The day of Whitney's birthday, we took a family trip to the children's museum. The girls had fun playing and exploring all the exhibits together. They really enjoyed spending time in the 1800's exhibit. Emry was hard at work making a birthday feast for the family....
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| Stoking the fire is essential to maintain the temp on the rotisserie. |
Now that Whitney is a year old, we thought it was important for her to start learning some new skills. We skipped sign language and speaking, we opted to go straight to handwriting...
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| "Rirruto?" "Those are Z's." "They look like R's to me." "That's not fair! Rizzuto is not a word, he's a baseball player. You're cheating!" |
So she hasn't mastered handwriting yet, but Whitney has picked up some new skills this month. She has been cruising on furniture a whole lot more. In fact, she really got into a climbing. The morning of her birthday she pushed Emry's footstool up to one of the dining room chairs. She climbed from the stool onto the chair. When Ken walked into the dining room she was in the process of climbing from the chair onto the table. Crisis averted!
By the end of the month, Whit got to the point where she was standing on her own for extended periods of time, but still hadn't taken that first step yet. Other physical things she's done lately are blow kisses, play peek-a-boo, waving and saying "bye-bye". She also added "baby" and "uh-oh!" to her vocabulary in February.
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| How big is Whitney? So big! |
But back to the museum...another exhibit the girls enjoyed together was the construction room...
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| If she doesn't make it as a project manager, she could always try out for the Village People... |
As you can see below, Whitney weighed exactly 23 lbs on her birthday, which was February 23rd. We don't know the significance of that fact, but maybe Jim Carrey will make a movie sequel about it...
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| "Its bad enough you put me in this thing for a photo op...then you advertise my weigh on the internet. How embarrassing!" |
Whitney continued the celebration later that night by pooping in the bathtub for the 5th time this month. We don't know what started this phase, but hopefully it will pass by quickly! Luckily, Whit has an understanding older sister who is willing to wash her in the sink after she's ruined bath time...
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| Maybe she just likes bathing in the sink? |
The next day, we celebrated Whit's birthday by having a small party with the extended family. For Whitney, the whole thing was just another day on the calendar. Emry, however, was a lot more excited about the cake, the visitors and all the presents. Emry was a huge help when it came to making Whit's cupcakes and getting the house ready for the party.
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| "Beater licker" is the most important job when it comes to baking |
A lot of times you'll see a child hesitate when they are eating their first birthday cake. Emry did such a great job baking that Whitney didn't hesitate to jump right into the cupcake! Of course, she had Emry there to teach her the proper way to eat a cupcake...
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| "First you admire the beauty of the dessert." "Ooh, nice!" |
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| "Next, you inspect the sprinkles" |
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| "Check!" |
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| "Then, you take a huge bite!" |
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| "Yummy!" |
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| "Finally, you show off your messy-face." |
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| "Like this?" |
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| "I ate that cupcake like a boss" |
After cupcakes, it was finally time to open presents! As we mentioned, Emry was a lot more excited about all the gifts "they" had to open. Whitney was more content with the paper and bows, but eventually Emry convinced her to play with the new toys...
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| "Whitney, you drop the ball in the top like this. |
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| 15 more years and she can pose with a real car... |
The girls have been playing together really well lately. One of the new birthday gifts that was a big hit with both girls was a trailer for the Cozy Coupe. Emry and Whit have had lots of fun being pushed throughout the house together in their new ride.
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While its true that the girls have been playing well together and sharing a lot, sometimes they get in each other's way and take each other's toys. They have even developed a little hint of a rivalry. Its a friendly rivalry, and Emry seems to instigate it most of the time. For instance, sometimes we'll play the game "How big is Whitney? Soooo big!" But Emry will quickly answer "Soooo tiny!"
Emry has also been pretending a lot this month. Sometimes Emry will assign each member of our family a certain role, and we have to address each other by our pretend persona. An another example of Emry instigating the rivalry is when she assigns our pretend roles, she always gives Whitney a crappy character - usually an insignificant animal. She sometimes pretends we are the neighbors, and she is Elise, Ken is John, Maren is Julie, and Whitney is the cat. Poor Whit doesn't even get a name! When Emry pretends we are Disney characters, Emry is always Mickey, Ken is Goofy, Maren is Donald(or Minnie), and Whitney is always Pluto.
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| Emry is "sharing" Whit's new toy leopard, but at least she was quick to comfort her. |
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| Everyone is happy again! |
Emry has been making us laugh on a daily basis this month with the things she says. Besides pretending a lot, she has been very observant of the things around her and makes very inquisitive comments about them. Every morning on the way to the babysitter's she talks about how the trees are naked. We told her they will get new leaves in the spring. Emry also has picked up a lot of random sayings from various sources. One day Maren asked Emry to get a book from her room. Emry sprang up from her spot on the living room floor and said "I'll be right back sweetie!"
Speaking of books, Emry has been reading like its going out of style. Sometimes she doesn't want us to read to her, she just wants to flip through the books on her own. There will be times when she gets a stack of 10 books and flips through the pages, looks at the pictures and talks to herself about what she sees. When she gets done with each book she neatly places it in a new stack until she's read all of them.
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| A picture is worth a thousand words |
Well another month gone by in 2013...it'll be no time before spring is here and the trees have clothes. The girls are ready to wave bye-bye to this cold weather. They can't wait to take the new car/trailer out for a spin around the block!
