Eight Months

 Leesie Ann, you are 8 months old! What a change you've gone through over the last few weeks, mostly in the vocal area (a loud vocal area. Girlfriend. You are LOUD.) You've developed a growl to let people know you are not happy! You lock out your knees and elbows, clench your fists, and screw up you face while you make this screechy growl noise to let me know you are NOT thrilled about something. Could be hunger, could be being set down, could be the sibling mere inches from your face and you JUST. NEED. SPACE. It makes me laugh every time though, you feisty little thing. You also talk non stop. Mostly "bababa" and "dadadada" and "bubububu". We were at Nana and Papa's the other day and you were distinctly saying "baa baa" while waving at us. But I'm NOT counting bye bye as your first words because it's not Momma. Whenever you say maa maa, THEN you will have your first words. Mkay?

You still love baths, you still love playing,  and you LOVE other babies. You get all squeely and engaged when you see another baby around. You still aren't crawling, but you've kinda figured out that you can scoot around some while sitting up by doing this bouncing thing (moves you forward) or pushing out your legs to go backwards. You HATE laying on your tummy, so I'm not sure if you will ever crawl. Food is hit or miss, sometimes you love to eat and sometimes you just that aren't into it. I've still made all of your food. Nursing you is like nursing a wild cat. You are constantly stopping to look around, flexing your nails into my skin, and flailing about. It's......pleasant. But I'm not ready to stop yet!

Sleep is hit or miss. Sometimes you sleep semi well- don't cry that much at night and only wake up once during the night, while other times it's pretty bad. I'm talking crying for a couple of hours in the evening and then waking up twice or so during the night. I was doing good at just giving you a paci at 3 am, but lately I've been tired that I forget and just bring you to bed and feed you. We'll get back on track one of these days! You can't sleep in that cradle forever!

Elyse, I love you so much. Squishing my cheek into your cheek is one of my favorite things to do. (even when you are pushing me away because I'm smothering you. Ha!) Making you laugh and rocking you are probably among my other top favorites. I'm so so so very glad you are my baby.

Three Years Old

Sunday, my biggest little girl, you turned THREE. YEARS. OLD. Oh my goodness. You have been talking about your birthday for months on end, so I knew it had to be everything that you wanted it to be. Your specific requests? "I want my bufday to be pink wif fowers on it." I'm not sure what "pink with flowers on it" meant exactly, but let me tell you I rolled out as much pink as I could.

The cupcakes had flowers on them...hope that's what you had in mind!

We had your family party with my side of the family Saturday night, since Sunday morning was church, and by the time we got home from lunch and you up from a nap, and you would be picked up by your dad for the evening. I asked you what you wanted your special birthday dinner to be, that we could go wherever you wanted, and you said you wanted chicken nuggets and pizza and to watch a movie. So doll face, that's what we did.

watching Frozen in your castle with pizza and chicken nuggets

First we opened presents, because I knew you were getting Frozen and would want to watch it. Then we had pizza and chicken nuggets while we watched the first part, paused it for cupcakes and a bike ride, then came back to finish it. You had the best time.

kicking off birthday weekend with frozen yogurt

What have you been up to this last year? Lord have mercy, I swear you have been up to EVERYTHING. You are my loves-life-exuberantly child. I can not recall a day you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. While the whining and crying are a bit excessive at times, your general disposition is happy innocence. I love it.  I wish I could bottle it up (because I know in about 10 years I'm going to want to force feed it back to you).

I love your kindness. I love your curiosity. I love listening to the way your mind works. I even kind of love watching you figure out how to pester your brother. It's such a right-of-passage for being the little sister. You love your brother dearly and 60% of the time the two of you are best friends. Lets not discuss the other 40% at this moment.

You love your sister and have thoroughly enjoyed being able to begin to really interact with her. I can just see how you are going to lead that sister of yours into all kinds of mischief.

You love all things pink and you can not get enough of dress up. Skirts are by far your favorite thing to wear (next to your birthday suit), and I've seen you be the best little momma to your babies. You have more personality than you know what to do with and you've never met a stranger.
  

I potty trained you this year, and that did NOT go over very well. I was seriously afraid that our relationship would be forever damaged. Thankfully you and I are okay and we haven't looked back since.  You are wearing size 5T clothes, size 4/5 undies, and a size 9 1/2 shoe. At approximately 45 lbs, you aren't a slight little thing. You LOVE to eat and very rarely refuse to eat something on your own accord (now if you see your brother refusing it, that's a different story). Every now and then you refuse to eat the funniest things. You LOVE edameame, but when I brought home chocolate croissants one day, you would have nothing to do with it. Chocolate! Croissants! Come on, man!

Evan, I hope you know how much I love you. I can't believe you are already three years old (although, you've been telling people you are three for months now. And on Sunday when I asked you how old you were, excited that you could finally say three and it be true, you said you were FOUR. Stinker!) but it breaks my heart that my baby is getting so big. While most of the time I have not a clue what to do with you, I'm certain I don't have a clue what do to without you.