th of July Hat

Isn't this hat adorable?! Would you like to win it? Come 'like' Catily Crochet (my crochet shop!) on Facebook and enter the giveaway! The drawing ends Sunday at Midnight!