My Baby is 3

Watch out world, Abram is 3! We celebrated his birthday with a family party at our house. It was crowded, as I knew it would be, but very nice. We had tacos, opened presents and then had cake and ice cream. I made him a "candy cake" this year, rather than a themed cake. It was a yellow round cake with chocolate frosting, surrounded by Kitkats and topped with M&M's. In other words, amazing!

 Probably my favorite cake...because it was relatively quick and easy compared to other cakes I've created! I did have some complaints about it being TOO rich:) I thought it was perfect.

Abram was soo excited!

He received many nice presents, including books and clothes and games. We gave him a Mickey Mouse hooded towel and "Bumblebee Boy" Car Poncho that I had made for him. On his actual birthday we did "Tour of Farmland" which included pizza at Pizza King and ice cream at The Chocolate Moose. Then we gave him his last birthday present.  His very own REAL fishing pole. He's been practicing his cast....which isn't so great yet, but improving...down the hallway while his sister naps!

I look back at pictures from this past year and can't believe how much he's grown and changed. He looks less and less like a baby and more and more like a big boy! He's so tall, wears 3T pants and shirts, sometimes 4T pants if the waist is small enough. He can take off and put on his own underwear and pants but still needs help with his shirt and coat. He CAN put on his shoes, but prefers his boots where he can just shove them on and not fasten anything.

He is potty-trained....completely. Even at night he's been sleeping in his underwear. We started letting him do this right at the beginning of the year because Mom bought us a vinyl mattress cover. He always had dry pull-ups, so we made the switch. It's glorious...not to mention less expensive!

He eats like a toddler. A pig one second, a bird the next. One day something is his favorite and then he leaves it on his plate for two weeks. I've heard this is typical. Doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Conversations are quite fluent now. Occasionally he will lapse into gobbledygook or get "lazy" with his sounds (Ames, watch a woo-wee?), but most of the time he makes sense. He talks with Lydia and encourages her to "sign" to us and then tells her "good job!' when she does. He gets annoyed at her when she yells or makes growl-y noises. He loves to follow her around saying "gonna get you, gonna get you", which makes her squeal and walk really fast...and then cry when he finally does get her by tackling her to the ground. I've observed him playing with other children and I'm usually impressed with his social skills. He'll ask them their name and/or tell them his. Its cute to hear him converse:)

Grandpa Hardacre is his bestest buddy. He can do no wrong and we see him almost every day. Abram also loves going to both Grandma's houses. Loves Chip. Loves Reece and Blake. He loves trains, dinosaurs, fishing and animals.  He can't sit still to color or paint for more than 5 minutes and just shreds through play doh. He got a Leap Pad for Christmas and loves play games and watch videos on it for LONG periods of time. Almost every day begins with "I watch a movie?" He's obsessed with "Dragon" movie, which is a Christmas special of "How to Train Your Dragon" and also loves Veggietales, Land Before Time, Fievel,, Ice Age, etc. His favorite movie selection expands daily.

Abram is a very sweet boy and can be shy and sensitive in new situations. He still takes time to warm up socially and he's reluctant to try new activities, foods, etc. He's also stubborn and will push his limits with his mommy and his mommy to HER limits! He can be very obedient one moment and then fussy and obstinate the next. I stay as consistent as possible because I know this is the only thing that can turn a rowdy, self-indulgent toddler into pleasant, kind little boy. I know some people think 3 is worse than, but I believe this year will be better.

13 Months

No babies here anymore! Now I have two toddlers! At least one of them is potty-trained (yes, he IS! Hallelujah!) Lydia is showing her little personality more and more every day. It was hard not to type things she's doing in her 12 month blog, that I wrote yesterday, because its all happening so fast and makes it hard to remember when it exactly happened! Blogging more faithfully would make this easier to document. Oh well.

Since around Christmas, her hair has been long enough to pull into two tiny pigtails and it is TOO cute! Until her hair is thick enough to do a "bob", this will be her hairstyle whenever we go out. She tolerates me messing and pulling at it and holds relatively still while I wrap the tiny hair bands around and around and around!

Lydia got this outfit from Aunt Krista. I love the top but I wish the skirt had bottoms attached, or else the legwarmers were leggings..her diaper cover is shining! Her feet are finally starting to grow. She's filling out her size 2's now and should fit nicely in her size 3 sandals by springtime! 

You can see the jean skirt from this angle.

Bear-y Love

Big smile:) Her other top middle tooth has come thru now (around January 22), so it's moving down into place to even out her smile a bit. The left secondary incisor should be appearing any day now as it's bulging just under the surface. Teething...what a pain!

Time to get down!

Moving on to the "just my size" chair. 

Other things she's doing now that she didn't do a month ago:

• Blowing "bubbles" in the bathwater. She LOVES bathtime...she's going to LOVE the pool!!
• Nodding "Yes" and shaking "No"
• Climbing on top of the toy box, the coffee table....anything she can! She's a monkey!
• Bringing us book after book after book! Well, she did that last month too, but it's increasing.
• She has "blown" her nose in a tissue once
• Going to more people. She already would go to Grandpa H, but she's getting used to more and more family members. She even went to Uncle Chris at Abram's birthday party!
• Walking really fast and pumping her left arm like a speed walker! Cracks me up:)
• Said "Daddy?" and did her speed walker walk to the door when she heard him come home from work:)
• We played in the snow one day (because we have LOTS of it this month). I piled it in front of her and she kept eating it like it was a snow buffet.
• Screams and goes boneless when she doesn't get her way...gonna have to work on that.
• Has started to figure out how to push Abram's "buttons". Usually by making some sort of loud or growly noise. The more he tells her "Noooooo" the more she does it!  Little stinker!
• Starting to drop her morning nap. If it goes longer than an hour, she doesn't go down as quickly in the afternoon. If she gets up late in the morning, we just keep her up til after lunch.
• Keeps getting diaper rash! I think I'm sharing too much dessert with her:(

12 Months

Well, this is embarrassing. I haven't blogged since before Thanksgiving. So much for documenting every cute, adorable thing my cute, adorable daughter is doing every day. If it weren't for the fact that I did manage to do a few blog posts every month for her brother, I'd give this up completely. I just don't have the time and resources. So sorry blog followers. Sorry Lydia.

These were Lydia's 12 month...1 year!...pictures. We opted for her birthday t-shirts rather than dressing up, so a bit casual, but she's still stinkin' cute!

 It's getting harder to keep Lyida in the rocking chair. We tried the book distraction this month. She REALLY loves books. I don't remember Abram bringing us books and backing up into our laps for us to read to him. She does this and its adorable! She really loves this little Itsy Bitsy Spider puppet book she got in her stocking and the touchy feely book we got her. But she also loves Baby Faces and many other little board books. We have plenty for her to choose from!

 Tried to entertain with the stacking toy, but she slid out of the chair and went for her little rocking chair. Speaking of...she has a new one...and I didn't even notice. Grandma Cunningham snuck up to their room and replaced the old one (that was broken, reglued and stain peeling) with this new one that is much fancier  without telling me. I didn't know about it until ABRAM spotted our old one at her house! I told him it wasn't his and Jill said, "Yes, it is!" I had to look at the pics I'd just taken to see that it was a new chair! My attention to detail is failing I guess! 

 Daddy was helping with this photoshoot, so we started to get some smiles. She does have a few more teeth, although you can still usually only see 2 in these pics. At this point, she has 4. Two on the bottom and then one top middle on the left and then the secondary incisor on the right. Makes for a bit of a cockeyed grin, but the other two on top are so close to coming through as well.

 I'm ONE!

One last one with Beary and the giraffe shirt:)

At one year she is still very tiny - 28" (24%) 17 lbs 10 oz (17%)- but she is mighty! She is strong willed and loud about it. We've been working on "look at mommy" and "come here". She understands "no, no", but you can see her choose not to listen on occasion...waiting to see if I'm going to get up and do something about it. Little stinker! 

Lydia LOVES silky fabric and has attached herself to the "Grandma loves me" baby blanket and a little curtain tie back at mom and dad's. She wants to carry them everywhere and will lay on them and suck her thumb. I loved silky when I was a baby, and so I think this love has been inherited somehow. Still nursing first thing in the morning and at night, but those are brief and will be easy to stop. Eats WELL! Feeds herself. I rarely interject unless its really soupy and she needs help getting the spoon to her mouth. She loves to use a fork or spoon when she's eating (uses left hand a lot) and will successfully get food to her mouth more than not! It's pretty impressive, albeit messy.

Loves the cats, loves Chip, loves to watch the computer/tv and will pretend to talk on the toy phones. Carries them around jabbering! "Asks" for toothbrush when we're brushing and gnaws on the the little pretzel handled toothbrush from Aunt Leslie. Those things are great!

She will say "uh-oh" when she drops something and "Ah-duuuh" with her hands up when she's done eating or wants to be done with a diaper change! She is walking well, although she trips frequently...a little klutzy. She always has at least one self-afflicted bruise at all times....I'm sure Abram's to blame for a few of them as well. I can't wait till she can take and dish it right back at him! It won't be long!

We had  a birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa Hardacre's house with all the family there. Lydia had her own little cake with sugar gum paste ladybugs and bees and a giant one and everyone else had cupcakes with gum paste "bugs". They were fun but challenging to make!

 Smash cake!

All the bugs!

The presents! She got some clothes, toys (penguin stacker and pop beads) and I gave her her taggie blanket that I made....it will take her a while to attach to it, but I'm sure she will...it's silky!

I have lots of pictures but they are on a different computer since I took them on my phone...and I rely a lot on Aunt Krista at special occasions. She takes so many pics that I don't really need to! It was a nice birthday party...I know it's cliche, but they really do grow up so fast!

At some point in time, we will get our pictures/videos organized and on a computer that we can connect to the internet with so that I can do a "video post". I haven't shared NEARLY enough of those! 

Time for lunch now, but I will post Lydia's 13 month pictures this aftenoon....and I need to post about Abram because he's 3 now!!!!

11 months, The Bruised Blur

 C'mon Mom! It's time for my 11 month pictures! We're two days late this time!

As soon as I put her in the rocking chair this month, she started throwing "Beary" out of it...so we had to distract her a bit with other toys.

That worked for a minute...

 Then she was at it again! Poor Beary.

 

Then she decided all the toys on the floor that Abram was playing with looked like much more fun than posing for pics.

 

She kept throwing herself from the chair into my lap, "fledgling bird" style.

"Selfie"

 I kept throwing her back up into the chair, but it's hard to do that and focus the camera without a flash. So this month she looks like a "bruised blur"...very representative of her age I think. Abram was also a "blur", and he was bruised for that matter, for his 11 month photo shoot.

 

 Mom, quit throwing me or I'm gonna cry.

 

 I warned you!

 

Took a quick break then managed to snap a few more...still blurry...

I wanna go down there and play...

 Finally turned the flash on and got this big cheesy grin (can see her two teeth!) I think I was shaking a rattle.

 

Everything goes in her mouth. Here she was cannibalizing a Lego man.

Ha!

Playing with brother on the floor.

 

 Loves the little rocking chair.

 She now knows how to climb in, turn around and sit down. Occasionally she'll still try to stand, but she's getting the hang of it.

 

 

She's about 27" tall, 18 lbs. Crawls REALLY fast and seems content with that mode of transport. She "cruises" around under the table and has taken steps to people. Usually one or two, sometimes four or five. Grandma counted steps up to nine the other day without collapse. Her "first steps" were on 11-3, so almost 11 months. I have video of Abram walking WELL at 3 days shy of 10 months. She does well getting up the stairs...just not down:)

 

She loves books and wants to turn the pages of the board books. She's jabbering in a more "conversational" way. We'll make a sound, she'll make a sound. Abram loves that! She'll give "noggins" but doesn't really give kisses. She has been sticking her tongue out lately, so I've been trying to get her to put the word and body part together! Cracks me up, she looks like Gene Simmons from KISS. She responds well to her name and "look at mommy", and definitely understands (although doesn't always obey) "no, no". I think she will be strong-willed...hopefully not more than Abram.

 

She hasn't really gravitated to any specific toys at our house, but at Mom and Dad's she always goes for the bug pop beads. They are the first thing pulled out of the toy cabinet every time. She plays really well independently...I don't remember Abram doing that! Loves pulling all the toys out of the hamper or toy box. She likes the hippo walker, but gets tired of it when it hits the wall and won't move farther. We put the red walker away because she did NOT like being stuck in that thing!

 

She sleeps really well at night, occasionally wakes and cries out, but goes right back to sleep. She hasn't had any more teeth cutting through so no pain issues waking her up either. She is starting to show more food preferences, but she still tries and eats most things we offer. She's been drinking her milk from a Tupperware sippy cup, so I've started mixing in some cows milk with her breast milk. I'm hoping when we wean, we can wean from bottles as well. She'll definitely be ready by a year...she could care less about breastfeeding.

 

Time to start planning a first birthday party!!