An update is shamelessly overdue...

Aubrey had her 15 month appointment today, she is in the 90th% for height, and weights almost 24lbs. She is walking, has lots of things to say, and her little personality is coming out. Besides mealtimes, her favorite time of day is when Daddy comes home from work and she runs screaming "Dada! Dada! Dada!" to greet him at the door. She loves bathtime, her drink, and following Angie around.

Evangeline is growing up so fast. She loves to help around the house - with laundry, cleaning, putting away the groceries (her favorite), and telling Aubrey what to do. She says the new baby is going to be a baby sister (she also says it's name will be "Moo"), we'll see if she's right in just a few months!

Ryan has started a new job! We're grateful he has a job and look forward to down the road when we've adjusted to the change (he has quite a commute so life is quite different now). We're still loving our new place and, again, look forward to a few weeks down the road when life has settled and we feel more "normal"... just in time for the baby to come! :o)

2 years old

A month late (sorry!) but here it is...

Stats & A Recipe

Evangeline - 2 yrs.

Weight: 27lbs.  50-75th%
Height: 34"  50-75th%
Head Cir.: 48cm  50-75th%

Aubrey - 6 months

Weight: 19lbs. 13oz.  97th%
Height: 27 1/2" 97th%
Head Cir.: 44cm  90th%

At 6 months, Evangeline weighed 17lbs. (75th%), and was 25" long (25th%). Aubrey is now not only sitting up, and everything from the last post, but she is also crawling.

And now completely unrelated; a recipe that we had for dinner last night from Weeknights with Giada (I changed it some). It was so delicious.

Ham, Gruyere, and Apple Panini

1T. butter
1 apple, peeled, cored, and sliced (1/4" thick)
1t. dried thyme
4 slices bread
Mustard (opt.)
1 cup shredded cheddar-gruyere cheese (the recipe calls for gruyere but I opted for the less expensive mix)
4 slices black forest ham

In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the apple slices and thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples are slightly soft, about 4 mins.

Spread each piece of bread with 1T. mustard. Arrange half of cheese on bread, top with 2 slices ham. Divide the apple mixture evenly over sandwiches. Add remaining cheese. Grill or use panini press to cook until cheese is melted and the tops are golden brown and crispy.

A New Recipe Day

Today I'm going to try out a couple of new recipes. The first, at lunch, is a Spinach and Feta Quesadilla found on pinterest. What I love about the recipe is that it makes only one - perfect for my lunch (and possible Evangeline if she is feeling daring enough to "twy").

And for dinner tonight I'm going to give another Giada recipe a go from one of my new cookbooks (Everyday Italian). I'm going to make pasta with Vodka Sauce - sounds good, right?! I'm looking forward to it and shall report soon. I just need to figure out what veggies to serve with it... or sneak in the sauce.

In a non-food related note, Aubrey - not quite yet 6 months old - is now sitting up and can go from a rolling around on the floor to a sitting up postion. She mastered both things yesterday. Where did my baby go?!

And since there is a picture of Aubrey - I'll add one of Angie too :o) Here she is eating her green smoothie from the other night (since she knows the camera takes videos, she always asks to watch and won't smile/pose for a picture)...

Update

Our little girls are growing up so fast! Evangeline is sleeping a big girl/toddler bed, she's potty trained, and she's turning 2 at the end of the month! Aubrey will hit 6 months in a few weeks and is working on sitting up and crawling already. They both have appointments in a couple weeks, so we'll get to see the stats and how close Aubrey actually is to Angie in size (Aubrey is wearing 12 month clothing, Evangeline is still in mostly 18-24 month). They both love each other A LOT... Aubrey is always watching Angie and wants to be close to her:

Although it doesn't look like it in this picture, Evangeline adores Aubrey as well. SO much.

Ryan has been at his new job for a couple of months now and we're so grateful for it and he really enjoys it. His boss is great, the commute is easy, the hours are good, and we're just thrilled with the Lord providing it.

In other random thoughts/news, I, like millions of others out there, love Pinterest. And I love that I'm actually making/doing things I've pinned. Last night was another successful recipe and was promptly moved into my "Recipes Good Enough to Do Again" board. I can't wait until we have a place of our own/a bigger place so that I can put many of the idea's I've pinned to good use.

More Summer Fun

We've had some more summer fun here in the Tiren house. We've flew a kite (somewhat successfully):

And we went to the beach! Evangeline loved it... she didn't want to leave. She enjoyed playing in the sand and the water. She laughed whenever the waves hit her. Sadly, this is pretty much the only picture we got at the beach... we were just too busy having fun! Aubrey didn't have as much fun at the beach and was actually only there for maybe 30 mins. total - the extreme heat (100+) was too much for her.

Just to prove, yet again, that these two girls are definitely sisters... here they are in the hotel room, sleeping:

Summer Fun

We've had a bit of summer fun this weekend... yesterday we had a water balloon fight with some friends. And the day before that we took Angie out for a water adventure in Olney. Here are some pictures of our cutie playing in the water with her Dada (while Aubrey & I hung out in the shade):

Today in the Tiren House

Evangeline has done a couple of cute things today that I just had to share.

First, shes started to call her sister by name... sort of. To her Aubrey is "o-bee". The best part was "o-bee, o-bee, hi o-bee".

Secondly, she learned to put a diaper on. Grey bear is her test subject.

No post is complete with out a cute baby picture, so here is one of "Obee":

Lots happening with us. First, Ryan has a new job! He started this past week and we're so excited. It's everything we had been praying for and we're so grateful. God is so good.

Aubrey is growing leaps and bounds. She had her two month appointment a couple of weeks ago. Here are her stats:
Weight: 13lbs. 12 oz. 97th%
Height: 24" 96th%
Head Cir.: 40 cm 75th-90th%

She recently found her voice, here is a video of that :o)

About a month or so ago we were give a little play set slide for Evangeline. It didn't take long for her to figure it out (and love it). Her famous rock collection also made it into the video...

Jason married the wonderful Kari last month and Ryan was in the wedding.

Aubrey came too and spent most of her time snuggled up with either James or Jess.

 Evangeline and Ryan were sick for a week or so and so they spent a lot of time together. Ryan made Angie a little play house complete with a working door, a little kitchen, and cardboard food. Here are some pictures of it:

They also spent a little time watching Star Wars. With Chewbacca of course.

Once A Month

Well, it seems like this blog is becoming a once a month update blog :o)

Aubrey is doing well - she's a big girl, weighed in at 10lbs. 6oz at 3 weeks! She has her two month appointment in a couple weeks (she's 6 1/2 wks. now) so it'll be interesting to see how much she's grown. She is wearing 3 month clothing, although some 3 month clothes are a bit small! At 4 weeks she was wearing 3 month pj's that Angie didn't wear until she was 4 months old. Aubrey is giving us lots of smiles and a few giggles.

Angie continues to love her little sister, giving her lots of kisses, asking to hold her lots, and being as helpful as she can be (although sometimes her help isn't helpful at all!). Aubrey loves the attention from her sister and smiles as soon as she sees her.

Ryan is still looking for a job (please pray!) and working hard to find one. We're back into real life with a busy schedule and enjoying being a family of four. No post is complete without some pictures, so here you go:

Small Update

There will probably be silence on this blog for a while... not that it is unusual for that to happen! :o) But we are about to venture into a very busy season. After New Years we have some family goals we want to accomplish (with Angie, with baby preparations, etc.) and then we hit the wedding time of a good friend which Ryan is in. Then immediately after that (well, the day of the wedding) I will reach full term and this baby could come at any time!

*If you'd like to be included in the email(s) about when the baby comes, etc. please let me know!*

No post is complete without pictures, so...

Right before Christmas, we showed Angie A Charlie Brown Christmas and couldn't resist taking this picture - since she has Sally Brown curls.

And here is a picture of her enjoy one of her Christmas presents:


Happy New Year everyone!!

Update for December

Christmas is slowly creeping into our house and we love it! We aren't getting our tree for a couple weeks yet, but a few decorations have made thier way out.

Ryan made this picture framed quote for me this year, after I saw something similar on pinterest. He did a great job, it looks great.



In our room a collection of presents is coming together...


And right now, it just looks like a pile of fabric but hopefully over the next week it will turn into a stocking for Angie!



Evangeline is growing up so fast! She's running all over the place and we're looking forward to having Christmas with her this year - where she'll be able to open up gifts and enjoy the tree a bit more than last year :o)



We've taught her a bit of sign language to help with communicating so besides from her words, she can sign "more" which for her either means more or food/eat. She also can sign "all done". And we're now working on "please" and "thank you" and "cup/drink". For please, though, she rubs her belly. It's quite cute. She also made up her own sign for brushing her hair which, along with brushing her teeth, she loves to do herself. She had her first bubble bath last week (thanks Aunt Casey & Uncle Dave for the Mr. Bubble) and really enjoyed it.
She had her 15 month appointment recently measuring in at 22lbs. 5 oz. and 29 1/2" long.

New baby is growing well... we had an appointment on Tuesday and everything is going well. It's crazy to think that technically (and just barely since it is Dec. 1st) we could see this baby NEXT month! I'm sure we'll have to wait a bit longer than that though :o)

Today

Evangeline asked for cheese for lunch. She literally did the sign for "more" and said "seeessse" to me (which means cheese).

Such a big girl.

An Update

So we now have an almost 14 month old and I had my wonderful husband help me with making the image below, based off of something I saw on pinterest. I love it! We're going to try and keep up with doing this, so fun...


As the picture says, she is walking now - she is about 50/50 with walking vs. crawling but whenever Ryan is around she tries to walk more. She has 5 teeth fully in and a couple more that haven't quite finished yet. At her 1 year appointment she still measured nice and short (her two cousins are going to be as big as her very soon), but is perfectly healthy and developing well.
She's saying some words - Dada, Mama or Mummm, bear, bway (play), eeth (teeth or brushing teeth), bay-bee (baby), bee (pretty much any toy or book... although she's starting to make slightly different sounds for blocks and books), and she seems to be saying yes or yeah and I think maybe no as well.
She goes to class at church now... this past week she didn't cry at all and when Ryan went to pick her up she was standing in the middle of the room and tried to walk over to him (but was a bit too excited and went too fast and kept falling over... but she kept trying).

Number 2 is coming along fine :o) Everything is normal at my appointments and the ultrasound we had a few weeks back looked great - and gave us a new due date: February 11th.


He or she is moving around plenty (making it hard for the midwives to follow them around to get thier heartbeat - he or she even kicked the scanner at this last appointment) and joining in on dance parties with us. They are still making me sick, but it's not as bad as it has been and I think I now have more good days that bad. We're looking forward to meeting this little one and I'm having fun planning and figuring out what we need and where things should go and making a nice to-do list for after the holidays when we'll turn into baby mode.

We've been quite busy lately. We had an anniversary trip last month up in Lancaster, leaving Angie behind with my parents. She did great and we had a wonderful time, and in the Lord's kindness we were even able to go on a hot air balloon ride! It was amazing and if you're ever able to find a deal like we did - we 100% recommend going for it!


This past weekend we had a day with the Tirens at the River house. Will & Erin came as well as David, Casey, & Violet... we went to a "pumpkin patch", went through a corn maze (well not quite all of us made through the exit and instead went back to the beginning), and had fun hanging out all day.



Finally, Ryan is quite proud of his little girl. We watched Star Wars and Angie immediately started to dance and clap to the music. We had to snap a picture of it.

1 year old

Birthday Week

It's Evangeline's birthday week. It started off in a great way this weekend with her first birthday card arriving all the way from England - from her Great Granny & Grampy (my grandparents). Here is a picture of her enjoying the card:


She keeps climbing up to the shelf it's on and pulling it off to look at it - she opens and closes it a lot. Here's another picture of her that shows what most pictures are like these days - she wants to hold the camera, not have her picture taken :o)

We're excited for her birthday coming up on Friday. Our big girl.

Angie Dancing

Lunchtime

Right around lunchtime, everyday, Evangeline is clean, dry, fed, and not tired... and yet this is what she does: I don't get to eat in peace :o)



What she keeps looking at and trying to reach is my plate.

Little Angie Update

I had a headache today... Evangeline didn't help me with it as is evidenced by this video.

Also for those of you who haven't seen her crawl, this video shows her doing it - although she kept getting caught in her dress so it's not very graceful and she can do a lot better & faster :o) You can see all that drool on her chin - she's trying to get tooth #2 to arrive (I've been trying to get a picture of tooth #1, but she hasn't co-operated)... you can also see my dirty floor.



She had her 9 month check up a few weeks ago, it was mostly a good report except that she didn't gain enough weight since her 6 month one. The doctor is having us give her formula to fatten her up which is so funny since she is such a fatty to begin with!

Stats -
Height: 26 1/2" - 10th% (6 months - 25" - 25th%)
Head Cir.: 44cm - 50th% (6 months - 42cm - 25-50th%)
Weight: 17lbs. 7oz. - 25th% (6 months - 17lbs. 4oz - 75th%)

PS - She CANNOT wait to meet all her great (or grand) aunts and uncles and cousins in a few weeks. Love you guys!

Eight.

Happy 8 months Evangeline!!