Heidi is ONE! (part one)

Wow, my little baby is growing up! She is now one- and that year passed so quickly. It seems like they just keep growing up faster and faster. Little Miss is still a doll and loved by everyone, but she is also in a stage where she can be a real pain sometimes. She crawls all over the place- sometimes so quickly that I have no idea where she's gotten off to. She loves to pull herself up onto everything, pulls down anything she can get her hands on (which has resulted in her not being very happy as a pile of books or kids' plastic plates falls onto her head) and is into everything. She loves to go in the bathroom as often as possible to pull herself up next to the bathtub (she loves taking tubbies!) or to play in the toilet. I kept scolding the boys to keep the toilet shut and the bathroom door closed, which they sometimes remembered and sometimes didn't. A few weeks ago, Heidi got her hands on one of their cars and put it into the toilet and ever since then they have been very good about keeping the toilet closed and the bathroom door shut tight. One of her favorite pastimes is to take things out and put them back in. Its nice to keep her entertained pulling things out of my bottom bathroom drawer and putting them back in while I do my hair and makeup. She also semi-helps to pick up the boys' toys when I'm trying to get them to put everything back into the correct bin (until she decides its time to take all the toys back out and we have to put them in again ;) She is delighted by any form of peek-a-boo. You don't even have to hide behind anything to play- turning your face away and then looking back is good enough for her. She also still loves to pass things back and forth. Heidi has turned into a little piggy at meal times and gets very distressed when someone else is eating and she is not. She especially loves oatmeal, any kind of fresh fruit, and pasta. Sometimes when we are eating a real meal and I offer her cheerios, she gets all fussy and slowly pushes all the cheerios onto the ground- I guess she thinks she ought to have a real meal too. We have taught her how to sign "more", but she has only done it on her own twice- both times for Austin. Asher and I always make her do it when she starts whining that she wants something, but she won't do it for us. I've noticed that once I get her hands started in the sign, she will start to do it herself, but never initiates it on her own.
Heidi is still incredibly cuddly and affectionate. I love when I pick her up and she clings onto me in a full-body hug! She also loves to press her face against mine and is very happy when the boys show her any kind of affection. She is joyful when she sees Austin and usually tries to jump out of my arms to get to him.
Heidi's language skills are coming right along. Just yesterday she waved and said "bye-bye". I had been trying to get her to do this for weeks with no success, then as I was standing and talking to my mother-in-law, someone on her TV said bye-bye, so Heidi waved and said it too. It was so cute and we got her to say it a few more times, but not when we were actually leaving. Heidi says Mama or Mom sometimes to me and has said Da-da, but I'm not sure if she is referring to Austin or not since she has never actually said it with him around.
The boys got into Heidi's room this morning before I could, so while they were entertaining her, I blew up some balloons. She was delighted (as were the boys) by the balloons! She probably would have played for hours in her crib, but she didn't mind at all when we went to the kitchen to have some strawberries and blueberries.

 Here are some photos I took of her in her birthday girl outfit. Leif and I went to the store last night to get some helium balloons and those were even more exciting for her, although she wasn't super pleased by me pushing her back onto the blanket to take pictures instead of letting her crawl all over me and play. Some of the good close-ups I got were actually from when I just let her lean against my legs and think she was going to make it onto my lap :)

The kids

 Here are some photos I got of all the kids the other day. They aren't exactly Christmas-card-worthy or anything, but they turned out pretty well for the relatively painless effort it took to get them and how quickly the kids cooperated to get them done.

 

ELEVEN MONTHS

Wow- I can't believe Little Miss is getting so old already! I know she is still a baby, but it seems like its slipping by so fast. Heidi is still quite the delight to be around most of the time. She has a few crabby moments (especially since she has been getting teeth) and sometimes seems to get fussy for no real reason, but overall, she is still a very pleasant little girl 99% of the time.
Heidi loves to clap lately, especially when we say "Yea, Heidi" and clap too. She loves peek-a-boo. She uses her hands to hide her eyes and then peeks out waiting for a surprised reaction. Our church is in the afternoon, and the last class is right over her afternoon nap. This ends up being a bit miserable for us since there is no way she will sleep with all the excitement and people around, but she gets fussy really easily since she is tired. This Sunday I had exhausted all the toys I had to entertain her, so I just put her little blankie over her face and she entertained herself with peek-a-boo for at least 20 minutes. Another of Heidi's favorite games is to pass things back and forth. Sometimes she does it with me, Austin, or someone else. Other times she just puts everything in a pile in one place, then moves the whole pile one and a time to another place. Austin has taught her how to give high-fives, but she seems to be mostly interested in playing this game only with him, although she will do it with me occasionally.
Heidi has finally started actual crawling on her hands and knees and sometimes I lose her because she crawls off too quickly from where I put her down. She likes to hold onto things and pop her little bum up into the air and try to stand, but she isn't really good at that yet. The bathtub seems to be a perfect height for her to do this and she has figured that out quickly. Several times when she has crawled off and gotten lost, I found her in the bathroom practicing standing next to the tub. Asher has now deemed it unsafe for her to be in a dark room alone and goes around closing the doors to any room without the lights on. There are other reasons I would not like her in the bathroom alone, but I'll take any help I can get to keep track of her :)
Here are some photos I got of her this afternoon. As you can see, she was quite interested in her brothers for some of them. 

And here is a bonus picture from a few days ago showing how much Heidi loves strawberries:

Heidi Rose

Here are some beautiful pictures my sister-in-law took of Heidi yesterday. She is such a little doll!

EASTER

Easter was so early this year that we still had quite a bit of snow outside. Because of this, the Easter bunny decided to hide eggs mostly inside with just a few on the front porch. The boys were very excited to find their Easter baskets this morning and were elated to find toothpaste in them (just what we needed, how did the Easter bunny know? And how did he know that Leif really wanted Ninja turtle kind?) They also got a few Easter books and of course some candy. Little Miss doesn't have her own Easter basket yet, so the Easter bunny just had to leave her board book in Asher's basket. The boys love going around looking for eggs, although I swear Austin and I had to point half of them out even though they were in plain view. They aren't very competitive though. If one kid was at all upset about the number of eggs he had, his brother was happy to give him the next one he found. After all the eggs were found, Austin encouraged the kids to eat a bunch of jelly beans while I warned them not to eat too much before breakfast, then we put them all into one big plastic bag for the family to share (meaning Austin will eat most of it and I'll give the kids some occasionally. The Easter bunny was kind enough not to get anything that I really like :) The boys were very thoughtful and filled up a couple of the eggs with Cheerios for Heidi to play with and eat. Then they played around for a few hours before it was time for church. Here are a few pictures we got before we headed to church (Gotta love Leif's "smile")

TEN MONTHS

Little Miss is growing up too fast! Although she is definitely still a baby, you can start to see a little bit of little girl in her face and in her mannerisms. She has always been very interactive, but she is becoming even more so. She is also starting to understand emotions better and gets very upset if one of the boys speaks harshly to her. Occasionally Asher or Leif will say "No, Heidi" in a voice that isn't very pleasant and she gets a sad, hurt look on her face before bursting into a sad little cry. It takes me about 30 seconds of calming words and rubbing her head and back for her to calm down. The boys also try to calm her down because they weren't trying to be mean to her, they just didn't want her touching their toys or food.
Heidi has started to army crawl around on the floor. She can get herself from sitting into a crawling position, but when she tries to take off, she ends up sprawled on the floor. I've even seen her go from the sprawl back to a crawling position, but she can't move from there. She has decided instead to just pull herself along. Its a funny little crawl, wiggling along the floor because she uses her left leg more than her right and she ends up twisting a little funny as she goes. But she gets where she wants to go and is very happy about it. She loves to head for a bookcase in our living room and pull off as many books as she can before I grab her.
Heidi is still a bright ray of sunshine in our family. She makes everyone happy because she is always smiling and we are so happy to have her.

 And here is a bonus picture of all the kids ready to go to church :)

Snowman

We finally got good snowman-making snow! I've been promising the boys we will make a snowman every time we get a big snow. They get all excited as we get our snow gear on only to be disappointed when we get outside and the snow is too fluffy and won't stick together. Today was different. Since it's Spring, we got heavy, wet snow that was perfect for packing. My mom and I helped the boys make a snowman that they were delighted with!