10 months!

Phoebe is 10 months old! It's hard to believe that in 2 short months she'll be one! She has made some progress this month. First, here are her latest lion pictures.


She was so squirmy this time that it was hard to take them! She weighed in at over 22 lbs her last doctor's appointment. We have been to the doctor a ton since she has basically had an ear infection since the beginning of January. She and Owen (whose illness morphed into tonsillitis) have had 3 rounds of antibiotics so far. They finished the third round today and we are really hoping this is it!

She started army crawling a couple weeks ago, and is still enjoying that (though she is pretty lazy!). What she wants to do most is stand up!

We put the legs on her leap frog table and she loves it. She isn't pulling up exactly, but tries and makes it clear she wants to stand. Or, sometimes, she pulls a "lewis" and sticks her legs out when we try to sit her on the floor. We play "stand up, sit down" and she seems to understand what those mean, so we can get her to sit by command if needed. :) Her receptive language is pretty good. If we ask her to touch our nose, she does. She gives kisses, waves and claps on command too. She also tries to do some hand motions and squealing to "If You're Happy and You Know It" which is pretty cute.

She has been trying lots of new foods like grilled cheese, quesadillas, olives, cottage cheese, noodles, and a few others. She likes the cheesy ones best so far. I started making her yogurt last month and she LOVES it just like her brothers did. When I get out the jar, she starts squealing until I have it ready in a bowl. It's just plain whole fat yogurt, but it's by far her favorite!

Phoebe also loves reading. She could read for hours. Her favorite author is definitely Karen Katz. Lewis loved her books too, but I don't remember Owen loving them. She rotates her favorites and basically memorizes them to the point where I can recite the words from memory and she will start smiling ear to ear when the book is not visible. She will squeal and lunge until I pick the one she wants. Very opinionated, this one! It's sweet to see that emerging already because I don't recall the boys making their desires clear this early. She tries to communicate one way or the other, and says something that sounds an awful lot like "mama." She's been saying "dada" for a while.

She finally got her first tooth. It poked through today, though it is still not really visible. I can feel the sharpness in there though, and it is nice to know that her teething is finally getting her somewhere!

We love our sweet baby girl!

Christmas Day!

Christmas morning came early at our house, though not earlier than most mornings......they're all early! We gathered the kids together and showed them their special presents that Justin and I set up the night before. We don't really talk about Santa or where they come from, but they are out and they were excited because they got Thomas stuff and were super into it at the time. Sadly, not so much now, though we have played a ton with our train track which is always fun. Phoebe got her first tea set.

The boys had an outing a week or so earlier, with Aunt Beth and another CLS provider/friend, Ben Winkler (aka Mr. Ben) to the dollar store to purchase gifts for us and for each other. It was interesting to see what they chose! This cat was Lewis' gift for Owen and Owen really liked it! Lewis' other presents were sadly really for him, and were major stimming objects that we had to put away. It was a good try! Owen's gifts were somewhat more thoughtful, but still pretty random!

We opened these presents from each other and then got ready for church which met at the coffee shop and was a really nice time of worship on Christmas! It so rarely happens that way. We had lunch after church, and then started crazy gift opening with the Reitmeyer clan.


This was Phoebe's pile of gifts as we were getting started. She needed help this year!


Here she is playing with a chewy blankey gift.


We always have a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake from DQ. The boys were so excited to sing to baby Jesus this year and to help blow out the candles.

I think that wraps up 2011! Merry ultra-late Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve in Bowling Green this year, which was delightful since we didn't have to take 3 young children anywhere! Here are the photo highlights:

The crew preparing to open gifts.

Owen opening some legos.

Lewis' big surprise this year was a guitar from Grandpa Billy. It's a REAL guitar in the smallest size they make them. Lewis was ecstatic so most of my pictures were blurry from him jumping around. It will be a challenge for him to play this instrument due to the size and fine motor skill needed, but he really loves it so we are hopeful!

Phoebe enjoyed this large bow while others opened gifts.

She also found something to play with hanging from Grandma's sweater.

Aunt Jeanne, Phoebe and Grandpa had a moment on the couch together. It's exhausting opening presents at 8 months old!

Lewis posing with his guitar.

I had a quick pose with my cute girl on her first Christmas!

phoebe army crawling

Once again, we are getting behind. This week, Owen has tonsillitis and Lewis has swollen tonsils that are not infected (yet), and Phoebe had another ear infection. We are not able to get done much of anything, so forgive the lack of posts.

Despite the barrage of illnesses for over a month, Phoebe has started moving forward instead of just going in circles on the floor. She's actually army crawling! It's not pretty, but she gets where she wants to go. She mostly likes to knock down towers of blocks or cups and that kind of thing. Other things are kind of hit and miss when it comes to motivating our girl. Here's a video!

one more video

During Christmas break, we spent a lot of time singing Christmas songs and letting the kids bang on instruments. This is a video of "Angels We Have Heard on High" and I like it because you can only see Lewis and Phoebe, but Lewis' face absolutely cracks me up. He was such a serious drummer, beating on a tambourine with his drumsticks. Owen is in the background playing some sort of shaky cymbal thing and Phoebe was trying to participate too.

crazy holiday events

December started off with Owen's preschool Christmas program. The kids sang some songs and heard a story. We got to have hot chocolate and snacks with the class. It was fun!


Lewis' class went caroling at several nursing homes in the area, and then to CiCi's pizza for lunch. I was happy to go and help him eat his pizza, which he did slowly. He did not want the brownie I got for him. He enjoyed singing with the class and seemed to like "Feliz Navidad" the best.

Barnes & Noble hosted an Angry Birds party/scavenger hunt. Lewis really got into finding the birds and coloring pictures of them back in the kids section.

It was December 16th when Lewis' class (and all of PBC) performed for their holiday program. Lewis sang with help from his math teacher, Ms. Doolin. Here's a clip:



And another:



Lewis obviously was enjoying himself! We are grateful that Ms. Doolin was there and willing to help him participate.

We signed the boys up to make some trains at Lowe's Build & Grow workshops. They really liked these trains.

Lewis also got back into tennis briefly in December. We were out playing tennis in some of the coldest weather we've had. Granted, the cold hasn't been that bad, but I can see why it's a summer sport!

He also went through a phase where he was acting out our church's services with his Noah's ark animals. He really likes to play "church."

Phoebe was a cute monkey last month too.

On the Dec. 17th, some friends had a Christmas party for kids. Lewis really enjoyed the music part with Whitney and Stephen. Owen liked the crafts and snacks.

The boys got a fun new game from Krista, our favorite (and longest running) therapist. It's called Tumblin' Monkeys. It requires a bit of set up, but I have to say that I actually enjoy this one!

Mandy came into town just before Christmas. She stopped in on her way to Glasgow. It was so good to see her!

That basically brings us to the actual holidays! We'll get caught up one of these days.

9 month stats

So Phoebe turned 9 months old on January 20th. We visited the doctor and her stats are:

height: 28.25 inches
weight: 21 lbs., 5 oz.
head: big

Her head size has leveled off, but her weight is now in the 90th percentile! Her length was in about the 70th I want to say, so she continues to be "healthy" size. She doesn't miss any meals.

She learned to feed herself on Christmas Day (a month ago). She had been inconsistently eating a bite here or there, but she figured it out and has been munching away ever since on Kix cereal, Cheerios, graham crackers, regular crackers and even had a cereal bar yesterday (which was quite a mess!). Here's a video of her eating.



She has also learned to wave and clap and loves to do both all the time. She is very social and loves greeting people everywhere we go.

She is trying to crawl, but mostly rolls and pivots to get to things and hasn't figured out how to go forward just yet. We hope it is just around the corner. She does have a lot of weight to push around after all.

She has had a couple ear infections this month (or one that has not gone away). But then Owen, Justin and I have all been sick too. Fun times around here. Stay tuned for more pics and video and some final posts to catch up to the present.

shepherd family christmas

So we went to Shepherdsville for the Shepherd family gathering and I took only a very few photos before we got to the actual gathering. Phoebe had a rare "off" day and cried a lot there so there probably were not too many great moments to capture.


Phoebe with Grandpa.
Phoebe with Owen.

Phoebe with daddy.

christmas phoebe

Here are some photos of Phoebe before our first family Christmas event. I had to have her pose with her stocking. She was wanting to play peekaboo with it, which is one of her favorite activities. This video is also of us playing peekaboo very briefly.

christmas parade

The beginning of December brings the Bowling Green Christmas Parade. Not only is it our (Spencer's Coffeehouse) busiest day of the year, but it is also a fun very day for the kids. The Veteran's Day parade is good, but the Christmas Parade is awesome with lots of marching bands, Christmas music and of course, more candy (though not as much as Veteran's Day).

Phoebe even waved at a few of the floats.

Justin got to watch with us for a few minutes.

Aunt Ellen tried to keep Lewis under control.


It was a great time.

advent

Just after Thanksgiving, we decorated our home and put up our tree. We hung an extra stocking for Phoebe, which was fun. The only crafty thing I've done for my kids has been making them each a stocking. Phoebe's is bright pink, with an angel beside her name. I enjoyed making it!


We are just beginning to figure out Christmas traditions at our house. During a brief black Friday shopping trip, I picked up $1 advent calendars for the boys at Trader Joe's that had a piece of chocolate for each of 24 days before Christmas. Lewis is kind of picky, but generally likes chocolate so I hoped they would enjoy opening the little door each night.

They both LOVED doing this. And honestly, it was a huge motivator for the whole month of December. Any ugly behavior and I threatened to take away the privilege of opening the #5 or whatever day it was. While there was nothing particularly spiritual behind the calendars, it was a nice way to countdown to Christmas. The doors were not in any order so they had to look for the numbers each day which is a good skill to learn. The chocolates were shaped with different holiday related objects and they were excited to see what they got each night. This might be the best $2 we spent all season!

thanksgiving

We took very few photos at Thanksgiving! We spent time at my dad's and I guess I forgot to take pics. I did get one of Phoebe grabbing Owen's ear before we ate that day.


The next Saturday, we went to Nashville to see Justin's family. Here is Justin, Owen and Grandpa swinging at a neighborhood play area.Justin's cousin Ryan is a freshman at Baylor this year, so we were glad to see him and his sister Olivia while he was home for the short break. Lewis is huge fan of these two!!