Keeping up with Alette and Abria: July 2011

Friday, July 22, 2011

Happy Birthdays!

This year we got to celebrate two birthdays in one week! Abria turned three on Monday, and Miss Z turned 4 on Thursday. Our week was filled with celebrations. On Tuesday we took the girls out to 'The Pop Shoppe', their favorite restaurant. It was great to escape the heat and enjoy dinner together. Ironically, 2 of the 3 girls nibbled at their food-too engrossed with chocolate milk and too excited about gifts to have much of an appetite.
We continued the celebration on Wednesday when Andy's family came over. Despite the oppressive heat and humidity we all had a great time watching the girls play and open gifts.
Abria is getting the hang of being 3. For a very long time, when talking about birthdays, she would insist she was turning 5-after all, her sister is 5 and she gets to do so much more than a 2 year old. Alette is now insisting that she is 5 and 1/2.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Ice Cream

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream! The weather has been sticky, hot and humid. We've escaped to various a/c locales-thank goodness my girls never grow tired of visiting the bookstore or the petstore. However, this Friday we were bound to be stuck indoors waiting for the city inspector (who gave a estimated time range of 10am to 3pm). So we made it an ice-cream day. The girls had ice-cream with their morning waffles, we did some writing about ice-cream, did an ice-cream craft, and of course, made ice-cream. Making ice-cream in a baggie in your kitchen is not recommended. The bags leaked, the girls quickly got tired of all the shaking and eventually I just stuck the concoctions in the freezer and hoped for the best. A couple of hours later, the girls enjoyed some remarkably good tasting ice-cream!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Pizza Night

We've been reading 'Pete's a Pizza' by William Steig, a very funny and sweet book. We turned Alette into a pizza, did a pizza collage, made playdough pizza and then finally, made pizza ourselves. Alette usually wants to help in the kitchen but loses interest after a very short while. This time though she stuck through-mixing up and kneading the dough, then rolling and stretching it out. Of course it helps that pizza is one of her favorite meals :) and despite the whole wheat crust, she enthusiastically ate several pieces (once she had pulled off all the cheese of course).

Recent Words of Wisdom

18months

At 18months, Abria weighs a whopping 28 1/2 lbs and is 34" tall. She is a bundle of energy-she loves dancing and clapping to music, scribbling (unfortunatley not always on paper), chasing her sister, and playing with her toys. She's using more and more words but still communicates primarily by pointing and making the sign for 'more'. She's had a continual cold for the past few weeks, I've never used so much tissue in my life. Morning naps are a thing of the past :( but thankfully she is still taking a long afternoon nap.

Okay, it's not a REAL gingerbread house...

Our attempts at a gingerbread house was a fiasco this year. We mixed the dough, rolled it out, cut the patterns, put it together...only to have it fall apart. So we put it together again....only to have it fall apart again. I even tried to use duct tape and the glue gun. Finally we ditched it. I was determined to have a house for Alette to decorate so we built a cardboard house, then 'glued' on graham crackers with icing. So far it is till standing although the candy decorations are slowly disappearing.

Abria

Our last dr. appointment was not fun. Abria had a major fever and was feeling rather rotten. So the immunizations were put off a week...nothing like procrastinating the awful stuff. She's dropped to the 90th percentile for weight (although with her puffy winter fleece on-below-she looks huge!) and is off the chart for height. Not a huge suprise with a 6ft. tall mom! She loves her books, turning on and off the lights, climbing onto tables, and petting the cat. She's walking....abit. She's still pretty convinced that walking should only be done when holding onto someone's hand.

Abria

Politics According to a 3year Old

I was listening to B.Obama on NPR last week and decided to further Alette's awareness of politics by engaging her in discussion. This is how it went:
me: Alette, Barak Obama was on the radio, he's going to be our new president. Isn't that good?
alette: Obama's good?
me: yes, he is. Mommy and Daddy like him a lot. We think he's good.
alette: he listens to God?
me: I think so. We're excited that he's going to be the president.
alette: I want duck for president.
I think we have a ways to go before she's up to speed on her political saviness. Who can blame her for wanting a fun loving, mischevious duck for president though?

Introducing Abria Hope

During pregnancy I prayed for a quick delivery and a nonfussy eater. Abria came into this world on Friday, July 18 at 9:00pm, half an hour after we arrived at the hospital. With a full head of dark hair, and a voracious appetite, she behaved nothing like her older sister. Abria's now nearly 18lbs, and is a happy, content baby. She loves chewing on her hands, squealing, shrieking, and taking baths. We are still waiting for her to sleep through the night! She doesn't always need to get fed, but seems to delight in babbling and squealing at all hours. Somehow her big drooly smile makes it all worthwhile.