Juliana is 10 Months!

My littlest little,

How are you already 10 months old? I feel like just last month we brought you home from the hospital. Yet at the same time I feel like I've known you forever, how is this possible?
Over the last month you have changed a lot but at the same time there are many things that are the same as the day you came home with us.

You're very determined. When you want something or if you're in the middle of doing something, no one had better get in your way. It's funny to see such a little person be so specific about what they want. You will grunt and practically throw yourself at something if you want it. Or point. You point at everything and you're really good at pointing to things we ask you to. You will put your little hands into fists and yell when something doesn't go your way. We know you're annoyed but it sure is cute.

You're very smart. So smart. Too smart? Doesn't every parent think that about their child? You know when you're not supposed to have something. You'll look at me and see if I'm watching you. The other day I told you not to put something in your mouth (which I say about 8,483 times a day) and you scooted your little body around 180* so that your back was to me, looked over your shoulder, then hunched over your prized position so that I wouldn't take it from you. When you're sister takes something out of your hands or grabs something you were going for first, you immediately look at me. You give me this look like "Did you see that?! What are you going to do about it!?" I love it.
Same thing goes though if you try reaching for something she has. You'll tentatively reach for it while looking at me to see if I'll stop you. Which I do. And usually you'll just complain a little bit, sometimes you'll find something else to play with and sometimes...it's a full on meltdown. BUT...you won't take it out of her hands. When you're sister is feeling very generous though she'll just give it to you. :-)

You're funny. You love teasing us. Over the last couple weeks we can really play with you and see a sneaky side to you. One that's so playful and happy. I'll look at you at say "Hey! You get back here!" and you'll giggle and take off, then stop and pretend to go again until I say it. It's so sweet and there is definitely a twinkle in your eye when you do it.

You're very snuggly. You always want to snuggle with me but at night, right before we go to bed and we're trying to read stories with Alivia, you start wanting to hug and hang on her. Of course this is the end of the day and Alivia is tired and not always in the most snugly mood when it comes to little sisters. But boy do you try! Two nights ago you followed her all around her bedroom trying so hard to get a hold of her. It was sweet and sad at the same time. She just wasn't in the mood. :-)

You adore your big sister, and she's pretty fond of you too. You follow her around the house like a little puppy. Whatever she's playing, eating, drinking, looking at...you have to too. You give her kisses and hugs and try holding her hand. And (unless it's bedtime) Alivia is right there talking about what a sweet, cute, lovey baby you are. She loves when you give her kisses and will say "Ahhh she just gave me a kiss! How cute!"

You love to eat. Pretty much anything I give you you'll go to town on. I can't really think of one specific thing you won't eat. When I put more than one type of food on your tray you're really good at picking out what you want to eat at that moment and will leave all the rest until you're ready for it. And usually you'll end up eating it all. There are times though that you'll pick out the one thing you want and then will throw everything else on the floor. Typical baby.  You're really loving bananas right now too. You'll put down a while banana if we let you!

Speaking of throwing things on the floor. One of your favorite games ever is throwing your washcloth on the floor when I'm cleaning you up after a meal. Seriously. Over and over and over and over. You never get tired of it. We once played that game for 20 mins and you would have kept going but I was getting worn out! But you laugh so hard when I say "HEY!" as I'm picking it up for the 100th time. So it's worth it!

If we laugh or sneeze or cough you'll mimic it. And then you'll keep laughing because you find it hilarious to copy us. When you drink water or even just want water you make a sound like an adult would after taking a nice cold drink on a hot day. That "ahhh". Does that make sense? And you do it after every sip of water or milk. It cracks us up! I'm still working on teaching you signs and you know them but don't use them yet. But you make it very clear when you want a drink of something because you do that "Ahh" sound. We love it.

Grandma Green bought you and Alivia a tent and you will go in and out of that thing all day long. And it's fast. You're in there for about 3 seconds and then you pop back out again. Another game you never get tired of! You also got to carve your first pumpkin this year, paint one and go to your first birthday party (Happy Birthday Quinn!)

The biggest change this month is that you're walking!!! You started taking 1-2 steps a few weeks ago and then 2 days you did 4 steps. Then suddenly about 3 days ago you took off. In the morning you were doing pretty good. Getting up and walking around. You'd topple over a few times but then right back up you went. By evening you were all. over. the. house! And you don't stop! You're everywhere. If I'm cooking in the kitchen you'll just walk back and forth from the kitchen to the living room repeatedly. And yes I'm probably biased but you have the cutest walk ever. I know other babies do this too because I've seen it but it's just so adorable. You're little arms are just hanging down by your sides and you very very very slightly hunch your shoulders forward and it's so cute to watch. Usually you want something in your hands though so when you do you have each hand holding onto something. Want to know what your favorite thing to carry around is? A washcloth. Most notably the washcloth that you continue to throw on the floor while I'm trying to clean you up. You'll just carry that thing all over the house.

There's that washcloth! As well as a diaper changing pad...

Taking a couple steps, just days before you took off!

On nights that we do baths it's always after dinner and this past month you've learned how to get all the way back to my bathroom for bath time. I'll say "bath time bath time" in a sing song voice and you stop whatever you were doing and you book it to the bathroom! Before you were crawling back there now you walk. And fast! You love your baths!

We're still working on sleep...you're an amazing little person Juliana and I love you to the moon and back but my goodness the sleep is something pretty awful. As a matter of fact I've had to get up 3 times to put you back to sleep since I sat down to write this and I hear you stirring on the monitor again. You sleep in my room in a pack-n-play on my side of the bed. You wake up about every 45 mins. :-) It's a lot of fun. You do end up in bed with me which is absolutely fine. I love co-sleeping...if you'd sleep ha! Even right next to me you wake up all night long. But I have to say....you have become SO cuddly in the mornings. You will flip and flop all over the place landing right on me every time. If I try to move away even 6 inches I wake up and you're RIGHT in my face. Snuggled up as close as you can get. The nights are sooooo long but boy are you a sweetie in the morning.

40 weeks old

Well there's a book for you for 10 months old! So many new things happening and I love documenting them for us all. I hope it's something you'll enjoy looking back on.

First Halloween!

I love you little one so much, Happy 10 months baby girl!

Alivia @ 34 months old...

Yes I find it ridiculous to say she is "34 months old" and no I don't say that when someone asks me how old my daughter is. But for the sake of this blog and me (trying to) writing a post each month about how she's changed it makes sense. So just relax...it's going to be ok...(Ashley :-)  )

Alivia,

My dear sweet little adorable Alivia. You are getting SO BIG. You are growing up so fast and I just can't believe how much you change every single day. Honestly, there is something new you say or do or a new way you act, each and every day that just amazes me.

At Cyprus's 5th birthday party

You're not quite 3 years old yet and already you are the best big sister ever. You take amazing care of your little Juliana, you're patient with her, you share with her and you say how much you love her every day. I hope this continues on because it's truly the most precious thing I've ever witnessed. There are certainly moments throughout the day where you do want her to play with your toys, and that's ok. Or times when she pulls your hair or pokes you in the eye and you yell out at her but you're two and a half years old...this is normal and common and absolutely understandable. Plus she's 9 months old and doesn't know what (most the time) she's even doing when she grabs at you.

First day of fall (helping her put her hat back on)

Just today before your nap, as I changed your diaper, she reached over to touch your face and she poked you right in the eye. You got upset for about 3 seconds, because it did hurt!, and then you said this:
"That's ok Juliana, accidents happen because you're just a baby and you're still learning how to be gentle"

....I mean really? And that's verbatim...I wrote it down immediately.

You've just recently had an incredible growth spurt as well. It seems as if over night non of your clothes fit you. Your pants are too short, your pj's are too snug and non of your shoes fit! You went from having an overabundance of clothes to choose from to a very limited amount that actually look comfortable. Today we went to Target and I put a dress on you that I just bought a few months ago. As you were running to the bathroom (because you're always running) I noticed how short the dress had gotten! A woman standing next to me said how cute you were. Obviously I agree :-)

Things you like right now:

• Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and Curious George. You don't get to watch very much TV but when you do that's what you pick. You also love watching "Tiny Babies" which is a vlog we watch on YouTube together (if I haven't already watched it while you were napping...yes...while you were napping. Things do happen during that time and I'm not ready for the day you figure that out haha)
• You LOVE reading books. Any and all books. Right now we're still on a Curious George kick as well as Ladybug Girl. But there are a wide variety of books that we read every day and you love going to the library to pick out more.
• You love helping me cook. Even if it's just spreading almond butter on your bread. As long as you're right next to me, and you have a hand in it, you're happy. You pull one of our ridiculously heavy chairs across the kitchen floor and up to the counter. You're excellent at peeling any fruit or vegetable I give you. You can grate cheese, lemons, garlic. You crack your own eggs. You mix batter. You pour all the ingredients we need into the bowl. You're really quite the little helper. You're begging me to let you by the stove but I'm not ready for that yet. I'm too afraid you'll burn yourself on something. Maybe in a couple years little love.
• If you could spend all day outside you would. We go to the park about 5 times a week, walk to the mail box everyday (even on Sundays) we sit on our deck and play every day. We sit out on a blanket in the grass and relax in the shade of a tree by our front door. You love watering the tomato plant and splashing in the water from the faucet.
• You love, love, love playing baby dolls...I don't think I've ever played baby dolls this much in my life...and I have 3 little sisters. You pretty much reenact everyday life with them and we are always playing with you.
• You also love Little People by Fisher Price. You've collected quite the little army of people and they are also played with every day.
• You ask me now to put your hair in braids or a pony tail!

You like to sing and dance. Right now your favorite song is "3 Little Birds" by Bob Marley.
You always want me with you. Every day for about the last month you've started saying "I don't want you to go anywhere ever mommy. Not to the store. Not to the library. I just want you to stay with me forever."  You've also been telling me at nap or bed time, when we're giving "baby hug and a kiss" "I'm going to hold onto you forever. Until the sun comes up! It's going to be a long long time mommy"

Talk about melting my heart.

The other night Juliana was crawling all around the hall way while I was singing you songs for bed. Usually I either hold you both at the same time (yes this is very difficult!) or I'm holding you on my hip but this night I was holding you like a baby and swaying you back and forth. Your eyes started getting really heavy and I told you that if I kept rocking you I'd end up rocking you to sleep. Then Juliana wandered out of eye sight so I had to step around the corner and corral her back to the hallway. You looked up at me and said "Can you do that?" I asked what you meant and you just said "Can you do that sometime mommy. Can you rock me to sleep?" Goodness just typing it out makes me get all teary. I just can't even handle the sweetness! It's so amazing that I used to rock you to sleep every single night. That was how you feel asleep. And then things change, we alter what we do, you get older, another baby comes along and before I know it my little girl is asking with awe in her voice if mommy can actually rock you to sleep. It somewhat breaks my heart that I don't anymore, and that you'll never remember when I did.

OK...must change the subject now or I'll never finish writing this for I can't see through the tears! :-)

You're doing great with learning numbers. You can count to 18 most days but sometimes you'll go weeks where the numbers get jumbled up after 6 or 10. Its cute listening to you count. You're not as excited about the alphabet anymore. You used to sing your ABC's all day long but you've lost interest in that at the moment. You still know all the letters if I point them out to you it's just not on your radar right now.

Stickers are a big hit as is play dough.

And you're almost done potty training. I'm hoping that actually moves along here a bit better.

Little one you're my favorite Alivia and I'm excited to see what new changes are in store for us over the next month!

Love,
Mommy

Alivia 32 months old

My little baby is 32 months old today. It's really amazing to me how much she's grown in just the past few months. I always wanted to do updates monthly on my blog but just never got around to it. So I'm going to try keeping up on it, or rather just doing it, for Alivia and Juliana. Since Alivia was born on the 14th and Juliana on the 1st I'll try doing an update every 2 weeks for the girls. We'll see.

So I thought it was kinda fun to note that 1 year ago today, I was 20 weeks pregnant with Juliana and Alivia turned 20 months old.

Alivia 20 months

Juliana 20 weeks gestation

Big difference 1 year makes! Now we have a crawling 7 month old and a very active 2.5 year old. Onto Alivia! She has SO much personality! I just love it. Pretty much every time she opens her mouth something cute is said, although I'm her mother and I think everything she does is cute so ... yeah. And she talks a LOT. Literally full blown sentences. She can tell us stories, she makes up songs and makes her dolly's and toys talk. Several months ago we started counting how many words she was saying in 1 sentence. Actually...it was about 8 months ago when she turned 2, many time is flying by. Yesterday I gave up counting after 15 words lol. The girl can talk.

One of my favorite things she just started saying this past month is "Whobody" as in "whobody wants to have a snack with me?" The first time she said it I had her repeat it a few times because I just couldn't figure out what exactly she was saying. Then I realized she was combining "who" and "somebody". It cracks me up now every time she says it. I want to start writing down more of what she's saying because it's all day long and I usually forget what it was by the time I can get around to telling anyone about it.

She's been doing really great with potty training. She will be fine in undies all day long, not have any accidents and just wear diapers to bed and for nap. But for some reason she is afraid to poop in the toilet. This may be crazy but I think it's from last December when she got really sick. I was working so I wasn't home with her but Dustin was and she had such a bad stomach bug that sadly she had it coming from both ends. I know she pooped in her undies and I think threw up and she flipped out. Full on freak out. It really scared her because she wasn't expecting it to happen and had zero control. She was sick for a while with that and I think it just stuck with her. I think she's afraid of seeing poop or something, I don't know. But today we started trying again. She told me several times that she was scared so I finally got her to at least sit on the toilet (actually her potty chair) with her diaper on to poop. And she wasn't kidding about being scared, she literally had me hold her hand and then kept checking in the toilet to make sure it wasn't leaking out lol. But I'll do a post another time about this training.

Alivia is doing really wonderfully with her baby sister, really she is awesome with her. She loves her so much, she calls her "my baby", she hugs and kisses her and wants to hold her all the time. She cuddles with her and is such a sweetheart. She even calls her "my little sweetheart'. It's enough to make anyone's heart melt. I love it. She's concerned about her when she's crying and will say "Maybe she wants some mommy milk", she gets excited when she tries a new food for the first time or learns how to do something new. She's her biggest cheerleader.

Juliana is crawling....so....Alivia is having a harder time with the sharing. She will pull things right out of Juliana's hands and no matter how many times I ask her not to do it it's almost like she can't control herself. And really, who am I kidding...she's 2 years old. I know plenty grown adults who have no control over themselves so I get it, she's little. I just wish I knew what to do to help her not be so grabby. Sometimes she will "trade" her things, so she'll take away a toy Juliana is playing with and then try to giver her something else. Which is nice, although sometimes Juliana gets a baby wipe in place of a toy car lol. But if I could figure out how to not have her be so jealous of her playing with her toys. And it's not ALWAYS. There are times every day where Alivia will see her playing with something and she gets excited that she's playing with her toy so I'm not sure what flips the switch!

I do know that Alivia HATES things to get wet. And of course Juliana sticks everything in her mouth so I do know that's part of the issue. I've been telling her that if Juliana gets anything wet I'll make sure to wipe it off when she's done. It's sorta helping. And this "wet" thing goes well beyond Juliana and her infant drooling. If Dustin or I wash our hands and don't 100% dry them off before we touch Alivia or something of her's she has a melt down lol I don't mean to laugh but man...it must be hard being 2.

She's still my snuggle bug. She loves having mommy milk still and loves when I do her nap time and bed time. (which I've been doing all of lately) She loves all of her family so much and asks about each person during the week "What's Uncle Ryan doing?" "I haven't seen grandpa Bruce in while" "When will daddy be home?" She loves when I make up stories about what they may be doing or where they are when she asks. Oh and speaking of Uncle Ryan, she also is talking in her sleep. A LOT. It's freaky sometimes. And my brother is known for talking in his sleep. She always cracks up laughing when I tell her she's talking in her sleep like Uncle Ryan. <3 p="">

This summer I've been babysitting my 3.5 year old niece 2 days a week and Alivia loves it. She's learning how to hang out with another kid older than her on a regular basis, she's learning new things and really just looks up to her. Almost every night she says "Purity coming over tomorrow?" Since we don't have her in day care it is nice to have another kid for her to play with and spend time with and it's even better that it's family. She also loves hanging out with my best friend and her two little ones. I've written about them before, Coltrane is also 3.5 and he has a new little sister Quinn that Alivia just adores.

Lets see, what else is new with Alivia. She's a great eater and will try just about anything. I contribute BLW to that and the fact that we're always offering her new foods to try and have been since she was 6 months old. She loves reading books. OH yes, I have to mention she LOVES Curious George. We have to check out a new one every time we go to the library. She loves that little monkey.
She loves playing outside, watering our tomatoes, picking basil out of our garden and eating it, going for walks, playing at the park. This girl does it all :-)

She's healthy and happy and just such a sweetie.