.:Andrus Family:.: October 2012

Monday, October 22, 2012

.:Reece’s Fourth Birthday:.

Reece totally understood that it was her birthday this year. Starting clear back in about July. Every time we were at the store, she would inform me of the things she wanted for her birthday. Which was pretty much anything that caught her eye.

But it was super fun to have her so excited, and I think it’s safe to say that she loved every part of it!

We started off the morning of her birthday with a decorated door, decorated kitchen with birthday chair, and special cake mix pancakes, complete with sprinkles!

We were able to open up a few presents before Josh had to go to work.

And then playing with them of course!

Then it was time to get ready for school. She wanted to wear her new necklace, and brought cake pops for her class.

After school, we went to Target with some of her friends for her to choose something to buy with her birthday money.

We went out to dinner with Sam, Nikki, and fam to Noodles & Co. Sam and Reece share a birthday, so it was fun to celebrate with them. Plus, Reece got to have her favorite: mac & cheese!

Then it was home for more presents!

We had her birthday party the following weekend. It was her first friends only party, and it went really well! Reece loves to help me in the kitchen, so we did a little baking party. I had planned to have the kids decorate their own aprons, and then decorate their own cakes.

First the kids decorated aprons.

After decorating aprons, it was time to decorate their own personal cakes!

Then it was time for presents! We snagged a group shot before digging in to some cupcakes and juice.

Reece loved it and was spoiled by all of her family and friends!

Here are some questions I had Reece answer for her four year old interview:

What is your favorite color? PINK

What is your favorite food? MAC & CHEESE

What is your favorite treat? TOOTSIE ROLL

What is your favorite toy? PRINCESSES

What is your favorite book? WINNIE AND THE POOH

What is your favorite movie? ANASTASIA

What does Daddy do at work? BUYS STUFFS

What does Mommy do? GOES SHOPPING

Who do you like to play with? REMI

What do you learn at school? FISHIES THAT SWIM

Sunday, October 14, 2012

.:Harper–11 Months:.

One month away from turning one? How did this happen? I feel like I’ve blinked and this entire year has flown by with the Harpster.

We sort of missed her 10 month post. That was right when we were in the midst of moving, so hopefully she’ll forgive me when she reads back on this someday.

What can I say about our little Harpie? She is still such a good baby. She is still stinking adorable.

Harper is busy. She is crawling, exploring, and venturing into walking all over the place. She loves to climb up on the trundle bed and see what is going on up there. She still does her spidey crawl on the hard floors most of the time, and it is seriously spider like when she gets going fast. It’s kind of amazing how quick she is crawling like that! Harper has started to show some interest in walking. She can walk holding on to one or two hands, and has just within the past week started to enjoy pushing the walker around. She has pretty good balance when she squats down from standing to the floor, but I don’t expect her to start walking anytime soon. We’re in no rush, so whenever it happens, it happens!

Harper is loud. She loves to squeal, shout, scream, and just make noise. Often her sounds are accompanied with a cheesey face/grin, and it’s hard to do anything but laugh when she does it. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that such loud sounds can come out of her little body! She talks and babbles quite a bit, and I think that sometimes she says ‘mama’ with meaning. But a lot of it is still just babbling. With her teething, she is often running her tongue over her teeth, and it sounds like she has an accent with a lisp. It’s pretty cute!

Back in Harper’s nine month post, I was praising her for still sleeping well and being happy with her first two teeth coming in. I am eating those words, big time! She’s only had a few days where she has been seriously fussy with her top front teeth coming in, but her sleep…oh, her sleep. It’s been absolutely horrible! And I’ve just been compounding it by feeding her quick so that I can go back to bed myself. We might have to get tough this week and try to get her off this habit, but the past three weeks have been cursed with multiple night wakings. It’s like having a three month old again! I’m hopeful it will even out soon. I don’t usually need a lot of sleep myself, but I definitely need more than I’m getting!

Harper is a fantastic eater! She’ll basically eat anything we put in front of her. Her sisters were both this way, and while I wouldn’t say they are picky eaters, they are definitely pickier than they used to be. I’m hoping we can steer clear of that with Harpie. She loves to eat and gets so excited when she sees me getting her high chair tray ready with food. Harper is also a champ with her sippy cup and bottles. She takes them no problem, doesn’t matter what’s in it or if it’s warm or cold, she’s just all over it. Weaning her will hopefully not be too bad.

Harper adores Reece and Remi. And the feeling is quite mutual! They are always playing together, and it just warms my heart to see how much they love each other. I know they will be the best of friends growing up and beyond.

We love our little Harpie, and just love the stage she is in right now.

At 11 months, Harper likes:

- eating

- crawling

- standing

- dancing

- screaming

- yelling

- shouting

- walking with walker or holding on to someone’s hand( s )

- playing with Reece and Remi

- music

- clapping

- Mommy’s singing (still!)

- drinking out of cups

- chewing on fingers

- binky

- Baby Einstein

- books

- tubs

- toys

- kneeling

- exploring

- laughing

- being tickled

- playing with the dvd’s

- jumping

- grabbing

- nursing
- playing with her hair

At 11 months, Harper does not like:

- teething

- being in car seat or stroller for too long

- sleeping through the nite (not cool!)

- being left alone for too long

- waiting for food

Love this sweet baby girl!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

.:Remi–2.5 Years Old:.

Oh, how I love this feisty girl!

Remi is just turning into such a little girl lately. Her speech has reeeeaaalllly taken off! She is speaking in sentences a lot of the time, and in general, is so much happier because she can communicate with us. I guess she really was listening and learning all the time! We still get some of her jibberish when she gets really excited about something, but overall, she is a talking fool! She’s caught us by surprise by knowing some of her colors and being able to count! Go Rem!

Even with her improved speech, Remi still has plenty of attitude! She has started to swipe at people when she is upset about something, and often when you ask her to do something, she responds by blowing a raspberry your direction and running away. Such a little stinker! She did it her first day of nursery in our new ward, which made me laugh! Get used to it, nursery leaders!

For some reason, Remi does not like to get her picture taken. Usually she will get mad at me, hide her face, or run away. She’s getting a bit more tolerant, but not usually to the point that she will smile. Mostly she’ll just stare at you like, “Get this over with already, would you?” Just fits our Rem!

Remi is our shoe girl! She is obsessed with shoes! It is a constant battle to get her to stay out of the closet, switching out her shoes every ten minutes. She will often fall asleep wearing shoes, and loves to try on any adult shoes that she can find laying around as well.

Remi and Reece are just the best of friends. I love watching them play together, using their imaginations, and having their little conversations. It is so cute! They love to dress up and ‘go to the beach’ or play house. Remi can often be found wearing a pair of shoes, a dress up dress halfway on, pushing the stroller around the house. She also loves to make Harper laugh and smile.