9 Months Flew By...

Still can't believe that my baby girl is 9 months old now. Well I guess she's actually 9-1/2 months old now because it's taken me so long to post these pictures! Her hair is finally long enough for me to put two very tiny clips in. The clips fall out quite easily, so I don't put them in too often for fear that she'll eat them like everything else she finds. When she's happy she says, "Dada, dada, dada!" And when she's hungry or tired she says, "Mama, mama, mama!" Other than that she babbles a lot and loves to say "oooooooo!" Which is what she's saying in our new header pic at the top of the blog :) She crawls very, very, very fast when she's trying to beat me to the bathroom or out the front door. Her favorite time of the day is bath time, closely followed by playtime at the park. She eats like a horse and yet is still only in the 50th percentile for everything (18 lbs 11oz, 27-1/2" and I say only because Brixie Lee was always in the high 90's). Her favorite food is yogurt, closely followed by cheese toast. She's a beautiful and stubborn baby girl and we all love her very, very, very much!

Brixie Lee is still Helene's favorite person in the world. Understandable because Brixie Lee loves to sing to her, dance for her and feed her. I guess she quickly forgets about all the toys that Brixie Lee takes from her, but that will change very soon. Brixie Lee is starting to understand so much more about her world. She loves to help me with everything and I try to let her do as much as possible. Mommy's little helper. She has swim lessons twice a week and always looks forward to her time with Miss Gabi. We're so proud of how independent she's getting in the water. By next summer she'll be a pro! Her love of music still blows me away. She loves all kinds of music and one of her favorite songs right now is Sentimental Journey. Just about brings a tear to my eye! Hugs and kisses big girl!

Our sweet girls!
Pure happiness!

We love you both with ALL OUR HEARTS! If you want to see all the pictures from this shoot, check out Don's Gallery!

Our 2nd Annual Micky's-Trick-Or-Treat Party!!!

Last year we took Brixie Lee to Micky's Trick-Or-Treat Party at California Adventure. She had a great time, so we decided to do it again this year. Grandma Dianna had bought her a Snow White costume earlier this year and Brixie Lee said she wanted to wear it this year to go trick-or-treating with Micky Mouse. Couldn't say no to that! Luckily we had learned a few days earlier that Helene didn't like the late night adventures, so Grandma came down on last minute notice to spend the night with Helene while Don and I took Brixie Lee to the "party."

Our Beautiful Snow White!

We started off on her favorite carousel again. My girl is just so stink'n beautiful! Love her so much. If you have time you can click on the link at the top of this post and see the similar picture from last year when she wore her cat costume.

This year Brixie Lee was much more adventurous. She wanted to do nothing but ride as many rides as possible. She skipped the candy lines and was not very happy about stopping for Mommy and Daddy to grab a bite with her friends (sorry baby).

We couldn't find Micky and Minne for a picture, so we settled for Creuella Daville. Brixie Lee was not happy about that at all. She's so funny!

We didn't get home until just after midnight and Brixie Lee still wanted to party. I think this will be an annual event for us!

Thank you for taking care of our baby girl Grandma!

If you would like to see all the pictures from our two Disney adventures, you can check them out here on Don's Gallery.

Happiest Place On Earth... For Some...

Back on September 27th, our favorite Crazy Lady, Miss Kristina, helped us
Non-Disneyland-Annual-Pass-Holding-Family (quite unusual compared to most our friends) get into the happiest place on earth. Brixie Lee LOVED Disneyland! We started off on the carousel, which we new would be a hit.

From there Daddy took her on Dumbo and she loved that too. I took Helene and Brixie Lee, but as you can see... Helene wasn't so happy.

Then we saw the parade and Brixie Lee loved every minute of that TOO. The girl was in heaven. We took the short walk to Toon Town and she toured all the houses (Mickey's, Minnie's, Donald Duck's and Goofy's).

Unfortunately, Helene didn't like one bit of the Happiest Place On Earth. Granted it was probably because we didn't get there until 5pm (2 short hours before bed time). She didn't eat well. She wouldn't relax in her favorite baby carrier. Then she cried almost all the way home. Very hard night for my baby girl!

It was a great learning experience for us and we decided that if we're ever going to become Annual Pass Holders, it will be AFTER Don is out of school and Helene is older.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Miss Kristina!

Once Upon A Potty...

I'm sure many of you are rolling your eyes thinking... Brixie, you're nuts! What are you doing putting an 8 month old on the potty? She can't even walk yet and your potty training?????

So here's the scoop on poop... I HATE IT! When Brixie Lee was 6 months old I started reading about all the different potty training strategies. Everything from holding a bucket to their bare bottom at birth to letting them tell you when they are ready. Neither of those sounded good for me. Then I found the "Diaper Free By 3" book that was written by a pediatrician who saw the world as I do. The book has lots of good information in it, but the bottom line is an early "introduction" to the potty. Brixie Lee was 1 day shy of 7 months old when I first sat her on the baby potty... pictured below! She's so cute!


As you can see, she loved it. We would sit there for a few minutes everyday and read and sing and just have fun. In fact, her first word (duck) was from a book that we read everyday on the potty. That's also where she learned her ABC's, shapes, and colors. After a couple months she started to poop regularly on the baby potty and I was getting sick of cleaning out the baby potty. We put her on the regular potty when she was about 10 months old and never looked back. I can't tell you how happy I was to not be cleaning poops from a diaper! OK, there were occasional poopie diapers, but most of the time she waited to poop on the potty! Happy Mommy, Happy Daddy and Happy Brixie Lee!

I was even more pleased when Brixie Lee successfully started wearing panties 100% of the time when she was 21 months old. That's less than 2 years of diapers! I was over the moon!

Now for Helene... our lives have been dramatically more busy. I broke the potty out when she was almost 8 months old (a month late, I was not happy with myself). Unfortunately, Helene HATED the baby potty. I would sit her on it and she would scream bloody murder and try desperately to crawl away. We tried again a week later and the same thing happened. And again, and again. A few weeks ago she started pulling herself up and decided she wanted to play in big potty. Gross, but at least she was showing interest. I decided we needed to try the big potty but was having a hard time getting to the store to buy the potty seat (Brixie Lee never used one).

Grandma came to Helene's rescue and bought one for her yesterday. She sat on it for 10 minutes before bath and loved every minute. She even when pee! Basically she just wanted to do it like Big Sister does. On the big potty!

Ahhh... the beginning of my freedom from poopie diapers!

The End!

Playing Dress Up...

It's sad to say that my twin is no longer my twin. We broke out some of my old baby clothes and played dress up with the girls. When Helene was a newborn she looked A LOT like me as a newborn. Things have changed and she's starting to have her very own look! My mom and I think this picture of me was taken when I was close to 1 year old.


Now here's my baby girl and it's quite clear that she doesn't look like me anymore :( I guess it was bound to happen sometime! My extremely determined little girl is growing up too fast and I'm spending a lot of time trying to savor every moment. She just recently started giving kisses when asked and I must say that melted my heart!

I know I've posted this picture of my mom and I before, but I wanted to show it again because of the picture below with Brixie Lee in the same dress. Brixie Lee never looked much like me as a newborn, but there are times when she looks like me as a toddler.

My bright, beautiful, big girl may not have her sister's determination, but she sure has her father's memory. This girl listens and remembers EVERYTHING! She knows over a 100 songs (seriously), can "read" numerous books to you via memory (some words), and is always reminding me of promises that I've made (like ice cream after dinner).

Someday I'll try to get some baby pictures of Don Lee so we can see how these girls compare with Daddy. There are many, many times when Brixie Lee looks exactly like her father.

If you would like to see all the pictures from our little dress-up session, you can check out Don's Gallery!

Helene... 8 Months Old! WOW!

My goodness... I just can't keep up with these girls! Every time I turn around they are older, bigger and doing completely different things. Helene is now 8 months old and extremely busy. She crawls (hands and knees now, no more low crawl) all over the house saying mama, dada, and lots of other baby babble. Her favorite activities are climbing and standing. Usually she's climbing up on something to try to stand on it. Luckily she still needs to hold on to something to stand! That will change fast. For now her nickname it Billy (as in the goat).



Oh yeah, we also found out that this girl has rhythm! When we turn on music she bounces to the music and actually keeps up with the beat. Maybe it comes from the thousands and thousands of songs we listen to for Brixie Lee while driving all over Chino Valley and up to Bakersfield.

Helene's favorite foods include frozen peaches, stars (little puff like treats), yogurt and CHEESE. You can tell a child of ours by the constant cheese ring around their month!

Helene's favorite person in the world is Brixie Lee and the reverse it true too. They both look for each other as soon as they wake up. No one on earth can make Helene smile the way Brixie Lee does. It's the sweetest thing and I hope that doesn't go away. I would love for their bond to be forever.

At nite-nite time Brixie Lee usually comes in to read a story to Helene. Priceless :)

If you would like to see all of Helene's 8 Month pictures you can see them on Don's Gallery.

Aliso Creek Beach Excursion

Daddy woke up on Sunday morning and said, "Let's go to the Beach!" So we packed up in 15 minutes (record time for us girls) and headed out! Brixie Lee was excited as we drove down to the beach and Helene was trying to take her morning nap. Once we got there, Brixie Lee decided she didn't like the beach. Pictures and books about the beach were much better than the actual beach itself!

I carried her down to the water... Daddy carried her down to the water... but every time we put her down on the shore she would take off back to the sand and play with her toys.
Helene was so exhausted that she slept in the Ergo for about 45 minutes! So glad she loves her Ergo! Best $$$ spent on Helene :)

After an hour of running as fast as she could from the waves, I asked Brixie Lee if she wanted to get the sand out of her bucket and go home. She said, "YES! Let's get water in my bucket!" And those were the magic words...

She was a little shocked when the waves knocked her down to the ground!

But that didn't stop her for getting lots and lots and lots and lots of buckets full of water! She would run up to the beach and dump the water out on her toes!

She didn't even mind when a big wave came by and soaked her up to her chin. Freaked Mommy out, but Daddy was able to get the picture anyway! Thank you Daddy!

We woke Helene up for the last 20 minutes at the beach and she had the same reaction to her first touch of ocean as Brixie Lee did... screaming bloody murder! So said that we laugh so hard at their terror! But we do anyway...

Daddy was able to calm her down and make her happy again. Once again, Daddy saves the day! We love you so much Daddy!

Here's a short video of Brixie Lee and her day at Aliso Creek Beach .

If you would like to see all Don's pictures of our Labor Day weekend at Aliso Creek Beach, check out his gallery!

And if you would like to see the pictures of Brixie Lee's first day at the Beach you can see these pictures on Don's gallery from Labor Day weekend 2007! There are two albums!

The Vasquez Wedding...

On August 22nd my best friend married her sweetheart. It was a wonderful and beautiful wedding at Redondo Beach with all her friends and family. Tracy and Charles, we wish you all the best and thank you so much for including us on your special day. Everything was beautiful... the bride most of all!

Hugs and much love... The Mathewsons

If you would like to see all of Don's pictures from the rehearsal and the wedding, you can check them out on his gallery.

Thank You McCuen's

Thank you very much McCuen Family... I loved you're playlist so much that I stole it!

Thank You Uncle Darryl!!

Brixie Lee went to Bakersfield with Grandma last Sunday for some crazy B-town style fun. One of the days they went to the shop to visit Uncle Darryl and he gave Brixie Lee $10. She told me all about it when she got home and I asked her what she wanted to buy. At first she said she wanted to buy "lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of bananas!" That means 5... but, I told her that $10 would buy lots and lots... of bananas and she would still have some money leftover for something else. She then said, "I want to buy a train ticket!" Perfect, I had some coupons for the Irvine Park Railroad! So we called up the Carters and decided to head down to the park on Friday... now today... the hottest day of the month!

We were there a few minutes early so Brixie Lee had time for a quick photo-op with Miss Tracey on the wagon wheel bench! Brixie Lee is showing off her $10 and coupon for free ice cream like a proud big girl.


We practiced what she needed to say all morning and she got most of it out when I picked her up at the ticket window. She said, "Train ticket please." Which was pretty good, but we practiced, "I need 1 train ticket, 1 pony ride and 1 free ice cream please." She totally forgot the best part! The free ice cream. Good thing mommy was there to keep her on track! ;) Mommy doesn't miss out on free ice cream!

While we were waiting for the train she saw all the other stuff that she could buy. Lucky for me she was a dollar short for even the cheapest thing! Very good math lesson don't you think! I explained that she could save her $2 that she had left and when she earns or receives more money we can come back and she can buy a toy. Very good saving money lesson don't you think! Look what you started Uncle Darryl! She's getting more than you ever could have realized out of that $10!

Here she is giving her ticket to the conductor so she can get on the train. Lucky for us he was very understanding as we kept giving her each of our tickets to give to him so we could keep trying to get a good picture. Too bad none of them worked! Oh well, we'll blame it on the fact that we had 3 laughing women taking photos instead of our handsome Daddy photographer :)

Here we are! The Mathewson Girls and the Carter Girls! Great group of girls!

Tracey tried to convince Brixie Lee to scoot back into the hole in the tree. As you can see, Brixie Lee was pointing out the fact that there were spider webs in there! Mommy's girl! Love it!

After waiting an hour for the pony rides to open (in the extreme heat, not fun for us, but Brixie Lee didn't care) Brixie Lee and Tracey were able to take Freddy for 3 laps around the track. Poor Tracey had to witness Freddy relieving himself. I thought I was going to have to take over for the poor girl! Love you Tracey... you always make me laugh!

Now for the ICE CREAM! Now that was a much needed treat after all our hot-fun adventures! As Brixie Lee said over and over and over... THANK YOU UNCLE DARRYL!

Party Kingdom Open Play!!!

Kelly has now made the last week of August Stroller Strides official End Of Summer Fun Week! Today's activity was at the local jump house called Party Kingdom. We've been to several parties there and even had Brixie Lee's 2nd Birthday party there. She's just now starting to really enjoy herself in the jump house. Today she got a little crazy (yes, this is crazy for my shy, calm girl) and decided to kick it up a notch ;)

We started off with the normal, calm bouncing on the race horse (poor horse)...
Then when I had my back turned... she decided to climb a little wall... not such a big deal...
Then she climbed to the top of a rather big ladder... I thought I might have to help her down, but...
Nope! She flew down the slide like a pro! In fact, she did this about 20 times!

These pictures are pretty bad (except for the first one, thank you Kim!) because all I had on me was my phone. Next time I'll try to get some better shots. You can't see it here, but she smiles from ear to ear when she's going down the slide. You make me so happy Brixie Lee! Mommy loves you very, very much!

My Baby Is 2-1/2 Years Old...

On Brixie Lee's 2-1/2 Birthday (July 11th) we went to Wahoo's and Yogurtland to celebrate. She LOVES it there!

First she relaxed on her bench...


Then she gave her sister some love...


Then she wanted to dunk Helene in the water...


Then she stuck her head in the fountain...


And finally we went home with totally happy, totally wet 2-1/2 year old...


Where does the time go????

If you want to see all the pictures from this day you can check them out on Don's Gallery.

Hugs!

It's All About Eating...

Around here we do A LOT of eating!

Helene now knows exactly what she needs to do to get some grub...



And Brixie Lee was very excited to get her first lollipop at Gavin's birthday party...

Estep Driving School

Thank you so much cousin Tommy for giving Brixie Lee her first driving lesson on your Jeep. You're a great teacher!

Mini-Movie Stars...

For playgroup last week me made a movie staring some of our favorite kiddos! Gotta love it!

Helene 4 Month Update...

Doc Appt 5/28: Weight 14.4 Height 23.75 HC 15.75