Christmas

I realize that we are now closer to Valentine's Day than Christmas, and I am just now getting around to posting about our Christmas.  I think it has taken me this long to recover from the holidays, and I'm still relishing in the idea that I have a whole year before I have to turn around and do them again :)  The Christmas season took a whole new turn this year now that we have a believer in the house.  The magic of Christmas really came alive in our house, and while it is so much fun to see Hank and even Lucy  wide-eyed in anticipation of all the fun...it is absolutely exhausting for mama!  On top of all my usual responsibility, you have to tack on all the decorating, shopping, wrapping, santa visits, winter wonderlands, parties, baking, and that silly elf that you have to remember to move every night--there were many a nights I woke up at 3am realizing I didn't do anything with him and had to get up and move the silly thing...So yes, I enjoy Christmas...but so thankful it is just once a year.  

This year we had Aunt Susie, Uncle Kevin, and Cousin Eliza in town for the week-so the kids had fun getting to see their only cousin and aunt and uncle (excited to learn cousin #2 is arriving this summer!)  We took trips to the Yellow River Game Ranch and the zoo with Eliza and spent Christmas Eve with the Ritger family and hosted my family for Christmas day.  Both kids were overwhelmed with gifts as usual, and totally wiped out after all the festivities were over-3 hour naps were in order for 3 days following Christmas.

Welcome 2013!  (and no we don't celebrate New Year's in this house--I was asleep by 10pm, I have an almost one year old that doesn't sleep through the night yet--I sleep at all available opportunities)

10 months

We're down to 6 weeks until my little one turns 1 !  Party plans are already in full swing-I love nothing more than celebrating my children's birthdays :)  The biggest change in our "little fella" as Hank calls her, is that she's on the go non-stop now.  She's mastered the crawling; however we call her pegleg because she crawls while dragging one leg underneath her (hopefully this does not continue with walking).  She's become very efficient and will tear across a room to get to whatever her brother is doing.  Sibling rivalry is in full swing now-the only thing Lucy wants to play with is whatever Hank has, and this drives him crazy!. Hank has started playing with trains/legos on the kitchen counter while standing on a chair so that Lucy cannot get to them.  She just sits at his feet and screams.   It is already driving me insane-I can only imagine the years of fighting ahead.  Lucy is quickly getting into everything around the house-always putting non-food items in her mouth-eating paper is a current favorite along with dusty cheerios.  She pulls up on everything and is already starting to let go in an attempt to stand on her own.  I think Hank will have someone running after him in no time.  

Still happy as can be 99% of the time-she has started waving to us and just babbles up a storm non-stop.  I think some of her mamamama's are starting to become intentional.  When she's unhappy she will always reach for me while whining mamamama at me.  She eats everything in sight--loves her meat.  Just the other night she finished off 3 pancakes, a piece of bacon, and a pile of hashbrowns at Ihop for dinner-and was banging her plate on the table for more !  Still a peanut, but I'm certainly starting to notice some weight packing on this little one with the amount of food she intakes in a day.  

Such a sweetie--can't believe it's almost birthday time! 

A mama's girl?

 With both of our children, it seems that they are such a perfect combination of both Johnny and I that we never really hear "oh Hank/Lucy looks just like dad/mom etc".  We hear all the time "who do they look like?"    Sometimes I want to say "the mailman", but in our neighborhood that would be a whole other story :)

Recently though, I've had a few people actually tell me that Lucy favors me....and this I already know is true, because sometimes when I look at baby pictures of myself I feel like I'm looking at Lucy.  When she was a baby, sometimes I would look at her and see my face in hers.   Hank and Lucy both favor each other quite a bit...and actually most family members see Hank's resemblance to his mama as well.  They got their blond hair/blue eyes from their dad's side....but I like to think my adorable babies take after their mama....

Take a look here at some shots of me and Lucy at around the same age....and please excuse the amount of cuteness-between my baby pictures and Lucy, it could be a bit much to handle :)

9 months of sweetness

Lucy has now been in the world as long as I was pregnant with her (well technically she was born a month early...details).  What a little personality she's becoming- So sweet, full of giggles, and easy going.  Lucy's laughs fill the house all day long, and now we hear long strings of mamamamama, dadadada, babababa, and huge squeals, as she is starting to "talk" more to us.  She loves music, and immediately starts dancing and clapping her hands when she hears it.  We started going to baby music class this month, and she loves it!  Last week, I gave in and took her to get her hair trimmed, I just couldn't handle all the hair in her eyes all the time.  She looks even more adorable now with a little pixie cut.  Still not crawling, but always up on all 4s rocking back and forth--so it should be anyday now that she takes off after her brother.  She pulls to stand on everything, and just grins ear to ear everytime.  Quite the chowhound-she eats everything we give her without complaint and is mostly just eating table foods at this point.  

At 9 months she weighed in at 16 lbs 3 oz (17th percentile, and our biggest jump in the growth chart yet!-finally out of the 10th).  She was 28 inches long (60th percentile).  Still quite the petite little miss--trending exactly after her dad.  Speaking of her dad--she just adores him.  Always lifting her arms up to him and saving the biggest, dimpled grins for him.  

Only 9 months old, but I sure can't imagine a time without my sweet little princess.

Happy Holidays

What fun we are having this year celebrating the magic of Christmas with our little ones !!! 

8 months

What a doll baby I have.  I have enjoyed every single moment this little one has been in our lives.  Yes, even all the moments in the middle of the night, because lord knows there have been (and continue to be) plenty of those.  At 8 months, this cutie is dying to crawl but cannot seem to figure out how to coordinate the act.  She leans all the way forward until she falls on her face and starts screaming, or rocks back and forth screaming the whole time trying to figure out how to get some forward motion. I've said all along that I don't care how long it takes for child #2 to get moving since I now know how much more challenging life becomes with mobile children.  Although, at this point I just want this baby to figure out how to move to put everyone out of their misery!  

Lucy loves to eat! She happily stuffs handfuls of food in her little mouth 3 meals a day now.  She uses her 4 teeth to munch on her puffs, cheerios, bananas, waffles, apples, peas, graham crackers.  Basically, we have yet to give her something she doesn't love.  

Bouncing is a new favorite activity.  She loves to jump in her jumper, and just smiles and giggles the whole time.  She has baskets and baskets of baby toys, but she much prefers to play with anything her brother has-typically trains, tracks, and cars.  Lucy is a musical child.  She starts bouncing and dancing the second she hears music.  She babbles up a storm-dadas, babas, mamas...but no true words yet.  

She loves her brother and her daddy-she flashes them the biggest smiles whenever she sees them.  Clearly, she has them wrapped around her finger already.  She's still a peanut--probably about 16 pounds.  Her hair is wild and crazy but I won't cut it!  

I just love this girl so so much.  What a joy she is to our family.

                                         

"I'm 3 now!"

 I still can't believe my baby Hank is 3 years old!  He is certainly far from baby, and is turning into such an amazing little boy.  The changes we've seen in him over the past few months are incredible.  When I tell people I have a 3 year old I get so many remarks to the tune of -3 is the most challenging age, 3 year olds are so much worse than 2 year olds,  3 was the least favorite year etc etc.  Well, I realize we're just a month into age 3, but Hank typically hits each age early (he hit the terrible 2's at 18 months and had outgrown it completely by 2 1/2-and it seems the same is holding true for 3).  I have to say, that I am really enjoying age 3, certainly compared to age 2.  We've had our share of challenges with manipulating us, pushing the limits, etc...but honestly Hank responds to discipline really well and is just so darn smart that he figures out quickly that he'd much rather play than be stuck in time out.

I know all parents think their kids are smart, I hear it all the time at work, but without a doubt-Hank is a bright little boy.  He is learning so much right now, and it is so fun to watch him figure out the world around him.  He identifies all his letters, and can spell and identify his own name (he's working on writing it right now).  He wants to read and write on his own so badly, and he works so hard at it--I have no doubt he will be reading in another year.  He is so creative, imaginative, and inquisitive.  He's well into the "why" question stage.  By the end of a day, I have to tell him no more questions because I'm so exhausted from answering them.  "Why do the leaves fall down?", "Why do the seasons change?", "Why are their no clouds in the sky today?"  Without a doubt, each answer leads to another series of questions, when he's satisfied with my answer he'll look at me, nod his head, and say "thanks mom for explaining". Just the other day he asked me to explain the water cycle to him--I told him to ask his dad :)

While, I am so proud of how smart Hank is, what I am more impressed with is how kind and giving he has become.  He is at an age that is typically an "all about me" age.  The age of me, mine, no sharing etc.  Hank is always concerned about other's feelings.  In his class, his teacher told me that he will sit with kids who are upset and pat their back, reassuring them that "mom will be back after lunch".  When his friend Lucia was sick, he immediately went to work making her get well cards.  He loves celebrating other's birthdays as much as his own-he takes great pride in giving gifts to his friends and singing the birthday song to them.  For my birthday, he wrapped up a box of his favorite trains and track and proudly presented it to me saying "isn't it what you always wanted? does it make you happy, mom?".  He wants to help all the time, he will cook with me in the kitchen, ask to help me do chores, and help his dad work on projects in the yard.  I am constantly amazed at his kind-hearted, generous spirit.  This year for Christmas, we are sponsoring a very medically fragile foster child, and purchasing her Christmas gifts for her. Hank absolutely loves this project, after a tremendous about of inquisition about "why does she not have parents?" "why is Santa not coming to her house?" "why is she so sick?"-all questions that are very difficult to explain to him, but unfortunately we live in a harsh world that Hank will have to learn about eventually.  He talks all the time about her, and ideas for things we could get her because "she's very sick and needs our help, and we need to help her"  His kind heart, and generous spirit fills me with pride every day, and actually remind me to step back and find time to give back to others.

Of course we must not forget to mention Hank's size.  He's huge-plain and simple.  At his 3 year old check up he check in at 41 inches tall (98th) and 38 lbs (95th).  He's the size of an average 4 year old , and healthy as a horse (minus all the awesome preschool germs he can't see to refrain from picking up)

So because I feel like I have a pretty awesome little man, and because Johnny says I always go way overboard with birthdays we had a pretty great 3rd birthday celebration for Hank that I've documented with photos below.  On his actual birthday he was up with presents open by 730 am, followed by chocolate sprinkle donuts on the red plate (a family tradition), then we were off to the train museum complete with train ride, chick fil a for lunch, no naps, and pizza and cake for dinner!  The next day was his train birthday party in the park where we hosted about 10 3 year old buddies with a tray of nuggets, cupcakes, and a "yata" (pinata).  Hank was overjoyed with all the gifts he received, and it took a good 3 days to come back down off of the birthday high.

                              

 

We love you Hank! Next up--4!