And my second pretty little girl...

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.

Outings

It's been a while.

Need to post the week my mother in law took on Jen's kids.  We did a few things.  Two of the things we did were go to Jungle Jim's and the Zoo...

Had a few of the kids just driving around in circles. It was pretty hilarious.

Man, it's been so long since we did this (I've been a slacker at blogging!!) that I can't even remember anything for the captions.  Oh well!

 And here we are at the zoo!  As you can see, Zoorassic was in full swing!  It was so fun.

 Sam and Ava were a lot more interested in sitting in the stroller than my kids!  Haha

 Claire digging by the new construction area.  Next year, the zoo is going to be amazing!!

 Ava digging

 Giraffes!

 And the carousel is a MUST.

 So Claire is the size of a juvenile!

"Monkey bars".... They always seem to find those.

It was so fun!

"No Way, Jose!"

Man, it's been a while.  SO BUSY.  As of late, Anya likes to shake her head a lot.  Especially when you say, "No way, Jose!"  Claire loves telling her that and trying to get her to shake her head.

Anya: The 6-Monther & Photo Shoot :)

OK, I know all of you have been eagerly awaiting Anya's new stats...right? :) JK. But I like to have them recorded because it's fun to actually look back and compare her stats to Claire's at This age!

Weight: 15.9 lbs, 50th percentile
Height: 26 inches, 61st percentile
Head circumference: 16.9 inches, 67th percentile

So, weight is the same percentile-wise, but then she's leveling out in the height department and her head is getting too big for her body. Interesting!

So, photos for this post (except for two totally lame ones from my not fancy camera) are courtesy of Jordan, who took pictures of Anya impromptu actually, when we were in Vegas a couple weeks ago. This is in my niece, Sydney's room, and she has the cute stripes on the wall--actually HAD cute stripes...more on that to come!



All is well with her. She is developing well, aside from all of her ailments lately. She has now had RSV, a variety of less serious colds off and on, and an ear infection.

Anya really likes practicing walking. It is so cute :)

She really likes sleeping...but still not enough. Mommy could use more breaks. She is a CAT NAPPER unless you're holding her. It is so freaking annoying and tiring :( But this too shall pass!

She is incredibly happy :)

Some more Anya-isms:

-She is OBSESSED with soda cans. It all started with Mommy's Fresca one day. Now, any time she sees a can, if she could sprout wings, she WOULD.

- She's a total mama's girl--this too shall pass :) Just like Claire probably, at this age. She will soon be a Daddy's girl, if she is anything like her sister.

-At first, when you fed her anything, she acted like she was going to throw up her whole body. It was hilarious/sad. So, I started feeding her off my finger...then started with spoons, and then realized that I really needed to stop mixing formula in with the cereal, and then she was golden!! "Formula is NASTY, Mommy."

-So I admit she's now 7 months old, since I've been so slow at blogging it (I'm so behind!! I still have to do our St. George trip, Vegas trip, and Easter!! AH!)...anyway...this was a few weeks ago, trying to get her to figure out the eating thing:



-She still doesn't roll over, or even think about crawling. We joke that she'll probably walk before she even crawls. She loves walking with Daddy.









She's just the cutest. What can I say?

I'm jealous

Some of you will really think I'm a freak for blogging this. First off, Anya has an ear infection. Definitely not jealous of that. Poor little monkey. But I'm glad we know now why she's been so high-maintenance for the past week or so! If it's not one thing, it's another. I swear she's been sick her whole life. Next time, summer baby for SURE.

Anyway, she gets to have this DELICIOUS pink amoxicillan morning and night. Do any of you have fond memories of this bubble-gum flavored nectar of the gods? I surely do. And still LOVE it and think it's the best tasting medicine!

So I'm basically just jealous she gets to have it. I wish they would make Advil in this format, so every time I had a headache, I could have a syringe-full of bubble-gum goodness. Yummy.

OK, done with my weird post.

Valentines

Had to post a few Valentine's things...



1. Valentine's Cupcakes. A MUST, don't you think? These are probably the best ones I've made EVER. SOOOO delish. I got the cake recipe here, the frosting recipe here (I have a secret crush on Bobby Flay (not so secret anymore I guess) and love his Throwdown show on Food Network), and the raspberry filling recipe here. The cake is probably the best cupcake recipe I have come across: not too moist, not too dry, not to light, not too dense. Just right.

2. Claire's outfit. Can you say Ca-uuuuuute???? I made the shirt, my mother-in-law made the leggings, and she bought the skirt to go with. So adorable. (I know, I'm not proud of my photography skills in these pictures...but she's 2...and was acting and wiggling like she was...2!)





3. Claire's hair. I have ARRIVED in the kid hair department!! My sister, Michelle, will tell you I was really bad at doing kids hair back in the day. I have since gotten better, right Michellie?



4. Valentine's Play Group. I attempted to get some fun pictures of Claire "playing." INSTEAD I got these:

Gotta love her. Even when it hurts (hurts= pulling your hair out multiple times a day). She has a tough time sharing. And letting go of the sprinkles. They decorated sugar cookies at the party, and pretty much the entire time, Claire had a small sprinkle shaker in one arm and a large one (I had taken it away already in the picture on the left--hence the face) in her other arm, hoarding them. She is obsessed with sprinkles.

(PS. SUPER CUTE headband in the picture TOTALLY made by Lenore (mother-in-law). Adorable. Too bad I don't have a happy, adorable kid to model it.... *sigh* Not today at least... maybe tomorrow?

5. And just had to include this pic of my two babies :)

The Blessing

This past Sunday, Anya was blessed in church. Great-Grandma Painter (Jordan's mom's mom) made her the dress (above, in the picture) and Grandma Taylor (Jordan's mom) made her the headband and cute pink flowers on her dress. They both are crocheting pro's!! It turned out SO CUTE. Thank you!!

When Jordan asked me what I wanted him to bless her with, I told him that health and a testimony were all I really cared about--he agreed.

And when it was time for him to give the blessing, he did just that! Just!! Because Anya was starting to cry :)



We just had immediate family come to the blessing and it was fun to hang out afterward at the Taylor's house. My father-in-law made ribs--YUM-O! And we of course had dutch oven cobbler too :)

I need to be good this week, that's for sure!!


With the Barnums


Four Generations: Eleanor Painter (Great Grandma!), Lenore (Grandma), me, and Anya :)


And just our fam


And I just love this picture--especially since we aren't in it lol :)

Anya, we sure love you!!! You had better be good and make all of the right choices in life--or else!! JK :) We love you so much and can't wait to see what a beautiful, wonderful, girl you will become!

Anya: 4 Months

And she's 4 months old now. It seems like just yesterday I was puking my guts out all the day long....

4-month checkup means new stats!:

Weight: 13.6 lbs - 50th percentile
Height: 25 inches - 79th percentile (she's getting tall!!)
Head: 16.1 inches - 53rd percentile

So yeah, she's getting less short and fat :) Getting long and lean! Just the way we seem to grow them (until they're my age, in which case, they may get long and fat lol :)

Anyway, she is getting SO CUTE!!

-She is such a smiley girl. Loves to just be paid attention to!! She loves being thrown up and down, and being tickled.

-She is starting to feel better. No dairy really does work on her!!! I have discovered a good ice cream alternative (Coconut Bliss--made with coconut milk instead) and vegan cream cheese is not bad!! Harmon's has risen on my best grocery store list (they are the only ones besides the granola supermarkets that have weird stuff like fake dairy lol)...although I still do most shopping at the cheapest: Walmart.

-I can definitely predict what she needs now--eat, sleep, burp! We've I almost gotten it down to a science (I say this because at the current moment she is not wanting to go to bed--don't think she's feeling that great unfortunately).

-No rolling yet! Which is good. I still lay her down on the countertop and one the kitchen table from time to time. My mother-in-law keeps telling me "yeah, she doesn't roll yet, but there's a first time for everything and it's best if she's not on a table!" Yeah yeah..... Claire's very familiar with the ER...Anya will just follow her lead, right? JK

-And we've tried rice cereal on her. She hates it. So did Claire. We'll keep trying I guess.

-Still wakes up to feed at night! Maybe one day she'll sleep. Then teething will start. I think I may not get a good night's sleep til the kids are in high school...

-She is STILL sick. Both of my girls have runny noses and coughs STILL. All winter long. I can't wait til it's spring, because maybe then the cold/cough will end. Poor thing!

OK, that's it. She's great. We just love her!!

Pictures on a Sunday Afternoon...

So, it was pretty tough getting them to look at the camera...and not be crying too...





But they also got a good-ish (meaning good...of them mainly) one with Mommy...



Not before Claire did THIS on camera:

Yep, that's what we call: "The Look." I had to laugh. She's giving you "The Look" while possessively putting her hand on Anya's head. Classic.

*And now you can see how big my nose is.*





I have to say, Claire is a TOTAL Gollaher (that would be my maiden name) in this picture. Her look reminds me of my Daddy. Ahhh :) I miss him.

Soon Anya will look at the camera--probably about the time Claire will stop looking, let's be honest here.