Many of Rachel's milestones, along with some other things

Rachel has hit a lot of her first milestones in the last few months. It is true that they grow up so fast. But it is so fun watching her grow, learn, and develop. Her temperament is wonderful. She must be one of the most easy-going, patient babies ever. It is a blessing that we thank Heavenly Father for every day.

Rachel started cooing around two and a half months. She is quite a social little girl. She enjoys smiling and babbling for people.

Sept 24, 2011

She has liked experimenting with her voice a lot. She likes to go from high-pitched to scratchy to yelling. And then there are times when she just coos with her sweet little voice. 

Oct 26, 2011

We were a little slow to move her out of the bassinet. I think she was 4 months before we moved her to a pack-n-play, though still in our room. You can see how she took up most of the space in the bassinet and how she shook it when moving around. We then moved her into the crib in Allie's room at 6 months, which was later than we planned, but worked out alright. Some nights can be rough, but overall it has been a pretty smooth transition for both girls.

This was taken before moving her to the crib. This is how she would greet you when you go to get her in the morning or after a nap. She still greets you with a smile, but now she is usually sitting up by the time you get to her. Today she actually pulled herself up in the crib. I guess it is time to lower the mattress.

Nov 9, 2011

There are times when Allie runs to say hi to Rachel after she wakes up. Since it entertains both of them, I'll occasionally take a little time to finish whatever I am working on. Sometimes Allie will have given Rachel toys and/or books. Rachel loves it.

Nov 8, 2011

There are other times when Allie will decide to be helpful. One time she very proudly showed me all the nursing pads she had put into the pack-n-play. Apparently it is a better place for them.

It seemed like Rachel wanted to laugh for awhile before she finally did. Here's the first video in which we captured some of her laugh. It was pretty close to her first laugh, which was right around 3 months.

Oct 10, 2011

Though it isn't something most of us would celebrate, Rachel's thighs got to be about as thick as Allie's mid-October. It made us chuckle. We haven't measured them recently, but Rachel is thinning just a little, so they are probably about the same still.

We've mentioned it before, but Rachel really does love Allie. She would give most of her first smiles to Allie, and it was no different with her laughs. It seemed like they would have a daily laughing session for a few weeks. It was so cute and funny that I would usually join them, too. I was a little jealous at times, though, because I would try so hard to get Rachel to laugh and get a few little laughs, but then Allie would always manage to get Rachel to crack up. Oh well. More than anything it would just melt my heart. I sure love watching my two little girls enjoy each other.

Oct 25, 2011

Perhaps one reason why Rachel adores Allie is because she is always getting her toys, A LOT of toys.

Oct 20, 2011

Sometimes the girls like to watch Mommy while she folds clothes. Here's a cute picture of the girls with their blankets on Mommy and Daddy's bed while Mommy was folding clothes. 

Nov 1, 1011

Story time seems to be something that Rachel enjoys as much as Allie, although her attention span is obviously much shorter.

Rachel looked at Allie about as much as she looked at the book.

Nov 5, 2011

We borrowed a bumbo chair from some friends at church. Rachel loved it. Mommy liked it too because it meant that she could walk away for a little bit without worry of her getting hurt. It also meant that she could have her on the counter or table near her while cooking or having meals. Allie took advantage of one of the times Mommy was away to play dress up with Rachel and give her a hat. It is a nice cottage cheese bucket (that was clean). Rachel didn't mind one bit. I think she likes any positive attention from her sister.

Allie then read her a book.

Nov 9, 2011

Just another cute picture.

Nov 13, 2011

Here's another little video that we think is cute. Rachel had so much fun with this little stuffed Lady (from Lady and the Tramp).

Nov 14, 2012

Rachel was such a big baby that we moved her to the bath tub earlier than we did with Allie. Allie was long, but Rachel's extra weight just filled the baby tub up that much more. So Allie was very excited to take a bath with Rachel. Since Rachel wasn't sitting up, yet, we had to be extra careful with her. But she continued to love her baths. She is a water baby. She loves to splash and play with the water. I didn't realize that Daddy was recording when this was taken, so I was actually trying to get her to turn and smile for a picture. She was more interested in the water, though. (The splashing in this video is tame compared to what she likes to do now, both sitting up and lying down.)

Nov 16, 2011

First Bath in Big Tub with Sis

Although not a traditional "milestone," we thought it was pretty cute when Rachel first wanted take some swings at a ball. Perhaps we have a little volleyball player in the making. (It was a clean way, discovered by chance, for her to entertain herself in the bathroom when we were spending an endless amount of time in there with Allie.)

Dec 8, 2011

Allie was sitting by 5 months, and I remember telling Jared that I didn't think Rachel would meet that. And I would have been fine if she hadn't because then they just want to get mobile. Well, Rachel could sit fairly well at 5 months. The pictures below were taken on December 7th, one day after her 5 month mark. We had pillows around her, but she was able to sit for up to half an hour at times.

The next picture was taken the same day and obviously isn't of her sitting, but I thought it was cute.

Rachel has been a drool monster for quite some time. Allie was too, and we were certain that Allie was an early teether because of her drooling and putting everything in her mouth. However, Allie didn't get her first tooth until a little after nine months. So when Rachel started drooling like crazy, we figured, "yeah, she won't get teeth for awhile." But on December 10th, Rachel was putting my fingers in her mouth when I felt something, a tooth cutting through. And then the next day I could feel a second tooth. I couldn't believe it. And as is par for her personality and temperament, she seemed to weather it just fine. She now has her two bottom pearlies and is working on the top two. They aren't cutting through yet, but they are incredibly swollen.

Rachel seems to be saying certain consonant-vowel combinations earlier than Allie did, too. She started saying, "mama" and "baba" on January 7th, and then just started saying "dada" on January 19th. We love hearing her babble.

We went to Rachel's 6 month doctor's appointment on January 9th, and when the doctor saw that she could sit, she said that it wouldn't be long before she would go from tummy to sitting and then getting around. I think she gave Rachel ideas, because, that very afternoon, Rachel learned to go from tummy to sitting. In the next few days she started getting around by either slowly scooting on her bum or reaching, going to her tummy, changing directions, and then going back to sitting. It was amazing how much distance she could cover in a relatively short amount of time.

During the next week, she started trying to go forward and would get frustrated by going backward. And then only a little over a week later, she learned to crawl. She still is somewhat shaky at it, and she does it with a little hop in her crawl, but she can get to what she wants by going forward. I know she was going forward a little on January 18th. The videos below were taken on January 20th.

Also on January 18th, Rachel pulled herself to standing for the first time. I was watching her and just thought, "she is gonna do it." So I grabbed the video camera and captured her first time pulling herself up to standing at 6 and a half months. We could be in trouble. We definitely have to keep an eye on her because she is always wanting to pull herself up despite being wobbly and she could definitely bump her head.

Another non-traditional milestone: using a hammer. She has watched Allie play with this hammer and bench toy quite a bit. She got to it and wanted a try at it. Luckily, Allie was okay with it. Sometimes Allie is great about sharing, but other times she is very possessive over her toys. (The bench is actually upside-down, but Rachel didn't seem to mind.)

Stats


We haven't listed her 4-month or 6-month stats, yet. So without further ado...

4 Months: 25.5" long (90-95th percentile) and 16 lbs (75-90th percentile - quite the window)
6 Months: 27.5" long (95th percentile) and 17 lbs, 9 oz (75th percentile) - Allie still hadn't reached this weight by 9 months.

It seems we are going to have two girls who tower over their mother.

Closing out October with the Sea of Orange Parade

OSU has one of the biggest homecoming celebrations in the nation, or so they say. I believe it, though. They go all out. We went to the parade both last year and this year. We were at a different location this year, and, sadly, it didn't quite meet our expectations. It was still fun, but the energy was absent and the floats weren't as impressive. What was funny was that we had just finished saying that to ourselves when a reporter from the local newspaper came up to us and asked us to comment on the parade. We tried to be more positive and the reporter did a pretty good job of making our comments sound alright.

Just like last year, Allie loved the horses. She wasn't near as vocal about it as she was last year, but we could still tell that she loved them. One of the floats handed out little cheese slices, a healthier option. As the paper states, Allie enjoyed that, too.

We didn't take many pictures of the parade. And the ones of us aren't very exciting, but here they are nonetheless.

Oh, as an exciting side note, Rachel started grabbing her feet that day (or possibly the day before). It's always a fun milestone. This isn't the greatest picture either, but it captures it.

Another trip to Theta Pond in October

I went on a walk with the two girls to Theta Pond mid-October. We met Jared there, who was already on campus, listened to the marching band for awhile, which Allie loved, and then came home. Here are a few pictures from that little trip.

Even when the ducks aren't hungry, you can still feed the fish.

It's a little hard to see, but the fish come up and eat the bread.

A visit from our friends and Halloween

October was a fun month. Jared had his fall break, which was really just getting a Friday off, but luckily it coincided with our friend's fall break, too. We've mentioned the Spilkers before; Allie and Lily played together all the time, and our family became really good friends. They moved to Nebraska at the end of June, and then we were so lucky and happy to have them come visit in October.

We had a great time visiting and letting the girls play together again. One of the fun things we did was go to the pumpkin patch together. We had gone the year before with them, too (click HERE to see). Because of the incredible heat during the summer, the patch was pretty sad, but we still had a good time and got some good photos.

The Princess (Lily) and the Frog (Allie)

Allie kept collecting clumps of dirt. Silly girl.

Our frog and pumpkin were too cute.

The Spilkers are such a cute family.

The best family picture we could get.

Our little frog sticking out her tongue. Notice she is with the green pumpkins.

Our normally super smiley Rachel was pretty straight-faced for her pictures.

Still cute though.

Even though the pumpkin patch was a little void of pumpkins, we had a fun time. It was quite enjoyable watching the girls have fun.

Halloween was a lot of fun for Allie this year. It was fun for us, too, since we could watch her excitement with her growing understanding of what it is all about - CANDY. We went to both our church's trunk-or-treat, which ended up being inside due to rain, and the City of Stillwater's Main Street Celebration. We forgot to take pictures at the trunk-or-treat, but we did get a few from the city celebration.

The City of Stillwater closes down a portion of Main street, and the stores let the kids come around and get candy. There were bouncy houses and other entertainment, too. There are so many kids who come, so it turns into waiting in a long, slow line to get candy. But it is still fun. Allie was patient, and we all enjoyed seeing all of the different costumes.

Our cute little frog waiting with a smile in the long line.

Our little pumpkin was pretty tired for the whole event.

Holding Daddy's finger

Trick - or - Treat

While waiting in the line, Allie started dancing to the music that was being played.

All in all, everything we did for Halloween was a lot of fun.

Some fun with Allie

I started this post in early to mid-November. I had high hopes to get caught up before the holidays with this and other posts. Well, it clearly didn't happen, so I will be trying to slowly but surely catch up on our lives. I am going to put the date from when the picture or video was taken underneath of it for our own sake.

**********************************************************************************

Allie keeps us smiling, most of the time. She is such an energetic girl who loves to sing, dance, and read. She loves being a big sister. She also loves trying her parents' patience. But I guess that just comes with her being 2 years old.

Potty Training

Allie has decided that she wants to wear "big girl underwear" and only wears diapers during nap, at night, long drives, and at church. We have gone out to a few different stores with her in her underwear, and we avoided accidents by taking her to the bathroom every 30 minutes. She is getting more confident and will often run to the bathroom and want to do it by herself when she hears the timer. She has gone a day or two without accidents, but then there are other days (like today*) in which she has had several accidents. Granted, I did try stretching her to 35-38 minutes today. I cannot say that we love potty training. We just keep reminding ourselves that it will be worth it. Others have told me that I will look back on this time with fondness; we'll see about that. Allie's dentist said that potty training is the reason she only has two children. We'll have more than that if it is the Lord's will, but I now dread having to potty train however many we end up having.

*Added in late November: I started creating this post a little over a week ago. Allie can usually go 45 minutes or so without having accidents. But some days are still better, or worse, than others.

Due to the lack of schedule during and around the holidays, Allie's potty training has not been extremely great. By the end of November, she was going about every hour and 20 minutes without accident, but then it all went down hill. She currently can recognize when she needs to go, and if she is in her big girl underwear (which is still anytime other than nap, night, long drives, and church), she'll usually let us know so that we can get her to the bathroom in time. We had actually had a few successful Sundays without a pull-up at church, but they give her so much water in nursery that we are just going to wait a little longer. A few weeks ago, Allie gave them a two second warning and then made a nice puddle on the floor and in her shoes. Yeah, we're in no hurry to repeat that. Lately, after her nap, she doesn't want to go and wants to stay in her pull-up. She cries when we try to get her to go. Also, She does not like washing her hands and has been crying about it with each trip to the bathroom. We tried hand sanitizer, but that, "hurt [her] hands." We put lotion on, but she cries/whines about that, too. When we do finally get her to go potty, she wants to take FOREVER on the toilet. You can ask if she is done, and she just won't answer. She'll sing, talk to stuffed animals she has brought in - Anything but answer the question. We're trying to be patient and just hope it gets better. We should have a more regular schedule for awhile. I think anyway.

We were using a potty success chart and stickers to help Allie get motivated at first. After going "poo poo on potty 5 times," Allie would get a "big ice cream." You use what you need to for motivation in these situations. 

Before
Excited for her ice cream.
Oct 22, 2011

After
Getting every last bit off the stick.

Allie went through a stacking phase. She will still do it sometimes, but it seemed like she was doing it daily for awhile. Here are some pictures of her stacking blocks on the table.

Sept 23, 2011

She was very excited about how tall it was getting!

But then the inevitable happened, and she was NOT happy about it.

She would also stack the letters on the refrigerator.

Nov 14, 2011

Allie loves to watch videos. We have always tried to limit how much she watches, but when we were first adjusting to having Rachel, we let her watch more than normal. Because of that, she came to expect videos almost all day, everyday. She would wake up and ask, "video?" or "DVD?" We would tell her no, and she would break down. So we decided to hide all of the DVDs so that she couldn't see them and/or grab them and demand to watch it. It worked very well. We just told her that they were hiding, and she didn't throw a fit. So little by little, she started entertaining herself better. We then started using DVDs as a reward for things, such as being nice and going potty. We feel she watches a much healthier amount these days.

Here's a picture of her relaxing while watching a video.

Oct 26, 2011

Back when the weather was still nice, or before we started having occasional cold weather, we would take Allie to Theta pond on campus to feed the ducks and fish. Here are some pictures from an outing with Daddy.

Oct 1, 2011

We ordered some big girl bedding for Allie from Target. It came in a huge box. Allie had a blast jumping off of the chair (to the right of the box) into the packaging bubbles.

Oct 7, 2011

She makes us laugh by doing random things like sitting on the car seat cover that was drying on the back of a chair. There is a backpack on the chair acting as a counterweight. She just took a seat and was eating her banana.

Allie used to go to sleep so wonderfully for us. She'd even sleep through the night. There was even a time when she would get excited about bedtime. But it is no longer that way. There have been so many nights, whether she has had a nap or not, that she just will not go to sleep. We've tried letting her read books until she goes to sleep.

There were 16 books on her bed.

And that worked pretty well for about a week. But then she was up to 12 am or even 1:30 am again. We have been hoping that it would just get better. And since I am writing this two months after I started the post, I can say that it is improving. It just isn't great yet.

One night she fell asleep on the glider chair in her room. We then moved her to her bed.

Nov 15, 2011

Allie is learning her letters. She has been able to sing the ABC's (pretty well) for awhile. She is beginning to recognize many letters and is learning what letter different words start with. For example, if she see's the letter, "R" she will say, "Rachel letter R." She's also got A for Allie, D for Daddy, Mmm for Mommy (she says the sound), and then will identify many others either by name or sound.

Oct 10, 2011

She really loves singing.

Nov 15, 2011

Nov 15, 2011

She really is a pretty good big sister. Allie has her moments in which she pesters Rachel, but I think it is mostly to get our attention or to get a rise out of us. But here are some pictures and videos of her being pretty cute and sweet.

This first one isn't actually with Rachel, but it is still pretty cute.

Oct 6, 2011

I can't remember what I was needing to do, but I asked Allie if she wanted to read a book to Rachel to keep her happy. Allie was glad to help out and Rachel was pretty interested, too.

Oct 8, 2011

She has read books to her several more times since then.

Nov 8, 2011

Rachel loves her sister. There are so many times when I am just about to tell Allie to stop what she is doing when Rachel starts laughing and smiling. 

Nov 14, 2011

Though not too bad in this next video, there are times when Allie can be a little too helpful or pretty bossy with Rachel. She has gagged Rachel with a binky before, but not in this video. And actually, by the time this video was taken, Rachel didn't actually take a pacifier anymore. She would just chew on them.

Nov 14, 2011

For awhile, Allie was a great motivator for exercising. She would really get into it. I think I would burn a few extra calories by laughing during the workout.

Oct 3, 2011

There are times when Allie must do something that she has put her mind to. Cutting a roll with a fork was one of those things. She kept saying, "me do it" and "mine turn." We hear those words a lot. She is two, isn't she?

Oct 19, 2011

I swapped babysitting with a friend a few times before the mornings got too cold (she would play tennis while I watched her daughter). Her daughter, Rosemary, and Allie would have a lot of fun together. Here's a cute clip of them on our recliner watching a Baby Einstein sampler DVD.

Oct 6, 2011

Allie also went through a phase in which she like to skip. We never got a video of it, but she would love to skip, especially while holding Daddy's hand. They'd skip together going into Walmart. It was pretty cute.