November
was a month of thankfulness. I really
enjoyed coming up with something I am thankful for each day. It is always a great practice to think of the
positives in life, but there is something wonderful about writing them
down. To name a few, I am thankful for
the chance to stay at home with Alethea, for the finances to fix our car when
it breaks, for a wonderful husband and daughter, encouraging and supporting
family and friends, and the one thing I couldn't publicly be thankful for in
November is the little baby growing inside of me. Looking forward to meeting this little one
next summer!
My Smiley Girl!
This
year November was a bit different for us than it has ever been in the
past. We chose to stay here in SC for
the month instead of flying to visit family in NY for Thanksgiving because of
the cost. Granted we missed family, but
that ended up being a blessing in disguise for many reasons. We saved a ton of money, I didn’t have to travel
while so early in pregnancy (though we didn’t know I was pregnant when we made the
decision), we got to spend time with friends on Thanksgiving, and we got to
relax for the entire four day work break Ben had with a little bit of
decorating for Christmas and announcing our big news to family thrown into the
mix. J All in all is
was a fabulous Thanksgiving and reminded us of all the things we truly have to
be thankful for this year.
Ben
has been busy as always this month. He
is beginning to wind down his second to last semester of graduate school
(yay!), but with that comes an increase in work load. He has still managed to be an amazing husband
and father, and has been an incredible blessing to me picking up extra slack
around the house since my productive waking hours have decreased so much. He’s pretty much the best if you ask me! He is still really enjoying his leadership
responsibilities at work and it’s so fun to hear how excited he gets about
trying to make sure he is doing the best to lead his department that he
possibly can.
She loves having her Daddy home to read to her
Snuggles with Daddy and Apollo
Trip to California Dreamin' on the water for Veterans Day
I
have been doing a lot of cooking this month.
I am making it a point to try out a bunch of new recipes and not skip a
beat on cooking, even with being tired, because I know that I will have to take
a cooking hiatus (at least for trying new things) for a while to adjust. It has really brought a lot of joy and
fulfillment for me to see how much Ben is enjoying all the new things we have
made as well. Unfortunately, with
heightened smell and pregnancy aversions, it has been a bit harder to
incorporate the ingredients we get from our CSA. I have been giving away/throwing away many
things simply because I can’t stand the smell and then we have been cooking
them with a lot of butter to make them eatable for me. J Sadly, I
am thankful the CSA ends in a week, though I do plan to try again when I am not
pregnant.
Homemade Pizza Pockets
Italian Chicken Pasta Bake
Pizza burgers, buttered cabbage, and homemade sweet potato fries
Homemade Chicken Gnocchi soup
Funfetti cupcakes from scratch
My best little helper!
It
think Alethea finally took a break in her physical growth this month (minus the fact her hair has become quite the poof, lol) and
decided to work on her language skills a little bit. Her stats at 21 months were 35.5inches tall
(same as last month) and 26.2lbs (.2lbs more than last month, but still less
than her 19 month stats). She also
gained a few canines this month. All of
them broke through this month and now she is up to 16 teeth total. She was a trooper with them all and, other
than chewing on her hands and maybe some appetite/BM changes (though that may
have been due to the residual effects of roseola), we never really knew she was
teething. She still hasn't been eating
great, but there has been much improvement in the latter part of the month and
she at least gained a tiny bit of weight back.
A new fave we discovered this month is pancakes with real maple syrup. She loves those pretty much any day of the
week.
Looking so big at the lunch table
Love this look as she poses in her new Minnie shirt Grandma got her
This
month has definitely been the language revolution for our sweet little
girl. She is finally mimicking pretty
much everything we say (in her own way) and she has developed quite the
vocabulary. Unfortunately I haven’t done
a great job of writing down her words, but I have racked my brain to remember as
many as I can. She started saying A LOT this
month! She has says the names for three
of her buddys: “molluh” for Molly, “Uh-lah” for Eli, “Reese”, and “uh-key/uh-tey”
for Elise. So fun to see her excited
about seeing them! She also loves to
melt her Papaws heart by calling him and saying “paw-paw”. It has the sweetest inflection and it is
really the only grandparent name she says consistently (A LOT). Other words: “chee-ya” cheerio or yogurt (not
sure why, lol), “cheese”, “kah-ee” car, “seat”, “lah” light, “eat”, lots of L
sounds for banana (not sure why on this one either), “ah-la-oo” I love you, “hummm”
home, “pay” pray, “ah-mayne” amen, “hice” ice/ice cream, “yes!”, “poo-poo”, “peas”
please, “kay” okay, “ah-mow” Elmo (never seen Elmo shows but we have lots of
dollar store books with Elmo in it), “tee” teeth/tv/tree, “yuckeeee” yucky, “ha/bah
da/ma” hi/bye dad/mom, “hallow” hello (loves to say this on her pretend phone, “dow-duh”
sock, “nak” snack, “rowwwl” roll, “tchoo” two, “muh-muh” muffin, “ca-cake”
pancake/cupcake, “bollow” bottle (as in her play bottles), etc. I know I am forgetting some, but this was all
I could remember. It is so nice to have
her speaking to communicate and now the challenge is just translation, lol.
Best Buds!
In the midst of saying Papaw
Some dinner babble and then the dogs barked...
I love how she says "hallow!"
She
still loves to read a bunch, and that has become a regular part of naptime and
bedtime routines. We have even moved
onto some pretty wordy books at bedtime (like Dr. Seuss, Curious George,
Paddington Bear, and more) and she will sit through them. I have avoided TV with her for as long as
possible, but she has developed quite the liking for cartoons of late and we
let her have a treat while prepping lunch and sometimes while prepping
dinner. We usually just turn on whatever
is on PBS at the time and, as long as it is cartoony (lots of Sid the Science
Kid and Wild Kratz), she doesn't care. I
still try to limit it most days, but she really enjoys it so it makes for a
nice transition activity some days. J
This
month she went on the potty for the first time ever. it started when for the first time in at
least 6 months while running around naked after bath, she peed on the
carpet. I screamed and scared her into
stopping and Ben decided to pick her up and run her to the bathroom to pee and
she did. Yay! Sense then she has peed
several times on the potty asking every time, except the one time she just went
in during her naked after-bath time and climbed on the potty (no potty seat)
and went all by herself, lol. I was
toying with jumping into potty training this month, but I want to make sure she
is truly ready and the method we are going to use for potty training recommends
waiting until 22 months if they aren’t waking up dry in the morning. So that puts us in December starting, but we
are going to wait until after our NY trip in January so we aren’t taking a
newly potty trained kiddo on a plane. J She still gets to go whenever
she is interested and we will continue that fun/positive relationship with
pottying, but no starting until after the New Year with the official training.
One
of my favorite things of late is seeing her empathetic and caring side come
out. She is always very aware of how
everyone is doing around her and if she things someone or something is hurt she
immediately asks “kay?”. And then if she
is in the position to, she offers kisses as a way of making things better. So sweet!
I also love seeing her excitement over the Christmas tree. When we turn it on at night she says “awwww…..lah….tee” (awe, light, tree) and has a blast playing in the room with the tree for a little bit and dancing
to our Christmas pup and nativity music.
(quite the musical combo, lol)
Checkin' out the Christmas tree
My little fluff ball :-)
A little pre-bath goofy-ness, lol!
Snuggles for Basil
I
feel like I am leaving something out, but those are really all the big things I
can remember. The month has been filled
with lots of outside time and relaxing for Alethea and I, and then enjoying
whatever family time we can get with Ben.
God has been good to us yet again and we are looking forward to seeing what
the next month has in store with Advent and the celebration of our Savior’s
birth!
One last video of my dancing queen...she loves music and loves to dance!
