Sammie The Fish

Sammie has always loved the water, but has in the past required our presence next to her to feel comfortable in the water.  She would jump in, but only if we were either holding her hands or right there to catch her.  This year however, she has taken off all on her own with the water.  She swims and jumps by herself, she's working on treading water, she swims underwater completely for good periods of time.  We are thrilled to see her thriving, and LOVE the way it wears her out for the night after a day at the pool, cause let me tell you, this girl has some kind of energy, all day, all the time, its incredible!

Brenna's Second Birthday

Every year on the girls' birthdays I take the day off to do something with just them.  I like to look at the clock and remember what we were doing at that time on the day they were born, and just be with them.  I also try to find something fun for them to do, this year, I took Brenna to Build-A-Bear, and she had a blast!

Then it was off to the mall for some indoor playground time and some carousel rides!

Then home for naps and the family coming over to help us celebrate that night!

And some dancing with Weeta and Grandpa C. to finish off a great day!

First Face Plant

Although this is months old, I still had to share.  My baby had her first face plant.  Thankfully Sammie has yet to have this happen, but not our little Brenna, our little adventure, lead with her head, no hands in front of her girl.  This girl, has no fear, and knows no limits.  As much as it pains me to watch her bruise and bump her beautiful little self up right now, I can't help but hope that she keeps this same confidence and attack for life in all that she sets out to do...

Brenna - One-Year

Brenna’s one-year check-up went very well! Developmentally, she is right on track with her age group, physically she is doing well also! She got two shots and this was the hardest time to calm her down from them.  She just kept looking at the nurse and screaming until she left the room.  Hope she didn't take it personally!

Her stats were:


Weight: 21 lbs. 3 oz. = 51st Percentile
Height: 28 3/4 inches = 36th Percentile
Head: 18 inches = 68th Percentile


Now, if you go back and check this post, you will see that according to these stats, she has shrunk height wise.  My guess would be that since Brenna is a very wriggly baby, and it was the end of the day, the nurse didn't ensure a good measurement, so don't be surprised when it goes back the other way for her fifteen-month check-up!

At one year, Brenna is walking about five or six step by herself at a time, she cruises furniture like a champ, has six teeth and several more trying to push through, she has learned that when Sammie is messing with her the fastest way to get out of it is to cry for mommy or daddy, she eats table food exclusively and is slowly learning to master her sippy cup, she talks constantly and trys new sounds every day, still loves to be held, and is still (more often than not) sleeping through the night - Thank GOD!

Kisses

It has happened, my baby girl has learned how to give a kiss!! I have been working with her on it for a while, and it is hit or miss, but this morning she gave me my very first kiss goodbye when I dropped her off. So sweet! Everytime I get sad about how quickly time is moving, and how fast these amazing girls of ours are growing, they do something else to show me that with the passing of the baby phase, and for Sammie, the toddler phase, always opens a new phase full of incredible new things, kisses, hugs, whole sentences involving telling you how much they love you, cuddle requests, etc… I have yet to find an age that doesn’t amaze me and that I don’t love, so bring on the new stuff girls, I can take it!

Eleven Months

Eleven months.  That’s it, that’s all it took, eleven months for our little Brenna Bear to sleep through the night! (eleven months that is, and lots of mommy snuggles!) WOO-HOO!!! I am almost afraid to post this, like it will jinx me or something, but I’m so friggin excited to have had three nights of her sleeping through the night, I HAD to share!!


So milestones for Miss Brenna at eleven months are that she is taking her first unassisted steps and continues to get more brave and steady every day and…SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!

More Milestones

In my blogging hiatus Brenna has learned a thing or two about a thing or two. First she learned to pull up, on everything. Then she learned to walk along things, then she perfected the hands and knees crawl technique, and she is now on to full table food. Next milestone aside from walking? Moving to cow’s milk. Which will hopefully occur well after she has started to sleep through the night; we are hoping that to happen sometime before she attends college...

Four New Things

Brenna has hurdled four more milestones in the last two weeks.


First, she learned to wave. Two hands, sometimes facing in, sometimes facing out, but little fingers pressed together in an open and close motion like a wave.


Then she learned to sit unassisted - YAY! And she even pushed herself into a sitting position!


Next was (my personal favorite) saying "Ma-Ma". At first she was just working on the sounds, but now she says it when she looks at me, talk about tugging at my heart strings!!


And finally, she learned to shake her head "no". She likes this! Her first act of defiance, I'm sure it will not be the last...


All four are so much fun! I had wondered when I was pregnant with Brenna if we would "ooohhh" and "aaahhhhh" over each new feat with the same enthusiasm as we did with Sammie. I have my answer, yes, absolutely. Sometimes I think even more so because we get to see Sammie react to it all, Brenna laugh at Sammie's reaction, and we all get to share it together.

Sitting Up

My aunt told me this great story years ago, and every time I think of it, I can’t stop laughing (of course, bear in mind that it is all in the delivery and she presents the story way better than I ever could). My uncle is a great skier, and every year they take a week long (at least) trip to Lake Tahoe where they gamble and shop, but my uncle mostly skis. After a while, my aunt decided she should learn how to ski too so they could enjoy it together. My uncle decided the best thing would be a ski instructor, and he hired one.

The ski instructor met with my aunt, and told her the first and most important thing to learn was how to get up after you fall. Seems reasonable enough, right? So he pushed her down. She then spent the next (insert an insane amount of time here) trying to get back up on her skis. I remember there being tears and remarks about some little punk five-year-olds skiing by without a care in the world really ticking her off. Eventually though, she found her way upright again and proudly stood, defiant, in front of her teacher (who had gone and got a cup of coffee in the meantime).

What happened next? He pushed her over again. My aunt took the skis off and walked away. She has never skied since, and is perfectly happy to have my uncle ski by his lonesome.

For some reason, this story comes to mind while I watch Brenna struggle to get to a sitting position, or topple over when we put her in one. While I am in no huge hurry to have Brenna reach the milestones of full-on crawling or walking, one that I am extremely anxious for her to reach is sitting up unassisted.

As I mentioned in her six-month update, Brenna is up there in the percentiles of her size, and with my short little arms and stubby little legs, hauling her around in a pumpkin seat is no fun. That said, I cannot wait for her to sit up unassisted so that I can change her pumpkin seat into a convertible, REAR-FACING, car seat. The only reason I still use the pumpkin seat is so that when I go to the store, I can just leave her in there since she can’t use the basket yet. The only problem will be then, where do I put Sammie? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it…

This being my goal, I work with her on sitting up a lot, and she’s getting close, although she is currently very amused by falling over, which is not helping the motivation at all. We tried to sit her with Carli Grace on the Fourth, but Carli, an expert at sitting up unassisted for some time now and wanting to help her friend learn too, seemed to take on the ski instructor’s training beliefs…

Army Crawl

Brenna learned a new trick today, something she has been working on for some time now...she learned to crawl. Well, really, she learned to army crawl. She stays low to the ground, on her tummy, and pulls her self forward using the inside of her knees and her elbows. She concentrates and never takes her eyes off whatever her motivation to move is, and gets SO excited when she reaches it!

I know the photo quality is not the best, but it was snapped with my phone, so cut me some slack on this one.

My hope is that all the excitement and exertion wears her out and she sleeps through the night for the first time in a month...