34 Months

Oh, Heidi is a sassy little thing! But she sure is sweet too! She is currently going through a mommy phase. She wants me to do EVERYTHING for her and while its very sweet, its also very taxing. She insists that I put her to bed every night (sometimes this includes tucking her back in several times each night), I have to be the one to attend to her when she gets up in the middle of the night (this usually doesn't happen, but has happened quite a bit recently with her being sick), and I have to be the one to do any other thing she thinks a parent should do. She still loves Austin- she loves to snuggle in bed with him on weekend mornings, she loves to sit on his lap when he's home, and almost every piece of art she makes is for him, but she definitely wants mommy for most things. Sometimes it drives me crazy (especially when she demands that Austin get out of her room when he tries to respond to her tantrum about being tucked in AGAIN or when she throws a sippy cup of water across the room because Asher brought it upstairs instead of me), but I just try to remind myself that she obviously has a high need for bonding with mommy right now and it will probably pass all too soon. I've tried to find a minute every now and then to give her all my attention and smoother her in love and she just eats it right up.
I have recently started doing 10 minutes of 1-on-1 time with a kid each day, rotating through the three older kids (Trevor gets plenty of 1-on-1 time already). They get to pick what they want to do with me for 10 minutes. Heidi's choices have included painting her nails, spinning in circles together, having me tickle her, and playing board or card games that she's not quite mature enough to play with the boys. She loves this time and asks me at least 96 times a day if its her "special day".
Heidi is very social and loves church. While we are there, she likes to walk around and visit with different women and teenage girls. She is particularly fond of the family who's dog we babysat recently, and sometimes refuses to sit with us because she would rather sit with them. The mom always has snacks for her, so this is a big draw for Heidi- but she also just loves socializing with other "guls" (girls) as she calls them.
Heidi's imagination just keeps expanding and I often find her by herself with toys lined up in some game. She makes them have little conversations sometimes. She will play just as happily with "boy" toys (which is good, because this is mostly what we have) but they are usually part of a family. The other day she was playing with two trucks and one was the daddy and the other was the baby. Recently she also likes to spread her blankie out with the back up because its blue and she likes to pretend that its water. I found her "swimming" with a stuffed whale, then she kicked him out of the water and was floating in the water with one of her dolls. Heidi is very confident about her swimming skills although she's never been. The other day Austin asked her how to swim and she told him "just get in the water and move your body like this and kick". She is very confident about most things- which is great!
Heidi is also very insistent about the things she wants. If I give her an answer she's not pleased with, she will ask me the same question over and over again hoping that I'll change my answer. One example is the other day she was standing in my bathroom with me while I got ready. She was digging through my makeup drawer pulling things out and asking if I needed them. I kept telling her "no, I don't need anything right now" but she just kept trying saying "yes? yes? you do need this? yes? you want this? yes? yes?" She does this with tons of things, trying to coach me into giving her the answer she wants.
Heidi is quite the little handful, but she is a delight and I have no worries that she will get exactly what she wants out of life! I remembered to take pictures of her just before bed, so she's already in her pajamas (although these rarely stay on once she gets in bed- she tells me all the time that she likes to feel her cold blanket on her tummy) and she also insisted on having her "baby bunny" with her in the pictures too. (She originally wanted to sit on one chair while baby bunny sat on another, but I finally convinced her it was better to share a chair)

15 months

This kid just keeps getting bigger and bigger. (And for the last week or so, sicker and sicker ):
Trevor's walking skills are progressing. He takes several steps at a time a few times a day, but he would still rather crawl since it gets him where he wants a lot faster. He absolutely loves to crawl up the stairs, so I took some photos of him here to commemorate that. You might be able to see that one of his eyes look a little yucky. He's had a cold for awhile (we all have!), but started getting a goopy, red eye. I think its just from the cold, but we'll have it looked at if anything changes. Trevor continues to be a happy little fellow who is in love with his mama. He often shows me his love by leaning into me and laying his head on my shoulder for a few seconds or tipping his forehead to rest it against mine for a bit. Such a love bug! Trevor also loves music and will dance to any beat he hears. He's always rocking around and nodding his head. Shaking his head back and forth and nodding it up and down has become one of his favorite things to do lately and he also loves to raise his eyebrows up and down a lot too (something he probably picked up from Heidi). We love this little guy and are so glad to have him in the family!

Toothless

Our handsome boy is growing up- he lost his first tooth. Its been loose for months (the one next to it too), but just finally came out this morning as he was eating his morning Cheerios. He was so excited that he suddenly yelled out that he had lost a tooth and had to run upstairs to tell dad right away. He has been carrying it around with him all day, playing with it and making comments about it. I heard him at lunch explaining to Heidi that she won't be an adult until her baby teeth start falling out. He was also very eager to learn about teeth during school today, so we took a few minutes to read about teeth as part of his reading practice. Here are some pictures I got of Asher to document his big day. He'll be putting his tooth under his pillow tonight to see what happens . . .

Cinderella Ballet

We've been looking forward to this afternoon for months! My friend and I started planning to take our kids to see a play awhile back. It snowballed and turned into a bunch of friends going to see a full-scale ballet. Unfortunately the friend this originally started with had to go to a different showing because of scheduling, but we had lots of fun seeing Cinderella with our other friends. This was the boys' first ballet. I've been talking it up, but wondered if they would really love seeing a ballet (everyone else who went was female of course) but they really did enjoy it and we are already planning to see the Nutcracker at the same theater in December. I didn't include Heidi in this even because I thought she was too young to pay attention, but I think she will do just fine by the end of the year and given how engaging it was for everyone. (Heidi and Trevor stayed home with dad. It was their naptime anyway, so it wasn't too much work for him and it wasn't too traumatic for my little cling-on, Trevor). I had the boys wear their suits and ties and I wore a dress that I've never worn before because I don't want a baby stretching it out or getting goops on it. We may have overdressed slightly, but it was a lot of fun- for me anyway, Asher hates ties and took it off immediately after the picture above, which Austin took just before we left. Here are the boys with one of their friends waiting for the show to start. All the adults sat together and chatted and we let all the kids sit next to each other, which they loved.

Here are the boys and I before the show.

This is during the first half of the show. Asher sat like that almost the whole time. He relaxed a bit after intermission, but he was still completely engaged. Leif was relaxed for the whole show, but was still watching intently.

Here are the boys at intermission. I promised them that if the concessions were somewhat reasonable, I would by them a snack, so we stood in a big line and the boys got to order and pay for their own snacks- all part of the experience.

Asher chose pringles and Leif chose skittles. Here they are enjoying their treats while waiting for the show to resume. My friend and her three daughters are behind them.

Sharing their snacks. I also brought some goldfish and cookies (just in case the snacks were way to pricey), so I passed the goldfish out to the kids, and all the moms ate the cookies :)

After the show, Asher got to meet Cinderella. He was a little shy to shake her hand and talk to her, but he did it was happy to have a picture with her. Leif was too shy to do any of it and just hid behind me.

I'm so glad I got to share such a fun afternoon with my boys and friends. I'm even more excited for the Nutcracker and seeing how Heidi will react to ballerinas.

33 Months

Heidi is well on her way to becoming a big girl- she insists all the time that she is a big girl and she definitely doesn't lack any independence or self-will. She has taken the huge step out of babyhood by becoming completely potty trained! No diapers or even pull-ups for her! Its undies only and she is so proud (me too!) It seems like it kind of just happened overnight after months of us both being semi-committed to it. I'm surprised that she is able to stay dry during the nights and nap times. As long as we make sure she goes potty before going to sleep, she's good- sometimes she even wakes up and eats breakfast or plays for awhile before she goes potty.
Besides that huge news, Heidi is also blossoming in her imaginative play. She has always into pretending, but her games are getting more elaborate and inventive. She has a few stuffed animal doggies (All named "Milo" after a dog that we babysat a few times for some friends- which isn't so inventive ;) that she loves to feed and take outside to go potty. I'm also constantly tripping over cups and plates that Heidi has set out for her baby bunny to have dinner and eat her birthday cake (It's her bunny's birthday every few days). She also loves to pretend she is baking. Sometimes she makes me be minimally involved in her games, such as eating what she baked or singing to her bunny, but mostly she just plays these games all by herself.
Heidi loves to sing and dance. Sometimes at bedtime the whole family gets trapped in her room while she sings and dances around for us, insisting whenever we try to leave that she is almost done. The songs she sings are usually loosely based around songs that she knows with a lot of her own words and tunes added in.
Although Heidi still very much loves her daddy, she is glued to mom lately. She has a meltdown if Austin tries to put her to bed because she would rather I do it. This may be because I sing to her longer while I'm rubbing her back and playing with her hair, but its also because she is very interested in the fact that we are both girls. She often points out that we are "gruls" and tells the boys "Gruls only" all the time. Sometimes when I tell the kids they can't have something because its mine she tries to justify why she can have it because its just for "gruls".
Today is "Family Day" in Canada. Austin had the day off work (although he still had to go in for a bit to finish something) so we went on a little family excursion this morning. Here are the photos I got of Heidi.

 She was very interested in touching all the "big" trees, although they all seemed pretty big to me ;) I think she just liked the ones that were thicker around than the rest

And a bonus shot of all the kids

Grandparental Visit

Austin's parents visited us last month. We all ended the visit being sick and it took me forever to recover, then I never got around to putting up a blog. Rumor has it that some people are waiting on these photos- so here they are.
The day after Brent and Kate arrived, we went out to breakfast then headed down to Niagara falls. The kids never get to go out for breakfast (or really at all) so they had a great time. Asher ordered enough food for 6 adults, but he did actually eat about half of it.

 
 
 It was freezing at Niagara Falls, and with so much water in the air, there was ice everywhere. Everyone was well bundled up though, so it wasn't too bad. Afterward, we crossed the boarder into New York (my first time being back in the states since we moved!) and I got to go to Target (the highlight of my month!!!!) and we went to dinner at the Olive Garden (for lack of somewhere else to go before the hungry children turned into gremlins)

 It just so happened to be Brent and Kate's 40th wedding anniversary, so Austin made a big deal about it and made them kiss in a photo. 

 After that day, the sickness started to set in, so we didn't do too many exciting things. But the whole point of the trip was for the kids to get to visit with their grandparents which the did and they loved. Here is Heidi and Grandpa shoveling in the backyard (one of Heidi's favorite outdoor activities)