Gemma, so far.

So I had just resumed blogging when the holidays hit and suddenly I had tons of pictures and too many things to blog about. Instead of getting overwhelmed, I just decided to bag it and not blog about anything. :) Gemma will be 6 months in a couple of weeks, though, so I figured I should give an update on her, since she is the primary reason I started blogging again. She is, for the most part, a good baby--very mild mannered. She has, however, become a horrible sleeper (on and off). We've been attempting to sleep train her for about 2 months. Ha! It's more like she's training us. We've tried just about everything, and some nights she is great, and others, not so much. We've got a system down that we're sticking too, and it seems like she's becoming a little more consistent with it, but she likes to mix it up every now and then just to keep us on our toes.

Here are some highlights from the last few months.

Gemma's blessing

Tummy time--which has led to rolling on her back.

Bath Time--every kid needs one of these pictures.

She was not amused at having her picture taken after a long day at church.

She found her feet, which eventually found their way to her mouth.

And I had to post a picture of her wearing my old, blue dress from when I was a baby.

And she loves, Loves, LOVES her sister.

I just have to say that Lily is such a good big sister. She helps me out all throughout the day with Gemma and is very attentive and loving (although she does occasionally do stuff like poke her in the eye for no apparent reason). Anyway, even with the horrendous nights of sleep (no sleep, that is), Gemma manages to worm her way back into our good graces. Seriously, how can you stay mad at that?

Lily's Princess Party

Boy, did I not know what I was getting myself into! Lily turns 3 on Sunday, and we decided to throw her a birthday party. Adam and I started discussing it the last week in October, and upon consulting the calendar, found that the first weekend in November was the only free one we had for the month. Yikes. I had little more than a week to plan a party. Seeing as her current obsession is princesses, I decided to do a princess themed party. After researching online I came up with some ideas and started amassing all the necessary supplies. I think Lily, Gemma and I lived in the car for a week with all the errands we ran. Adam and I were up until 2 a.m. or so cleaning, decorating, and setting everything up. We decked out the basement, which is a perfect place to let 9 2-4-year olds run wild.

Everyone was invited to attend in princess attire, and we began by having them decorate some foam tiaras with gemstones and markers while everyone arrived.

After that it was on to the first game. The fishing game. Adam didn't know what I was talking about when I told him we were doing this. I said, "Haven't you ever been to a school carnival before?" I loved this game when I was a kid!

I had to give him a basic rundown on it since he was going to be the man behind the curtain, so to speak.

Next we went on to our second game--a variation of pin the tail on the donkey (which nobody had ever heard of, but hey, they're like 3 and 4 years old). I had two stations set up, since little princess have little attention spans and can't wait for their turn for too long. :) We did pin the glass slipper on Cinderella and pin the crown on Princess Aurora.

After that, it was upstairs for the Princess Song Identification Game. Each child had a set of 9 popsicle sticks with the pictures of different Disney princesses glued to them. I played clips from songs that each princess sings and they had to identify the singer by holding up which princess it was. I must say, Lily was really good at this game--so good that I think we might have to cut back on her TV watching. :)

While we prepared lunch, everyone headed back downstairs to watch Beauty and the Beast.

We had peanut butter and jelly and grilled cheeses sandwiches in the shape of princess tiaras, with some Goldfish crackers, pretzels, and grapes.

Afterward we enjoyed some princess cake and ice cream.

And then everyone put on their tiaras so we could get some good princess poses.

And yes, Lily is slipping a nip in both pictures. Let me tell you what I learned about birthday parties--you will be outnumbered and will need more help! Thankfully, I have good friends who were more than willing to lend a hand. Gemma was pretty much forgotten about because she was handed off for the duration of the party. Other parents helped run the games, make lunch, serve cake, and do dishes (I didn't ask her to do that--I caught her at it as she was finishing up). It was a lot of fun, but I'm thinking a party every other year sounds like a good idea. :)

Halloween Fever!

(Adam posed her like this--don't ask.)

Now that Lily is almost 3, she is better able to understand just how fun Halloween really is. In an effort to indoctrinate her to this fact, we began the month of October with a viewing of selected clips from The Nightmare Before Christmas. She is already proving to be an apt pupil--every day since, she has requested we watch more of the "scary movie". She gets very excited to point out every pumpkin, ghost, skeleton, etc... that we see as we're out and about. Last weekend we got out the big box of Halloween decorations and decked out the house.

Afterward we rewarded our hard work with some special Halloween Jello Jigglers.

Lily, Take Two

I'd like to give her a little more time before making any rash judgments, but I'm afraid that our sweet Gemma is becoming less sweet by the day. Her usual calm and easy demeanor has been eroding a little more every day, and worst of all her sleeping is beginning to suffer (translation: my sleeping is beginning to suffer). Unless she's nursing, she'll only fall asleep in her swing with the nature sounds turned up full blast (she's partial to the babbling brook), but within minutes of laying her down in her crib, she wakes up and it's game over. Last night I tried putting her down four or five times with no success--she was just mad. Adam and I commented on how she was reminding us more and more of someone else in our house (i.e. Lily), when the thought came to me that we might try what we did with her as a baby (see below).

Lily

Gemma

I had hoped to avoid this, especially because she has been such a good sleeper for the last month, but guess what? She slept for 8 hours straight! I woke her up this morning to feed her, then put her back down, and she slept for 3 more hours!

Here is Adam with Gemma during last night's failed attempts at sleep.

And as a footnote, here is my sweet, not-so-little Lily before church on Sunday. She looks so big!