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Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas in 2011, except for the fact that everyone was ill for some part of it. Thankfully our bugs were fairly mild, like congestion and sinus infections, but unluckily we were all four sick and kept passing our illness around to one another. Tucker and Tess didn't sleep well away from home, but we managed to split our time between Maud and Enid for five days. The kids favorite part of Christmas was pulling all the fun ornaments off the tree and playing with them, and that's why all the breakable ones were hung above four feet high.

Tess' 1st Birthday

Tess was able to celebrate her birthday a couple of times. Having her birthday near a holiday meant we got to celebrate with her on the 19th, her actual birthday, and then again when we got together with family for Thanksgiving. On her birthday, we had some friends over for pizza and cupcakes and Tess loved the chocolate icing! The following week we went to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving and had another party for Tess! She was happy and loved the green icing on her animal cake (Big brother Tucker decided Tess wanted an animal cake).

Tess on her actual birthday

Precious Pumpkins

This year for Halloween Tucker told us he wanted to be a pumpkin. Since pumpkin costumes are pretty easy to find this time of year, we decided that Tess should be one too. We set out on our Trick or Treating adventure with the kids in a wagon, but that didn't last long because the kids were so excited and didn't want to be contained in there. Tucker had lots of fun, and every time he saw a pumpkin he pointed it out to us. Tess was just in amazement with seeing all the neighborhood kids dressed up. She didn't want to be held-Ms. Independent wanted to walk around the neighborhood too and tried a couple of times to follow Tucker up to the doors to get a treat herself. Tucker caught on pretty quick and would say "Trick or Treat, Please" and then would quietly say "Thanks you" (no that's not a typo, that's how he said it!). But what he anticipated most when going to the next house was getting to ring the doorbell. Some of the neighbors were sitting in their lawns to pass out candy, so that was a disappointment for him.

Tess Walking

So Tess has been walking for almost a month now, but we have yet to put up a video. So here's one of her taking a few steps with a little encouragement from her Big Bro and Daddy.






A few funny things that Tucker has been doing lately: He's been asking "What's that noisy?" when he hears something he doesn't recognize. He's been making comparisons to things, for example, if something is yellow he says "Is that like mustard?" or when he's eating he'll take a few bites out of a sandwich and then say "Is this like a dog," "chair," "dinosaur"...or whatever he thinks it looks like. Which is an improvement over what he used to always ask, "Is this like a pig?" He would ask that about everything for a long time, but we haven't heard him say that for a while, and we have no idea where it came from.

Tucker's 2 1/2

Our little boy is growing up so fast. Like all little kids, he's a sponge soaking up everything he can. And since he likes to sit and read so much, he knows his letters, his numbers (1-10 anyway), and he can even tell us what letter some words start with.

Some days, he likes to commentate on everything he's doing. Some of our favorite things he says include: "This one way better" which is confusing when he's not comparing it to anything else, like a lone towel. Like most toddlers, he uses the word "no" a lot, but when he needs to say "yes" he says "please" instead. I've only heard him say "yes" a handful of times, and only when forced. One thing that he's started doing that we don't like so much is calling us "Mom" and "Dad", rather than "Mommy" and "Daddy"; we're still not sure how this came about.

He's getting pretty good at making excuses for why he's out of bed after he's been put down for the night. Some of my favorites are: "I need to pee-pee", right after he just went; "I need a drink", when his full cup is already in bed with him; and "I need my monkey head" or "red camera" or whatever else the toy of the day is.

Tess's Nine Month Check Up

Baby Tess is 9 months old already. Here are her stats from the doctor: she weighs 17lbs 12 oz (25-50th percentile) and is 27-1/2" long (50th percentile). When the nurse measured her head, she was in the 90th percentile, which was a little strange since she has always been average there too. The doctor remeasured though and the nurse was a little off. Thank goodness, not that there's anything wrong with having a big-brained child, it's just not good to be 50th percentile your whole short life and then jump up to the 90th percentile :) While examining Tess, the doctor discovered that she had an ear infection. Poor girl was in such good spirits though and hadn't been fussy or pulling on her ear or anything, so we decided not to give her antibiotics and let it run its course. She didn't have any shots this appointment except a flu shot and she had her finger pricked for a CBC. They called me later to tell me she is anemic so we're giving her a multivitamin with iron.

Here's what our 9 month old has been up to lately:
Growing teeth-she has 6 in and 2 more on their way
Feeding/Sleeping schedule-she wakes up around 7:30, nurses, then eats some solids for breakfast, goes down for a nap around 9:30, wakes up and nurses, eats solids for lunch, afternoon nap around 1:30, wakes up and nurses, eats solids for dinner around 5:30 or 6:00, nurses before bedtime around 8:00pm.

She is definitely a happy baby. She wakes up from naps and will play happily in her crib. She loves playing peek-a-boo with me while she's in her crib. I crawl around on the floor and go to the other side of her crib and she thinks it is the funniest thing ever. She'll stand up in her crib trying to find me and then when I pop up and say "Peek-a-Boo!" she laughs so hard she falls down.