the part-ay

Since Gwen’s first birthday party was well over two weeks ago, I guess it’s about time to write a little recap. The theme of Gwen’s party was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Katie was the one who put the idea in my head and I’m so glad she did because it fit just perfectly. Not only because Evalyn’s first birthday party was also the title of a theme song (A Bushel and a Peck) …(sidenote: I seem to have started a trend here… I need to start thinking of other theme songs that could work for parties for future children)….but also because throwing a rainbow theme birthday party in the summer is the easiest thing ever.

Basically, anything that is any bright colour would work for decorations and bright colours are very easy to come by in the summertime. Most of the decorations were things I already had or things from the dollar sections at Target/Walmart and the Dollarstore.

When I thought of the theme I set Elizabeth off to work on creating an invitation and decoration package. And she did not disappoint. Obviously. Her work is always so wonderful. If you’re looking for invitations, birth announcements, nursery prints or anything of the sort, head over to her shop.

After a few (okay, more than a few) back and forths (thanks for your patience Liz!) we had exactly what I was looking for…

She also made coordinating cupcake toppers, favour tags, food labels and a banner … all which you will see in the following photos. Combined with a friend from church cutting scalloped circles and rectangles die cuts out for me – the decorations were easy and perfect!

I had a major brain fart and planned Gwen’s birthday for Father’s Day. Why didn’t anyone tell me this in the planning process? I’m not sure. Anyway, it wasn’t until well after the invitations had been designed, printed and distributed that I even realized it. Ah well, cute baby Gwennie trumps Dads any day of the week.

When I set out to plan Gwen’s first party, my goal was to have a cute, fun party without going (too far) over the top like I did for Eva’s.

Well, HA. HA. HAHAHA.

The thing is, once I start, I just can’t stop.

But being totally honest, I really did achieve this goal. Although my husband still teased me about the level of detail at this party, it was not as intense as Eva’s. Making 40 candy apples the day before a birthday party? Never again. Like I said, most of the decorations were things I already had and/or inexpensive and easy to make or put together. Especially since I suckered my girl Briar into making all the tissue poms for me. One of my favourite accents to the decorations was wrapping a ton of variously sized, empty boxes in two different patterns of wrapping paper that fit with the colours and theme of the party. This was such a cute, simple and CHEAP way to add a lot of POP to the tables. Adding the extra height and patterns really did a lot for the look of things.

I decided on a taco bar for the food – of course, there’s nothing inherently rainbow like in a taco bar, but it was fun and colourful and most importantly, delicious. I did both taco beef and shredded BBQ taco chicken. We also served chips, salsa, guacamole, queso, veggies and southwest ranch dip, texmex quinoa salad, taquitos and 7-layer dip. For dessert, there were cupcakes (duh) made my Evan’s talented cousin, rainbow fruit kabobs made by my girl C-Bisc, with “fluffy cloud” dip (marshmallow fluff and cream cheese), and a candy buffet.

For favours, I skipped making favours for the adults (sorry, friends!) and just stuck with the kids. At Eva’s first birthday there were hardly any kids so I did the candy apples for adults but this time, there were a plethora of kids so it was great to focus on them. I gave the kids a sand bucket with shovel, filled with “rainbow” stuff – freezies, rainbow goldfish, skittles, playdoh, sidewalk chalk, crayons and bubbles. For a guestbook, I had a copy of a “Somewhere over the Rainbow” book for people to sign (this is the same thing I did at Evalyn’s party). I also had tissue poms hanging in various spots and a 12 month photo display of Gwennie. I don’t have good pictures of either of these things because they were all on windows. The tissue poms hung in place of our curtains and the 12 monthly photos were mounted on scalloped rectangles and displayed on the window behind the food table.

I started to get a wee bit (okay a lot bit) nervous in the week leading up to the party because the weather forecast was not looking good. We were expecting about 25 people, plus kids and well, our house just isn’t cut out for that many people. We were so blessed that the rain stopped about an hour before the party started and the sun poked through the clouds, giving us a beautiful afternoon for the party. The bright side is that our icky, unfinished basement is in better shape than it ever has been since we got it all ‘cleaned’ up in the event I had to banish the boys downstairs to play pool. It was a good thing it turned out to be inside, too, because my Sweet Girl was pretty overwhelmed with the chaos when everyone started arriving. It was good for for us to get outside and spread out.

The day was all together so much fun – a wonderful afternoon of celebrating our sweet girl. I guess for the rest of the post, the best thing is to just let the photos do the talking…

Our Family

Normally I don’t think I’d post so many photos of people eating but every time I look through the pics, I can’t help but laugh at the “baby row”, as I called it. Seven little high chairs all in a row. Are my kids blessed or what?

The cake smash.

After Gwen was finished with her smash cake, I thought it would be HIGH-LARIOUS to pretend to smash it in Evan’s face. Then he started asking me why the icing stunk so bad. I was completely annoyed by him asking this out loud in front of everyone since Caley (who made the cupcakes) was sitting RIGHT there. And, well, you know, she's pregnant and hormonal and I was afraid she would cry and be embarrassed about the stinky icing. So I gave him an evil "shut your pie hole right now if you know what's good for you" stare and took a whiff of the cake to prove it didn't stink. And, yeah, you know the rest. Joke's on me. I was covered in icing for days.

It’s so hard to believe my second baby’s birthday has already come and gone. A year has been quick enough to go by in an instant and long enough to change our hearts forever. Thank you to everyone who has celebrated her first year with us!    

twelve months of gwenna

Gwennie Girl,

I blinked.

I blinked one short blink and suddenly, here we are. A full year (to the exact minute if this post publishes when it’s supposed to) since that beautiful July morning when you stole my heart and made me the mother of two.

It’s gone so fast. Yet, somehow, at the same time I feel like I have soaked up and savoured your first year in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I cherished those lazy naps in my bed with you. I cherished the months that you spent hours snuggled between Daddy and I in our bed. I cherished watching you grow and learn and develop and explore. I noticed every milestone. I didn’t wish it away. I cherished it all. Maybe because I knew just how fast these days would be gone.

You are my sweet slow down baby. When life is moving too fast, you have taught me, at the most important times to stop. To stop and slow down and just be.

You are a beautiful soul. You light up every room with your smirks, smiles and giggles. You make friends wherever you go, waving and chatting with everyone you see.

People always talk about the second child living the shadow of the first, and going unnoticed. I think those people are crazy. You are in the spotlight more often than you’re not. Because, you see, not only do a have a proud Mommy and Daddy doting over you, playing with you, loving on you and getting excited with you about every discovery and development you make – but you also have a Big Sister who loves you up just as much, or more, than we do. She is your biggest fan. I have waited and waited for the novelty of having you around to wear off for her – but it hasn’t. Of course, there are starting to be moments of disagreement and annoyance between you two, but for the most part, she adores every single thing about you.

My blue-eyed girl – the moments we have shared this past year are so cherished in my heart. There is something about the first year that’s just so special. You have come so far, changed so much. From a tiny little babe nestled on my chest to a walking, running, playing, spirited little girl who is joy to me. You are very evidently becoming your own person. You are dramatic and funny and silly. You love to be outside – bringing your shoes to me within two minutes of waking up and banging on the glass of the windows, screaming at me if we don’t head outside right!this!moment. You love your puppy. You love your Daddy. And the two of them together is the best thing. You love your big sister. You love to play with her and copy her and most of all, annoy her. You love all of these things – but at the end of the day, you are Mama’s sweet baby. You begin and end your days cuddled in my arms and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You have captured us – so fully and so quickly. It’s only been one short year – but it’s as though you’ve been a part of our family forever. We can’t remember what life was like without you, and we’d never want to remember. You have made our hearts a million times bigger and filled us with a million times more love than we could ever imagine.

Thank you, sweet girl, for being ours and for making this year the best one yet.

All my love,

Mama

eleven months of gwennie

Baby Girl,

You are now eleven months old. Let me tell you, this one surely makes my heart hurt. Just weeks from now, we will be celebrating your birthday as a one year old. I’m trying not to get ahead of myself but it sure feels like it’s creeping up too fast. Every single day you do more and more things to remind me that you are, in fact, growing up before my eyes. This month has been so full of big, big changes. Your personality is shining, you’re starting to express your own ideas, preferences and interests and your temper flares up more often than I can say. You are a spitfire. You rock my world. You hold my heart in those tiny little pudgy hands.

Here’s how you’ve looked this month:

This month has been a big one for you. Most importantly, you’re now a full on official walker. After taking your very first timid steps when you were nine and a half months old, you cooled it for a while but by the days following your ten month birthday you were gaining more and more confidence. Each day you got steadier, faster and more brave until finally, about three weeks ago, you started taking off on your own more often than not and switched from crawling to walking as your preferred mode of transportation. Of course, you also don’t mind being chauffeured around in one of the many toys cars we have on the driveway.

In other big news, this month was the month of teeth. Girlie, you have had a tough go with some of these teeth. From fevers, to sleeplessness, to all around grumpiness. Food strikes. Whining. Clinginess and cuddles. But, finally, all that work has proven to be worth something. On May 15th your second top tooth finally busted through, after sitting at the surface for nearly 6 weeks. I have never seen a tooth take so long to come through. And then, just a few weeks later your third and fourth top teeth came in on May 27 and May 29th. So now you’re sporting six pearly whites and I have to say, those top teeth sure change your looks! Again, another reminder that you are turning into a t…t…t… I can’t say it.

As for sleep, you have become a champion napper (knock on wood!). You nap twice a day. In the morning you go down between 8:30-9 and sleep anywhere from 1-2 hours. In the afternoon, between 1-1:30 for 1.5-3 hours. I’ll take it! The nights have gone up and down due to teeth, but you are typically sleeping from 7pm-6:30/7am with one wake up anywhere between 4-6. It’s not too bad at all! We are still making an excellent team on the nursing front. You nurse 4-5 times a day, depending on how early that first morning feed is. I love those special moments with you. We pushed through the time where everything and anything was more interesting to you than nursing and now you’re back to loving it. You are serious about your milk and so I can nurse you whenever and wherever without having to worry about you being too pokey.

You’re still loving your food, though you went through a bit of a strike while teething. You love avocado, pasta, broccoli,  black beans and cottage cheese the most. Oh, and bread. Anything that remotely resembles bread is good for you. You’re still very iffy on fruit so I have to get creative sometimes, but we’re learning. Fruit smoothies every day!

You’re becoming excellent with using signs and figuring out a way to communicate with us. You sign “more” most often and have transferred it to other areas aside from food. You also sign please, thank you and all done but these take a little more prompting from Mama. Whenever you see Nika, you sign puppy and squeal with delight. She is your favourite. As soon as Daddy walks in the door, you start signing puppy because you know he will take you to see her outside. For a while, Puppy was also the sign you used whenever you wanted or were excited about anything but now you use “more” in place of that. You also sign “cup” and “milk” and have started using them unprompted to request a drink. We’ve started to work on help, but of course, it’s much trickier. As far as verbal words, you say “uh oh” , “Dada”, “Mama” (only at select times, on your own terms) and “EB”. As far as I can tell, “EB” is your way of calling to daddy when he’s outside. You stand at the window and yell, “EB! EB! EB!” I wonder where you’ve heard that before?

Some other fun tricks you’ve learned… You sing and dance all day long. Your singing sounds like “Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh” and your dancing mostly involves bouncing around, clapping your hands and kicking your legs. You kick your feet in the tub and when sitting down. You jump. You wash your hands when they’re dirty (wipe them back and forth together). You love to play “go nigh nigh”. You point to your head when asked where you’re head is or when we are getting ready to go outside.  I think because you know you need a hat. Similarly, you squeal with delight when you see me pick up my sunglasses. I think because you know it means we’re heading out. You like to carry things around, specifically buckets, and fill them up. You love to comb your hair with Sissy’s comb.

Speaking of Sissy, you love her more than ever. And you have suddenly become her little copy cat. You look and act so proud any time you do something that she does. Like put on her hat, carry her backpack or purse, or fill a bucket with toys. The other day she put shoes on to go outside and when I looked over you had taken a shoe out of the basket and were banging it on your foot. I’ve also caught you with a pair of her undies on your head. 

Watching the two of you together is the best gift I’ve been given as a mother. The best. The love you both have for each other is so … complete. Wherever she is, you want to be. Your temper shows itself loud and clear if you look out the window and realize she’s outside and you’re not. Especially if she’s with Daddy. He’s your second favourite.

My sweet, sweet Gwendolyn. My prayer is that you continue to grow up, learn, develop and explore that you know you can do anything. You are brave, you are a climber, you are an adventurous little love. I think you’ll be our dare devil and I hope I can reign in my mama heart enough to let you learn the hard way when it’s needed. You have a sensitive heart. Your feelings get hurt easily. Yet, I also see you learning how to work this to your advantage sometimes when you look to see if anyone is watching before putting on a show about something.

      When I look at you, especially in the quiet hours of dawn while we nuzzle in your chair to nurse, I feel a love so strong that it hurts. Often, my breath is taken away when I think of how blessed I am to get to hold you, love you, have you. You are truly a gift to my heart.

I don’t care what anyone says. You might be eleven months old. You might be walking like a pro, chattering up a storm and learning new things each and every day. But all of that aside, there’s one thing I know. You, my Gwenna, you are my baby girl.

Love,

Mama

eight months of gwennie girl

My Little Gwenna,

Here we are just past your big 8 month birthday and as always, time is zooming by faster than I am comfortable with. This has been a big, fun month for you.

You are a spitfire and your personality is beginning to shine through so clearly.

Case in point.

Our home scale says you weigh just over 17 pounds. You’re wearing 6-12 and 9 month clothes. Size 4 diapers, medium cloth diaper covers. Here’s a few glimpses of how you’ve looked this month.

You started the month off right by learning to pull yourself to a standing position holding on to furniture. And you haven’t sat down since. That’s almost not an exaggeration. Sitting on the floor to play with toys no longer interests you. You would much rather stand holding a chair, the couch, the coffee table – whatever you are close to – and watch what’s going on around you. This newly developed skill caused us all some grief over the past few weeks as you were far  more interested in standing up in your crib than sleeping for a good chunk of time. Also, baby learning to stand + hardwood flooring = disaster waiting to happen. I’m sorry for the head bonks you’ve experienced, little lady. But for real, just stay on your booty! Right at the same time that you started to figure out the standing thing, you also realized you didn’t have to lay down in the tub anymore. As soon as you sat yourself up, it was like you discovered a whole new world. Now bath time is filled with “Stay on your bottom. Sit down. Sit down. On your bottom” and other constant repetitions from Daddy and I.

You are a mischief maker. I cannot turn my back for five seconds without you getting into something. Your favorites are the stuff on the sofa table shelves, the DVDs and the dishwasher. You are also starting to figure out how to totally mutilate the toy shelves, which makes cleaning up so much fun for me! Along with standing, you’ve started to figure out a bit of the cruising business. Slow down, sweet baby girl, slow down. Although you are sometimes interested in walking around on your feet while holding our fingers, you mostly prefer to crawl. If there’s somewhere you need to be, you know how to get there. And fast. You don’t want to waste time trying to walk holding our hands when you know you could zoom there way faster by yourself.

You now have two teeth. Your first one popped through on February 13th and the second one came quickly after on the 16th. Based on your sleeping, napping and incessant whining lately, I’d guess there are more on the way.

Your Big Sisser is your very favourite friend. You love, love, love her. She makes you laugh all the time and you work real hard at keeping up with her. Of course, you clearly know that whatever she is playing with is where it’s at and always want in on the action. I love seeing you together. I love knowing that you’ll be best friends and worst enemies as you grow up. I am so blessed by your love for each other.

You are a chatter box. Mostly you shriek and scream (not a crying scream, just a “I AM HERE AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW IT” scream) but you also jabber away saying “Da da da da” and “Ah ba” and “Ya ya ya” all the time. You also love to smack your lips, blow raspberries and give kisses. I’m the only one you are usually totally forthcoming with the kisses with, and I don’t mind that at all. I know I’m your favourite. We have started focusing on some sign words with you since you’ve started to wave sometimes and food is becoming an integral part of our daily routine. You have definitely waved, signed cup, milk and eat. We are gradually working on more, all done, please, thank you and a few others. It’s so fun watching you learn to communicate. Let’s just try to stick with the signs instead of the super loud shrieks, how about it?

Sleep has been an issue this month. You are very inconsistent. So, knock it off, will ya? Typically you nap twice a day but the third one still sometimes sneaks in if your afternoon nap ends too early. You are in bed by 6:45-7 most nights. We have tried to push this a bit later, but you can’t seem to make it any later than that, no matter how hard we try. Some nights you’ll sleep peacefully until 4-5 am and then nurse and sleep a few more hours but some nights you’re up six hundred times. This too shall pass, I suppose. (It can pass as soon as you’d like, mkay?) It’s been a point of frustration lately but I am just trying to ride it out and remember that it won’t be forever. I keep telling myself this stage will pass quickly, and while I would love to sleep more, I don’t want this stage to pass too quickly because I just love how fun and inquisitive you are right now.

You’re still an eating machine and have been going to town on almost everything you have tried. I was going to make a list of the things you enjoy, but honestly, that list is just too long. You still nurse anywhere from 5-8 times in a 24 hour period, totally depending on how our night goes. You eat three meals and typically a few snacks during the day. The snacks are usually a by product of what Evalyn and I are doing because I have long since learned that we cannot have food in your presence without sharing. You make that more than clear.

You are a delight. A joy. A little spitfire. For your first few months we always talked about how it seemed as though you were going to turn out much more mellow and chill than your big sister. We take that right back. You have a temper and personality a mile long, there’s no question about that. This should make for some wildly interesting years ahead of us.

  It’s so hard to believe how quickly we’re slipping down the slope toward your first birthday. You’re growing up far too fast my dear, so just stop it right now.  

Love, Mumma

Seven months of Gwen

My Little Gwenner,

You are now seven months old. This month has been a big, big, big month for you. So many changes have been happening and it seems you do something new each day. I know that time flies. It always does. But, I am fairly certain that once a baby starts moving, time starts moving faster and faster, too. I am afraid to blink.

This month, one of our most exciting ventures has been into the world of solid foods. For how petite you are, and how quick you are at nursing you have totally and completely shocked me with how interested and eager you are to eat solid food. I totally expected you to be a bird. But, nope. Not even. So far, you are living up to your namesake with the amount you like to eat. We are taking a baby led weaning approach when introducing you into the world of solids, and girlfriend, you are 100% on board with this plan.

It is messy business. Messy, yummy, fun business.

So far you have eaten so many things. Carrots, cucumber, sweet potatoes, squash, parsnips, beets, avocado, broccoli, green beans, pears, peaches, mangoes, plums, apples, grapefruit, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, raspberries, scrambled eggs, toast, chicken, steak, pasta, cheese, yogurt and much much more. Aside from greek yogurt, which was not your favourite, you have eat to turn down anything. I’ll be interested to see if you chunk up in the next few months since you seem to be quite the empty pit!

The other big news this month is that you are on the move. You don’t stop for anyone or anything. You have been somewhat crawling and lunging since Christmas (when you were under 6 months!!) but you have really gotten the hang of it in the last few weeks. Along with that, the last two weeks has marked a huge change in your agility and balance. Suddenly, you never topple over when sitting, you can easily and gracefully move from sitting, to tummy, to crawling and back again. It amazes me how quickly your movements have become so fluid.  You have even started to pull up to standing on furniture. Oh no, you don’t, little missy! You are supposed to be my itty bitty baby, so you can cut this funny business out right now. The pulling up on furniture has just started in the last few days and has resulted in a few head bonks and kabooms. I have learned that I cannot let you out of my sight for a second. Something tells me we’ll be spending a lot of time together in the ergo until you learn how to keep your balance a little better.

You are so cheerful and talkative. Although you still grace us with the high pitched squeal every now and again, you’ve mostly replaced it with a low growl, or with saying “Ah-ba! Ah-ba!” over and over again. You blow raspberries almost constantly and have recently started giving hugs and kisses. Your hugs are so sweet when you just cuddle yourself right into the crook of my neck. As far as kisses, you prefer those of the open mouth variety.

For the most part, you are sleeping fairly decently at night, although we’ve been up and down with sickness over the past number of weeks so that always throws a curve ball. Thankfully, though, (knock on wood), you seem to have given up your affinity for super early mornings and sleep until at least 6:30 most days. I cannot even believe that I’ve reached a point where I can say “at least” in reference to 6:30 a.m. But that’s how it goes. You go down around 7pm and usually sleep until 7am. Most often you wake up once anywhere between 2:30-4:30 for a quick nibble and then you go back down easily. Many mornings, you start to stir between 5:30-6 but as soon as I scoop you into my bed, you easily settle back down. You seem to love being warm and snug in my bed, because that’s the place where you usually sleep in the longest. You still nap three times a day, although your third nap is questionable. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, sometimes it’s an hour and sometimes it’s 10 minutes. Regardless though, your first two naps are starting to become much more consistent and predictable. You’ve even been doing an awesome job at putting yourself to sleep. Keep it up girlfriend!

You and your sister are up to no good. You spend your days giggling, playing and reading together. I love to see your relationships developing but when I see you straining to follow her and keep up with her, I am terrified because I know it won’t be long at all until you are spending your days conspiring against me and creating even more chaos than there already is. Those will be the days! Your relationship with your sister is not one sided, by any means. Just as much as you love her, she loves you back. When you were born, I wondered when the novelty of having a baby sister would wear off for her. It still hasn’t. Every morning she asks where you are and as soon as she sees you, she lights up and starts talking to you. She is so precious with you. Calling you “sweetie heart” and “baby girl” and “Gwenna Guhhh”. Your relationship has blossomed even more over this past month, as you’ve started moving and being able to play a little more actively with her. It’s going to be trouble from here on out!

Everyday I am overcome with gratitude and joy knowing that you are mine and I am yours. You have made my heart double in size and I praise God for you every day.

I love you sixty clock! (as your sister would say).

Mama

six months of gwen

My Gwennie,

Look at you! Six months old. It is impossible for me to believe that it has been half a year since that early Monday morning when you took my breath away in a million different ways. You add so much to this family. So much joy, so much crazy, so much laughter. You fill our hearts completely. 

You are growing like a bad weed. I don’t have your stats just yet so your appointment isn’t until next week (updated: you weigh 15lbs 9 oz and are 26 3/4 inches long. That's half an inch longer than your sister was at 6months, but 2/3 of a pound lighter. My teeny bug!). But you’re wearing mostly all 6-9 and 9 month clothes, medium diaper covers and size 3 disposables. The weight of my arms tells me you’re getting heavier and heavier all the time. Here’s how you’ve looked this month:

This month has been jam.packed.full of busy. It’s been fun but it also makes the time fly by too quickly. Here are the highlights of this month: you’ve had (and are currently still in the midst of) your first two sickness, you are sitting up almost completely unassisted. Of course, you will sit up no problem for 20 minutes straight but if I sit you down and turn my back for 1.3 seconds you topple over. You’re figuring out how to ease yourself down to your belly, though. You are also working hard on getting yourself from a tummy/hands and knees position to a sitting position. You can do it no problem with your hiney is nakey, but once we throw those bothersome diapers and clothes into the mix everything gets a little more tricky. About halfway through the month, you started getting yourself onto your hands and knees and rocking back and forth. You’re not quite to the point where I’d say you are crawling yet, but you definitely figure out how to move. You do a lot of lunging, army crawling and face planting when you set your mind to it. Usually, if your soosie is out of your reach, that’s when you get moving.

You nurse 7-8 times through the day, and often at night, especially now that you are sick. You haven’t started any solids, except a small taste of steamed carrots, but we’ll be slowly working on that in the coming month. You usually nap 3 times a day. On a typical day, you’re up around 7 or just before, down between 8:30-9 for an hour to two hours and then down again between 12-1 for another 1.5-2 hours. Usually, 4pm hits and you need a catnap to make it until bedtime. You go down for the night around 6:45-7. Before leaving for Christmas and getting a cold, you were sleeping really well through the night, so hopefully we’ll get back to that soon. You haven’t slept longer than a 2-3 hour stretch in over two weeks now and we’re all getting pretty tired. No teeth yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up soon. You’re gnawing on everything and drooling like crazy.

Your sixth month started with your dedication, and was packed full of Christmas activities and preparations. We had the joy of having Nana and Papa here for a few days leading up to Christmas and for Christmas morning. Then we headed out and  spent the next 11 days away. First at Nana and Grandpa’s and then at Nana and Papa’s. It was, by far, your longest amount of time away from home. While we were gone we celebrated Christmas with both sides of the family, spent loads of time with your cousins and rang in the New Year with the Cann’s and Lansdell’s.

      Despite your sickies, you are still a happy girl. You laugh easily and aren’t ever quiet for too long. You have to be noisy to be heard around here, I’m afraid. I can already see you becoming more and more eager to keep up with your Big Sister’s antics. You work hard to move yourself close to where she is and you’ve already figured out that whatever she is playing with is miles more interesting than the boring old baby toys that I set you up with. It’s so sweet to me to see you start to play together and I know that will become more and more prevalent as the months go by. As will the fighting over toys. Soon your Big Sissy is going to realize that she can’t always have her way. I have a feeling you won’t have any trouble learning to stand up for yourself. You’re quite the little spitfire, yourself.

You are growing too fast. I’ve said it so many times and I won’t stop. I blink and you’re another month older. Thinking of this makes me realize the importance of living in the moment with you. As I’ve heard it said many times, the days may be long but the moments are fleeting. Here’s to another month of moments.

Love you forever, sweet girl.

five months of gwen

My Sweetie,

Five big months old. It frightens me to think that the next time I sit down to do this, we’ll be halfway through your first year. Impossible. You’re going like a weed girl. Especially this month as you went through a major growth spurt. Even after a few days of not seeing you, people said they could tell you were so much longer and chubbier. You are wearing mostly 6 month clothes but growing out of a lot of them. You’re in medium diaper covers and size 3 disposables.

Here’s how you’ve looked this month:

Currently, you’re battling your first bout of sickness as you’ve caught your Big Sissy’s cold. You are sad and pathetic and it just breaks my heart. Your nose and eyes are watery and your voice sounds like a sixty year old smoker. We’re snuggling lots. Spending most the day in the ergo and hoping to get rid of this thing fast. I don’t like seeing you sick, my sweetie.

You’ve been very busy this month. And in fact, you’ve gone pretty easy on me. In your 4 month post, I wrote about how it had been a tricky month with sporadic napping and such. You’ve generally come out of that and gotten back to fairly decent napping. However, throughout your growth spurt we went through a good week or two of not so hot nighttime sleep. You seem to be getting back into the swing of nighttime sleeping, though. I am learning to accept that you are just going to be an early riser and trying to savour the sleep I get, even if it has to end at 6 am most days. For the most part, it is becoming easier and easier to get you to sleep as you will generally put yourself to sleep when I lay you down. Occasionally, I still have to help you get your paci back in your mouth but many times, if it’s in your reach, you’re able to do it yourself. The big problem is that you’ve been doing a lot of practicing of your new skills … specifically, rolling. That has caused some disturbances during naps and nighttime as you roll over in your sleep and wake yourself up, or else roll over six billion times before going to sleep in the first place.

You have been rolling belly to back non stop for the last month or so. And just last week, while having some nakey hiney time, you figured out the whole back to tummy thing. And the rest is history. The next morning, you acted like you were an old pro and it only took you about five minutes to figure out that if you rolled from belly to back multiple times in a row you would actually move. Life’s about to get ca-razy!

You’ve also been practicing sitting up quite a bit. You can do it well in a cloth diaper because the extra junk in your trunk gives you a little more stability. You’re still pretty wobbly though. It won’t be long, I’m sure.

Of course, you are still laughing like crazy. Keeping you entertained is not hard at all. This month, you’ve added a shriek to your list of skills as well. The belly laugh is still there but is more commonly replaced by a high pitched squeal. It hurts my ears and I’m sure it’s got to hurt your throat but it’s funny nonetheless. It is especially hilarious when you do it to get your Daddy’s attention. The other day you were in your jolly jumper in your bedroom door frame while Eva played and Daddy and I moved things around in the living room to get ready for the Christmas tree to come in. I have never seen you shriek so much and so loud trying to get us to pay attention to you. I guess you’ve already learned that you’ve gotta be loud to keep up around here.

Speaking of getting Daddy’s attention, you are quite a daddy’s girl. You bust into the hugest smile and silly sounds and grins as soon as he walks in the door and you absolutely love playing with him.

You are starting to show many signs that teeth may soon be on the way. You are very drooly (although, hello, you always have been) and constantly chewing on Sophie. It’s so hard to say, though, as I know these “signs” can be present for weeks or months before we see any action. There is no visible evidence in your mouth that there are any teeth on the way, though, so we will see.

We are still exclusively breastfeeding and loving it all the time. Right now, you typically nurse 7-8 times a day. You are still a quick eater. If you nurse for 5 minutes per side, that’s a long feed! I am in no rush to start solids. I learned with your sister that life becomes that much more difficult once your entire nutrition is no longer attached to my body so I’m enjoying the ease and convenience while it’s here. You seem to be entirely satisfied as it is and have shown no interest or understanding of food – so we’ll hold off another month or so before entering that stage together.

The last month included you meeting Santa and seeing your first snowfall.

This next month will also be so full of fun and new things for you to experience … mainly, your first Christmas. I am so excited to have you in my arms this holiday season. Last year, you were just a tiny little pouch in my tummy. How exciting that at Christmas last year, we had just recently found out about you, cousin Kathryn and cousin Jolie and now? You are all here, healthy and happy. It will be a fun holiday season, that’s for certain.

As always, I feel blessed every single morning when I scoop you out of your crib … even if it is at 5 am (but, could we please knock that off?) You are God’s gift to me and the joy you bring to this family cannot be captured by words.

Stay sweet, my love.

Ho ho ho!

Yesterday was a big day for us. We kicked off the holiday season with a bang by going to the mall to visit Santa and take a ride (or four) on the Polar Bear Express. Before I go further, let me mention that this was Eva’s first trip into real public wearing undies since she’s been potty trained. She has gotten out of the house a lot but just to school, church and friend’s/family’s homes. It was the first time in a store or mall or anything like that. So, it could have been a disaster. But of course, it was not. She did great on the 45 minute drive there. Told me she had to go potty when we got there so we raced into Old Navy and she went. Of course she went a few more times while we were there … I’m pretty sure the novelty of going into the bathroom was a big part of it because she never has to pee that often, but hey. Along with that, she behaved so well which sometimes isn’t always the case when you try to contain a toddler in a stroller in the mall. She sat nicely for dinner and listened to me and the bestie’s the whole time. What a sweet girl. On the way home, I told her how proud I was that she was such a good girl and listened and obeyed the whole time we were out. She said… “And Cindy, too. I proud of Cindy. She a good girl, too”. Well, props to Cindy.

Now onto the good stuff. We had heard that the mall had a pretty sweet Santa display so we decided to hit the town and take the kids. The day before, I started prepping Evalyn because I had a feeling she might not be too pumped with the Big Guy once we got there. When I showed her the picture of her sitting on Santa’s lap last year, she looked at me like I must be crazy. Like, “waitaminute … you’re going to make me sit there with that big creepy guy"? But, despite that, she seemed excited. She asked over and over again when we were going to see Santa. When she got up yesterday she was a bit confused and asked “Can we go see Jesus now?” Erm, gotta get this straight, I guess. I took her to preschool in the morning and she excitedly told her teacher that she would be going to see Santa after nap.

When we got home, I’ve never seen her eat lunch that fast and be that eager to go to sleep. On the drive to the mall she asked me if we were at Santa’s house yet about 483902483 times. Asked if he would be on a big chair. If he’d have a beard. If she could say “Merry Christmas” to him. Once we got there, she was excited but waited pretty patiently while I went to a store to do a return. We met up with the girls and the babes and headed to Santa. I was still pretty confident that she might totally back out as soon as she saw him.

When we got there, there was no line up but one child already speaking with Santa, so we were up next. That’s when the positive self talk started. She was like, “I want to see Santa. I don’t want to see Santa. I don’t want to sit with him. Is it my turn now? I don’t want to see him. Can I go say hi now?” When it was our turn, I was holding Gwen so I took her hand and started to walk toward him. Then she started back pedaling. She put the breaks on. I told her that she didn’t have to sit on his lap, just say hi. So Gwennie sat on his lap and Eva hesitantly got up beside him on the bench.

She was just so cute. She was obviously nervous and hesitant of him but wanted so badly to enjoy it and have fun. At one point, she even said, “Dis is fun. Sitting wis Santa is fun” with a shaky, kind of whimpery voice. Despite her reservations she was so polite to Santa. Wished him a Merry Christmas and thanked him for the candy cane and coloring book.

As soon as she was done with Santa, she wasted no time in getting in line for the train ride. She had fun yelling “ALL ABOARD” and looking at all the directions around the track. Mr. Conductor made the ride even better with his excitement and animation. And of course, the girls and I kept ourselves totally reserved and quiet. Pause, not. It was like housewives gone wild. We were hooping and hollering like we were on the biggest roller coaster of our lives. We’ve already made plans to go back next week. Without the kids. Okay, maybe not. But, seriously … we are taking the kids back at least once more before Christmas and are intending to wear that train ride out! We may even make it a goal to get banned.

 

After Santa, we went to grab some dinner. Hello, Poutine! Best friends, Santa, train rides and poutine all in one afternoon? I can hardly handle it! During dinner, Evalyn kept asking over and over again if we could see Santa again.

So, duh. We did. And this time, we managed to snag this beauty …Imagine a world where you get a picture of Santa with three moms and four kids and everyone is looking at the camera! My pictures aren’t the greatest because I only had my phone. I figured we wouldn’t be allowed to take our own photos so I didn’t even bother with my camera. I will know better for next time. They let us take as many as we wanted and we didn’t have to pay for their over priced lame photos.

Before heading home we may or may not have taken another spin around the train. Can you blame us? I mean, really.

If this wasn’t enough to get me in the holiday spirit, we have been wearing Christmas PJs, watching Christmas shows, reading Christmas books, playing with Christmas toys and wrapping Christmas presents like crazy around here. We don’t have our tree or decorations up (this weekend, folks) but we are in the spirit around here, nonetheless. I am so excited for this year – Gwen’s first Christmas, our first Christmas in our new home and the first year that Evalyn is showing some major excitement and understanding about the holiday season.

It’s going to be a fun, fun month.

four months of gwen

My Sweet Gwenner,

A few weeks ago you hit the big four month’er. This letter is late. So late. But I promise, the lateness was intentional. I wanted to wait until we had your appointment to include your stats and then the last few days have been so busy that I wanted to wait until I had time to sit down and really focus on you and all the crazy stuff you’ve been up to. Here’s how you’ve looked this month:

You are nothing if not beautiful and sweet. Girl, you are a joy to my life.This month has been busy, challenging and full of all kinds of new adventures with you. You had your 4 month check and shots last week and once again, just like at 2 months of age, you are right on track with the size your sister was. You weigh 14lbs 1/2 oz and are 25.5 inches long. You are wearing mostly 6month clothes, size 3 disposies, and medium diaper covers. Growing like a weed, as they say.

This month has been our most difficult one yet, as you’ve decided to mix things up quite a bit. I thought I had you figured out. But, you know, just as soon as I think I have anything figured out about motherhood, you babies go and change it up on me. The past month has been spent struggling to figure out your new patterns and routines and schedules. We’ve had many days of poor napping, many nights of poor sleeping and quite a bit of frustration on both of our parts. Somehow,we seem to have transitioned out of a solid 3 nap a day routine to a 4-5 nap a day routine. Many days, you aren’t interested in sleeping more than 30 minutes at a time and you want to have a million cat naps throughout the day. You’ve wiggled your bedtime back from 7:45ish to between 7-7:15 so now you are the first baby to go to sleep in our house most nights. Unfortunately, your nights are no longer predictable. Some nights you sleep 11 hours straight, some nights you sleep 11 minutes straight. Throw in the recent time change, and everything’s messy. It’s all a guessing game now.  We’re figuring it out though. We’re taking it day by day. Somehow, in two short years, I seem to have forgotten that one day babies stop being little tiny newborns and start being active, alert babies and that it can happen overnight. Yeah, I remember it now.

Despite these challenges, we’ve also had a blast this month watching your personality blossom. It is just so cool to see you becoming your own tiny person. You are social. You are talkative. You are funny. You are sensitive. You are the big, blue eyed life of the party. It doesn’t take much to keep you entertained. All we have to do is look at you and we are met with the biggest, sweetest gummy little grin. You are so full of belly laughs, I can hardly stand it! Just the other night you were laying on your back on blanket in the living room without any toys around you at all. I was sitting on the couch holding Baby Jolie, not even in your line of vision, and baby talking to her. Every time I said “Hiii baby” or “Hello” or “Gooba gooba gee ga go go”, you kicked your legs and laughed hysterically. It was hilarious that you thought I was playing with you. And just goes to show how giddy and happy you are. Even when you’re crying, if we talk to you for a just a few seconds, we can easily make you a bust a smile through the tears.

You love your sister and your Daddy most of all. They make you laugh and smile non stop and when they aren’t paying attention to you, you make sure to bust out the fake cough to get them to look your way.

And even though you love playing with them, at the end of the day, snuggling in Mama’s arms or being held tight in a carrier is where you like to be. You are Mommy’s girl and that is a-okay with me.

You’ve had lots of time to spend with your cousins and besties lately. My prayer is that someday you’ll realize what a gift God has given to you in the form of cousins and friends who are the same age as you. We are blessed, baby girl, we truly are.

 

You love tummy time, standing up on your legs and jumping in the jolly jumper. After taking a 2 month hiatus, you’re back on a roll. Literally. You roll from tummy to back like a champ and are thissss close to getting yourself all the way over from your back to your belly. If only that arm would get out of your way. You’ve started to scooch a little bit. Rotating yourself around in circles while you’re on your belly, getting yourself stuck under a chair at Auntie Crystal’s house and worming around in your crib like a miniature Houdini. You’ve started to practice sitting up a little bit. You can hold your balance for a little while at a time with your hands resting between your legs like a little froggy, but you usually end up folding right in half before too long. I’m in no rush for you to begin mastering these skills. You can take your time learning to become mobile, mkay, Little Love?

I want you to slow down. I feel like I’ve blinked and a third of your first year has already passed. Yet at the same time, I know the fun is just beginning and I can’t wait to watch you grow and learn and to create an even stronger and deeper bond as we make so many memories together. There is a piece of my heart that belongs to no one but you.

I love you always,

Mama.