Allison on the Move

Allison started crawling about a week and a half ago!! She's getting really good at it!!

Sooo....

I uploaded a lot of pictures! Why? Because I can, I suppose. They are random and not necessarily in order, but they are cute.

On Easter, I had a friend come over to take Easter pictures of the girls.

Elizabeth was in a silly mood that day, so we couldn't get a normal pose or a normal smile, so I ended up with a lot of pictures like this:

 Allison was much more cooperative, but she was in a tongue phase, so it was impossible to get pictures of her without her tongue sticking out. Which is okay, because she still looked super cute.

 She was not very patient during her sister's photo shoot...

 Elizabeth is such a big girl! She is really good at playing independently, although she definitely prefers playing with mom and dad. She still LOVES to play outside. It has been her favorite thing since she was a baby.

 On Easter, I made special pancakes. Liz LOVES pancakes, and she loves colors, so we made Easter pastel-colored pancakes. She, of course, had to help. She's actually a pretty good helper. She can pour things in without making a mess and she is getting very good at stirring. More than anything, I think she likes being allowed to sit on the counter.

 We had an Easter egg hunt at my sister's house. As you can see, Liz got a pretty good haul. This is about halfway through. By the time it was over, her basket was overflowing and my jacket pockets were full too.

 Thanks to the seamstress skills of my mother in law (thanks Katrina!) Elizabeth has a SUPERHERO cape! She is Super Lizzy and she runs around like a super girl. While the cape is on, she pretty much stays in character, running around the house and "saving" us if we need any help. The other day she had the cape on and she kept running in and "saving" Allison from getting into things she's not supposed to.

 Allison has been pretty mobile for a couple months now. Up until recently, she didn't crawl, but would roll over and scoot in order to get what she wanted. She is a face maker. Just like her sister.

 Lizzy loves to dress up and pretend and make faces. Here she is a mean pirate.

 Allison is an excellent eater. She still eats baby food, but we've started her on some solid foods. She can demolish a roll pretty quickly.  She is also quite fond of bananas and strawberries. And yogurt! (I know that's not a solid food, but she loves it.)

 Here's more evidence of Liz loving to play outside. Here is a view of about a third of our backyard (the back fence is about ten feet behind that pile of grass in the background). She loves to run around back there. Especially if she is chasing butterflies or being chased by Allen or me.

 A while ago, we went to the circus. I accidentally left my camera in the car, so I don't have any circus pictures (except on my phone-I have an awesome one of Liz riding an elephant-which she still talks about) so I took one in the car. The face paint and the over-priced dolphin are our proof of circus fun.

 This is Allison wearing one of my favorite outfits Lizzy had. Liz rocked it with pink tights, but Liz was this age in the fall. It was too warm for tights this day. Check out those chunky thighs!

 Lizzy is going to be in a ballet camp next week, so I had to get her some ballet attire. She was so excited, she had to put it on right away. And I put her hair up in buns so she would look like a true ballerina. I didn't take a picture of that, but I took this picture the next morning, so the buns are nice and messy. She already has some ballerina moves. If you ask her to do it, she does a quick little spin or jumps in the air. Sometimes both.

 Allen taught Elizabeth how to work the camera, so Liz snapped this photo of Allison participating in one of her favorite activities: messing up my clean laundry.

 Elizabeth got her FIRST haircut last week. Yes, my daughter didn't get a hair cut until now. Yes, she is over three. I had planned to give her a haircut when she was a year old, but her hair wasn't very long, and by the time her hair was long enough to cut, I liked the way it looked, and I didn't want to. Her hair is so curly, it scrunches up about three inches shorter than it really is, so I wanted to wait until it was long enough to still be long when curly.

 Liz is quite the daddy's girl. (She's a mommy's girl too, but if daddy's home, and especially if he's doing something outside, she's a daddy's girl.) Allen was making a garden spot with a friend's tractor, and Liz had to help. She had a grin on her face the whole time. About 30 seconds after I took this picture she said, "Daddy. I am getting sleepy. I need to go ni-night."

 My kids are so cute.

Exhibit A.

 Elizabeth has always been an active sleeper. Whenever I check on her at night, she is usually in some weird position and/or location in her bed.

 Allison likes to be tickled. That is what is going on in this picture. But it looks like she is rocking out to some heavy metal or something. She's not.

Allison Update

Allison will be 6 months old on Monday! Time has been passing so quickly. I found a 0-3 month onesie in the bottom of the diaper bag the other day, and it was so freaky to think that she was that small just a short time ago. Allison is definitely a very good baby. She doesn't fuss too much. (I am probably jinxing it right now... She fusses plenty!) She has been eating solid foods for a couple weeks, and she has gotten pretty good at it. I would say 95% actually gets eaten, which is pretty darn good if you ask me.

Allison has had the ability to sleep consistently through the night since she was about 2 months old. She just chooses not to exercise that talent all the time. She goes in spurts. She was sleeping through the night until I went back to work. Then she stopped. After a couple weeks, she was sleeping through the night again, but then I told someone that she was consistently sleeping through the night, so she stopped. She was sleeping through the night until I had my surgery, then she stopped for about a week. She is back to sleeping through the night every night, so we'll see how long that lasts. I know it sounds crazy, but my kids seem to have a sixth sense for when I am counting on them to do something or when I have bragged about them doing something. Because once one of those things happen, they stop.

 

 I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but Allison has a section of hair that is long enough to put in a pony. Or in this case, to wear a crown attached to a comb.

 In the last few days, Allison has gotten pretty good at sitting up. I think it helps that she has been practicing in toys such as this. She can sit by herself for anywhere from 3 seconds to 2 minutes. I still sit close by her to catch her when she topples over, but I don't have to save her nearly as much as I did a couple weeks ago. She has also started showing interest in particular toys. If I put her on the floor and spread six different toys around her, she will turn herself to go after a particular one. She is not totally in control of her movement, however. I have had to save her during tummy time a couple times because she backs herself up against the couch or she rolls into her toy box and can't figure out how to get away from it.

This is not a picture of Allison. I took this today to illustrate how curly Lizzy's hair gets. This is after a bath and with me doing absolutely nothing to it. It's mostly ringlets on the bottom and farther up her head it gets less curly and more wavy/frizzy.

Elizabeth has been doing great also. (I should talk about her too, right.) She is an excellent helper with her sister. She talks to and plays with Allison when I am trying to get things done. Allison absolutely LOVES her big sister. Liz can make Ali laugh easier than anyone else can. She makes faces and sings her songs, and Allison adores every minute of it.

Liz had her 3 year check up the other day. She was in about the 85th percentile for height, and I think the 60th or so percentile for weight, and the 50th percentil for BMI. Doc says she is going to be a tall girl. That makes me happy because I am NOT tall for a girl, and when I married my tall husband, I was hoping it would help give my kids more hope for height.

She ended up having to get a shot, and I prepared her for it in advance. I told her that the nurse would use a needle to put medicine inside her body and that it would sting. I told her it was okay for her to cry but she didn't need to, that she could just say, "Ow! That hurts." When she got the shot, she got kind of a shocked face and looked at me with a "What the heck, mom!" kind of look on her face, but she just flinched a bit and said, "Owee." And that was it. I was so proud of her, and she was proud of herself. She talked about it for the rest of the day. "I got a shot, and I didn't cry. I just said 'Owee'. I'm a big girl. I didn't cry."

I have a lot of fun with her. I've been home the last couple days for Spring Break, so I have been able to spend more time with my girls and it has been great. Liz and I listen to the Tangled soundtrack probably 5 times a day, and certain songs prompt some pretty awesome dance parties. She is so grown up, it is crazy. She is a little negotiator. She has certain things that she definitely knows how to work us over on.

"I need three cheese because I'm three."

"I went pee pee and poo poo in the potty so I get to watch a show." Oh really?

I will voluntarily give her something or let her do something, and she gloats about it. "See mom. I told you I wanted to take a bath."

Me: "Lizzy, don't jump on the couch." Her: "Okay. But I can walk on it, okay? I will just walk on it."

She has even learned to do the head cocked to one side, hands curled under her chin, batting eyelashes, "Pleease, can I..."

I know I am being played, but it is so cute. I don't always give in. But sometimes I sure do. And when I don't give in, it is really hard to stand firm with a straight face.

Elizabeth is THREE!!!

Elizabeth had scattered birthday experiences due to the fact that I had surgery to have my gallbladder removed on her birthday, but I think all factors combined provided her with lots of fun and feeling like she is important and loved.

 The night before her birthday, I baked her a quick cake so we could have a little birthday party as a family. I felt really bad that she was going to have to wait until a week after her birthday for her real party, so I wanted to do something. We did cake that night and did presents the day after my surgery/her birthday. She loved it, of course. Candles are her favorite part. Any time she had a piece of cake, we had to put candles in it and sing happy birthday again. And we had to light the candles. If I forgot, she would say, "Mom. I need a piece with fire on it."

 Finally, she got to have her party. We did a princess party. Girls had the option of coming dressed as princesses. Elizabeth was dress in a beautiful purple princess dress, but about fifteen minutes in, when I wasn't paying attention, she took off the princess outfit and put on something more comfortable. T shirt and sweats. Like mother like daughter, I suppose.

 This is the cake my mom and I made. It wasn't too fancy, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm really glad my mom was there to help me. I was still pretty sore and tired from surgery. There is no way I could have done it without her. We made the inside different colors (inspired by Better Homes and Gardens). Since it was a princess party, we picked colors from Lizzy's favorite princesses/her favorite colors. Cake was primarily purple (her favorite color and Rapunzel's color), yellow (Belle's princess color-her favorite princess), and pink and green because those are her other favorite colors. Yes, she can have more than one favorite. Just ask her. But purple is her most favorite.

 All the girls got princess tiaras to wear and the one boy got a prince crown.

 There were party hats too. Allison was kind enough to model those for us.

We gave Elizabeth a couple little presents on her actual birthday, but we saved her big present for the party. As you can see, she got a Jeep. We've been hiding that since black Friday. She was really excited to get it. It is so cute to see her cruising around in that in the yard. We're still working on steering.

Winter Fun

 I took advantage of the winter clearances and got some matching shades for the girls.

 Liz has reached her girly dress up stage. Here she is being a movie star.

My Grandma passed away last May, and we went to her house to check on pipes and things. While we were there, we took advantage of her excellent sledding hill. I was pulling Liz and her cousing Jonathan up and down the hill while Allison slept in her carseat nearby. (Don't worry. She was well bundled and covered up.)

 I feel kind of mean for posting this, but it's just so cute. It's not a full sledding experience until someone gets a face full of snow.

 I have gotten hand-me-downs from a few different sources at different times the last few years, so I had to go though and sort them. It was a huge day and a half project. Allen snapped this when I was at the end of day one.

I don't know why this went in sideways. It was right side up. I don't know how to fix it... 

Christmas (A Little Late)

I am behind on my blogging, so we're going to have to play catch up. I'm going to cover the major events and cuteness.

Christmas was of course, fabulous. This was the first year that Elizabeth was fully aware of what was going on. For weeks leading up to Christmas she would point to everything in the store and tell me that she wanted it. It was nice to be able to say, "Oh, well...Ask Santa."

Allison was just a teeny tiny 2 1/2 month old baby at Christmas time.

 She got to wear a hand-me-down Christmas dress that was out of season when Liz was a baby.

 On Christmas Eve we caught Santa going down the chimney in our neighborhood, so we stopped to talk to him.

Lizzy was VERY excited to talk to Santa, but very shy. It took a while for her to warm up, but she told him her name, and he looked her up on his list and told her that she was on the nice list and that he was going to come to her house later. We had just made cookies earlier that night, so when he asked her if she had cookies waiting for him, she was very happy that she could tell him yes. It was all she could talk about for the rest of that night and part of the next couple weeks. "I saw Santa. His list said that I am a nice girl."

 Elizabeth got a big girl bike. It's intended for a six year old, but she's pretty tall for her age, so Santa decided it would be better to get her one that she would be able to use for a while. She rides it like a champ. Her Uncle Shawn and Aunt Susan got her a princess horn for it, which is one of her favorite features. :)

Here are the girls in their Christmas Eve jammies from Grandma Williams (my mom).