Ivy Update (13 months)

Ivy is over a year old now!

I was a little late on getting Ivy's 12 month check up so we had it a little closer to 13 months, but she is healthy and doing well!  Her current stats are 28 and 3/4 inches for height and 20 lbs 12 oz for weight.  She has been consistently in the 20-25% for height and 50% for weight. 

   She has changed so much this summer.  No longer a baby, she is a full on walking toddler.  She started walking at 12 1/2 months and never stopped.  These days she rarely crawls and is getting faster and faster walking.  She keeps up with us around the house and her balance is fantastic with Lilia running around her and bumping into her all the time.  She's our goofball.  She has such a funny little personality.  She is super smiley and still makes her funny "duck" noises.  We don't notice them as much as strangers and friends do.  They always comment or laugh and we just say "yup, that's Ivy!"

  Ivy's has more than "duck" noises in her repertoire, though.  She is now saying quite a few words.  She loves to play with baby dolls and she says, "Baby," "Pat pat," and "Bye, bye" (for "rockabye.")  She carries her dolls around with her and rocks them and burps them.  If you ask her to kiss her baby she will.  She gives us delightful open mouth kisses upon request as well.  Ivy also waves and says "hello" and "bye bye."  She also says "Dada" whenever Cliff is within 50 feet of her or even when she sees his picture or hears his voice.  She says "mama" when she sees... my breasts...  *sigh.*   

  I think my favorite thing about Ivy right now is how well she plays with Lilia.  It is just the best thing in the world to see your kids play together.  Just heavenly.  In the picture above and below they were playing "magic carpet."  Lilia always leads the game, but Ivy is usually content to follow along.  Sisters are the best!!  I just hope this lasts a few years....

   It is increasingly difficult to get a good picture of Ivy.  She is a girl on the go.  She never has been one to sit still, but now that she walks she almost NEVER sits still.  In these pictures Lilia dressed her up and sent her "grocery shopping."  She is a cute little shopper if I do say so myself!

  In other Ivy news, she has 6 teeth and one more just broke the surface.  Her favorites foods right now are raspberries and blackberries.  She also loves banana and baked sweet potato.  If she doesn't like a food or is done eating, she systematically drops it over her tray and onto the floor.  I will leave the room for a second and come back to find a neat little pile of cheerios or beans on the floor and Ivy looking up at me as innocently as can be.  She has been drinking cows milk for almost two months now and loves it.  She is still breastfed three times a day, but middle of the day is about to go. Ivy never took a bottle so we never had to ween her of that. 

  Ivy is still a good sleeper too.  She sleeps about 12 hours at night, wakes up in the morning to eat and then goes back down for another hour or two.  She is soooo different than Lilia when it comes to her night routine.  Both girls I read to and sang to and then rocked them for a minute before laying them down.  Lilia LOVED this routine and would let me snuggle her and hold her and rock her to my heart's content.  Ivy... not so much.  When she is tired she doesn't want to be rocked or snuggled.  I barely get to sing one verse to her before she is bucking out of my arms and diving for the crib.  She leaps out of my arms every night and nose dives into the mattress to snuggle in on her tummy with her arms and knees tucked under her.  She does the same thing at nap time which unfortunately is only once a day now.  Still better than Lilia ever was!  Ivy will sleep for two hours most days!  Amazing!!  (It's all relative, right?)

  She is such a fun kid.  She amazes us with the things she does every single day.  I'm not glad I threw up for nine months, but I am soooooo glad that we made the decision to have another child because life would not be the same without Ivy here!!

Ivy's Birthday in Florida

   I have been sooooo behind in blogging that even thinking about catching up is almost too much effort.  Ivy deserves a birthday post and update, though, don't you think?  I must really love her! 

  We had a birthday party for Ivy when we went to Florida to visit family and friends.   One of my very best friends, Chrissy, met us in Florida and we celebrated our babies' first birthdays together!  The theme was "Thing 1 and Thing 2" and it was pretty stinkin' adorable.   Many of our friends from Japan are now living in P-cola and they were kind enough to join us in celebrating Ivy and Liam's first year.  It was an impromptu reunion of sorts and it was so much fun!  I got to see some truly amazing women again AND the babies that they've had since we last saw each other.  So cool!  

  Ivy and her Mimi

Ivy and her daddy.  Don't let the look of terror fool you.  He had a great time with all of the girls and babies.  

   The kids were instant besties  :)

 Ivy opening gifts.  She dove right in and knew just what to do.

 Woohoo!

Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Aren't they cute!

  

   All of the mamas and their babies!  Japan/ Florida Reunion 2012!  These were some of my very best friends in Japan.  I feel very blessed to know them and hope we can get together again soon!

The cakes

 Ivy THOROUGHLY enjoyed her first cake. 

 So much so that she didn't even bother with hands! 

  

A "Tangled" Birthday!

The Pavilion by the water where we had the party.

A few of the princesses that joined us for Lilia's special day!  These are some of Lilia's very best friends here in Charlottesville. 

The Birthday girl!  Lilia LOVED her Rapunzel costume and couldn't wait to put it on for the party!

A few decorations and some food.   I wisely chose not to make the food for this party. 

Magical golden flowers!

Bear with me.  I am still trying to figure out blogger after all of these years... 

  So Lilia turned three back in May and I never got around to writing about her party!  We had a "Tangled" party because Lilia is pretty obsessed with Rapunzel right now.  She has two Rapunzel dolls and sleeps with a stuffed Pascal at night.  She used to watch the movie every. single. day.   It's a rainy day fave around here.  I actually really like the movie too so it is a win win and made planning this party a lot of fun! 

  We chose to have the party outside to accommodate wiggly toddlers and make the clean up easier.  My house is ideal for book clubs.  Children's birthday parties... not so much.  We were able to get one of the large pavilions at Mint Springs Park right near the water and we couldn't have asked for better weather that day.  It was sunny and warm.  Around 75 degrees.  I also chose this park because they have a nice playground in case the games I planned turned out to be lame. 

  I was a little disappointed that we didn't really get to celebrate Lilia's second birthday with all the chaos of last year, (i.e. moves, living with my parents, traveling, etc...) so this year I wanted to do it right!  We were very lucky to have Cliff home to help and my SIL Loradona was in town to help as well.  I limited myself to making cookies and cupcakes as far as food went and that turned out to be more than enough because I ended up getting strep throat AND mastitis three days before the party.  Ugh.  It was pretty miserable, but antibiotics had me mostly back in action by the big day.  I think Lilia had a wonderful time and that was what we were going for. 
 

"Pin the braid on the tower"

homemade pinata

Fry pans!  Who knew?

Lilia whackin' away

gorgeous day!

 I knew attention spans would be limited so I only planned a few games.  We had face painting and side walk chalk.  We played "pin the braid on the tower" and I made a pinata that I filled with wonder balls, mardi gras beads, plastic bugs, and parachute men.  The kids loved it!  We used a frying pan ( just like in the movie!) to hit the pinata.  It was hilarious.   After the games the kids ran around in the grass and chased each other.  All in all I think it was a very successful party and we were so grateful to everyone that came! 

Lilia is Three!

Disclaimer:  I have no idea how my pictures got so scrambled...  I am not sure about this new blogger layout...  

So this past Tuesday was Lilia's birthday!  Her THIRD birthday!  My little girl is three years old!  Her day was an exciting one too!  We met daddy for lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant and daddy arrived with a surprise!  Aunt Loradona came to visit!  Loradona is Cliff's elder sister and she and Lilia share a birthday.  Lunch was delightful.  The buffet at Milan was even better than usual and Lilia was in heaven with her "pita," (naan,) and raita.  She was content to just eat the raita by the spoonful and I would have let her, it being her birthday and all... but it was a little (LOT) messy. 

We resumed the festivities in the evening with a birthday dinner chosen by Lilia and cake and presents.  Here she is opening presents from mom and dad.  Ivy was just as excited as Lilia was...

  See how much Ivy wants to help?

 Oh boy!!!  Lilia has been so fascinated with doctors lately that we couldn't resist a pink doctor set for her.  She was thrilled.  (Ivy was and is too.)

 Reading a card from Grammy May.

 Grammy May sent Lilia a "Baby Rapunzel" doll.  Lilia was over the moon.  She actually let out a little shriek when she saw what it was.  Ivy is trying to get a look. 

 Rapunzel has slept in Lilia's bed every night this week.  She doesn't appear super cuddly at first glance, but what do moms know?

The birthday dinner was peanut butter and jelly - the birthday girl's request of course.  We used the strawberry jam that I made recently and it was delicious. 

 After dinner we had cake.  I made a cake for Loradona and a smaller cake for Lilia.  Same recipe.  Chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting and topped with a chocolate and peanut butter ganache and chopped Reeses' peanut butter cups.  HEAVENLY.  

 Lilia is pretty excited! 

 Getting ready to blow out the candles while we sing!

 Happy Birthday to you!

 Yay!!

  Stay tuned for Lilia's "Tangled" birthday party!!!

Ivy 9 months

  Ivy is 9 months old!  She has now been out of me longer than she was in me! 

  Ivy, Ivy, Ivy... crazy girl.  She is my busy little bee.  She never stops MOVING!  She has been cruising for a couple of months now and she gets around quickly.  She loves to climb up on walls, chairs, sisters, garbage cans, legs, dogs, and everything in between.  She also loves to pick up anything and everything and put it in her mouth.  Sippy cup?  Sure!  Cheerio?  Yes!  Hair ball, insect, grain of sand, dirty band-aid,  piece of glass?  Of course!  My floors have never been so clean.  When I say that they are so clean that you can eat off of them - I actually mean it most of the time.  Between the sweeping and the mopping and the Lysol, Ivy is very good for a clean and sanitary house.  Anything that escapes me and doesn't kill her, I just have to figure is good for her immune system!

  She is also chattering up a storm.  "Dadada" is still her favorite phrase, but she occasionally throws in some other sounds and consonants.  She also likes to growl.  At least that is the closes thing I can compare her strange and often guttural sounds to.  They raise more than a few eye brows at church, that's for sure.  She is so much fun, though.  While she is a little clingy, as long as I am in the room she is happy as a clam.  She follows me around like a little puppy with a *slap* *slap* *slap* of her hands and knees on the floors panting all the way.  She LOVES to "play" with Lilia and most of the time Lilia tolerates her well.  Oh, tolerate sounds so harsh.  Lilia loves her baby Ivy and thanks Heavenly Father for her every night in her prayers.  Lilia even made up a song about how much she loves her the other day.... Anyway, that's another post.  Here are Ivy's latest stats:

She is 26 3/4 inches and 18lbs 11 oz.  20th-25th percentile for height and 50th for weight.  She is so SMALL to us!  I think she seems so tiny because she is a little on the short side, but also because Lilia was never less than the 98th percentile.  I just love it, though.  She is so EASY to carry!!!  Man!  I can carry her around all day long if need be.  That usually doesn't happen, though.  She is a girl on the go and very squirmy.  She is a pistol when it comes to diaper changes.  I'm lucky if I get both tabs on.

  Cliff describes her as "vocal and active.  She is tenacious.  She sees something and goes for it."  She makes things happen.  Lilia might have been content to sit and observe the world around her, but Ivy is not.  She is all about exploration and discovery.  She is also very smiley and laughs easily.  She has Cliff's hair.  She climbed up two steps the other day....

   Her hemangioma is fading.  I think it will be completely gone in 6 months.  Maybe less.  I won't say that I will miss it exactly, but it will be a little strange not to see it anymore.  It's just been part of the package, you know?

 She is still mostly breastfed.  She is super interested in food, the problem is once you start feeding her you can do NOTHING else because she melts down if you aren't 100% devoted to her feeding.  She yells and screams and bangs her tray.  Our solution for this has been mostly finger food.  This allows us to eat as a family.  She is doing ok with the sippy cup.  Mostly she chews on it, but she gets a little water down.  She still hasn't really every had a bottle.  No point in starting one of those now!  She is finally sleeping through the night like for real sleeping through the night.  12 hrs sometimes.  I do still feed her at least once because I am a sucker and because I like my sleep.  She knows this and "milks" it for all it's worth.  Ha ha...

  We just love our little baby Ivy, though.  She is so much fun.  She fits right into our family in a way we could never have imagined!