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You are all ONE? I have ONE YEAR OLDS? I have THREE ONE YEAR OLDS?
What? I cannot believe it. My heart is exploding with love for you each of you. Every month that passes I swear I love you more than the last, if that is even possible. You make my heart smile more than anything in the world and you make life worth living each day. I never knew how much a mother's love was until I became your Mommy. I look at you all and I still wonder why God blessed me so much and why he felt I was worthy enough to mother each of you. I am so grateful.
You are such fun and happy little girls. You smile all of the time and play so great together. I am so lucky to have children that can play for hours with toys and I can get stuff done. You are so not attached to me and for that I am so thankful. I really belive it's because you have eachother. You love me and know I am here, but you don't care if I walk in and out of the room. You all just love palying with one another and I love that. You laugh so hard at eachother and are starting to really play with eachother more and more each month. No matter what toy one of you has, you all want it, even if we have multiples of the same toy. Sharing is not something you are learning easily. You have started biting each other out of frustration and it is NOT nice!! Natalee, when your sisters try to take a toy that you have, you squeal like a little angry piggy! It's so cute, but you are definitely letting your sister(s) know that you have the toy and you want to keep it.
Madelynn, you are still the biggest bully of all. You beat up and take toys, and you don't care who or what is in your way, if you want it, you go and get! Whenever I hear someone squealing, I know Madelynn, you are most likely doing something you shouldn't!
You all babble at one another like you are really starting to have your own conversations and understand each other, it's so cute.
You are all very dominant children. You want what you want and you know when you want it, whether that means your sister is playing with that particular toy or not! I constantly have to pull you away from one another so you all don't hurt or bite each other.
Out of all your toys, you love measuring cups, your new princess ride-on toys, the leap start play table, Elmo and your lovies the most. Madelynn, you love to run around the leap start table as fast as you can and when you fall down you laugh so hard and pull yourself back up as fast as you can and start going again. You laugh at yourself constantly while doing this.
Madelynn, you are still the dare-devil of the bunch. You have learned how to stand on toys and make yourself higger or bigger! You little munchkin, your are a crazy girl! You do it everyday and stand on anything you can. You figure out a way to get what you want and even in the "chick pen" you have managed to stand on toys to reach Mommy's desk and all the unorganized papers on it! Thank you for that. Also, Daddy and I have caught you completely climbing the "chick pen", scaling it, like Super-Woman. I almost died! You are too much sometimes, girl!
Madelynn, you also have eaten the paint chips on your railing SO much, that we have had to buy teething crib rails, which are awesome (post on them coming this week too!)!
You all love to lick and taste everything. No matter what it is, you all put things in your mouth immediately.
Madelynn, you bit your sister, Claire for the first time on 12.20.11, on her right hand and she didn't not like it at all. All of you have started "mouthing" each other and Mommy and Daddy, and we constantly say, "no biting". I don't think that it is necessarily intentional at this point but it's getting closer and closer to being that.
You all love laughing at the cats and Audrey! No matter what they are doing, you can have hours of entertainment from them! It's so funny!
You are all learning "no" very slowly, or you may take after your Daddy, and just have selected hearing already...silly girls! I say "no" and you all look at me and just smile...little hams! You know exactly what you are doing, you just prefer not to listen.
Claire, you love pushing buttons over and over. Sometimes musical toys have "disappeared" due to this obsession of yours.
Growing:
Madelynn - Your 5th tooth (the second bottom one to the left) popped through on 12.20.11.
You are all in size 2 or 3 shoes.
You are all wearing size 4 Pampers Baby-Dry Diapers and size 4 Pampers Extra Protection at Night.
In clothes, you all wear 12 or 18 months. You have very long legs, all of you, so most of your pants are 18 months. You can, however, still fit into some 6 month and 9 month onesies, just depending on the brand.
Madelynn and Claire, your eyes are still a beautiful blue and your hair is still a lighter brown and getting thicker by the day. Natalee, your eyes are a dark born and your hair is a darker brown than your sisters and much straighter. Your complexion is also a little darker than your sisters.
Madelynn and Claire, you stand at everything and can stand without holding onto things. Madelynn, you will walk between toys and can not hold on to anything for a few minutes, you just stand there.
Eating:
Madelynn and Natalee, you are pretty much on all people food. You eat bread, cheese, beans, french fires, potatoes, corn, carrots, peas, green beans, macaroni and cheese, pasta, rice, chicken, bologna, turkey, ham, steak...basically anything and everything that we have. Your favorites are corn, carrots, bread and cheese.
Natalee, you love yogurt too and fruit. Madelynn, you still refuse to eat yogurt and baby oatmeal, but you LOVE fruit.
Claire, you will eat cheerios, puffs, bread and cheese, and sometimes so veggies, but that is it. You spit everything out that touches your tongue immediately. You are a funny girl. You still spit at us sometimes and you have to have your puree foods. We still try at every meal to give you some finger foods but you just refuse!
Sleeping:
This month has been so wonderful due to serious sleep-training. I was so scared, read every book over the past year, article after article, listened to what others did and nothing was working. I was at my wits end with waking up every single hour to feed or soothe so I was ready to pay any amount of money to get you all to peacefully sleep through. Sometimes, Madelynn, you could drink 30 ounces at night just because you needed that "soothing sucking". I don't lie when I say you were foaming at the mouth, throwing yourself across the crib
It was by far so easy, I just had the issues not letting you scream but it took barely two nights and now I don't hear a peep out of you all. It is amazing and just proves that I was holding you back. I am sorry for that girls. Mommy has some issues of guilt with letting you cry and be self-sufficient at times, so I take full responsibility for this. But it was amazing and I am so glad I finally didn't give myself anymore excuses!
So now you are all sleeping from 7pm until about 9am! It cannot get any better than that!
Here you guys are at around 12 months old, taking our Christmas Card photos:
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| Natalee Lynn |
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| Claire Elizabeth |
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| Madelynn Christine |
