Alexia is 18 Months 11.22.09

Alexia is becoming a tooth monster! Her mouth is full of baby teeth. Front four on top (right fang is just now coming in), four on bottom and four molars. She has started to repeat things we say (which is sort of scary) and has an assortment of words she now uses on a daily basis. She loves to go through facial features right before each nap and bedtime: eye, mouth, ear, hair, teeth (she refuses to say or point to the nose though). Also added to her routine: hand, fingers, foot, toe. She hates getting her diaper changed, especially right after she wakes up. It's like her social life is effected by the two minutes it takes out of playtime to change her diaper. For meals, she sprints to her highchair, and once she's done she lets us know by repeating over and over, "Duh" (done) and offering her stacked plate and water bottle. Her favorite act of disobedience is to stand in her highchair. I can't help but see the glimmer of self-satisfaction when she stands up. She is still ridiculously a Daddy's girl, crying and chasing him all around the house if he is not holding her. She is still notorious for the holding-her-breath cry, something she's done since the first day she was born (you'll see at the end of the video-it actually cuts off before she even takes a breath):

And she still does the real loud cry, holds her breath, silence....silence....silence, then WAIL! It's so interesting how her cry has remained the same (less squeeky now). I've started paying attention to Naiya's cry now, to see if it will remain the same as well. Alexia is a cuddler, and has often found her way into our bed the last couple months (something I swore I wouldn't do), while she was teething and having trouble sleeping. I have to admit, I just love it! But it does make for a bad night's rest. We wake up much earlier than we'd like to, "Hiiiiii!" She is obsessed with her blanket still, she does a happy dance and giggles uncontrollably at the sight of her blanket. She will be quietly content in the car if her blanket is in hand. One of her favorite things to do now is run straight to the pantry and grab whatever goodies she can. She is still taking two naps during the day, although the afternoon nap has been cut short more frequently than I'd like. She's wearing 12-18 month clothing, size 4 diaper (same as Naiya-who is 6 months), and just wore through her first pair of shoes. She often asks to hold Naiya, sits down and holds out her arms. When she's finished holding her, she tells us "no" and shakes her head, trying to squirm out from behind Naiya. Here's one of Alexia's baby-sister-holding techniques (the one-eyed hold):

Kisses for Naiya:

Showing us where Naiya's "eye" is:

(Okay, maybe she's an inch off.)

Ryan and I have waited for the day for Alexia to show us affection. She has now perfected giving us kisses! Complete with a "Mmmmmm."

Our baby is slipping way too fast into toddlerhood!

Happy Halloween

Still very unmotivated to get into the whole trick-or-treat thing with infants, our girls missed out on Halloween 2009. We were rescued from handing out candy from our un-Halloween house by having dinner with friends. But not without being totally humiliated by having to explain to an early round of trick-or-treaters that we don't have any candy to hand out because we had plans to eat dinner at a friend's house. (I'm sure those kids - our neighbors, in fact - totally understood our complicated dilemma.)

We did have ourselves a festive family bake-off though. We were in charge of bringing dessert for our Halloween get together, and it was the perfect excuse to make the pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting I've been dying to make. Shortly after, Ryan decided he wanted to make his mom's Cinnamon Roll Tea Ring. I lovingly explained to him I already took care of dessert in a "get-out-of-the-kitchen" tone of voice. And ladies and gentlemen, that's when we had ourselves a bake-off:

Let me tell you, having your husband bake and cook is so sweet. Until he starts to compete with you. He even stole my fair-weather helper. We told our friends about our bake-off once we arrived (we didn't have a choice, as an explanation was necessary as to why we brought enough dessert to feed an army). Here was the end result:

(His on the left vs. mine on the right). I lost. Everybody raved about his "cinnies". Some ate my cupcakes out of pity. I even brought mini treats for the little ones. And still lost:

Only two got eaten. How can you go wrong with cream cheese frosting?! Lesson learned: DON'T compete with cinnamon rolls. Ever. The leftover cupcakes were a hit as treats the next week though.

Here's the baby crew (guess who's girls were too cool for school?):

There was even an after dinner slow dance:

We were able to have some Halloween dress up fun with Alexia. As a source of entertainment, we stuffed her into a newborn costume. Here's our red hot chili pepper:

And then Ty, Jenna, Ryan and I ridiculed her some more:

Hope you had a Happy Halloween, too!

Little Helper

Girl After My Own Heart

Coffee.

Creamer.

Chug.

Fickle Finale

It's time to re-bookmark me. This battle to find the perfect blog accomodations continues. I cannot guarantee this is where I'll stay. But bookmark it for now. If you want to know, my reason for switching is mainly because I wanted to upload videos directly to our blog (no more you tube).

I have to confess, I've wanted to blog this month. But I found myself feeling guilty - like I was cheating - by writing posts BEFORE I put the girls' month birthday posts up. Can anyone else relate? Or am I just that psychotic?

Alas, the birthday posts will have to wait. (But I will manipulate the post dates, so no one will ever know.) I can no longer wait to tell you what has caught my latest obsessive-about-creative-projects attention (again, Mel is to blame for this - and do NOT read her blog if you value naps and bedtime for accomplishing housework, because she'll motivate you to get into countless projects!). So, I am making a scarf. Not just any scarf. A Joy's Hope scarf. That's right, I've committed myself to Joy's Hope Scarf Along. And tomorrow I will inform a couple of friends that I intend to force, I mean ask, to join me.

I picked out fabric tonight from Material Gal and hope to make a trip to JoAnn's tomorrow to pick up remaining essentials. For my fabric, I went the custom order route and compiled 9 different fabrics that are jewel-toned. (Sarah and Rach, you would be SO proud! Thank you for exposing me to "jewel toned" colors!)

More to come tomorrow, I need to go to bed. And my husband could use some of my attention too. I promise to get the girls' posts up. Tomorrow. Or the next day.

Naiya is 5 Months 11.04.09

Naiya is 5 Months 11.04.09

Gotta love the monthly photo shoot mishaps:

Sweet tootsies:

And to compare, here's Alexia at five months:

And here's what life was like last year at this time (2 months pregnant, miserable, and Ryan taking on the role of a single dad):

Ugh, it makes my stomach turn just thinking about all that nausea. And lying around on the couch. Despising the smell of formula being spit up. Vowing to never eat another popsicle or saltine cracker. Begging for time to be fast forwarded to Month 6, when the nausea would hopefully end. Savoring the peace and relief from a hospital stay to get rehydrated (which I was informed by a nurse that it was the first she'd heard of a patient begging to stay another night-by the way, my request was granted and the vein my IV was in was sore for months afterwards). Needless to say, I'm looking forward to entering into the holiday season this year.