September 28, 2013

Some fun in September.

Amelia really wanted to sit next to her cow.


This only lasted about 4 seconds before Erica tried to rip the book apart.

Amelia can climb into Erica's crib by herself. She thinks she is hilarious. The hilarious part is she can't get out.

 Showing Erica the bear's belly button. "That's where it gets food when it's in it's mommy's belly".

 She wants to sit on the potty and wear undies but can sit there for hours without producing anything.

Trying again...no luck.

Sisterly love. Usually ends in Erica falling over and crying.


Amelia took this picture.

She is too excited about Mommy's birthday cake to look at the camera.

Another one of Erica's bad ideas.

Erica is 10 months

Erica is 10 months old and is suddenly not a baby anymore. She is constantly on the move, crawling (she's almost stopped the one-knee-scoot) and walking holding our fingers. She's quite proficient at walking holding only one hand as long as she has something in her other hand. It's amazing how similar and yet how different two sisters can be. I went back and watched videos of Amelia at this age and they make many of the same sounds and motions but Erica is much more independent and in to everything! We never had to move the cat food for Amelia, but now it's in the basement. We didn't have to lock any cabinets or really "baby proof" at all for our first born, now cabinets are locked and I constantly have to watch this mischievous little girl. She moves fast and, like most kids, has learned to be quiet when doing something she's not supposed to do. That way mom doesn't find out until she notices the red drool from the chalk in the mouth or hears the scream of a baby who tired to climb the latter to the slide. 

Erica is playing much more, rather than just looking at and chewing on toys. She takes things out of buckets and puts them back in. She pulls toys and books off of shelves. She drops toys on purpose to see if we will pick them up. She loves the Little People animals from Noah's Arc and the various other animal habitats we have sprawled around the living room. She loves the magnets on the fridge (or rather OFF the fridge and all over the floor). The music table is still a favorite and now that she can pull up to stand at it, the possibilities are endless (well, they are actually finite as there are only 10 or so buttons to push, but she doesn't seem to get bored). 

She babbles all the time. Mostly "dadadada" and "nanana" and "bababa" with a few "mamamamas" thrown in, usually when she is upset. Her voice has been heard around the neighborhood whenever she gets put down (or pushed down by her sister). Her shriek is amazingly loud and high pitched and physically hurts my hears. She must have amazing vocal chords to sustain that kind of trauma multiple times an hour. 

She has started to 'roar' when we ask what anything says. Lions roar. Bears roar. Bunnies roar. Balls roar. Detached pieces of the floor roar. She is constantly holding something up and saying "ba". That's baby for "roar". She finds it quite humorous when we try to teach her other animal sounds. Amelia purposely tries to confuse her by showing her animals and saying the wrong sound. Poor second children.

Erica's favorite places are outside and the bathroom. If she is walking holding my fingers we are likely headed one of those places. She likes to stand on the stool and look at her self in the mirror (little narcissist) and bang on the sink. She tries to head to the toilet but since I am not the most OCD cleaner in town, I don't let her near it. Like her sister, outside is the preferred location. She loves walking through the grass barefoot and reaching down to pick (and eat) clover flowers. She enjoys the baby swing, mostly when Amelia tries to push her, but really wants to spend her time walking up the slide. 

Erica is not a good sleeper. She is still up every 2 hours or so at night and just this week has been fighting going down for naps or bedtime. She wants to nurse all night long and we are not really sure what to do about it. I've tried to let her cry but her shriek is deafening and her cries are so sad I give in and go hold her. She's only going to be this young and want to snuggle for so long. I figure she isn't going to be waking up every two hours when she is 16 so sometime between now and then it has to stop, right? 

Erica does like to eat, however. I've got one child who sleeps but won't eat and one who eats but won't sleep. Guess you can't have the best of both worlds. She eats just about anything I give her but especially loves bananas, yogurt, smoothies, graham crackers, and scrambled eggs. She eats cheerios but isn't quite the fiend that her sister was about them. 

Erica is growing fast and already in 18-month clothes. She is wearing some of the same outfits that Amelia wore LAST summer and fall. She has already outgrown the sleepers that Amelia wore over the winter when she was 1 so although we have two girls, the size-season match isn't working out so well. How inconsiderate of them. It's too bad that I really hate buying clothes (ha).

That was a lot of words but I just read some posts like this I made about Amelia and was glad I included the details that I did. 


Something is saying roar.

Amelia at the same age. 

 10 months old


Trying to determine if the black bunny is as tasty as the white bunny. (Was that racist?)

Ooohhhh, a box!

Finally sleeping on her stomach. Not all the time, but she can at least roll over now that she is 10-months-old. Look how short her little legs are!

She loves her daddy.


So proud of herself for finding all the toys.

It says 'roar' mom. Can you stop asking me now?

One of her many bad ideas.

The smash balls. Still a smash hit.

The wall

 Amelia built a wall so Erica couldn't get to the cat food. She has a bit to learn about erecting barriers but it was a good thought. The cat food is now in the basement.



September 22, 2013

September 12, 2013

Erica Videos








September 10, 2013

Preschool!

Ameila's first day of Preschool was today. She is attending Waiting To Grow Preschool with Miss Jamie on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings from 9-12. She woke up this morning at 6 and couldn't wait to go. 
We took some pictures, of course, and here they are.





"Come on, mom. Is it time to go to Preschool yet?"



She told me all about her day on the way home. She said they learned "all the names of everybody" and "about buying animal crackers and everything else". She kept saying they learned "everything" whenever I asked. They played outside, which she loved of course, colored pictures of themselves, sang songs about their names, and read stories about friends. She can't wait to go back on Thursday. Here's to our big girl going to school!


September 9, 2013

Erica is 9-months

My baby is growing up so fast. Over the past few weeks she's made some major milestones and I feel like I have two toddlers now! One just sleeps more than the other...

Erica's first tooth broke through just after her 9-month-day. It's her bottom left tooth and it's taking it's sweet time coming all the way in, two weeks later there's only a little showing. She was pretty unhappy about it at night, but didn't seem to notice during the day. Her sleeping went from bad (waking every 3 hours) to awful (waking every hour) but we seem to be back to just bad now. :o)  (Two days later update: Erica slept 6+ hours two nights in a row!!!)

Erica is 'walking' holding our fingers all the time. It's all she wants to do. She seems to be a woman of routine too (must get that from her dad). She grabs my fingers and heads straight for the chalk. Tries to eat a piece. I take it away. She walks to the stairs and tries to put her foot up, when she can't quite reach she goes into the living room to walk up the slide. Shooting down yet another one of her brilliant ideas, I re-direct her to the toys, plopping her down in front of some shakers and animals. She screams. I walk away and she plays for two or three minutes before crawling (yes she crawls now!) back to me and the circuit starts again.

She is babbling a lot and seems to recognize that "dadadada" is Daddy and "nanamama" is me. She also repeats Amelia when she says "Ta-da!" and I'm pretty sure she said "hi" yesterday when a friend came over. We are working on animal sounds, she loves to sit on the floor and watch daddy make cheetah and elephant sounds. She sometimes does "roar" with her hands up for any random animal (did you know that cows roared?) She especially likes to babble when walking.

It is amazing to me how different two sisters can be. At this stage, Amelia loved cheerios and wasn't big on purees. Erica is just the opposite. She will eat cheerios but gets bored after 3 or 4. However, she will down a whole cup of yogurt smoothie mixed with baby cereal and can dominate a squeezy pack in 60 seconds or less.

Some other things Erica enjoys:
Blowing raspberries on my shoulder (at 2AM)
Swinging in her baby swing on the swing set
Picking (and eating) clover flowers from the yard
Riding in the cart at the grocery store
Pulling hair
Soxy
Amelia dancing and singing
The magnetic letters on the fridge
Anything that rattles

She is 21lbs 3oz, 28.5 inches long, and her head is 99th percentile (to hold all of those brains). Love her.







More Magnadoodling

Amelia loved my first magnadoodle game so I added a few more. This one compares sizes. I did it with other circle objects too. I have enough different size blocks to do squares also.


September 4, 2013

Fun with Magnadoodles

Our newest game







Then Amelia made one for me. It was hard. 


September 2, 2013

She moves!



Some Summer Videos

July 19-Erica is 8 months old, time to start coffee

July 24-Amelia practicing to be in the drum line

August 1-Sisters Dancing

August 12-Does it rattle?



September 1, 2013

Road Trip to Vermont

We took a road trip to South Hero Vermont where my dad recently moved. As usual, great fun was had by all. Here are a few snippits.
Dad's new house has a heated pool, but it was freezing cold. Something about "not turning on the heater yet..." The kids didn't seem to care.


Yes, it's August and we are still very white.

Erica is a big fan of water

Amelia would be happy if all she ever did was throw rocks in some form of water. Creeks, lakes, oceans, rivers, pools, bathtubs, sinks, cups. Anything.


Erica would be happy if she had a personal slave to walk her around all day...oh wait...

She LOVED walking in the water. Genius mom didn't bring a diaper or change of clothes down from the house so we ended up with a naked baby for the 1 minute drive back to the house. It was worth it.




More rock throwing. Luckily this beach seemed to have a few rocks.

It's that kind of beach...


Tummy Time with Grampy

Parade to the beach day two

Ready for a boat ride

"Yeah, this is the life."

She loved the super fast boat. The weather wasn't quite right for a sailing adventure so a friend let us borrow his speed boat. The kids didn't mind a bit.











A little post boating basketball, of course.


Not sure what is going on here...

The only thing better than throwing rocks in the ocean is collecting rocks in a bucket, then throwing them in the ocean.


A little snack on the beach.


and here we go again...


Rocks + pail + Grammy = happy Amelia

"I wanna come toooooo!"

Erica loved having her feet dipped in the water. She was laughing hysterically.