Here's what Addelyn and Nova have been up to lately!

NOVA

As Nova gets farther into her second year I am reminded of how much I LOVE this age - her vocabulary is exploding!  Here's some of the words she says now:

upstairs          Mama           Cook                 circle
spit                 Dada            No-no                toes
pizza              Ada               Up                     eyes
me                 All Done       Uh-oh                 hat
I do it            That             Wash                    bubbles
more             This          waddle-waddle   I tooted :-)
pop                I want...          out                    dance

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head :-)  Most of the words she says are still pretty unclear, but as mommy who spends all day with her, I understand her perfectly.

Nova is also getting very good with her signs - here's some of the things she signs:

up                 puppy             light                  flower              baby
all done        kitty                night-night        thank you          poop
more             elephant         brush teeth        bath                  yes
ball              giraffe             out                    please              diaper change
milk             monkey           in                      water                I love you
yay               fish                 help                  cheese              music
hi                 owl                 bird                  banana

In short, Nova is getting very communicative!  Unfortunately, along with our improved communication with each other comes...the fits.  Wow, can that girl throw a fit!  I swear, she's already got it down better than Addelyn does.  There's screaming, there's tears, there's a beat-red face...and to top it all off she either goes down to the floor or, if I'm holding her, she kicks and flails and basically tries to make me drop her.  And all because I told her it was time to be done washing her hands (or something similar...that's just the biggest one now since I put in a new fancy faucet-extender and she can reach the water)

Despite the fits, she's a wonderful girl and very pleasent to be around most of the time.  Unless she's particularly hungry, tired, or sick, she's very good-natured.  Nova LOVES to be close to me.  She still hasn't quite gotten over the separation anxiety (though it's getting much better).  If she's in a mood to be close, though, she can usually be found either in my lap or in my arms.  She's really starting to love books (yay!), so one of her favorite things to do is bring me a book and look at it with me.  She has two current favorites:  the "My First abc" book and a board book called "Baby Boo!" that has pictures of babies and very few words.  While she is starting to get to the point where she'll listen to a 'story' book, she still mainly likes to look at the pictures and have me tell her what they are.

Had to put this one in - I adore this picture of Nova (boogers and all).  It just sums up her personality.  My grandma Sienkiewicz always said I had an "ornery look"  I think I know what she meant now :-)

ADDELYN

I think Addelyn is getting into a wonderful stage.  She learns so quickly and retains so much of what we read to her and teach her.  She has just started to really "get" sounding words out, so I get to watch her discover this new ability and grow in her self-confidence.  Here's a video I took of our new favorite reading game - she has the tendency to start from the wrong side of the word, but for the most part, she's getting really good!

Addelyn is also potty trained now!  I finally bit the bullet and said no more diapers during the day a couple of weeks ago (February  1).  She still only about 50/50 as to whether she feels that she has to go and initiates on her own, so I'm still reminding her every 2 hours or so to go potty.  She does, however, do GREAT during naps and at night.  She's in underware during naptime now and hasn't had an accident yet, and most mornings, she wakes up with a dry pullup.

Addelyn's memory is getting quite impressive!  She'll mention things that happened several months ago - and not just big, eventful things!  Yesterday we were talking about bats and she told me that daddy threw a lid at one.  I thought she was crazy at first, but then I remembered going on an evening walk late last summer.  We saw a bat flying around and jake found a bottle cap on the ground and tried to throw it up in the air so that the bat would dive-bomb it.  It didn't work, but it must've made quite an impression on Addelyn for her to remember it all these months later!  Addelyn is also getting better at singing songs - she remembers the words to most simple songs after listening to it just 2 or 3 songs and can actually recall the words fast enough to sing along with the radio/cd most of the time.

Addelyn is getting to be very autonomous.  A few mornings ago, she woke up and played in her room quietly until I came and got her - and it was at least 30 minutes!  I took the gate down, and without me having to ask her to do anything, she went potty and got dressed in clothes which she had already picked out for herself...and the outfit was pretty cute!

One of my favorite things that Addelyn does is correct us when we're wrong.  Yesterday, I was putting a dress on Addelyn which she's probably just about outgrown.  I commented that the dress is getting

smaller and she said "No, Mom, I'm getting bigger."  Ha!  Touche, Addelyn :-)  Another funny correction story - Jake and Addelyn were reading a magazine of hers (a kid's magazine that had lots of animals).  I had read it to her earlier that day.  They got to a page about mallard ducks.  This is their conversation:

Jake:  "This is a male mallard duck - they have green heads, see?"
Addelyn:  "Yeah, and they don't quack."
Jake:  "Yes they do, all ducks quack"
Addelyn:  "Not the male, only the females quack."
Jake:  "No, they both quack - they're ducks"
Jake:  *reads farther into the page to the bubble that says that only female mallards quack.
Jake:  "Oh...you were right"
Addelyn:  "hahahah, silly daddy!"

I'm just so proud of how she stuck to her guns.  A few months ago, she'd have been reduced to tears if somebody contradicted her on something she knew was right.

Both my girls are getting so big!  I LOVE the stage they're both getting into - Nova with her communication and Addelyn with her confidence and autonomy.  I think this year is going to be SO much fun!  I don't even have baby fever (well, maybe just a little bit) because I'm so excited for how much fun we're going to have this spring/summer - it'll be so nice to not have a tiny baby for a while :-)

Stats:

Addelyn Stats:

Age:  34.5 months

Weight: 34 lbs

Length: 36? inches

Drinks: about 2 6-ounce sippys of milk per day (all of which is regular whole-milk) with meals and a couple of drinks of milk before bed every night

Eats: whatever I can get her to eat for breakfast - lately it's been cereal and a fruit; leftovers for lunch (spagetti, sandwiches etc...); and noodles or other leftovers or, if she finds it acceptable, whatever we're having for dinner.  I try really hard to get a fruit, a veggie, a grain, and a protein in her every day.

Sleeps: 8:30pm-7 or 8 am.  Most nights she sleeps all night

Naps: 2-3 hours per day her nap is 4 or 5 hours after she wakes up for the day, though some days she doesn't take one at all.

Awake for:4-7 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  4T

Motor skills: Getting REALLY good at drawing and writing!  Can stand on 1 foot for at least 5 seconds, and she's getting soooo close to a somersault. 

other skills:sounding out words, recognizes about 15 sight words (it, is, in, if, me, you, we, he, she, am, I, a, and...), she can whistle now, too, though only when she's inhaling and it's still very quiet.
words: ...all of them.  She still has trouble with pronouncing R's and L's, but we'll get there :-)

signs:  over 100 - now that she's started talking we've learned less new signs, but since Nova came we are signing a lot more now.

Nova Stats:

Age: 13 months

Weight: 22 lbs, 2 oz.

Length: 30"

Drinks: some milk at meals (usually far less than a cup), 2 bottles of whole milk per day - usually 6oz, and she nurses to sleep at night and usually nurses once or twice in the middle of the night.

Eats: 3 times per day.  Pretty much anything, though she prefers veggies over fruits and grains above all else.

Sleeps: 8:30pm-7am.  Most nights she wakes up at least twice - once around the time I'm going to bed (10:30-12:00) and once around 4:30 or 5:30.  The night terrors tend to go in spurts - we haven't had one in a couple weeks :-)

Naps: 1 or 2 times per day - if it's only once, it's right after lunch and for 2-3 hours.  If it's twice, one is 2 hours long, about 3 hours after she wakes up and the other is around 4:00 or 5:00 for an hour or two.

Awake for: 2-4 hours at a time

Clothes size:  18 months

Motor skills: Walking, running, trying to jump (it's so cute :-)

other skills:she started actually scribbling intentionally about a month or two ago
words: a lot...(see above)

signs:  see above.

If you made it this far, here's a video :-)