7 months

Abby's 7th month was a busy one! Almost as soon as Thanksgiving ended, Chanukah began. We enjoyed our 8 nights of gifts. Abigail didn't know what was going on but she did like the presents and watching the candles burn down.

But most of the month was spent traveling, traveling, traveling. All the girls left for California on December 11th for almost a month in California. It had been over a year since we've visited (since we moved!) and Abby had never been there before. The grandparents and other friends and family were especially excited to meet her.

Traveling alone with 2 kids wasn't terrible. There were other families on all of our flights with much worse kids so that always makes my girls look especially sweet. Daddy did drive us to the airport and get all of our luggage checked in at Sky Cap so we only had to deal with our carry-ons in the airport. Unfortunately there isn't any way to take a direct flight from Connecticut to California, so we flew to Denver first, changed planes, then on to Sacramento and then ended with a 2-hour drive to Redding. What a long day. The flights were 3 1/2 hours and 2 1/2 hours. Abigail did great on her first flights (I think Lily had flown 8 or so times by Abigail's age). We were very glad to get to California. Apparently, California didn't want us to stay too long because we had nasty weather the whole time we were there. We saw the sun a few times and it was a good 20 degrees warmer but it was rainy and gray most of the time we were there.

The happy travelers.

In the middle of our trip (when we drove down to pick up Daddy) we stopped in Davis to visit Scott's old boss from the very first lab he worked in and to reminisce and wonder if we might live in Davis again someday. Then we headed to San Francisco for the night to meet up with old college buddies and a couple of Scott's UCLA lab mates. We spent a few hours at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and Lily thoroughly enjoyed running around enjoying science and Abby mainly enjoyed yelling at another baby (she loves babies).

Abigail thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas. She figured out the opening presents deal pretty quickly and loved ripping the paper. She also didn't mind the constant attention which meant being held a lot of the time. She definitely likes being the center of someone's attention at all times (middle child syndrome?). Grandma even got to babysit and mommy and daddy got to go see a movie (only the 2nd one in 7 months). We came back to Abby sleeping on Grandma and not in her bed. Big surprise, her favorite place to sleep is on someone else.

Just a couple days after Christmas we headed South to visit the other set of grandparents. Our flight from Sacramento to San Diego was very delayed; 4 hours for a 1 1/2 hour flight. We could have driven at that rate. Oh well, we stopped in Davis for lunch then went to the airport.

Southern California was also busy. We visited Disneyland, Legoland, Los Angeles and went sailing in our week there. Abby was mainly just along for the ride but she did enjoy seeing a few more babies: Addie in LA who's only a month older than her and another Addie who was visiting San Diego who's about Lily's age and Jake who's somewhere in between Lily & Abby.

Abby reading a book in the library.

Bundled up the the New Haven Christmas tree lighting.

They are all looking the right way, but no one is smiling.

Decorating the tree.

Big sister Lily, cousin Bella, and cousin Jacob.

Abby & her cousin Claire (almost a year old, but nearly the same size).


Abby opening her presents Christmas morning.


The craziness of Christmas morning.

Opening Chanukah presents at our belated party in San Diego.


Opening presents again.

Meeting Chip.

Looking for Nemo in a submarine.


Waiting for the parade to start at Disneyland.

Building with Legos at Legoland.

15 months

You can imagine how loud this is.

Official stats:
Weight - 24 lbs 11 1/4 oz (75th percentile)
Height - 32 1/2" (95th percentile)

Lily had a doctor's appointment this morning to celebrate her 15 month birthday. This visit was particularly difficult. We think she remembers the exam room. She wasn't happy to be there. Even before the doctor came in she kept trying to get on the ground and was pointing to the door trying to get out. None of the procedures went very smoothly. She didn't like the nurse or doctor touching her and she had particular disdain for the two shots she got. She was happy as soon as we got out of there. She's growing wonderfully and symmetrically. She's still long and lean. Hopefully she'll be blessed with that figure her whole life. She's a little below normal on her words (has 2, average is 5) but she has so many signs to make up for it. Signing with babies and toddlers has been shown to help vocabulary not hinder it so I'm not worried that she'll catch up and catch up quickly.

Lily has finished her swimming lessons and has now moved on to gymnastics. She loved swimming so much. Although Daddy couldn't stay and watch otherwise she just wanted to wave to him the whole time and show off. I was pretty impressed that she could hold onto a kickboard and keep herself above water. Then I could hold her feet to show her how to kick. She prefers to kick both legs simultaneously like a frog though. She's gone underwater a couple of times (me dunking her very briefly). She's surprised but she doesn't hate it or cry at all. She likes to put her face in herself, probably mostly to lap up the water like a dog. Gymnastics is going well too. She has a private class since no one else signed up for her session. She likes jumping on the trampoline, she's mostly just bending her knees but she can make the trampoline move. And she likes the big foam block pit and just exploring and climbing on things.

She's a real jabbermouth. She's talking and babbling all the time ("daba-daba-daba-daba"). Her signing has really taken off too. She made up her own sign for cat (tipping her head over so her right ear is touching her shoulder). I'm not sure how she came up with it, but she consistently does it whenever you ask her to show you "cat" or she sees a picture of one. She still only says three words "hi" ("eye"), "up", and "apple" but she says those a lot (especially "up"). She actually just learned "apple" on her birthday. We were looking at a book together and she just said "apple", while pointing to one. She's been practicing saying it a lot since then, it's very cute. She tries to mimic a little bit but not much yet. Hopefully that will be coming soon. I really look forward to hearing what she has to say. Although it's amazing how much content we can get out of a few signs and grunting/pointing at things.

She understands most of what we say to her. She's very good at following directions, "get your shoes", "take this to daddy", "where's your milk?", "let's go outside", etc. She responses appropriately to almost all those cues and a lot more. If only she'd listen to "stop throwing food on the floor" and "stop dumping milk out of your cup".

She's taken a new liking to her stroller. Whenever she sees it she gets really excited that she's going to ride in it. So excited that she jumps up and down, pointing and grunting. I'm not sure why that fascination started.

Her papa, grandma, Aunt Melody, Aunt Anna and cousin Bella recently visited for 9 days. Lily had a blast with them. While they were here Lily was able to go to Disneyland twice, the aquarium, the zoo and the beach. She loved all of it of course. And she loves her cousin. She's pretty good at sharing things with her and she likes holding her hand (more than Bella would like) and they even danced together (until they somehow toppled over--see below). Lily is pretty much obsessed with the water, we have to watch her carefully. She'd jump right into a pool or walk right out into the ocean--she doesn't have any fear at all. When we were at the beach she kept wanting to go deeper and deeper into the waves and enjoyed them splashing into her. When I let go of her hands she just walked right back out into the surf.

She had her first night away from mommy and daddy the first weekend of August. It was a little tough on mommy but we all survived. I'm not sure how much Lily even noticed. Mommy and Daddy went up to Santa Barbara wine country for a wedding (congrats Kelly & Mike!) and bauby and grandpa came up to stay with Lily. Lily enjoyed being the center of attention and showing off all her skills--especially her dancing skills apparently.

Milestones
Wearing 18-24 month pants and dresses, 2T shirts
Wearing a size 6 shoe
Wearing a size 5 diaper
Has 6 teeth (got a new molar on the bottom left below her other molar)--still so many teeth to come, hopefully they'll just get here soon.
Words: hi, up, apple
Signs: milk, more, food, water, cat, alligator, elephant, bath, brush teeth, dance,
Animal sounds: dog, cow, monkey, fish
Can point to: nose, mouth, tongue, hair, head, belly, eyes, ears, hands, feet. Loves pointing to others' features too.
Favorite book: One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish by Dr. Suess
Favorite toy: Elmo

Aunt Melody, cousin Bella, Lily and I in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle.

The carousel in Fantasyland.

Dumbo ride.


Lily loved Its a Small World, so interested in everything and threw in some dancing every once in a while.

Lily was trying to show her cousin Bella some sweet dance moves.

Playing in the water at the park.

1 Year Old!

Happy Birthday Lily!

Has it really been a year already? I can hardly believe its been a year already but on the other hand I can't remember what it was like before she joined our family. Reflecting back on what I was doing at this time last year is very emotional for me. We were so anxious to meet her! And one year ago tonight at 10:06 PM is when we were first introduced. If anyone other than me is interested in re-living that day and night, my detailed account is here.

So what has Lily been up to? She's started walking! We are so proud. But she may be even more proud. She definitely has pride in her accomplishments and she's not afraid to start clapping (which means we should say "Good job!").

The end of a long day.

Weight - 21 lbs 11 oz
Height - 31"

Milestones
-Wearing 12-18 month clothing in most things, but 24 months or 2T in most shirts unless they are a long style.
-Wearing a size 4 diaper, but moving up to a size 5 soon.
-Size 4 shoes are getting tight now.
-Walking! Can easily take 10 or so steps. But prefers to hold onto things if she has the opportunity.
-Loves to dance. Likes to have music on to dance too.
-Very interested in reading books. Likes to read the same books over and over again. A new favorite is a "My Little Word Book". She likes to flip quickly to the pages that are full of animals and then she grunts at the animals.
-Loves animals! Grunts when she sees animals. She makes the same noise when daddy comes home.
-We made it breastfeeding for a whole year which was my goal to start out with. She started drinking formula in addition to breastmilk a while back and I stopped pumping milk at work about 2 months ago but she continues to breastfeed several times a day and even more on the weekends.
-Scared of jack-in-the-box and some things that talk loudly (Elmo Live doll). When she's tired she's scared of loud noises in general (Grandpa sneezing!)
-She likes to try eating by herself with utensils. Sometimes she'll refuse to eat when her daddy or I are feeding her but she'll continue to eat if she's feeding herself.
-She's becoming a pickier eater. She used to eat everything but now she has tastes and sometimes she'll flat out refuse to eat things (she hates beets! which is a bummer because our CSA has a lot of them).
-She has a few words that we're fairly certain she knows the meaning of. She says "mama" (and "mom mom"), "dada" and "hi". We first knew she was saying "hi" because she picked up a toy phone put it to her ear and said "Hi!" That was her first official word in our opinion.
-She's also become a better imitator with sounds and facial expressions. We'll say a sound an animal makes and she'll try and repeat it.
-Very loving. She's very good at giving kisses and hugs. She gives them to us and also to her stuffed animals, especially her animals. She loves them so much. She sleeps with a stuffed dog every night that she loves very much.

She was entranced by the candle.

Her birthday party attendants kind of missed out on the cake smashing but on her actual birthday she did a great job!

Trying out the tricycle. She figured out the bell right away.

Practicing eating with utensils. She's pretty good!

Helping Daddy put the seatbelt on the new tricycle.

She just wanted to put away all the sticks instead of building with them.

Eric Carle (of the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and the illustrator of Lily's favorite book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see? drawing his favorite animal at the LA Times Festival of Books).

Clifford the big red dog. Lily loved him and he gave her a book too.

Lily was very interested in Mickey.

She didn't really know she was standing next to Minnie until we walked away.

On a ride at Disney's California Adventure. Do you see a cell phone anywhere? I lost it on this ride.

Picking up eggs in Uncle Gary and Aunt Cat's backyard.

Opening up her Easter basket.

Lily LOVES "cousin" Sammie!

Uncle Gary is so fun.

1st Trip to Disneyland and fun with Uncle Grant

Lily got to take a visit to Disneyland with mommy, Uncle Grant and Grandma Sue. Uncle Grant and Grandma Sue came down for a visit for a few days and Uncle Grant wanted to take a trip to Disneyland, so off we went.

Riding on the merry-go-round.

In front of the castle with its Christmas lights decked out in Mickey ears.

Her first ride was It's a Small World. She fell asleep while waiting in line (oddly, that was the longest line of the day); but she woke up as soon as we got on the boat and got going. She loved looking around at all the lights and moving parts and listening to all the singing. She was enthralled and just kept looking back and forth.

It's a Small World and the Carousel where the only rides she went on. We also watched the holiday parade and she enjoyed that as well. It was pretty loud in certain parts but she was pretty entertained watching everything go by.

Lily had a great time playing with her Uncle Grant. She like sitting on his shoulders and pulling his hair. She loves pulling everyone's hair, actually.



Uncle Grant leaves tomorrow for his mission. He is going to the Dominican Republic and will be gone for 2 whole years. We are all very sad to see him go.