Some of Maia's phrases

Maia is a chatterbox these days!

Here are some of the phrases we frequently hear around the house:

"Look at me! I'm a princess. La la la la" (this includes dancing around while she sings)

A view of the back. :)

"Mommy, what doing?"

"So cute!"

"I love it."

"Galicious!"

We were in the car listening to the radio and Rachmoninoff's piano prelude in C# minor came on. Maia said, "ooo, piano!".

She also thinks that there should be sheep and bears in Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals.

Sometimes when she asks to watch "Cat in the Hat" I say "no way kiddo!". Now she says "Cat hat? No way!".

Watching her beloved "Cat in the Hat." We've moved on from Sid the Science Kid.

"Big yawn Ruby!"

"I got me!"

Maia will be 2 in April. It's hard to believe.

Ruby at 5 months

Ruby turned 5 months old on Feb. 9.

She's just about 13 pounds.

I feel like she's definitely out of the newborn phase and is a real baby now. Ruby constantly reaches for things to put in her mouth and is forever drooling. I suppose it's about teething time and now we'll be crediting every cranky mood to "teething".

We've started Ruby on rice cereal and she loves it. She's getting the hang of swallowing and with each feeding more cereal is ending up in her mouth than on her bib and face. When she sees the spoon, she lurches forward in her bumbo with a huge open mouth. It's like trying throw a ring on a wobbling bottle at a carnival...

Ruby continues to be sweet tempered and cuddly. We often get half a giggle out of her. However, I'm finding out that there is a fine line between the giggle and crying. Ruby hasn't really rolled over anymore, but I can tell that she really wants to (back to front). She's also starting to show more strength in her core and I think she'll be able to sit on her own in a month or so.

Just yesterday I was thinking how quickly it has gone and how Ruby is growing. It made me nostalgic and think that maybe I'm not done having babies around... let's blame it on lingering hormones.

I did mention this to Aleks and he about threw me out of the house.

Ruby is 4 months old!

When Maia was little, Aleks and I flew often and drew a lot of attention traveling with such a small one. An older gentleman was chatting with us and remarked on how having a little one is such hard work. He said "the days are so long, but the years just fly by". I'm often reminded of this when I think of our little Ruby being 4 months old! It's hard to believe that she's already been here 4 month, but at the same time, I've certainly felt every minute.

Ruby had her doctor's appointment yesterday and everything looks wonderful. Her head is growing at a consistent rate (a huge relief, after some concern last month), she's almost 12 pounds, and is still in the 70% for height.

Ruby smiles all the time, and when we go in to get her in the morning, we are often greeted with a shriek and huge smiles. She is interested in watching and listening to people, rolled over once!, and is reaching for and holding onto toys.

The other evening I was making funny sounds at Ruby and she started giggling. It was so precious. I don't remember Maia doing that until she was much older. Aleks, of course, was gone so I tried to video it. Ruby had used up most of her giggles by this point, but I did manage to record one! (It's at about 20 secs, no need to watch the whole thing.)

Ruby loves to look at her sister and watch what Maia is doing. Most of the time Ruby has this look on her face that says "why are you being so emotional about that?". If I had to guess at this point, I'd say that Ruby is going to be introspective and less talkative than Maia. I have a feeling that Ruby is going to be the kid that cracks us up with well timed one-liners.

Maia is now 21 months old! I can't believe that she'll be 2 soon. This past year has been a really fun one. When Maia was about 17 months we were reading her alphabet book and she was asking me what all the letters were. After doing this about a million times in a row, I got tired and started asking her what the letters were. And she could do it. And now she can consistently identify all her upper case letters and most of her lower case letters.

This new trick leads to some funny incidents. Most recently we were at the Palouse Mall and Maia saw the logo on the floor. She immediately dropped to her knees and crawled along the letters saying "P-A-L-O-U-S-E-M-A-L-L". It was pretty cute, even though I had to hide my disgust at the thought of all the germs on the floor.

A bit more bragging: Maia also knows all her colors and can count to 10 and identify 70% of her numbers. 9 gets her confused as does 4 and 7. Ok, no more bragging.

Maia is in the throes of being 2. She likes to do things herself and/or her way all the time. We constantly hear, "no, self!". She's getting quite good at using a spoon to eat her applesauce.

She got an awesome kitchen set for Christmas and was having a ton of fun playing with Daddy. Aleks came to tell me something while I was in the kitchen. Maia poked her head out of the doorway and said "Daddy, in there!" while pointing to her room. She loves walking by herself where every we go. The grocery store, mall, parking lot, etc. I love the she loves to walk, but am feeling that we might have wasted our money buying an expensive double stroller. It's probably just a phase, maybe this summer she'll sit in her stroller, making our trips to the mall go much quicker!

Everything with Maia is either hot or cold, very rarely do we get anything in between. It's never boring at our house. The sweetest thing is that Maia gets so excited when we all go out together. It often sounds like this:

Aleks: Maia, I have a question for you. Do you want to go on an adventure?

Maia: (big eyes) with mommy?!

Aleks: yes

Maia: and daddy?!

Aleks: yes

Maia: and Ruby?!

Aleks: yes

Maia: and Maia!

Aleks: yes! everyone gets to come

Maia: mommy coming, daddy coming, ruby coming, and and maia coming!

Maia also loves dancing and singing. I love how free she is right now, not inhibited by what other people think or how she "should" be. She just loves exploring her body and voice and it's so fun to watch.

I'm so looking forward to this summer when we're all home and Ruby is a bit older and the two girls can interact more.

Life is very full right now.

Christmas!

Christmas has come and gone and what a wonderful holiday it was! We got to celebrate this year with Aleks' mom, sister, and our two nieces. Aleks got food poisoning 1/2 hour before they arrived from Salem and was out of commission Christmas Eve. By Christmas morning, he still wasn't 100%, but well enough to enjoy opening presents with all the ladies.

It seems that everyone was very good this year, Santa had some trouble trying to find room for all the presents!

I made Kringle in honor of my grandmother Ruby, who passed away a year ago Christmas day. Grandma was in my thoughts all day. We miss her.

We took a walk in the cold Pullman weather, I think it was Maia's highlight of the entire holiday! She loved hanging around her cousins and playing with them.

This is the view from our house. So pretty in the winter.

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving has come and gone and it's already time to think about Christmas! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my parents and Aleks' dad. In the week surrounding Thanksgiving, Pullman had a record snow storm. We saw about 2 feet of snow.

We were so grateful to my dad who shoveled the driveway and sidewalk several times for us. Aleks and I now know that if we buy a house in the future, it shouldn't be a corner lot. A corner lot in the winter= double the sidewalk to shovel!

Aleks BBQ'd the turkey this year. It was an organic, grass fed bird from a local farmer in the Palouse. Aleks brined it 2 nights before, then on Thanksgiving Eve covered it in herb butter and put it in the fridge to dry the skin out. It ended up being very juicy on the inside and had very crisp skin. It was a 25 pound turkey, so we just finished eating the last of the meat.

Here's the chef with my mom, who made the pies! Yummy!

Ruby got to spend the holiday being held by her Gramps and Papa. What a huge help to me, since I have get to hold her all the time!

And of course, here's Maia on Thanksgiving. That week she also spent some time in her tutu.

Ruby is 2 months old & an update on Maia's head

Ruby is now 2 months old! It's hard to believe. We had a great doctor's visit and Ruby handled her shots like a champ.

She weighs 9.4 pounds and measures 22 inches.

Just for comparison, Maia weighed 11 pounds 7 ounces and was 24.75 inches tall at two months.

It appears that Ruby is going to be a little peanut! We'll see, she does have some large feet to grow into.

We've been getting more and more smiles from Ruby. She was pretty gassy and so our doctor recommended that she take probiotics. We've been giving them to her and it seems to help.

The big sister is doing well also. Here's an updated picture of her forehead. Our doctor said that with head traumas like this, the tissue get displaced and so it takes awhile for the dent to fill in.

Yesterday is snowed between 3 and 4 inches. It's mostly melted now, but Maia is ready for winter!

Halloween

We had a low key Halloween this year. Our mommy group friends came over for a pictures. We went to a Halloween party, then came home and had Maia in bed by 7:00.

Here is the motley crew!

We have:

The Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, Alice, the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Goth Boy

Ruby and her friend Sage

Maia and her friend Alden hugging. Us parents will be talking, then glance over and these two will be hugging or kissing. We have to keep our eyes on them!

Ruby as Tweedle Dum

Maia as Alice in Wonderland