Friday, July 20, 2012

C's sixth month


C, also known as Third Girl, turned six months old in June. Anne did her photo shoot in the park on June 22nd and gave me the CD of both girls' photos on July 4th. More of the photos are at the end of this post. 


During C's sixth month . . .
  • I painted her toenails for the first time -- glittery pale pink.
  • It was her first Memorial Day. (Daddy had to study and my brother took this picture. At 3:00 I read this to remind us of the reason for the day, and we had a little moment of silence.)
 
  • She fell on June 7th (the first day of Daddy's 3-week annual training with the Army). My mom was holding her and accidentally tripped down our apartment stairs, stumbled forward, and fell. I didn't see it happen. I had gone back in to get my phone, and then I heard my mom cry out and C cry. In those few seconds I think I heard some barking, too, so at first I thought something crazy was happening with a dog. Of course I instinctively ran out, and of course my mom felt really bad. The baby only cried for a few minutes, and once we got to the van I nursed her to comfort her. She stopped and cried briefly when she heard my voice interrupt the quiet. I called our pediatrician's office to be sure we should go straight to the ER. We went there and did a CT scan. Thankfully, C's head and body were just fine. She didn't actually bleed. The scrape looked worse than it was because she and my mom had landed on an oily parking spot, so her head was dirty (as well as their clothes). Besides the CT scan and looking at C's body and behavior, the hospital staff just cleaned her head, put on ointment and gave her Tylenol. C had a goose egg on the right side of the top of her head for a couple of hours and my mom was sore for a few days. I'm so glad it wasn't worse!
the owie a day or so after she fell
  • Her hair grew long enough that it can all lay down when she is sitting up or someone is holding her. We don't do the faux-hawk anymore.
  • For a while she did a lot of experimenting with making noises with her tongue (blowing raspberries all the time, etc.), and then she stopped. She started making da-da sounds, some of them starting with a slightly different consonant (but no M) and happy squeals.
  • She could sit for a few minutes without any support, try to scoot backwards when lying on my lap or the Boppy, and rotate herself in the crib so her legs went between the bars.
  • At the six-month well check she was a little over 14 and a half pounds -- about 25th percentile -- and 2 foot 2 inches tall.
Here are a few other photos of her during her sixth month. None of her lying next to the teddy bear this month (unless they are stuck on my non-smart phone; I haven't taken the time to look through them all).
nursing
 
 
 

More from the June 22nd photo shoot. There are other good ones, too, but this is plenty to share here. I noticed that L only had two photos in her six month post. . . .

I got this idea, and two or three others that we used, from pinterest.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

three years old




In June this girl turned three. (I blog slowly nowadays.) After her baby sister's photo shoot that week, L was too tired to cooperate. We ended up doing L's ten days later -- same park, and same photographer friend who did {these}. I am so glad that Anne and the camera captured some of L's beauty. 

She smiles / has fun / loves life, but would not smile even once during the 60+ minutes that Anne took pictures of her, even though she does know her. Afterward when I told L that I was sad she hadn't smiled, she said, "I will smile for you, Mommy" -- meaning when I'm behind the camera. Maybe she hadn't had enough sleep the night before and was feeling tired, but she also refuses to "perform" in front of other people when I or anyone else (i.e. the pediatrician) asks her to. 
At this age she usually cries or makes a frustrated "uhh uhh" whine when something is wrong, and won't say any words about what the problem is. She hates getting her hair wet in the bath no matter how we do it, and her crying about that always hurts my ears. She may talk less when she's not at home, but trust me, she's very talkative. She often deserves the nickname "Freakout." It's kind of interesting that some children scream for fun. She really is a good and polite kid, though; her nursery leaders and babysitters tell us she is. She always remembers to say thank you.
Anyway . . . she has changed so much -- from a toddler to a kid -- in the 14 months that we have lived in our current home. She seems a lot older than she was when I wrote {this}. The gap between her age and Shboogoo's seems smaller. She loves being a big kid, able to do things without help. But I love that she still comes to me for cuddles and wants to hold my hand in the parking lot.
L passed her three-year well check with flying colors. She was 8th percentile for weight (she has been 1st percentile, so that's gone up a little) and 9th percentile for height. C's six-month appointment was the same day, and it was sweet that after L's shots she started to cry again just because C cried out during hers. She is a good big sister. Just now, as I was typing with C  on my lap, L came and gently touched C's cheek and looked into her eyes as she quietly sang "wa-ah-ah."
Some L Sayings (you could call some of them Funnies), in order starting with mid-November 2011, show how she's speaking more like a grownup.


One day she gave me a cup and wanted juice in it. She told me, "In there, in the fridge. Have niny fridge, too. Daddy bought." She wanted me to know where the juice was and that we had a tiny fridge also. (However, Daddy didn't buy it, it had been my grandma's.)
She had Daddy's older iPhone in the new iPhone box, and said something like this: "Bad guys. not. get. phone keep fafe [safe] . . . Bad guys. not. get daddy’s phone. out this box. It my box for my phone.. . . It Daddy’s phone."
Did someone have a tiny hole in their shorts? "Niny hole in yois hoits [your shorts]?"

At bedtime she asked, "I dress up little minute? I put on priiiiiidy dress, be princess!"
L: I have more soy milk? 
Mommy: Have another bite of your peanut butter bread. 
L: Soy milk not candy.
(Meaning, "it’s not bad for me like candy is, so I can have more." Smart thinking!)
 
About The Emperor’s New Groove: [When] we watchin’ this funny show, him say “no touchy. No touchy.”
L: I brush my hair with this baby brush? 
Mommy: Yeah. 
L: Otay. Waint you [thank you].

Can you believe she scowled like that?


Mommy, at 8 a.m.: Do you want some oatmeal?
Yeah. Let I see if it’s morning time. [Runs to the patio door.] It is!


Layin' on Mommy.




Singing about getting something in the right order: I dog it in right oh-duh! I dog it in right oh-duh! 
After I drank almond milk from her cereal bowl: I didn’t know you can drink milk even a spoon is in.

Forcing the smile didn't work. Neither did getting out fruit snacks and showing her that whenever another kid smiled, he/she got a fruit snack.


Mommy: We need to get a little stool so you can get on and off the potty. And learn to wipe yourself. 
L: You can teach me to do anything
Mommy: I can? 
L: Yeah. And Daddy can.


Look at me. I can do amazing things. (She was holding her praying bear upside down with just her thumb through the loop of the tag.)  
I a good -- big girl, S! Do you know that?


On her birthday, she slept in. When she came in my room around 8:45 a.m. I said, "Happy Birthday, L!" She said so adorably, "But I still two and a half." I asked her, "Do you want me to tell you when it's the time that you were born?" She answered, "Yeah." Love her!

Edited to add: 

During her third year:
  • She started to like drawing scribbles ("fribbles') on paper. 
  • She potty trained (started just before age two and was good at it, with an adult's help, by two years and four months, then had more accidents for a little bit after baby sister was born). She is always dry in the morning, but we have some Pull-ups just for her to wear when she sleeps at one of the grandparents' houses, just in case. She has peed in her undies, maybe once a month?, if she is busy playing and doesn't tell anyone soon enough that she needs to go. She just starts to cry as she wets herself. Poor girl. Enough about that, though.
  • She learned how to count to 10; sometimes to 18 or so, but she usually leaves out at least one of the numbers. 
  • She can identify colors, shapes, and letters.
  • She sings the whole alphabet song with other people. When she sings it by herself she starts with the middle of the tune and says "abcdefg" over and over again.
  • She learned how to give a real kiss (at 24 months she couldn't do the smack).


L loves:
  • the colors red, pink, and green
  • running around, with or without her sister
  • our little board book Maisy's Favorite Clothes, and other books
  • her Mickey (my Steamboat Willie stuffed animal her daddy gave me when I was 17)
  • jumping onto the couch from the coffee table
  • watching a kid show on Netflix when she first wakes up; she is almost always the first child awake
  • choosing what clothes she will wear
  • "tacking" (snacking) on anything
  • "helping" mom or dad cook or -- if we make it seem fun -- do chores, and "helping" dad play video games

Sunday, July 1, 2012

this May

Here are some a bunch of photos to show moments and events from May 2012. By the way, I would have published this post over a week ago if there hadn't been Blogger glitches and stuff. Actually, I think I'm done trying to fix the dumb glitches. :-)

"the bone shirt." L loves this shirt that is a recent hand-me-down from some ward friends.


my husband's graduation! It's still kind of strange for us that he is done with school. He finished his bachelor's degree in Exercise Science about nine years after starting it. He wanted to attend the convocation ceremony and not the huge commencement ceremony. It was great to have (almost all of) our immediately family members there. I don't know why my brother and his girlfriend, who made the lei with dollar bills and little candy bars in it, weren't in the photos. My sister and her husband and two young kids were also there but not in photos. Afterward we all went to a buffet restaurant for dinner (I should have brought a snack; I was so hungry!).
  
 
What an accomplishment: getting an education with two deployments interrupting it, while supporting a wife and kids!

Our kids and their four grandmas.
  
I'm so proud of him.

a new mom. On May 6th, the Sunday before Mother's Day, we met my nephew who had been born less than two weeks earlier.  He's adorable! He is the first child of my sister Angie and her husband Todd.  She gave birth naturally like she wanted to. I loved hearing the story and seeing the gorgeous photos her doula took -- so I have hospital photos and May 6th photos here. This is cool: While Angie was still pregnant she asked the baby, "What should we name you?" and a name that she had never heard before came to her mind. They made it his first name. 

My sister and I and our families brought dinner to them, but decided to let them eat it after we left so it would be enough food for them. (I hope they weren't too hungry . . . we didn't think we would all talk for as long as we did.) I also brought my cloth postpartum pads and newborn size cloth diapers in case she wanted to borrow them. She had wanted and received one-size diapers for the baby and I knew they were still too big on him.
almost 4 months and 2 weeks, 1 month and 2 weeks, and 2 weeks old

dinosaur museum. Our kids, especially the dinosaur-loving 5-year-old, call the natural history museum "the dinosaur museum." We'll have to go again. There is such cool stuff and it turned out that we arrived only two hours before closing time (it was a Saturday).
 
 
 
Beautiful sunshine, don't you think?

two years. It was the two-year anniversary of the end of my husband's second deployment. I love those reunion pictures!


job fair in Las Vegas. My mom watched our big girls from the night of May 15th until the afternoon on May 18th. We left the morning of the 16th and stayed at my husband's grandma's place. His aunt lives there too, and it's fun being with them. The job fair he went to on the 17th was just for veterans (baby and I hung out in a diferent part of the hotel). It was disappointing when we arrived and saw that the list of employers included Walmart and Verizon. We drove all that way to find unique opportunities, ya know? But he got some good advice and a lead for a management position. This was our first time going to Las Vegas together, but we were only there for part of a day because it was 102 degrees and our car's air conditioning wasn't blowing cold air (sweaty!!). I don't love that city anyway. We were there longer than anticipated because of two problems. 1) He lost his wallet in the hotel . . . got it back thankfully, but it took time. 2) He left the headlights on while we ate lunch and it took a while to get somebody who could jump our car. Other than that it was a nice little trip for the three of us. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't been more than an hour or two away from home since November 2010. It was baby C's first time in Arizona and Nevada. She was great the whole time, maybe just a little fussy when we were hot in the car. We were glad the weather was cloudy, rainy and cooler on the 18th. She is just such a happy baby! We're really blessed.
 
 
 
 
some of the beautiful scenery we walked/ran past
  
 
In the backyard after our workout and Mexican take-out.
 
I was the one taking pictures, with my hubby's iPhone. This is me helping him practice his "personal pitch" the morning of the job fair. (The iPad was what he wanted for his graduation gift. The whole family has enjoyed it.)
He likes an energy drink every once in a while.
  
his lunch at Denny's in Las Vegas
my lunch (veggie skillet)
They're cute. We stopped in Mesquite for a few things we needed at the grocery store, and cooled off.

 
Grandma's guest room. Her oldest daughter (my father-in-law's sister) painted the one on the right. They had made dinner and it was about ready for us when we got back from Vegas. We had planned on going to a restaurant again, but it was nice to stay where it was cool, have a home-cooked meal, and look at Grandma's old scrapbook.
 
real food for the drive home

 


five and a half. First Girl was excited for her half-birthday. I had told her it was coming, and she likes it when I say how old she and her sisters are going to be on their monthdays. She didn't get a gift. She just wanted to be five and a half. I did her hair really pretty with the curling iron, though.