Double Fisting

Oh man, this girl LOVES to brush her teeth. She even figured it out when Chris spelled the word t-e-e-t-h to me. Anytime she hears the word teeth she just runs to the bathroom yelling TEEEEEEEEEEEEEETH! Today I was cooking with G in the kitchen and Elia was just a little too quiet. We found her in the bathroom, double-fisting her and G's toothbrushes!

18 month check up and Koda

Today was Elia's 18 month checkup. She won't be18 months till next Saturday, but I still can't believe how big she is! She weighed in at 26 lbs. We also weighed Gianna, and she weighs 29.6 lbs. Elia is going to catch up with her! Her weight puts her at the 77%. She is 35.5 inches tall which puts her at the 100%. I can tell she is pretty tall anyway because a lot of her 18 month pants are too short. Such a sweetie girl though. The doctor counted 5 teeth coming in right now. So with the 8 she already has, that will make 13 pretty soon(fingers crossed). No shots this time around, so the visit was quick and painless. A couple of cute things she has been doing lately:

Chris taught her to stick her hands up in the air when you poke her stomach and say "stick em' up!"

When you ask her to be a gorilla, she beats her little fists on her chest and goes aahhhh-a-aaaahhh Tarzan style. So cute!

I took these pics the other day when the girls were playing with Koda. We finally had a successful walk this morning without Chris. She is really strong and has been knocking over Elia almost every time I get the leash out because she is so excited. Knocking down Elia= no walk for Koda. I tend to get a little mama bear on Koda when it involves one of the girls getting hurt. I know the more Koda exercises, the better she will behave for me, so I am trying!

Look how excited Elia is! So cute!

Worst Night Ever

I am writing this at 5am which is pretty dang early for this SAHM. The girls usually wake up between 6-7am. Elia decided to wake us up, SCREAMING, at 3am this morning. I tried to bring her into bed with us, but she just screamed some more and banged her head against the wall a few times. So then we let her get on the floor and she walked into the kitchen and right up to her high chair. Once we put her in it, she screamed some more. We tried different foods- bananas, yogurt, her favorite- marshmallows. More screams, and then she was sticking her fingers in her mouth while rocking back and forth and trying to throw herself out of her chair. I tried to give her some Tylenol, she refused it. Mixed it with juice and gave it to her ina sippy. Refused it. Chris put some Orajel on her gums- he felt 2 molars coming in. At the same time, oh JOY! We put Nemo on. Small distraction, but not enough. She has been crying off and on since then. If I try to comfort her- rub her back, hold her, even talk or whisper to her, it makes things worse. I turned off Nemo, put on Clifford, and that helped a little more. As I was checking fb and my blogs, I came across this and played it. Not sure if it is a coincidence, but I think she is finally passed out on the couch. Now I am wide awake. I am going to crash and burn by 8am. Its gonna be a great day...

This is what she looks like when she cries. SO sad!

Weekend was good!

We are still pretty busy with our bathroom remodel. It took about a week to strip all the wallpaper. Doing stuff yourself takes a lot longer than one would think! Its obviously very kid un-friendly to strip wallpaper, and so it can only be done during naptime and after the kiddos are in bed. Poor Elia is teething (read: poor Moe and Chris) so she is waking us up most mornings to a 4:30ish scream-fest. It seems the nights I am up late scraping are always followed by the early morning wakeup call while the nights I go to bed at a decent hour, she wakes up after 6:30. Funny how that works.

Before

After

We took a break Saturday afternoon to go to a princess party. I dressed the girls in their Sunday best and we headed over to their little friend's house. We enjoyed stories read by real princesses and ate princess cupcakes and made princess wands. Too fun.

Can you tell she is teething? Fingers jammed into her mouth all weekend long!

Brush My Teeth

That is probably going to be Elia's first sentence. She is OBSESSED! It probably has to do with the fact that she is teething (all last night she had both fingers in her mouth), or the fact that she gets to eat a little bit of the sweet toothpaste, but she loves gnawing on her tooth brush. And it helps Chris or I remember to make sure G brushes too!

Teething Tantrums

About 2 weeks ago, I was telling anyone and everyone that the 10-13 month age range is my favorite stage of a baby. Elia is babbling nonstop, she thinks everything is soooo amazing, and she can't walk yet so she still has that sweet dependence on mom. Well, then last week happened. She started having the most horrible tantrums I have ever seen! She would throw herself on the floor for no apparent reason, didn't want to nurse, would throw anything I gave her, it was Ridiculous. I really had no idea what was wrong with her. There were a few times when she would have a tantrum first thing in the morning and I would think silently to myself "seriously? we are starting the day with this? this crazy obnoxious baby tantrum? and I have 13 more hours to deal with this?" Even Chris was glad to get out of the house and out to work as soon as possible. And thats saying something folks! After enduring a few days of this I just figured it was a stage she was growing into, or a new personality trait. Last Monday while I was at the park she started having another tantrum. Elia's mouth was open as she was screeching at me and that is when I noticed she had a tooth! How did I not suspect teething? You just never know when they are teething. I was so relieved though, that I can blame these tantrums on her tooth pain, and not a new personality trait! I noticed another tooth coming through 2 days ago, and since then, we have had no tantrums. I have my sweet baby girl back!!

Low Key Weekend

Toofers!!!


G is going strong with potty training! No accidents in 48 hours!


This week we are going to work on the letter 'G"- so we filled a letter G with grapes and then got to eat them! She loved this activity.


A craft we did from our swap- tissue paper butterfly.

Papa started reading (paraphrasing) Narnia.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Top 15 list of our California Trip

I could bore everyone with the wonderful, gory details of our trip, but decided to construct a top 1o list instead. It quickly turned into 15! In no particular order- enjoy, dear readers!


1) Sledding in Tahoe. Watching Gianna enjoy something I loved as a child was especially cool!


2) Gianna and Elia were Ana's show and tell for a day. All the kids were excited to meet them, and they were all so sweet!


3) Playing games each night we were in our cabin in Tahoe. Highlight- We were playing Cranium and I was trying to get my team to guess "temporary tattoo" by drawing it on a piece of paper for them. Everyone could guess the tattoo part of it, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to represent the word temporary with my drawings. Time ran out before I could get them to guess. When I told my team it was temporary tattoo, Mary looked at me (with a straight face) and said, "Moe, you should have drawn a picture of Ryan from The Office! Then we all would have known- he is a temp- temporary tattoo!" It took everyone forever to stop laughing over that one!


4) Taco Tuesday at Compadres. Highlight- taking a tequila shot with Vince and Becky!


5) Leaving the babies at home and going to see Avatar with Vince and Jenny. It is a beautiful movie! (yes, I know there was a political agenda, and some people hate it for that reason, but I took it for what it was- a night out, and a cool action movie!)


6) Meeting little Phoebe- it was so cute to see G dote on her! What a gorgeous baby!


7) Gianna and Marley's beautiful friendship: "Hi Marley, its me, Gianna! Do you remember me?" and "Marley is my best friend." and "Look mom, I'm sharing," as she shared part of her mozzarella stick with her.


8) Going to the KOC Crab Feed- yum yum. Highlight- watching Vince's face as a stranger smelled Phoebe to see if she had a stinky diaper-heehee.


9) Watching Gianna run around with her Aunties Ana and Beth. Chris and I hardly saw Gianna! She got to sleep in their room and there were quite a few nights we had to go in there and tell them to stop giggling and get to bed! Beth is determined to be Elia's favorite auntie, since we all know G's is Auntie Ana!




10) Elia getting her 5th tooth (3rd on top) and finally sleeping better afterwards. She has also learned to say mamamamamama and I am pretty sure she uses it in context!

11) Opening presents from Santa/Grandma. Spoiled spoiled is what we are! We got a cool hd flip video camcorder and G and E got lots of fun toys, puzzles and clothes. Highlight- Aunt Jenny made the cutest little apron/chef hat/oven mitt set for G.

12) Poker night- Chris and I both lost fairly early, but I love playing and talking with all the family and eating yummy snacks from Trader Joe's. Why are there Trader Joe's everywhere but here in Dallas??

13) Mary's fabulous cooking- enough said!

14) Catching up with my dear friend Annie the day before I left- for 3 whole hours at Starbucks!

15) Elia falling sleep on Mikey- too cute!

See you Rowles soon!

Party Time

Gianna's dance class had a little Christmas party on Friday, which was a lot of fun. Uncle Matt was here, so I left Elia at home so it was just G and me! Here she is in her pretty dress acting like a dolly:

Then I went to my old school during all the kid's holiday parties to show off Elia, all dolled up in her Santa baby outfit:

It was so weird to go back to my old school. I peeked into my old room- the room that I taught in for 5 years- and it brought back a lot of memories! I saw all my teacher friends, which was wonderful. I wandered down to the 4th grade hallway, and was swarmed by my old students. They were all so excited to see me, and to meet Elia too! One of my students, R, grabbed Elia's Santa hat off her head and put it on his head. Um, R used to eat things out of the trash, literally, so I definitely disinfected that when I got home! It was heartwarming to see the kids reactions, but even more to see my teacher friends reactions. Women getting their baby fix is quite entertaining to watch.

Elia is developing right before out eyes! As I write her 4th tooth (on top) is coming through. I hope it is all the way through by tomorrow morning, because she has been ornery lately! Just today she started clapping. At first I just thought it was a coincidence that her hands were just coming together as she flails them around, but she did it on 3 more occasions! Rolling over back to front, front to back, scooting backwards and doing full circles on her belly, crawling is just around the corner!

Hillbilly baby

Elia has 3 teeth- 2 on the bottom, and one on top. The one on top has come through completely, so she looks like a hillbilly baby! I wish I had a better picture to show, but I cannot get her to open her mouth and be at the correct angle at the same time.

On Monday, I went grocery shopping with the girls. As I was checking out, Gianna found a tiny mirror on the side of the checkout and was somehow inspired to break out in song. And it was LOUD. She was singing I'm a little tea pot at the top of her lungs, and everyone, I mean EVERYONE within a 20 foot radius stopped and stared. There was even one woman who pointed at her! I was so embarrassed. Now, I could tell that everyone who had stopped and stared at her thought it was pretty cute, but to have everyone's attention on me/G was a bit unnerving. And Gianna was completely oblivious! I'll have to get that on video and post it!
On Wednesday I took Gianna to get her haircut and she was such a good girl! She wanted to watch in the mirror the whole time. She and Elia were so good, I got my eyebrows done without a problem! I never thought in a million years that I would be able to handle both girls on such an errand, and I did it!

It seems like the time is crawling by until Christmas! It is going to be such a wonderful time!

Busy Busy Weekend

The Rowles had a great weekend, very busy! Saturday was spent raking the back yard with the girls watching.




G in her coat and Elia bundled up in 2 coats and lots of blankets/pillows surrounding her to stay warm.


Doesn't her hat say it all?

We put our tree up and got lights on it as well. Then Sunday was the usual starting with church. Then Uncle Tim and his gf Ashley (pronounced by G as Actually) came over and helped entertain G until naptime. She is obsessed with them, can you tell?



Uncle Tim and Ashley reading before her nap.

BTW Tim, if you are reading this, Ashley is awesome, do whatever you can to keep her! So then Uncles Matt and Patrick came over and all 3 boys helped Chris rake the front yard and put up lights. The front looks great! Meanwhile G and I decorated the Christmas tree with our ornaments. This is what it looks like.
Just kidding, I wish. Maybe when my kids are older and I have gobs of money.



Right now I am plenty happy with what we have- multicolored lights with homemade and mismatched ornaments. Its funny the many memories I have of different ornaments from my own childhood. There were certain ones that were the favorites, that we would fight over. One such ornament was one that as kids we sent in 2 proofs of purchase plus S & H from a box of cereal called Sugar Puffs. Anyone out there remember Sugar Bear? The ornament was a stuffed Sugar Bear with a santa hat and if you squeezed it it played Christmas music- I'm sure it drove my mom crazy. The ornament, probably at least 15 years old by now, still makes music and is still a favorite of our family :). I think Gianna already has a favorite of her own- one that Grandma Rowles gave Chris 2 years ago that, of course, makes noise. Chris' mom has a WONDERFUL tradition- she gives each of her children an ornament as a Christmas present each year. She would write the name of each kid and the year she gave it to them on the back of the ornament. So the Christmas after Chris and I were married, we actually had ornaments to put on our first, tiny tree. And its really fun to see the ornaments he has recieved through the years. We continued the tradition here at the Rowles house, so no matter what our decorations will never match! Here are some more of the girls and their boys! Thanks for coming over to play!

PS. Two cute things about the girls- Gianna loves to play with our nativity scene, and today she was showing the Baby Jesus to her uncles. "Isn't he a cute little baby?" and "Baby Jesus is Elia's little brother" were just 2 of the many cute things she has said about Jesus!

Elia cut another tooth sometime today! Her upper right tooth is just below the surface of her gums, and still not wanting to eat baby food!

Teeth

Elia got her second bottom tooth sometime last night! She woke up a couple times last night screaming BLOODY MURDER. Usually when she wakes up she just kinda fusses until we get her, but last night she would wake up with an immediate waiiiillll. Its funny how everytime one of my kids cuts a tooth I am so lost as to what is wrong with them and then bam, there is a tooth the next day. She got her first tooth last week when we were in St. Louis and since then she is obsessed with sticking her tongue out. Its so cute!!



I just wish these new teeth would inspire her to eat baby food! I have been trying to get her to eat food and she just keeps her mouth shut. Won't budge. I think she has a stubborn side!!!