Alaina's 1st Birthday

It was a beautiful, windy day on Alaina's party day and she had a blast.



She didn't know what she was supposed to do with the messy cupcake on her tray until we gave her a spoon and she realized she was supposed to EAT it!! Yum!!

After a mini bath in the sink, she dug right into her presents.

Studying Owen dump water into the spinning toy.

Owen's trying hard not to get his shirt wet.

Alaina is a climbing machine. We're really going to have to babyproof with this one! She can make it up an entire flight of stairs. She knows how to climb down as well, but tends to get bored mid-flight and wants to stand up and start playing before she gets to the bottom. Her favorite place to be is in Owen's bed especially after her bath. As we try to dry her off, she makes a bee line for Owen's room, climbs into his bed, stands up and starts jumping with a huge grin on her face. She knows she's not supposed to be jumping, and will sit down when we tell her too, but only for a second. She thinks she's hilarious.

She is cruising along easily and will walk if she is holding onto our hands. She'll stand unassisted for several seconds at a time before squatting down to crawl to what she wants. She loves going outside for wagon and cozy coupe rides and especially loves when she sees a dog walking by.

Alaina is generally a very happy little girl. She plays well by herself until she sees her BFF Mommy and then she needs to be held. She says: Momma, Dada, uh-oh, more, ball, bug (ladybug), hi and bye (waves), so-big, and her two favorite songs are the ABC's and My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean which she tries to sing when she hears Owen singing them. She is very interested in whatever Mommy and Daddy are eating and drinking and is a pro at drinking from a straw.

At her one year appointment she was 30 1/2 inches and 22lbs 1oz. She does awesome at the doctor's office and the nurse tells her that she's her cutest, most favorite patient and she is always excited when she gets to see her.

Owen is 3!!

Owen's 3rd birthday was his best one yet! His stranger anxiety was next to nothing, not to mention he enjoyed eating his cake and opening his presents.

He is still very much into trains, namely Thomas and his friends. Thomas is his favorite, and according to Owen, James is Momma's favorite, and Gordon is both Daddy and Alaina's favorite.

Thomas and Friends DVD's!!

a basketball hoop!!

and a new bike with training wheels!

Hey Owen, What's your favorite....

Color: blue like thomas

Food: nothing. ok chocolate

Drink: milk and water

number: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10

animal: grandpa's cows

dog: molly

cat: Margie's and Grandma's

shape: triangle, square, circle

Entertainment

Mama Mia.

Splish Splash

Alaina

Owen was so helpful when Alaina first started eating cereal. She's about 6 months old in this video. The novelty of this has since worn off, but he thinks it's pretty cool that they can share Cheerios now. He still thinks we're just messing with him when we tell her a certain food is for Alaina. "No, she's too little!" he says. Alaina is VERY interested in what everyone is eating and likes to get her hands on whatever she can. She'll try almost anything that is placed on her tray. She then proceeds to pick out the Cheerios and peas, but won't touch the green beans other than to smash them or slide them off onto the floor.

First Thanksgiving - 6 months old

Best Buddies

Chillin' out with her first beer watching the Packers make their way to the Superbowl.

First Chirstmas - 7 months old. She did a great job opening her presents. She loves ripping paper.

Alaina is very interested in everything Owen has to say. Here he is showing her his new electric Thomas the Train toothbrush.

A few poses from her 7-month photo shoot:

So Big!! She loves the attention she gets when she raises her arms. Owen says "So-rry!!" when she does it.

6 Months!

Alaina is 6 months old already! She went in for her well-baby check up yesterday and is still "perfect." She is 17 1/2 pounds, 26 inches, and has a head circumference of 44.5 cm. That puts her in the 50-75th percentile for her height and weight and in the 90th for HC. She's just a peaunt compared to her brother who was the same height but a full 2 pounds heavier than her at this age!

Alaina still loves her food. She's had rice cereal, bananas, avacado, and butternut squash so far and has loved every minute of it. Now everytime we put her in the highchair, she thinks she should get fed from a spoon. We're not used to having a baby that begs us to eat something other than milk!

This book only entertained her for a few minutes before I had to feed her. She was not happy that I was eating and she wasn't.

Alaina is a big-time cat-napper. Once in awhile she will take an unexpected 2-3 hour nap, but those are few and far between. She does sleep well in her car seat so she's still easy to shop with thank goodness! Nighttime sleeping is also up and down. She's discovered her voice and likes to use it especially in the middle of the night when she wakes up. She also can't quite make it through without the 2am feeding.

We are officially calling Owen "potty trained." He still wears pull-ups at night or as he calls them his "robot underwear." But he's in big boy underwear the rest of the time. He is also entering the imagination stage. Ever since halloween, which if you don't recall, he wore a dragon costume, he insists that we call him "Big Dragon." Momma and Daddy are tigers and Alaina is also a big dragon. Ok so he may need a little work in the imagination.

He also likes to pick out his clothes. Here is is wearing a Mickey top, Thomas shorts, and since it is cold, long sleeved skeleton pj's underneath. He has also started taking his clothes off, mostly at night when he is supposed to be going to sleep so we have started putting a onesie on him under his pjs since he can't quite get the snaps undone by himself.

If You're Having a Bad Day

This 90 second video is guaranteed to make you smile.

A Week of Firsts

If you look really close, you can see two bottom teeth poking through! (You can click on the picture to make it bigger if you really want to see them close up.) She got the first one last week the day before my birthday, and the second one poked through 3 days later.



This week, Alaina got her first taste of rice cereal. She was 5 1/2 months old. It was a success!

All done!


Alaina has been rolling from back to front since four months, and started going from front to back at 5 months.

Owen is also now wearing diapers only about 20% of the time and he has moved into his big boy toddler bed. He is very proud of both of these accomplishments, as are we.