Monday, March 28, 2011

March 2011

March was a fun month! We celebrated Lydia's first birthday and enjoyed a quick visit from my parents! We also spent a weekend at the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells with the Evers Family! Other than 1 crazy snow-storm in mid-March, we're starting to see some grass and we're getting some warmer days!

I've gotten out a few times for walks with the girls! Yesterday Lydia thought it was hilarious to kick her boots off her feet as I was pushing her in the stroller! She just laughed and laughed every time I had to stop and pick up her boot and put it back on her foot! Today she thought it was hilarious to pull off her mittens and throw them outside of the wagon! Again, she just laughed and laughed every time I turned around and saw her throwing the mitten overboard!

Chad has had his eye on a newer boat and luckily, he just sold our boat today! So over the next month, he'll be busy checking out the new boat and hopefully, purchasing it! Makayla has been excited to go boating. One day she told Chad, "I'm all done with the snow, let's get out the boat!" She's also been admiring the new boat on-line with Chad. One day I was talking to her about our red boat and she said to me in a very know-it-all voice, "No, Dad is going to buy a blue boat!" She was very excited when Chad brought the red boat home from the storage shed earlier this week. She came inside and told me that we needed to build a bigger garage because both the boat and Dad's truck did not fit into the garage together!

Lydia has really started enjoying dolls this month! She likes to feed her doll a bottle or spoon feed the doll some pretend food! She also likes to take the doll in and out of the toy stroller and she tries to push the doll around!Makayla likes to put diapers on about 6 of her dolls and stuffed animals and then she'll go through and change the "poopy diapers" on each one of the toys! She has a toy garbage can which she fills with all the "poopy" diapers! She wraps them all up, just like I do when I change a diaper. Then she gives me the bucket of poopy diapers and I have to open them all back up for her so that she can use them again!

Lydia and Makayla are getting old enough to periodically play nicely together! However, most of the time they just taunt each other! Lydia will grab something that she knows Makayla is playing with and she just laugh and run away as fast as she can with it! Makayla will grab things away from Lydia and push or hit Lydia. Lydia is learning to push back and sometimes she pulls Makayla's hair. Sometimes, when Makayla grabs something from Lydia, Lydia will just look at me and put on a good crying show, hoping to get her toy back!

Here's a photo of me and the girls chillin' before bed one night! We weaned Lydia of her bottle this month since she seemed to be getting up a lot in the middle of the night wanting a bottle. She might have slept better a few nights, but she's full force into teething right now, so she hasn't been the greatest sleeper! I felt both of her top 1-year molars coming through in the past 2 weeks...hopefully the bottom ones cut through soon so she can sleep a little better!

Makayla has been pretty hit or miss with her potty training up until the last week of March. Actually, she gets the potty training concept, it's just a matter of her deciding she is ready! All of the sudden, she wanted to wear underwear all the time, day and night! She stayed dry all week at school, but had a few evening accidents at home. Last night was night 3 of wearing underwear to bed and she stayed dry all night! The first 2 nights she woke up wet in the middle of the night and we had to change sheets and clean her up! She must have remembered last night because she made it to the potty in the morning! In the past, she's gotten up to go potty in the middle of the night...so again it's just a matter of her deciding she's ready! Sometimes, I will remind her she's wearing underwear and I'll ask her if she has to go potty. She'll just say, "I'm fine Mom!" in an annoyed voice! Unfortunately, she's not always fine and she'll have an accident shortly after my questioning

Lydia LOVES Cheetos! She always wants more than 1 on her tray. Here, I gave her 4 at once and of course, she had to hold all 4 at once and try to eat all 4 at once!Lydia also doesn't like things cut up into pieces. She was using her front teeth to gnaw up a grape today...so I cut a few in half and gave them to her. She just took the cut ones, looked at them, threw them on the floor, and then pointed back to the bowl of whole grapes. I think she thinks they look like balls, which are one of her favorite things right now! She has a few favorite balls that she carries around the house. And she wants anything that looks like a ball...including apples and tomatoes that are sitting on the counter!

Here's a picture of Lydia and Grandma Sandoval! Lydia's 1st birthday was on March 4! We celebrated the following Friday with family and friends! Here's a picture of her cake: (which I would love to take credit for, but unfortunately, I did not make it...in case you are wondering...)Lydia wasn't too sure about us singing to her and it took her a few minutes to figure out her cake, but once she dug in, she loved it! Lydia had lots of help opening her gifts, which was fine with her! She was more interested in this big box that one of her gifts was wrapped in!We had a fun play date with my friend Louise and her two children, Ella and Jayden! It was quite amusing trying to get all the kids to sit still for a photo!Some of Makayla's new phrases are "taada" and "look everyone!" She'll say "look everyone" as she holds something up and slowly turns around to show it to everyone in the room! She also is very observant of when Chad, me, Lydia, and her are all in the same room. She will say, "we're all in here!" I took Makayla outside after our crazy 12+ inches of snow and we had fun trying to walk in the snow and then falling over in the snow and making snow angels! It was one of the first times I actually got outside with her...typically Chad takes her outside and I stay inside with Lydia!

Lydia is starting to be more verbal too. She can pretty clearly say: Mama, Dada, hi, and ball. There are a lot of things that I think she is trying to say, but that aren't too clear! For example, she will also say "tickle,tickle" as she wiggles her fingers by my neck! She also says "whoa" when she falls down! She loves to chatter and one of her favorite babbles is "doobaa" which she says about 5 or 6 times all strung together. She will say that and then I will say it to her and she will say it back to me! She uses sign language to say "more" and "all done". She can wave hello and bye. She will shrug her shoulders and hold her hands up when she is looking for something. She can also nod her head yes and shake her head no! She loves to hear us say "no" and then she'll just laugh at us! She likes knocking over a tower of blocks and she absolutely loves playing downstairs or taking a bath! If she hears either of those words (downstairs or bath) she drops everything and goes running to either the steps or the bathroom!

After daylight savings weekend, the girls got into weird sleeping patterns! Lydia was going to bed around 7:00pm and getting up at 5am! Makayla was not falling asleep until 10 or 10:30pm and we were dragging her out of bed after 7am!! Chad and I were getting tired of burning the candle at both ends! We've finally got them back to both getting up around 6 or 6:30, which is a decent time! And when we are lucky, they are both asleep before 9pm! Sometimes I think Lydia sleeps less than Makayla does...especially with her recent transition to only wanting to take 1 nap a day! Sometimes all she takes is one 90 minute nap! Makayla would sleep over 2 hours if we would let her! We started limiting her to 90 minutes so that she wouldn't be up so late at night!

Well, the girls continue to keep us going non-stop! Check us out again next month! :)

March Family Photos

Here are my favorites from our family photos!










Thursday, March 10, 2011

February

Wow....this post has been a work in progress over the course of a few weeks! February felt even shorter than it was! We continue to feel the impacts of having 2 kids in daycare! We were hit with colds/fevers 3 weeks ago and we were slammed with the flu 2 weeks ago! We are fairly healthy at the moment and looking forward to some warmer weather and to leaving the cold/flu season behind! We also can't wait to get outside and get some fresh air!

We did have a nice weekend in mid-February and I took the girls out for a stroller and wagon walk! Lydia screamed the entire time that I was putting her snow clothes on and as I was forcing her to sit in the stroller! But as soon as we started walking, she was laughing and had a blast! Lydia loves to look out the windows in the house and will stand on her tippy-toes on the top of the register and pull herself up on the windowsill, trying to see outside! Makayla got outside a few times! She just loves to play in the snow and sled down the little hill that Chad made in the front yard!
Now that Lydia has mastered walking, she's been working on climbing and jumping! She loves to go up and down the steps and will take-off towards the steps if we ever leave the door open when we're in the basement. I've been trying to teach her to go down on her belly or on her butt and she's starting to figure it out! One day I was leaving the house to go somewhere, so I went into the garage and got into the van. After I had gotten into the van, Makayla opened the door to the garage and Lydia snuck down the 2 steps and into the garage! I looked up from the van and saw Lydia bolting down the steps! Yikes!! At least she knew enough to get down the concrete steps safely!! Lydia also loves Makayla's toddler bed! She likes to climb up on the bed and try to jump! She also likes to swipe Makayla's water!
Along with her climbing, Lydia seems to have a new understanding of her surroundings and is starting to mimic what we do and is trying to communicate! She will stick her arm out and point to what she wants and make a babbling, grunting sound! She knows how to grab a tissue out of the box, hold it up to someones nose, and then go throw it in the garbage. She has also been eating us out of house and home! She loves bananas, especially when she gets to eat the whole banana, just like Makayla! She also loves the Crunch Berry cereal that Makayla twisted my arm to buy! Lydia takes all the berries out and hoards them in her little fist until she can eat them! Lydia loves to follow Makayla around and tries to do everything that Makayla does. She also loves to "test" Mom and Dad by standing on the fireplace mantel or pushing buttons on the DVD player! We just installed Lydia's new car seat in the van and flipped her around so she's facing forward! Now she likes to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the van with Makayla! Lydia has also started to nod her head up and down if we ask her a question. The best is when it's about 7pm and we say "Do you want a bottle?" Lydia will just nod her head up and down and get all excited!
Lydia also surprises us every day with how much she understands! One day Makayla was singing and dancing to the song "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" on her toy laptop. Lydia was watching and enjoying the music. A few days later I was singing that same song with Lydia and all of the sudden, she jumped up and ran over and grabbed the laptop! She remembered that the laptop played that song! :) Here's Lydia having fun with one of her toys!
Makayla continues to amaze us with her vocabulary and what she knows! The other day, she rolled her eyes at me! I don't think that Chad and I do that, so she must have learned that at school! When she was so sick with the flu, I was trying to change a very icky diaper. I put her in the tub and stripped her down to her diaper. Then, I wasn't sure how I was going to take the diaper off without making a huge mess, so I just stood there for a minute thinking. Makayla just looked at me and said, "Now what, Mama?" in a rather mocking tone. She's also likes to be the parent to Lydia and tell Lydia "no" and tell Lydia what to do! She'll say "No, no Lydia, you know better!" because we always say that to Makayla! :)

Makayla recently got upgraded from a toddler bed to a twin bed! She's very excited to have a new bed! She also sleeps much better in this new bed! I'm not sure if it's more comfortable or warmer or what, but she has started sleeping through the night pretty consistently now that she has this new bed!
Makayla and I had fun making homemade pizza one day. Unfortunately, the crust tasted kind of icky, but at least we had fun making it!I bought Makayla a pair of sandals for her to wear for Easter and and she insisted on getting all dressed up so that she could wear her new sandals!Here's a photo of Makayla wearing her new favorite PJ's! These were a gift from Great Uncle Gary and Great Aunt Sherry!

Makayla also loves to run around the house completely naked! I've spared you those photos, although they are quite funny! As we wrap up February, we are looking forward to celebrating Lydia's 1 year birthday on 3-4-11! We are also looking forward to getting outside for more stroller and wagon walks in March and we're excited for an Evers' family trip to the Wilderness Waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells!