Rebekah Joy - 35 Months

It is hard to believe that Rebekah is going to be 3 in just a few weeks! 

Sleep - No real changes here. 

Eating - Still a great eater.  Loving ice, even in her milk!  She has moved out of the highchair and into the bumbo seat at the table.  She is able to get in and out of it by herself, just not to push the chair in :)

Skills - Rebekah has started turning on and off the lights, with the aid of her step stool.  She has been climbing up the bunk bed ladder for a several months but now she is able to climb down on her own. 
This month she has become a self-dresser!  It is super exciting to watch her get dressed on her own.  She tends to put the socks on with the heel on the top of the foot and occasionally her panties are on backwards but she does her shirt and pants all by herself with very minimal issues.  Rebekah has also taught herself how to write the letter R.  One day she called me over to the craft table saying "Mama, look at my R" and I was taken aback at how awesome it was!  It looks great and she learned to do it all on her own. 

Play - Rebekah and her sister have been playing "baptizer" for a few weeks now following several baptisms at the churches we were visiting when we first arrived in Alabama.  She has always loved to read and be read to but she has really taken up with telling stories from a book based on the pictures.  It is really sweet to listen to her telling these stories to her "kids" (AKA stuffed animals).  It is still really really hot here in Alabama.  The pool was closed on Labor Day and unfortunately Fall did not arrive the next day.  Prior to the pool closing, we went everyday.  There is a splash pad next to the pool and Rebekah was never a big fan until one day I brought a couple of plastic cups .  Those gave her a new found love for having water spraying around!  We did some sock puppet snakes for our S week and Rebekah just LOVED it.  She continued to play snakes for weeks after that, just about every time she put a sock on, it ended up on her hands and she was chomping someone!

Education - I am starting to do more independent work with both girls during school.  I've been trying to work with Rebekah on her counting and letter recognition using some Montessori activities I've found on line and she is doing well with it. 

 

 

Pasta Making

The next installment of my Continuing Homemaker Education is pasta making!  My parents got me this awesome pasta maker for my birthday last year which was the day before we had our 3rd child so needless to say, it didn't see daylight for a while.  Following our long vacation and the move to Alabama I decided it was finally time to break it out and attempt some homemade pasta.  Faith helped me with the whole process and we had a great time together.  I don't know how I would have done this with only my two hands!

We had fettuccini alfredo with chicken and broccoli.  I made my own alfredo sauce (which I had to learn to make after my second worst cooking disaster ever (the first being eggplant parmesan)) so this was about as homemade as I can get right now, until I have my own chicken ranch and garden!

Grace AnneMarie - 10 Months

The day Grace turned 9 months she started crawling and got her first tooth.  I had already written her update for that month so they didn't get included.  She currently has 2 teeth on the bottom and the cutest little grin.  Her smile is pure joy when she claps her hands at my singing or Frank's playing the guitar.  I just love it.  She is completely enamored with her sisters (who wouldn't be!) and finds a great deal of fascination in the dog as well. 

Sleeping - Her nighttime sleep is great and she usually wakes up around 7:30/7:45.  We ended naps in the car seat, which was painful for about 2 days and now she is fine in her bed.  They do seem to be sporadic as to whether they last longer than 45 minutes or not but that was happening in the car seat as well during the last month.  If she were my first child I would probably devote an entire spreadsheet to tracking her naps but for now, she is happy even if she wakes up early and that is enough for me!  Toward the end of the month, Grace developed a fever of over 102 and reaching 103.5 for several days.  Thankfully it was not an ear infection and after I finally got the right dosage of medication for her and administered it, the fever broke; however, she developed a rash all over her body and the symptoms show it as roseola.  The rash doesn't seem to bother her but her nighttime sleep has been affected for a few days. 

 

Eating - Wow!  Grace loves to eat.  She loves to feed herself, anything. I have yet to put anything in front of her that she didn't just go crazy over.  She loves meat, beets, veggies, fruit, cheese, everything she can feed herself.  She is not too big a fan of yogurt right now (reminiscent of Rebekah) but she does give the same horrible reaction when presented with some yogurt, she simply takes a few bites and is done.  Nursing is going well.  During my period this month my milk supply dropped and has never fully recovered, I'll probably start supplementing with formula this week. 

Skills - Crawling, everywhere.  She is a mobile baby now and loving it.  She comes pretty consistently when I call to her and responds after only a few corrections to all the "No's" that have suddenly entered her world.  Thankfully for me (but not for her) I have 2 additional helpers to alert her to all the 'No' items in our house.  She is working on pulling herself up on the coffee table.  Grace does enjoy crawling over obstacles to get to the places she wants.  I don't know if this is a skill or just a game she likes to play but if I bring my head close into hers she will bring hers in the rest of the way to head butt me and then she just laughs like its going out of style.  Grace has also discovered books!  If there is one on the floor she wants it (not during solo play though, she is content to just scream then no matter how many books are available).  She enjoys being read to and looking at books on her own. 

Peach Picking

Sweet Home Alabama.  We are only here for a year so I want to make sure we get out and do all the things that Alabama has to offer.  Our first adventure...Peach Picking.  We took an hour drive north of Montgomery to a small farm to pick our own.  We ended up with something like 30lbs of peaches.  My helpers donned their aprons and we got to work making peach butter, peach preserves, peach leather, dried peaches, and peach ice cream.  Its a good thing Grace likes peaches because she's gotten a lot of them!  The peach butter turned out awesome; it took a few tries to get the peach leather down but we finally did and that is in the pantry for a time when we are all out of peaches.  The peach ice cream is frozen sliced peaches that we will add milk and sugar to when we are ready to eat.  A guy at the peach orchard told us to make them that way, said it was the best!

Rebekah Joy - 34 Months

Rebekah is such a little cutie and I really do love this age.  It has its challenges but overall, I love how much she is learning and how sweet she is.

Sleeping:
No real changes in her sleep.  She made the transition to our new home in Alabama just fine.  Naps still start at the same time

Eating:
Rebekah has decided that she doesn't really like quesadillas for snack (just flour tortillas and butter).  She also doesn't really care for tomatoes.  We have been learning how to eat salad and I try to keep the tomatoes to a minimum although she still does have to try them.  She also has begun to enjoy ice in her water.  We have an ice maker on the front of our fridge here in Alabama and she is able to fill up her own cup with ice and water and has been loving it.

Skills:
Rebekah is showing great improvement in her jumping and is always asking "Mama look at this."  She has grown strong enough to climb up the slide on the play set in our backyard.  She has started memorizing and singing more of the songs in the car and the ones we sing in church. Watching her sing and do the motions for O Happy Day is so sweet!  Also, another sweet story is that one day we were out painting the play set and the girls were watching and providing moral support to their parents sweating in the sun; Faith had finished her water and wanted some more and was denied for the time by me but Rebekah chose to give up some of her water for her sister.  It warmed my heart to see her loving like that.

Play:
We were moving most of this month so we were in upheaval but Rebekah adjusted well to each part of the process.  Since we've been in Alabama she has been very into "driving" in their chairs, pushing their shopping cars with their kids in them.  Rebekah loves her stuffed animals and if she could she would carry around 3 or 4 with her everyday.  I usually limit her to one baby and one stuffed animal. 







 

Saying Good-Bye

As we prepare to leave our home of the last 4 years, we are saying our good-byes.  It isn't like I didn't know this would happen; my husband is in the military and really 4 years in one place is a lot for us and really it is the longest we'll be anywhere again (at least while still drawing a paycheck from the USAF).  If it had to be anywhere, I am glad it was here.  I have made some of the best friends here, met some truly amazing people.  We've enjoyed a wonderful church full of people who love Jesus and challenged us at every step.  Two of our three kids have been born here; this is the only home any of them has ever really known.  Coming here was literally the best thing for Frank's Air Force career.  I know my way around this place and have gotten used to the uniquely Arkansan accent (where tin is actually ten).  All this to say, I really hate saying good-bye.  For the most part though, the people we've met and love here, we will see again, perhaps not on this side of heaven but we'll see them again when we are all looking a lot better!  So, as we leave Arkansas and move on to parts further south, I am sad at what I am leaving because of the military life we lead but am grateful that we got to come here.  Without the military we never would have ventured to such a place and found the best of folks here.  Thank you to all our Arkansas friends for stuffing this place full of memories. 


We are in our new house in Alabama now, finding our way around our new city of Montgomery.  A big thanks to my parents who made this move so smooth and pleasant!  I've found the Wal-Mart and the pool, both important places :)  Most of the boxes are gone from our house, other than the 2,000lbs of our household goods that haven't made it yet.  I am drinking tea these days because the coffee pot was part of that 2,000lbs along with our patio furniture and my measuring spoons.  The moving company said they "are working it" but gave no other indicator as to when we might see the shower curtain rod for the girls' bathroom.  There is a great play set in the backyard of our new house and we have already stained it in preparation for hours and hours of play.  We are starting our church hunt tomorrow and are excited about what God will do with our willing hearts here in Montgomery.
I don't have any pictures of the house but this is the play set and Frank working hard at staining it :)

Grace AnneMarie - 9 Months

Sleeping - Still doing well at night and at naps really but those have been in her car seat and we are about to end that :(  She isn't really growing out of it but I know it needs to happen and she'll be fine after a few days of adjustment.  Nighttime is what counts and she is a great sleeper.  We've had a few days of interrupted sleep but I chalk that up to the move to Alabama.

Eating - Nursing continues as before.  She is a champion eater and has liked every new food she's been presented with.  The whole avocado is going over much better than mushed up.  I've started giving her more and more things to eat on her own as she is showing some skills with feeding herself.

Skills - I don't really know what clapping shows developmentally but she is doing it.  She claps when someone comes in the room or she hears a noise she likes or sometimes for no discernible reason at all.  She isn't really crawling but wants to SO badly.  She is skootching around with one knee under her and then landing on her tummy and getting frustrated by her lack of mobility.  It should only be another few days before she just takes off!  She has become more interested in books as something other than just a chew toy.  Grace has also become enamored with the dog, which is funny for me but not as funny for Lady.

Grace is still so happy, always smiling and laughing and cries when tired or hungry.  Of course we haven't done solo play for the last several weeks so that should bring out the waterworks when that starts as well.  She is about to move from 6-9month clothing into 9 month.  No teeth yet but they have to come in someday :)