11 Months

I guess it's about time that I put words to this blog post. Last week Delia turned 11 months old. She is the sweetest little girl.

She has such a shy, serious personality, but then she has these funny little things that she does just around us, and it's like she knows she's being silly! 

Peekaboo is one of her favorite things..

She is still only saying "hi", but she has a few "commands" that she follows, like wave, pat, and kiss.

My favorite thing that she does is nod whenever we tell her to nod or say "yeah". I think I say "yeah" and nod to her a lot after I'll ask her a question or if she "says" something to me, so now she nods anytime we say "yeah"! Sometimes she'll even nod after I ask a question because she's picked up on the inflection we use when we ask questions. It's pretty cute!

She also likes to bump her head on things (like the wall, or the sides of her crib) and then look at me like she did something really funny!

Her and Mollie have been interacting more lately, and it's so cute to watch. Mollie likes to roll around and sort of wrestle with her on the bed, and Delia likes it most of the time. They both love to do "pat-a-cake" together though. 

We've started sleep-training Delia a little bit, and it's going a lot better than I expected. I don't mind her sleeping in bed with us at all, but she was just waking up all the time and needing to nurse to fall back asleep. My goal was to get her to start falling asleep on her own so that she'd learn how to put herself back to sleep throughout the night. So for now, I start by feeding her and then rocking her a little bit until she's drowsy, and then laying her down in her crib. She'll usually go right to sleep, but if she cries and starts pulling herself up, I just pick her back up and rock her for a minute to calm her down and then try again. When she inevitably wakes up at some point after Stu and I go to bed, we just bring her into bed and she's learning to just cuddle up to me and fall back to sleep. She's much better at falling asleep on her own, and is waking up much less, which is all I want for now.  

We did finally have to put the baby gates up this month. She just went straight for the stairs anytime we'd set her down. She's pretty much mastered crawling up the stairs. She wasn't interested in them for the longest time, but she finally figured out how to crawl up them and now that's all she wants to do when we're downstairs. I figured she's going to have to learn sometime, and the sooner she learns to go up and down safely, the sooner we can take the baby gates down! 

She's a little bit closer to walking this month. She's pulling up on everything in sight, cruises a little bit, and sometimes lets go and stands for 10 seconds or so before plopping down. It's such a contrast from Mollie at this age. I was watching some home videos we took of her and it was so funny, Mollie was full on walking at 10 months! I'm definitely not complaining..I don't think I could handle two Mollies! A Delia and a Mollie, though, are the perfect combination.

Mollie Being Mollie

Here are some pictures I took of Mollie while I was trying to take pictures of Delia for her 11 month blog post (which I'll post soon, once I have time to write!). She always wants me to take her picture, and these are the kind of faces she makes..

This is what she does if I tell her to smile..

But this is her real smile.. 

Together

Swinging

Delia got her first taste of swinging at the park yesterday..

 Of course she loved it..

 It was so sweet to see her face light up every time she swung back to me..

She would get so excited, kicking her legs and laughing!

 It made me think back to Mollie's first time swinging.

 She had pretty much the same reaction.

 Here are some pictures of Mollie enjoying the same swings.

 Poor Delia, swinging is pretty much the only thing she can do at the park, so we make sure to come back to the swings at least 3 or 4 times while we're there..

  ..Mollie doesn't mind!

DIY Toddler Table

For Mollie's birthday, Stu made this amazing child-sized table and stool set for her. 

 Stu wanted to design something that could be cut out of one sheet of wood, and could be put together with minimal tools. We were looking online at flat-pack furniture for inspiration, and really liked this one. Stu designed virtually the same table using a computer program, Solidworks, and had it cut out with a CNC machine at his job. Did you notice that the table I linked to cost $399?! This table cost us around $60.

 It is designed so that once all of the pieces are cut out, they can just slide together and can be assembled and disassembled without any tools. 

 It's so nice to have a husband who can build anything :)

It was perfect for the party for the kids to eat and craft at, and it's perfect for this nook that I'm turning into Mollie's own little area to do arts, crafts, play-dough, etc. This used to be my sewing area, but I love it so much more as a space for Mollie. There are a few things I still want to get organized, and some things I want to hang on the wall..but I'll blog about it soon!

Mollie's Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

Mollie was given the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar last October (I can't believe we hadn't read it before then!), and it quickly became her favorite book. I thought it would be a perfect theme for her 3rd birthday party. Little did I know, it's a pretty popular party theme, so I was able to find lots of ideas around Pinterest!

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you've probably already seen these pictures, but I wanted to share them on here too in case anyone in blog land is looking for ideas for a Very Hungry Caterpillar party.

I used a hole punch to punch out "Happy Birthday Mollie" on these paper circles, strung them on clear thread (you could use fishing line), and hung them from the ceiling. The ceiling fan made the letters spin, which looked pretty neat.

We couldn't have a Hungry Caterpillar party without reading the book first!

Mollie and Marie were so cute, helping me finish each sentence..

Then we made egg carton caterpillars.

The kids were all really into it and worked so hard..

I don't think I've ever seen Mollie smile as wide as she did while everyone sang to her..

Stu made this mini table and chairs especially for Mollie's birthday, and it was so perfect!! I'll post about them in more detail soon..

My parents gave Mollie the perfect present: 10 live caterpillars! They are shipped to you in these jars, and after a week or so, they all crawl up to the top, attach themselves to a paper disc right under the lid, and form cocoons. Once they are all in their cocoons, you take out the discs with the cocoons attached, and pin them inside of the "butterfly pavilion", a big mesh cylinder. after about a week, they'll come out of their cocoons, and you feed them sugar water until you're ready to release them. I just transferred them to the pavilion today, so we should have butterflies soon! It's been really fascinating to watch.

Finally we headed outside for a "bug hunt"..

Stu and my dad had hidden a bunch of big plastic bugs all around the yard and the kids had a blast finding them! A few months ago, we had a little treasure hunt at the 2 yr old library program we go to, where the kids had to follow a simple map to get to the pirate's treasure. Mollie loved it and I knew I wanted to do some sort of scavenger/treasure hunt at her party, but I wasn't quite sure how to tie it in with the caterpillar theme. I had several ideas swirling around in my head, but I finally decided to keep it pretty simple and set it up sort of like and Easter egg hunt...just with bugs!  

I was a little nervous leading up to the party, since I've never really thrown a kids party before. I guess I was just worried that the kids wouldn't really be into the activities I'd planned, but it really couldn't have gone better!