4th of July Weekend and kid updates (of course)

We had a very nice 4th of July weekend (and by WE, I mean me and the girls).  Unfortunately, Jason had to work all weekend, as usual!  He had a festival in Illinois that he was doing sound for, that we could have stayed with him at his hotel, but I didn't want to miss the family party we had!  We had our neighborhood parade in which Venily dressed up as Pocahontas (famous American hero) and Haven was the Statue of Liberty (famous landmark).  Both girls did good!  I was a little disappointed in the whole thing... but I'm not on any neighborhood boards or go to any meetings or anything, so I guess I can't complain!  Then we went to my Step-Dad's family's party.  Both girls had a lot of fun!  Venily got to play with Alana (who she only gets to see a couple times a year), and they are only a few months apart and were soooo fricken cute together! :)  Played and held hands together the whole time.... I really wish we lived closer, b/c the girls could be really great friends!  There was a bounce house thing they rented, they have a pool, and some ponds with fish... so the girls were set! :)  And I actually let Haven out of my arms and into other people's a few times while I was there!!!!  Pretty crazy, lol!  And she did good as long as she couldn't see me! :)

We never actually got around to seeing any fireworks (it's past the girls' bedtimes and I didn't feel like attempting that one alone), but we sure do hear them all night long every night, uhhhh!  Good thing the girls don't have a problem sleeping through it!

And some updates!

Today was the first time (that I noticed) Haven was walking, bent over and picked something up without getting down and then stood back up and continued walking!  I watched her do it a couple of times today!  She is really walking well now and definitely prefers it over crawling.  I'd say she walks about 75% of the time now.  She usually pulls up on whatever is closest to her, walks as far as she can before falling and then will crawl the rest of the way until she gets to what she wants or gets to something else to pull up and walk from.

Sleep training continues to go amazing!  Haven is putting herself to sleep now for naps and bed every single time again.  I rarely make it past the 5 minute mark when I am supposed to go and comfort her and usually only have to wait about 30 seconds now before she is fast asleep!!

The race is on for her next 3 teeth to come in.  I change my mind every time I look in Haven's mouth about which one is going to be next, lol!  They are all really close and look very painful!  Luckily, Haven doesn't seem bothered by them much at all!  If you look at her and think about the top 4 teeth, and number them left to right as 1-2-3-4 (with 1 already being in).... I now think that they are going to come in this order: 3,4,2.  I guess we'll see soon! :)

I've noticed that Haven doesn't suck her fingers any more! :(  Which makes me sad, b/c it was so darn cute... but makes me happy too b/c I don't need to worry about putting on the finger sucking guard to make her stop, lol!

And a Venily update!!!  We are working on common sight words now!!!  Venily is super-duper excited about it!  She is ALWAYS coming up to me and asking me if we can read her cards, lol!  She has known all of her letters and what sounds they make for a while now, so I decided to try some words!  I will update as she begins learning them! :)  I haven't done much in the "specific teaching to Venily" department in a while now, and feel really bad about it.  A lot of my focus goes on Haven because she is picking up new things so quickly, so I have decided to make more of an effort to give her more one-on-one time during the day!!  I think she'll really enjoy it a lot!

My Venily Love ♥

(while on a walk)

Venily:  "Mommy, I just love you soo, sooo much!"  (she says this to us like 20 times a day, especially after being naughty, lol!)

Me: "Aww, and I just love you soo, soo much too!"

Venily:  "But you don't love me when I be naughty..."

Me:  "Of course I always love you, whether you are naughty or not!  I just don't like it when you are naughty!"

Venily:  "Yay!  That makes me happy!"


She is so cute, even if she does drive me nuts sometimes!!!

Sleep Training- Day 2/ Night 3

WOW, was that EASY!!!  All naps and for bed tonight, Haven was sound asleep before the 5 minute mark.  And she is going to bed much earlier (around 8:45pm when it had been 10pm or later) and still sleeping in the same time!!!  I am so happy with the results, it's not even funny!!  This process has really helped her get back on a more set schedule as well!  I even got about 30 minutes today when both girls were asleep at the same time for their nap! :)  I am a definite believer in the sleep training method and think it should be written down and given to moms at their child's 6 month doctor visit!!

Sleep Training Day/ Night 2

Update on last night- Slept all the way until 5:30 this morning!  Nursed and slept until 6:45 (when Venily came in and that woke her up)

1st nap of the day- fell asleep in car on the way to the park and on the way home

2nd nap of the day- was ROUGH!  I waited too long I think and she was overtired.   It probably took about an hour for her to fall asleep.  I kept going in there during the same time intervals as last night.  The first time in, she was standing up and all the other times she was sitting.  I'd watch her through the crack in the door and she would start falling asleep while sitting and then her head would fall to the side and she'd wake back up and cry! :(  Eventually she did fall asleep while sitting and leaning her head up against the blankets.  I took a picture, lol, which woke her up a bit and she finally laid all the way down!

3rd nap of the day- Fell asleep breast feeding, oops!  Didn't have the heart to wake her up!!

Bedtime- Read her tired cues, I'm MUCH more aware of them now!  Did Venily's routine again, and then Haven showed definite signs that she was tired so I then did her routine and put her down.  After 5 minutes, she was sitting and crying just a bit.  I laid her back down, and put the timer on for 7 minutes.  After 2 minutes though, she was SOUND ASLEEP!!!!!!!

Really, Haven?  You're going to make it that easy on me?!  I love that girl!!  A few days ago I had thought I had wrecked my great sleeper and now I am totally confident that we are getting back on the right track.... I'm soooo excited!  It feels so great to have both girls in bed before 9pm!  A little time to myself is going to be VERY good for me!

GUESS WHO PEED ON THE POTTY?!

HAVEN-LILIES!!!!!

LOL!  Before you think I'm crazy, I am NOT potty-training her yet.  I won't start that process until around 13 months, give or take a few months, depending on when she's ready.  BUT... I was reading about how some people put their babies on the potty after their naps if they're dry, and it made sense to me.  This was only the second time I've ever even tried, and she went!!!!!  I'm so excited!  It will save on diapers and be better for the environment, PLUS get her used to sitting on there so she's not ever afraid come the time we are training! :)  I can only imagine how many people are rolling their eyes while reading this post, lol!

Venily/Haven Baby Pic Comparison

(click to see bigger)

I think Haven looks like me and Venily looks like Jason!

Haven's 1-9 month collage

(Click to make it bigger)

MY GOSH how did I end up with such perfectly gorgeous children?!

I am going to do another comparison between Venily and Haven as well, but that will have to be another night! :)

Sleep Training... Night 1

(Warning, very boring unless you are also attempting or thinking about attempting sleep training! :) )

We brushed teeth with Venily and did Venily's bedtime routine (read 2 books, sing 2 songs).  I could tell Haven was tired.  So then Haven and I read 3 of Haven's books together while Venily was sleeping.  I turned off the lights, brought her in her room, and sang her a song.... told her I loved her, kissed her, said "Good night" and put her in her crib.  I put the timer on for 5 minutes.  She cried the whole time a little, but wasn't screaming or anything.

When the 5 minutes was up, I went in there.  She was of course standing in her crib crying.  I told her I loved her again and that it was time to sleep and I put her back down and left the room, setting the alarm for 7 minutes.

Her crying escalated a bit after I left, but went back to just a little crying.  There were periods of time when I'd hear finger sucking in between the crying as well.  I wasn't sure I should go back in, but I did.  I found her sitting in there.  I shushed her and tried to lay her back down.  She wasn't having that.  As soon as she saw me, the crying escalated again for a minute.  I left the room and set the alarm for 9 minutes.

I could hear longer periods of time of quiet... and then some crying... then some quiet... then some crying... at the end of 9 minutes, I went in again.  She was sitting again.  The crying escalated again.  I tried to lay her back down and left the room, setting the alarm for 12 minutes.

After only 3.5 minutes, silence for 5 minutes straight!!!!  YAY, success!  Or maybe not?  The crying continued then.  I didn't know if I was supposed to start the timer over or not... so I just waited.  After a few more minutes, silence again.  Then some more slight cries...then silence... more cries... and finally complete silence!

The HARDEST part was not picking her up when I'd have to go in there to comfort her!  I did get off pretty easy though since there was no real screaming, just sad crying, which is hard enough!  Hopefully it does in fact get easier, but overall, it went a LOT better than I thought it was going to!  :)  I'm excited to have a baby that sleeps on her own again!  Fingers crossed!

Tooth #3

 is officially completely through and white!  Though they don't seem to be coming through in a normal order, it's the top right lateral incisor, hopefully the other 3 tops come in soon or she's going to look like a little vampire!  (Speaking of which, I can't believe Eclipse came out today and I'm not seeing it!!!  Ahhh!)  Looking in her mouth, I think the right central incisor is going to be next!  The 3 other teeth coming in look really painful! :(

(p.s.  according to this chart she should have 8 teeth already, lol!)

*Another thing*

that I thought was interesting from Haven's appointment is that the doctor said that Haven still had her umbilical hernia!  I had thought she just had an outie belly button, but we won't know for sure until it's gone.  Her doctor said that they usually go away by 3 years old.

9 month doctor appointment and MORE walking updates! :)

Haven's 9 month well check went great!!!  The doctor was blown away by all the things she can do!  Haven's measurements were: WEIGHT: 21lbs, 0oz (85th%ile),  LENGTH: 30.5in (97+%ile), and Head Circumference: 46.5cm (97+%ile).  Her weight is plateauing (she has only gained 2oz in 2m) and her length keeps going up!


The doctor couldn't believe that Haven was walking and was like "WOW!  I was not expecting that!  That's REALLY early!" and was even more impressed when we told her that Haven took 47 steps in a row yesterday!  (Jason told me I need to stop counting, lol)


She was also impressed with all of the words that she knows and said that she is "very verbal".  Which is great because I think that kids that are verbal get frustrated less as they get older because they are able to communicate their wants better!


And the doctor was happy that Haven is on mostly table foods now and not having any texture or gagging problems!  She said I could pretty much feed her anything I want now except for egg whites and honey (which I already knew).  I asked her about vitamins and she said I should buy the Poli-vi-sol w/out iron b/c the iron can lead to constipation issues (and we don't want to go down that road again!).  Also, she wants me giving BOTH girls daily Vitamin D supplements (and gave me some samples) because the research shows that it helps with cardiovascular health as adults and that we do not get enough sun in Wisconsin, she said Jason and I should be taking it too.  I had a different doctor with Venily for her 1st 10 months and he had told me that she didn't need them.  I am happy that this doctor says to give it to them! :)


I also told her about how Haven needs to be nursed to sleep now and asked what we should do about it.  I was SOOOOO happy that Jason was in the room with us so he could hear it for himself!  First of all, she talked about how hard it was with her 4 kids and how she HATED to hear them cry.  Then she told me to set up a bedtime routine and stick to it (we have one, but I am going to revise it and make it more concrete).  Then she wants me to put her in her bed tired, but awake and let her cry for 5 minutes.  Go back in and reassure her that we didn't abandon her and tell her everything is okay, etc.  Then leave for 7 minutes.  Go back in and lay her down, touch her back and shush her, but don't talk to her.  Then 10 min... and 12 min, etc. until she falls asleep!  She said it's going to really hard for like 3 or 4 days, but eventually it'll get easier!  I of course knew I was supposed to do this, but hearing it from the doctor will help make it easier on me!!!  So.... starting tonight we are officially sleep training!!!!


Haven didn't need any shots this time, YAY!  And goes back for her next well check at 1 year.  Her appointment is on Sept 28th and she will need shots at that time.






And walking update:

Yesterday Haven started walking everywhere like CRAZY!!!  Yay!  I'd say she's up to about 50% of the time walking, 50% crawling.  I counted one time and she walked 47 steps in a row! :)  She is getting better at turns as well.  I wish she'd stop climbing up on things though, she is wanting a trip to the emergency room!!!  Yesterday she climbed up on top of her chair and then up on TOP of her activity table and she climbed up on top of Venily's stool and up on top of the couch again!!!  I have to keep my eye on that one! :)

Haven is 9 months!!! (3/4 of a year!)

This month has been the fastest one yet!!  She's definitely grown up so much this past month, I think moreso than any other month!  And she's officially toddling around, so I think I can no longer refer to her as a baby, but have to call her a TODDLER instead! CRAZY!

Here are her 9 month stats:

Weight: 21lbs, 0oz (as of 9/30/10)


Length: 30.5in (as of 9/30/10)

(Venily was 19lbs, 9oz and 29.25in at 9m)


Haven's updated growth charts:

Clothes size: mostly 12m & 18m (I still put her in some 6-9m dresses as well)

Diaper size: 3

Shoe size: 3 or 4 still (some 3's are too small, some 4's are too big!)

*and a new measurement to document hair growth*
HAIR LENGTH: longest top pieces- 1.25 inches
longest bottom/back pieces- 1.5 inches (and these are the fullest on her head and get super curly when she's sweaty!!!) :)

Here's what Venily's hair looked like:  She had much longer top hair strands, but also a bald spot in the back- and her swirl of course (wet & extra swirled in pic below)! :)

SLEEPING: Oh, where have I gone wrong, lol?!  Will no longer put herself to sleep, for naps or at bedtime!!  I have to nurse her to sleep or hold her and pat her back and then put her in her crib carefully! :(  If I try to put her down drowsy but awake, she stands right up and yells and cries!  That was always the problem I had with Venily (though Venily NEVER put herself to sleep since day 1).  I was so hopeful for Haven!  I attempted sleep training one day... that didn't go over so well.  I will try again though someday soon, maybe after we pop all these teeth through!  I SHOULD do it next week while Jason is out of town doing work b/c he does not handle it very well... I will ask her pediatrician about it on Wednesday!

Haven also pushed her bedtime to much later, usually around 10pm now, sometimes even later.  For some reason she gets a huge surge of energy after Venily goes to bed.  She wants to walk around and play!!!  When she does go down though, she usually wakes up between 4:30 and 5:30 to nurse and then sleeps until around 7:00- 8:00am.

2-3 naps a day, though lately she is fighting her morning nap!  In the summer it's hard to get on a solid schedule since we are always running around places!  Unfortunately, the girls rarely nap at the same time anymore!  But on the now rare chance I get them to, I feel like the most amazing mom in the world! :)

EATING: Still breastfeeding throughout the day- 5 times maybe?  I have no idea, I'm going to do a 'day in the life' soon and will keep track!  Still eating 3 solid food meals and some snacks. We are usually doing 2 "real" food meals a day now, with one meal of baby food or baby cereal, sometimes all 3 "real" food meals and no baby food!  This week she has just started to refuse her baby food.  She'll eat a few spoonfuls and then start spitting it out when she doesn't want any more!  She thinks baby food is for babies and that she's a big girl now!


But she LOVES anything she can eat with her fingers!  I gave her her own spoon and bowl of oatmeal a few days ago to eat all by herself for the first time and she went NUTS!! Thought it was the greatest, funnest thing in the whole wide world!  She did pretty good with spoon feeding herself.  Stupid me, forgot that we had SUCTION CUP BOWLS though!!! haha.  (we've been using the suction cup one since then and it goes a LOT better).  She also ate it with her fingers as well.  She ate 2 BIG bowls of it, and was literally trying to eat every last speck!  I should do this every day, but it's just such a mess and she is only supposed to get a bath every 2-3 days (though almost impossible to wait that long in summer)!  So we are trying to do it on bath days from now on!

She is also getting too smart for her own good when it comes to food.  If she wants something that I'm eating, I used to be able to give her something of hers to eat and she'd be fine.  Now she knows better and wants what I'm eating!!  Oh well Haven, you ended up with one of those crazy moms that wants you to eat healthy all the time, haha!  (You'll thank me when you're older!  ♥ )  Seriously though, I'm a slight bit more relaxed with Haven than I was with Venily.  With Venily I'd almost have a panic attack every single time someone so much as gave Venily a piece of white bread!  It still gets me a little panicky with Haven, but I can breath through it now! :)  But sorry Haven, no candy, chocolate, Popsicles, salty, over processed or otherwise unhealthy food until you are 2, and only then in moderation!  People can judge me as they will, but I handled it fine with Venily and will do so with Haven too!


I still haven't found anything she won't eat!  I actually go out of my way to try and find things too!  Onions, peppers, boiled egg yolks, broccoli, spicy vegetarian chili... you name it, she literally eats anything!

Drinks from a sippy cup, from a regular cup (I even give her her big girl Tylenol in the little cup now), and from a cup with a straw!

PLAYING: Her push toys are still her favorite (or anything that CAN be pushed).  She loves to be standing while playing with anything!  And she loves pushing them through the house!  She is also really into books right now.  And will happily play with all her books and is so captivated while I show her pictures and tell her what everything is!  I make it a point to read to her every single day (she also listens in on Venily's books, but Venily usually picks really long books).  We are currently working on naming animals and what sounds they make, since that is her favorite thing!!  She knows what a duck, dog, and kitty are!  Paper is also an obsession of hers!  She can detect paper from a mile away and will shred it to pieces and eat as much of it as she can, given the chance!  Her absolute favorite toys though are her ducks!!  Her face just lights up when she sees them! :)

She also loves songs and dancing!  Her favorite songs are "Pat-a-cake" and "If You're Happy and You Know It" because she likes doing the motions!  And she loves dancing to music.  She can dance better than I could ever dream of!  ♥  Nothing is better than hearing a song and watch her break out into her booty shaking dance!  ♥ ♥
Naming body parts:  Haven loves when we work on naming body parts every day as well.  She can point out teeth and sometimes eyes (especially on dolls).  She likes pointing at different things on my face while I tell her what they are.


Loves playing peek-a-boo and burying her head and popping back up when you ask where she is!  ♥



APPEARANCE: She continues to get longer and thinner!  EVERYONE comments on how tall she is!  And when people guess her age they usually guess around 18m!  haha!  We are still waiting on more hair! (see hair length above).  Eyes are still blue (YAY!)... hoping we are past the possibility of changing point! ;)


TEETH: 2 bottoms still, and all 4 of the tops are really swollen and ready to come through soon! Her right lateral incisor is almost through, hoping they all come quickly!  They don't bother her too much until nighttime! :(  We've been doing Orajel, cool teething rings, chewing on ice pops in the plastic, and Tylenol!


SPEECH: She is definitely verbal like her sister!  Her favorite words as of right now are "this" and "that" (referring to pretty much anything that she points to, lol, Jason was eating one day with his shirt off and Haven came over and pointed at his nipple and says "THIS?"  She's so funny!!), "duck", "Dada", "teeth", "more", "hi", "Mama", "ball", "dog" and she also can say "eat","up",  "kitty" (kkkkk), "ick", and will attempt to say other words!

-signs:  
*previous-"eat", waves, claps, does "so big", gives high fives, pats her legs for "pat it", puts her hands up to be picked up, points at things she wants or when asked where something is
*new- "water" (she made up her own sign for it, she waves her hands up and down like she's splashing every time she sees water!), and she copies me for "all done"/"all gone" (which I made up a sign for, I have no idea what it actually is, it's the same I used for Venily though, haha!) 
*working on- "roll it" and blowing kisses

MOVEMENT:  Crawls up on all fours most of the time, rarely now she'll drop down to an army crawl still and make me laugh!  She is FAST too when she wants something, especially if she knows I'm on my way to get it away from her!  

 

Can walk across the room all by herself now too!!!!!  I have counted her take 24 consecutive steps in a row now!  She looks like such a big girl walking, I know it won't be long before she is walking more than crawling!  She can also walk all around while just holding onto one of my fingers!  She also climbs like crazy!  She can climb all the way up our flight of stairs, and is always climbing up on anything she can!  I had thought I had a pretty good arrangement to keep her in my living room, but that too did not last long, she just climbs over the whole thing now!  She can not be contained, lol!

She will walk without holding onto anything to transfer from object to object.  And will take off walking after pulling up on things.  Also, able to stand up in the middle of the room now without pulling up or touching anything!

PERSONALITY:  She is very silly and LOVES to laugh and make other people laugh!!!  She is a very content child, but she gets very frustrated when she can't do something.  Before she was mobile she was getting VERY frustrated, but now is a much happier little girl again!!


If I am holding her or if someone else is holding her and I am not in sight, she is very happy.  However, if someone else (including Jason sometimes, lol) is holding her and she sees me, she cries for me.  Makes me think I should let Jason (or someone else) watch her more often so she overcomes some of that, but it causes me physical pain to even think about being away from her, lol!  I have been away from her for probably a total of 7 hours since she was born (and all of those hours were her Dad watching her)!  Wait, no, my sister did watch her for an hour one time, though it was at night and she was already sleeping in bed for the night... haha.

OTHER:  
All her constipation issues cleared up, thankfully!   

I wish we had our central air hooked up b/c Haven still gets really sweaty!  She wakes up from her naps drenched in sweat, even if it's not that hot.  And when I nurse her, I look at her head and see that her whole head is covered in beads of sweat! 

Haven is able to follow simple instructions like "Go get your ball" or "give your baby a kiss".

*********

AT 9 MONTHS...

Haven's LIKES:

*Walking!!!

*DOGS- and all other animals too!  She CAN'T WAIT to go to the fairs!!


* Toy ducks! :)

* Cardboard toy pieces- puzzle pieces, game pieces, Venily's flashcards

* Still loves her BIG sister more than anything!!  ♥

*Eating big girl food

* Pushing toys around the house


*Water, sand, dirt, grass, sticks, leaves, flowers... anything outside!!

*Getting into everything and breaking out of Mommy's barriers!  She learned how to open up the screen door today too!

Haven's DISLIKES:
* Not being able to communicate something to me.  I can see her little face get so frustrated, as if she's yelling "Why can't you understand me?!"

*Teeth coming in! :(

*Sleeping... there is just TOO MUCH TO DO!!

HAVEN/ VENILY COMPARISON: (Venily's 9 Month Update)



Pics: Venily at 9 months!

9m Update!

Yes, Haven is 9 months old today!!

I finished her 9m update, but still need to finish up adding the pictures.  I will probably have it up tomorrow night!

Birthday Party Updates!

Party is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, October 3rd and will be a combo party for both girls.  I figured this gives us 3 days to celebrate!  On Haven's actual birthday, the party, and then on Venily's actual birthday! :)  We'll have a whole month of celebrating! :)

Not sure where it will be.  Last year it was a tight fit having so many people in our small house (plus it's looking like our yard will STILL not be done!), but that may be our only option!

And here is the cakes the girls picked for Grandma to make them!  ♥
For Venily's 2nd birthday she picked out a castle cake and LITERALLY talked about it for months and months beforehand... and continued to talk about how awesome it was months and months after, lol! :)

HAVEN's:

(Oh course it had to be a duck! lol)

VENILY's:

(Though I'm sure she's going to want the dress to be BLUE! haha!  Venily literally wanted every single cake we showed her and each new picture we showed her was the new one she wanted, lol.  Sooooo.... we ended on this one and that was the one she wanted!  She's really excited that she gets to keep the Barbie when the cake is done!)

Oh my, TEETH!!!!

So I took Jason to the dentist today (he has been in some SERIOUS pain for the past 24+ hours) and was joking around and said, "Okay Haven, let's look in your mouth and see if you have any new teeth!"  And when I looked I saw a tiny little sore in the top of her gums, I was a little concerned but figured I'd just ask her doctor about it at her checkup next week.  When I got home, I took her in the bathroom for better lighting and looked again!  And saw that ALL 4 TOP TEETH are coming in!!  Three are really swollen and 1 (though weirdly, one of the outer of the bunch) has a hole and is getting ready to pop through!


Venily only had 4 teeth at 1 year, haha!


And I've been on my online baby community again lately for babies born around the same time as Haven (I used to LOVE going on there while pregnant, but haven't been on in a LONG time) and forgot how addicting it can be, lol!  Anyway, there are babies that already have 8 teeth!  HAHA!  Wow! :)

"More" new word (s)

Yesterday Haven learned how to say "more"!!  I really love useful words!!  We were grocery shopping and she was hungry so I grabbed some snacks and was feeding them to her as we shopped.  She would whine every time she finished one and wanted another.  So every time I'd say "More?  More please?" and give her one.   Then one time I wasn't paying attention and tuned out her whining while I was focused on something else so then she starts saying "More!  More!" and continued to say the word whenever she wanted one throughout the rest of the store!  ♥

And Jason says she said "ick" yesterday as well.  We refer to crumbs and dirt and whatever on the floor (one of Haven's favorite things! lol) as "icks".  Jason said she pointed at one, said "ICK!" with a huge smile on her face, looked over at Jason and then quick tried to put it in her mouth, hahaha!

Newest trick!

Haven learned how to stand up in the middle of the room all by herself without pulling up on anything or using a wall! :)  I watched her do it several times in a row!  Hmmm.... I really should take out her baby book and get to work seeing as I haven't touched it since she was born! :(

Oh, also she LITERALLY aged several months over night!!!!!  She is the size of a 16m old and acts like one too! 


♥ 20 steps

Yep, you guessed it...

another new record!  I think she got up to 16 consecutive steps tonight (don't worry, I'll stop updating every time she beats her record)!!  She is for sure getting better and better each day! (or I should say night... she's been wanting to stay up at night to practice her walking and gets a huge surge of energy, lol)


Here's a video of some of her walking skills!  I apologize, I will probably take a lot of videos of her walking, it's just so darn cute! :)



(she probably would have kept going, but I ran into the couch and couldn't back up any more, lol!)

6 more days until her 9 month birthday!!!!  I can't believe it!  I will have more updates then!  And I will reveal soon what cakes the girls decided to have Grandma make for their birthdays!  You'll never guess what Haven wants, haha! ;)


AND A VERY HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL THE GREAT DADDYS OUT THERE!!!!  My girls have the greatest Daddy of them all and they know it!  They love him so much and his girls are his world!  I just love watching Jason with them!  ♥  We were supposed to have a father's day picnic, but plans changed.  Jason had a nice day of fishing, kayaking, and hanging out though, so it was all good!

Lots more walking!!!!

Haven is definitely getting the hang of this whole "walking" thing!  She got up to 12 steps today and lots of runs of 10!!!  She is getting so daring too and will start walking to me without me even telling her to, she just pulls herself up on the nearest thing to her and takes off!!  As of today, I don't even worry about staying super close to her, she falls very gracefully now (either on her butt or down to a crawling stance)! :)  My baby is officially growing up!! 

Another thing I caught her doing today is climbing stairs!  We need to get our gate put back up ASAP, because she LOVES to climb!  I also watched her push a box over to her activity table, climb up on it and stand on it and then continue to "booty dance" (the cutest dance IN THE WORLD where she just shakes her little booty ♥ ) up on top of the box!  She is going to be Trouble!!!!! :)

10 steps!!!

Haven has been a walking machine lately!!  And tonight she beat her previous record of 5 steps a ton of times and her new record is 10 STEPS!!!!  I'm so proud of her!  ♥  And does it GET ANY CUTER THAN WOBBLY LITTLE STEPS?!  I think not! :)

(I actually had gotten her 10 steps on video as well, but when I went to look at it, Venily was standing right in front of the camera the whole time, LOL!)

Venily took 9 consecutive steps at 10m, 4d old.<see here!>  And Haven has already taken 10 steps at 8m, 3w, 2d old!  :)  Within a month, Venily was walking EVERYWHERE and I had lost count at how many consecutive steps she had taken, so it's not long now before Haven is walking everywhere as well!!!! :)  And you should see her on her lion now (or anything she can push basically, wheels or no wheels, lol)!  She RUNS with the thing ALL OVER THE HOUSE!!  And she doesn't even fall transitioning from the carpet to the tile floor and back again!  She CONSTANTLY wants me to move it so she can continue walking every time she runs into something and can't go any more!  She's soooo funny!!

Oh, and another thing she started doing today?  Taking her cell phone, putting it on top of her head and saying "hi!"!  I was laughing so hard!  This is truly my favorite age of children, they are so funny and constantly learning new things!!