9 months old!

Paige is 9 months old! Wow!

• Height: 27 in (38th percentile – that’s what they measured but I don’t think it’s accurate)
• Weight: 18 lbs 11 oz (47th percentile)
• Head: 42 cm (5th percentile – I don’t think that’s right either!)
• Wearing 12 month clothes
• Wearing size 3 diapers (until we run out- I think she’s ready for 4s )

Paige is nursing 5x/day (still including 1 nighttime feeding). She eats 1-2 jars of baby food for breakfast, 1 for lunch, and 1-2 for dinner, along with finger foods, which she likes! Her very favorite finger food is peas. She also likes strawberries, green beans, and lima beans, but will not eat carrots.

At her 9 month appointment, they checked her iron level. It was supposed to be 11 and was measured at 8.5. So we are supposed to give her iron-rich foods twice a day and an iron supplement. I made a baby food puree of clams and potatoes – which is actually really good (Paige and I think!) and has a very high iron concentration – and another of lentils and sweet potato. We’ll try new ones next week!

Sleeping and napping are the same (which is great!)

New things this month: Paige loves to clap! Last week she was clapping and saying “yay!” I am counting it as her fist word.   She is also pulling up!

She is still army crawling. I think that will be her preferred method of movement for at least another month. It’s hard for her to get up on her knees on all of our hardwoods, and she gives up quickly because she know she can army crawl faster.

I can’t believe your first year is coming to a close, Paige! What a fast and wonderful 9 months!

Random April Pics

Palm Sunday!

Sisters reading (?) together:

The kids enjoy playing the piano!

Easter Weekend 2014

Considering we weren’t with our families this Easter, we were surprised to have a busy and fun Easter weekend!

On Saturday morning, we went to a church for a pancake breakfast, Easter egg hunt, and other fun activities! (We are still “church shopping,” and we went to this church for Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.)

There were live rabbits to see and pet – the kids loved this!

I really like how the church did a Easter egg scavenger hunt – there were clues that included Bible verses in order to find the next bin of eggs (each kid picked 1 egg out of each bin).

The egg hunt ended at the cross!

Opening their eggs:

It was a beautiful day!

Of course, Easter baskets were ready to be opened in the morning! Everyone got some candy (yogurt melts for Paigey!), 2 books – one Christian and one other, 1 toy, and one “extra” thing (a princess nightgown, Ants in the Pants game, and baby toothbrush – you can guess whose is what).

The kids were dressed in their matching outfits for Easter Sunday.

After the service, a family that we had met the day before at the Easter egg hunt invited us to lunch at their house. So sweet. We took them up on it and the kids all had a great time playing, and we all ate and talked. Then, we got home and our neighbors invited us to their Easter dinner! What a wonderful surprise and it was comforting to have caring people around us when we couldn’t be with family.

Most importantly, our kids knew exactly why we celebrate Easter, and we were all excited to praise Him on Sunday! He is risen!

Meredith is 3!

Meredith is 3 years old! She was so excited about her birthday yesterday. She ran into our room in the morning and said, “It’s my birthday! I turned 3 today!”

{I should also note that there was an inch and a half of snow on the ground when she woke up – a first for her on her birthday!}

Jason and I gave her a crib (with sink and high chair attached) for her babies. Kitty has gotten the most use out of it, I think.

She also opened her presents from Pops and Mimi: an Elsa doll and an Elsa dress! She has not put the doll down since she got it, even sleeping with it for nap time and bedtime. Elsa has frozen and thawed everyone and everything in our house numerous times.

She insisted on cupcakes for breakfast, so that’s what we did!

After Paige’s morning nap, we went to a place called Kids Town, which was like a children’s museum geared toward ages 7 and under. All 3 kids had a blast.

Meredith did lots of things: cooked food in a play kitchen, styled dolls’ hair in a beauty salon, played on the indoor playground, gave us a ballet performance, and sat and read some books!

Meredith chose baked chicken, rice, and pears for her special birthday dinner. She also got to open 2 birthday gifts from Russell – a princess chalkboard and 2 little ponies – that he bought with his own chore money.

What a wonderful day we had celebrating our big girl!

Weekend Tourists

On Saturday, we visited a park called C antigny. It’s about 20 minutes from our house and there are a bunch of different things to do. We focused on the outdoor army tank park – with authentic, military-used tanks that visitors can now climb on – and the First D ivision Museum – a museum dedicated to army history from WWI to Desert Storm.

The kids loved the tanks – especially Russell and Jason. I didn’t count how many there are (and I’m bad at estimating) but I know there were at least 20. We walked from the oldest tanks to the newest – the oldest being from about 1914, the newest from the 90s.

The museum was really interesting. It was made to look like you are actually in the war zones. It made the kids a little nervous at first, but by the end Russell had decided he wants to be in the army when he’s 18. (Add that to race car driver and drummer.)

World War I:

Omaha Beach:

Watching a movie about the Vietnam War (which was good and educational, but we moved on when we decided there was a bit too much violence for preschoolers):

It was a great history lesson for the kids!

There is also a playground with picnic tables on the property, so when we finished with the museum, we went to the park with our lunch box full of snacks so we could eat and get the wiggles out.

Our only cost was parking – a good use of $5 for a morning of fun!