Cha Cha Changes!

I think I mentioned it before, but Miss Stephanie, the woman who has so lovingly cared from both my girls since they were babies, first at Emily's first daycare and then from her home, is expecting a baby of her own shortly after Sophia first birthday.  We are so excited for her and cannot wait to meet her new addition.  

Over the years, Stephanie has become a great friend.  She had done so much for our family and for my kids.  She was and always will be a great support system for me and gives the best advice on how to deal with toddlers. ;)  She is going to be a great mom and she has decided that once Baby Mackenzie arrives, she is going to stay home and be with her.  Over the last few months, Steph got tired, and decided to close the school a little earlier.  We had looked at a lot of schools during the transition period and finally settled on a school that we had looked at a few years ago when Emmy was little, before Steph asked us to leave Little Squirrels with her.  We were happy they had openings because at Emmy's age, there weren't a lot of spots for preschool aged kids till August.  

The girls have been at their new school for 2 weeks now.  As expected, bot girls caught a couple bugs. Emmy developed an ear infection and then strep/croup, her favorite combo, last week.  We can't wait for their immune systems to build up a bit, but we figured it's either now, or when they start kindergarten.  Things are going really well.  They both transitioned great!  We are so sad that the girls are no longer with Steph and are going to miss all the very personalized crafts and gifts they brought home.  Plus the, basically, one on one care they got, but really this was the best decision for Emily.  She needed to be around other kids and she needed to learn that she didn't always get her way or come first.  So far, so good, but change is hard!  

Also in the last month, I switched jobs, which was a HUGE change for me.  I was at REDW pretty much since I graduated college 8 1/2 years ago. It was a great company to work for, and had I felt that public accounting was a long term career path for me, I would have stayed there forever, but the fact is, I didn't enjoy what I did.  It took me away from my kids.  Maybe not always physically, but mentally I was unhappy and it showed.  I found a new position, and while it is new, I love it!  The culture of the company is great, the work is really interesting, and it will give me opportunities that I may not have had before, like traveling to locations in China, Europe or Japan or auditing a factory in India.  I am really excited to grow with the company.  What's better is that traveling is optional, but likely impossible to say no too, because of the life experiences I will gain.  They are flexible with my schedule and support my family is first mentality.  Again, change is hard, but I am so blessed to have been given this opportunity.  I really can see myself working for Gap for a long time.  Great company, with great values.  Even better, I get to wear jeans everyday.  It sounds stupid, but you wouldn't believe the impact something so small could have on your moral.  In this case, change was so welcome and so good for us!

So these two changes have impacted our routine over the last few weeks, but we have all transitioned good.  We are all looking forward to whatever other changes 2013 has in store for us!  

She walks!

On January 25th, Sophia stood up and took 3 small steps into Zig's arms.  I wasn't there to see it, but I expected it to happen at any point.  Soph has been standing on her own for at least a month.  She didn't need to use anything to pull into standing position, she would just stand.  And she could hold that pose for what seemed like forever.  She continued to try to walk, but really wouldn't take more than 1 or 2 steps at a time.  On Superbowl Sunday, shortly after the lights went out, she did it again. It was almost like she knew the game was boring at that point, so she wanted to entertain us.  It was a pretty cool moment, there were lots of cheers.  People we aren't close with were excited to share that moment with us.  From that point on she still tried, but it seemed like crawling was faster, so that continued to be her preferred method of moving.  We took this video of her taking about 9 steps, but she still wasn't consistent. 

That is until last Thursday.  That marked the day that Sophia decided, she was going to walk.  And we haven't been able to stop her since! I love how happy and excited she gets with each step.  We are officially to the point where she walks more than she crawls.  I am one proud mama!  

11 Months...Woah

It literally pains me to type this post right now.  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!  How is my baby only a few weeks shy of 1.  Now I know why there are families out there will a billion kids.  It goes so fast and you miss those moments when they were little.  It's totally crazy.  Now I am kicking myself for not blogging more, but really friends, I will never forget how amazing and special it has been watching Sophia grow.  She is the EASIEST baby.  I may have said this before, but Emily was an EASY baby.  Sophia is CRAZY easy.  She never cries, she very rarely fusses, she just hangs out and is happy.  She has been such a dream.  So 11 months....Woah.

This month Sophia...

• is still in size 3 diapers, size 3 shoes and is starting to grow out of her 9 month clothes.  Everyone says she looks big, but she really is tiny.  Her cheeks are deceiving.
• is great at signing more and milk.  
• has just 2 teeth still.  The top 4 look like they are right on the surface, but nothing has popped through yet.  This is CRAZY to me.  Emily had almost a full mouth of teeth at this point.  I think she was starting to get molars around the age Soph is now.  Every baby truly is different.
• is really starting to develop a personality.  She does not like to be told no. AT.ALL.  In fact, I mentioned that she never cries.  Well that is a lie.  The only time she cries is if you tell her no. She laughs a ton.  She thinks Emmy is hysterical. She will "yell" at you if you take away something that she wants.  She is pretty sassy and very silly. 
• sleeps like a dream.  We have never had to rock her to sleep.  She just lays down and goes to bed.  She sleeps from 7:00 pm and wakes up around 6:45.  Our routine recently changed in the mornings (the girls are at a new school, more on that in another post) but she has adapted beautifully.  She takes one 2-3 hour nap a day now.  Part of me misses the 2 naps a day, but doing just one has made all our lives so much easier.  We have so much flexibility in our schedule now on the weekends. We don't feel pinned to the house.
• eats like a champ. This kid eats, and eats, and eats.  It's amazing how much food she can put back.  Since I stopped nursing last month, we reintroduced bottles.  It pained me to do so, since she pretty much weaned herself from them at around 8 or 9 months, but I can get her to drink so much more if I offer her the bottle in the morning and at night.  Right now she drinks about 6 oz from a bottle right when she gets up, then she has a sippy of about 12 oz throughout the day, offered at each meal. She will get another sippy at dinner, and finally a 6 oz bottle before bed.  She is drinking her milk so good!!  We won't transition to whole milk until we are closer to finishing off all the frozen milk.  I still have quite a bit frozen. My plan is at a year, to get her off the bottle and just offer her milk in a sippy at "breakfast" and then drop the bottle before bed.  There have been a couple of nights that we have skipped it and she did fine.  She transitions so easy, I am really not worried.  Solidwise, she eats it all.  She will eat whatever we are having just cut up to her size.  She turns no food away, but recently has discovered how "funny" the dogs are when she throws food off her plate.  Hey Sophia, it's not funny.  This is about the only time we have to tell her no, which she hates.  
• has been taking a few steps here and there for a couple of weeks now.  Last week she stood up and took 10 steps, like she has been doing it all her life.  She doesn't "walk" consistenly, because I think she realizes it is much faster for her to crawl, but she likes to surprise us when we least expect it by just getting up and walking across the room.  She can stand up with out pulling up on anything and can balance for what seems like forever.  I expect her to be full blow walking and no longer crawling at about a year. 
• loves to dance.  Anytime she hears music, or if Emmy sings (which she does a lot), Sophia will start to dance.  Adorable. 
• turns everything into a telephone.  She makes lots of phone calls at night.
• loves to brush her own hair.  Which means she usually messes up whatever I have done to it, by dragging a comb back through it.  I refuse to cut Sophia's bangs.  If you want to know why, click here. This isn't even the worst of it. Why did no one tell me that I was TERRIBLE at cutting bangs.  Poor Emily.  Plus they are a HUGE pain to keep up with, so we usually pull Sophia's hair up into a top knot to keep it out of her eyes. She pulls out bows if we try to pin them back, so top knot it is.  
• says dog, daddy, dada, mama, hello, bye and meow and associates them with all the correct objects.  

So, I am trying to learn to use my camera.  The first few pictures, I think the lighting was pretty good.  Then we lost light and all the pictures came out either over exposed, blue tinged or too dark, so I had to switch to auto mode in the interest of keeping my 11 month old happy.  Needless to say, she was not impressed.  I think I MAYBE got 1 good shot of her smiling with the sticker on her shirt and I think it looks blue.  Meh. Here is my sweet 11 month old girl.

If only she was sitting up straight and not trying to eat the sticker...

Not impressed

This is all she wanted to do. The ENTIRE time.

We lost her

Here is the best one I could come up with