11 Months Old

It's hard to believe that next month we'll be celebrating Chloe's first birthday! She's growing up so fast.

I only got a few pics of her with Pooh Bear because she climbed out of the chair about 5 seconds after I put her there. That's one of her favorite tricks: rolling onto her belly to climb down - off a chair, off the couch, off Sophie's bed. Anyway, each picture was so cute and really showed off her personality, so I decided to include them all.
You can see what a happy baby Chloe is. She really only fusses when hungry, tired, or being tortured by her sisters. She loves to play outside, and she will open the screen door and head right on out by herself. She is completely fearless and adventurous. She loves to be on the trampoline while the girls jump. She still loves stroller rides but also loves to ride in the wagon - standing on the seat up front like the scene from Titanic. She's starting to develop more preferences and favorites now. Her favorite books are Goodnight Moon, The Very Busy Spider, and Pat the Bunny. Her favorite songs are The Wheels on the Bus (she does the hand motions which is adorable) and Open Shut Them. I wouldn't say she has a favorite food because she eats absolutely everything. Sometimes she surprises me by eating a very large quantity of a new food. For example, she tried blueberries recently and ate bowl after bowl of them for about three days. Tonight for dinner she ate about 2 ounces of halibut, rice, beans and diced tomatoes. She is the most amazing eater! I've started teaching her how to use a fork, and so far she seems to prefer her left hand.
One thing about Chloe is that she does not like to sit still. She is always on the go, mostly walking from one piece of furniture to the next, pausing to check out a toy and then moving on. She has several push toys that she can move very quickly across the house. She is also fond of pushing the toy stroller and shopping cart, as well as the kitchen chairs, trash can, and anything else that's not permanently attached to the floor or wall. The other day she pushed one of the kid-sized arm chairs over to the train table. She then climbed onto the chair, then onto the arm of the chair, and then up onto the train table. She really is the boy we're never going to have!

Chloe is a smart girl. She doesn't seem to talk as much as her older sisters did, but who could get a word in with them around anyway? Chloe does respond to my requests though, such as to sit in the tub during bath time (she likes to stand in there too) or to "spit it out", something that I am constantly saying since she still puts everything in her mouth. We also have a routine with her pacifier (she's allowed to have it in the car seat and in her crib). When she wakes up in the morning or from nap, I pick her up (the paci is usually in her mouth) and I tell her to put her paci away. She takes it out of her mouth, tosses it into her crib and waves bye bye to it. It's one of my favorite things that she does. She also blows kisses and gives high fives now.

As far as Chloe's health - she has two teeth that she loves to brush. She weighs over 20 pounds now and has been riding forward facing for a few weeks due to her getting car sick. She saw a urologist a few weeks ago and will be seeing a pediatric urologist on March 1st. We're still hoping to avoid surgery, but we probably won't know if she'll need it or not for awhile. Otherwise Chloe is healthy, happy and just tons of fun!

Chloe on Camera

Not only do I have less time to update this blog, but I've noticed that lately I take a lot less pictures. Andy is always at the ready with his fancy phone, and he uploads his pictures instantly to Facebook. But I'm still old-fashioned. I rarely even use my cell phone, and my hands are always so full dealing with the girls that I haven't been good about carrying my camera. The other day I tried to get a picture of Chloe's teeth while she was eating. I captured this picture instead - there's rarely a moment that she's not putting food in her mouth while in the high chair! In this picture I see a lot of my family's features, but in other pictures she still looks a lot like Andy as a baby. The red hair and blues eyes though...we get teased a lot about whose child she really is.

Lucky for me, Sophie is great about taking pictures with her camera. Here's Chloe ready for her close up.

Little Miss Sunshine

Chloe is such a sweet and happy baby. Even through all her illnesses, cutting teeth, hospital and doctor visits, her personality is so loving. She's growing up so fast - I can't believe she turn 1 next month! She's starting to develop her own relationship with each of us too. Any time Andy walks in the room, she blows raspberries at him. It's so funny because she doesn't do that to anyone else! With Sophie she likes to make loud noises and she can always count on Zoe to play kitchen or ponies with her, or just sit and look at books together. It seems like these days she almost too busy to sit and cuddle with mommy, but then every so often she wanders over and reaches up as if to say, "Just checking in mom!" and then she smothers me with kisses. Of course a few seconds of that and she's climbing back down to continue the fun!

Here's our sweetie enjoy story time with daddy.

Here she is after trying blackberries for the first time. She loved them and ate almost the whole container. Of course this was the one time I forgot to put her bib on!

Princess Days

We spend a lot of time playing princess related activities in our house. I have become an expert on all things Disney Princess too. I can name each of the princesses as well as her respective prince, pets, nemesis etc.

Here is Zoe during one of our princess tea parties.

A princess fort that the girls made. Chloe was not allowed in after she caused some destruction.

Zoe dressed up as Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Sophie dressed up as Rapunzel from the new Tangled movie.

Snow!

Ever since we started talking about winter, Zoe has been certain that it was going to snow in Tucson. Well, she was right. We didn't get snow at our house, but around the city there were reports of flurries. Some friends of ours invited us to a cabin just north of Tucson to check out some more substantial snowfall. The girls were ecstatic - they have never touched snow, and only seen it far away on the mountain tops. We spent about an hour playing in the snow before everyone got too cold.

Sophie loved going on the sled and throwing snowballs.

I was in charge of keeping Chloe warm. After growing up with lots of snow, I was not all that impressed with the cold wet stuff:)

Zoe had a blast until she slipped on some ice and fell on her butt - ouch! She was the first one to hop on the sled and go down the hill, and I'm pretty sure she tasted some snow.

Even daddy got in on the action. He got on the sled and threw some snowballs. Chloe had fun watching the kids and didn't seem to mind the cold.