Adah is 14 MONTHS!

Adah went to an occasional 3 feedings/day sometime in the first week of January. She got a pretty bad cold the week of January 14th so she was nursing more than usual, but I think it's official, as of January 18th she is on 3 feedings. Here is an updated schedule: Wakes at 7/7:30 and nurses. I pump milk to make her cereal for breakfast and she eats around 8. She still goes down for a morning nap at 9ish, wakes around 10:30/11. She eats lunch around 11:30/12 (still eating a significant amount of baby food because she is very picky with textures and won't eat very well otherwise). She nurses around 1:30/2 and goes down for a nap right away. On a side note: I don't know if you have ever heard about the 2-3-4 schedule (down for nap 2 hours after they wake in the morning, down for another nap 3 hours after waking from their morning nap, and down for bed 4 hours after waking from their afternoon nap), but it has worked WONDERS for my girls' sleeping habits. It isn't usually exactly like this, but it is a nice guideline and more often then not is very accurate! And it's always a struggle to know when they are ready to give up their morning nap but during the transition with Kezzie I remember only letting her take an hour nap in the morning until she was completely ready to give it up. I'm sure this doesn't work for every kid, but it has worked beautifully for mine and I think I would probably go nuts if it worked any other way! Adah isn't ready to give up her morning nap but I am noticing more that it's hard for her to get to sleep for her afternoon nap, so it might be time to start limiting her morning nap to a hour or so!! Anyway, Adah will wake from her afternoon nap around 3:30/4 and have a snack and milk or water. We will eat supper by about 5/5:30 (she will mostly eat what I make for supper (I don't know why she is more willing to eat regular food at this time, maybe because the whole family is around the table?) unless she is really refusing it then I will get out a jar or two of baby food). She nurses around 7:45 and goes right to bed. On occasion, Adah is ready for bed at 7:30!
Adah is growing so much and learning A TON from her big sister!  You can see it in her eyes, that as she watches Kezzie move and jump and potty and eat and just do things, she is absorbing it all like a sponge!  It scares me a lot too because Kezzie is into jumping off things like chairs and the fireplace and I am always afraid Adah is going to be brave enough to try it too.  And when they are taking a bath (I think I have mentioned this before maybe) Kezzie likes to stick her face in and blow bubbles but Adah tries to do this and will often inhale water and gag!  (Adah LOVES her bath and signs it and points to the stairs every night when she knows it's almost bedtime). We have started taking Adah up for her bath about 15 minutes before Kezzie and let Adah have some time in the bath to herself without Kezzie overpowering her!  It is so fun to see her find things to do and make up her own play.  She loves the squeeze toys that you fill up with water  (and laughs really hard when we spray her) and she also just likes to watch things float and she will push them around in the water like they are swimming!  Adah is trying to learn to jump and is getting really fast at walking!  I don't know if I would call it a run yet though!  As I mentioned before, Adah is still not huge on table food.  She is VERY picky about textures in her mouth so if you give her something solid with a sauce around it she will spit it out because she doesn't know how to sort the two apart.  I can't even give her #3 baby food jars because they are all a little bit ground up but with chunks in them (like chicken and stars-the chicken is puree but the pasta is full pieces).  She is picky about her veggies too.  I give her cooked carrots , sweet potatoes and broccoli, etc. and she won't eat it because of the texture but if I give her baby food carrots or sweet potatoes she LOVES them and the same with baby food broccoli.  She likes to eat green beans but won't eat them cut up, she likes them whole so she can hold it and take bites off.  She refuses corn altogether but will most of the time eat peas.  She is a great bean eater and also loves her meats.  Her new thing now is having dip.  She will eat pretty much anything as long as you put a dab of ranch or ketchup on her tray!! She continues to love most of her fruits but is still pretty particular.  She will only eat puree bananas but completely refuses them in their natural form! She is doing a great job with her whole milk.  But she definitely prefers water.  Sometime in the last month or so we had to start iron drops.  Adah does great with them as long as we mix them with orange juice or cran-grape juice.
Adah is saying so much too.  She talks more with her actions but we are so used to it that we think she talks more than she does! 
I am pretty sure that Adah will have her first hair cut sometime in the next month...her bangs are well into her eyes and I find her frustrated at this quite often!

What a wonderful joy Adah brings to our family.  It is so awesome to see how much Austin and Keziah love her and welcome her into our family!  I know it's kind of weird to mention this after she has been a part of our family for 14+ months, but I am amazed every day at the love/hate relationship among siblings.  I remember this all too well with my own, like it were yesterday!  I am so excited to see how they grow and learn together over the next months and years!  Thanks for following along with us!

Where to?

We cannot get this girl to leave her carseat alone.  She seriously wants to go somewhere-anywhere.  She loves people and going places to see people.  We have to hide her carseat in the entryway (where it's freezing cold) so she doesn't try to strap herself in it all the time.  If you look closely at the second picture that is exactly what she has tried to do!  The hat is just an added touch.  She will wear her hat around the house for hours at a time.  I guess at least she is prepared if we want to go anywhere!

Little Piggies!

Today we tried little pig tails.  She looks adorable.  I was able to distract her enough to leave them alone until lunch time.  We were trying to wait to show daddy when he came home for lunch but he wasn't able to come today.  Shortly after getting in her high chair she discovered them anyway and pulled one out!  They were cute for a while though and it was fun to see that her hair is actually long enough to do this with!  So sweet!

Keziah is 38 MONTHS!

My beautiful big girl!  She is so much fun to be around!  So energetic and bubbly!  She daily sports the side pony as we continue to grow out her bangs.  I love it when she gets out of the bath and her bangs hang so far down her face and then I pull them over to the side to put the ponytail in, I just smile at her and say, 'there's my beautiful girl'.  She smiles back at me and will often give me a big hug or kiss!  I have many special moments with Keziah and I pray I continue to have these opportunities as she grows.  I pray she will always know how special she is! 
Some things we are struggling with right now are listening skills, repeated disobediences, bedtime potty accidents, screaming (either happy or mad screams), and the list goes on!  While these things are hard and very emotionally exhausting, there are many wonderful things going on too.  I watch her light up as she learns something new like her letters or a new number, or finally doesn't skip the numbers 16 and 17 on her way to 20, or as she spells the first three letters of her first name!  I watch her daily get excited to see Adah wake up in the morning.  I watch her share with Adah and be helpful when Adah needs it.  I watch her pretend like she is a mommy and most of all I watch her watch me the way that Adah watches her.  I am so blessed to have her learning from her mommy everyday and being able to have a hand in how she learns.  But I daily have to pray that my actions are what I would want her to learn...that is the trick!
Keziah has really started getting into board games and card games.  Some of the most recent ones are Don't Wake Daddy, Pop the Pig, Go Fish, Old Maid and Guess Who.  It's fun to have an activity to do together that I don't get totally bored at!  Kezzie has also started singing everything she says.  She will usually say it normal at first and then get something stuck in her head and just start singing it.  I don't even know if she notices she is doing it!
We love you Keziah and thank God for blessing our lives so richly by giving us you!

Brady turned 3!!

Today was definitely a day filled with lots of fun!  To top off the day we celebrated Brady's 3rd birthday!  I can hardly believe he is three already!  Keziah skipped her nap earlier today due to our family get together so she was snoozing in the car by the time we got back to New Hampton!  Mat and Steph were kind of in a hurry to get back to MN because the weather is going to get bad later tonight.  We ordered pizza from Poor Richards and had cake and ice cream.  Brady got some really fun gifts too!  I think his favorite gift was a puzzle that was four different puzzles in the same box.  He also got a set of golf clubs.  We just got him a boring ol' gift card, but at least maybe he can go and get some more puzzles if he wants!!  Happy Birthday Brady!  You are growing so fast!  We love you bunches and are excited to see what your next year brings!

Precious Molly!

I don't think I have officially announced the arrival of my newest niece.  This is precious Molly Maxine Alderman.  My oldest sister Casey and her husband Nate are the proud parents and Gavin is the proud big brother.  She was born on December 29th at 8:32am and weighed 7lbs 7.8oz and was 20" long.  She is so sweet, of course!  I was so excited when they all showed up at the family get together today! I already can't wait to hold her again!

Swimming!

This weekend was the last of our Christmas celebrations.  My dad's side of the family got together for our yearly celebration!  Even my Aunt Jill was there.  I haven't seen her since last years' family get-together.  She brought her grandson Owen and two of her three kids (not so much kids anymore!).  It was so great to see them.  They stayed in a hotel in CF so we were able to go over there and swim with them last night.  The water was pretty cold but after a while we were able to relax and enjoy it.  If it weren't for the girls, I would have been out of there in a heart beat!  They were just having way too much fun (even while their teeth were chattering)!  A little before we were going to leave we decided to warm up in the hot tub.  It was far from hot and more like a nice warm bath so the girls were even able to get in it.  They liked that a lot more!  We then headed to mom and dad's to spend the night.  We went to church this morning and afterwards everyone came over for a big lunch.  Not everyone was around last night so it was great to get together today too!  Aside from a couple of missing cousins, the whole family was together again! 

Friends!

This is a good friend of Keziah's.  Her name is Ellery and comes to play with us almost every Thursday while her mommy volunteers at the school her siblings attend.  Kezzie and Ellery have a blast together.  They love to play dress-up and babies and 'cook' in the little kitchen.  Ellery is teaching Kezzie all sorts of ways to have fun pretending.  Most of all though, Ellery loves our puppies and gives them lots of lovin'!

Shootin' some b-ball!

Here is Austin's basketball team!  Some of his best friends are on his team!

There have been several games that I haven't been able to attend and a couple that I have.  I always take the girls with and they always have a great time!  This particular day of games (there is always at least 2 games) was the first one we were able to go to and they were in Denver.  Keziah was too afraid to cheer for Austin out loud (if you can believe that!) but she cheered for him in whispers.  The boys played great.  It makes sports so much more fun when Austin is the one playing them!  There will eventually be some videos at the bottom of this page too!

 

So fun!

The girls have had so much fun on this play set that we got them for Christmas.  So many giggles!  Adah was a little hesitant the first time she went on it but since then has become quite the pro.  She has no problems on the ladder and loves to look through the scope, especially when mommy or daddy's face is at the other end.  She is still pretty scared to go down the slide on her butt by herself but does really well going on her tummy.  Austin even gets in on the fun playing pirates with Kezzie.  He and Kez even pretended they were bunk mates and set up pillows on the top landing and the floor underneath.  It's so much fun to watch them all get along!  I am not going to want to move it outside when spring comes! 


12/27/10

1/4/11

Randomness!

Here are a few pics from our weekend.  We stayed at my parents' house and after putting the kids to bed got to go out on a date.  We went to a movie-True Grit.  It was a fantastic movie!  I really didn't think I would be able to sit through a western but it got such great reviews I obliged!  I love that photo of Adah with daddy.  Are they not basically identical twins?!! That next photo of Adah in her car seat is a daily occurrence.  She LOVES to go places and lets us know all the time!  She grabs her pink snow suit and whines to have it put on her head.  Sometimes she will lay it on the floor and lay on top of it hoping we will zip her in!  Other times she will just climb into her car seat and sit for several minutes before getting bored.  Yesterday I actually had to move her car seat out of sight just to get her to stop crying/whining because she was so frustrated we weren't going anywhere!  The bottom middle photo is great too because #1 that is an iPad (thank-you mom and dad Uglum for that great family Christmas gift), #2 the girls are doing something together that doesn't involve fighting, #3 the girls are doing something together that doesn't involve ME!  Kezzie caught on the first time we ever played it.  She knows her way around really well and can play pretty much any game she is allowed without any assistance.  The two outer bottom pics are of the girls playing at my parents' house in the sun room.  I love that the TV is downstairs and they don't have cable so there is no temptation for it.  Kezzie gets creative with cushions sometimes and Adah, of course, is right behind her!  The sun room is also a great spot to watch birds and squirrels (and an occasional turkey or owl) and trains too!