Ten Months

Oh, man. I'm beginning to DREAD these monthly posts. And not because it takes me an hour or more to get them done but because it is a constant reminder that my baby is about to be a toddler. I mean, do I really HAVE to start thinking about her birthday party already? Seems crazy. Wish me luck...

Janie at 10 months old

Drinks 4 bottles of soy formula We're on four bottles still. I do not anticipate a change in bottles or formula before she turns one. We are still strictly no dairy until then.

Eats pureed fruits & veggies, and grains We did introduce meats since I last updated. So far, Janie will eat just about anything that we give her. The meats were not taken well with Nora and although we have only tried once or twice with Janie, she has eaten it. At least in the minimal amounts we've given her. Seriously - pureed meats are AWFUL. Good news and bad news on the finger food front... Good news is that Janie is eating puffs a lot better than she did a few weeks ago. She can throw down a ton of those little guys. The bad news is that I gave her one little mushy potato once and that was a complete disaster. So, we will hopefully slowly make progress towards those finger foods with a little more practice on the puffs...

Is working on using a sippy cup I do not see much progress here, though they are using one at school every day and say she does okay with it! Time will tell...

Takes 2 long naps or 3 short naps a day She is still on this same nap schedule. The good news about her short nap days (week days) are that she doesn't seem to mind them if she is attended to. Janie needs about 12-13 hours of sleep a night.

Where's Janie?

Sucks her thumb when sleepy I've noticed that Janie is doing this little head rub while she sucks on her thumb these days. She started grabbing at her hair a while back but I didn't start to put it together that she always simultaneously rubs her hair while she sucks her thumb until just recently. It's her thing, I guess. She even has her hand on her head half the time she is sleeping!

Crawls on all fours The girl has gotten quick. And you can hear her from a mile away slap-slapping on the ground with her hands as she races towards you. But don't get out of sight while she works on crawling towards you or a mini-trantrum will ensue!

Moves from sitting to crawling easily Janie's favorite thing to do these days is walk while holding onto furniture. She creeps along and moves between furniture, too - if she can.

Look at me Mom!

Stands and creeps along furniture Janie is moving around a lot. And she loves it. She will not be an early walker by any means, but she has the determination and I'm sure it won't be too, too long before she tries to stand on her own. She loves to follow Nora around the house and get into whatever she is doing.

Exhibit A: Puzzles

This was AFTER Janie decided to play with puzzles because Nora was. 

And AFTER Janie made Nora mad because she was grabbing at her puzzle.

And AFTER we got Janie her own puzzle to play with. 

Nora has made the farm puzzle "Janie's" puzzle.

Has 2 teeth There is another tooth trying to get through on the top. I remember those two front teeth specifically taking awhile to come down with Nora, so maybe that's the hold up? Soon enough she will have some more! Maybe by month 12??

Says "mamama" & "dadada" I swear Janie says "more" sometimes, too. Janie is trying to communicate when she is upset, too - usually with some loud yell-like sound!

Signs "all done" and "more" Still signing "more" and "all done" when she is eating. We haven't pushed other signs yet but she is getting pretty good at those!

Janie signing for more food.

Claps, waves, points, and blows kisses Today, I did a one finger inchworm-like wave and I swear Janie tried to mimic it. She loves to point in books and I love it when she blows kisses. She even makes an "mmmm" sound before she does it. So cute!!

Janie blowing kisses. MWA!

My baby girl is growing so fast! I love how happy & smiley she is!

Her ten month snapshot:

Drinks 4 bottles of soy formula
Eats three meals of purees plus one snack, usually puffs
Takes 2 naps a day
Sucks her thumb & rubs her head
Crawls quickly
Moves between furniture
Tries to stand alone, mostly unsuccessfully
Has 2.5 teeth
Talks in baby babble with ma's, da's, and ga's
Signs "all done" and "more"
Claps, waves, points, and blows kisses
Bounces when she is excited, especially at pick up
Loves & follows her big sister Nora

Happy Halloween

Halloween was so much fun this year!! Janie celebrated her FIRST Halloween and Nora celebrated her THIRD! 

Nora is not that old, but it seems like forever ago that she was this little owl...

Nora at almost 2 months old, her first Halloween

We started the day in festive shirts & although I tried to take a picture with them, one of them would NOT put down her drink and the other one followed suit, just because. Guess which one was which...

After I paraded around as the tooth fairy at my school, I joined Justin at Primrose for the Parade of Costumes for the girls! Janie was SO happy when she saw us in the crowds and Nora didn't get upset that she couldn't come see us, which I worried about. In fact, she was trying to tell us all about how her shoe fell off. She walked with one shoe in the parade! So cute! 

My little mermaid!!

Janie after she saw us. So sweet!

Tinkerbell!

Telling us about her shoe, while parading...

We went to our friends' house to go trick or treating and had a lot of fun with the girls after we got past the major meltdown that occurred when Nora thought I had put on her fairy wings. WOAH. But, Nora loved trick or treating and walking up and down the streets with her friends. She giggled the whole time! Janie kicked her little legs and just smiled. She had to call it a night a bit earlier, but I was very happy with her being that she had taken just one 45 minute nap throughout the whole day...

Getting started!

Trick or Treat!

Some of the greatest people I know!

Spooky Adventures

October in Texas is entirely unpredictable. I bought the girls Halloween shirts weeks ago and haven't been able to put them on them because it has been NINETY degrees outside. And that is not an exaggeration. It has literally been that warm. But we finally got into the Halloween spirit beginning the weekend before Halloween...

The girls in their Halloween shirts!

I finished the girls' costumes and we had a themed photo shoot with friends, featuring characters from Peter Pan! Nora was Tinkerbell and Janie was a mermaid from the lagoon. I worked waaayy harder than I should have, but they turned out cute enough and I was happy they were happy. Well, Janie could have cared less, but Nora was thrilled to be Tinkerbell. I'm 98% sure she has no actual idea who or what Tinkerbell is, but she wears wings and a fun skirt and that is all that matters.

My little Tinkerbell!

Janie's mermaid costume

Nora's Tink costume

After we got into the spirit of Halloween, I decided that we needed to have a week of Halloween fun leading up to the big day. So on Monday, we carved out the giant pumpkin we got from the pumpkin patch. Nora did not want to touch the pulp inside until she realized there were seeds and then she wanted to pick up the seeds. But not the pulp. She liked watching the shapes of the pumpkin face fall out and helped pick them up. Janie didn't care a whole lot about the pumpkin. She preferred to look for other dead organic matter in the driveway and on the porch, but she did get to hang out with the family outside for the evening! We put candles in the pumpkin face and lit it up and Nora loved it! We checked on it frequently throughout the week.

Nora, baby Jo, and the pumpkin

She's thinking, "There is NO way I'm touching that."

But, wait... there's seeds!

She got one!

Janie is interested for just a second!

Cuties with the jack o'lantern!

We also made crafts. I showed Nora what a candy corn was and we ripped paper and glued it down to make a paper candy corn, while we ate them of course! Janie and Nora each painted their own paper pumpkins, too!

Janie's craft from school.

Painting Nora's pumpkin

Nora's candy corn

The pumpkins finished!

We had to have a Halloween movie night and as much as I wanted to watch Hocus Pocus, I figured it wasn't the most age-appropriate Halloween movie for the kids. Instead, we watched Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and a little of a Curious George Halloween Festival movie we found on Netflix. And had popcorn!

It was a fun week! Nora really enjoyed Halloween this year. Next year will be TWICE as fun because Janie will, too! But for now... bring on the rest of the holidays! So excited...

State Fair

We took the kids to the Texas State Fair this week! We took a day and spent time with our family and friends and really enjoyed the fair.

There was a lot to see and do. And eat.

Girlie friends!

We went through the children's aquarium & saw lots of neat "fishies" and we went through the barnyard animal area and got to feed lots of very hungry little (and big) animals. There was even a giraffe!

Nora feeding the giraffe!

Janie will get to do more next year, 

but she loved being out and about with us!

We put the kids to work on the farm...

We got Fletcher's corn dogs & Nora even ate an ENTIRE one by herself! 

I think we might have to make a Fair Day tradition around here.

Pumpkin Patch

October means many things. It means that all the fall smells come out. Everything pumpkin sounds delicious. And all the fun holiday and seasonal festivities begin! October, November & December are some of my favorite months!!

There are many things I started to plan for us to do in the month of October. One of the things I was looking forward to most about October was surprisingly enough NOT pumpkin spice lattes. I was really excited about our family trip to the pumpkin patch! We went last year and it was fun and all, but Nora wasn't really old enough to get into all of the fun activities for kids that are at the pumpkin patch. And Janie was not even here!

THIS year however, Nora had fun (and wide eyes) as we rode the kiddie tractors, looked at the barnyard animals, picked out pumpkins, and went in the corn maze. Janie was happy as a clam being toted around in the wagon and checking out the assortment of people and pumpkins around her.

Here is our adventures at the pumpkin patch in photos. I love my two little pumpkins!

Probably our best pumpkin patch photo for 2014!

Love the Grandpa photo bomb!

Janie & daddy

Janie loved standing on the pumpkins!

Checking out the scarecrow...

Corn maze! Not sure Nora LOVED it, but she didn't hate it either.

Driving the tractor! Great Grandpa would be proud.

Checkin' out the goats.

Our BIG pumpkin! 

On another note, Nora kept insisting that all the small pumpkins were "too big" so we took home what was probably the SMALLEST pumpkin I've ever seen for her!