Afternoon Playdate at Nicole's

Last night, Nicole and I were talking and realized we had no plans for Wednesday and figured we'd get together for a playdate. Since Mia goes to school every morning, we decided to wait until the afternoon so Reagan could play with her. Chris had to meet with his brothers and a realtor about selling his mother's house, so we decided we'd all have dinner together too. This morning, Nicole called me from the store and suggested we all make sugar cookies together. She bought the ingredients I was missing, then dropped them off and I spent the morning making the sugar cookie dough and the frosting. I always think I'll be able to just whip it up really quickly, but it always ends up taking forever!

We went to the Heid's around 4:00, after Avery woke up from her nap. I had dressed Reagan and Avery in matching skirts (at Reagan's request) ... Mia has the same skirt, so she requested that she change into hers too!

Bennett, Mia and Reagan - Reagan was brushing her friend's hair :)

Then we put our aprons on and started making cookies

Avery, Mia, Reagan, and Chef Bennett

Reagan and Mommy, rolling out the dough ... years ago, I came up with this little system for rolling out perfectly thick cookies: two square dowels and one large round one! Very inexpensive solution for uniform sugar cookies :)

Nicole, Mia and Avery

Reagan cutting out hearts

While the cookies baked, we ate a gourmet meal! I love eating at the Heid house because it's always gourmet :) Nicole and Chris are excellent cooks and they are always sharing their yummy recipes with me. Nicole made delicious Turkey and sausage burgers, accompanied by potato salad, pasta salad and a spinach salad. I was in heaven. And so was Avery! It's unreal how much my little baby eats each day.

After dinner, we let Reagan and Mia go downstairs and play while Nicole and I decorated the cookies. Avery and Bennett hung out and watched us, while eating more.

Bennett gave Avery's nose a sweet little kiss

Avery went nuts over this fudgesicle!

She loved every minute of it and devoured the entire thing (except for all the parts that melted)

Bennett enjoyed his fudgesicle too

All clean!

I tried to get a picture of the 3 girls in their matching skirts ... see how big Avery's belly was? Every night, I'm in complete AWE of how huge her belly becomes! Then it magically shrinks each night as she digests her food.

This picture is a little blurry, but it's still cute ... look at that belly!

Reagan and Avery playing

As I was getting Avery into her pajamas, we were commenting on her big belly ... Mia and Reagan started showing us their bellies too, then bumping their bellies together, being very silly.

Diane's Cookie Exchange!

I spent all day yesterday making dough, cutting out cookies, baking them, frosting them, then decorating our favorite Fawson Family sugar cookies. And of course, Reagan wanted to help! Her favorite part was playing in the flour. Maybe because it's kind of like playing with sand? I don't know. She just likes making messes!

Here's a picture of all the cookies after they were decorated. My mom, sisters and I started a tradition, probably about 9 years ago where we'd pick a Saturday in December and bake cookies all day long. It was always so much fun! Then we'd give them out to our friends, neighbors and co-workers for Christmas. I'm always sad I can't do it with them in Utah, but at least I get to start the tradition with my daughters here in NJ. Anyway, we usually make Christmas Tree cookies, but they are bigger and I needed to make LOTS of cookies, so I changed it to stars this year. I needed enough cookies to take about 4 or 5 dozen to the nurses at Hackensack, and then about 4 or 5 dozen to Diane's party.

Tonight I participated in Diane's 4th Annual Cookie Exchange! Everyone brought dozens of homemade cookies, then we went around the table and took what we wanted.Look at all these homemade goodies!

Diane's friend Gina surprised her and came all the way from Long Island! I wish I'd had my camera ready when Gina and their other friend Judy walked through the door - it was priceless. It made Diane emotional to see her oldest friends ... Diane's mother and Gina's mother went to high school together, so they've been friends since birth. They've been friends with Judy since 4th grade! Gina came with us to the Lakehouse for a fun girls weekend back in September.

Jen and Ms. Lisa ... I joked with Ms. Lisa that I simply can NOT call her "Lisa"! It just doesn't sound right! I knew her first as "Ms. Lisa" (Reagan's preschool teacher) and although I now consider her a friend, it's too hard to change her name to just "Lisa". She just laughs and says it doesn't bother her at all ... she has other friends and neighbors that call her Ms. Lisa still because their kids were in her preschool program years ago.

Group shot at the end of the night

Top row: Jen, Diane, Judy, Gina

Bottom: Amanda, Ms. Lisa

What a fun night! John was so happy when I brought home a huge container of various cookies :) John LOVES cookies, so it was the perfect kind of party for me to attend. Thanks Diane!!

So Sweet ...

This morning's weekly playdate (TPG - Toddler Play Group) was at Audra's new house in Montvale. Since preschool is over for Reagan until January, she got to come today. On my way there, I stopped at a red light and turned around to look at my girls. Here's what I saw:

Obviously, it's not the greatest picture, but the sweetness of the gesture makes up for it, right? I love seeing them interact because I really do feel like they adore each other most of the time!

We got to Audra's and Reagan was immediately drawn to this piano. She sat down and then Avery had to check it out too. They both played like this for quite a while and it really made my day!

Then the snowflakes started falling, so the kids were glued to the window! You can hardly see the flakes in this picture, but by the time we left Audra's, the roads were completely snow-packed! It was crazy how quickly it accumlated! I planned to stop at the grocery store on my way home, so I talked Nicole into following me there (the idea of hauling Reagan and Avery in and out of the store during a crazy snowstorm was NOT very appealing!) ... she parked next to me and stood outside, entertaining her kids and mine, while I ran into A&P to get some essential items.

We finally made it home and once Avery was napping, Reagan and I made my family's famous sugar cookies! Reagan LOVES to help out in the kitchen. In the above picture, she was making a mountain of flour. Having Reagan "help" me in the kitchen usually means I have lots of extra cleaning to do after we finish our project! But that's okay, since we usually have a great time together.

Random Thoughts

Yesterday seemed like a very long day. Usually, the days just fly by, packed full of stuff going on. Yesterday was the exception, so we just stayed home all day, lounging around the house. Avery's nap schedule has been a bit off lately since she's been waking up really early everyday (6:40 AM). Before the time change, she was sleeping in until 8:30, even if she went to bed at 7:00. You'd think the time change would have caused her to sleep until 7:30, but now it's like clockwork: up at 6:40 every morning. I shouldn't complain, since it's not THAT early, but there are nights when I go to bed really late and I want to shoot myself when I have to get up with her at that hour. Anyway, this early wake up sometimes causes her to be really tired at a pretty early hour, so I have to give her a morning nap - sometimes this is good because it's short and she's ready to be dragged out the door to follow her big sister's schedule. Other times it's bad because she takes a really long morning nap, messing up the rest of her schedule and her afternoon nap. I've actually been a little worried about the amount of sleep this girl needs each day ... she's 1 year old now and sometimes she's only awake for 7-8 hours a day! In fact, she has me a little worried today: she woke up at her usual time, then she was fussy and rubbing her eyes by 9:25. I put her in her crib and she fell aseep around 9:30AM. She slept and slept and finally woke up at 2:15! What child takes a nap for almost 5 hours?!! Reagan NEVER took longer than a 45 minute nap for the entire 1st year of her life, so it's weird to have a child who takes long naps. Sure, I was able to get a lot done while she slept, so I wasn't exactly complaining, but it made me worry that something could be wrong. Maybe it's just because she's teething? I don't know. Her 1 year well-visit is next week, so I'll be talking to Dr. Battista about this. It could just be the result of her being anemic (something we discovered at her 10 month Dr. visit) ... the low iron levels could be making her tired. I make sure she gets her vitamin +iron drops everyday, so hopefully she'll grow out of it soon. Anyway, this may be very boring information for my readers, but I like documenting what's going on with sleep patterns at different ages, in case I want to look back at it later.


So, back to yesterday, Avery's napping was off and Reagan no longer takes a nap, so it felt like a long day. They were both antsy and I tried to come up with fun things to do all day. At one point, we danced and danced to the songs that played during the credits of Shrek the Third, over and over (I kept rewinding the credits). We were loving the song called "Best Days" by Matt White, so much so that I downloaded it onto my iPhone and we danced to it some more while I cooked dinner. Dinner was ready and John called to say he was just leaving the hospital (visiting his mother), so I knew we still had about 20 minutes to kill. Reagan has always loved playing with the cookie cutters in one of the lower drawers of the kitchen, yet we've never made sugar cookies together! A few weeks ago, I bought one of those Betty Crocker packages for sugar cookies (just add butter and an egg), so I pulled it out. Reagan and I had such a great time mixing the ingredients, rolling out the dough, then cutting the cookies into small shapes. Reagan was a natural. I put Avery in her high chair and she watched us do it all. I took this picture of Reagan using my iPhone:



We baked one batch, then Papa came home and we ate dinner. One of these days, I'll learn my lesson and I'll strip Avery down to her diaper before dinner. I'm so tired of spotting her clothes and doing a load of laundry every single night so that her clothes aren't stained permanently. You might be thinking, why don't you just use a bib? Well, she's figured out how to rip off bibs, therefore, I can never keep them on her very long. This girl is a maniac when it comes to eating. She eats EVERYTHING. And she always makes a HUGE mess! She picks up handfuls of food (usually in both hands) and shoves the food into her mouth ... probably half of it ends up in her mouth, and the other half ends up on her or on her high-chair. Last night's dinner was ground turkey (with onions, garlic, red peppers, etc.) and orzo, stuffed in spaghetti squash. As you can imagine, it was MESSY for Avery. Dessert was watermelon and Avery just kept eating it! By the time dinner was over, this is how she looked:


The entire top of her shirt was soaked from the watermelon juices that dripped from her mouth. There was food all over her lap, next to her in the chair, as well as in her hair.

Once again, these pictures were taken with my iPhone, so they're not the best quality, but hopefully you can see just how dirty she was.

Here's something I've been meaning to blog about: Avery's obsession with HAIR. Like many babies, Avery likes to pull hair. But I honestly believe Avery has an odd obsession with it. It started when she was very little and she would play with my hair while I nursed her. Then she started playing with her own hair ... to this day, it is the way she soothes herself to sleep! Reagan always chewed on burp cloths when I put her in her crib and this was how she put herself to sleep. Avery puts both hands on her head and plays with her hair. But when it comes to other people's hair, Avery is dangerous. I'm not kidding around here. Lately, it's become rather frustrating, especially with her big sister Reagan. Avery grabs Reagan's hair every chance she gets and then pulls it really hard. She has ripped out fistfuls of hair before! It leaves Reagan crying and Avery laughing. Isn't that weird? I keep thinking she'll grow out of it, but it actually seems to be getting worse instead of better. She's getting to an age where I'm pretty sure she understands it's wrong, since I firmly tell her "NO!" but she still thinks it's funny. The situation is usually worst whenever someone (Reagan and I are usually the victims) is laying down ... this morning, the 3 of us were snuggling and reading books in my bed and she attacked my head. She had both hands grabbing fistfuls of hair and as soon as I'd get her to release her strong grip, she'd grab another patch of hair. It was so bad that I was screaming at her to stop. The whole time, she was laughing, having a jolly old time. I don't know how to handle it. I just hope it stops soon, while Reagan and I still have some hair!

Reagan has said some really funny and adorable things recently. On Tuesday morning, I was getting her ready for preschool in my bathroom. As I was doing her hair, she looked up at me and said, "You're the best mommy I ever saw!" Lately, she often comes up to John and me and randomly tells us she loves us. It melts our hearts. Then yesterday as we were making cookies, she suddenly said, "No muss, no fuss!" This was such an odd thing to hear come out of her mouth, so I asked her where she got it. She said, "from Widget! You know, on Wow, Wow, Wubbsy!" Then while I was typing this post, she asked if she could sit on my lap, so I let her sit with me. We started messing around and I was pretending to drop her onto the ground ... she was laughing and instead of saying "you're dropping me!" or "I'm falling!" she said, "you're falling me!" She's such a sweetheart and John and I love hearing the things she says each day. What a fun age! Here's a picture I just took of her while I was sitting here typing and she was drinking a Gatorade:

Apple Cake

I was putting away the groceries today and noticed that I had a few bags of apples in the fruit drawer (I need to make a point to check the fridge before going grocery shopping so I don't buy duplicates unneccessarily!). The perfect way to get rid of apples is to make Apple Cake! There is a website called Tastefully Simple. It used to sell a cake mix called Nana's Apple Cake. They have seasonal products, so it's not available right now, but I'm HOPING they bring it back eventually, since I'm addicted to it. All you do is add chopped-up apples and 2 eggs to the mix, then throw it in the oven. It's delish!

Anyway, Reagan was helping me make it tonight, since I figured it would be a nice thing to take to John's aunt Nayda's house tomorrow for Easter. The reason I pulled out the video camera tonight was because this was the first time Reagan didn't run from the kitchen when I pulled out the electric hand mixer! The loud noise of the mixer has always scared her and just the sight of it has sent her running. Yet tonight, I got it out and she didn't even flinch! I knew this day would eventually come, so I was happy that it finally did. Not only was she unafraid of the mixer, she was anxious to use it and help me. I was so proud of her :) Please disregard her messy hair, since I didn't comb it after her nap.