Eleven months

It is Christmas time and just a mere few days before Christmas at that.  I'm a little late getting around to writing this month's update but I can honestly say I have some pretty good excuses. I have always loved the holiday season but this year has been really special to me. As a child I have always loved Christmas - the festive lights, a fresh cut Christmas tree with fun and funky ornaments, family traditions, good food, lots of family around and yes, the presents. What's not to love? However as an adult with my own children, I realize that *this* is how everyone should experience Christmas.  It is the first year that Ellie (and somewhat Abby) really understands the Christmas traditions and it is so much fun watching everything click for her. It is like experiencing it myself again for the first time. Everything is special, everything is magical and everything is exciting. She loves the lights, she LOVES our Christmas tree, she loves singing Christmas carols, she loves wrapping paper and anything Santa shaped. If it's red and green, it's good. It's really the spirit of the whole season and it's intoxicating. I'm still not sure if she understands the whole Santa concept because I haven't talked much about it with her and I'm not sure I will.  It's a conundrum for me. Is Santa a real person that comes down your chimney and leaves you gifts if you've been good (creepy)? Or is he just a jolly icon of Christmas? I'm torn. So we'll see what she has to say Christmas morning when a bunch of presents arrive under the tree and go from there.  Abby has also been enjoying the season and I can tell she loves the decorations and the lights. She's been really good about not attacking our Christmas tree.  I gave Ellie and Abby one ornament that they could touch and pull off the tree and surprisingly that seems to be working. Mommy win!

I have really been hitting up Pinterest hard this month and we've been doing a ton of Christmas crafts, baking and activities. Christmas has ARRIVED at our house! Thus the being very busy part. It's been so much fun doing these things with the girls and it's also helped to keep us sane during the rainy days when we've been housebound (which we've had many). Both of the girls have grown tremendously and it's hard to keep track.  Ellie is such a big helper these days and likes to be independent (can you say toddler?!). She loves to help us cook in the kitchen and sometimes is actually quite helpful. She's also really into arts and crafts and will constantly ask me "another project?!".  It is seriously payback for being "Project Queen" myself as a kid. I'm starting to wonder if we should buy stock in Michaels the way we go through craft supplies. She has recently started to enjoy building with her mega blocks.  She likes to build castles (but they are basically just tall stacks). She still loves her Spanish class and can recite her numbers, colors and some shapes from memory. The alphabet is still tricky because she flip flops between English to Spanish. I don't blame her, it's hard work. And of course she still loves to be outside as much as possible.

Abby it seems has just grown up before our eyes.  She can stand on her own now and pushes herself up into the standing position from the floor. Right before Thanksgiving she took her first steps. She is actually quite sturdy but doesn't have the confidence to do it on her own yet. Once she realizes she is doing it she will sit right down. She is getting very caviler about cruising and holding on to things so its just a matter of time really. She does not want to be left out of anything and wants to do everything and get into everything that her big sister has.  She has gotten pretty good about feeding herself (but its still debatable as to how much goes into her mouth and stays there). She can eat with a spoon and the other day I gave her a bowl of food and she really enjoyed scooping out the food. I have noticed that she is actually quite clever and tricky about how she problem solves. For example, I gave her a cup with crackers in it and instead of pulling them out with her hand, she put it up to her mouth as if to drink them and ate them that way. So funny! She especially likes to play games like hide and go seek or peek-a-boo. She will imitate anything we say or do that she thinks is funny.  Especially Ellie and most always at dinner time.  It's quite the chorus! She has started waving and clapping a lot.  She really likes to practice clapping in the middle of the night while she's in bed. She claps her hands and then giggles.  It's hard to be mad at her because it's so cute. I realized the other day that she has a lovie. My grandma gave her a pink Jellycat bunny that we keep in her crib and every time she goes to bed she will tuck it under her arm.  She loves to gnaw on his ears and stuff it in her mouth. When she is crying, bunny usually makes things better.

As for her physical size it is hard to say.  It is getting hard to weigh and measure her now because she is so squirmy. The scale we have at home isn't accurate for ounces and the scale we used to take her to is now too small for her. I can make a pretty good educated guess that she's between 19-20 lbs.  I don't think she's gained that much weight this month. We'll just have to wait until her one year doctor appointment to find out for sure. Here is my somewhat educated guess on her stats:

Head circumference: 46 cm 
Height: 30 inches   
Weight: 19-20 lbs?

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Chico this year with Tom's family. It was nice not to have to worry about the cooking and the girls really enjoyed spending time at Grandpa's house.  They both especially loved the crunchy leaves that were abundant everywhere. Ellie ate next to nothing as usual but Abby really enjoyed the sweet potatoes and turkey. They both liked pumpkin pie of course. We are really excited to be hosing my family here for Christmas.  We'll spend most of our time at my grandma's house on Ronnie Way which of course also makes it feel more special and festive to me. It will be Lucas's first time to San Jose and his first time on an airplane. I can't wait to see the babies together on Christmas morning.  It's going to be epic! Of course with the year coming to and end, it means that Abby is almost ONE.  I was just reminiscing with Tom about how last year we were preparing to have a baby at this time and how glad I was that we weren't doing that again this year. Two funny and clever little girls feels like enough. Phew!

11 months

Peek-a-boo pigtails

Happy Hollow with Maggie & Clara

These expressions are pretty typical

Riding the Ding Ding with Tuppa

Fancy shoes

Not sure about this grass...

Bubble Master

Exploring at the Children's Museum

She loved the ball drop

Building forts with Papa

Playing at the Duck Pond

And she found said Duck.

Jugemos en Espanol

Abby the student, Ellie the teacher

She couldn't wait to take off her coat, she had to read her library books right away.  And sit on them.

Leaves!

Visiting with Great Grandma Agnes

Practicing her waving

Cousins Taylor and Ryan

Binoculars

Crazy Animal

 

Ten months

This past month was October which is the beginning of a very fun and festive season for me. Surprisingly it has actually felt like Fall this year with the temps in the 60s (don't hate me).  I can remember previous years being in the 80s so I am gladly embracing the cooler temps.  The leaves are changing colors and we've even gotten some rain. Yay! Poor California needs some relief from this horrible drought.  Hopefully it's the beginning of more to come.

Abby is now 10 months old. She is crawling around with gusto and has given up the army crawl and replaced it with the good ole fashioned four leg crawl. She can get around really well now...and quickly! She is also really adept at pulling herself up onto just about anything. She barely needs to hold on and I feel like she's on the verge of standing on her own.  A couple of times I've let her go and she's stayed standing for a few seconds. I honestly think she could do it but when she realizes that she's not being held on to, she sits down. She is in a really fun phase where she is enjoying mimicking and imitating other people.  Her favorite subject is Ellie of course.  Often times we'll have a dinner chorus of the two of them singing or banging something in a similar fashion.  It's going to be crazy when the two of them can talk. She can clap her hands and wave good bye.  She loves to blow raspberries and strum her bottom lip. She is getting VERY chatty and will hum and babble "words".  Sometimes it feels like she's telling us a story which of course we don't get. She says "Mama" a lot and just the other day we heard her say "Papa" but she hasn't said it very often since.  When she gets excited she says "Ah da" which sounds to me like "Ta da!".  She says it a lot when she is crawling fast and excited towards something she wants.  I feel like she is becoming a real human girl who has has her own needs and personality now. She starting to get really mad when she wants something and I don't get it to her fast enough or when Ellie takes a toy away from her (which happens a lot). She is definitely not a passive baby anymore.

Unfortunately she is now the age where she has dropped from three naps to two naps and doesn't sleep so well on the go anymore. And an even more unfortunate reality is that Ellie is starting to drop her nap all together (Noooooooooooooo!!!). I spend a very large portion of my day trying to get one or the other to sleep or keep one quiet while the other one sleeps. It is challenging to say the least. It would almost be easier if Ellie did stop napping because then we could spend more time outside of the house. Either way, I have completely lost any down time that I may have had. Tragic. Ellie and I have started doing more art projects while Abby is sleeping with the attempt of being quiet. She loves drawing and painting and I've started a binder with all of her artwork.  I'm quickly realizing that is going to get full very quickly and I need to figure out a better way to save her projects.

Abby still seems really chubby to me but really she's not.  She's just so much bigger than Ellie was at this time. I was looking back at some photos of Ellie at this age and oh my goodness!! Ellie had chicken legs, no joke.  Tiny little toothpicks.  Thankfully she's more normally proportioned now but that girl was so scrawny as a baby. Abby eats really well and goes gang busters for almost anything we put in front of her. It seems like she eats a lot but 95% of what we give her ends up falling under her seat. She doesn't like being fed so I mostly give her finger foods and pouches which she can mostly feed herself.  Her favorites seem to be cheerios, pretzels, pineapple, beans and apple. 

Her are her stats for this month:

Head circumference: 46 cm
Height: 28 inches  
Weight: 19lbs 12oz

We celebrated Abby's first Halloween this month as well as our 5 year anniversary (wOOt!).  I was determined to make their Halloween costumes this year and I was really pleased with how they turned out.  Ellie went as a chocolate chip cookie and Abby was milk.  I was a little afraid that Ellie wouldn't want to wear her costume but she did.  We talked about Halloween and trick-or-treating a lot to prepare her for the big event and I think that helped.  We had a blast trick-or-treating with them.  We went around our neighborhood with our friends and neighbors Sabrina, Thomas and Olivia. It was fun to have another little person with us and made it feel more festive.  The nice neighborhood around us was perfect for our little ones because it wasn't too crowded and crazy.  Ellie had a lot of fun and was confident going up to the door and saying "Trick or Treat".  She loved it until the very end when she bumped into a skeleton and it started moving and shaking.  She was able to recover okay from that but at the next house a kid dressed up as a Gorilla jumped out and scared her.  She was totally done after that.  She still talks about the scary Gorilla and we've had to explain to her that it was pretend and Halloween is over, etc.  Poor little girl!  Hopefully she forgets by next year.  Abby was pretty oblivious to the whole thing but she seemed like she was having an okay time strolling around the neighborhood and looking at the decorations etc. 

Abs

This face!

Working on her dot painting

Love!

Helping out in the kitchen

Fun Fall projects

Thank you California for being warm enough in October to play in the backyard naked.

Mowing the lawn with Tia Rosa

Great!

She found her pumpkin in 3 seconds

Giordiano Pumpkin Farm

"I see you!"

"sharing"

Post rainy day walk

The wheels on the bus...

Cooking in Jugemos en Espanol

Ellie's first time to Black Bear Diner

Tub Time

Bishop's Pumpkin Farm with the cousins

Cookie & Milk!

The Bumble Bee made a return appearance for Spanish Class

Trick or Treat!

Nine months

Abby is now nine months old! Nine months feels big to me, like we are over the hump and are rapidly speeding downhill towards 12 months. It's all gravy from here. I probably feel this way because Abby has hit huge developmental milestones this month. She can now crawl on all four legs but defaults to army crawling when she is really trying to get somewhere fast.  And while crawling is good, she really loves is to be walked around the house.  She is now really steady at walking with help and can even hold on with just one hand.  She is pulling herself up and cruising along on furniture and just recently I noticed that she has also learned to sit back down.  This makes my life easier because I'm not constantly being "called" over to help her get down. She can sit up on her own and pushes herself up from any position.   All this movement has happened so quickly that even though I should have been prepared for it, she had her first inaugural fall of our bed. It was totally my fault and luckily she only had a small bump for a few days. Ellie mostly enjoys Abby's ability to move around.  Sometime Ellie can get Abby to chase her around the house which is hilarious.  It's mostly Ellie dashing from room to room while Abby struggles to keep up with her all the while cackling loudly from the other room.  Sometimes Ellie gets upset when Abby follows her and tries to shut the door in her face. (!) Luckily we've only had one incident when the door actually made contact. Abby likes to practice walking whenever she can and is getting pretty sturdy on her legs.  I wouldn't be surprised if she was walking by her first birthday.

Abby now has her four front teeth.  She has started eating a lot of solid foods and is much happier now that she has mastered most finger foods.  Keep in mind that 80% of what we feed her ends up mushed up in her high chair but her interest in food has definitely peaked.  She eats everything we give her but is primarily interested in fruit.  She is still primarily breast fed but it occurred to me the other day that she's not eating as frequently as before (maybe every 3-4 hours vs. every 2 hours).  She is still waking up at night to eat but I know that is out of habit and no longer out of necessity.  We have attempted to sleep train her twice before but it has always disintegrated due to the fact that we share a room with her and she can hear and smells us (I must smell like milk). We eventually give in because we are so tired ourselves.  It was a lot easier with Ellie when she had her own room to toss and turn in. The plan was to eventually move them into the same room once Abby was sleeping through the night but that is seeming less and less likely right now. There always seems to be some reason why we shouldn't re-sleep train her but the reality is it's just easier for us to part-time co sleep with her. Especially when I'm still feeding her at night. With Ellie co-sleeping just didn't work for us and we were all happier when she was in her own room at night.  With Abby it's turning out to be the opposite for a variety of reasons.  Part of me is lingering because I know she's my last baby and I'm happy to get the snuggles while I can. 

In addition to her developmental leaps, Abby is growing physically too. I swear every time we measure her height she measures differently so I'm not sure what he correct height is but she continues to get chunkier and chunkier. We lovingly refer to her as our Chub-a-lub.  I have no idea where I got that from but it seems to suit her. Here are her stats for this month:

Head circumference: 45.70 cm
Height: 28 inches
Weight: 18lbs 10oz

She is still such a happy girl and continues to charm the pants off of everyone she meets.  She is getting very vocal and is babbling a lot.  She can clearly say "mama" (and means it) and "yeah" which cracks me up because I say yeah a lot. My mom sent me an old video of Ellie at 9 months and it blew me away because all I could see in the video was Abby.  When they are together them seem so different to me, especially physically, but when I look back at photos of Ellie at this time they look identical.  I am starting to notice that they have some of the same mannerisms, especially at the dinner table.  Sometimes they will play together while eating and Abby will imitate Ellie or visa versa. Ellie loves it when Abby claps or imitates a sound she's made. It's all terribly adorable (and scary for the noise that is yet to come).

It is October and that means it's pumpkin month! Ellie is really excited for Halloween this year and we've been reading a lot of Halloween books and talking about trick or treating in preparation.  I think she's really going to enjoy it this year.  I was determined to make their Halloween costumes this year, and it was painstaking, but I did it. As if I didn't appreciate her before, I have a new found admiration for my mother and the countless homemade Halloween costumes that she has made me over the years.  There was even one that involved sewing a stuffed horse that I stepped inside so to look as if I was riding it. I mean, common! If that woman isn't already on a fast track to heaven, there should be a special spot for mothers who endure that kind of labor of love. My costumes don't come anywhere close to that, but I am really pleased with how they turned out. Ellie is going to be a chocolate chip cookie and Abby is going to be milk (scream).  Pictures forthcoming! 

Fooooooooooood.

I'm so fancy.

"Air control tower to Ellie..."

Making Fall leaves

Ellie tamer of ants

Kinda meh about the swings.

Abby busy in the kitchen.

Standing again.

Princess Ellie

Pelo!

Queen of the mountian

Enjoying birthday cupcakes

Hunting for ducks

The magical play land that is Ikea.

That face!

Crunchy leaves

<3

Again with that face!

Ellie & Maggie & Animal Cookies = bliss

It rained once in San Jose.

She wants to jump in.

Showing off her cute new poncho.