This 'n that

I think I need to designate at least 1 night a week as blog-update night... otherwise I seem to quickly fall behind!  Malea does so many new things, but by the time I get a chance to sit down and write about them, she has moved onto yet another new trick. 

I don’t remember if I already posted this yet or not, but she has been clapping “on command” for a long time.  If you say “clap Malea”, she would frantically clap with one fist, and one opened hand... it was the cutest darn thing... but just like so many of her other milestones, that one quickly passed as well, and she has moved on to clapping with 2 open hands.  Such a big girl.  But here is a quick video I took of Malea and Aubrey last week clapping together.  This was when Malea was still clapping with one fist and one hand.  If you watch til the end you'll get a chuckle out of Aubrey starting to clap with her fists like Malea.  Monkey see, monkey do: )

She is still an army crawling machine.  She scoots across that floor faster than I can keep up!  She pulls with her left arm and pushes with her right foot.  She finds a lot of humor in crawling underneath our barstools in the kitchen.  But sometimes she forgets how to get out from underneath there and gets P.O’d: )  Here is a short army crawling video for ya!

The past week or 2 she has really started to show an interest in pulling herself up on things... she hasn’t gotten the hang of it yet, but I think that’s partially because our hardwood floor is so darn slippery!  Last weekend she was trying to be such a big girl pulling herself up on our coffee table, but her feet slipped on her way up and she did a header right into the wooden leg.  Poor little peanut!! 

Last week I got the pleasure of staying home to play with Malea and Aubrey one day when Mom took Grandpa in for some appointments.  I had so much fun with those two little ones.  They get along so well and they brought so much joy to my day.  Here is a short video of them playing together on Malea’s new house she got for Christmas from Grammy and Papa... this seriously went on for a good 5 minutes prior to me getting the camera... unfortunately when I finally got the camera, they only did it 1 or 2 more times... but atleast I caught a little of it.... Aubrey would open the window, then move her hand and let Malea close the window... over... and... over... again: )  (Ok so I took this particular video on our video camera instead of our flip video camera... and I am getting frustrated trying to figure out how to get the video from my camera onto my computer, so I will update this post later with this video: )

Aubrey was sporting her "My Auntie Loves Me" outfit I got for her, and she thought she was a big shot sitting in Malea's little Hawkeye chair we got from the Pennekamps.  Is she sweet or what?!

We took a time out from playing to watch baby einstein for a few minutes... the girls were intrigued if you can't tell by the picture: ) 

A few things I keep forgetting to update on... Malea is no longer a spitter! Christmas Eve was our turning point... It was like she flipped a switch and decided no more spit-ups! YAY!!! So now I enjoy taking pictures of her in her adorable little outfits as opposed to her in adorable little bibs: ) The other thing i wanted to mention is that her hair gets blonder and blonder every day!  I think she is gonna be a little blondie like her mama was.  Her bangs are so long that when I wash her hair, they hang down past her eyes... hence why she always has a barette or something holding her bangs out of her face.  She's got some crazy hair!

Sunday we went to our friend’s, Brad & Molly’s, house for a super bowl party up in Waterloo.  It was so much fun seeing everybody, as my college roomie (Larissa) and her hubby (George) were there with their 2 little boys as well!  George and Larissa’s littlest, Ezra, is about one month older than Malea, so it was so much fun watching them interact with one another.  He is such a happy little guy too... we already hear wedding bells in Ezra & Malea’s future: )  Check out this duo! 

A few weekends ago we celebrated Mitchell’s 4^th bday with a ghost-buster party!  Here are a few pics from his big day!  Shane and Sara were going to take him to a monster jams show for his bday, so I’m anxious to hear from him about how he liked that.  Happy #4 Mitchy!!!