Friday, January 31, 2014

Walker

Liv finally figured out that if she holds onto her walker, she can walk around. She is quite amused by her newest trick. And quite slow. 

Apologies if this video is a little long. Mike says I need to work on knowing when to end it. He's right. I just keep thinking I'll do a few more seconds, and it ends up dragging. Sorry. Working on it...

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Big Girl

Livvie is getting to be such a big girl. Lately, she's really preferring solid foods over her bottles. I think it's mainly because she has had a cold and between congestion and her laryngomalacia, it is hard to drink a bottle and breathe too. Poor Bean!

But, it makes me think transitioning her from the bottle to table food at 1 year will be easy. Ben had an easy transition, so I'm hopeful she will too. Although, she still does miserably with a sippy cup. She just bangs it on the high chair and then dumps the water. Then she usually throws it on the floor. We're working on it.

Anyway, I love to watch her eat solids. She loves most everything, and shoves it into her mouth in such an undainty manner. She makes a complete and utter mess of herself, the highchair, and the floor, but it is so cute, I don't mind. Mostly.

Here she is eating her favorite fruits--blueberries and raspberries. She especially loves the raspberries, which are especially messy.



Then I added cottage cheese to the mix. She loves squishing it in her fingers. She wouldn't eat it when I tried to give it to her on a spoon, but when I let her feed it to herself, she was all in.




Another meal, more raspberries and blueberries. This was breakfast, and we were having biscuits and gravy. The sausage in the gravy is too spicy, but she liked the biscuit with some jam and PB. What a mess though! And I actually think Dee got most of this. You won't hear any complaints out of Dee.






Today we lowered Liv's crib to the lowest setting. She has not tried to climb out, but she can pull herself up and rattle the sides. If she wanted to, she could climb out. So to be safe, we had to lower it all the way. It makes me sad because it is another signal that her baby days are gone. :-(

She is so snotty that we are constantly changing her crib sheet, and we are actually out of clean crib sheets this morning, so we are using the spares that Auntie Jenn sent when Ben was born. It doesn't really go with her room, but it is a great spare in a pinch. Thanks Jenn!





Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Dancing Fool

Lately, Ben's been really into dance parties. We watched the videos of Lily dancing several times, so maybe that sparked his interest. The other night he carried my ipod to me and asked if I could turn it on and dance with him. Who could resist that?

Here are his moves. The video is a little long, but if you are patient, Ben's "slow dance moves" are pretty cute.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

What's Livvie Up To?

We were putting Olivia in her PJs the other night, and she was so squirmy and difficult, we gave up and let her get down to crawl around in just her diaper and socks. A good look, for sure.

These pictures so capture Livvie's personality, I wanted to post them so I can look back and remember.

A huge grin and my slipper. She loves to play with my slippers. She steals them off my feet and heads off. Stinker!


Clapping for herself. She gets so excited sometimes when Ben and Dee are playing, and starts clapping and shouting. So adorable. She just loves to be part of the action, even if she is just watching.


This is her mischievous face. She was headed toward Dee's bowls (another favorite of hers), when I told her no. She turned around and gave me this face. But I'll give her this, she knows the word "NO" and she listens. Which is more than I can say for another child when he was around this age...

And look at that belly! Speaking of, I forgot to post about it, but she was actually 75% for height and 46% for weight at her 9 month appointment. At her 6 month check-up, she was only 50% for height and 35% for weight, so she is catching up!


Clapping again. We yell "Yay Livvie" and she just lights up and claps.


LOVES: blueberries, raspberries, and ground beef; playing with any toy that is Ben's; being held and carried around.

HATES: diaper changes and getting dressed. She still fights us like the devil on this. Sometimes, I just want to cry it is so frustrating. You think I'm joking--you come try it!

She still goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes up at around 6:30. She takes a couple hourish naps at daycare, but she naps great at home. She is currently in the habit of wanting a nap about an hour and a half after she wakes up (which is maybe an hour long), and then she always takes a good afternoon nap (2 to 3 hours). And you can still take her up to her crib wide awake and just lay her down, and she goes to sleep without a peep. What an angel!

She's drinking about 5 to 6 bottles a day of about 6 oz. each. She is doing very well with table food but atrociously with the sippy cup. ;-)

Love you, baby girl!

Thursday, January 16, 2014

She's a Mover and a Shaker

Right after Christmas, Livvie finally mastered crawling!

For a few weeks, she'd been getting up on her hands and knees and rocking, or maybe crawling one or two (Mom even saw four) steps. But then, a few days after Christmas, she just got it, and now she is all over the place.

One of her favorite activities is pulling the books and toys off of these shelves. She always looks quite pleased with herself afterward.




I finally got a video of her crawling. I think this was actually her 10 month birthday. I can tell because there is Subway on the table, and we got that the day I came down with a short-lived stomach bug, because for some reason I always want a Subway sandwich when my stomach has been iffy. Anyway, here she is:







Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Happy New Year!

I realize it's already mid-January (how did that happen?), but here is a quick wrap-up of our New Year's Eve festivities.

I got out of work early to pick up the kids, because Creative World closed at 3 p.m. It started snowing on our way home, but we still went through the Dunkin Donuts drive-through to get Ben not one, but two vanilla long johns (the only doughnut he likes). See, I'd said something in passing about doughnuts the night before, which put them in Ben's head. He asked for one, and I promised him I'd get him one in the morning before school as a special NYE treat. Well, I forgot. I would have gotten away with it too, except lo and behold his friend Logan walks in right behind us with a Dunkin Donuts bag, and shows us his doughnut. What are the odds?! Ben then remembered the doughnut promise, and wanted me to pack up and take him there right then. I told him no, I had to get to work, but I promised him two doughnuts after school to make up for it. Glumly appeased, he went about his day, and I made good on my promise this time around.

Once home, he dug into his first doughnut and we started the party!




Ben really got the hang of it and was loving it, but Liv was tired and just kept handing me back the hat each time I put it on her head. She wouldn't even wear it long enough for me to snap a picture.



The much-anticipated doughnut.



Mike brought home a pizza, and we hung out and played with the kids. Olivia only made it until about 8, but we let Ben stay up until 10, playing the board games that we can't really play when Liv is up because she tries to eat the small pieces and climbs all over the board. In retrospect, letting him stay up that late was a bad idea. He had a melt-down when we told him it was time for bed, because he was so over tired.

After we got Ben to bed, Mike and I watched Crazy Stupid Love for the umpeenth time. It ended 10 minutes before midnight, so we hung out to see the ball drop, then went to bed. The kiddos don't understand that we are supposed to sleep in the next day.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Christmas Misc.

A few more pictures from the Christmas holiday that didn't make it into the last two posts.

Ben opened his Christmas gift from Lily early, as it arrived Christmas Eve morning and he was super excited. He loves Llama Llama, so this was a hit.


Olivia preferred playing with (and eating) the present in its gift wrap to opening hers.





The day after Christmas, Grammy showed Ben how to make homemade whipped cream. He loves to help cook.


These are the teacher gifts for Ben and Liv's daycare teachers. I found cute little buckets at the Target $1 Spot, filled them with Hersheys hugs and kisses, added a target gift card, then wrapped them in cellophane, tied them with ribbon and added a label I found on Pinterest that says "Hugs and Kisses and Holiday Wishes." Nothing too fancy, but I tried to put in a little effort.



Here is a video of Ben and Olivia cracking themselves up. Not sure what is so funny, but their giggles melt my heart.



I think that is it for Christmas over here. The decorations are down and the toys are somewhat organized and decluttered. Bring on the new year! (Hard to believe it is already 2014!)