Allyson is 4!

We have a 4 year old, how did that happen? Ally's birthday landed on a Monday this year so she had a weekend full of celebrations. It started on Saturday with a family tailgate party at the Purdue homecoming game for both Ally and Grandma Sharon. Grandpa Joel, Grandma Julie and Grandpa Dew all visited for the weekend and came to the game. Worst game ever but Ally looked super cute in her new Purdue cheerleader outfit. On Sunday we planned a super hero themed party at our house for some of our friends and their kids. We had 10 little ones all together and they enjoyed pizza and cupcakes. I even got crafty and made them their own super hero capes to take home. On Monday Ally got to take in birthday treats to school and wear a special star sticker. She requested breakfast for dinner with chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. Ally got a lot of great gifts. Apparently when you turn 4 you get the big stuff because we now have a trampoline in the basement, a pink dune buggy power wheels and a 2 wheeled bike with training wheels.
Ally hit some great developmental milestones in the last year and it was also our most challenging with her. She has her own attitude and knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it.  Listening and following directions are sometimes very tough and our patience wears thin quickly, especially when we are forced to repeat things over and over.  She is learning about consequences and we try not to give in and let her do what she wants if she cant cooperate. Overall, she is very happy and entertains us with funny things she says and does.
Fun things about Ally:

• Can write her name and a majority of letters and numbers.
• Still loves dress up of all kinds, especially high heels and purses.
• Will pack anything and everything into bags and carry them all over the house. Any kind of stuff in any kind of bag.
• Gets dresses completely on her own.
• Brushes her teeth every day, mostly on her own.
• Knows way too much about sports and loves going to sporting events of all kinds or watching them on TV. Her favorites are gymnastics and volleyball. She can identify most teams by their colors and or mascots.
• Eating a better variety of foods but struggles to focus and get a meal done in less than an hour at times. Favorite foods are pasta, chicken nuggets from Wendys, broccoli, pizza, corn on the cob, applesauce pouches and chocolate milk. She can eat ice cream all day and Orange Leaf frozen yogurt is her absolute favorite treat.
• Can rider her tricycle all the way around the block.
• Swims in the pool with floaties on her own and jumps in to go under water.
• Loves talking to everyone. She is very desperate to find friends in the neighborhood and always wants to know everything about everyone. It is very important to her to feel included by kids her own age.
• Has a boyfriend at school named Nate. We are sure she annoys him to death.
• Is super competitive. She loves to be the leader, be in charge and win everything she does.
• Loves her baby sister and tries her very best to keep her happy.
• Favorite places in town to visit include the zoo, any park, Children's Museum, Buffalo Wild Wings and our neighborhood pool.
• Not great at sitting still to Skype and Facetime but she loves seeing family and telling them about her day or showing off her outfits.

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Twins?

Same outfit at the same age. Would you be able to tell which girl is which?

Hadley's Half Birthday

I'm 6 months old!

We celebrated Hadley's half birthday on September 23. Cant believe she is already 6 months old! It seems like she has crossed so many big milestones this month but maybe it only seems that way because I am behind in writing about them. We have also been very busy with travels, football and birthday planning that we haven't had much time to just relax lately. I love having this blog to look back at the things we were doing with Ally at this age and making comparisons. In some respects the girls are very similar but very different in others. Hadley is really growing into her own person these days and we can't imagine our life without her.  Here are some highlights at 6 months:

• Began sitting solidly on her own about 2 weeks ago.
• Has tried almost all of the Gerber first foods. She is consistently eating one "meal" per day at dinner time with us. We have been giving her rice cereal with a half serving of a fruit or veggie. Favorites are rice and peas or oatmeal and peaches. She has also been working on feeding herself bananas, pancakes, cheerios and yogurt melts.  It keeps her hands busy even if nothing gets into her mouth.
• Prefers to be nursed rather than bottles and has not yet had any formula. She typically takes 3 or 4-4 ounce bottles during the day but sometimes she just snacks and only takes 1-2 ounces at a time.
• Can spin herself completely in a circle when laying on her belly and loves to inch herself all over the place. She started pulling her knees under and can push way up onto her hands. It wont be long before she figures out how to get that big belly off the ground.
• Loves to make noise, especially loud yelling and laughing. She thinks everything is funny and really screams when you kiss her belly or play peek-a-boo close to her face.
• The bouncer is her preferred place to hang out and its even better when Ally plays with her while she is jumping around. Bad thing is she poops every (EVERY) time she sits in it and jumps!
• Has a super strong grip and likes to get in close to your face to squeeze it or pull hair.
• Warm weather has allowed us to spend a lot of time outside going for walks.
• Started wearing socks for the first time last week and learned how to pull them off quickly.
• Wearing 6 month or 6-9 month clothes for the most part but the one piece outfits are starting to get too short.
• She hates, hates laying flat to nap during the day. She takes 20 minute cat naps at day care and is near impossible to lay down on weekends. She only naps well on someone or in her car seat or swing. Its a problem that we just haven't figured out how to fix. Day care also now has a strict no blankets policy so that isn't helping since she likes to have things in her hand.
• She is a very light sleeper as well so the slightest noise wakes her up. Doesn't seem to be an issue at night.
• Always cat naps in the evening around 8/8:30 then sleeps at night from 9:30pm to 6:30 am on weekdays and until 7:30 on weekends.

Key differences from Ally:

• Likes the pacifier
• Loves to nurse, not even interested in holding her own bottle or really even drinking from a bottle if she doesn't have to
• Very snugly
• Gets jealous when I hold other babies
• Much better in the car unless she is hungry
• No ear infections or really anything more than a runny nose for a day or two

Places visited:

• Oshkosh to see friends and family lots of times
• Tampa, Florida
• Peoria, Illinois
• Purdue, including 2 football games and a volleyball game
• Indy Zoo
• Children's Museum
• Friends around town

Sisters celebrating Hadley's half birthday on September 23

Purdue Football 2013

One of the benefits of our move back to Indiana and my change in job is that we can all enjoy Purdue football Saturdays. We took the girls to the home opener against Indiana State. It was very hot so we did the pre-game tailgate and stayed through the first half. Ally was very particular as usual about her game day wardrobe and now gets to police her sister's game day spirit as well. We are looking forward to more games this season and will plan on taking both girls as long as game times and weather cooperates. Its a tough time to be a Purdue football fan right now with all the changes but these two girls don't care.

 

Florida Vacation

We took our first family vacation as just our family of four the week before Labor Day. We traveled by plane from Indy to Tampa and stayed just outside Clearwater on Sand Key. We picked that area because Karl and I have been there a few times and just love it there. Very easy to get to, lots to do, great beaches and affordable. We weren't ready to try Disney World yet but this offered a lot of options for us if we wanted to get ambitious with the girls or just relax close to the hotel.

Living close to the airport definitely helps and we easily made it through security with no issues. Opting for late morning flights was also strategic on our part and worked out very well, we were able to get Ally lunch in the airport before we left and Hadley was awake and alert right up until we got on the plane when she ate and fell asleep during take off.  Ally was entertained with movies, book and coloring and its a quick1 hour and 40 minutes direct into Tampa.  We stayed at a Marriott just off the beach with a suite room so the girls could have the living space and we could close the door to the bedroom as needed for us. Ally loved the pull out couch and Hadley did great in the pack and play the hotel provided.  We had the option of taking the provided golf cart ride to the nice clean beach or hanging out at the awesome hotel pool so we did a lot of both! We spent another one of the days in Tampa visiting the aquarium. It was a great way to keep cool inside for a few hours and then play on the giant splash park outside before we headed back to the hotel pool.

We only had one stormy morning but it cleared up in time for us to do a pirate cruise in the afternoon. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for Ally! It was a 2 hour ride on a 3-story pirate ship with lots of kids activities perfect for her age. They got hats, squirt guns, face paint, hunted for treasure, read a story, fired a canon, played musical chairs and had a dance party. It was really hot and humid but Hadley slept most of the trip in the shade and Ally played the whole time. She even finished 2nd in the giant game of musical chairs!

All in all it was a very nice trip. Less stressful than I expected and we really planned perfectly because the area got very crowded on the weekend. We came back on Sunday and had the extra holiday on Monday to relax and recover at home. Both girls did very well, loved the pool time and ate and napped better than usual for the most part. I wish we would have been able to get a nice family photo on the beach but maybe next time.

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