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.

 

 



Two More Christmases

We celebrated Christmas day with just our family.  It actually ended up being a white Christmas, as we got a dusting of snow Christmas afternoon. 

I wanted to get a picture of the kids in front of the tree in their Christmas pj's, but niether of them had any interest in coorporating.

 

Stocking time...

 

Caden and Annabelle both got an ornament.  Caden hung both of them.

 

Here's Annabelle opening her present from Mommy and Daddy...a pink school bus.  Caden was pretty excited for her.

 

One of the things that Caden asked for was a Cement Mixer Truck.  Here he is opning it with his little helper.

 

He loves playing with his "Mixer Truck"!

 

Today, we had our last Christmas celebration at Mimi & Tia's house.  Annabelle and Daddy opening a present.

 

Caden and Mimi opening Wesley's present. 

 

Caden was pretty excited when he opened up his Cars sleeping bag. 



Juillerat Christmas

We headed to Tyler last Thursday for a four day weekend with my family.  The kids had so much fun playing with Nana, Papa and their cousins.

I attempted to get another picture in their shirts.

 

 

We had all the kids get in front of the tree for a picture before we opened presents, but we couldn't get them to all look at the camera at the same time.  I think this pic is so cute with the way that sweet Jack and Annabelle are looking at each other.

 

Here's Daddy helping Annabelle open one of her presents.

Papa and Jack are helping Annabelle open her present from Nana and Papa.

 

Here's Caden opening his trucks from Nana and Papa. 

 

Caden thanking Papa for his trucks.  He is such a sweet little guy.  Two days later out of the blue, he turned to Nana and said, "Nana, thank you for my trucks."

 

Caden had so much fun playing with his cousins.

 

Hallie spent most of her time on Papa's back.  They liked to sneak up on people, but I turned around and snapped this picture of Hallie before they could surprise me.  She's so precious!

 

Annabelle had fun watching all the big kids.

 

 



Birthday Parties Galore!

We have been to so many birthday parties over the past few months.  We basically have 1 a weekend, and sometimes 2.  But it gives us a chance to scope out locations to decide where we want to have Caden's birthday party this year.  One of Caden's playgroup friends had his birthday party at Pump It Up a few weeks ago, and Caden LOVED it!  So we will probably go with that location. 

Here's a picture of all the kids at Jack's Pump it up b-day party.

 

The party was in the morning, so Brian stayed home with Annabelle, so she could take her morning nap.  Caden wanted me to join him on the slides and obsticle courses most of the time, and it was really fun.  Here's a video of us going down one of the smaller slides.



Potty Training, Take One

I'm a little behind on posts...darn work projects, non-coordinating nap schedules, and Christmas shopping have been getting in the way of blogging.  After our week long domino of the stomach bug, we finally resurfaced a week and a half ago.  I took the kids to the Arboretum one day to attempt to take some pictures in their Christmas shirts.  Annabelle only sort of cooporated, and Caden didn't cooporate at all.  But we did have a nice picnic lunch.

 

Caden was only interested in trying to see the construction work being done on the Arboretum.  The darn fence was blocking his view, but he found a way to see over it. 

 

We had a very nice exit from the Arboretum...Caden kicked and screamed the whole way to the car because he didn't want to leave the construction site.  Then that tantrum continued with a solid 15 minute battle over changing his diaper in the back of the car.  People were stopping in the parking lot and staring.  I'm sure they were making sure I wasn't beating him.  I finally won the battle, and on the way home, Caden said, "I want to wear underwear, not diapers."

 

So the next day, we went and stocked up on underwear, a portable potty for the back of the car, and all the potty training accessories.  One day last week, he insisted that he wear underwear.  He went once, and then he tried to go while he was resting, but he wet himself on the bathroom floor before I could get there because he couldn't get his pants down.  When he woke up from his nap, I told him that we were going to the park and he needed to go potty.  He didn't want to and chose to put a diaper on instead.  I think the fascination with wearing his Mickey undies has worn off, and we'll be putting potty training on the shelf for a little while.