Archive for April, 2012

Donovan is Ten Months Old!

Monday, April 9th, 2012

Ten Months! Loves cruising, crawling, and can stand for several seconds at a time, but not interested in walking alone!

 

3/29

Donovan has settled on his first word, and no one that knows Eric will be surprised.  Yes, he is saying “ball!” nonstop =)  It sounds more like “ba!” but there is no doubt what he means, as he spends the majority of his playtime chasing balls.  When we’re at the park he stares at kids playing soccer, his little head bouncing back and forth like a real sports fan.  He especially loves the big beach balls we have around the house.  And anytime you want him to giggle, bouncing a ball while repeating “bounce!” gets him every time. =)

 

He’s starting to get a bit attached to Mama and Daddy.  He does this cute thing where he reaches for you with one hand while pointing at you with the other.  He also loves to give pats.  In the less cute column, he tries to bite a lot.  His seventh and eighth tooth are coming down, so that could be the reason.  It’s also possible this is karma for his sister, who has bitten him recently as well. Sigh.

 

He crawls super fast and can climb up the whole staircase now.  So we are being mindful of the gates.

 

He likes solid food now!  At least he’ll open his mouth for bites of the pureed stuff, but he gets annoyed if you’re eating regular food and not sharing with him.  He loves burritos!  We went out for burritos and I gave him a taste, and he LOVED it!  It’s so adorable.  We had burritos again today and I turned my back on him for a second and he got ahold of a whole burrito.  Yes, as you imagine, it was a huge mess but he was sooo happy.  He also loves pizza crusts and any carbohydrate he can get ahold of.  He doesn’t really like to pick up fruit or other slimy things, but he will eat banana slices and avocado.

 

Burrito Baby!!!

4/7

So many things are changing for Donovan now!  He outgrew the chair.  The same thing happened with Serenity, when she got too big to sleep comfortably with me in the chair, it was sleep training time.  So now Donovan is sleeping at night in his own crib instead of the pack n play, so I’m not tempted to get up with him in the night and feed him in the chair.  It’s the third night, and last night he stayed there till 5:30 am, which is great!

 

I am kind of wishing he would take a pacifier right now.  At around nine months, Serenity got addicted to her paci.  When she gave it up, we had problems with her biting.  Well, we’re having problems with Donovan biting right now!  So I wish he’d chew on the paci instead of us =)  It’s not all the time but it’s enough to make you wary of his mouth getting too close!

 

Feeding him solid food is still a challenge. Occasionally he acts like he likes the pureed food, and the rest of the time it’s like trying to sneak a golf ball past the windmill in mini-golf, you have to time that spoon just right for the split second openings.

 

He is absolutely addicted to balls.  Eric isn’t Dada anymore, he’s Ball. Which is appropriate actually, Donovan is quite intuitive =)  It’s funny though, his first word is definitely “ball” and today he said “roll!”  And he actually rolled the ball when he said it!  Two times.  So we know he’s already wanting to talk to Daddy about playing ball.  =)

 

He loves playing switch person right now too.  When he sees Daddy he goes right to him, and then he wants to go back to Mama, and back and forth as long as we’ll play.  He’s such a sweet, snuggly baby.  He lays his head on you and gives sweet pats.  He might give kisses if we weren’t so scared of his teeth.  Oh!  And he gives five =)

He looks so big in this outfit! It's 18 months. He loves the maracas, drumsticks, and bells. Can't wait to start music class!

I love seeing them enjoy each other so much =)

 

 

Using the stick to hit the ball. Just like Daddy =)

 

 

At the zoo with Papa

 

Love that eyebrow =)

 

With Cousin Braley =)

Serenity in March

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

Serenity in March

 

Twirling in the Park! And hey, I kinda did her hair =)

Serenity loves doing "experiments" in the bathroom. She collects water and soap in lots of containers. It's so fun to see her imagination at work! Science is still one of her favorite things about school, she may have a science theme for her birthday =)

Serenity loves to tell stories. Half the time when she’s playing I hear her narrating in the third person. The other day she was playing with her magic wand, I heard her say, “It all began when Wanda was wondering what to do.” She kept repeating the phrase, adjusting it a little, and then went on with Wanda’s adventures for awhile. I don’t know of any Wandas in any of our books or shows, so I guess she named her character after her wand. =) Today at the zoo she picked up a little branch of leaves that had fallen on the ground and told us her pet giraffe was following us home, and she had her snack all ready for her. She named the giraffe Polly.

 

At the park with Papa

Dad has started taping her a new show, the Little Einsteins. They play classical music and show famous art and landmarks around the world. Serenity loves June, the little girl in the purple dress that dances all the time. She pretends to be June, and I am Annie, Donovan isQuincy, and Daddy is Leo. I think Donovan is going to be confused as she calls him Quincy half the time right now. It is fun watching her dance and twirl though! I think we may try dance lessons this summer. =)

 

Since the first Easter Eggs showed up in the store, Serenity has been asking to get some new plastic ones to hide.  So she was very excited yesterday when we colored our Easter Eggs and had a blast hiding them around the yard.  She’d chosen a glittery egg kit so they were very fancy.  She was too funny, whenever she’d find an egg she’d look, and look, and say, “Something’s not right about that tree” or “Something is not right about that slide.”  Then she’d giggle and add the egg to her basket.  She’s very quick to ask for clues if she doesn’t see the eggs.  She loves making guesses when we do give in and give her clues, like if I tell her to look for something yellow, she’ll say, “I think I’m going to look in the dandelions.”
The first thing she tells me when she gets in the car after school is whether she was in the “first science” or the “next science.”  She adores science class and it matters a lot whether she got to do it first or second.  Right now they are discussing mammals, reptiles, birds, and other animal groups.  Last week was the last week of fish she tells me so we’ll see what’s in store for this week.  She likes to tell me about warm blooded versus cold blooded animals right now, which is fun!  She also loves library and tells me what the librarian reads her.
We took a trip to Dallasfor Braley’s birthday.  She was such a cute little ladybug =)  We stayed with Brian, Linh and Samantha.  The girls actually played with each other and had so much fun together!  Samantha invited Serenity to her birthday party (which is in August)  I love that they enjoyed each other so much!

Serenity got her face painted at Braley's birthday! She also got a unicorn balloon.

John and Ann came for a visit!  We were all so excited!  They bought Serenity a real bike (with training wheels, of course).  It’s Tinkerbell and has the most awesome bell that sounds like faeries.  We went up to the cabin one day and they had a blast canoeing in the extremely high water.

 

Her Bike!

One more look at her "fancy" hair =)