Snow Day

Playing peek-a-boo with Mommy

Today it snowed...and snowed...and snowed. It snowed for over 24 hours. AWESOME! It's only awesome because I don't have to get out in it. Of course this also leads to my hubby busting out the snow blower and of course teasing Arabella. She really, really wanted to go out and "play" with Daddy in the snow. I, however, wasn't in the mood to clean up after her so I kept her inside. That didn't keep her from attempting to escape and bang on the front door for Daddy to "Open, go out!" LOL. Kids are so funny.

Trying to escape.



PANDA!



Before bed time we broke out the infamous pillow pets. Evan hadn't had a chance to play with the panda yet, but Arabella had. I tossed Panda into the crib and he started pummeling that poor thing; yanking it's tail, biting it's ears. It was too cute.



Unicorn ride! (Ignore the dirty floor and mess in the background. Mommy has been lazy.)



Arabella LOVES her unicorn and frequently takes him for a ride. She also is perfecting "It's so fluffy I'm gonna die" as Despicable Me (or Minions as she calls it) is her favorite movie right now. Usually she winds up screaming "gonna diiiiiieeeeee" so it doesn't always make sense, but it's cute none the less.

My babies.

Truth be told, I should have let her go outside today. It's supposed to be +3 in the morning and blistering winds all day long. I may bundle her up in the morning and let her play for a few minutes, but that all depends on what Adam thinks when he gets home. I love the snow, but hate the cold.

More Molars

First off, here's a picture of Arabella's little predicament. Not a fun one, huh? So amidst all that commotion, she also had both of her bottom molars poke through yesterday. Fabulous. You can only imagine what this does to her appetite.

Twins?

Yesterday evening while we were out and about I was asked for the first time if the kids were twins. Imagine the lady's shock when I politely smiled and said "No, just thirteen months apart." In the kids defense, Evan was in the stroller and Arabella was walking with Daddy, so they may look similiar in height but I honestly don't see the age thing. Maybe it's just because I am their Mommy?

24 Month Stats



She was measuring herself for the nurse at the doctors office.


I realized I forgot to post Arabella's 24 Month stats. Oops. She's staying at 27 pounds, but she has shot up to 35 and a half inches. No wonder her pants aren't long enough.

And our fun loving growth charts will now come to a close for her as they only extend to 24 months. Perhaps I can locate another chart, but we'll see.

First Hair Cut

Well, we made it two years without even so much as a trim. Today after the dentist Daddy & Bubba needed a hair cut and we decided to have Carl take a look at Bella. Now you're probably thinking we're nuts for letting someone in a barber shop cut her hair, but relax, Carl is a cosmetologist so he knows what he's doing. Arabella did amazing at sitting still. We used a toy and my phone as distractions to get her to look where we needed. Carl said it looks like she's going to have thicker hair for a blonde, which is great because my hair sucks. Looks like she picked up the curls and thickness from Adam. He also said it's possible that the curls will disappear more and more with each trim, but only time would tell for sure. After she went home and took a nap her hair was curlier than before her trim, so I'm not so sure that's he right about them disappearing. She even showed curls up front which she's never had.



1. Spraying on some "juice" 2. First trim 3. Mommy distracting her by letting her take a picture in the mirror 4. There goes a little more 5. Being distracted in a good way 6. First hair style!



What do you think? She looks much better in my opinion, just taking off the stringy ends did wonders. 

Pediatric Dentist

Today was a very busy day. A good and bad day. Good because we met with a new pediatric dentist for the kids. Arabella had only seen our family dentist, but we recently discovered she had a spare tooth causing problems in the front of her mouth. So we decided it would be better to just take the kids to someone who specializes. We met with Dr. Thomas and are very impressed with his handling of children and everything in their office. It's all geared towards children and they use alternative terminology for common dental terms so as to put the kids at ease.

Arabella started off by showing the dentist how to brush the fish's teeth (pic above). She did a very good job and followed directions rather well. After "exploring" her mouth and "tooth counting" he wanted to get a "picture" of her teeth to determine how far up into her jaw the tooth is. So she got to sit on Daddy's lap with the lead apron and "bite a cookie" while the assistant took her "picture." Oh and of course we brought P.J. for support.

After reviewing the x-ray he gave us two options. 1) We let the new tooth grow in as far as it can, let it push her teeth around even more and cause her pain in the process and make for a more difficult procedure later or 2) We pull the tooth that is already in as it is the "spare" tooth. This will allow her baby tooth to grow in, in the proper place, and she has an 80% chance of the tooth twisting into the correct position. Once in, the teeth surrounding it should be relieved of pressure and the gap should fill in once the teeth move back to their original positions. Of course if the tooth doesn't twist properly it isn't that big of a deal because it is only a baby tooth.

Given our dental history she's going to need braces anyways, so no harm, no foul. We obviously decided to go with the second option and we will go back in two weeks to have her "tooth wiggled out after they give her some sleepy juice." We do have the option to put her under general anesthesia, but that costs $500 up front and then we would get reimbursed, but I'm not concerned about her needing it. I think she'll be just fine with the shot (aka sleepy juice) and I will be holding her while she gets the shot. The upswing is once she's all ready to she'll be able to stare up at the ceiling and watch cartoons. He also said that the numbing part is the longest part of the procedure, the actual pulling (aka wiggling of the teeth) will take a whole 30-60 seconds. I think in the end, this is the best decision for her and she'll be much happier once she heals. Maybe then she can get back to eating normally, given she's still working on three more molars. 

11 Months Old

 23 pounds 0 ounces, 31 inches

Evan is moving right along. He's a little behind where his sister was at this age, but that's typical. He has all of the typical 11 month milestones down and the emerging skills. For advanced he can stoop, but his only words are still Mama & Dada. He can also imitate what others are doing and he's beginning to show gestures when he wants something. We've been working with him on his signs and he does milk, but not usually unless he's prompted. He's officially taken 3 steps at a time and is a pro at using the leapfrog walker to maneuver the living room and try to get to sissy's toys. He's growing and learning every day and you can't ask for much more than that.

1.2.11

Clockwise from left to right: Evan getting his grub on; so mad I wouldn't let him go to play with sissy's toys; Standing tall; Saying hello; Walking assisted; and getting tickles from Mommy



Self portrait.




Clockwise from the left: My slinky; Not happy to pose; fishing with the slinky; saying cheese; still playing with the slinky; and getting a decent smile out of her is so hard.




Jumping for being two. I asked her how old she was and she screamed happily "Old am I." Goofy girl.



Funny

Today is 1.1.11 and I just noticed this...

Yup, 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days.

1.1.11

Well, I was so busy today that I forgot to pick up my camera. I'm still sickly and the littles are starting to mend. I wanted to take a few moments to note that I have one smart little girl and a very determined little man.

Tonight, while on an upswing, I decided to help Evan with his walking. He's officially taken three steps at a time, a handful of times. I mainly use a toy he's after for motivation, but let's just say it is so difficult to get him to cooperate when you're the only adult working with him. After a few tries I put him on the gator and pushed him around the living room and he LOVED it. After that I cleared out the pen and put a couple of toys and the walker in it. He had so much fun pushing the walker back and forth in the pen. It's just not long enough, in my opinion, to get him where I think he should be. So, hopefully I'll be well enough in the morning that Adam can help me work with him.

As for B, I recently purchased a BUNCH of flash cards (School Zone / Brighter Child) that are on sale through Amazon. They have this great Get 4 for 3 promo going, and on top of that the cards are $1.63-$2.99. So you can get some great learning tools at great prices. She totally loves going through the cards. Most of the cards are labeled as ages 4 and up, but Arabella surprised us by knowing 95% of the words for the pictures we've shown her. Some I didn't even know she knew. We also bought the Colors, Shapes & More cards that have the Spanish words included on the cards so I can start working with her on simple Spanish. We opened that pack tonight and she fell in love with the crayons. She's at about 75% on labeling the accurate color to the card when it comes to the colors and she can repeat the Spanish label for them, but not unless prompted. Maybe I'm pushing a little because she just turned two, but I figure if I don't help her, who will?

After we worked on our flash cards we turned to her Melissa & Doug cutting sets (food / fruit) she received for Christmas. Lately when looking at toys for the kids I've been dead set on buying multi-functioning toys. As in it has to serve a learning purpose, not just "it was fun for 5 minutes and now it's collecting dust." kind of toys. This is why I LOVE Melissa & Doug. Their toys are 90% wooden, they are durable for play, but they also come with extended play instructions for the parents. We can sit down and go through them, practice cutting, and then I can work with her on food types, colors, mixing and matching to make silly foods, the possibilities are almost endless. Little does she know we scored big on a recent Amazon sale of M&D toys, so come May she'll be getting several more sets. I think I'm more happy about playing with them than her? It is great quality time and I love seeing her learn and watching how much information her little brain retains.

 

It's times like these I really enjoy this age, and when she has her "moments" I dread this age. So I'll take special moments like these as often as I can. It's also moments like these I seriously consider home schooling her, and then I snap back to reality.