little eleanore
little claire. check out those lashes (both of the girls have them!).
wrestling over the rattle.
ellie loves smiling with her eyes closed.
I was trying to capture their top toofers, but it was impossible to get a good shot. claire’s top 4 teeth are peeking through and eleanore’s are bulging.
claire and eleanore are not known for keeping their outfits clean. they often each go through 1-2 (on bad days – 3-5 outfits) outfits per day! whoever ruins their outfit first (or sometimes if I am being nice – their second) gets put into the “outfit o’ shame”. they ruin an outfit by peeing, pooping or spitting up on it. ellie had the privilege this afternoon after going through 2 different outfits previously.
she was pretty happy sporting the “outfit o’ shame”. she obviously didn’t realize how mismatched her browns were.
sadly, more often than not one of the girls is wearing this outfit. I guess it is their way of keeping me doing 2-3 loads of laundry per day. thanks girls for looking out for me!
I have finally mastered the art of bathing all 3 of my little rambunctious chitlins at the same time by myself! it has been a few weeks now that I have been doing it and it has made my evenings go much smoother. bill is rarely home before 7 so every week I get all the kids stripped down around 6 pm and load them up in the tub. eleanore and claire are squealing with delight while the tub is filling and trying to climb in. then the second they get in they both start crawling around, standing up and dropping back down into the water (I don’t ever remember charlie doing this, but they love it). charlie is the only one who actually remains sitting in the tub. but all 3 of them are really loving the time together – splashing and giggling together. and it is a great way to move the evening along for me. then I wrestle both of the girls out of the tub (which is a sight – trust me) and bring them into their room to get them dressed (it is so much easier to just wrestle them both at once) while charlie plays with his cars in the tub. since I am busy keeping all the kids above water I can’t take any pictures of the 3 of them. maybe I will try to snap some pictures tomorrow night when bill Is home.
after the baths I give the girls some of their bottles in the living room. here is the strategy for that.
then after they take about half of their bottle I let them cruise around for a bit and then put one in the office and take one with me into the nursery to finish off the bottle and lay them down. charlie loves this time because he gets to watch george.
if bill is lucky he makes it home in time to see the badgers. the girls light up when they see him and will not stop for anything to get to him. they just keep crawling and babbling and whining after him. charlie is also pumped to see dad and has a hard time splitting the attention with his sisters (bill probably has a hard time dividing it properly, but he does a fantastic job just soaking them all in!).
here is bill getting attacked on the big bed. you can only see charlie’s feet because he was diving into the pillows.
more dad time.
bill is such a wonderful dad. I love how he can walk through the door and forget the stresses of his day, the work he still has to do, the pager beeping as he walks in and just soak in the kids and their love for him. he does a great job being present for them and pouring love into them. thanks weyam. I love you!
the girls continue to get into more and more trouble at home. they mostly focus on trying to take down our book shelf or climbing into weird places. here are a few that I caught on camera.
claire climbing into the middle of our stool. she also is sticking her tongue out, which she did for about a week as she got used to her new teeth on top.
she was pushing the stool around the kitchen like this.
loving the tupperware cupboard.
then we get to the bookshelves. this is about the age that we started setting some boundaries with charlie and sure enough the girls are needing the same direction. the problem is it is a lot more difficult to set boundaries with 2 babies and a toddler around.
eleanore with her determined face.
here is claire making her way to the bookshelf. I stopped her and told her not to touch the bookshelf.
she sits back to assess.
desperately wanting to climb the bookshelf.
claire always trys to stick her head through the gap between the chair and the wall. she will not back down so I just move the chair out a bit.
claire was being a goofer one afternoon and was crawling over the pillows and laying her head down and picking it back up. it was adorable.
dotes came down for an evening and gave claire her christmas ornament.
claire – she LOVDAT! it was a cute little giraffe.
auntie dotsie (what charlie calls her) with the crew.
the girls are busy busy busy. they are trying to climb bookshelves and get into everything. here is ellie trying to get into the end table.
working on pushing the stroller together.
while in hudson ellie was interested in climbing into the steinway.
trying to get inside. they just don’t stop.
claire getting a horsey ride from charlie. she was loving it.
their hair is getting longer! here is claire’s crazy hair after her bath.
claire diving off the couch onto the table. she has no fear.
claire getting a goodnight kiss from charlie. she adores him!
eleanore getting her goodnight “kiss” (face smash).
ellie and paul are chatting while claire is giving the camera a grin.
I just love how sweet this is! paul is bigger than the girls and he is 3 months younger.
claire and ellie have really gotten into taking toys from each other. it is so fun to watch them wrestle each other to get the toy they want. I am not really sure if we should let them do this or not, but as of right now it doesn’t seem to bother either one of them (unless one of them gets poked in the eye). they will push, grab, pinch, push over, or use other ultimate fighting moves and they don’t cry when the toy gets taken away by the other sister. if charlie or someone else had taken away the toy then they will cry. one of the best things is that they are evenly matched so it usually goes back and forth for awhile. here are a few action shots. they loved fighting over these two toys at nana & g.pop’s house. ellie is in grey, claire pink.
thursday night, after a delicious meal prepared by my mom, the adults sipped on wine and exchanged gifts.
suz, meg & dan getting ready for the gift opening.
we always take a picture with the gift giver(s), gift and recipient. we also usually start wearing our gifts as they are opened. so you will notice new outfits and accessories throughout the pictures. here are all of us with my mom – we gave her a kate spade wallet.
this year charlie drew names for who the siblings/spouses would exchange gifts with. tommy gave me a packers t-shirt and a pair of running shorts. fyi-the wine glass is bill’s – in case you thought it looked weird.
danny gave suzanne a garmin watch for running.
bill totally picked these earrings out for meg 
.
I gave dan an Aaron Rodgers jersey. nice face bill.
tommy loving his new flannel from suzanne.
my dad with his new bike sleeves and bill sporting his new hat from meg.
meg got a sweet automatic wine opener from my parents. we got a kick out of watching it work. I am wearing my new packers t-shirt, my dad is in his new baselayer shirt and meg is wearing her new rodgers jersey.
then something awesome happened. suzanne opened a gift from my parents – a wool wrap scarf that she wanted. she started showing us how it works and then realized it wasn’t as easy to put on as it looked. here is where it got stuck for a bit. we were all busting a gut.
obviously this was not exactly how she wanted it to work. we all decided her neck will definitely be warm in chicago or that she could hide a huge goiter with that thing. actually, once she figured it out it looked really cute.
we had a blast with my family and it was nice to sit back and enjoy each other without the kids for the night. but don’t worry – the next morning we were up with these two again! here is ellie practicing her “sooo big” – they sort of have it figured out, but are not very consistent.
I love when I catch these two looking the exact same way and doing the same thing. it is such a sight!
then friday night we had our butz family christmas. it was a much smaller crowd than normal, but with the amount of chaos going on you would have never known. there were 7 of the 13 great-grandchildren there and now that they are getting bigger there is a lot of toddler toy management going on.
my grandma came over before the party and we played a game of scrabble together.
sisters! love this pictures suz.
caitlyn (my cousin sara’s daughter) with ellie and claire. she was in love with them and it was precious. claire in light pink.
ella & caitlyn (both sara’s girls) helping me give the girls their bottles before bed. I love ella’s expression while she is trying to figure out what is wrong with ellie.
mary & mark with claire.
meg & tommy.
my cousin sara & me.
before the girls went to sleep we took an entire butz family picture.
my mom with katie – my cousin ben’s wife and scott – my cousin sara’s husband.
I wish this picture of claire would have turned out better, but I have to include it. claire continues to love big groups. she takes a bit to warm up, but once she is warmed up she just keeps getting hotter. ellie had gotten up from her nap early so she went to bed earlier than claire. claire, however, would have stayed up squealing, jabbering “da da da da”, and smiling until after 10 if we had let her. but at 8 pm I made bill bring her upstairs to settle her down and put her to sleep. he carried her up the stairs over his shoulders and she was grinning ear to ear on her way up. sadly, this picture doesn’t capture that.
in the sitting area near my parent’s kitchen we created the “badger box”. instead of having the 4 chairs set side by side bill made it into a box and we would set the girls in there if we needed to contain them for a bit. it wasn’t perfect, but helped a bit.
uncle danny hanging out with claire.
uncle tommy helping claire walk.
while we were in de pere both eleanore and claire were teething like crazy. claire popped through her top two lateral incisors. hopefully her middle two teeth come through soon or she is going to be sporting the vampire look for awhile. ellie’s have not popped through yet, but they are close.
what a christmas vacation! I loved being with my entire family for a couple days. and now back to reality.
