nashon.com

I swear, we DO take pictures of this child, but it certainly seems that I never get them up on here.  Well, turns out that’s a good thing.  Our computer crashed, and since we haven’t taken any pictures off of the camera, we didn’t lose any important data!  Mia did have a birthday though, and she is now a full toddler.  🙁  She enjoyed her birthday, and actually liked ripping the paper (though the toys have been a big hit as well).

We went to the doctor this week for her one year check up, and here are her stats:

length: 32 inches (93rd percentile)

head circumference: 18 inches (90th percentile)

weight: 23 pounds and some ounces (80th percentile)

She seems to be following a similar pattern to her sister.  Start out round and chubby, and then just stretch out!  She is a full time walker, and we almost never see her butt scooting anymore.  She really loves her big sister, and often will lay her head down on Isabell’s shoulder or lap.  Currently, Mia’s favorite game is what I call “Attack Of The Killer Baby!!”  She walks over and throws herself across your tummy while you’re laying on the floor.  Usually it’s just a good way to get a snuggle from her, but she has caught me by surprise a few times!!

I can’t believe how big she is getting!  Still not many words, though she does chatter up a storm.  Her only spontaneous word seems to be “uh-oh”, though there are times I swear she also says “Dada”.  She has signs for: MORE, CRACKER, MILK, ALL DONE, PLEASE.  And she will copy lots of things, though “ni night” seems to be a big one right now.  She is a serious pointer, and will tell you what she wants.  She says “thank you” though it’s mostly just intonation.

Can’t believe how much she has changed over the past few month.  Four months ago she was barely rolling over, and was pretty dang quiet….I miss the little baby, but dang the toddler is getting her 3rd and 4th tooth now, and she’s dang cute too.  🙂

So our weekend to Lost Lake with Nashon’s cousins had an interesting start when they arrived at the camp ground to find at it was completely full.  After a few hours of searching, they spoke to a nice park ranger who showed them a near by camp ground with lots of available space.  On Saturday morning Nashon and I packed the girls into the car at 5 am, drove south about 5 hours and arrive at the NEW campground right at 10am.  Other than being shy with the family, the girls are both happy to get out of the car.  Isabell took about 5 minutes before saying “I wanna go home”; about 100 times.  Saturday was miserably hot with no shade at our camp spot.  We took advantage of the picnic benches across the campground to get some reprieve.  The creek was also nice to look at, but Isabell wanted nothing to do with it, or to be near it, or talk about it. Or to walk away, or not be near it, or anything for that matter.  Eventually, after failing nap 4 times, she fell asleep in the air conditioned car.  Amelia, however, was a doll with sleeping.  She took all of her naps in the tent, in her pack n play.  Did I mention that our new tent was so wonderful that we fit her pack n play, a blow up aerobed for isabell and our sleeping bags?  After her nap Isabell discovered that her 5 year old second cousin wasn’t so bad after all.  They sat in a camping char together and played with Nashon’s iPhone for quite some time.  Mia spent her day hiding her face in one of our necks whenever someone looked at her.  Though she did seem to take a fancy to nashon’s cousin Darian, as long as he didn’t hold her for too long (which means more than 3 seconds).  Dinner came and went and Isabell turns to Nashon and says “can I go to bed?”. We were fully expecting her to go to bed, and then get back up after 10 minutes to rejoin the party.  Sadly though, she missed the s’mores and the fire becuase she slept through the entire night on her nice blow up bed.  As it turned out, Mia was ready for bed at the same time as Isabell.  We got them both into bed in the tent together, and put a blanket over the top of Mia’s crib so the girls couldn’t see each other (we have learned that if they see each other they won’t go to bed).  But the blanket had a second effect; Amelia was a parrot in another life and got quiet and went right to sleep.  We did discover that while I did a good job of getting sunscreen and hats on both girls, I missed the back of my neck and Nashon’s head and neck.  Only slight sunburns, and we’ll manage without too much aloe.

Miraculously, both girls slept through the night.  Amelia complained a few times of being cold, so Nashon had to get up and put a blanket back over her.  About 6 am Nashon finally put her in his mummy bag with him and they slept that way for about an hour.  Morning came, breakfast was cooked with the help of Isabell and off she went to play.  In the dirt with her cousins.  Climbing,  running, digging, and picking as many dandelions as they could find.  In fact, she managed to entertain herself the entire time it took to break down camp and pack the car (who knew that camping for one night required so much STUFF).  Other than the drive taking almost an hour longer than planned to get home, it was a nice drive.  Both girls napped in the car and played well, only a few crying fits from each of them.

It was nice to see Nashon’s sister and cousins again, and it was a good trip.  We plan to do another trip next year, but hopefully we will pick someplace that will take reservations in advance, and is a bit cooler (or has shade at least).  The other thing that would have made it a better trip, is if Mia was able to toddle a bit more on her own without needing us to hold her all of the time.  Hopefully she will take a few more steps before our next camping trip in a few weeks.

Oh my goodness.  I know that they say that second kids get a lot fewer pictures taken than the first.  For us this isn’t true, but we do seem to post on here FAR LESS than we should when it comes to things to Mia is doing.  So today is the 10th of July, and we have a lot of things to update on what Mia has been up to.  She now has her first tooth (and second too).  They finally popped through far enough to stay up about a week ago; two bottom center teeth.  Though they still aren’t super visible when she smiles or talks, we know that they’re there and that her smile is about to become a little kid smile instead of the toothless baby smile that we love so much.  🙂

Her other big news is gross motor.  At 8 months she still wasn’t rolling over consistently.  After 30-minutes with a PT and a lot of practice at home and at school, Amelia is now rolling, scooting (no, not really crawling), pulling to stand, squatting with support, cruising, transferring between furniture items, and now has taken her first steps!!  Tonight at my sister’s house she took three steps to get away from Ammie and to me.  Sadly, Nashon was occupied with Isabell and didn’t get to see it.  🙁  We are hoping to recreate it for him tomorrow, but she still took her first steps tonight!
It is SO hard to believe that she will be one next month.  I don’t know where the past year went.  My baby is turning into a big kid faster than I want her to.  I know they say enjoy every moment, but that advice is both given and heard in hind sight.  Love the babies, but I can’t believe how fast they grow up.

So I don’t have ALL of the pictures to put up, but I wanted to get a few up on here. On Saturday we went up to the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon with Carrie. It took us an extra hour to get there, and then the girls got tired quickly so we didn’t get to spend too much time with the fields, but we did get some cute pictures. I will need to get some from Carrie since she took the pictures with all four of us in them. Isabell was cute as usual, and wanted to touch every single flower (though didn’t ask to pick them…). We had lunch in the Roozengard Gardens, and got a chance to see all the different types of flowers. Saturday night we went to an impromptu BBQ at Beth’s with the Henderson/Lapsansky gang, and Isabell had a THIRD egg hunt (first was at PCC last weekend, then the bunny visited Shelly’s house last week). She enjoyed looking in the trees for the eggs; we almost couldn’t find one!! She is getting very good at telling the dogs to “Stop it” and “Go away!”. Mia, in true Mia form, went easily to Debbie, but didn’t want much of anyone else. She is turning into quite the daddy’s girl, which was evident on Sunday afternoon. After baskets, church and naps, Nashon and Isabell went out to attempt to start a garden in our back yard. Amelia saw Nashon though the window and just about had a cow when he started to walk away. As soon as I took her outside and handed her to him she was nothing but smiles. 🙂

The Easter Bunny found the girls at our house this morning, and Isabell has been enjoying frequent Peeps; I think it a very good thing that they are only out once a year, or our lives would be awful with her asking for them every 10 minutes. Right now they are being eaten when she tinkles on the potty; she has had 2 days of dry diapers except at nap and bed times. This INCLUDED the trip to the festival; she tinkled in her little potty in the back of the car AND in a port-a-potty.

The last few pictures are from Isabell’s project today. She created her own “very hungry caterpillar” book this afternoon. She did ALL of the gluing by herself. Then when she was done she turned the book around and read it to me, one page at a time. She was careful to point out each of the pictures to me, and asked me to help her count the fruit.

Amelia is getting better at rolling over! She is consistently going tummy to back, and is about 95% of the way over when she goes from back to tummy. She is trying to get from sitting into hands and knees, but tends to get one leg stuck under her, and if you try to help she extends all her extremities and goes flat on her tummy. I can’t believe how fast time flies, and how big she is already! She will be 8 months old next week…

Isabell takes her Belle doll (about 3 inches tall), hunches her over at the waist and walks her across the floor…and what does she say?….”Oohhh, ooohhh, I’m old…..”

Guess she’s been hearing that somewhere…I wonder where? 😉 At least the things she hears us saying aren’t bad for others to hear.

Oh child, someday I hope that you can look back on all of these random things you’ve told us and find them as amusing as we are finding them today. Every day you tell us something new, something funny, or something profound. You crack us up until we’re in tears, and you pick the strangest things to imitate. You truly are one of a kind, and we wouldn’t have you any other way (though we wouldn’t complain if you whined a little less!!) LOVE YOU!

Isabell is growing up so fast, but not as fast as she needs to sometimes! We have been working on potty training on and off since Christmas. Last week we were home for Spring Break and got serious about it. Isabell sat on the potty every 20-40 minutes (depending on if she had previously tinkled or not). We even had a few days where the only wet diapers were after she had slept. But alas we had to go back to school this week where they aren’t as good at watching for signs of tinkle-time, and don’t put her on the potty as consistently as we did at home.

But today, Isabell told her teacher “No off potty. I still tinkling!” and then SHE TINKLED IN THE POTTY AT SCHOOL!!! We are very excited that this may be the beginning of the end of diapers for Isabell. I can’t wait for her to use the potty all the time!

Last night I got home and went to give Nashon a hug while he was holding Isabell. She leans over and puts her head on my shoulder. After a minute she says, “I love you Mommy. I love you too much”.

Talk about bringing a tear to my eyes. I can’t believe how much I love it when she says things like that without me telling her first. 🙂

Big first for Isabell. She looke outside and asked “Me go outside, by myself?”. since our backyard is fenced and fairly small we let her. She played in her playhouse and stomped in the snow before coming to the door and asking for cookies for her house. It didn’t last long but going outside by herself was just such a big kid moment for us.

So far this is wonderful.  Isabell is her normal 2 year-old self but its warm out so that makes it all better.

It’s not that I don’t have as much to say about Amelia as I did about Isabell when she was this size, nor is it that we don’t take as many pictures, we just seem to have things to say, but no time to say them on here! Often the day feels like it has just begun, then it’s time to make dinner, get the girls ready for bed and start getting ready for the next day. Time just feels lost sometimes.

That said, lets talk about the new things going on in Amelia’s life. We went to the doctor last week for her four month well child check up. Things looked good, and there weren’t any concerns. She is now 15lb and 5ounces, and 24.5 inches long. She is growing every day, and had practiced some new tricks. She has been trying to reach out and grab things for some time, but she is now 100% successful at stealing things from our hands (or the hair on our head, or glasses on our face) and putting them directly into her mouth. Isabell thinks this is grand, and often will get toys for Mia to “play” with. Amelia has also been practicing sitting up. She loves her bumbo, but isn’t great on her own yet. If we get her on the right kind of surface (i.e. the couch crack) she will stay upright for a bit, and if she’s reclining on our lap she will pull herself up into sitting. But when you place her on the floor, she keeps her hands on her knees until she tips to one side. She has also gotten a lot better with rolling over. She is getting pretty good at rolling tummy to back, and will pull herself from back to tummy when you give her something to pull against. She is getting cuter each day; her eyes are still blue, but her hair seems to be getting more blonde or reddish. We may truly have one kid that looks like a Steffen, and one that looks like a Fowler; only time will tell.

Both girls are back in school 3 days a week now that I am back at work. Isabell really loves being around her friends, and was more than ready to go back. She has only cried at drop off once (with Nashon), and is generally doing well there. However, we have returned to the land of super snotty noses and a yucky cough. Gotta love being around other snot factories. Amelia is no exception; while her cold isn’t nearly as bad as Isabell’s she is still congested and we are happy once again to have her on the reflux wedge that sits her up when she’s sleeping.

Isabell has made another jump from toddler to little kid, and has begun asking “why” about everything in her world. For any of you who have spent time around a small child, it is one of the most annoying words in the English language…and she’s only 26 months old. She got a little kitchen for Christmas, and has enjoyed playing with it and cooking food and having tea parties with anyone that will sit down with her long enough to enjoy a cup of tea. If you ever get bored, feel free to come over and entertain her; she seems to have gotten over being afraid of everyone, and generally will initiate play with just about anyone.