La La La

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Amy

A few weeks ago I posted this entry about how much we all love to sing at our house, and included a video of Miss singing “Whistle While You Work.” I still watch that video from time to time because it makes me chuckle.

I mentioned in that post that Lass also loves to sing, though of course she can’t quite do all the words to the songs like Miss can yet. Tonight my husband captured Lass singing on video. One of Miss’s favorite songs to sing, besides “Whistle While You Work” is the theme from the new Care Bears movies. She sings it loud and proud, “We are Care Bears, La La La-la-la!” She sings this so often that Lass’s original word for “Care Bears” was “La-la.” Now Lass can sing the La-la song herself. Check it out.

Have a great weekend. La La La.

Little Sister’s Day Out

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Amy

After dropping Miss off at school today (with no tears, by the way, hooray!!), Lass and I had a special morning out. We started out visiting a local cafe where they have a big play area. At first we were the only ones there and she almost didn’t know what to do with all these toys to herself.

Almost.

It is so fun to spend some special time just with Lass. She has the funniest little personality and it feels good to be able to shower all my attention on her. She seems to just eat this up and really shines during our mornings together.

After playing for a while and having a snack, we went to our favorite local library story time.

The children’s area of this library is wonderful. Lass loves the huge stuffed animals they have (yes, that is a stuffed dog) and the cozy sitting area with bins of board books just her size.

During the story time the kids and moms sit in a circle on the floor, do lots of songs, and of course hear a story. Lass likes to stand in the middle of the circle and dance during the songs. She is such a little ham! Then the librarian brings out lots of books, balls, blocks, etc. for the kids to play with for a while. It’s a great time for her to play with kids near her own size and for me to get to chat with some other moms.

My littlest (for now) and I had a wonderful morning together.

Little Sister’s Got Moves

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Amy

I have done a few posts about our family dance nights with photos and videos (like here and here and here) mostly showing Miss dancing. Well, Little Sister can shake her groove thing too. Check it out.

Lass – 13 months

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Amy

My little Lass is growing so quickly. She was 13 months old yesterday.

It seems like she is changing and doing more every day. She started walking more and more about one to two weeks after her birthday. She is now walking everywhere, and getting pretty quick.

She loves to climb and get into things.

She smiles and laughs easily and loves to be tickled. She doesn’t say many words yet. Just “Mama,” “Dada,” “Hi,” and a version of dog “Da.” She’s working on saying “Sissy.” My favorite is when she says, “Ticka, Ticka, Ticka” and tickles herself or someone else. It is adorable to see her smile and say this while poking her little fingers in her own armpits or tickling her own toes. She signs “More” pretty consistently now, but that’s about it. She sort of seems to do “All done” once in a while, but I’m not too sure about this one. I never really made the effort to teach her any other signs, so that’s all we get.

She adores her big sister. Miss can be a bit overbearing with Lass sometimes, grabbing and pulling on her. Most of the time Lass is pretty tolerant, but she has learned to assert herself when she has had enough. Usually she screams, but a few times she has tried to bite Miss! Of course I tell her, “No biting,” but I can’t blame her really… She is quite assertive with me as well. When she doesn’t get her way she likes to scream at the top of her lungs and throw herself backwards. I learned quickly that, when redirecting her from a behavior I don’t want her to do, I need to keep my hands on her to “catch” her and make sure she doesn’t hit her head as she throws herself to the floor. She’s a feisty little one, my girl is. She’s also a total love bug. She is super snuggly and gives the best hugs and kisses.

She loves to read and play with blocks and balls. However, her favorite thing these days is dressing up.

Often when we go in the family room to play, she will immediately go to the cabinet where I keep the tutus, pull them out, and hold them up one at a time so I will put each of them on her. All three at once is how she likes to wear them. She also loves wearing hats and glasses and carrying a purse. She must have gotten the dress up gene from me!

She also loves to dance and has the most wonderful little personality. She imitates everything, from facial expressions, to sounds, to sneezes.

She is so fun to be with every day. Most of the time she is such a happy little girl, and I just love to watch her grow and change. I can’t believe she is 13 months old!

A Snake and a Cake

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Amy

We had Lass’s birthday party on Saturday. We are at the Farm, and are so lucky to have such a wonderful place to have a party. A perfect example of how things often happen here is that one of the girls’ cousins found a snake shortly before the party started and brought it up to the house. Everyone was shying away from it, except Miss of course.

She thought it was pretty cool.

It was a dead snake,

but she didn’t care. I love, love, love that my girls can have experiences like this. Miss was not squeamish in the least about holding that snake, and that makes me smile.

Something else that makes me smile is a first birthday party. I like birthdays. I like celebrating my girls’ birthdays, but there is something just a little extra special about a first birthday.

It’s seeing the look on the face of my littler girl, who has never really had cake before, when she sees it for the first time. A special little cake just for her.

It’s feeling her excitement when everyone sings a song all together, just for her.

It’s this look of “Can I really? Really?”

And then the laughter and joy in watching her gradually try it out

and finally dig in.

She spent a few minutes just squishing her hands in the cake, loving the feel of it.

And then she remembered, “Oh yeah, this stuff tastes good too!”

I love this!

Getting ready to dive in…

Yum!!!

Washing it all down.

How many shots does it take to get our little family photo with everyone looking at the camera and smiling? Not so easy with a 2.5 year old, a 1 year old, and a cake sitting in front of both of them. In the first attempt, we did pretty well. Lass had already had her fill of cake. Unfortunately, Miss hadn’t gotten her piece yet, and she couldn’t take her eyes off Lass’s totally destroyed cake.

Second try? Miss stole a pinch of cake, and Lass didn’t like it too much.

Third try? Lass decided she’s better eat more before her sister got it all.

Oh well. They’re great photos anyway. Thanks to my Auntie for taking them (and for coming to the party from 3 hours away… and picking up the cakes…)

Big sister finally got her cake and ice cream.

She even shared with Grandpa.

And the clean up effort.

It was a wonderful day and a perfect party. So many family members came to celebrate with us, and that always means so much to us. Huge props to my in laws for letting us have this special event at their Farm. I know Lass won’t remember this day, but I’m thrilled to have these great photos to show her when she gets older. And the day is indelibly imprinted in my memory, just as Miss’s first birthday party a year and a half ago is. I love a first birthday party.

Happy Birthday Lass!

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Amy

My baby turned one today. She has been such a beautiful addition to our family.

She is the perfect sister for Miss. She laughs at her at all the right times, gives lots of love and hugs, and tolerates Miss’s ever increasing “muggings,” I mean hugs, fairly well.

She is such a happy girl and brings so much fun and laughter to our family.

She’s my little snuggle bear and I love how much she likes to cuddle.

The past year has just flown by. Today was for celebrating our beautiful Lass.

So, we went to the small local zoo for a play date. It was kind of dingy and pitiful, but the girls didn’t know that.

Goats and cows? Right on!

We also saw llamas, a wolf, elk, a lynx, and some monkeys. Lass is not a huge fan of her stroller, so I was really happy that she was riding in it at the start of the outing. Then we got to the monkey cage, where those noisy things scared the crap out of her, and I had to wear her the rest of the day.

I just had to share the photos of Miss climbing on this turtle. The park I went to when I was little had a turtle just like this, which I had completely forgotten about! Ah, the silly things that will make me nostalgic…

After dinner we had ice cream for a birthday treat, and then Lass opened a few of her presents. We are going to the Farm on Friday and having her party there on Saturday, so we’ll take some of her presents there with us, but today she opened the bigger ones that we don’t want to take.

She really didn’t even seem to care that we didn’t get this put together yet.

I got this Dora dollhouse from Ebay for a steal! The girls played with one of these a few months ago and loved it, and I loved that they could both easily play with it together and that it folds up pretty compactly. Score.

Naturally Lass tried to climb it.

Happy Birthday Lass.

One Year

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Amy

One year ago, I was arriving at the hospital, in labor with Lass.

I was excited about her impending arrival but scared and nervous at the same time. I had only been in labor with Miss for about four or five hours before I had a c-section, so I had very little experience and naturally I was apprehensive about my plan to have an unmedicated VBAC.

Little did I know how long that night and the next morning would turn out to be. Little did I know that Lass would be 10 and a half pounds of perfect. Little did I know how much joy she would bring to my life and our family. One year ago, when I got to the hospital, ready to get the show on the road and meet our little Lass, I had some idea about the joy part at least. I knew she would be wonderful and we would love her. I knew it would be amazing to have two little girls and a sister for Miss. But that night, one year ago, in my last few (okay, many and agonizing!) hours as a mommy of one little girl, I couldn’t even imagine how much. How wonderful. How big our love. How amazing.

Tonight I’m reflecting on that night, just before Lass came into our lives and made our happy family happier. I’m remembering being a little scared about how Lass’s arrival might affect Miss. I’m smiling at how it did affect her, and at what a fantastic big sister she is. Tonight I’m choking up thinking that my baby will be a year old tomorrow. I’m cringing slightly remembering the pain of getting her here (who the heck says you forget that, by the way?). I’m reminiscing about how great my husband was and what a great team we were that night.

Tomorrow Lass will be one, and I’m all sappy and sentimental thinking about it tonight. It’s amazing the difference one year makes in the life of a family. I remember feeling like Miss grew up practically overnight between the time I put her to bed on this night one year ago and the time she walked into my hospital room to meet her baby sister.

This is Miss, one year ago.

This is her a few weeks ago.

I love to see how much she’s grown.

I mentioned above how it seemed like Miss grew up almost overnight when Lass was born. Today was another day that made her suddenly seem so much more grown up.

Today she went for a visit to her preschool. Preschool. It wasn’t her official first day of school. That will be after Labor Day. Today she just went to check things out and was only there for about an hour and a half. She seemed to be having a blast when I left (she gave me a kiss and ran back to playing with blocks and toy dinosaurs with another little boy) and when I came back (she was happily drawing a picture). Her teacher said she had a little rough patch, but over all did great. When I asked Miss how she liked school she said, “I cwied because my want you.” Stab to the heart. Twist. Gulp. I have to remember how much fun she seemed to be having for the majority of the time she was there. She was very interested in the science area with the birds’ nests, rocks, seeds, and other various objects from nature (she couldn’t stop talking about the birds’ nests and seeds). She got very excited when we talked about trying to find something at the farm next week that she might be able to take to school to add to the collection. She talked about new friends she got to play with. I know she’s going to love school. She’s so confident and inquisitive. It will be great for her to have her own “thing” to do twice a week, without me. Hopefully her first “full day” (three hours) will be a little easier in a couple of weeks.

Lass and I will stay nearby just in case. Today we went two doors down to a bagel shop and met up with the Daddy (who is on nights this week and came from work) for breakfast and coffee. In my last post I mentioned that Lass was feeling under the weather. When she woke up with a fever again on Saturday I took her to the doctor and found out she had strep throat! I suspect she picked it up on the plane home from Florida. She’s been taking her antibiotics and is back to her happy little self now.

My little almost-one-year-old at breakfast with Mommy and Daddy:

Lass at 9 months

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Amy

Lass is 9 months old today. Can you believe it? She has recently hit this little spurt where she just seems to be doing so many new things all at once. She is trying so hard to get moving and is getting better and faster at her army crawling.

She now has six teeth and has eaten lots and lots of new foods, including most fruits and vegetables, chicken, and yogurt. Her favorites seem to be fresh mashed bananas and sweet potatoes. She still nurses four times per day.

I think she said her first word last week. What was it? “Da-Da!” Go figure! She has recently learned to wave too.

She loves to be outside and to watch her big sister.

She is pulling up on everything and has started cruising a little bit (like her momma, she sticks her tongue out when she’s working hard on something). She is already working on standing on her own, though hasn’t been too successful with this so far.

She is such a sweet little baby with the most wonderful disposition. I’m cherishing each new phase with her. And by the way, her hair has started to lie flat! So cute.