Sticker pictures

I can't believe we're done with all of her sticker pictures.  Here she is over the past twelve months.

 

 

 



Pushing and Standing

Annabelle is getting so close to walking.  She pushes anything and everything around (push toys, furniture, etc.).  She even started standing up completely unassisted in the middle of the room this past week.  Caden didn't actually stand up unassisted until he had been walking a week or two.  She just needs to build a little more confidence, and then she'll be off.

Here she is pushing furniture around last week.

 

We had been having a beautiful February, but got another blast of cold weather this past week.  Here she is yesterday all bundled up.

 

Pushing a different toy around earlier this past week...

 

I can't believe that she'll be one in less than a week.  I made her birthday shirt last weekend, and bought a tutu, so her b-day outfit is all ready for her party next Saturday. 



Valentine's Day & Brian's Birthday

I've been a little MIA on the posts lately.  But we've had a good, and busy, February.  Brian turned the big 4-0!  We just celebrated with a dinner out, sans kiddo's.  We also had a handful of Valentine's Day parties for the kids. 

Here's a picture of story time during Caden's Valentine's party at school.

 

I took the kids to the Arboretum one day and tried to get a few pictures.  They were a little skeptical of my attemts/pleas to get them to smile...

 

I did get a few decent pictures.  Sweet siblings...

 

 

 

Caden did a lot of running around...

 

Here's a picture of him running around the Arboretum in his Valentine's shirt last year.



Caden is 2 3/4 years!

I feel like I've been doing a pretty good job of documenting what Annabelle's been doing lately, but sometimes I forget that when I look back on this in years to come, it will be nice to know what Caden is up to developmentally these days.  Caden turned 2 yr and 9 months week before last.  He is still such a good kid; although, occasionally, he does remind us loudly and clearly that he is still a two year old.  He is so well behaved and well manored.  He is very good at saying "please" and "thank you".  It melts my heart when he says (completely unprompted) things like, "Thank you for making me these muffins, Mommy" or "Thank you for teaching my Sunday School class."  Also, he's so good at settling himself down.  Lately, when I put him in "time out", I will tell him to stay in his room for a few minutes until he's ready to apologize to Mommy/Annabelle/Daddy...and a few minutes later, he will quietly and sweetly walk out of his room and walk up to one of us and say, "I'm sorry for ___".

He still loves his cars and trucks.  I never thought pretending to pick up garbage could be so cute!

 

He loves being a helper.  He often helps me do all sorts of things around the house.  Here's a picture of him helping me empty the dishwasher. 

 

He just loves anything firetruck/fireman related.  He asks to watch "Fireman Sam" on tv during his 30 minutes of tv time in the morning.  Earlier this week, he asked me where his glove was.  I thought I had seen the oven mit sitting around, so I picked it up and asked if he was looking for the oven mit.  And he said, "That's my fireman glove!"

 

Here's a picture of our happy girl on a trampoline at a friend's house last week.  Can't believe she's turning 1 three weeks from tomorrow...



Annabelle is 11 months!

Tomorrow Annabelle will be 11 months old.  I can't believe how big she's getting.  I feel like she's really losing the baby look.  She's still such a happy little girl...adventurous, yet cautious.  She freely roams around her Kindermusik class, where as, Caden would never venture very far away from my lap.  She loves to stand all over the place and cruise a little, but her cautiousness is quite apparent if you try to get her to "walk" too much.  She will walk while holding your fingers, somewhat reluctantly, so I will be surprised if she takes her first steps before her birthday, like her big brother did.  Yet her fine motor skills seem to be ahead of where Caden's were at this age, which, according to our doctor, is generally typical of boy vs girl development.

Here she is with her month sticker on today.  She was posing "MJ" style the whole time...silly little monkey wouldn't put her tongue in her mouth.

 

Some more pictures from today. 

 

And the tongue is still out :)

 

Annabelle loves playing peek a boo crawling around the coffee table.  This was also a favorite game of Caden's at this age. 

 

We made a pillow pile to climb over earlier this week. 

 



New car seats

Annabelle has outgrown her infant carrier.  We moved Caden to a new car seat that will convert to a booster when he's big enough, and then we moved Annabelle into Caden's old seat.

 

The weather has been gorgeous the past week.  We have all been enjoying being outside, playing at the park, etc. after the cold weather and snow that we've had over the last month.  Caden enjoyed cutting the grass...

 

Annabelle always has fun watching her big brother. 

 

Two little drivers having fun at the grocery store last week... 

 

I finished the kids' Valentine's Day shirts last weekend. 

 

10 months

Annabelle turned 10 months the week before last.  She's getting so big...climbing on everything, standing up everywhere, and walking behind/pushing toys around.  She's still so happy and she loves to clap.  We weighed her tonight, and she's right at 22 pounds, so it's time to retire the infant car seat. 

Annabelle is still saying "Mama" and "baba" all the time.  Much to Brian's dismay, she's still pretty stingy with saying "Dada".  She said her first word last week; she picked up a ball and said, "baa".  And she repeated "moo" to me when I was reading a farm animal book to her.  She's also started waving.

Here are a few pictures in her month sticker.

 

Caden and Annabelle are really starting to play well together.  I love watching them interact.

 

The new Perot Nature and Science Museum opened up last month.  We went last week to check it out.  We just hung out in the Children's Museum, which honestly was a little disappointing.  It isn't nearly as big as the children's portion of the old NSM at Fair Park.  They do have a construction area that Caden enjoyed.

 

And a crawl area for babies.

 

As I mentioned, Annabelle is all over the place.  Here she is climbing on Caden's chair.

 

We went to the zoo for the first time in quite some time last week.  Since it's January and the first week for school to be back in session, there was no one there.  Four of the penguins were waddling around out of their habitat exhibit for a photo shoot.

 

After they were done, the zookeeper brought one up to us to pet it.  Caden was too scared to touch her, but I did.  She was really soft.