It happened today

So the title of this post is a bit deceiving. I intended to post to the blog last week when these things really did happen. And now I can't even remember what all of these "things" were.

But one was very exciting. For Christmas Addison and Lily received some word match up cards (100 to be exact). Each card is a two piece puzzle. On one piece is a picture and on the other is the corresponding word. Addison and Lily LOVE these cards. Mostly they like to take all of them apart and carry them around in these clear plastic boxes in which Mr Potato Head and friends. So for many days now our nightly clean up involves putting together 100 2 piece puzzles and then putting all of the Mr Potato Head and friends parts back into the appropriate box. Amazingly enough we have only lost one piece of the 100 cards thus far.

About 9 days ago, Addison came over with two card pieces. And she stated "This is kite." Surprisingly she had the picture of the kite and the word kite piece and she was putting them together. I wasn't sure if they happened to already be together or if she really had figured the word out, so I didn't get too excited. But then about 7 days ago, Addison came over to me and our babysitter Katie and she was saying "This is K-K-K (K sound). This is K-K-K." While she was doing this Katie and I both saw the word was "clock." We stayed silent and Addison finally said "This is clock." And she already had the picture of the clock. So I'm prety sure she had figured it out. And interestingly she has memorized what the word "jacket" looks like. If you ask her to spell it, she doesn't seem to know how, but if you hold up the card with the word "jacket" she immediately knows what it is.

Lily these days is repeating back everything we've ever said to her. This afternoon during lunch she told her sister, "Addison sit down. Addison...one...two...three." And after Peoopee got into a batch of brownies the other day, both Addison and Lily know a) brownies are made with chocolate and b) that chocolate is bad for dogs.

Kelsey is expanding her verbal vocabulary daily. And we continue to work on sign language with her.

Here are some videos from the past two months.

Here's Kelsey when she was on the verge of crawling.


Here's a funny one. Kelsey laughing and then Lily has a great line at the end.


Here's one with Kelsey using the walker. We find the end funny.


This one is just Addison and Lily being downright cute.


This one just has Kelsey talking and a little signing.

Some videos

Addison and Lily's last day of tumbling class back in November.





Christmas morning



Kelsey playing peek a boo back in January. As you can see she didn't have the whole cover the eyes thing down yet.






Addison and Lily enjoying some snow this year. Cute snow gear courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa.




Addison and Lily reading books together. A common sight these days around our house.




Kelsey doing fun stuff back in January.

What's new?

Hmm. What has changed in the last month...

Let's see, right around the middle of February Kelsey started crawling. Thank goodness. According to some book I read, babies start crawling between 8 and 10 months. Kelsey got it in just under the wire of that 10 month mark. Now a 2 weeks later she is crawling everywhere. And going from crawling to sitting. And pulling up on the furniture, mommy and daddy, the dogs, toys, etc. At 10 1/2 months she is saying the following words...dog, bottle, banana, brush, duck, Jack, Peoopee, cheese, snail, doll, Daddy. And there are probably a few others.

We are also working on baby signs and sign language with Kelsey. So far she is communicating "DOG" by saying "Daa" followed by panting. And she signs and says "All done" in relation to eating. Unfortunately she is so excited that we understand that she is saying "All done" that she starts signing it as soon as she sits down for a meal. Signing is something we did with Addison and Lily. But when they started doing lots of talking the signing fell by the wayside. But now we are back to using it with them so they can help with teaching Kelsey. They are really into it and keep asking how to sign different words. This is keeping us on our toes and on websites that teach us how to sign these words.

Most nights these days Kelsey sleeps through the night. (Hooray). And she has 5 teeth and is working on cutting 2 more in the near future. About a month ago we stopped feeding Kelsey baby food because she really seemed to hate it. She is just eating regular old soft foods these days. Also, about 2 weeks ago, I stopped nursing Kelsey. I've still been pumping breastmilk for her, but as of now about 80% of her milk is formula.

Developments with Addison and Lily. They are learning to spell different words. We have a toy call the Word Whammer from Leap Frog. It allows you to put in 3 letters and then it will tell you what word you have spelled. So far Addison can put the word CAT in with no problem. Last time we checked, Lily gets the correct letters but usually spells it TAC. We are also having some success with words like DOG and FOX.

Addison and Lily continue to be very nuturing. These days their affection is directed towards their water bottles which they refer to as "Wado". Occasionally their milk sippy cups also get special treatment. And please call them "Milko".

We have several videos to post. Perhaps sometime in the near future I'll make that happen.

Teresa