Anya: The 9-monther at 11 months...def. child numero DOS!

IT's been a while. I will have a new post about my bedroom "update" to come.  "Update," because it's not a redo since we're just adding to it is all--adding a bed frame for my bed, nightstand, lingerie chest (you know, for the white "lingerie" I wear daily lol), and new bedding and curtains, but it'll be cool and different!

Anyway, had Anya's 9-month appt....at like 11 months.  Pathetic, I know.  Here are her stats:

Height:  28.2 inches - 44th percentile
Weight:  18.6 lbs - 24th percentile
Head:  17.7 inches - 62nd percentile

So yeah, pretty little-ish except for the head, but I'm surprised actually, because it's not like her head is that big!

Some fun things she's doing right now:

*  She points at EVERYTHING.  We have recently...trained her...to sleep through the night (Ferber is the ONLY WAY dudes...seriously).  But as I dropped all night-time feedings and had Jordan get up with her as we trained her, it was really funny because (she was in our room until recently) he'd pick her up, she'd try to wiggle out of his arms, and then point to the bed.  I wasn't in it because it was still early, like midnight and am I EVER in bed at midnight? NOPE.  I wish.  Anyway, then she'd see I wasn't there, and start pointing to the door because she knew I'd be downstairs.  Smart little cookie that one.

*  She now crawls everywhere and her favorite is crawling up the stairs during the split second you aren't looking.  She's FAST.  She also enjoys the kitchen chairs...I just love those moments of fear as I see her losing her balance as she grasps the chairs on the HARD TILE FLOOR.  Ah. I always need to be on my toes, that's for sure.  She's had quite a few spills already and she'll be walking soon...

*  She is just a smiley little monkey.  She says a bunch of gibberish--nothing too specific.  She's a cutie.

*  She is so freaking wiggly.  I hate changing her diaper.  She screams the whole time and tries to wiggle away.  It's so bad that the other day, I was over at a friends' house and felt like maybe her diaper was a little full, but was sooooo not in the mood to wrestle her and have her scream like a hyena the whole time, so I didn't change her.  BIG mistake.  She was sitting on my lap as we ate dinner, and I felt the warm sensation of baby pee allllll over my lap.  Lovely. Then later, Claire pooped her panties. It was an awesome night. 

*  Anya loves the bath tub and will splash like CRAZY.  I have to close the curtain on her and Claire as they splash.  Great thing is that Claire has dumped water on her head so many times, that, unlike Claire who freaks when I get water in her eyes while washing her hair, Anya doesn't seem to mind at all.

*  Anya loves to scream now when she doesn't get her way. It's awesome.

*  Anya LOVES the touchy feely books. She laughs when she gets to touch the furry, fuzzy, or scratchy...stuff...on them.  (my vocabulary never ceases to impress you all, I know...)

*  Since I'm Mother of the Year, during my furniture refinishing projects, I would put her in the high chair with a bottle (um, yeah, it only took her like 10 months to master drinking from a bottle, and now I have to take it away.  Nice) full of chocolate milk.  INSTANT 1 HR. BABYSITTER. (slow flow nipple yeah!!)  It was the best.  She is definitely out second.  Definitely.  (Those of you w/out kids or with only one kid--don't judge.  This will be you in a few yrs.)

*  Doesn't keep her headbands in. And again, since she's child numero dos, I've given up already.  I'll put bows on her head when she has hair.  So for now I put gel in it and fauxhawk (sp?) it a little so she doesn't look like a TOTAL orfan.

*  Has never worn shoes.  I was obsessed with making Claire have the right shoes with the right outfit, with the right headband.  Yep, that's all down the drain with my second.  (Man, I'm really sounding like I don't care about my second child here!! AH!  I promise I do!!  It's just that I don't care about those little things as much anymore!)  Anyway, Anya goes to church barefoot every Sunday.  Um, and this last Sunday, Claire actually joined her.  We really did forget to put shoes on Claire.  But let's be honest...she takes them off within 5 minutes anyway.

*  The most wonderful thing about her crawling is that she doesn't need to be held 24/7!!!  It's so blissful, I can't even express... Baby gate, and I'm all set!! Now, if only I could get the 2 yr. old to stop bodyslamming her all day...that would be get-stuff-done-around-the-house-heaven.

*  Anya and Claire now officially share a room.  It's...interesting.  But good.  They are learning to get used to one another's middle-of-the-night outbursts, etc.  Claire wakes with leg pains ALL THE TIME, so it's fun.

Anyway, I think that's it!  We just love Anya to pieces.  And we're excited she has survived almost a year with the crazy older sister she has terrorizing her daily.

The Only Regret is the Dora Shirt...

Jordan got our little cutie to pose for some impromptu pictures with his new lense :)

 

 

CABIN 2011

Here it is.  The post of all posts.  The event of the year.  The Gollaher Family Reunion at the Cabin.
Definite picture overload, but that's what it's all about, right?

Everyone, except for my brother, Joe, and Anya who, was asleep (Joe came to the cabin but had to go home that day to move out of his apt. or something)

Anyway, this year was so fun!  However, I noticed even more this year (with two kids) that it's not really a VACATION, that's for sure :)

Probably one of the best things about the cabin is the fun time we have on the ATV's.  A bit of a sad accident though--Ian fell off one of the ATV's (his sister, Chloe, accidentally pressed on the gas as he was getting off) and had to go to the ER.  He was amazing though, and no permanent damage! (I think he was just trying to catch up with Claire and her ER visits...not to mention his dad, Nathan!)  So, almost all of the pictures with Ian in the post show his face a little scratched up!

Little Becca on the ATV

Nathan, Max, Becca, and Chloe

Two of the three true loves of my life :)  (AM I CORNY OR WHAT??)

Awwww love my little monkey.

Look at that little angel face.  Seriously.  But does she act like that all the time?  Nope!

Sydney Loo...

We love to ride the ATV's down to see the horses in the meadow too:

Claire liked to SEE the "horsies" but not touch them.  Eventually, when faced with the option to feed them carrots, she decided maybe just touching them on the nose wouldn't be so bad...feeding them is a lot scarier :)

Claire just being silly, as usual.  She definitely loved making and wearing this necklace with Ann-Marie and Cho-Cho!!

My little bundle of cuteness :)

Michelle had the girls make bottle cap necklaces.  There are sweet little owls inside the bottle caps.  They turned out so cute.

Crafting our little pants off, right??

Another one of Anya. I know....a lot of pics of MY kids.  My prerogative since it's my blog, I guess :)

Anya with Becca

Silly Monkey Claire

GORGEOUS Kiera.  Seriously.  Gorgeous.

There was a lot of hula hooping going on this year.

Sydney and little brother, Dahlin

Zachary and Ian.

Yep, another one of Anya and Becca.  I really need little Bec to come live with me and be my personal baby-holder :)

Dahlin.  What a cutie. Love that he's got Cruz' pacifier...lol (Cruz is his Mom's friend, Marcie's little boy...)


We also had a lot of time to lounge around :)  And Grandma read stories to the kids.
 

Becca and Michelle (my sisters) were making fun of my facial expression in this picture, saying I was making eyes at Jordan.  So what if I was???

Claire's favorite book.  (Thanks Lindsey!!)

LOVE this picture of Ann-Marie and her little boy, Ian.  What a cute moment :)  PS.  Do you like the "NO TRESPASSING" sign Jordan and I found for the cabin??  Pretty cool, eh?

Becca, the "whitest sheep" of the family, made sure we all read our Scriptures :) (PS Check out Michelle's new nose--pretty sweet!!)

Max and Zach-Zach being cuties.  I have no idea what he's doing here.  Yep!

The kids also enjoyed SNOCONES galore!!  Every day... multiple times a day... Here is Kaylin.  she even likes just ICE.

C'est moi!  I want one too!

Love this picture of Gavin.  It is such a GAVIN look too.

Bec and Zachary.  What a cutie.

My brother, Nathan, and his little cutie, Chloe.

LOVE this picture of Nieve and Sydney.  They are so cute.

And the little Pippster.  Kiera is also such a great "little mommy."

The actual Mommy, Kristin.  Just thought this was a cute picture of her.

OK so we also went to Park City one of the days to ride the Extreme Zipline and/or Alpine Slide. I rode the zip line.  It was so fun!  Jordan rode the slide with Claire and she had a blast.

Here we are at Olympic Park.

After, we went to Panda Express, and then to the outlets...just to check out the kitchen store. I mean, really, can you ever go to the outlets without going into that amazing store???

Cute one of Claire at Panda Express.

We also had a Talent Show.  I really wanted Claire to do the "Potty Dance" because she had been potty training, but we ran out of prep time.  So, she sang her ABC's instead...well, half of it since she kinda got embarrassed by the time she got to "L."

 Becca and Nieve did a fun dance to a Taylor Swift song...can't remember which.

 To get the "wiggles" out in between talent performances, we'd shut off the lights and the kids would go wild with their glow sticks (thanks Ann-Marie and Nathan!!)

 Kaylin did a fun reading for everyone of this pig book...Claire had to sit next to her for some reason :)

Becca and Kaylin sang a song for Michelle and her new nose.  It was a song about noses.  Anyway, it was funny.  Can you tell it's like 1am and I'm trying to get this post done??

Heather helped Lauren show us her bumping and setting volleyball skills!! She was amazing!  Check out that form!

For the boys' craft, Jordan (first he laughed at me when I was planning crafts and thought the boys could do some kind of leather bracelet thing) planned to launch ROCKETS.  It was a TOTAL HIT.  First, they assembled and painted them, and then they launched them.

Samuel had fun launching his....

 Super cool!!

 But it was pretty funny to see how it landed!  It was like STUCK upside down on the pavement.  Pretty crazy.

Cute pic of Lauren and Ian

Ian's rocket...

My mom couldn't believe how powerful these rockets are and how high they shoot up into the air!

Woooo!!!!!!

Gavin...

Corbin's rocket...

LOVE this picture...Ian looking up.  so cute.

So, we also took family pictures for those who wanted them.  Found this really cool white shed to take them in front of. 

 Keslers

 Walkers

Pretty funny that they both decided on black and turquoise.

And we took pictures too...on the blog header..as you can see.

We originally wanted to take pictures at this old abandoned house, but the time of day wasn't working for the lighting, so next year!  Here's an idea of what it looks like, starring...moi...

Check out that amazing wallpaper inside the house!! I bet there are ghosts living in it. I'm just sayin'.  Anyway, next year!


Also, after the Gollaher Family picture, Jordan did an impromptu pic of Kristin and her family (hence no matchy matchy clothing) :)

But seriously.  They are so freaking photogenic, it's not even funny.  Look at that little Pippa--she is so adorable.  Poor Samuel...the only boy!  But he takes it in stride!  Anyway...

We also did a horse shoes tournament, in which Jordan and I failed miserably (we are a lot better at the unconventional games...more on that to come), but we did beat Becca and Phil--who, surprisingly were the early winners.  Must've been a fluke.  Sorry Filly-- you will do better next time.  Sorry Phil and Jordan.  Your wives are not...like Michelle.  That's all I have to say.  Of course, Michelle and Andrew won AGAIN.

I'm done.  All in all it was such a fun time!!  We loved to seeing everyone!  Til next year!!