Happy 1st Birthday Callison!

Our sweet baby girl had her first birthday on Sunday!!  Oh how the year has flown by!  We celebrated her birthday weekend out camping with Grandma and Grandpa Oistad in Seward.  We really lucked out with the weather, it was so gorgeous there with the mountains and the ocean!  Then we came home Sunday afternoon for our friend's birthday party and had a small intimate party for our own birthday girl at Grandma/Grandpa Oistad's house. 

I was so excited to dress her up in this sweet yellow ruffle dress that I found 6 months ago! She looked so pretty.  It was fun to dress her up since most of the time we keep her in play clothes/pants since she loves to crawl and dresses tend to get in her way.  The dinner was delicious as always and Grandma Jan made her the cutest pink teddy bear carrot cake!  Our good friend Angela and her two boys joined us for cake and ice cream and helped us celebrate! We all sang her "Happy Birthday" and loved watching her dig into her first piece of cake.  She was hesitant at first with everyone watching her, but once the commotion dialed down a bit, she dived in and loved it! 

We had her one year well-baby checkup yesterday and she weighed in at 15lbs 6oz, 28 inches for height and 44.5cm for head circumference.  Doctor P noted she was "petite but proportionate" and that her growth and development was right on track.  She continues to stay right along the 3% growth curve she has been on most of her life.  Our little Miss Petite.  We tease that since she is so small that when she starts walking (which we expect to be any week now) she will look like a 6 month genius baby! hahahaha.  We are so in love with our Callie girl. 

She is doing so great on all fronts, but she still gets up 1-2 times in the night to nurse.  We were letting her get away with it becuase she was so tiny and wanted her to eat as much as possible, but her doc encouraged us to try to get her to sleep through the night since she really was only nursing for comfort not hunger during those hours.  Her room is right next to her brother's so we have been hesistant to let her cry it out for fear of waking him up two and then having TWO kids to deal with in the middle of the night. Wish us luck. The first few weeks should be interesting to say the least!

Favorite words: "ma ma ma", "da da da," "go!" and "uh oh."
Favorite foods: any table foods. chicken, rice, brocolli, salmon, porridge, cherrios. She really doesn't like baby food anymore. 
Favorite activity: anything Noah is doing.  :)

After much angst, I am sorry to announce to anyone who follows this blog, that this may be my last post or one of the last.  I just don't have the time to work on it anymore and when I do get a free moment after both kids are in bed, pretty much the LAST thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer since I do that all day for work. I am gonna print all these blog entries into a photo book and then call it good. I plan to continue writing about our kids in annual photo/year books so I can print them out at the end of each year, it just won't be available online.  I'll try to do periodic facebook updates to share a few favorite pics with family and friends here and there! Thanks for checking in with our little family!

Mommy can do anything (for now at least)

Grandma, Grandpa our good friends Rose and Steve and I took Noah and Callie to the "Teddy Bear" Picnic at the Bear Paw Festival earlier this month.  It was a beautiful day, but a gust of wind came by and blew our napkins off the table.  Noah being the orderly-minded kid that he is, panicked and tried to catch them and said, "Mom, can you stop the wind?  Please!" 

Rose pointed out it was pretty cute that Noah thought I could stop the wind in all my mommy greatness. :)  I will have to enjoy this age while it lasts. 

Callison is 11 Months Old!

Callie girl is 11 months old!  She is eating table foods now and loves to eat whatever we are eating.  She will gobble down her dinner happily and loves using her fingers to put the food in her mouth.  Lately, we have been using her as a good example for Brother, saying, "Look at sissy, she is eating all her dinner!" Works about 23% of the time. Her fav foods this month are salmon, chicken, green beans, tomatoes and cheerios. :) She also had her first taste of chocolate by accident and LOVED it.  We planned to wait another month before introducing chocolate, but oh well.  Here's how it went down: We had an unbelievable sunny day last week, so I took the afternoon off work and my mom and I had a picnic with the kids.  Next thing we know, Callie grabbed Brother's chocolate chip cookie and started munching away happily.  She only had a small piece, so I let her finish it while I snapped my camera at her smearing chocolate all over her face and white sundress. picture perfect.

Same as every month, Callie's favorite person on this earth is her brother.  She utterly adores him and is happiest when she is right in the middle of everything he is doing.  If I am trying to put her to bed or nurse her and she hears him talking or playing, she will fuss until I bring her to him.  Noah and Callie's friendship grows more and more each day.  A few days ago they were "wrestling" on our bed together and I was worried Callie would get smooshed or hurt, but she was cracking up and giggling so hard!  I just kept telling Noah to be careful and he would say, "I want to hold my sissy" and then give her a big hug and tickle her. Speaking of laughs, I noticed this month that Noah gets her biggest laughs.  All of us will get a giggle here or there, but Brother will elicit these gut-busting belly laughs from her that are just too cute. 

We started giving Callie and Noah baths together this month which is way easier on mom to bathe them together and fun to watch them play/splash in the tub together.  Noah has so much fun playing with her that bathtime is rarely a struggle.  It is cute to watch him show her how his fav tub toys work.

Poor baby girl is teething big time right now.  Her top three teeth are coming in all at once so nights have been rough.  Thankfully she still nurses at night though and that seems to really soothe her.  Orajel seems to be helping.

She loves to stand and walk along furniture while holding on.  She is pretty good on her feet.  It won't be long before she starts walking on her own.  She is a fast crawler and can go from one side of the room or up the stairs pretty quickly (especially if she is trying to get to Brother). 

Callie is a sweetheart and pretty mellow....until you try to put her in her carseat. She doesn't like her car seat and will do "archy-back" and throw a fit.  Once we get her in and she calms down and is happy, but those first few seconds are a battle. every time. 

I can't believe it has almost been a whole year since she was born! How our lives have changed.  It is almost hard to remember what it was like when we just had Noah.  She has been the perfect addition to our family and makes our hearts swell with her sweet smile.

Kids say the funniest things sometimes!

So on the way home from daycare Noah asked grandpa for some water and grandpa said he could have some when they got to the house.  When they got to the house grandpa forgot about the water and after getting settled in he sat down on the couch.  After a while, Noah climbed up into grandpa’s lap and said, “What does it take to get a glass of water around this place?”

Callison is 9 months old!

Jeepers!! Summer is here and this month has flown by! I realized I hadn't posted about Callie's 9th month and that I had better hurry because she is 10 months tomorrow!  This still counts right? ;)

9th month stats -- 14lbs 4.5oz, 27 inches for length and 43.5cm for head. She is tall and lean.  How she has stayed so slim is beyond us, we feed her three meals a day of solids with lots of milk and snacks in between meals. I think my mom has made it her personal challenge to bulk her up by feeding her as often as Callie will let her!  She loves to eat all kinds of solid pureed foods, baby mum mum crackers, Gerber stars and cheerios.  She tested a little low on iron at her 9 month well-baby checkup so we have been adding more cereal and iron-rich foods into her diet.  She is still drinking breast milk (pumped milk during the day and she will nurse late at night and early in the morning).

We noticed just recently Callie has a long torso just like her momma.  Her hair is starting to grow in a little more.  She had a ton of dark (almost black) hair when she was born, then it kinda fell out and now it is growing back brown.  Her eyes are a really beautiful blue-gray color (just like her daddy).  Most common remark from our friends and family is how much she looks like Wes. 

I feel like I write this every month, but our "Callie girl" loves her brother more than anybody else.  She thinks absolutely everything he does is amazing and facinating.  She wants to be near him always and is constantly crawling up on his back/shoulders to see what he is up to and cracking up with him when he plays with her.  Listening to them laugh together in the backseat of the car is the most wonderful sound.  This past weekend it was over 80 degrees so we set up the water table and she and Noah played so good together!

Noah is still learning how to share with his sister.  His idea of sharing is to pick out what he wants to share with her and then exclaim, "Mommy, I shared!"  like it is some big feat to be celebrated.  Too funny!  Callie is such a great sport about it though and as long as she has something to play with and is with her big brother she is happy. 

This month, Callie showed us she can crawl up an entire flight of stairs without missing a beat.  She also pulls herself up on furniture and can sort of walk along holding onto the furniture.  I have even caught her standing on her feet, barely touching the wall for support.  She continues to amaze us with her motor development progress, which seems way ahead in comparison to brother's.  She is such a busy body and loves to be in the middle of all the action.  One of her favorite "go-to" spots is under our dining table where she will pull herself up to standing by holding onto the seat of the chairs.  She is the perfect height where she doesn't hit her head on the table but she can see all the action going on in the kitchen.

She is babbling like crazy and can say "ma ma ma ma ma"  and "da da da da da".  We are considering those her first words. :) Sometimes we think we hear a "yeah" or a "yep" in there too.

Callie still has two teeth on the bottom deck and we know her top teeth are just a few weeks out.  We can feel them coming in and poor baby girl has been teething for what seems like forever so hopefully they pop out and give her some relief.

As I mentioned earlier, summer is in full swing up here in Alaska which means I am outside enjoying the sunshine and warm weather!! After record breaking snowfall, sitting in front of my computer blogging is a low priority whenever the sun is shining.  Until I can figure out a faster way to upload pics, pictures will just have to wait for those rainy and cloudy days.  ;)

Memorial Day Camping – Byer’s Lake

This year’s annual camping trip to Byer’s Lake was a little botched.  We had planned to leave Friday afternoon but then Noah got super high fever on Sunday night and couldn’t really shake it all week.  We took him in to see his doctor twice and stayed home on Friday with him.  As it goes with kids, he seemingly bounced back to good health on Saturday morning so we packed up the truck/camper and headed North to meet up with our good friends, the Andersons, Wes’ parents and my parents.  It is a little over a 2 hour drive up there, but anyone that knows Wes and I, knows it takes us FOREVER to get anywhere with the kids.  So after packing up the camper, stopping at the grocery store, swinging by Home Depot to get a few supplies and making a few potty breaks for Noah, we finally pulled into the campground around 4:30 (4 hours after we had pulled out of our driveway)!! 

The weather was kind of cloudy and there was even some rain, but we still had a great time!  Noah and Bodi rode their bikes down to the lake, played on the dock and we went on a hike around the lake.  We ate yummy camp food, made smores, played games around the campfire and Jan made awesome scratch margaritas.

Callie did great on her very first camping trip ever and was a trooper during the long car ride.  She did get a little antsy being held and put in the baby carrier most of the time because she loves to crawl and explore.  Probably her happiest moment was when we set up the pack n play outside and she crawled around in there and made faces with Bram through the net.

Another great trip to Byers with friends and family!

(I am way behind on posting photos ... hopefully I can get caught up soon cause we have some great ones from this camping trip.  this blog entry was written almonst a month ago so I figured I would just post it and catch up on pics later.)

Callison is 8 months old!

Yikes, this past month just flew by and I nearly missed my chance to report on Callie girl's 8th month!  This month was crammed full of milestones for Callie.  She is crawling everywhere, still an army crawl but boy can she book it from one end of the room to the other!  She is learning how to get her knees underneath her though.  The baby gates are back up everywhere. 

She loves to pull herself up to STAND holding onto her crib rail, the sofa, or whatever she can reach! She hasn't quite figured out yet how to get back down to the ground without falling so once she gets herself up, she gets kind of stuck and cries out for one of us to help her out.  We still can't believe she is standing.  Since she is so petite, it looks kinda funny to see a little baby standing. 

She is also babbling tons and using her voice. Dad swears he heard her say "da da" but I am holding out her first word for when we both hear it.  Plus, that gives me more time to practice "ma ma" with her when dad isn't looking. :)

I know I have said this before, but Callie is Noah's number one fan!  Whatever Noah is doing, she wants to be right there doing it too.  At bedtime, we read books to the kids and have both of them on the chair/couch with us.  Noah will point things out in the book as we read while Callie will lean way into the book and happily slap all the pictures on the pages.  If Noah is playing with something, she will crawl over to him as fast as she can and crawl on his back/pull herself up on his shoulder to see what he is doing.  She loves to be close to him all the time.  Thankfully, Noah seems to have lots of patience with her and doesn't mind sharing (of course, he wants to decide what he will share with her which is a little backward, but she doesn't seem to care as long as she can be with him).

One thing that we really noticed this month is that Callie does not like to be put down to entertain herself. We used to be able to set her in the jumperoo while we cooked dinner, but now the moment you go to set her down, she will cry to be picked up.  She will play on the floor with toys or brother but doesn't like to be by herself much.  Her favorite spot is in our arms, making cute faces wtih us and smiling at brother.  She also developed a little bit of stranger anxiety this month and doesn't like being held by others.  Previously, anyone could hold her, but now she definitely is more reluctant with new faces.

Last weekend, Mommy had to travel up to Fairbanks for work and was gone from Callie for two whole days, one night.  It was our longest separation yet and I missed her so much!!  Daddy was on kiddo duty and said they both did great but that Callie girl didn't smile as much with me gone. My poor baby missed her mama! It is so hard with babies because it isn't like you can explain why you are leaving and when you are coming home.

Pictures to come soon! The sun has been shining up here in AK, work has been super busy and I am training for the summer races.  This all leaves very little time for blogging/downloading photos, but I will try to get on it this week.

We are excited to take the kids camping this weekend for our annual Byer's Lake Camping trip!  Noah has been talking about going camping ALL winter long so he was jazzed to see the camper back up on daddy's truck.  Can't wait to introduce Callie girl to one of our favorite family/friends outings!