Leni

About Wednesday, Leni started pulling up on things to stand. Around the same time, she started picking up her feet and taking steps when we would walk her, whereas before she would kinda take steps, but usually drag her feet a bit. Honestly, I feel like this week while I was at work, Leni has changed and grown so much. I'm glad I won't have to miss any more milestones ...

Gemma

We bought Gemma a bicycle 2 days ago. Initially I wanted to get her a tricycle, but when I took her to the store, she wouldn't even look at a tricycle, let alone sit on one. However, her toes were just touching the ground on a 12-inch bike, so that's what we ended up getting her. She's been yearning for a bike so much every time we go past an open garage or a bike left on a random yard, she is begging to go see it. Jesse's parents got one of those balance bikes for her last summer, but she was too small. We put her on it as soon as the weather got nice enough and she is still too small for it and doesn't seem to like how clunky it is. Anyhoo, a pink bike with pink and silver streamers made all her dreams come true and she has spent every waking moment of the last 48 hours on that thing. Her helmet is permanently stuck to her head and she only takes it off to sleep. 

At first, she couldn't figure the pedals out and was getting really frustrated, but wouldn't let any of us help her. When I got home today, she was pedaling all by herself and was so proud. 

And I gotta say, it makes me so happy to see her so happy.

Leni

I don't know what has happened, but Leni has gone through a major personality change in the last week. I don't know if it's the newfound independence that came with her crawling or the fact that I went back to work, but she is a totally different baby. Actually, she acts like she isn't a baby anymore but a toddler! She is throwing little fits (if we take away something from her that she isn't supposed to have OR if the wrong person came to get her from her crib after her nap) and is crazy HYPER! She used to be so laid back, but I feel like she completely fooled us all with her sweet girl routine all this time. She is super fast, going from one end of the room to the other and wreaking havoc and leaving a trail of chaos behind her. Also, she does this thing that Gemma NEVER did - Leni will put little tiny things that she finds in her mouth. Gemma never, ever did that. She would put her toys in her mouth and stuff, but never little fuzzies or odd crumbs that you can hardly see or pieces of dirt that fell off someone's dirty clothes, etc. It scares the heck out of all of us because she's already been found with one too many tiny things in her mouth that shouldn't be there. Even though we vacuum religiously, she picks up everything the Dyson might leave behind (and that's not much!). 

So in short, Leni has gone from the "easier" child to the "oh man, I don't know how I'm gonna handle her when she's a bit bigger" child. Hopefully this is a phase that she will grow out of or else I need to have some major life lessons on how to deal with two extra-crazy toddlers!

Back to the Grindstone

Ugh, I can't believe I'm back to work tomorrow. When I called my boss to tell her that I was coming back in April, April seemed so far away. 

I have to go back to the office for a week for retraining (and thank goodness, they've changed so many things in the last 9 months) and then I'm home after that. Even though I'm up at 6ish everyday, I always go back to sleep after feeding Leni and I'm going to struggle trying to stay awake tomorrow. Being in the office at 7 means I have to leave probably by 6:20, so it will be an early, early morning. 

The girls will be well taken care of by my mom, of course, who has taken the week off from work to be full-time caregiver for the week. Thank you mom!

Crawling... Forward!

Even on her 9-month birthday 2 days ago, she wasn't doing too many forward "stepping". Yesterday, she did a two-stepper, and then today, she just whipped it out of nowhere! She looks like a cautious crawler still, kinda taking it easy, but I'm just relieved that she has reached this milestone. Here's a little video of this morning...

In other news, I took Leni to the health centre today to get weighed. At my doctor's office, she weighs the babies with all the clothes/diaper on once they're older than 2 months. I wanted a more precise measurement and so, even though we have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, took her to weigh her myself. 

Gemma was 19 lb 5 oz at 9 months. 

Leni is 21 lb 11 oz, 30 inches long. She wears 12-18 month clothes. The large-sized sleep sack that Gemma wore way past her first birthday is too small for Leni. 

As shocked as I was, I'm so happy to have such a healthy and sweet *little* baby girl.

Eyes

After watching an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, I had this hankering for crab. So while i was out grocery shopping today, I picked one up and mom cooked it. Gemma had already eaten, so she was just playing in the living room, but she would come by once in awhile to check things out. Then, at one point, she looked at the crab and shouted "eyes! eyes!.... don't eat the eyes, okay?"

Dry Overnight

I am so proud of Gemma! For the second night in a row, she has not had an accident during the night! About a week ago now, I decided (against Jesse's... opinion) to try putting Gemma to bed without a diaper. This was kind of a crazy thing to try, seeing as how she would wake up with a FULL diaper each morning, even with us not giving her anything to drink after supper. Needless to say, The first 5 days I did a lot of laundry! On night 3, I actually went in before going to bed myself, saw that she hadn't peed yet (on the bed or the potty), just picked her up in her sleep, and sat her on the potty. She was completely disoriented and didn't say a word, but she did pee. She woke up in the morning and peed in the potty. 

The next night... she peed in the bed... but peed in her potty upon waking in the morning. 

The next night, she had gotten up, peed, then peed when she woke up in the morning. That potty was so full of pee!

And last night, once again, she peed throughout the night in the potty. 

I am seriously so proud of her!

Leni

is crawling backwards! and she is so darn good at it. She will sit, crawl backwards, then sit, then change direction, the keep crawling backwards, then sit, then repeat. She gets around all over the place, gets stuck under sofas, tables, toys, etc., then screams in frustration. So funny.

Mom's Home!

Yay!!! Gemma and I went to the airport yesterday to pick her up and as she was coming down the escalator, Gemma started running, yelling "Harmoneeeeeeeeee"! She hasn't let her out of her sight since - asking "harmony, where are you?!?!?" if she is gone even for a moment. LOL. She had a great time, it sounds like, and really missed the girls. She says Leni has grown so much in the last 5 weeks and Gemma seems more "mature"... yeah right. Of course, the girls got completely spoiled with toys, DVDs, clothes, books, etc. I got some underwear and socks! Jesse got some underwear and a couple T-shirts. It has only been 30 hours since she's been home and it makes me wonder how I got by these past 5 weeks... She's already made supper, cleaned up the house (even though I cleaned the heck out of it before she got home), and helped get the kids ready for bed and read them bedtime stories. She's seriously super-grandma/supermom. I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE HOME, MOM!!!!

The Big News!

Another great weekend! Saturday we had a few friends over for dinner - good food, good company, and good talks - can't ask for more. Sunday, we spent a lazy day as a family. We went for a walk in the morning, followed by some fun at the playground, then came home to a nice and relaxing afternoon and evening. 

We have an announcement! No, it's not a baby. We're building a house! It's been quite a long process and the ground isn't even broken yet! Trying to come up with a design that met every requirement has been a challenge. I'm proud to say that we came to a final design that we love and this will be our "forever" house. Jesse and I decided that we would stay in Okotoks at least until the kids graduate high school. Even if our jobs changed to jobs that required major commuting to Calgary, the schools here are really great and rank very high in the list of Alberta schools. Of course, we like it here - the town-like atmosphere, but still really close to the city, though we have most things right down the road - Costco, Home Depot, McDonalds... LOL. 

Jesse and I always talked about building our "dream" home and we're thrilled that this is coming into reality sooner than we had expected. The new house will give us all the room we need and then some, mom will have her own ensuite, bonus room, my office, etc. It's also on a walkout lot (though I personally don't care for this), which means brighter basement. The neighborhood is basically a block south of us, which, I hope, means an easier move. Of course our concern is selling our current house, which we won't be listing until summer, trying to coordinate with our possession date of end of November. I really hope things go smoothly on that end, especially since we'll be the ones hosting some of my family coming from Korea for my brother's wedding in October. 

This is such an exciting time for us, but we also have a lot of anxiety with so many choices we have to make. Of course, financially there are some unknowns as well, but I really hope the great mortgage rates stick around for awhile.