Children's Museum

Today we met up with our Baby Friends Group at the Tacoma Children's Museum. Callie had a blast (of course), and so did Mike and I. She really enjoyed the paintbrush in the "construction area" and played with it more than anything else. A good chunk of the time elsewhere was spent standing still and staring at everyone else.

Not so sure about the hard hat (it was WAY to big)

Loving the paint brush.

Callie's new favorite thing to do is to "sneak" up on us. She always does this from the back, and reaches out with both hands to "scare" us. But usually she is giggling so loud that there is no sneaking involved. And if we don't respond accordingly, she will just reach out for us again. Then she laughs once we are scared by her. You can watch it here.

Look out world...

I kept saying "It will be so much easier once Callie is walking," and everyone looked at me like I was a crazy person. I still insisted that it would be easier because she doesn't like to be held or confined for long (or even medium) lengths of time. How much easier will it be once she can walk around at the park or the store rather than be held. I still stick with this argument, but did not really get a chance to test it out. I knew climbing would come after walking, but didn't think it would be so soon. Callie really started walking on Tuesday. She went from taking a maximum of 5-10 steps to walking long distances (the whole hallway, so long I know) and loosing her balance, touching the ground, and standing back up to walk rather than crawl. And then came Wednesday. And with Wednesday came climbing. She pulled Grandma's step stool over the the fridge, and climbed up both steps to be able to reach the magnets to her fridge farm that were up higher. She also figured out that if she pulled the box off the bookshelf, she could use the box to then climb up onto the shelf. So much for my dreams of a easy phase of just walking. Every time I say something, she goes and proves me wrong. Someday I will learn to keep my mouth shut, it might be easier.

Look, I can blow my nose.

Tonight while Callie was playing in her room and emptying everything off the changing table, she grabbed a wipe, and "blew" her nose. Then she did it about 4 more times. Of course, I didn't get the best video of it, but we still thought it was pretty funny. You can watch it here.

Two more pics

Birthdays are exhausting!

Somehow I forgot to include this one. I guess the day was just too much, for both Callie and Dad. They fell asleep on the couch together. Callie usually won't sleep anywhere except for her crib and sometimes her car seat so this is a rare treat.

And this is just too cute. Big girl pigtails giving Daddy kisses. What more could we ask for?

Happy 1st Birthday!

Callie turned one this last weekend, and what a week leading up to it! I don't think we could have crammed anything more into a week. Saturday we went to EMP, Science Center, a birthday party, and just cause that wasn't enough, we also went swimming. A few days to recover, and then Laura and the boys are in town for a day of playing together and dinner, then Lindsay and Brian arrive and Callie joins all their adventures for the next two days. Her birthday party on Saturday, and exploring Seattle on Sunday before Lindsay and Brian had to head home. She was one happy kiddo. The busier she is, the happier she is. I think it may take all week to recover from all the excitement.
Callie's birthday was great. She has a blast with all the friends and family there to celebrate with us. She loved the presents and especially the cards. It was hard to get the cards from her to be able to read them as she was so into looking at them. She would have been happy just to get cards, but we appreciate all the cute clothes and new books. It is nice to mix up the nightly reading as a year of the same books does get a little old.
And of course, the CAKE! At first she was more into moving her spoon around than eating. After we all watched her forever, and then passed out to everyone (almost 30 people) she finally decided enough of this and went head first into the cake. Just going for it was much easier than using either a spoon or hands.

What is this? Are they really going to let me dig into it?
What is on my hands?

Forget the spoon, I'm going headfirst.

This is hard work. And my teeth are coming in so I'm just going to chew on my fingers.

I LOVE this stuff!
I'll just keep moving my spoon back and forth, but I am not going to eat anything. It is purple!

Now that Callie is one, she seems to have have made some changes. She can now wear her hair in pigtails. Although Grandma isn't so sure about them because "she looks too grown up." Yesterday she kept "running" down the living room with her walker toy. She would get to the end, turn around, and run back. So I decided to record this because I thought it was cute. She takes off, and decides she has had enough of this so she goes into her room and shuts the door on me! And it is pretty cute how she uses her whole body to turn the walker, so you can see it here.
And tonight at dinner she kept crying and reaching for my fork as I was feeding her with it (it is really hard to feed her spaghetti with a baby spoon). I finally gave it to her, and she was happy. Even happier when we started putting chicken on the fork for her to eat with. It is pretty funny to watch her put the large fork into her tiny mouth, so you can check it out here.

Fun in the Mountains and at Home

Mike and I headed up to Snoqualmie to go snowboarding this weekend and later in the afternoon Mom drove Callie up to meet us and play in the snow. When it snowed at home, Callie loved her baby boggin, and the faster it went the better. This time, she didn't complain, but didn't seem to enjoy it all that much. I think her favorite part was walking up the hill. Her head was parallel to the ground as she looked up at all the trees.

Even though sledding wasn't a big hit, she loved standing and hitting the snow, as you can see in this video.
She also discovered she could eat the snow, and loved that. In case this picture doesn't show enough, here is a video of it as well.
After getting home and taking a bath, somehow we decided to put the curlers in her hair like Grandma does because her hair is so cute whenever I pick her up from there. This look says it all.
Callie has also started dancing more and more. She now dances sitting down by moving her arms around. She loves the kitchen toy Grandma and Grandpa bought her for her birthday, and will spin the clock until it plays one song and dance to it. I helped her get there in this video, because whenever we try to record it, she looses interest before she gets to that song.

Eating and more!

What a difference a night makes! Last night after Callie ate most of the yogurt in the tub, I thought, why not give it to her and see what happens. There is hardly any left, so she can't make too much mess. And she wasn't too messy, but she also didn't use the spoon for eating, and really only licked her fingers once. In case my description doesn't quite do the trick, here is the video.

First Time Attempting to Self Feed

And then tonight she started whining for the spoon when Mike was feeding her. He gave it to her, and she was able to get the spoon in her mouth, and get most of the food off the spoon. Then we started the camera, and she was able to do it again! And even tried to scoop some more food onto the spoon. Once again, here is the video if you want more than my description.

Second Night of Self Feeding

Also, Callie has started giving kisses when asked, or at least 75% of the time. You ask, "Callie, kiss kiss?" and she leans into your cheek and gives you a big wet one. Unless you are Grampy (aka Gordy, but she has taken to calling him Grampy, or at least that is what she calls him when he is sleeping on the couch and not playing with her) and then she will give out kisses.

She is obsessed with pointing at things. She points at everything, and wants you to name it. She will keep pointing until you name what she is pointing at. She is also starting to learn to whine when she wants something...not my favorite. So we have started working on please. I think "geesh" or something along those lines might be her attempt at please.

Mike tells a story that on Sunday, they were looking out the front window, and she reached out, grabbed his hand, and said "Dad." We have also heard something close to "Hi there" several times, and some possible attempts at "I love you."

She may also be trying to sign "more," which looks like her clapping (more is holding your fingers and thumbs together, and then bringing both set of fingertips together, so clapping is close). She is adamant that she will not walk just holding on with one hand, and will hold onto the same hand with both her hands if we don't offer two hands.

And, most importantly, Callie shared her toys without crying last Sunday! We had our baby group over to our house, and this time around there were not any tears when the other babies played with her favorite toys. All that time at family gym is paying off!