Wow, I was sure I'd put up a December post, but I guess we were just too busy in December.

My grandmother passed away a few days before Christmas, which was tough. Luckily we had a very good last visit with her and she was able to meet Larissa before she passed. In fact, she was more aware during that visit than any I'd had with her in the past year. She held Larissa and didn't want to let go of my hands the whole time we were there. It was a good visit, but I will really miss her. It was very nice to see the rest of the family that we hadn't seen in many years for her service though.

We also visited Dad over the holidays, which was fun. It was also the cause of our new pet cat Janie. Brendon couldn't resist bringing her home when Dad said he may have to take some of the kittens at their house to the humane society. So, she joined us all in the little Toyota for the drive home and she immediately fit right in. Both Nelson and Finn love her. However, I could do with a little less of the two cats acting like tasmanian devils, running around the house every night. It does make me laugh though that when Finn's had enough of it he will go stand between the two of them until they settle down - laying down the law ;)

Well, Larissa is almost five months - hard to believe! She is a wonderfully happy, funny, sweet little girl. She giggles all the time with me and is doing more and more on her own every day. She rolls over now about two seconds after you put her down and can even scoot around in a circle. Plus she's walking herself around in her little exer-saucer toy thing to play with the various toys. She was 99% height and 85% weight at her 4 month appointment, which still seems crazy to me! How did we get such a tall kid? She's started on solid food, which she loves. She grunts rather loudly and insistently if you don't feed her the cereal fast enough 0 this kid likes to eat!

Addi is doing great at pre-school, but has decided that I need to enroll her in afternoons because she is "too sleepy to get up and get ready fast in the mornings" - fair enough, but the fact that she's trying to negotiate things like this at age 3.9 does not bode well for the future! ;) We just got done addressing her birthday cards. She and Aidan are going to share a gymnastics party this year. It should be fun. It was interesting explaining to her that we couldn't invite her whole class and then seeing her decide who she was going to choose to ask. She's very into writing her own name, drawing, dressing up like a princess and, well, babbling about most anything these days. Unfortunately, she watched a show with us the other day (we didn't think she was listening) and today she says "remember when that girls said "F*ng House."' Eeek! So, now another fun talk about not repeating everything we hear...

Other than that, we've had a LOT of snow days. I'm afraid my boss may forget what I look like. and Brendon appears to have the flu. So, not great. We're ready to be well and get out of the house a little more. At least we have fun kids to get snowed in with. All in all, I feel very lucky.

So far Larissa has been great at work. She naps for most of the morning, then wakes up to eat around 11 and we'll run around the building to drop stuff off and finish my work together until 12. She's such an easy-going baby. I really wonder if Addi would have been like this if I'd been doing this with her. For as colicky as she was at night, she was usually pretty good in the mornings for me too.

Larissa has also recently figured out her hands, and is trying to grab and play with things, but she gets really frustrated when she cannot get and hold onto the thing she wants. It's amazing to watch her learn every day.

Addi is also learning something new seemingly every day. She comes home with a new song or lesson to teach me all the time, and she's been doing lots of pictures for us of people and animals (that are actually starting to look like animals). Plus she always says that spending time with us is her favorite thing every day. As much as we fight her over going to sleep, she is a wonderful and sweet little girl. Brendon and I are very lucky.

Well, we had a great Halloween and then took a quick trip to St. Charles to visit my brother and Andrea, and had a great time. Addi said she didn't want to leave :)

Today we had Larissa's 2 month doctor check. She's 12lb. 2oz. (86%) and 24 in. (98%) It's wonderful that she's so big and healthy, but a big change from what Addi was. She's also smiling and talking (cooing) a lot. Even had smiles for the nurses again after she got done with her shots today. She is truly the sweetest baby ever!

I start back to work next week, which is a bit bittersweet. I'm looking forward to working, but I know it means less one on one time with Larissa. Hopefully it will go smoothly with taking her to work for the first few months. Keeping my fingers crossed.

We had a busy, but fun, time this weekend. Headed to Dogtoberfest, and a friend's wedding reception (where Addi staged her biggest melt-down ever because she didn't want to leave) on Saturday. Then brunch with the family and the pumpkin patch on Sunday.

Larissa's getting bigger and bigger, weighing in at over 10 lbs. at only 6 weeks! She's also tall enough to fit into 3-6 month clothes already, totally different than her sister was. One of her favorite things to watch is the ceiling fan. She coos at it and smiles - it's pretty funny!

Addi's a force to be reckoned with. We're currently reworking on manners, nap-time and sleeping in her own bed. The new three and a half year old attitude includes melt-downs whenever she's told no and talking back. Fun times. On the other hand, she is a great artist, very interested in learning her letters and numbers (she's been able to write her own name for quite a while now) and very much loves her sister. All-in-all, she's a good kid :)