Lots of Talk

Teagan has been talking up a storm.  She's says a lot of "b" words like ball or book and is into expressions like whow and uh-oh.  She also nods her head purposefully for "yes" and understands so much; it's really quite amazing.  Teagan is also a climber, hoarder, and snuggler.  She likes to jump on Claudia and forcibly snuggle her.  She also (unfortunately), bites and pulls hair.  She is very fascinated by socks, underwear, and bras.  She wears my undergarments around her neck and pulls them out of drawers and hides them in other places.  She has also recently mastered walking backwards and likes to "moonwalk" on the kitchen floor.  Her climbing has gotten out of control and she can get up on the coffee table or kitchen table.  Let's just say, she keeps me on my toes.

Claudia is also quite the talker.  She sometimes barely takes a breath between sentences and can go on for 20 minutes easily without taking a break.  She even likes to watch herself in the mirror while she talks and monitor her expressions.  She is now able to hold thoughts and memories longer, so we have to be careful the conversions we have because she often remembers it and brings up all the details later.  Although, her speech is quite good, she still says a few funny words like "Cos-ca-co" (Costco),  "in case of" (instead), and "borning" (born).  I've tried correcting her, but certain wrong words have just stuck.

We got a mini-vacation last month, with my parents buying us a night at the Great Wolf Lodge near Olympia.  Teagan stayed back with Grandpa & Grandma, but Claudia, Glen, and I had fun going on water slides, playing arcade games, and playing mini-golf.  Claudia injured herself twice at the water slide park and may have a scar on her chin from one bad cut, so we kept mostly to the arcade.  Her highlight was me winning her a Hello Kitty backpack in the "claw" game.  It was also her first time in a hotel room, so she loved just having a big bed all to herself and played for a long time with the telephone because she had never seen a land line before!

I'm sad to report that my Grandma O. (dad's mom) passed away in November.  Here is a link to her obituary.  She was in nursing care for a long time, so visits from my girls as well as my Dad sharing photos and videos of them had definitely been a highlight for her these past 5 years.  She lived a long full life, and I'm thankful for the memories I have of her.  Teagan shares her birthday, October 14th, with 96 years between!  You will see photos of Teagan's 1st birthday party below.  We just had a small party at our house this year with family and a couple of friends.

First words for our one year old

Teagan turned one on Oct. 14th.  We had a small birthday party for her at home with a few friends and family.  Here are her stats from her well child visit:
Weight: 21 lbs. 2 oz. (50-75%)
Length: 29.5 in. (50-75%)
Head: 48 cm (97%)
She has quickly ditched signing for something better, talking!  It's hard to tell what her first word was, but I think it's "hi".  All within a couple of weeks she started saying purposeful words in addition to babbling and lots of "mamas", so we've also heard balloon, daddy, banana, hello, and more.  We're amazed at how well she understands us and how many words she knows.  She is so active that she is usually a great sleeper and napper.  She takes two 1-2 hour naps per day and sleeps 10-12 hours at night, usually with a 5-6am waking for a bottle.  We're off formula and onto whole milk (full cream).  We're getting into a good routine now, with Glen usually taking the early morning shift so that he can get to work nice and early.  He has been working long hours, so this ensures that he can make it home for dinner.  After two months of walking, Teagan is full on running now.  I'm still faster than her, but not for long!  Teagan is totally a fruit-head.  Her favorites are banana, watermelon, raspberries, and pear.

Claudia continues to thrive at her preschool.  One of her favorite things is the weekly Show and Tell where they have to bring an item from home corresponding to the letter of the week.  Her other favorite thing is singing songs in music class.  At home, she likes to practicing her writing.  I used to spell out words for her, but now I write down whole sentences and she copies them.  She also does lots of arts & crafts with Grandma and Auntie Neely.

This year for Halloween, Claudia was a firefighter and Teagan was her dalmatian.  We had awesome weather this year (no rain!) and were able to Trick or Treat the business direct loop in our neighborhood with Auntie Gina in the afternoon, and then meet up with our friends Katherine & Dale for some more Trick or Treating after dinner.  Claudia was very shy in the afternoon, but after some candy for dinner, she warmed up to the idea and was bold enough to knock on doors and say "Trick or Treat."  Other events this month were having the memorial service for my Grandpa (here's a link to his obituary) and the next day, having a small celebration for my dad's 65th birthday.  His milestone was a little overshadowed this year, but thankfully my dad is a modest guy and didn't mind being low key about it.

High Five

Claudia is super into learning now that she's back in preschool.  We're doing some pre-reading activities like sounding out words and basic math like counting, addition, and subtraction of single digits.  She loves worksheets, so we have a couple preschool/kindergarten books, I make up some of my own, and her teacher makes monthly "journals" for the kids.  At school she has made good friends with a couple of girls and in fact says that she likes the boys too because they aren't too wild.  On the weekend, she's taking a co-ed tumbling class at Seattle Gymnastics.  She really likes the trampoline and after a few times watching, got the courage to try the Tarzan swing.

Now onto Teagan, my wild child.  The week isn't complete until Teagan gets at least one bruise on her face.  She even got stung by a bee on her face!  She climbs and stumbles through her day.  The nice thing is that she burns so much energy, that she's a great napper and sleeper.  She really understand instructions like "sit down" or "come here", so that's fun.  She's super into baby dolls (already!) and likes to snuggle one and carry it around.  I'm proud that I just taught her how to do a high five and a low five  We recently started a weekly mom and infant class, which is a lot of fun.  Teagan is dominate over Claudia at home and is quite bold around the house, but she's surprisingly shy during the class.  We will see if that changes as things go along.  Part of it might be the timing because she's used to taking a big morning nap, which she misses when we have class.  Teagan has added some new teeth, first a bottom molar and then bottom second incisor.

I'm sad to report that my Grandpa J (my mom's dad) passed away in September.  It wasn't unexpected, but we're very sad over his passing.  He had dementia and has been in nursing care for almost a year.  I was close with my Grandpa and spent a lot of time with him growing up.  He taught me to play cards, darts, pool, chess, and shuffleboard.  I also "assisted" him with lots of manly chores around the house, yard, and motor home.  I'm very thankful for all the wonderful years I got to spend with him.  This first photo is of my grandpa holding Claudia in April 2009.

Teagan is walking

Teagan is 10 months old now (almost 11) and is walking!  She was taking steps for a couple weeks and now she's confident to walk everywhere.  She still holds onto furniture or the wall for speed and mixes in some crawling.  She is learning to communicate beyond crying and smiling.  She likes to clap and cheer, wave, and push her hands in front of her face and shake her head when she doesn't want something, and do the sign for "all done".  She can also understand a lot of words and can follow a few directions like "come here", "give me a kiss", or "sit down".  She gets super excited when Glen gets home from work.  I remember that from when Claudia was this age and I would pick her up at daycare.  She continues to be an awesome eater and after a bit of a bottle strike while her teeth were coming in, has taken it back up and will have 3 or 4 bottles a day in addition to three meals and a snack.

Claudia started a new preschool (pre-K) which is half days, four times a week.  So far it seems like a good fit and she has been excited to go.  She was especially excited about packing her lunch for the first time.  We've been able to do several fun adventures lately, like the Woodlawn Park Zoo, the Imagine Children's museum, and signing up for a library card and checking out our first book.  We got a Smurf book because Glen took her to her first movie in the theater, "Smurfs 2".  We also went on our first camping trip.  Teagan stayed with Grandpa & Grandma and Claudia came with us to Lake Wenatchee State Park.  Her favorites things were sleeping in a tent and using her flashlight.  At home Claudia & Teagan play a lot together now.  They pretty much climb around on top of each other or pull out 100 toys and throw them around.  When Teagan is napping, Claudia does a lot of craft projects and likes to play on the computer.  She can watch videos or play simple games on two websites, PBS Sprout and Disney Junior.  Her favorite show/character is Doc McStuffins who is a stuffed animal doctor.  So besides playing doctor, Claudia also likes to "fix" things.  She has a little tool set and she is interesting in figuring out how things work.  The most challenging thing I've had to explain recently is how Garmin GPS road navigation works.  My recent failure was "how does it rain?"  I looked it up on Discovery Kids and I'm prepared for next time!  Thank you Internet.

She's a climber

The girls have just been a joy this last month.  Teagan is crawling, climbing, and cruising furniture like a pro.  She can stand and hold her balance for a few seconds, but hasn't tried to walk yet.  We're in no hurry, she just hit 10 months old.  Let me remind you that Claudia was 13 months when she started walking.  Teagan bounces between being very active to being my snuggle bug.  She likes to snuggle soft blankets and stuffed animals and give us lots of cuddles.  The girls (for the most part) play really well together.  Claudia is gentle and good at entertaining her little sister.  Sometimes it falls apart in the afternoon during "grumpy hour" but I'm happy that they're such good playmates most of the day.  We have discovered Teagan's love for noodles.  She likes them long and slurps them up.  It's very cute.  I have to watch her starch intake a bit because if there are rice or noodles on her place, then those definitely go first.  Luckily, she still loves pretty much anything that she can feed to herself.  About my only complaint about Teagan is that she shrieks and is generally kind of loud.

Our big excitement for August so far was throwing a family garage sale at my parents' house.  They spent a lot of time cleaning out the garage & basement and us girls did our best at clearing out the closets of childhood toys, although I still have a few boxes full that I haven't been able to part with.  Gina & I added in a heap of infant clothes and we had ourselves a very successful sale.  We made $350 and got rid of probably 2/3 of our offerings of mostly 25 cent and $1 items, so that's a lot of stuff!  It was fun to see some of our (formally) prized possessions go to a new home.  While spending several days in Kirkland, Claudia was able to check on her thriving garden that she planted with Grandpa.  Beans, carrots, and flowers, oh my!  Besides that, the girls and I (and often times Auntie Neely) are just busy doing activities and visiting friends with kids.  Claudia continues to be very talkative and likes to tell long stories (sounds familiar).  Her favorite expressions are "actually..." and "well..." which leads her into her next thought.  She often says, in a loving voice, "ah, that's so cute" in reference to baby clothes and things Teagan does.  She obviously picked that up from me!  Also, she invented her own language, which she calls "Pears" and she likes to make me guess the translation from Pears to English, which has potential to be fun, but is often quite frustrating. 

My crazy girls

Teagan is now 9-months old.  Here are here statistics from her well child visit:
Weight: 19 lbs. 7 oz. (55%)
Length: 28.5 in. (74%)
Head circumference: 47 cm (98%)
Yes, my child has a large head.  It's part of her charm.  She's beautiful, just like her mom with a big head!  More room for her brains.

Teagan now has 6 teeth, 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom.  Her nickname is now snaggle tooth.  Actually, her teeth are more average sized than Claudia (and Glen) with their large and friendly teeth.  Teagan is sadly already weening from her bottle.  She would rather have food.  She still takes a couple small bottles, but she mostly has finger food and a sippy/cup/bottle of water.  We're still trying to figure out what she wants.  So she has had a lot of night wakings this last week as she figures out the "new normal", which is frustrating and tiring for her and us.  She is very sure of is her optimism for moving and getting into things.  She can now cruise furniture, walk with a baby walker, and basically get into everything she's not supposed it, like the bathroom, my purse, keys, and cell phone, and anything else that's NOT a toy.  She likes to put everything in her mouth and even though Claudia and I sweep the house for "choking hazards", she still manages to find something off limits to put in her mouth.  She seems to understand the word "no" or at least understands my tone of voice.  We love her tenacity and energy though.

As a family, we've made it over to Alta Lake again, this time with my mom.  We went to the Pateros Apple Pie Jamboree and my mom won 2nd place in the apple pie bake off.  Glen & I enjoyed playing a round of golf together, and the girls loved hanging out naked on the deck splashing in buckets of water and the sprinkler because it was 100 degree F.  We've also been able to do some fun local stuff with Auntie Neely.  We love summer.  Claudia also did a week long vacation bible school offered by the United Methodist churches of north Seattle.  She absolutely loved it and was excited to go every morning, so I'm looking forward to preschool starting up again in September.