Leaning Tall

I broke out the cart cover for Miss Hadley at the grocery store this week!  It's so much easier to put things in the basket without her carseat occupying the entire thing.  :)  We've also used it on restaurant high chairs with much success.  Yea for not carrying the carseat around so much!

Her favorite pastime as of late is to be propped up on things while she stands.  She cannot pull herself up yet, but she really wants to!  I think she gets frustrated (that she can't pull up) and whines until she gets some assistance, and then she's happy as can be.  At least until she forgets to keep holding on to the prop...

These socks were making me smile.  :)

This prop had a bonus of cats on top of it.  I swear the cats make her the happiest of anything in the world!  Huge grin and lots of chatter when a cat walks by.  I guess we are raising a future cat lady.  :)

Anyway, I digress.  But you get the idea.  This is how we spend a lot of time these days.  But how can you say no to that smile?

We got to reuse Owen's bunny hat.  Hadley was a bit older than he was at Easter, so the hat was a smidge too small.  Funny how they are making similar expressions while wearing it!

And I almost forgot!  She does this hilarious, fake laugh that sounds a bit like hyper-ventilating.  I think she does it when something is funny to her, but she can also be prompted to repeat it on command.  It reminds me of something from Revenge of the Nerds, and I can't help but laugh or imitate her right back!

As for big brother, Owen decided that Bo needed some time in the jumperoo and he was bouncing it gently.  

I asked myself if I should really post this one, but I couldn't help it!  Too funny.  He was "cooling off" after his bath one night by running around the living room naked.  He stopped to talk to Daddy, and I just had to capture this view.  :)

 And lastly, more sibling pictures!  So far they really seem to like each other.  :)

Gray Skies Are Gonna Clear Up

Well, we got snow last night and this morning.  It's mostly gone, but I am so ready for spring sunshine and short sleeves!  Or at least leaving the jackets at home.  C'mon winter, enough already!  I found some pictures of a couple of activities we used to survive the long winters here.

Bowling with friends:

An indoor trampoline park:

And of course, fun in the basement (not sure what was going on here, but both were happy, so I left it alone):

In Hadley news, she has gained nearly a pound in the 10 days she's been on the peanut butter and ice cream diet!  I guess it's working, since she jumped up to about the 12th percentile.  She has been scarfing down things like avocado-peanut butter smeared on bananas and ice cream-formula-Carnation instant breakfast-squash puree.  Hopefully, she will keep on eating and gaining well.

She also has tooth #3 as of a few days ago.  Although it's probably only a millimeter out of the gum, I'm going to call it, because she is already grinding them together.  It's the worst sound, like nails on a chalkboard to me, so I hope it's a brief phase.  :)  She makes all of the little, old ladies at church swoon.  Can you blame them?  

Now I know my...

ABCs!  He's been singing it for awhile (it's our hand washing song), but didn't want me to film him doing it for a long time.  Finally, he let me video him singing to the blocks.  I love it when he sings!  He can also kinda sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, as long as someone sings with him.  :)


P.S. He always skips 'J' for some reason, and he DOES recognize all of his letters despite pointing to random letters while singing here.  I think he's seen me do that while we sing, and he thought he'd give it a try.  Too much at one time, I think!

Three-quarters of a Year Down

That translates to 9 months for Miss Hadley Claire!  This month she finally surpassed 15 lbs!  Her measurements were 15 lbs, 1 oz (5%), 27.5" long (50%), and 17.5" head (70%).  Now they want me to keep coming in monthly to have her head measured in addition to her weight!  I'm pretty sure that there is some user/nurse error involved rather than my baby's brain shrinking.  Anyway, her weight is still a concern, and the doc actually recommended that we give her ice cream and peanut butter.  Translation: throw any nutrition qualms out the window and give her all the fat and calories that you can find.

You can see her two teeth here.  The top two have just been hanging out at the gum line for months now.  One of these days, they are going to pop through, I hope.

She immediately tries to eat the sticker each time I put it on her.  She loves the crinkly sound, I think, but it kind of reminds me of putting something on a cat.  They become obsessed with getting it off.  :)

I had fun reviewing where Owen was at this age.  He weighed more than 4 lbs heavier, and was already crawling and pulling up.  I know you are not supposed to compare kids, but I can't help it!  Hadley has been getting up on all fours and rocking, but she still prefers to roll and wriggle to get somewhere.  Notice how she slowly, but surely, gets this newspaper.

She also has a "creepy crawl" in which she will propel herself with her feet, on her back, with her head upside down looking at you.  It looks a little like something that belongs in one of those creepy-kid movies, but the doctor assured me that it was no cause for concern.  :)  Probably that she just gets frustrated with the lack of progress on her tummy and discovered this motion one day.  Still have to get this on video.

We've also been trying out the big high chair with some different finger foods, like banana and puffs.  She seems to be over pureed foods, so it's mostly a yogurt and breastmilk diet for her currently, even if I mix the pureed stuff in with yogurt!  She did seem to enjoy the peanut butter yesterday, and I'm sure she will love the ice cream.  I'm hoping that all of these efforts will lead to her eating more and gaining some weight, but she sure is stubborn!

Owen likes to "help" place her puffs in her mouth and spoon-feed her yogurt.  Of course, his payment is for her to "share" her puffs with him!

Hippity Hoppity - Happy Easter!

Okay, I was wrong about the weather on Easter.  It was absolutely gorgeous and has been for the better part of a week.  The forecast even continues this way (60s and sunny) for several more days!  I'm probably just jinxing it by talking about it.  Anyway, we are loving it!

On Saturday, there was a city-wide egg "hunt" at the park within walking distance of our house, so we met up with Carson and Abigail and just made it as the "GO!" was sounded.  I put the word hunt in quotation marks because they just had several roped-off, age-appropriate squares of grass where they dumped a total of 16,000 eggs.  They were all snatched up within a minute, and Owen was just wandering around marveling at all the kids grabbing eggs out from under him.  Luckily, there was a generous mom next to us who had her children share their bounty with Owen.  We passed some along to Carson, who didn't pick up any either.  Do you see Owen (in white)?

Hadley enjoyed the view from the stroller.

On the way home, we peeked in at some ice skaters prepping for a show that afternoon.  When he overheard Carson's dad ask Carson if he wanted to come skate next weekend, Owen's response was "I do!"  He was impressed by the young figure skaters.

Eggs!  These were fun even before they were filled with candy.  :)

The next morning we had Easter baskets, which were more entertainment-based than candy-based, but still well-received.

One of the favorite basket items was the Easter grass itself.

The egg hunt at church was also separated by age groups and much more civilized.  There was only one other pre-school-aged hunter in Owen's group!

I was excited that Hadley had another occasion to wear her super-cute dress.  It was warm enough, and it still fit!  

Back at the house, we dined al fresco and enjoyed all of our blessings.  Happy Easter!