Ariana is Three!

Well I think this officially makes us out of the "baby phase" of parenting? I guess Ariana hasn't been a baby for awhile, but I was still changing diapers until recently so I think that qualifies. It will really feel like a new stage of parenting when she starts preschool in the fall. I'm equally parts excited about the school-age phase of traveling more, more spontaneity without nap time and sad that they are all growing up so darn fast.

We had a fun party with most of our families last weekend. Ariana requested a pink cake, pink balloons and Paw Patrol and we made it happen. She isn't big on sweets so I made a light cake with whipped cream frosting and lots of strawberries (her fave fruit) and she still didn't eat it! The rest of us loved it though and the twins are already begging me to make it for their birthday.

Cousins! 

Ariana is so much fun. I always said three was my favorite age. She is getting a little more feisty and throwing a few tantrums, but most of the time she is cracking us up with the funny things she says and does. Her big sisters still think she is the cutest little sister ever. She is SO excited to get to take swimming lessons this summer and maybe some ballet too now that she is old enough. 

She loves Littlest Pet Shop, Paw Patrol, playing games on the Kindle, swinging, bubbles and dancing in her pink dress. She is still a pretty picky eater and loves macaroni and cheese or any kind of noodles, cheese, ham, steak, Goldfish crackers, strawberries, blueberries, greek yogurt, popcorn and french fries. She is about 27 pounds and 37 inches tall and wearing size 3 clothes and size 8 shoes. 

Ariana is 2!

What? Can I please re-wind? Actually, it does feel like a full two-years since our baby Ariana was born. A lot has happened and like a little family caboose, she is always along for the ride. Now that she is getting older and wiser, she pretty much thinks she's the boss. And because she's so cute, we go along with it. Most of the time.

I feel so lucky to get to spend my days with her. We go to the gym most mornings. Ariana loves the ladies that work in the Kid's Club and usually tells me afterwards that she played with puzzles, dolls and coloring. We spend the rest of our time playing at home, going to the grocery store, walking back and forth to school to pick up Lexi and Zara and playing in the back yard. Ariana loves going to Bebe Jan's house on Fridays. She usually doesn't even want to say goodbye to me because she's so excited to play.

Her favorite things to do right now are to play Zingo!, watch Super Why and Paw Patrol, swing outside, ride her trike, color and read books. She loves her baby and bunny and makes sure they are always with her. She is a great helper and listener and loves to help her big sisters set the table for dinner and help me with the laundry. I have to hold her hand while I vacuum and hold her when the blender is on because they are "too loud!" Ariana loves the water and had a great time playing in the pool and water table outside during the heat wave we had for Spring Break. She never wants to get out of the bath tub and tells us, "I still swimming!"

Ariana was an early talker and now speaks in sentences and uses way more words than I can count. She says "my" instead of "I" and it is the cutest thing. "My do it" and "My help." When I ask her how old she is going to be she says "two candles!" She calls herself "Na-na" and we have all pretty much started calling her that too. When someone asks what her name is she says, "Ari-na-na" Her face lights up with a big smile whenever we sing her favorite songs - Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Your Boat and If Your Happy and You Know It. She makes sure I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her before every nap and bedtime and I happily oblige.

I am much less structured with her meals and eating habits than I was with the twins at this age, but I guess I've learned it doesn't really matter that much in the long run or I just don't want to fight her. She drinks a lot of milk and her favorite foods are ham, eggs, cheese, steak, pulled pork, french fries, macaroni and cheese, strawberries, bananas and gummy snacks. She refuses to eat most vegetables other than carrots, but she devours my homemade zucchini muffins so I figure she will be fine. Ha.

She continues to be tall and lean weighing about 25 lbs and not sure how tall, but will update this after her next doctor visit. She wears size 2T clothes and size 6 shoes.

Edited to add 2 year old stats: 34" (50th percentile) and 25.5 lbs (24th %)

The Never ending Winter...

 So our first Yakima winter has been snow, ice and more snow. Supposedly "it's not normally like this." Alright. I love the snow, its gorgeous. Especially when the sun is also shining. But I do not need two straight months of it. We have settled into a nice routine with school, swimming lessons and mornings at the gym for Ariana and I. On Fridays, Ariana loves spending the day with her Bebe Jan. I try to get a bunch of work done and volunteer in the girls' kindergarten classroom in the afternoon. Here are some quick January snapshots.

Reading books together before school one morning

Zara asked, "Is it spring yet?"

A fun hike in Issaquah - Poo Poo Point

Pretending they are pairs skaters

Cheese!

Daddy's girl

This doesn't happen too often...

My Baby is One and a Half!

Our baby Ariana is 18 months. She seems to have grown up a lot recently so I want to write it down before I blink. In the last six months she has changed from a total baby to almost a kid. Almost. I'm holding on to the baby as much as I can!

Ariana is independent and this little girl knows what she wants. She talks a ton, adding new words all the time and repeating a lot. In the last month or so she started talking in short sentences with 2 or 3 words. The most frequently word is no. She started watching a few cartoons and grabs the remote and asks for "Memo" (Elmo), Cuppord (Clifford) and she calls Curious George "ooo ooo ah ah". She loves brushing her teeth and takes her sisters' toothbrushes out of their bathroom and follows them around the house saying "brushhhhh." She names and requests all of her favorite foods (cheese, milk, bar (Clif kids or Lara bars), nana (banana), eggs, cakes (pancakes), ham, berries. If she gets in the way or knocks something over she says, "oh soweee mama."

Her favorite toys are a hand-me-down white dog that you pull on a leash, all the books in the house, magnetic puzzle that has doors that open with pieces inside, all the ride-on toys (Rody, rocking horse, car). She can identify and say several body parts (nose, ears, mouth, teeth, neck, feet, hands, hair and eyes) and sometimes pokes me in the eye.

This girl is a climber. Much more than I remember her sisters doing at this age. There isn't a set of stairs or ladder to a slide that is too tall for her. No fear with this one. She climbs on top of our tall kitchen island stools every chance she gets. Same for the dining room table and back of the couch. She thinks its the funniest thing ever to climb up on top of me or Marcus on the couch and fall down. She says, "so funny mama."

Ariana is so in love with her big sisters and the feeling is mutual (most of the time). As soon as their door opens in the morning, she runs in and climbs on their beds with books and they love reading to her. Walking to school to pick them up is her favorite part of the day and she walks home holding both of their hands. She loves to do whatever they are doing, including playing with Legos and drawing with markers so it's a tough balance between letting her join in and keeping my stress level in check.

On a good day, she sleeps 7:30-6:30. Sometimes it's 5:30am. So early. She takes one nap in the afternoon at around 1.

We love this girl to the moon and back. We are so lucky for our rainbow baby after the storms and sadness before we were blessed with her.

Lexi is Five!

Oh my goodness this girl is full of personality, excitement and drama. She picked out a new colorful maxi dress last weekend and was very conflicted about whether she wanted to have a party at all because I told her she couldn't wear it to her gymnastics birthday party. This morning she finally came around and said, "I was joking yesterday, I'll just wear a shorter dress for the gymnastics part of the party and then change back into my long dress." Whew, crisis averted. She insists that her $2 flip flops from Old Navy are the most comfortable shoes ever and wears them everywhere she can, including all over Disneyland. I took her to buy new shoes at Nordstrom today because she was complaining all of her shoes were too small and after an hour we almost left without anything because she was so darn picky.

Lexi is very excitable and usually jumps up and down squealing and yelling about anything and everything. The volume in our house is LOUD. At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park last month she chose to make a pressed penny donkey as a souvenir. The rest of the day she exclaimed loudly several times, "Look at this sweet little ass!" and "I just love this little ass." We have our Aesop's Fables book to thank for introducing that word into her vocabulary.

This girls is always right and super stubborn to go along with it. She will often change her mind about something, but instead of admitting she just changed her mind, she insists that we are wrong. It drives us crazy, but it's also hilarious. For example, she will say, "I want the cheese pizza" and then when the cheese pizza comes she will say, "I said I wanted the pepperoni pizza!" and acts like we are all nuts for thinking she ever said cheese.

Lexi loves drawing, puzzles, playing with horses, reading books, dancing and watching Paw Patrol. Her favorite foods are blueberries, strawberries, bananas, popcorn, quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches.

We LOVE her so much!

Zara is Five!

Zara is our quirky, serious and sweet girl and I just cannot believe how fast five years with her has gone by. She is wise beyond her years and has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and details. We get lots of thought-provoking questions from Zara, some that we don't always know the answers to. She is a huge lover of animals (especially zebras, horses, wolves and tigers) and of her family. Pretty much every day she tells me, "You are the best mom ever, I love you so much." She loves her baby sister bunches, always giving Ariana hugs and playing games with her. Lately she has been keeping track of all of Ariana's milestones, reminding me what words she can say and how many steps she took.

Over the last year we decided to cut Zara's hair shorter to help her have her own identity separate from Lexi. She was glad to do it so people would stop asking her and Lexi "which one are you?" Then more recently we went even shorter to a bob right under her chin and it is so adorable on her. She was a little sad at first with how short it ended up being. Lately she is getting so many compliments from friends and even strangers that is boosting her confidence about her hair so now she seems to love it again.

Zara's play really centers around animals. Her favorites are drawing and coloring animals, playing with her Paw Patrol toys and other animal figures, designing and cutting out paper clothes for the animals and watching Paw Patrol and animal movies (like Lion King). She REALLY wants a dog so we may eventually cave on that one, but don't tell her!

Both girls are really into knock-knock jokes lately, but they haven't quite figured out how to come up with a funny punchline. They are  both so talkative that the biggest drama around our house is the fighting to talk, talking over each other and interrupting each other. It is so LOUD!

She loves cheeseburgers, steak, cheese and crackers and fruit.

We LOVE our Zara girl so much.

Ariana's First Birthday

With a fun vacation starting very early the next morning, we just had a small birthday party for Ariana. It was great to have our dear friends celebrate with us on a super sunny Saturday. We grilled burgers and hot dogs (her fave) and the kids bounced in the bounce house.

Ariana is ONE

And just like that our busy bee is ONE. We are having so much fun with our baby girl. The other day at the park, Zara told some other little girls who were talking to Ariana, "oh, that's our baby. Isn't she the best baby ever?" Ariana pretty much has the four of us wrapped around her finger.  I can't go near Lexi and Zara with a hairbrush, but Ariana pulls their hair constantly and they just laugh. Hmm.

This girl never stops moving. Unless it time to eat, then she is begging to get into her highchair. She is an early riser lately and often has breakfast before her big sisters are even awake. Then she begs to get back in her highchair to eat a second breakfast with them. She can't miss out on being part of the breakfast table chatter. She is climbing the stairs and sliding down safely feet first on her belly. Since we are moving very soon, we haven't baby proofed so she is opening all the cabinets, checking out the toilet water, unrolling the toilet paper, digging thru garbage cans and anything else she can get her chubby hands on. She has an intense focus and will not be deterred or distracted. Thankfully she isn't really into putting tiny objects in her mouth so we can trust her to play in the playroom. 

Ariana's favorite toys right now are the cat piano, play kitchen, activity garden, books and toy dogs that bark. She loves tickles, baths, being flipped over backwards, mommy "airplanes" and flying down slides. 

I am slowing weaning and we are down to nursing just first thing in the morning and at bedtime. She drinks whole cow milk out a sippy cup with meals and is great at drinking out of a straw too. Her normal breakfast is cheerios, sausage, eggs and fruit, but she likes pancakes, waffles, oatmeal and bacon too. Lunch and dinner are usually whatever the rest of us are eating, but her favorites are ham, hot dogs, avocado, sweet potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, mum mum crackers, cheese quesadilla and beans. 

She usually sleeps 7pm to 6am and naps around 10 and 2. I think she will be ready for one nap soon and hoping that might help her sleep in a little later in the morning. 6 am is too early for me!

So sad that she isn't a "baby" anymore, but I think she is always going to be the baby - youngest kid in our family and youngest cousin on both sides! We love her like crazy and think she is the cutest and sweetest thing ever.

Stats:

Birth: 6 lbs 12 oz | 18.25"
2 months: 10 lbs 10 oz | 23"
4 months: 13 lbs 10 oz | 25.25"
6 months: 14 lbs 14 oz | 26.75"
9 months: 17 lbs 11 oz | 28.5" 
1 Year:     19 lbs 9 oz (45th percentile) | 30" (75th %)

11 Months!

This post is a few days late, but I took the pictures on the right day last week. I know everyone says this, but I seriously cannot believe this little baby of ours is going to be ONE. Well I can believe it because she is babbling up a storm, cruising everywhere, into everything and keeps us all entertained. She loves playing with her big sisters and is pretty good about keeping a low profile and not acting too much like a baby so they don't kick her out of their club. The three of them sit at the kitchen table during meals and take turns being silly and making the other two laugh. Her big sisters tell me all the time, "Ariana is the cutest, best baby ever." And I have to agree!

Ten Months

Ariana has officially been out in this world longer than she was in my belly. She was born at 39 weeks, 6 days and is 40 weeks today. In the last month she has taken off crawling fast and getting into everything. She is so happy to be able to explore the house and follow us all around.

9 Month Ari

Ariana is now nine months old! I would probably be crying in the corner if she wasn't so much fun and following me everywhere these days. She does a great army crawl that looks stealth as she sneaks up on her big sisters and pounces on top of whatever game they are playing. Ha! Then they yell, "Oh No, ARI!!!" It's pretty hilarious. I keep telling her she is going to start getting the door slammed in her face if she doesn't play nice. She is a very happy, wiggly and determined nine month old and for that we are SO grateful.

She continues to be a great eater and sleeper and smiles all day long. She takes two naps a day and sleeps about twelve hours at night. Now that she can move she likes to follow us around and beg for attention. She hasn't met much food she doesn't like as long as she can feed herself. The few times I have tried to feed her a puree with a spoon, she smacks it out of my hand fast. Smart girl does realzie that she needs help to eat oatmeal and applesauce, but those are the only things she will let me feed her. Her favorite foods are any kind of meat (steak, lamb, pork, chicken, hot dog), grilled cheese sandwich, strawberries and eggs. We are constantly surprised at how much she eats and often end up offering her the leftovers off of her sisters' plates.

Her whole face lights up anytime anyone reads her a book. Lexi and Zara have some of the baby board book memorized and read those to her too. She also loves "itsy bity spider" and any other songs that we sing to her! She play with all her toys, likes to jump in the jumperoo and hangs out in the exersaucer too.

After a long journey to have this sweet baby girl along with the traumatic birth experience, we are more and more feeling like she is meant to be the baby of the family. Of course that could change, but we have started passing along our baby gear that we are done with and every day I am trying to savor these fleeting days of baby. Someone told me that "babies just don't keep" and that is so true.

Stats:

Birth: 6 lbs 12 oz | 18.25"
2 months: 10 lbs 10 oz | 23"
4 months: 13 lbs 10 oz | 25.25"
6 months: 14 lbs 14 oz | 26.75"
9 months: 17 lbs 11 oz (41st percentile) | 28.5" (82nd percentile)

8 Months

So Ariana is more like eight and a half months old by now, but I did take these pictures on her eight month birthday. Finally getting around to blogging them a couple weeks late. This girl is just so sweet we can hardly stand it!

7 Months

It's been a month since my last post and Ariana is another month older. She is now sitting like a pro and rolling all over the place, even swaddled in her crib. Ariana is bright-eyed, observant and full of smiles. She lights up when her big sisters talk to her and babbles right back.

Solid foods are a big hit since we started offering them to her at six months. So far she hasn't refused anything. Butternut squash, sweet potatoes, peas, pear sauce, rice cereal and applesauce are in the regular rotation along with crusty baguette and mum mum crackers. She also insists on tastes of whatever I'm eating so she has enjoyed everything from pumpkin pie to lentil soup.

Ariana is 6 Months

This girl, oh my, I cannot get over her. She is just the sweetest, easy going baby girl. When I pick her up she hugs my neck tight and buries her head in my shoulder.

We had a rough patch of sleep with her waking up almost every night for a few weeks last month, but now she is back to sleeping through the night. Ariana still sleeps swaddled and takes two long naps during the day. She just started trying some solid foods this week - avocado and squash so far.

I changed my work schedule so I can be home more so she is no longer going to daycare. We are hoping that will mean she gets sick a little less too. She will be home with us most of the time and going to a friend's house once a week. I know how fast these years fly by so I'm excited to be home more with the kids and grateful that my employer and husband are so flexible and accommodating.

5 Months

Our little pumpkin is five months. She is just the sweetest baby girl ever. Lately when I put her down on her back on her playmat she will roll over onto her tummy and then start complaining that she doesn't want to be on her belly. I think she is so proud of her new rolling skills that she doesn't think too far ahead. Silly girl.

Ariana started going to daycare a couple of days a week when I went back to work last month and she is finally adjusted and seems to really love the ladies that watch her there. 

She usually sleeps 7:30 to 7:30. Most of the time she wakes up to nurse around 6am and then goes back to sleep. She takes two naps a day and feeds about six times per day. We are still swaddling her since she sleeps so well and seems to like it. She is really interested in food and gives us the stare down during dinner time, but we are waiting until she hits six months to start giving her solid foods. 

Her favorite toy is still her hand and fingers that she has in her mouth all the time. She doesn't really suck on a pacifier much, but she likes to play with the wubbanub pacifier too. Little miss is long and lean (just like here sisters were as babies) and is wearing mostly 6 month and 6-12 month clothes. 

We are so blessed to have this sunny girl in our lives.