Tonight was our annual pumpkin carving contest on our block. We live on the best block in the city, I think. We don't have just one or two cool neighbors. We have about 20 cool neighbors and we all hang out and have a great time together.
We met on the one side street where there's a dead end, so there's no traffic. Willa and her friend Theo practiced walking and showed off their costumes. Neither liked the headpiece to the costume, and Willa didn't last in hers for more then 15-20 minutes. Theo liked his bear costume a bit more, I guess. We didn't get a full-view shot of Willa's costume, but Seger Park (across the street from us) is having a Halloween festival tomorrow afternoon so we should be able to get more pictures then. Stay tuned...for now, here's a sneak peak at her costume and some of the very cool pumpkins that our neighbors carved.
The Barack Obama pumpkin(Barack O'Lantern?) was the winner based on the votes of all who attended. He won by a landslide. The pumpkin carving, I mean. Just to be clear.
Oh, I also posted some more pictures of our bathroom renovation - scroll down to see those.
Here are some pictures from our party tonight:
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Great Pumpkin
Bathroom - Days 6 and 7
The guys doing our bathroom are doing a great job. They're fast, do good work, and they clean. And when I say clean, I mean clean. They're nice guys, they talk to Willa each morning and evening, and I'm just so pleased! It makes writing the check(s) a little easier, especially considering I'm this excited and I can't even use the bathroom yet!! (This is Christie, by the way).
Markus took a few pictures on day 6 (Wednesday) and day 7 (Thursday, today). It should be finished in another week or two. We can't wait!!!
Day 6
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| 20081029 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 6 (Wednesday) |
Day 7
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| 20081030 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 7 (Thursday) |
Monday, October 27, 2008
Renovation
Our bathroom project is underway finally and work begain last Thursday.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
And just for reference, this is what the bathroom used to look like:
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Willa Walks
Willa decided to start walking on her own today. This came after roughly 7 months of "assisted" walking. Lately, her grip on our fingers had loosened so we knew that she was starting to find her own balance. Today, we took a family walk to Franklin Square and upon entering the childrens play area we put her down on her feet and she took about 7 or 8 steps toward the slide and grabbed on! She did this several more times taking at times up to 20 steps before stumbling.
Later we visited our own Seger park across the street and her walking continued with more confidence and a greater sense of balance. Then, tonight we captured this video. She still split between crawling and walking obviously, but she knows how to walk and can walk at this point.
We're so proud.
If the movie below doesn't play, just visit this link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2387110998217677809
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Major step
Yesterday, Markus came home and said the daycare teachers said Willa has started taking steps - without being goaded or forced!! She did it at home, too. We stood across from each other and Willa walked to me from Markus' arms!!! She only takes a couple steps at a time, but I think we're moving in the right direction.
Some of you know, but the reason we were so anxious for her to start walking is that the CHOP neurologist said they would discharge her at her next visit if she was walking by then. Her next visit is in November, so we were getting down to the wire! But now it seems like she'll definitely be walking (if not running) by then. We're so excited!
The other thing the daycare teacher said to Markus is that Willa was very happy yesterday and said Willa was dancing all day long. She asked "Does Willa dance and shake her butt a lot at home?" Markus told her, all the time. Last night, she came home, stood against her high chair, and promptly started marching her feet for a few steps and shaking her hiny back and forth. She's pretty good at the hiny shake now, so we're going to take some video.
I know we keep saying it, but we really will post some video sometime soon. There are too many funny moments now.
This morning, Willa started dancing in our bed right after she woke up. She was sitting up and starting moving her hands. We turned the radio on and she pointed. We said "radio". She said "way-doe". New word!
We'll post some pictures of the bathroom, too. In two days, our bathroom has been demolished - there isn't even a floor anymore! I opened the door yesterday and was glad I didn't take a step or I would've fallen in! They're doing the rough-in today, moving some plumbing, etc - we should see some major progress this week and cannot wait. It's a very exciting project for us - good bye to the yucky, ugly, outdate bathroom. Hello to a bigger, cleaner, more modern and stylish bathroom.
Oh, Willa is making the hungry word/sound now. Gotta go!
Friday, October 17, 2008
What is Willa doing these days?
I figured the last post could tell you a little bit about what she's doing now. The pictures capture some of these things, but not all.
In just the last week, Willa has become fiercely independent at mealtime. She has fed herself finger foods for several months now, but she started wanting to use utensils with assistance this week. She puts her spoon in her yogurt, lifts it up and turns the spoon upside down (so all the yogurt runs off) and very deliberately puts it in her mouth and sucks off the coating of yogurt for 20 seconds before doing it all over again. If we try to help her hold the spoon properly, she gets angry. If we use the utensil to try to feed her, well, she just won't eat. The daycare teachers have noticed the same thing. This is a good step, by all means, but certainly has given us some new challenges until Willa's fine motor skills improve! One night I fed her cereal and milk because I knew she liked it so much that she'd let me feed her. Tonight she ate her bunny-shaped cheese crackers and Multi-Grain Cheerios (dry) for dinner because she refused to eat the chicken and carrots I had put in a bowl for her. I guess it's better to eat something rather than going to bed on an empty stomach...
Last week, she also started using the sign for more when she wants more of something. We're working on saying more please and thank you in sign language, but so far she's only doing the more sign. It's very cute.
Willa talks a lot, starting with "hi, daddy" every morning (no matter who gets her out of the crib). We hear lots of boos, bye-byes (LOTS), and most of the other words I've mentioned before. Oh, how could I forget? She says "Willa" now! Sounds like Wawa. It always makes me smile. I don't think she understands that she's Willa, but she can say the word.
She's started blowing kisses. Each morning at daycare drop-off, I blow her a kiss. Sometimes she reciprocates. Usually not. Last weekend, we were out for dinner and she was waving at a man dining alone. He was nice enough to smile and wave back repeatedly. Then, without warning, Willa blew him a kiss!! She's also friendly during walks in the stroller, always waving at people. Or, when we get out of the elevator at daycare, she says "bye-bye" and waves to the other people in the elevator. Think she's a social butterfly?
I think those are the big things. She's not walking voluntarily yet, though she can (we've seen it). She can sit on a curb and stand up and sit back down - good gross motor skills that I think require more skill and balance than walking - so I think she just lacks confidence about her ability to walk or stand unassisted. When she finally walks, I don't know what we'll do. Probably fall over from shock! :-)
The rest of the pictures
To continue with the updates, we have two more short photo albums. I feel like I'm posting a lot of pictures but I guess most of you don't see Willa very much. Comment if you think I'm posting too many pictures or not enough, please. BTW, this is Christie. I'm not going through the business of trying to switch user names.
These photos were taken last Sunday night after Willa's bath. We played upstairs for a little while before bedtime. Her hair was so nice and clean and soft. It always is until she eats her next meal and puts her hands in her hair...
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| 20081012 - Playing on Third Floor |
Speaking of hair, one of Willa's teachers loves to do the kids' hair so sometimes when I pick Willa up or see her when she gets home (Markus usually picks her up), I see a new hairdo. Thursday, I had to pick her up and saw that Miss Tina had done pigtails again. They looked so cute - I think all little girl pigtails are. We took some pictures (note her additional bangs since the last pigtails pictures a few weeks ago - I swear they cut her bangs at daycare because her hair looks different from the initial trim I gave her - but I digress):
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| 20081016 - Pigtail baby playing in kitchen |
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Friday night party
Last Friday night, we and some of our neighbors decided to enjoy the nice weather with dinner and beers out in the alley behind our house. One particularly good neighbor had just swept the entire street, which was good because Willa crawled up and down throughout the night. Her white pants will never look the same...
Her little friend, Theo, and his parents stopped by later in the evening so the kids had great fun walking up and down the alley (and up and down and up and down). The mommies and daddies were pretty tired! This is the last post for tonight. I'll try to post the rest of the pictures this weekend. Final note: this was Christie making these posts. It's such a pain to load the pictures using Markus' account, then log back in to publish as me. I went to the trouble tonight and it still shows Markus as writing the posts. Boo!
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| 20081010 - Waverly Friday Night Party |
Hello? It's for you...
Willa has liked the phone for many months now. It beeps when you push buttons and it lights up. What's not to like?
As her vocabulary has expanded, she has started using some phone terms (hi, bye-bye). About two weeks ago, she started talking on the phone. She holds it to her ear and is so pleased. Then she goes back to pressing buttons and making the phone light up. When we put her on the phone, she'll now say bye-bye if the other person says that to her. She babbles on and on, too (she's her mother's child, what can I say?).
These aren't great shots. She usually crawls toward the camera as soon as she sees it now so I had to be a little discreet. You get the idea, though. The phone is very much fun for baby girl.
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| 20081005 - Willa on the phone |
Playing in her new closet
I know, I know, we have so much catching up to do! We have many pictures, so I'm going to make a few posts to break it all up.
This set of pictures is from October 1. We had put Willa's room back together and she loves playing in her new closet! She crawls inside and then opens and closes the closet doors to play peekaboo with you. It's so nice to have new floors that don't look or feel yucky, to have a proper closet in her room (meaning one that is standard depth - her old closet could only accommodate baby hangers), to have a cute little girl ceiling fan that is full of pastel colors, and to look around and see lavender. We decided it was time for Willa to have a more gender-specific room. Rest assured, we are not going all princess with her. We're staying away from that because it's inevitable that in a short time she'll be into the princesses on her own.
Here are some pictures of Willa playing in the closet, laying down and patting her hiny on her floor (after we said "baby go night night"), trying to lay her head down on a pillow, and looking nice and clean after a bath.
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| 20081001 - Fun in Willa's Bedroom |
