Felicity 11 months

11 months old

Where has this year gone?? I'm having so many flash backs of this time last year, doing all these concerts, trips to the zoo, outdoor fancy dinners and state fair outings... In the last month of my pregnancy! And now, we have this lovely, vivacious, sunshine of a little girl who lights up our lives and makes us smile all the time. Felicity is such a wonderful part of our family.

She's 29 inches tall and about 18 pounds. She's wearing 12 month clothes. She has 5 teeth, all broken through within the last two months. It's been rough with teething!

She goes to bed by 8 pm and either sleeps till 6:30 or 7 am, or wakes once sometime in the night...sometimes twice. She consistently takes one nap right after lunch for about 1-2 hours. She is still tired around 10 am but doesn't always nap. She's ready to go to bed sooner than when she's going at this point and I think it's because she doesn't nap long enough.

Felicity is a big fan of food these days. She still breastfeeds on demand, but she's started chowing down at meals. We are avoiding dairy right now in hopes of improving her digestion, but she loves all meats, oatmeal, blueberries, strawberries, cucumber, rice and noodles.

She can say dada, mama and bye-bye with a wave. She claps when we say "yay!" Pretty sure she said Ellie and she's tried to say Alfred, but mostly she happy-screeches at the pets as she tries to love them.

The big news this month is Felicity can crawl now! She started pretty much the day after we got back from our girl trip to New Jersey to visit our friends the Beavers. Maybe it was watching the two older girls run around that motivated her, but she's really got it down now. And this week she has discovered the pantry and the one cabinet reserved for kids in the kitchen and she makes a beeline to explore and pull everything out. It's so funny to see her examine things.

Our trip was super fun! We flew just us two girls, and she was happy as can be (with distractions, toys, books and snacks) but especially because our seat mates each way were kind and interacted with the social bug. She smiled and had a great time... and took naps in the Tula! Visiting the Beavers was a lot of fun. The two older girls (3 and almost 2) took care that Felicity had her paci and toys and just loved on her. Felicity had so much fun with the big girls, and I had a great visit with Alicia.

If I was to try to describe baby Felicity's favorite things, it's pretty much books, her baby dolls/stuffed Elmo and dropping cars down Wilders parking ramp toy. She really likes just looking through books, and being read to, for quite a long time in a sitting. Today she carried a book around, flipping pages, for more than an hour!

As she gets older, we love watching her personality develop. Felicity smiles so much. She's pretty easygoing. She loves any attention from Wilder and she eats up time with her daddy. She's my little sidekick. I take her with me to run errands whenever I can because she's just such a fun baby. She loves people and parties and life! She's a bit opinionated now and will get mad if we take something away or thwart her plans. Don't we all get a little bit annoyed when we can't do what we want? I am loving seeing her grow more and more into herself. Lots more fun ahead!

Here are some more photos from today!

Wilder's August 2016

August 2016

Our little guy is growing and maturing more every day! Wilder is thoughtful, observant and it's amazing the things he says each day. He comes up with these funny accents and over emphasizes words sometimes.

He's adjusting to his big boy bed a bit better. He has his routine and he likes sticking to it. He's started brushing his teeth by himself, and he's learned what each of our names are. Felicity is mobile now and into everything so he's learning to share and let sister play with his things--tough for him, especially when she wants his trains!

We started going through the AWANA Cubbies handbook for Bible verses and so far he really likes it. We are starting to do homeschool preschool curriculum next week. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed but we will see how they do. I basically just want to be more intentional with our learning, so I got a curriculum to plan it out.

Wilder's days are fairly routine, but he loves knowing what comes next, and our zoo visits and play dates are fun too.  He really enjoys the zoo this summer, especially the elephants and lions and gorillas.

Things he's said this month:

"Mama, I like your... Hair. I like your... Eyes. I like your... Shoes. Sister, I like your ... Things." 

"I need some Allinol" (Tylenol)

"Look at those towers, off in the distance."

"She's a FOX!" (Felicity's pajamas have a fox face on them)

"Sister is a mess! (Every meal)  She is throwing her food on the ground. I think she is finished."

We just moved his high chair into being a booster up at the table, so he's eating with the big kids now. He is so funny--careful with his plate and silverware. Today we gave him a napkin and showed him how to use it, and he gently placed it on his lap. Drinking out of his little cup with one hand. It's so cute.

Zach comes up with games for Wilder all the time, and now they incorporate Felicity. Things like playing hide n go seek, where Zach holds Felicity and they seek Wilder hiding, or Zach/Felicity hide and Wilder comes and finds them. Or lately, they play chase. Sometimes Zach will hold Felicity and they'll "chase" Wilder, or Zach and Wilder chase each other and tag Felicity as they run by. It's great fun for all--lots of laughs all around.

We are loving watching Wilder grow up a little more all the time, but it warms the heart how he still wants us near. My favorite thing is when he crawls up in my lap and says "Let's read some books Mama." He loves to read books with us. And at the end of the day, we don't rock in the rocking chair anymore. We sit in his bed and read for a while, then he asks me to lie down on the ground next to his bed (thank goodness for extra blankets and the sheepskin rug) and we just lay quietly as he drifts closer to sleep.

Here are some photos from this weekend. He was under the weather, poor guy, but still had so much fun showing me his tractor trailer!