Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Little Fun with Flour and Water


A few weeks back I was itching to do some painting with Attia, but with as much as she likes to try to eat anything I was hesitant to let her use real paints. And I really didn't want to waste money on the expensive 'baby safe' ones. So what to turn to? Why flour and water of course! Just two simple household ingredients, but mix them together and add a little food coloring, and wah-lah! Affordable baby safe paint!  That's what I'm talking about.


She liked the idea too, and got to work right away.


She started off painting pretty neatly.


But the painting process slowly started to get more involved...


So in turn, things started to get a little messier...


And messier...


Until she became the canvas. 


Uh oh!


Good thing we have a hose!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Little Bean Sprout


Well, she's at it again. She just keeps on growing!

The week before last we had another well-child doctor visit. Fifteen (almost sixteen) months already? Wow. Time keeps flying by and I hardly know where it goes, but Attia keeps getting bigger, smarter, and cuter (if that's possible).

In the past three months she has grown another 1 1/2" inches and put on 3 pounds. It's amazing how they do it in such fast spurts. We have a growth board that we mark her height on, and from January to April she grew about an inch, and then she grew another inch just from April to May!

Here are her stats:


  Age                      Height       %                      Weight               %                      Head Circ.        %
15 Months                   30.75"     59%                  22 lbs 1 oz           37%                     18"                 44%
12 Months                   29.25"     53%                  19 lbs 0 oz           16%                     17.5"              30%
  9 Months                   27.9"       60%                  17 lbs 14 oz         31%                     17.25"            43%
  6 Months                   26"          50%                  15 lbs 5 oz           29%                     16.5"              27%
  4 Months                   25"          67%                  13 lbs 11 oz         41%      
10 Weeks                    23"          62%                  11 lbs 0 oz           42%                     15"                 21%
  6 Weeks                    21.25"      39%                   9 lbs 5 oz            38%                    14.5"              29%
  2 Weeks                    20.75"      71%                   7 lbs 2 oz            18%                    14.75"            84%
  1 Week                     19.25"       29%                  6 lbs 4 oz              9%                     13.5"              27%
  1 Day                        19"           34%                   6 lbs 15 oz          30%       


She's has done a lot more than just grow over these last few months though. Every day she turns into more of a kid.

One of the biggest changes is that she understands almost everything that we say to her. If you ask her to bring something to you or to someone else, she does. If you ask her to throw something away she will take it right to the trashcan, and she will even close the cabinet door when she is done. We just have to be careful that she isn't throwing away other stuff, like daddy's bike tools. :-) 
Helping mommy clean the doors and wood trim


She has also started copying everything that we do. The other day she saw me gargle, so now she tries to do it when she is drinking water out of her camel back bottle. She usually ends up with a very wet shirt.


These new-found skills have led to a big leap in her vocabulary. There are some words that she now uses regularly, like poopy, puppy, Rosa, Jack, baby, mommy, dad, dog, a-huh, look, here, yeah, hi, eye, and 'whas this'. And then there are some that she has pretty clearly tried out once or twice, including upstairs, outside, there it is, lemon (when we were talking about lemon basil in the garden), night, and luv you. 



She wants to help with EVERYTHING, whether we ask her to or not. I was just joking about chore time in the last post, but she really does like to help. She loves to get our shoes and bring them to us to put on. If we already have shoes on she tries to to them off so that we can put on the pair that she just brought us. She likes to help brush her teeth(she sticks out her little finger so that we can put the finger toothbrush on it). She likes to get the mail. She 'helps' with the dust pan when I sweep the floors. And the list goes on.

She is especially eager to help if it has anything to do with Rosa. She likes to feed her (and she helps us with this almost every day now), she gets her leash if she wants to go for a walk ,and she tries to put her on her tie-out when we are hanging out outside. Oh, and she loves trying to throw the ball for Rosa. Rosa is pretty happy with this new source of attention.


She found her belly button. And she is very eager to show it off. If you ask her, she will point to it for you. :-)


She has been able to point to her eyes, ears, nose and mouth for quite some time.


She has been trying to whistle for a while now, and she has been going through the motions but hadn't gotten much sound. Then the other day we were driving to the grocery store and she tooted the whole way there!


She is little Miss Accessory. She loves to accessorize. Sunglasses, jewelry, headbands, shoes and purses, she does it all. Every time I put my sunglasses on she has to put hers on also. And this past week she has been pulling out her pearls and pink headband to wear with almost every outfit (or no outfit) for a portion of the day. So cute!



And her hair is finally getting long enough that we were able to out a 'ponytail' in it for the first time. ;-)

First Ponytail: June 4, 2012


She loves to dance. Almost any time music is turned on she will stop what she is doing and start dancing. Check out this link to see a video of Attia dancing to the Flaming Lips


She has been enjoying swimming at home and at the wading pool with friends.




She got her sixth tooth at the beginning of June. This one was her second lateral incisor. 


She eats the same food that we eat, and she eats it sitting in her booster seat at the big table. She was very happy to make the move to her new big girl seat. 


And she loves sharing her food too


She has been learning to 'sleep in' in the morning. Yea! By 'sleep in' I only mean until like 7:00 or 7:30, but that's ok by us. Sometimes she will come into our bed and sleep a little longer, which is very nice, but usually she just wants to nurse and then play. 


She has started to sign 'please' when she wants something, usually after being prompted. We started using this more because she was being, um, very demanding when she wanted more of something, like a snack. You know, like another piece of strawberry while I'm busy washing and cutting them for her. Having her stop and sign 'please' usually stops her from yelling for it.


Throwing little tantrums is another story. This really just started earlier this week. At the drop of a hat, or a toy, she sits down and bursts into tears and screams. Take away a crayon that she is trying to eat? Watch out! We try to just ignore her when she does this and sometimes she gets over it right away and other times she just gets more upset, so it takes some cuddling and distraction to get her back to baseline. Until the next small incident occurs. At first we thought she was getting another tooth and it was making her extra cranky, but we are starting to have doubts about that. Maybe its an early onset of the 'terrible twos'? Hope not. I guess only time will tell...






Sunday, June 17, 2012

Dad's Day

Happy Father's Day! 


This sweet little girl sure loves spending time with her daddy.


We were enjoying some nice family time outside when she took her daddy's hand and led him over to this chair. She proceeded to pat the chair until he sat down and then she went over to the other chair and tried to get up by herself. After a little help she was up in the chair sitting next to her daddy. 
Just what she wanted. 
How sweet :-)

Hope you all had a good Father's Day!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Chore time?

Attia has informed me that she is ready to start doing chores. She decided that she would like to start with feeding the dog. Now we just need to work on feeding her when it is actually time for her to eat: :-)

Here is a little video of her feeding Rosa


She sure loves her puppy dog




Monday, June 11, 2012

Our Strawberry Monster

As I mentioned  in my last post, on the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend Attia and I got together with Aunt Heidi, Jack and Gram to do some strawberry picking out at Wohletz Farm.


It was our first trip to a u-pick farm and I was hoping that Attia would enjoy picking berries. No worries there! She managed to keep herself very busy picking (and eating) berries the entire time we were there.


It was love at first bite.


 So she took a second, and a third, and a fourth... and she didn't stop there!



Picking berries with Gram


Eventually she decided that it was much easier to forgo picking them all together and just eat them straight off of the vine. :-)


By the end of the trip Attia had a very full belly and the sweet, sticky evidence of her strawberry pig out was everywhere! 


One sweet little strawberry monster :-)

The rest of us ended up with several pounds of strawberries to take home.  Our group total was about 28 pounds! Thats a lot of strawberries! I only picked about four pounds because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to use them all, but they were delicious and got gobbled up quicker than I thought they would! 

After our trip to the farm we all headed back to Heidi and Drew's house to meet the boys for lunch. Attia and Jack had a blast playing together in the backyard. 



So sweet!


All-in-all a pretty great day. 

Thanks for having us Heidi, and thanks for introducing us to the strawberry patch! We can't wait to make a trip next year!



**Some of these pictures came from Heidi's blog. Thanks Heidi!