Thursday, January 26, 2012

14 Days In...

Remember back when it was so cute when Elliott would suck his thumb? Not so much anymore. I'm not sure if you can always tell in the pictures I post, but he has a pretty terrible overbite. The poor guy has some very bad dental genetics that were passed down to him from me. The last time we were at the dentist (August) our dentist said we needed to have him stop sucking his thumb by age 3. If he was able to there is a good chance his teeth will go back to a more "normal" position.

Two weeks ago, 1/25/12, we decided to quit for good . We have been encouraging him for months to stop on his own. We went to Build A Bear and built a very cute monkey, it helped, but didn't get the job done. So, I put some gross tasting nail polish on his thumb and then we bribed him. He will get a prize every day for a week and if he can go for an entire month we can go to Great Wolf Lodge.

Elliott told me that he was "okay" with not sucking it anymore. For the first few nights I would see him bring his thumb up to his mouth, hover around, then bring it back down again. It has now been two weeks and he is doing great.

On the other hand, Holly, who has been totally hooked on her pacifiers is starting to munch her thumb when the paci isn't around...let's hope it's teething.

Monday, January 9, 2012

6 Months!

Last week Holly officially turned 6 months old! We went to the doctor that day for her 6 month check up and shots. She weighs 14lbs, 9 oz (24th%), 26" in length (62%) and her head is 41.5cm (24%). She is just a little thing, especially compared to Elliott at the same age.

Holly's biggest accomplishment is her crawling!! On Friday, 12/30, Dan called me to say that she was crawling. I'll have him post a video, I'm not sure how to do it. She is a fast army crawler, especially if there is something naughty to get to.

We started to sleep train Holly last week. She was getting into a bad schedule where I was the only one who could put her to sleep and some nights it would take over an hour. She would scream for Dan if I wasn't home. We decided enough was enough one night when it took me 2 hours to finally get her to sleep and she then woke up again. Holly cried for about 45 minutes the first night (we went in a comforted her every 5 minutes or so). The next time we tried her cries only lasted 30 minutes. Dan tried her a third time the other night and it only took 3 minutes!! We have started to put her down for her naps while she is awake, but sleepy. I'm so happy it is working well and quickly.

Happy 6 Months, Holly!!

Dan set up our playroom to have a baby zone (something we saw from Elliott's daycare). This will allow Elliott to play with whatever he wants and keeps Holly away from all those tiny pieces. Elliott calls it "the baby trap". She isn't big enough to crawl out just yet.



Elliott playing with slime. Once again, green:

Posing with his completed puzzle - Elliott did the entire inside himself.

Hanging out:

Jenga for kids, he loves it:

This one is just too sweet, I love it.

Elliott had his very first swimming lesson today. It was so cute. I took some pictures, but I didn't want to be a creeper taking pictures of other peoples kids, so they aren't that great. Here is Elliott showing his teacher the rings he got from the bottom of the pool:

E was a little wild, we'll have to talk to him about staying a bit closer to the wall area. The pool is a foot deep, maybe 1 1/2 feet. So, he feels pretty comfortable wandering around. Still, I remember all too well what it was like to teach those 3 year olds. He put his ears in, I think his eyes and instead of blowing bubbles he took drinks of pool water. He did a great back float and had fun kicking on the wall. His teacher was great. This was Elliott's first organized class without me and I was really happy with how well Elliott listened and how excited he was to get in. Dan and I both cried (a lot) when we started swimming lessons. Elliott was excited to hear that we are going back again on Wednesday for another lesson.

December come and gone...

As the title says, December has come and gone. We seemed to be very busy in December. Also, Dan got a new computer and it was hard for him to give up time playing on it to allow me to blog.

Right before Thanksgiving we purchased a new car! We are now truly parents - we drive a minivan. It's pretty fancy though and is much nicer than our previous car. Because of the new car Dan and I had said we weren't giving presents to each other for Christmas. When Dan went to Seattle to visit his work he came back with a present for me. I got a new digital SLR camera!! I'm so excited about it! I took a lot of pictures and am trying to learn the tricks of the camera. I'm on prednisone again and my hands tend to be a bit shaky, therefore I have a lot of fuzzy pictures (when I'm trying out not using the flash). I'm also getting used to using Picasa, not iPhoto to edit pictures. Here are some pictures from December:

Getting our Christmas Tree:

Posing - before our tree got too crispy (we were bad at watering it this year)

An attempted picture before we went to see Santa:

Dan, posing for my new camera:

Holly in her crib:

Elliott and all his cars:

Elliott was teaching Holly to crawl on this day. I think here he is telling her some story. She loves it when he pays any attention to her:

Holly, practicing sitting. She is a pro now:

Christmas was busy! We spent Christmas Eve in Wilsonville with Dan's family. We do a gift exchange and open presents then. On Christmas day were able to stay home until about 1pm before heading out to visit family. It was really nice to have that time in the morning to open presents and relax before having to start getting ready and rushing around. Holly got in a good nap, which I was very happy about. We went back to Wilsonville for a few hours to open stockings and eat an early dinner before heading out to Beaverton for dessert with my family.

Santa came and filled the kids stockings on Christmas eve:


Elliott woke us up at about 8:30 on Christmas morning (thanks, Elliott, I liked that extra sleep time!). I could hear him running around upstairs; he was super excited about everything.

Holly checking out her glow worm from Santa.

Holly and Cora:

Porter Cousins:

Christmas at Sarah's house:

Dan, reading to Elliott and Holly:

In case you didn't know, Elliott's favorite color is green. He'll tell you all about it. Apparently when given the option he prefers to paint in monochrome.