Personality

Just like her brother, this girl has personality. Nothing mellow around here, nothing lukewarm. She has the sweetest singing, the melt-your-heart smile, the best snuggles and hugs....and the loudest, piercing shriek when she wants something, a yell when she gets frustrated, and a serious pouty face. Roll with the punches? Go with the flow? Not this one.

Don't believe a girl this sweet looking can really be loud? You haven't heard anything like this....

She does make some sweet sounds too. I particularly encourage this one as a more constructive outlet....it's easier on the ears. The first few seconds are the best part, but I can't edit this one so I don't want to cut it out...if you are really fascinated by kid you can watch the whole thing for arpeggios and a big finish, including applause.

Her current favorites:
person: Mama. always mama. but i like being liked :o)

color: purple (since I still get to pick)

book: animal books, the "mommy kisses" book, anything Scotty is reading

activity: trying on headbands, necklaces, key lanyards, ribbons, dog leashes, etc. by wrapping them around her neck or over her head - cute but dangerous

food: anything we are eating, but she still LOVES strawberries and she favors yogurt and pasta as well

Stats of the moment:
Hair: blondish-goldish-reddish. There is still red here, but the sun has lightened and brightened so we'll see what it looks like in a few months.

Eyes: blue-green. Or sometimes green-blue. Or maybe gray. Mostly, I see green in them but there is still blue.
Teeth: 2 on the bottom, 4 on the top (the fourth is JUST peeking through the gum)
Night wakings: usually 1, sometimes none and sometimes 2

best trick: picking up. She is eagerly following in Scotty's footsteps, sorting everything we own into boxes. These two make a pretty good picking up team, and the rock at helping me move laundry from one place to another. I hand a sock to Scotty, he passes it to Alyssa, and she drops it in the basket. We love this game so much we do it at least once a week.

new trick: climbing. she got herself onto the couch the other day, which is almost as tall as her so it was impressive. She then proceeded to slide off onto her belly.

words: she makes noises while she signs that are fairly intelligible, but her only real word is Mama.

signs: please, more, thank you (see the last video down below), all done, drink, bye bye

game: peek-a-boo, which she plays by scrunching up her cheeks with her hands and saying "bah!" this is ridiculously adorable but alas, too elusive and fast paced for the camera.

ways to celebrate: if this girl isn't yelling in frustration, she is celebrating some achievement. She loves to clap, bounce (she'll scoot across the room while bouncing), and give high fives. If she is proud of herself and I haven't noticed, she'll bug crawl over to me, slide my hand out from my side, and give me high fives.


Also, a big thank you to Grandma ("the one who makes chocolate chip pancakes", as Scotty says) and Pita for the wonderful birthday package. Both kids love that recorder. I also appreciate it. It was a little too quiet around here... ;o)

This Month is Such a Special Time...

Yep, it's birthday time around Larsenland! One advantage to braving the brutal Arizona summers while very, very pregnant is that our kids' birthdays share one fabulous weekend of fun, food, and partying. At some point they may not like this setup, but for now, it's wonderful to combine the celebration. Family dinner at Red Robin = TWO free kids meals and TWO free ice cream sundaes. Well child checks = both kids at the same time, so we got all 7 shots, 1 nasal spray, and all the accompanying crying/screaming out of the way at one time. And by we, I mean, I got to handle the accompanying crying and screaming but I managed not to do any myself :o) Next on the agenda is a combined birthday party, which is a week late because Eric was in Colorado with the Larsen crew (I missed you guys!) and my parents were cruising to Alaska.

The day after Scotty's third birthday party, which featured a Buzz Lightyear cake, he told me he wanted a "Bad Guy Yurg" aka an Evil Emperor Zurg cake when he turned four. I smiled, nodded, assured him he could pick whatever he wanted, because he was three and changed his mind 16 times a day about everything. There was no way he would still ask for the same thing a year later, so I didn't have to be the bad cop and tell him there was no way I was making a cake that would die his mouth a blackish/purple for a month and stain everything in our kitchen.

You can see where this story is going.

After making a million other suggestions, I finally succeeded in convincing him that Toy Story was so LAST YEAR (which it was, around here), and he is super excited for his shark cake and birthday party at the local splash pad. Alyssa will be joining in on the action, and I feel like even with combined parties each kid should get their own moment so I'm making her a cake as well. Sorry, adorable little girl, but no princesses or butterflies for you this year, you're getting a fish cake! With really big eyes :o)

In case you are interested, here are the stats. And yes, my kids are three years apart. I only wish I had taken a picture of Scotty the other day when Alyssa's shorts accidentally ended up in his drawer....let's just say that they were an easier fit for Scotty but MAN did they show some serious leg!

Weight:
19 lb 13 oz (50%)
30.0 lb (3%)

Height:

29.5" (90%)

38.5" (15%)

He's got 10 pounds and 9 inches on her, and she's gaining fast...if only they could share a wardrobe!

Lyssabelle - 10 months

It's been a big month around here. We drove to Utah on a whirlwind trip for the funeral of Birch Larsen, Eric's paternal grandpa and smashed in as much family time as we could around the 2 full days of driving, stomach flu, and funeral arrangements. Eric's mom spent a wonderful week with us getting projects done around the house, watching the kids overnight so Eric and I could get away, and just being good company. There are a lot of things going on in our lives right now and it's easy to feel overwhelmed by it all sometimes. I love having a snugglebug to rock myself to sleep at night! Alyssa is hot and cold, either totally sweet or screaming hysterically. She's not an easy baby, but she is so loving and when she smiles, she lights up the room with a huge grin and her ginormous eyes. You can't help but fall in love with her when she gives you that grin!

This past month has been a big one for her, as well, and it's one of my most favorite milestones: baby signs! Suddenly, she can communicate when she is hungry and when she is full. When she is all done and when she wants more. I've been signing to her (mostly "please" and "more") since she was 8 months, and helping her sign. This past week during lunch it finally clicked and she enthusiastically signed "more" between every bite of yogurt. It's just the beginning of lots of things, but I love knowing that my baby understands me and can tell me at least a little bit how to help her.

Which is especially useful during weeks like this, when she's getting her top teeth in.

Kids are Crazy

Life is definitely hustle and bustle around here, though most of my chaos is making food, cleaning up food, very rarely eating any food myself, cleaning up messes, picking up toys, and putting kids back in bed five times a night.

Being a full time mom is more work than I ever imagined and sometimes I am emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted. In fact, the writing of this blog post was interrupted to clean green paint off of Scotty's wall, carpet, pillow, stuffed animals, bed sheet, mattress cover, etc..... he tells me he was painting a road on the wall so he could play. That said, these two crack me up more than they drive me nuts. Besides, how can you not love these sweet, angelic faces?

I rest my case.

9 Months

I figured it was high time for an Alyssa update, as she is officially out of the "infant" stage and into the "get into everything" era. Here are the current stats:

• Height: 28.5" (75%)

• Weight: 18.5 lb (50%) - at 8 months she weighed 19 pounds, so her crawling and extra half inch have seriously reduced the size of the adorable thigh wrinkles. There's only one left!

• Number of teeth: 2 (bottom middle), both of which came in a month ago. She has a huge lump of gum next to it that has been playing peek-a-boo for nearly a month.

• Hair: even longer so she got her second hair "trim" and it's fairly even now and starting to fill in. Most of the time it looks reddish but sometimes it's just blonde or more brown. 

• Eyes: still ginormous, but looking less blue! I'd describe them as more gray, but there is still blue in there and sometimes I catch glimpses of green. Someone commented on her ginormous eyes the other day and described them as "gray steel" which is probably a good fit.

• Night wakings: more and more she is sleeping through the night, thankfully! We've been doing more baby whisperer sleep training and it has worked well for the most part.

• New Tricks: crawling instead of belly flopping, climbing on everything, blowing "kisses", waving, clapping, shrieking (not a fan of this one) saying "Mamama" all day long! and occasionally we get a "dada" or a "daga"

 

the evolution of crawling over the past two months

 We're teaching her to sign "please" instead of shrieking...

• Things that HAVEN'T changed: she still drools constantly, spits for fun, and flaps her arms. When she does it in the bathtub she makes impressive waves and gets everything soaked. Her smile still lights up the room and makes you feel like the most important person in the world. And her giggle sounds more like a machine gun :o)

• Favorite food: strawberries. and ice cream. but this girl will scream for some strawberries. She also likes beans, graham crackers, yogurt, and watermelon. She tolerates vegetables.

• Favorite book: anything she can turn the pages of. She flings through as fast as she can, back and forth.

• Other favorites: she likes music and has some sweet dance moves. She's a baby groover! She also does yoga anytime she is nursing, grabbing her feet and putting them behind her head and such. It's hard to lay her down for bed because her feet are up past her ears. She loves getting tickled by daddy, swinging around, and playing with Scotty.

she still has one thigh roll :o)

This girl is a climber. I had to rearrange some of our furniture because of her special skills. When she picks up a toy, she doesn't play with it at first. She finds something to climb onto, like Scotty's train box, and perches up there to play with it. If the toy box gets too close to anything taller, she's up on the table or the couch. She loves to snuggle with me in bed but I have to keep a hand around her leg because she will dive off the edge or try to climb up the headboard. If you are sitting on the floor, you become her personal obstacle course, and she's climb over you back and forth until you get tired of baby knees to the face and your clothes are covered with drool.

She is still a serious mama baby, which I promise is more her personality than anything I am doing! It can be hard for Eric to help because she resists--even eating baby food is a stretch if she can't see me. We're working on it, but it's rough going sometimes. For the most part, however, she is happy and likes to be involved. I love my little girl!