Arizona!

This post, as usual, is long overdue. I just had to get this post about Christmas up before March and it looks like I did it just in time! The girls and I spent 3 and a half weeks in Phoenix and Tucson. David joined us on Christmas Eve and left on New Year's Eve. The weather for the most part was great in Arizona (50s and 60s) while NYC was busy shoving snow left and right!

Ava with Auntie Michelle and cute Jaden at the Phoenix zoo

Hanging out at The Farm in Phoenix

Arden and Jaden holding hands. We loved meeting Jaden for the first time. We call Jaden our little goober.

Arden was obsessed with Ah Ma's necklace

Happy family

Arden's first Christmas present. Ava had to get in on the action, of course. Sorry to David for posting a not so fab Christmas morning pic.

Ava got a tricycle for Christmas for my parents. She loved riding it around the lake. Too bad we had to leave it behind. But that's the grandparents way of luring us back to Arizona for another visit!

Totally blurry picture but I love how much fun everyone is having in this picture.

Ava wasn't scared of Santa, but it seemed like she could take him or leave him

All aboard the Christmas train

Pony ride at the Christmas fair in Tucson

This was the cutest thing ever--grandpa and Ava on the swing together singing songs

Chronicles of a Clueless Mom: Incident #1

I think of myself as a clueless mom and oftentimes use harsher words than "clueless" to describe my mothering skills. But I need to be kinder to myself. Can I just say that motherhood is kicking my butt? It's been a rough couple of weeks with sick kids, Ava peeing in her bed constantly, Arden refusing to attempt to sleep through the night, and succumbing to illness myself. But I've survived it all and will survive whatever is thrown my way! Ha!

"Chronicles" implies that this will be an ongoing documentation of my foibles, and most likely I will do enough stupid things to fill a whole book. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Let's start with incident #1.

Sometimes I just have to let Arden cry a little bit in her crib in hopes that she'll fall asleep on her own. But that girl has a serious gag reflex and will vomit if she gets too worked up. So my hopes and dreams of letting her "cry it out" have been dashed. I'm joking about it being my hopes and dreams, of course, but to completely eliminate the crying it out method without even fully attempting it just means more sleepless nights for us. When David and I hear the dreaded gagging sound we both rush into to room and there in its full glory is a little puddle of her dinner. So the other night, after Arden's dinner made its unwelcome appearance, David stripped Arden's sheets and I threw the nastiness into the wash. After the wash was done, I started to transfer the sheets to the dryer and noticed some strange little wet circular substance fall out from the wash. I discovered that I had thrown in a diaper along with the sheets into the washing machine. Smooth! Finding a bloated, ripped apart diaper in the wash is the worst. As far as I could tell it was not a poopy diaper, but who knows? Trying to clean these water absorbing polymers from the washing machine was such a pain. I re-washed the load and somehow that took care of whatever I couldn't get out of the machine. Lesson learned by this clueless mom--check what I am washing!

Arden at 9 months

Stats at her 9 month doctor's visit:

Weight: 17 pounds 14 ounces (25-50th percentile)

Height: 29 inches (90th percentile or something like that)

What do I say about my sweet Arden? She is just a good-natured little nugget and I can just eat her up. So I love Arden to death but I have to admit there were a couple of weeks when I wondered why Arden had turned into such a challenge. Well, the obvious reason was that she had a cold and couldn't BREATHE, but for a while there I thought she was turning into Ava #2 (aka the worst sleeper ever). I think she is getting back on track now to falling asleep better on her own. Although sometimes she will just cry in her crib in the afternoon and won't take her afternoon nap. It is still tough at night since she wakes up 2-4 times a night. I nurse her back to sleep (I think I am repeating the same mistakes as I did with Ava) and put her back in the crib that is next to me. Sometimes she won't fall asleep and start squawking and she wants to play a little bit. At this point she ends up in my bed and she likes to put her mouth up to my face. Seriously adorable. I have to remind myself that someday she will sleep through the night!

Arden is up to some new tricks. She can do some serious army crawling around, and when she feels like it she can crawl on her knees too. She doesn't do that much around our apartment since we don't have any carpet.

Arden is quite a squawker. Whenever we make a roaring sound, she'll copy us. She can make really loud noises and hold a note for a long time. A friend who has had years of voice training said that Arden could be a singer someday. Arden likes to bop to music as well.

Arden is also known in our household as "The Wrestler." Anytime I try to change her diaper or clothes, she will twist and turn to get away. It is seriously a wrestling match to get her to lay or sit still for a second. It is one "body slam" after the next to get the job done.

Arden has started eating puffs and cheerios, small bits of cheese, and has tried pizza crusts, bread, and avocados.

Arden likes to squint/blink her eyes playfully

She only has two bottom teeth and just a few more strands of hair.

Santa's little helper

I'll never get enough of this girl

Anytime something is on Arden's head she tries to take it off

Arden does this funny thing of putting her four fingers up to her mouth when she is tired. She doesn't put her fingers in her mouth, just up to her lips while she sucks on her bottom lip. My family got such a kick out of this in Arizona.

"How big is Arden? So big!"

Little Eskimo asleep on the floor

Ava and Arden like to look out our big window

Arden can say "dada"

Ava thinks of this jumper as a swing and pushes Arden back and forth...until I catch her. I must say that Arden puts up with Ava's rough housing very well. Ava likes to wrestle her, slap her face somewhat gently, sit on her and steal whatever is in Arden's hands. Ah, sisterly love.

NYC December Diversions

December in NYC is magical, with lights everywhere and all the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season that NYC has to offer. Unfortunately I didn't make it down to Macy's Santa Land before I headed out to Arizona on December 15. We did, however, experience a few fun things.

We didn't send out Christmas cards, but wow, we actually made Christmas cookies this year (even if it was all from a box at Trader Joe's). Oh, can I just take a second and give the Upper West Side TJ's a shout out? You know I love you!

Santa dropped off her Tinkerbell umbrella at our front door.

Too bad we couldn't get closer but the American Museum of Natural History had a beautiful origami decorated Christmas tree

Santa also dropped off Christopher Pop-in-kins (a little elf that Ava loved to hold), along with a book telling the story about Christopher. He watched Ava to see if she was a good girl and reported to Santa. David and I would hide him every night and Ava was supposed to look for him the next morning. But she constantly forgot about him, especially in Arizona. I loved having Christopher around so I could say "you better be good, or else Santa won't bring you any presents". This trick should be good for a few more years. Yes!

Rockefeller Tree is so massive and gorgeous. Ava is conked out. Arden is in her Eskimo suit in the stroller.

The Holiday Train show at the New York Botanical Gardens. It was so cool to see all these New York buildings, landmarks and bridges built with plant materials with little trains whizzing down the tracks in front.

More pictures of Ava at the New York Botanical Garden refusing to look at the camera

The "Tootle" show at the New York Botanical Garden. Very cute.

Ava with a big wad of cotton candy in her face. The Time Warner Center was all decked out for the holidays.

We didn't want to brave the crowds at the Rockefeller Tree Lighting, so we settled for the next best thing--the Lincoln Center tree lighting

Checking out the Christmas windows at Saks Fifth Avenue

The American Girl store

Ava with Ella and Lilly at the American Girl store. Ava doesn't have a doll yet, but I think she'll get one soon!

Thanksgiving Smock-style

Our first Thanksgiving in the city was a lot of fun! We went to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons the night before the parade. We didn't feel like waking up at dawn to get a spot to see the actual parade, so we thought seeing the balloons the night before would be a decent substitute.

On Thanksgiving day we took the train to Stamford and was picked up at the train station by family. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Rob and his family, Chris and his family, Julie and her family, and Papa Smock even flew out from Utah!

David had to work the day after Thanksgiving so I had time to recuperate with the girls from the night before. That same weekend we also went to Gabe Smock's baptism and shared a fabulous meal with family at Chris and Thayer's house. It was a really special Thanksgiving with the Smocks.

Love Hannah's face in this pic. Too bad Zoe's is blocked. The balloons were all tied up but it was still cool to see them.

At Pound Ridge before Thanksgiving dinner-too bad our apartment doesn't look like this!

All the grandkids were climbing all over Papa

Of course David was seated first at the adult's table-it was an amazing spread!

Ava with a cheesy smile at the kids' table. For once dinner wasn't a battle!

We ended the evening with ukeleles and songs. Also loved the Wii's Just Dance 2 party we had (sorry, no pics of any booty shakin' because I was too busy dancing)

Big girl bed

About two weeks ago David decided it was time to change Ava's crib into a toddler bed. He got out the tools and Ava watched with interest as her bed was transformed from prison to possible sleep area. Thankfully Ava has loved her new bed.

It hasn't been too eventful with the changing of the bed. She refused to nap one time and has come to our room in the middle of the night with declarations of "it's not night time anymore!" a few times. There have been a few times where she comes out while David and I are watching TV and wants to join in the festivities. One night she opened her door and shouted "go to bed, guys!" then quickly shut the door while David and I burst out laughing.

One useful thing about changing the bed is that it encourages good behavior. When Ava doesn't listen, we'll say that we'll change her bed back to a crib. One time after a threat, she ran into her room to see if her bed was changed and excitedly said "oh, it's not a crib!" Ava is such a big girl now that she doesn't want to wear pull ups to bed anymore. So far, so good...

Growing up way too quickly

My friend Lesley was so nice to take a few pictures of the girls recently. Ava and Arden look so sweet and grown up. Time is passing by too quickly!

Arden at almost 8 months-she smiles constantly but you have to work to get the giggles

I'm holding onto her hand here. She is not even close to standing on her own. She's not crawling or even completely sitting on her own without supervision. And I'm fine with that!

We're growing out her bangs, so usually her hair is in her face a lot. I made a little effort for this photo.

It's not always easy to get a natural smile from Ava, but this is pretty close