Catching Up

Chloe Jo and I are finally back from our 2 week stay with my parents in Missouri. It is really nice to be home, but I'm also suffering from a bout of blahdom. You know, when you get home and there are a million things that need to be done that you don't really want to do? Yeah - blahdom. I know that these super long posts are annoying to some, but I like to just get it done all at once.

The first thing that I want to address is the fact that Chloe Jo turned 21 months old on the 10th. She is currently measuring in at 33 inches putting her into the 50th percentile.

She is weighing in at 24 pounds putting her into the 25th percentile. She lost over a pound when she was sick at my parents house and that is why her chart looks so off. She just didn't have an appetite at all and didn't eat well for that week.

Chloe Jo's speech has really taken off this month. She is saying so many new words that it is impossible for me to keep up. While we were in Missouri I did learn that I just can't understand a lot of what she says. My sister can, though, and I realized that she is saying a lot more than I was giving her credit for. We are working on learning colors and shapes right now. I am trying to find educational things to do with a 2 year old and am having some trouble with it. Most of the stuff I find looks like it is for a child that is ready to start reading and writing. If you have any suggestions of things we could do to help learn colors and shapes feel free to leave me a comment! Chloe Jo loves to read so we do that a lot. She still loves Elmo. We have two Sesame Street videos for her to watch, though I don't love for her to watch a lot of TV so she doesn't get to see them very often. She is still doing awesome with her potty training. She doesn't have accidents hardly ever now (only 2 while we were in MO and one she couldn't help because she was sick and it was diarrhea). She also doesn't wake up with a wet pull-up from nap time. I don't think she has had a wet pull-up for several weeks, but I'm still not quite comfortable with letting her sleep in her panties. It's too much of a mess to clean up if she has an accident! We are making progress with night-time, but I'm not counting on taking her out of pull-ups during the night for another year or two. All in all, I think Chloe Jo is developing beautifully. She is so sweet and loves to give hugs and kisses even when we don't ask. Those spontaneous hugs and kisses make every bad day completely worth it.

Okay, moving on to our trip to MO! Chloe Jo and I got home Tuesday night. The trip home was, unfortunately, not as uneventful as the trip there. Our flight to Chicago (our connection) left Kansas City 20 minutes late. We had to run through the Chicago airport because the gate we came out of was in the A concourse and the gate we needed to be at was in the B concourse. After running and just making it on the plane, we sat on the tarmac for an hour before taking off. The pilot said they were waiting on bags. They were probably our bags (and one other passenger's that was on our Kansas City flight bags) since we came in late. After the bags finally were loaded, the plane had to be de-iced and that took a while. But, we made it home (an hour later than we were supposed to) and I finished unpacking our things yesterday.

Chloe Jo finally warmed up to Brianna enough for us to get this cute picture of them.

Chloe Jo just didn't know what to think of Brianna. Brianna is an in-your-face type of personality and Chloe Jo is a leave-me-alone type of personality. She doesn't want anyone touching her, talking to her, or looking at her unless she instigates it. Poor Brianna loved Chloe Jo so much and Chloe Jo didn't want much to do with her at first. After about a week she finally warmed up...just in time for Chelley (my sis) and Brianna to go home! Sigh. We're working on Chloe's little quirks.

We had so much fun with Grampy and G-Jo, though. They also had a blast playing with the girls. Although, Brianna taught Chloe Jo her bad habit of not liking G-Jo. Chloe Jo was great with G-Jo until Brianna came. Brianna, for some unknown reason, does not like G-Jo very much and cries whenever G-Jo has her. Chloe Jo learned that bad habit. I'm hoping it goes away when Grampy and G-Jo come out to South Carolina in March.

Here is my sister's family: Chris, Bri and Chelley. Chris was able to come for a weekend while I was there. Chris travels for his work some and he works in North Carolina from time to time. We have seen Chris twice since we moved out here and we are hoping Chelley and Bri will come out with him one of these days. We would love to show them all around our new home!

My sis is has an obsession with taking professional-like photos. She took our family photos last summer and I would have her take them again this year if we could get together. She does as good a job as a lot of professional photographers. We were going to take the girls to get professional pictures done together, but the sickness ruined those plans so Chelley and I ended up taking them ourselves.

We started with individual pictures. I love the way all of the individuals turned out. They are so cute! I'm going to have to find some frames for a few of these!

I seriously love that smile!

She is such a little sweetie!

Brianna is also a little sweetie!

She loves to clap for herself when we get excited over something she does.

Our girls are our precious blessings.

We did a wardrobe change and moved on to the together pictures.

This is completely typical. Brianna wants to touch Chloe Jo so Chloe Jo bails. HA! I'm really glad I didn't waste my money having professional pictures done because once Chloe Jo realized Brianna was going to sit by her, she was completely uncooperative. I hope she grows out of that if we are ever able to give here a sibling...of course that is a bit doubtful at this time.

They did decide to be nice to each other when we gave them this little tea set to play with. I don't usually like props in pictures, but I really do like these. I love the outfits with the tea party theme. Too cute!

After we finished with the girls' pictures, my sis wanted to do one of just us. This involved using the self-timer and we had to try several times to get a good one. I do love how it turned out. Well, except for my hair. I didn't realize I was going to have my picture taken so I had let it air dry after my shower and didn't do anything with it. Oh well.

Then we had to take one of us with our girls. This was the best we could do after several tries. It isn't bad for having 2 littles in it.

My sis was loving playing the photographer so she had to get one of just Chloe Jo and I. Turned out pretty cute!

And then I had to take one of Brianna and Chelley. I love this one.

I realize this was a way long post, but we had so much fun in MO and especially doing pictures with the girls that I wanted to document it.

When we went to Bible class Wednesday evening, Chloe Jo didn't want to give hugs or talk to anyone. I hope she warms back up quickly. She is a quirky little thing.

That's it for now. I'm going to go watch some House and rest for a while. I'm going to try to get to the Lisa/Jessica Project posts that I haven't done tonight or it might be tomorrow.