Lexi and Lillian's World....: October 2011

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Video clips

I finally found a relatively easy way to convert my MP4 video clips to an decent size AVI for uploading. So, here is the best one of Lillian walking. Enjoy!

And, Big Sister has demanded some film time lately since Lillian is getting so much attention. Here is Lexi singing a Norwegian nursery rhyme.

And lastly, here is the Halloween package video clip that never got uploaded :) Thanks Grammy and Pops for a great package!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Well, it's official. We now classify Lillian as "walking". When she turned 11 months on Oct 10th, she started taking 2-3 steps - mainly into our arms. A week later, she started practicing standing solo with balance. A couple of days later, she started walking 7-8 steps - not necessarily into our arms. Yesterday, she conquered standing up from a sitting position. Today, she really motored around. While I took Lexi to dance, Tim said that she walked solo from the playmats, past the fireplace, into the kitchen and back around to the playmats without ever sitting down! She is so proud of herself and big sister is trying to compete for the attention by imitating Lillian's wobbly walking style :)

I have been wanting to post some Lexi/Lillian comparisons for some time now, but have been too lazy to access the storage server where all of Lexi's pics are stored (and backed up to a redundant server). Anyway, here are some pics taken at roughly the same time frame for both girls. A couple of weeks before their first birthdays.

Lillian

Lexi Lillian (concentrating on eating grapes and blueberries)
Lexi and Harley
Mamma and Lillian Mamma and Lexi and Harley

Samuel's Barnedåp

Baby Samuel is now 4 months old and we attended his Christening (Barnedåp) this last Sunday. Here are a few pictures from the blessed event. First up...our best take at a family pic. Hmmm...maybe we should have tried a bit harder.

Abel, Linn and Samuel (Samuel is wearing the family's Christening dress that was also worn by Linn, Luna, Lexi and Lillian)

Mother and daughter

Mormor and Samuel

Mormor and Lillian

Friday, October 21, 2011

Favoritism or ????

As I dumped this batch of pictures from my camera to my PC and clicked through them, my guilty conscience once again reminded me that Lexi needs a bit more "mommy time". She is constantly trying to fight for my attention and figure out how to share my time with Lillian. Quite frankly, I do feel guilty that we don't get more chances to do Lexi things together. She loves to play Candyland (hmmmm...where did that come from?), she loves to "perle" (place little beads on plastic shaped templates that you then iron to connect them together), she loves jigsaw puzzles, she loves to have someone color with her, she loves to work on her alphabet in some of her workbooks, etc. But...first child syndrome...she wants someone to do all of those things with her (still not sounding familiar?). Anyway, many of her "Lexi activities" are hard to do with Lillian around. Lillian either tries to get right in the middle of them or she gets mad and frustrated that she isn't allowed to play with the same. The result? We spend a lot of time playing things Lillian can play and don't spend enough time on Lexi's big girl stuff. This makes me sad and a teensy bit guilty. Anyhoo...back to the pictures. As I dumped this load of pics from my camera, they were primarily Lillian. Kick in the guilty conscience. Hmmm... this could be a result of being at home all day with Lillian while Lexi goes to barnehage or, it could confirm my suspicions that I am a bit to focused on our nearly one year old. Something to think about...

Here are the latest pics from this last week of random activites. Two princesses...

Lexi taking her first ride in our new fishing boat

Lillian and I in the fishing boat

Lillian at badeland (the indoor water park) in Lyngdal. She spends lots of time standing solo...

We visited Linn, Luna and Samuel one evening this week. Samuel is nearly 4 months old and will be Christened this Sunday.

Lillian didn't seem too happy to have her pic taken. It was nearing bedtime and she was getting tired.

Thanks Grammy and Pops! Lexi loves her new dance leotard and we had a little purple sweater to pair with it since it is cold in the dance studio! The toulle skirt twirls...that is the coolest ever!

Big sister ALWAYS tries to lend a helping hand... Little sister doesn't necessarily always want it :)

Posing for the camera in her new favorite chair

Eating her first ever hot dog at the combined 1 year birthday party for all of the babies in my barsel group. This is the group of local Norwegian moms that had babies in Oct/Nov 2010 and all live within a 5-7 minute drive from my house. She loved the hot dog...devoured it!

We started the pumkin festivites a bit early

I'm sad...the local farmer that had a small pumpkin patch seems to have not harvested this year. I drove by and she didn't have a single pumpkin on display. So, I bought a couple at the local store and we took a few pics.

Love this pic...

Monday, October 10, 2011

Happy 11mo birthday to Lillian!

Time continues to march on and sweet Lillian is now 11 months old today! She weighs 8.775kg (19# 6oz) and is 73cm long (28.7"). Basically, her growth has started to level off and she is tracking about the same as Lexi did. Here is a little snapshot of what she is up to...

As many of you know, she has been on her feet since June...desperate to run after her big sister. You can see how her balance and confidence has slowly improved over time. Over the last few days, I have seen several instances where she will be holding something (her push cart for example) and she will let go and just stand there without support for 30-60 seconds. Well, today. she decided that she would take some steps. So, she has taken 2-3 solo steps from point A to point B or point A to me or Tim. She did this multiple times today. She was a little wobbly, but was super proud. Quite the difference than Lexi's experience. When Lexi took her first steps at 17 months, she was a perfect walker. She perfected her balance and made sure that she knew exactly how to do it before ever trying to stand on two feet. Lillian just dives right in.

Which brings me to swimming. As I have blogged, Lillian loves the water. She is once again the opposite of Lexi. She seems to be way more comfortable in the water and getting water splashed on her face than Lexi ever did. We still go to Baby Swimming every Thursday. Among other things, the class teaches babies to "dive". This is basically imersing them in water, but they learn to close their eyes and mouth. The babies learn to "dive" with the parent just immersing them, "dive" from the instructor to the parent, "dive" from the pool edge into the water, etc. Lillian has learned that when I say 1-2-3, that she closes her eyes and mouth on three and she gets dunked under. She "hops" from the pool edge into the water (completely under) or from a mat into the water or last week, she "hopped" from the instructor's arms to me a couple of times...going under water. Needless to say, she must have more of Tim's genes than Lexi does. Lexi and I are both cautious and fearful of certain situations (mainly any situation where I can possibly injure myself) whereas, Lillian has already shown to be braver on many fronts.

This brings me to climbing. The pictures a little further down on this blog entry explain it all...

She is also a hair puller...and it hurts like the dickens. We have been trying to teach her not to pull hair, but haven't quite got the message through yet. Lexi and I are constantly getting our hair pulled. Tim doesn't seem to suffer the same problem :)

Of late, Lillian is a major cuddler. We get lots and lots and lots of hugs. She loves to come up and give a proper hug (head on one shoulder and then head on the other shoulder) and then go back to playing. We all love to get Lillian hugs.

She is also a puzzler. She loves wooden puzzles...mainly just pulls out the pieces and sometimes tries to put them back in. But, what we are most proud of is her Fisher Price piggy bank. It is this obnoxious pig that has a coin slot. There are 10 plastic coins of two different sizes. Lillian has totally mastered it. I sat in her room with her one day last week and I swear she put a coin through the slot 40-50 times in a row. Her hand/eye coordination is great in addition to her desire to "do it right".

The last thing I jotted down to write about was her communication skills. She has started shaking her head back and forth for no. We firmly believe that she know what it means. If you offer her some food or drink that she does not want, we get the head shake. On a couple of instances, I got the positive up/down yes head shake, but I think that was just fluke. The side-to-side no is definitely something she has mastered.

Oh, and... still no teeth :)

Lexi had her annual picture taken at barnehage last week. I had planned to take Lillian in and get a sibling pic of the two of them, but it didn't end up working out time-wise in our day's plans and Lillian's nap schedule. So, Lillian got all dressed up in her pretty dress (compliments of my work colleauges) and posed for me.