Mmmm, tasty

As it turns out those 5 minutes that I thought I could make time for each day to blog have been a little hard to come by. Maybe we're having too much fun on the weekends and too little sleep with Mikaela, the nightwaker, and Graeme, the 4AM alarm clock. Last night was a good one though so I'm feeling rejuvenated and ready to update you on the happenings of the house.

Graeme had his 4 month check up on April 13th. He's growing fast and was 21 lbs and 27 1/4 inches long. To put that in perspective for you, Mikaela is only 28 lbs at 2.5years old. He's hit all his developmental milestones so far. He rolls, reaches, razzes. The razzing is so funny particularly when he's having his afternoon meal.

Yep, our big boy is had started eating solids. He was having some "problems" so we started with prunes to clear those up and now he's on to tastier options. So far he likes pears, apples, bananas, mangos, and sweet potatoes. He tolerates squash and carrots. Peas and green beans he could do with out (just like his daddy).

Houston, we have a.... PUKER

It never fails that when Dave is out of town bad things happen for the first time in our house. Like Mikaela's night waking that started while Dave was away on a work trip. Graeme was 8 weeks old (maybe) and getting up multiple times a night and Mikaela decided to join the fun, I guess.

Anyway, that's a past event that I don't want to relive so I won't go on about it.

Dave had to leave on Friday morning for a management retreat. On Thurs night we were spending some quality time with Mikaela in the playroom and she got very quiet all of a sudden and kept saying "something hurts" and rubbing her tummy. We thought it was dry skin so we put some lotion on it. Then we thought she was just super tired so we decided it was time for bed.

She usually loves to take a "ba-shower" in our big tub with lots of bubbles but on Thurs night she just wasn't into it. So bath was short and then while she was putting on pjs she PUKED!

It was Mikaela's first puke. She was shocked but in true Mikaela style she took it like the little trooper that she is. There was none of the tears that overtake mommy when she has a tummy bug. She just looked at it, got dressed and went to bed.

Well, she kind of went to bed. Dave was up with her all night. What a great husband and dad!

Friday was not much fun, but there were no more incidents and today, well Mikaela is back to her cool little self. Thank goodness.

The Pink Shirt

Ever since Mikaela was born I've been a little obsessed with family photos. We seem to get them every six months. I promised Dave that after our holiday photos this year, we would only do them once a year.

This is our 1st professional photo as a family of four.

You'll notice that there's a lot of pink in this photo. There's a story behind this.

On Dave's birthday I got up and said,"Mikaela today is Daddy's birthday and we need to get him a present."

Mikaela- "I want to get him something pink."

Me- "Of course, you do." and then I thought to myself, what the heck can we get him that's Pink that won't be a total waste of money and require me to return it one day while Mikaela's at school?

My idea- a pink polo.

So there we were picking out a pink polo and Mikaela decided that she wanted one. I managed to convince her that Graeme couldn't wear pink just yet and that the pink and green dress would match with everyone for our pictures.

Happy Birthday Dave and Happy Spring- at least with that bright shirt I can't forget the time of year we took them.

As P!nk says, these are our "Greatest Hits (so far)"

Today has been a long day. Dave and I are both running on fumes after a long night of negotiating with Mikaela. She just recently decided that she was ready to potty train herself and now gets up most nights to use the potty. Ugh, who said potty training made life easier.

Anyway, today has been a long day, but as I sat this afternoon doing nothing I thought to myself oh my goodness it's already April. It's half way through April. Where has time gone?! Then I got to thinking that we've really just been too busy since Thanksgiving to notice that time has been ticking along.

Since I'm only starting this now and it's my "scrapbook," I thought I'd back track and at least touch on some of the highlights of 2011 so far.

January-

Graeme had his 1st bath


We had a lot of visitors: Ashley, Patricia, & Andrew


Nana


Graeme's 1st visit with Aunt Beth


A more relaxed visit (than Graeme's homecoming) with Grandma Christine


February brought more fun. The Beckers brought their gang to Houston. Rhys and Graeme are only weeks apart.


March was the best month yet. We went on our annual ski trip. Yep, with both kids. We had a great time and LOTS of help from Nana and Granddad.

Mikaela & Dave on the Vail Gondola

Morning in Breckenridge

Our future snowboarder picking out her PINK boots



The kiddos & I at the base of Beaver Creek

Then we went to Kansas to visit Mike, Colleen, Claire and our new niece Grace.
Mikaela and Claire are two peas in a pod. The weather was nice and they got to play outside one day.



The two Gs- Graeme & Grace


Bubble Blowing with Papa Bob


And now, it's already April. We have spent a lot of time outside enjoying the swingset and our newly landscaped backyard. South Texas has AWESOME weather this time of year.

Graeme had his 1st sliding experience


and his first trip to the zoo


Okey dokey, I'm all caught up and can now start sharing all the funny happenings of the Hochberg house.

Ferrari

Tonight I finally determined the point of owning a Ferrari. If you have a Ferrari you are almost always going to know which car is yours because it's unlikely that there will be another in the same parking lot unless of course you live in Beverly Hills, which we don't anymore. There's definitely no competition here in Katy that I've seen.

My white Acura MDX has a lot of competition here in Katy. We went for dinner tonight and while checking out I couldn't find my wallet. Sometimes that happens and I just need a minute to collect myself and dig deeper into my bag of tricks, but this time, it wasn't there. So back to the car I went with Graeme in the Ergo and Emme trailing behind, wanting badly to eat her soup.

I went to the first white Acura MDX I saw, clicked the unlock button, and opened the front passenger side door. While I'm pulling stuff out of my purse, I tell Emme to look on the floor for my wallet, which she didn't find. However, she did find a blue bottle of Powerade. At first I thought Dave must have brought that, but then I noticed that this white Acura MDX was messier and dirtier than mine (Dave likes to keep the cars clean).

Uh oh... I broke into someones car. It was an honest mistake. If Dave would only buy me a Ferrari it wouldn't have happened!!

As you can imagine, I hightailed it out of there after realizing my mistake. I can only hope that nothing was left behind. I proceeded to find my white Acura MDX a few spaces down and my wallet on the floor of the front seat. Then Emme got her soup. We had a nice dinner out. Our 1st actually as a family of 4!

Don't forget to locks your doors.

Red Leather Shoes

If you don't know this already, I will let you in on a secret- I do ALOT of laundry. My mother and MIL can attest to the fact that there is never an empty laundry basket in my house even if you've managed to just finish the last load. This chore never ends.

Mikaela likes to help me with laundry. She will usually throw any clothing lying (typically stuff she's pulled off hangers to play dress up)around in the laundry basket whether it's clean or dirty and ocassionally something else gets tossed in there too.

Yesterday I threw in a rather large load of pants, including some of Dave's new chinos for work. As I went to transfer this load from the washer to the dryer I noticed that everything was a strange color. You guessed right if you said the color was PINK!

Mixed in with all those clothes was a pair of red leather ballet flats. I guess Mikaela decided that they could use a good wash or this pile did not have enough pink items.

Alas, it's only clothes and shoes bought on sale. Gives me a reason to do some more shopping online.

Giving in...

I've toyed with the idea of a blog for a while and was never quite convinced that it was for me. Well, now that Mikaela is two and Graeme has made us a family of four I've decided that writing a blog is probably the best way to keep everyone up to date on the happenings in the Hochberg house. I think I'll be able to spare 5 minutes of my day, I think...

Grammy

It's a blustery day here in Katy, Texas and the house is peaceful with both babes asleep in their beds. Or at least I know Graeme is asleep in his bed and Mikaela is in her room, but could be asleep (or more likely playing) in the sink. Don't worry we turned off the hot water.

Speaking of our mischevious little princess... Mikaela has officially given Graeme a nickname. It's Grammy. Dave knew people would butcher his name with my "alternative" spelling, but really most people have figured out the pronounciation no problem. Everyone except Mikaela that is. Or maybe it's just that we call her Emme and she thought Graeme needed a "y" to match. She's very into matching these days.

Everything has to match. This morning she was having a tea party with her dollies and hippo (her new favorite object of affection- guess what, it's PINK)and she had on a mostly purple outfit so she had to have the purple cup to match. I can't say I mind really because I'm sure to win the dressing battles, on certain mornings when her outfits are kind of crazy, when I tell her that something doesn't match and that what I've chosen matches better.

As for Graeme, he's going to be 4 months in 4 days and I can't really imagine what I did with all my time before his arrival. We're now better rested as our "little focker" has turned into a rockstar sleeper and the happiest baby on the block. He's weighing in at over 20 lbs and sleeps 11 hour stretches at night(fingers crossed) and naps like a champ. He's a talker and is ready to tell you all about his dreams at 530AM. Another early riser- GREAT!

At least he's happy and easy going. He's rolled over from front to back a few times and is less of a bobble head every day. Dave "works him out" and he can stand assisted forever. He really loves that. And we really love him, and Emme to course.