Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Arwyn Week 57: Our 13 Month Walking Wonder! - 7/21/2016

Arwyn's biggest news is that she turned 13 Months old and started walking this week!  At the beginning of the week, she had really perfected her balance (getting up and down mid-room with grace and ease), and Josh reported that she was taking just a couple steps out and back, which increased to about 6 steps by my last day of work.  I didn't get to see any of it, and he kept missing the video!  So we are calling Thursday, 7/21, her first official day because a) I finally got video proof, and b) she really took off that day more than any other.  First thing Thursday morning she took a long walk across the room, and then she just didn't stop walking the rest of the day.  It was funny too because she really increased her skills so quickly.  She had that very first shakey walk in the morning, but by the afternoon she was so confident she was practically running!  So far she's not falling too much either; when she loses her balance she just stops, almost falls, then recovers with an athletic stance, and keeps on going.  She even was walking across the big trampoline by the end of the day WHILE people were bouncing on it...talk about so advanced with her balance!  Arwyn loves her new big girl shoes.  She gets really excited when she sees me pull them out, and sticks out her feet to help me put them on her.  She even gets angry and starts pointing at them if I'm too slow and she thinks I might not put them on after all.  Her top front teeth have also just surfaced, so she's up to 4 teeth now at 13 months.  As I mentioned above, Arwyn seems to have incredible balance.  A few days before she started walking, she was able to stand up and balance on the surfboard at the pond.  And the day she started walking, she walked, balanced, and jumped on the big trampoline at MorMor's while Leia and Megan were jumping, and she was balancing and compensating so well!

When we put Leia into her new toddler bed a month ago, we had convinced her that she needed to stay in the bed and call for us even though she could technically get out on her own.  Much to our surprise, she totally respected that for a month, until this week.  Now she's started getting out of bed on her own after naps and in the morning, plus she's starting doing a bit of jack-in-the-box up and downs at bedtime.  It's not totally different from her calling us a bunch of times before, but now she just gets out of bed and comes to the stairs to call us back up.  She also made her first middle-of-the-night trip out of bed and up to our bedroom (down the stairs, across the house, down the hall, and up the other stairs).  I never heard a thing in the monitor and was not expecting her at all, so I screamed and jumped when I heard my name called and found out little face right in front of my pillow!  It was pretty funny.  I've also been noticing more talking in her sleep and dreaming recently, which she's never really done before.  She's gotten back into a horrible jealous phase of Arwyn, and seems to be testing us constantly.  We are trying to make a new disciplinary game plan that we can both agree on and stick to.  Also, in an attempt to get her back to better eating habits, we invited her to stay up a little later and eat a special dinner out on the deck with Mommy and Daddy a couple nights this week.  The first night we got her to eat an herb-heavy lamb burger, and she even asked for seconds.  The second night she ate a crab cake burger, and liked it despite how tired and cranky she was.  After that, despite the gastronomic success, we got tired of not having a nice relaxing dinner for two, so we stopped inviting her!  Finally, I can't remember if I've properly documented Leia's current obsession with finding treasures or not, but either way, it's so important to her that it deserves a repeat discussion.  She watches Jake and the Neverland Pirates constantly hunting for treasure, so she like to do the same.  Some of the treasures at home are cool (pennies, face crystals, real crystals, etc), but whenever we go out, she is constantly hunting for things, but mostly what she finds and calls a treasure is just trash.  Nasty pink hair tie that someone lost?  Treasure!  Shiny bolt that fell out of something?  Treasure!  We have to bring bags with us everywhere, and for awhile I was worried that she'd be pissed if she realize that I dumped her treasure trash, but I finally just started doing it, and so far, so good.

This dress was too small when she received it, but did that stop her from wearing it?  No!  I guess it's ok since she's 3.  She and her dad will be having words if she tries this at 12!


What a goof!

Arwyn and her friends chasing after bubbles!

Homemade pizza with veggie box squash, fresh mozzarella, basil, and the best sauce Josh has ever made!

Fun morning at the Yoga Fest with my friend Leia...we did some good treasure hunting!

Got home from the yoga fest, and this is what she said: "We need to put on our decorations and take off our panties."  Then she spent the next two days naked under her decorative toga.  Weirdo!

She was really so fired up about this "decoration."


So cute how Arwyn loves to just climb up into chairs all the time.

Laughing at her weirdo sister!



"Knock, knock. Anybody home?"

Look who really likes to get into her kale chips!

Nice night for a little outdoor dining with my husband.

Love the summer veggie box, and the marinade Josh made for this fish was to die for!


Hooray, Arwyn is 13 months old!!


That smile is just infectious!

Always standing these days (or sitting in a big girl chair), and will be walking by the end of the week!


Just love that belly laugh.

Cute little ball of love!

And the jaw jutting grin just cracks me up.


"Aw shucks!"

"Who me?"



Psyched for the bright colors and big fun of another great Daddy Day!

Chef Leia is in the house! What are you making us?

But Arwyn, you are standing so well, why are you so pissed??  Oh, more Mommy hugs, yes, they are a hot item!

Password = Arwyn

Arwyn's first time walking!  She turned 13 months old and everything just clicked!

Password = Leia

Leia loves dual jumping and butt drops with Megan on the trampoline.

Password = Arwyn

So much to say and already walking like a champ on her first day.

Sitting at the big girl table in her big girl chair with her big girl snack cup...this kid's in heaven!

Leia wanted to take a selfie...

Bubble fun with Megan.

Apparently life is always better on a trampoline, even if you aren't actually jumping.

Password = Arwyn

Only her first day walking and she's already walking, balancing, and jumping triples on a full size trampoline!

Special family dinner out on the deck.  "White wine" for Leia, so I guess that means "yellow wine" for us.  And delicious lamb burgers, yum!



Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Arwyn Week 56: A Visit to the Greatest Park Ever! - 7/14/2016

Arwyn was really on the move this week.  We spent a few nights with her Aunt Jen, Uncle B, and cousin Soren, and she spent pretty much the entire doing laps around their circular coffee table like it was a running track (still using the table for assistance of course).  She's also setting new records for standing up and balancing in the middle of the room.  Clearly she's got the balance and the skills to move, so I'm sure walking is any day now.  We went to the most amazing park in Woodbury, MN; the play structure was enormous, with more cool features than I've ever seen in one place, and every part of the play structure was handicap accessible.  They even had a special anti-static slide, soft rubber ground surface, and a cool water feature "splash pad" for running through.  There were also more people there than we've ever seen at a kids park at one time. Arwyn was in heaven though; she loved climbing up the stairs and then just sat there people watching as the millions of kids and parents went running by.  We could have left her there totally entertained for hours.  I hadn't been feeding Arwyn much solid food for the last week in hopes that she would breast feed more and keep up my supply while I took a week off pumping, but all of a sudden the kid decided she wanted to eat, and once she did, she was unstoppable!  She ate an entire PB&J sandwich, plus fruit, and then had a snack cup full of cheerios and peanut butter puffs (aka chewy chompers, per Leia), and she just sat there watching people again, putting bite after bite after bite into her mouth.  I tried to take it away after awhile, and oh man did she protest!  She's totally addicted to the snack cup now, and if she see's one and gets ahold of it, don't even try to take it away from her.  She's even started throwing mini tantrums now, when you do things that she doesn't like, but they are so not in the realm of what Leia throws at us, so it's kind of just cute (for now).  On our flight home from WI, she again wouldn't sleep at all in the plane.  She never cried, but she was more fussy, wiggly, and uncomfortable this time, so it was a lot harder for us to keep her happy and entertained.  When our flight got delayed by 3 hours, I did finally get her to sleep for 40 minutes under the chairs, but then Leia woke her up.  Both girls finally fell asleep on the last short plane ride because it was just so ridiculously late that they couldn't help it.  Thank goodness!

This week Leia learned to be alright with standing in line and waiting her turn for things at the park.  It was amazing, she's always made a fuss about waiting, but here she really didn't have a choice.  She was not too cooperative with us at the airport, and has gotten really bossy about watching shows on the iPad.  I think that everything is going to just have to be "broken" for a bit when we get back home if she doesn't start acting better.  She really pissed me off when I finally got Arwyn to sleep at the airport, but we couldn't get her to sleep (overtired and amped up), but then she started yelling to try to wake Arwyn up because she didn't want Arwyn sleeping either.  Oh, I could have killed her.  We had to take turns walking her around the rest of the airport to keep her out of trouble.  She did do SOME cute and funny things this week though.  She loves to re-explain to others something that I have just explained to her (like maybe about what our plan is or how something works), and it makes her sound very knowledgeable and important, so I know that's why she does it.  It's pretty funny.  She also impressed me by properly using a new expression in context.  For example, the other morning, she was choosing her squeezie flavor, and asking for flavors I didn't have even though I kept offering her "strawberry," which is her favorite.  I was really perplexed, so finally I just pulled out the strawberry and showed it to her.  She did a double take, then smiled and said, "Oh yeah. I want that.  I was just kidding about the others."  It was too funny!

Ready to hit the park!

She found these great stairs and didn't need to venture further...the people watching view was great from here.


"Mom, did you see all these people?"

Stairs to climb, wind to blow her hair, and great sights to see...here we have a happy camper!

"Soren, check out those kids over there!  What are they doing?"


So fun how close in age these two cutie cousins are!


Dual slides are the best!

So fun to spend time with this happy little guy!

Summer is always hot and humid in MN, except the day we want to play on the splash pad.  Mommy drew the short straw...brrrr!

All the water features were really cool...such a great concept!

Sort of like being in a giant Alice in Wonderland garden or something.

Jen and Soren are lucky to live so close to this park.

Brother and sister with their cute little kiddos.

Whoa Arwyn, hang on tight please!

Testing out the handicap friendly zip line.

Haven't seen a see-saw at a park since I was a kid, and this one was a double...so cool!

Arwyn loves to fly!

Working on her balance beam skills.

Leia's getting better at this feature...can make it all the way across by herself now.

They even brought back the good old saucer and gave it a new handicap spin (no pun intended)!

This kid never has any fun.


Leia and Arwyn's turn for the saucer.

I'm thinking that she digs this ride.

Hang on Arwyn, don't go flying away!

Love it when these two have fun playing together!


Nice hugs!

Big sister helping to catch her "baby" on the slide.

Looks like a pretty civilized dinner party to me.


Check out this awesome pool, fully equipped with its own water slide and everything!

Thanks for sharing your cool toys with us Soren.


"Aunt Jen, this water is really cold!"

Hey there Soren, what's so funny?

Shark attack, roar!

Here comes Leia, Arwyn won't be dry for long!



"Awe yeah, this is cold, but really fun too!"


Looks like he loves his Mommy!

Fun weekend playing with these two!



Leia tying to crown me.


Uncle B sure served us up some amazing dinners...thank you!

Still able to balance when she's pissed!


Found this crazy bug in our bathroom...I think he's supposed to live on a leaf not this bottle!

Holding off airport meltdowns with juice and movies...just need to get home then we can nip these bad habits in the bud!

Finally slept for 35 minutes under a row of seats!

Always looking for new places to climb!

First design on her new drawable pajamas!

Washes off in the laundry so we can do it all over again!

Someone dropped off a pink scooter, and now she thinks she might give it a try.

Haven't been able to get her scooting or biking in months...hopefully we can keep up this momentum.

Sword fighting is really good for the balance!

Touring the yoga festival and eating ice cream with her Daddy...happy girl.