3 Months

Maliya Tid-Bits at 3 Months:

- She smiles!  Maliya has now become much more aware of us and quite interactive.  If she's feeling okay, Nick can almost always get her to smile at him. It melts my heart everytime. 

-She's attracted to lights just like her big brother.

-She likes to observe people, rather than just staring at random objects. She especially likes watching Cole.

-She's starting to sleep a little bit longer during the night.  She usually eats her 'dinner' bottle at around 7 or so and will then go about 5, sometimes 6 hours before her next feeding (meaning she sleeps for about 4-5 hours). It's great!

-She's starting to eat more at a time, which is probably contributing to sleeping longer.

-She gets cuter and cuter everyday.  Her personality is starting to show a bit, and she is literally cuter because she's filling out more.  I love baby chub!

-She's finally starting to have more 'happy' time, meaning she'll chill between feedings instead of either sleeping or fussing.  I think it's because her tummy meds are helping (which she doesn't have to take very often anymore), and am hoping that she's starting to outgrow the reflux as well.

-She enjoys her swing now, and will chill in it for quite awhile.

-She has lots of different cries. One is a sad little whimper when she just wants attention. Another is an even sadder little cry she uses when her tummy hurts.  She has a cry that's just a complaint - you can totally tell she's mad at you when you hear that one.  Another is her hungry cry. That's a pretty loud, angry, give me food! cry.

-She's just a precious little thing.  What can we say, we love her.

So precious!!

I forgot how difficult these bear pictures are before thy can sit up:)

I love this boy. Lately he has a great love for shoes and paper. If we happen to leave the garage door open, he's out there in a flashing, trying on all of our shoes. He's gotten pretty good at walking in them - maybe he'll go to clown college some day. And paper, oh the beloved paper. To hear him say paper is just precious. And when he says it, he usually means papers, pens, and his arms and legs (which he's drawn on a few times). He spots paper everywhere he goes and loves to sit down and draw. It's a great way to distract him for quite awhile. I love when we find stuff like that.

This sweet picture was taken by a good friend of ours who just also happens to be a very talented photographer.  Check out her pictures here.

Last weekend we spent a really fun weekend in Provo. We drove down on Friday morning, checked into our hotel, and then met up with Nick's cousins (Kaitlyn and Shawn) at Tucano's. It was divine, as always. Then we dropped Cole off at Kaitlyn's apartment (thanks Kaitlyn & David!) and went to a BYU men's volleyball game. It was fun to kind of have a date night, especially since BYU won, woot woot! On Saturday we dropped the kids off at my cousin's house (thanks Becky and Travis and your sweet girls!) and went to the Timpanogas temple. We'd forgotten how busy Utah temples are, but luckily we didn't have to wait long. We really enjoyed that. After lunch and naps we wandered around the BYU bookstore, a must when you're in Provo. Next was a quick dinner, and then games and treats with more of Nick's cousins. (James, Bethany, and their new baby Amberlee; Shawn; and Kaitlyn and David.) On Sunday we headed home, tired but happy:)

I took hardly any pictures, but the ones I did nab were pretty cute. They're of Maliya and Amberlee. These two were due only 3 days apart, but Maliya came 4 weeks early and Amberlee was 1 or 2 weeks late. They're still pretty close in age and size though!

(Amberlee, such a doll, is a little more mild mannered than Maliya. Can you tell?)

And a couple pictures of Cole cuteness....

As I mentioned previously, he loves to play with/in anything of Maliya's. 

This has happened a few times and I'm so glad I finally caught Cole in the act....Maliya was crying, so he found her bottle and tried to feed her. What a sweet brother!

Cole LOVES to relax with Nick.

He also loves to cuddle with lion, to put lion 'ni-ni' in Maliya's swing, to play with anything of Maliya's...

On Saturday Home Depot had their monthly free kiddy workshop.  The weather was nice, and we live really close to HD, so I loaded up the kids in the monstrous double stroller and we walked on over.  Cole got to make a mini NASCAR race car and he did a superb job! He also did a great job hammering the tables and moving the chairs around:)

*Funny story. Sad story. Maybe both, you decide. On our walk over I stopped briefly to check on Cole. He was all bundled up and was sitting a little lower in his chair than he was when we started. I figured he was just cuddling into his blanket to keep warm, and since he said he was okay, I kept going. When we got to the front of the store 5 or so minutes later, a couple walking by looked at him and said 'Wow, he's dragging'. I figured they meant he looked sleepy, so I kind of smiled and said 'Yea, he's tired'. They responded with a small chuckle as they said 'He's about out of their'. I was confused, so I walked to the front of the stroller and was horrified to find Cole falling out of his seat! I could no longer see his face - his eyes were level with the lap bar - and his feet were touching the ground, walking along as I pushed the stroller! I felt SO bad! I couldn't stop laughing as I told Nick that night (I actually cried I was laughing so hard), but at the time, I felt absolutely horrible. The poor thing. He didn't even complain at all, he's such a sweet boy, but I can't imagine what he must have been thinking.

This is what  Maliya did while Cole and I were building

The weather was fabulous on Monday and Tuesday. We took advantage and went to play at a small playground in our development.  Cole was a little excited - can you tell?

So was Maliya. This is her super-pumped face.

Cole had an absolute blast playing in the dirt on Monday (we refilled a toy dump truck too many times to count) and actually got into the slides on Tuesday.  Yay for warm weather!

I can't help it, I just think they're so cute...

What a precious boy. I love his smiles and his sweet spirit!

Funny faces:)

 22 Months

Such a cute face!

He was super excited to take a picture with his 'b-yeh'

Cole tid-bits at 22 months:

-Likes to help with things, like unloading the dishwasher. It' so cute - he'll grab a plate and hand it to me as he says 'deer do' (here you go).

-Is very independent, wanting to put on his own shoes, etc.

-Gets tons of comments on how polite he is and how cute he is.

-Honestly has the bets personality

-Is very creative. I love watching him play, seeing the things he comes up with.

-Has decided that he does not like nursery.  He'll stay if Nick stays with him, and he does of course like snack time, dance time, and singing time, but refuses to stay by himself. I think the noise and the # of kids in such a tiny classroom are just too much for him.

-Is a very loving and helpful big brother.  Yesterday he asked to see Maliya when he woke up.  So precious!  A few days ago she was crying and he found her bottle and stuck it in her mouth.  Oh, and this week during one of her tummy-time sessions, he knelt next to her and started patting her back because she was crying...and she burped for him! He knows what she needs better than I do:)

-Will sing the ABC's and 'Rock-a-bye Baby' with me in a precious sing-song voice.

-Still loves lights.  He tilts his head back to look up at them in pretty much every room he enters, even if the room doesn't have lights in the ceiling.

-His vocabulary has grown tenfold, even since I last posted.  He tries to say everything we say. I love watching him figure out how to form new words, and hearing him pronounce certain words is so cute. Oh, and I love how he uses inflection when speaking - he definitely uses different tones to get his point across.

-Is good at identifying taboo activities as 'no-no's, but doesn't always avoid doing them:)

-Can suddenly reach everything around the house.  He's still so small, but I guess he is growing!

-Has done a super job transferring to his big boy bed. He slept in it at night from day one, and it only took him about a week to start sleeping at naptime.

-Loves 'tee-s' (treats). One of his favorites is peppermint candies. Also loves 'nah-s' (snacks), including goldfish (extra cheesy and vanilla cupcake), cheese or pb filled ritz bitz, 'chee' (string cheese), and chocolate graham crackers. Some of his favorite dinner-time foods include noodles alfredo, rice, and mashed potatoes.

-Has to cuddle anything he sees that is soft (all bears, blankets, pictures of bears, etc). He cuddles them by holding them up to his cheek and saying 'ohhhhh'.

-Is obsessed with 'pay-puh' (paper), which he says with the cutest inflection.  He loves writing on paper. I don't think he totally gets what paper is though - yesterday he drew all over his arm and then kept pointing to the pen marks and saying 'paper'.  (Thanks a ton, Nick and Alex, for showing him how to do that!)

-Wins the award for Mr. Congeniality. You can't help but love him!

I think he may have OCD. I was on the computer this morning and he was playing off on his own. Every few seconds I heard him kind of whine/cry, so I finally went to check on him after about 10 minutes.  This is how I found him.  The whining occurred anytime one of his items, so carefully arranged, fell over.  He loves to line things up like this and to stack things in his hands, but gets so frustrated when they don't do what he wants them to do, and/or when they don't fit together perfectly.

We decided to start March off with a bang...

Do you feel bad for us?  I do. Sure, it's pretty, but it's MARCH.  Winter is not supposed to START in MARCH.  Yikes!  I'll keep my fingers crossed that it's just a fluke storm....