Hannah: Sitting Up

Hannah has been trying to get into the sitting position for a little while now. She tries to cross her back legs and push up with her arms, but she just doesn't move her arms back enough yet to get herself into position to sit up on her own yet. She was getting Soooooo frustrated last night trying to get up into position, so I helped her. I sat her up on her IKEA playmat and I was surprised at how long she could actually sit there before losing her balance. She had both arms stretched out on each side. She still needs some practice, but she can sit on her own for 10 - 15 seconds at a time (it varies) before she loses her balance.

Cottage Cheese?

Sometimes when Hannah spits up, I guess it kind of looks like cottage cheese when it comes out... so sometimes Heidi will say "Ewww... Mom, it looks like Hannah has cottage cheese coming out of her mouth." This afternoon, though, when Hannah spit up, Heidi said "Mom, I want some cottage cheese." Kind of gross, huh?

Hannah's First Tooth

Saturday, Hannah's first tooth finally started breaking through her gums. It is her bottom, left (our right), front tooth. She has been teething and drooling since she was 3 months old, so I guess it's about time.

She has also learned how to stick her tongue out and make a spitting/PLLL noise in the last couple of days.

Heidi is already planning her birthday party (4 months early)

Heidi keeps telling me today that we need to plan her birthday party. It is July now and her birthday isn't until November... but I thought it would be fun to find out what she wants. Her is a list of exactly what she is telling me that she wants for her birthday party. I am amazed that she even thought of milk, pizza, and music. I tried to put her exact wording on her list of things she wanted...

• polka pink muffins with hearts on top (that's a color we found at the store that Heidi wants to paint her room with. I think she wants heart sprinkles on top)
• princess castle cake that is white (heidi saw a castle cake in the grocery store a week or two ago, but that cake was pink)
• sparkly magic wands to put on top of the muffins
• First I will have to blow out the cake and then we can eat the muffins.
• milk
• pepperoni pizza
• things to put on the wall because for birthday parties you need things to put on the wall
• jump ropes
• the pokey music (she means the hokey pokey song)
• we need to make birthday party hats ... how you make 'em is you just put everything on them like hearts (I think I would rather just buy some than make them, but I think she means that she would like to decorate them)
• We need a pink thing on the table (a table cloth?)
• invitations for: Ella, Carson, Walisha (Alicia), Sophie, & Heather... not Carson, he moveded (I guess she changed her mind about Carson because he moved, but he didn't move very far... just to the other side of the neighborhood)
• And all of the people need to bring me a present.

When I asked her what kinds of presents she wants, she said:

• princess presents
• a cuddly toy sheep... Ella needs to give me a cuddly toy sheep
• Walisha (Alicia) to give me a butterfly cuddly toy
• Heather to give me a pencil
• Sophie can give me to pick a flower and give it to me, alright mom?
• And Grandma Holly needs to come too and she can give me a polly pocket
• And Grandma Sylvia can give me a big Winnie the Pooh
• And Grandma Holly gives me a small Winnie the Pooh

* I didn't know that she was going to tell me what each person was supposed to bring to her birthday party. I thought I was just going to get a wish list. She is so silly sometimes.

Heidi's concert & A little something about Hannah too...

I thought maybe I should write something really quick about Hannah too (since I have written so much about Heidi lately). Hannah is still working on crawling. She gets on all 4's with her tummy off of the ground and moves her legs, but her arms aren't coodinated enough yet to work along with her legs. I think sometimes she is trying to stand up (which she wants to do all of the time when I hold her). Today, she was on all fours (hands and FEET, with her bottom up in the air), and she stuck one leg up in the air behind her (I think in an effort to stand up, but it didn't work).

Hannah also likes trying to pick things off of her clothes (if she is wearing something with pictures printed on it). Today she is wearing a cute, white outfit with little watermelons all over it. She keeps trying to pick the watermelons off of it.

Hannah also has been studying Heidi a lot lately. She laughs when her sister dances or sings in front of her. One day not long ago, Heidi gave us a concert. She said that she was "Princess Rhianna," and she danced/sang for us. At the end of her concert, Heidi told us that if we wanted to see more of Princess Rhianna, "Just go to PrincessRhianna.com." I think she gets that from tv (you know when they tell you to go to something.com at the end of different shows to see something more).

Heidi loves crafts!

Heidi, lately, has really been into crafts. She is always making cards for me and likes to punch things out of paper with my scrapbooking punches and glue the little pictures (of things like: frogs, fish, stars, hearts, butterflies, etc.) onto paper. Today, she made me a card with her letter "H" for Heidi and she drew me a big brownie inside of the card. She usually draws polka dots on the outside of the card (along with a picture of something). I think it would be fun to get her some glitter, so we can make shapes/swirlies with glue and pour glitter on top to make pretty pictures.

Heidi: Adjusting

I think Heidi is still having some adjustment issues...

For one thing, Heidi doesn't seem to like this house as much as "the army house," as she calls it. I guess that was the first home that she can remember living in (even though it was really her second). She ran up to her room and was crying yesterday. I asked her why she was crying and she told me that she missed the army house. The house we lived in while we were in Texas was sooo much smaller (maybe 1200 sq ft, with 3 bedrooms), while this one that we have now is much bigger (3400 sq ft, with 5 bedrooms + 1 huge bonus/toy room). I guess she misses it anyway...

She also has been getting upset when I hold Hannah. She tells me to put Hannah down, so that I can hold her... or to take Hannah off of my lap, so she can sit on my lap. I think her feelings get hurt a lot when I don't just put Hannah down to give her the attention she is wanting.

Maybe she misses "the army house" because most of the time that we lived there, it was just her and me... there was no baby sister to compete with... and her Daddy wasn't even there most of the time that we lived there (as he was in Iraq for 15 months). She was just used to having all of my attention... pretty much all of the time. I guess she is just having some problems adjusting.

... We've also kind of been moving for a long time (from August 1008 - May/June 2009). In those 9 months or so, we moved around between 4 different homes until Brian found a job and we finally found a home to buy. We didn't even have our funiture during that time, so Heidi has had kind of a rough past year. Hopefully she will soon adjust to her new life and get used to her new home.

Park Days & Free Lunch!

Last Wednesday (a week ago), I took Heidi & Hannah to the splash park and a free kids concert at Les Gove Park in Auburn. Heidi had fun. We went with her friend Alicia (who is only 8 days older than Heidi and was actually born on Heidi's due date). Heidi actually calls her "Walicia." Alicia's baby sister was born only 3 days after Hannah, too. We all met at the parks and had a fun day last week. We were going to go again yesterday (Wed), but Heidi was so grouchy and kept yelling at me about how she did not want to get dressed and she did not want to go play with anyone today. She was just So Extremely grouchy! ... so I had to call Alicia's mom and tell her that we could not make it. I tried getting her dressed and tried getting her to go because I thought she might need to get out and might feel better once we got out, but she was just so grouchy that we ended up staying home.

She has started nap time again, too (because of her grouchiness). Yesterday afternoon when I put her down, I told her that she didn't have to go to sleep, but she had to stay in her bed for at least half an hour. After she had been in there for about 20 minutes or so, I went to her door to listen (to hear what she was doing). She must have just been really bored. She was just saying the names of all of her cousins "Audrey, Austin, Genevieve, Megan..." and then she moved on to just random words, like "flowers, trees..." At least she had some quiet time. I think we need to go back to doing nap/rest time every day again.

Monday of this week, we also went to a playgroup meeting at Cedar Lanes park in Auburn with a bunch of the kids/parents from church. While we were there, I kept seeing kids lining up on the side of the park. I couldn't figure out what they were lining up for. It just just a line to nothing. I asked one of the moms that was there with our group if she knew what they were doing and she said that Auburn City Schools provides free lunches for kids ages 1 - 18 at about 20 of the parks around Auburn every day. I couldn't believe it! It is supposed to be for the kids who normally get free lunches, who might not get to eat a lunch if one was not given to them through this program. One of the moms there said that we should use it even if we don't need it because it it isn't used, they may take it away... so Heidi got a free lunch that day. They even had 3 main course choices! Heidi had a corn dog (which is one of her favorite foods), grapes, peaches in a cup, and chocolate milk.

Hannah is crawling at 4 months

Hannah has been kind of creeping/scooting her body along by using her arms and legs, but her tummy has been down on the ground... but she has gradually been getting better at it... and yesterday, she started getting her tummy up off of the ground when she does it, so I think it is considered more of a crawl now. She gets up on her hands and knees and kind of rocks back and forth a few times and then a knee moves forward... and then rocks back and forth a few more times before her other knee moves forward. She's not moving very fast, but I think this is the beginnging of her crawling.

Heidi was 6 months old when she started. It seems like as soon as she discovered how to do it, she was almost immediately a Fast crawler. She never creeped or scooted either. She had been cruising around the furniture and trying to walk for a couple of months before she crawled. I almost thought she was going to walk before she crawled.

Heidi's Claritin

Last April, Heidi started coughing a lot and having a lot of post nasal drip (that I could often hear her making gulping noises to try to get rid of). I finally took her to see a doctor (I think at the end of May) because it just wasn't going away. The doctor said that she probably has allergies and that I should give her some Claritin. I only give her 1/2 tsp at night before she goes to bed (which is when her coughing is the worst). After using the Claritin for a couple/few weeks, her coughing seemed to pretty much go away, so I stopped giving it to her. Then, her coughing and post nasal drip came back again. Sometimes she coughs so much that it sounds like she is going to vomit (from all of the post nasal drip, I guess). Anyway, I had to start her back on the Claritin again. I didn't want to keep giving it to her if I didn't have to. We just ran out of the small bottle that I bought, so I'm going to buy some more today. Poor Heidi. I was hoping that whatever was causing her allergies had maybe gone away since it was now summer, but I guess not.

Hannah's schedule

Hannah seems to be napping pretty regulary now. She usually takes a morning nap (after she's been up 2 - 3 hours) around 10am or so. This one is probably her shortest nap of the day. Then she has another one around noonish (about 3 hours or so later). She usually has a pretty good noonish nap... and when she wakes up, she's probably good for another 3 hours or so before she needs another nap in the late afternoon. She's been going to bed around the same time as Heidi, too... which can range anywhere from 8pm - 9pm. Brian usually leaves work sometime after 6pm, so it takes him probably close to an hour to get home with all of the Seattle work traffic... so we usually don't eat supper until after 7pm... so sometimes Heidi gets to bed a little later than I would like for her to.

Anyway, I guess this is probably not very interesting to most people... just felt like writing about our schedule.

Can I have your pink shoes when you die, Mom?

Heidi, lately, has seemed to have a little obsession with death. She keeps asking questions about it and keeps telling me that she doesn't want to die yet... and that she doesn't want to grow up. She has asked me questions about when are her grandmas going to die... and when am I going to die.... and where we go when we die. She has told me that she doesn't want to die and go to see Jesus. My mom said that when I was her age I had an obsession with death for a while after I saw Charlotte (the spider from the movie Charlotte's Web) die. She said that I cried and cried after she died. I guess Heidi is just going through that stage now where she is just learning about what death means. She brings the topic up almost every day lately. Yesterday, though... I thought it was funny when we were just playing upstairs in the playroom (and not even talking about anything that had to do with the subject of death)... She asked me "Can I have your pink shoes when you die, Mom?" We both have matching pink crocks (the cheap fake ones from Target). I don't think she is going to really want them 50 - 70 years or so from now (which is about when I might actually die).

Heidi's Commercials

Heidi has really been getting excited about some of the commercials she has seen on tv lately. Since the switch-over to digital tv, she has been watching more commercials. Brian reprogrammed the tv to try to see if we could get more channels and we get a new channel called qubo now that has cartoons all day long... but there are also lots of commercials (most of which are for things most kids would probably not usually be interested in). Heidi gets really excited when she sees some of these commercials.

A couple of Sundays ago, I was in my bathroom getting ready for church and Heidi came in and asked me if I had any gold. After I told her that I did, she said that I could just put it in a bag... mail it in... and get my money. She had just seen one of those gold commercials. She gets so excited when that one comes on... "Mom, the gold one is on again! Come here mom... the gold one is on!" ... like I really NEED to see it.

There's another commercial about a flat iron that comes on. One day she asked me if I wanted this flat iron they were advertising. "It's only $19.99!" She tells me. "Don't you want to straighten your curly hair mom?" My hair, though, is about as straight as you can get it. When I told her no, she said she wanted to straighten her curly hair.

There are a couple of others she calls me in to see... the cozy commercial (the blanket with arms) and the big cupcake commercial. It's amazing how most of these commercials always advertise things that are either $19.99 or $19.95. Heidi is always telling me how much things are. She tells me "How Cool" things are that are advertised... and says "it's only $19.99."

One day she called me into watch a commercial about make-up. I guess it was kind of neat because it showed a before and after picture of someone and how they changed after having make-up put on. She said to me "Mom, you HAVE to come see this... it's SO COOL... and it's only $19.99!"

Just thought I'd write a quick note about Heidi's recent fascination with commercials. :)

Hannah is getting around!

Hannah is four months old and growing up so fast!

I can't keep Hannah on a blanket anymore. I used to lay her down and she would be content just playing with whatever toys were around her, but for the past two weeks, she's been getting better and better at what I guess is called creeping. She pushes herself along with her arms, legs, and feet. It's almost like a crawl, but her tummy is still on the ground, so I guess that is still considered a creep. She goes all over the place.

She also likes to talk... making loud, nonsense noises all of the time... and it is so cute when she giggles.

Hannah is also a great sleeper. Last night, I put her to bed around 9pm or so and she slept until about 6am. I fed her and she went back to sleep until about 9:45 am! She normally takes naps about every 3 hours or so throughout the day. She is also such a calm baby and hardly cries (which is very different from how Heidi was as a baby).

Just thought I'd do a quick update on how Hannah is doing (since I usually just write about Heidi).

... Heidi is saying to me "Can you please come downstairs with me Mommy because I feel bad without you and I love you, so can you please come downstairs with me?"... so I guess that is all for now.

Heidi bought me lunch with her card...

If you read my last post, then you know that Heidi was wanting me to take her to eat lunch at McDonald's one day and she said that she would pay with her "card" that looked kind of like a credit card, but it had a picture of Ariel the mermaid on it... Well, Grandma Holly and Grandpa George got a McDonald's gift card and sent it to Heidi so she could really take me to eat lunch there and pay for it herself. She was so excited to go and pay for it with her card. She got her usual chicken nuggets (with no sauce), french fries, and chocolate milk. We still have a little money left on it, so I guess we will have to go back another day too, so she can pay for lunch again.

In her picture, you can see that she has a bandaid on her head. I guess she had a little scratch on her head and she thought she needed a bandaid to make it better. She wore that bandaid for a couple of days (until I told her she had to take it off... and that she couldn't wear it to church).