Melanie - 1 year!

Height: 31 inches

  

Weight: 24.5 lbs

Hair: Blonde

 

Eyes: Blue

 

Food: We are officially weaned! The last month we have only been doing bedtime nursing (which was very short) so I could tell she was ready. Melanie went to bed last night with absolutely no problem and slept all night. Now I can actually leave in the evenings if I want to (or even go on a vacation *GASP*) without needing to be home to nurse that sweet baby before bed.

Mels is a pro at the sippy cup and still loves these foods:
-breakfast sausage
-Go Go Squeeze: She can now hold it herself and suck that puppy down in seconds!
-yogurt
-cottage cheese

 

 

Sleep: Still sleeping through the night (12-13 hours) and two naps a day.



Temperament: Melanie loves life. There's not much more to say!

 

 

 

 

 

Melanie loves:
-Eating
-Cruising
-Mommy!
-Bathtime



Mel dislikes:
-Being disciplined: mostly for throwing her food on the floor during meals
-Being tired



 

New adventures:

-1 Year old, which means SUGAR!

Mel definitely loved her cake. Much more than her big brother on his first birthday:

-Size 4 diapers and 18 Month clothes

-Melanie's first Halloween:

Trunk or treat

Flashback to Reed as a sweet little skeleton

Sweet little skeleton

 

Halloween was a very small affair. We did make it around to a few houses. Reed mostly just pushed Mel around in the stroller. She had a great time strolling!

 

-Current vocabulary:
"Ma-Ma"
"Da-Da"
"Ba-Ba"
"Na-Na"

 

 

 

Here is the side-by-side monthly chair pic:

Enjoy!

The Turners

Melanie - 11 Months

Height: 30.75 inches

  

Weight: 24 lbs

Hair: Blonde

 

Eyes: Blue

 

Food: Mel nurses morning and evening now and is starting to get the hang of a sippy cup. YAY! Some of her favorite foods are:
-breakfast sausage
-Go Go Squeeze: She goes crazy for that green pouch
-yogurt
-cottage cheese

 

 

Sleep: Still sleeping through the night (12-13 hours) and two naps a day.



Temperament: The happiest baby even when she has fevers/is teething. I don't have to worry about dropping her off at church or Moppetts because I know she will play and be happy the whole time. But if you want to see her scary side, try wiping her nose.

 

 

Melanie loves:
-Eating
-Pulling up
-Mommy!
-Bathtime
-Her new sippy cups: she gets so tickled when she gets some water in her mouth

Mel dislikes:
-Having her nose wiped
-When Mommy is busy and can't hold her right away

 

New adventures:

-Pulling up and cruising


-Putting things in and taking them out: She has started putting things in containers/boxes and taking them out repetitively. She really enjoys it. Mel helped me put socks in the laundry basket last week. What a helper!

-4 teeth! Mel had a pretty bad runny nose last week. I thought it was just allergy gunk. But then 3 teeth popped through in 2 days. For her first tooth she had a runny nose for a week before that came through, also. Maybe she is just a runny nose teether. Anyway, we now know why she was a little ornery the last few weeks (well, month). 3 teeth in 2 days!! I'd be ornery, too.

Two sweet bottom teeth are visible here!

-Shaking her head 'no' when we say "No"

-Dropping things on the floor: This is directly followed by Mommy or Daddy saying "No, Mel. We don't drop things on the floor," and Melanie shaking her head no.

-Size 4 diapers and 12 month clothes. But the cloth diapers are feeling a little big nowadays, so she must be slimming out.

-Current vocabulary:
"Ma-Ma"
"Da-Da"
"Ba-Ba"

 

 

 

Here is the side-by-side monthly chair pic:

Enjoy!

The Turners

Reed update - 27 months

Height:  37 inches

Weight: 30 lb

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Food: Reed is still a great eater, but has started to throw fits when he has to stop playing and come eat at the table. Life is tough.
Favorite foods:
-breakfast! Many mornings when I go get him up he tells me his order: "sausage, pancake, egg, yogurt"
-cookies (sigh)
-tomatoes
-grapes, strawberries, blueberries
-cheese, cottage cheese


 

Sleep: We have entered the late nap stage. He would usually go down about 1ish for his afternoon nap and sleep until 3-3:30. A month or so ago I would put Reed in his room and he would play for HOURS without falling asleep. When I would finally go get him around 4:30, he had FALLEN ASLEEP! Waking a tired little boy after 30 minutes is NOT ideal, people. We have since decided to not put him down until 3:00. He will usually fall asleep around 3:30 and be out till 5:30. This means he doesn't go to bed until nearly 9. Hopefully our time change coming up will sort that out.

Zzz

Temperament: Reed is a pretty happy kid, unless, of course, he is stopped from doing something he wants to do. More recently we are an unhappy camper when Melanie wants to play with what he has. There is a constant "No ma'am" coming from the playroom accompanied by a lot of whining. We are not yet to the point of running to Mommy when this happens, so we will see how long it takes.

We are really working on listening and obeying instead of throwing a fit. This is much easier said than done. Although, the other Sunday when I went to pick him up at his room, we had a success! He was playing with blocks and did not want to leave (better than not wanting to go in!). I finally went in to get him. Reed started a fit and I said "It's time to go. You need to listen to Mommy and obey." He got up, said bye-bye to the teachers and thank you and we left. YES!




Reed loves:
-Driving: Ever time we get in the car, he tries to wiggle his way to the front seat and 'drive.' He just loves it, but it's not really helpful when we need to get somewhere fast, because he will throw a royal fit when I try to grab him and put him in his car seat. Have you ever tried to put a screaming, flailing child into a car seat? You know what I'm talking about. I have recently started letting him play in the car when we get home. I'll unbuckle him and he gets free reign of the car in the closed garage. He loves turning on the lights and "driving" at the steering wheel. Then he'll just roam around the car. Little boy heaven.

 

 

-Bubble Guppies (forever): More specifically, the episode with the witch and the frog and the racing episode

-Movies: Some of our faves:
The LEGO movie
Frozen

Here we are watching the LEGO movie with Daddy

-Pretend play: Whether it be pretending to sleep or fall down or bake in the oven, he will pretend. He uses this cabinet as his oven and has to put the oven mits on to take out his food (aka the cutting boards). It's pretty adorable.

 

 

-Books: Our current favorite books:

1. How to Train a Train

2. How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?



 

-Trains! Wow, does this little boy go crazy for trains now. I'm really not sure how it started. There is a Bubble Guppies episode about trains, but he has only played with toy trains once (at Barnes and Noble) and that was a HUGE FIT getting him away from that. So, I don't know, but he really likes them.

-Yogurt

-Legos: We had dinner at a couple's place one night who don't have children, but had a great stash of Legos they busted out for Reed to play with. We didn't hear a peep from Reed all night. In. Love. With. Legos. 

New adventures:
=Book reading: Okay, he doesn't know how to read the words, but he has memorized most of his books and can get a phrase or two from each page. It's pretty adorable to listen to him "read" his books. One of his new favorites (How to Train a Train) goes like this:
"So you want a pet train? Of course you do! Trains make awesome pets. "

Reed's version:
"Pet train. Course you. Train awesome pet."

=Smiling on command: He loves to "cheese"

 

=MOPS started for the year and Reed is enjoying playing with friends at Moppetts. They have an indoor playground and I'm pretty sure they have to drag him out of that every time.

=Running and jumping and climbing: the world is Reed's jungle gym

Climbing up sister's crib to say 'hello'

=Putting clothes on and taking them off: He is really working on putting his shoes on by himself. We almost have it!



He's such a sweet, silly boy and we love him so!

He was trying to reach something in the cabinet.

Forever lining up and organizing things

Playing with Mel through the window

Chair picture:

Enjoy!

The Turners

Mommy Confessions

As I walked by the Cheerios scattered around the den floor tonight, I thought "I really do need to clean these up. They've been there since Tuesday." But then another string of thought popped into my mind: "I'm sure Mel will eat some tomorrow. That's one snack I don't have to figure out." As I contemplate my next move I carefully step around the Cheerios so she'll have more to fill her up tomorrow.

When did I get from meticulous cleaner who would NEVER let her child eat something off the floor to letting forgotten Cheerios lay on the ground for DAYS and planning that it be snack for tomorrow?

Just a thought.


Enjoy!

The Turners

The Daddy and the Fashionista

Dressing children is usually not the man's domain, but it does happen on occasion. Now, my husband can dress himself with no problem and usually look very nice. There was that "lack-of-belt" occasion last year along with the "black-socks-instead-of-brown" incident. But those are mistakes anyone can make when getting dressed in the dark. That being said, Reed looks very nice when Wes dresses him, but his clothes are generally the same, just smaller and with silly characters on them. Mommy, on the other hand, has many more chances to make despicable fashion choices.

Basketball shorts and TOMS? GUILTY!!

So, in an attempt to teach my dear husband the art of dressing a little girl, I came up with a challenge. He was given 1 item of clothing and was asked to put an outfit together around it.

Points system:
Points will be awarded as follows:
3 points - Wow! She looks awesome!
2 points - She looks pretty good
1 points - Can we change something here?


Not concerned



My prediction is a 28 with all 6 bonus points.


So here we go!



Challenge #1: Khaki dress

My choice: light pink onesie and off white bow

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 3 points!


Challenge #2: orange bow

My choice: purple and orange jumper

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 2 points


Challenge #3: Navy babydoll shirt

My choice: white leggings and a hot pink bow

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 2 points - not a dress, so it needs something more than just bloomers


Challenge #4: floral skirt

My choice: light purple onesie and dark purple bow

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 3 points!


Challenge #5: Light blue onesie with neon orange and yellow print

 

My choice: neon orange pants and neon yellow headband with white bow that matches the small flower on the onesie

My choice

 

Daddy's choice:  

 

SCORE: 2 points - I would switch out the bow.

Challenge #6: these cute ruffled bloomers (this is the back to show the cuteness)
 



My choice: White onesie with hot pink flower and black bow

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 3 points!


Challenge #7: teal bow

My choice: teal jumper

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 1 point - his defiant choice


Challenge #8: light blue shorts

My choice: pink shirt and light blue bow

My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 2 points - These shades are just a little too off. But he did great matching the bow!


Challenge #9: light green babydoll shirt

 

 

My choice: floral pants (came with shirt) and yellow bow



My choice

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 1 point - Yes, they are both floral, but the patterns are just too different. He got a great bow, though.


Challenge #10: kite onesie

 

 

My choice: teal pants and pink bow

 

Daddy's choice:

SCORE: 3 points!

Challenge SCORE: 22 points!


BONUS!
Sort the jammies!
1 point per successful match.

BONUS points: 6

Final SCORE: 28! Just as I predicted!


I think he half-enjoyed this challenge. In any case, he learned a few things (and so did I; he is pretty good at picking out clothes!). Does this mean he is going to be in charge of dressing Melanie?

What do you think?



Enjoy!

The Turners