Happy Birthday Gabriella!
In the past few weeks Cristiana has transitioned into a few big girl items. She is no longer in her infant car seat any more; she now has a booster/combination seat in both mommy and daddy's car, and is now able to see where she's going and even likes to point out the window. The car rides have gotten a little more pleasant since the change but Cristiana still hates being restricted so after a while she usually starts to fuss but not as quickly as when she was facing backwards in her infant seat. We've also retired the ducky tub. She still fits in it, but Cristiana has been trying to climb out of the duck as well as out of the tub for a while now and we figured that bathing her just in the tub would make it easier for all of us.
First we went to celebrate with one of the token males of our baby group Jack at Barber Park. It was a really neat park (they even had a little roller hockey rink). Daddy put Cristiana in the beach volley ball sand and she freaked out! I guess we'll have to introduce her to different textures because the other day she freaked out walking barefoot in the grass as well. Cristiana later took a long walk along the little lake with her stroller walker. I thought she would be pooped but she wanted to keep walking after wards. Jack did seem to REALLY enjoy his cake. He was a bit hesitant at first but as you see in the pictures, he had no shame after he had a real taste of the yummy cake. Thanks for having us Jack! We had a loads of fun!
Happy Birthday Jack!
Charlotte's Birthday Party was at another park in Maitland. It was a beautiful park with huge trees that canopied the entrance. The babies had tons of toys to play with including a little bounce house/ball pit. Cristiana had fun being pulled around in a wagon and of course crawling all over the mulch (that seems to be her favorite part of vising parks). Erin's mom baked the cutest bunny cake for Charlotte. Charlotte even petted it, that's how cute it was. Charlotte seemed to love looking at it and dipping her fingers in, but never dug in, such a lady (Cristiana was the same way). Thanks for inviting us Charlotte. We love you!
Happy Birthday Charlotte!
On Tuesday, Cristiana and I went to Mommy and me to hang out, and unfortunately found ourselves to be one of only 3 older babies that were there. The group has changed sessions and therefore most of the mommies and babies of our group no longer attend. We did get the opportunity to see Ramena and Mimi which we haven't seen since the Christmas Party at mommy and me and of course it's always nice to hang out with Melissa and Rider. Cristiana now is pushing EVERYTHING around and she spent most of her time pushing one of the walkers at the mommy and me (I had to keep her from running over the younger babies). She later decided to push Rider around the room (it was really cute). Since then she has been pushing her little Nemo car around the house which I was very surprised she could since the wheels are so slick and it could slip from right underneath her, but Cristiana can keep up with it with no problem, even wearing socks (that don't have non-slip on them) on our tile. I think we'll have a full fledged walker pretty soon.
Make sure to press the pause button on the music player at the bottom of the page before you watch the video.
On Wednesday Feb 4th was Jaime and I's 4 year wedding Anniversary. Cristiana and I took daddy out to lunch to celebrate. Who would have thought that the guy I met at a party at UM 9 years ago would become my wonderful husband and the best father to our little girl. I love you hunny and I thank God everyday for
putting you in my life. You are the best husband any woman could ever ask for (well, most of the time anyways (just kidding))! I look forward to all the years of happiness we still have in store for us and for all the children we will be able to share that with.
On Friday we helped one of Cristiana's good friend, Amelia, celebrate her birthday. The day was quite cold so Monica moved the party indoors which was a great idea to make sure the little ones didn't catch a cold. We had a great time hanging out with some of Cristiana's other friends as well as Monica and Jason's families. Like Cristiana on her birthday, Amelia seemed to enjoy mostly the icing on the cake. She enjoyed it so much that she made sure to get some in her hair. It's great to see the "west side" girls interacting at this age. What a difference! They are so cute together and Jack had all the girls to himself (lucky guy huh?). Thanks for inviting us Amelia and for letting us play with your really cool Elmo! We love you!
We had our 1 yr doctor visit last week on Wednesday. Doctor said she looks fabulous and is doing great. Cristiana now weighs 20 lbs, which puts her in the 35-40% (compared to her 1st few months which she was in the low 5%) and measures 28.5 inches, which puts her in the 40-50% (compared to her first 6 months which she was in the low 10%), so our little monkey has definitely grown. Cristiana has become such a great eater, I mean she will practically eat anything you put in front of her and it almost seems as though she is a bottomless pit , she NEVER stops eating. I'm hoping she will continue to eat as well as she does and never becomes as picky as I am. She no longer is doing the army man crawl, she has finally picked her belly off the floor and crawls like an expert (thank goodness, less dirty clothes). We call her Speedy Gonzalez because she is soo quick. She pulls herself to stand up with anything she can grip onto (she even pulled herself up at a friends house using their Christmas tree, luckily nothing fell). As for walking, she will take steps with you holding her hand but she's still not confident enough to let go, but I'm sure it will happen in no time. Her repertoire of words include, mama (not used as often anymore ???), papa, baba, and uty (which means Rusty when she's calling the dog). She'll even say "hey" when she's pretending she's on the phone, which she does A LOT. She will actually grab random things and put them to her ear and acts like she's on the phone. She's grabbed remotes, socks, shoes, toys, her own hand (it's really cute). Once she laid down on her side with her play phone and pretended to talk (boy, is she a girl or what). She loves to hug all her stuffed animals and also mom and dad and says awwwww while she's doing it. She loves to feed other people her food, mostly her leftovers of course. Her new thing these days is clapping to everything. She claps to music, to the tv, after she takes a bite of food. I guess she's excited because she can actually clap hard enough now that she hears it. She still loves to make a mess and of course throw things over her shoulder with great disinterest while she's doing it (especially mommy's diaper bag). No, she's still not sleeping, I don't know when she will and yes, she still hates diaper changes and now doesn't seem to like sitting in her hook on chair for meals. She is definitely a firecracker and knows what she wants and we love her to pieces!
Weight 20 lbs (30-40%)