Lydia is 1.25!

Lydia is 15 months old and is full of energy, curiosity, and emotion! She has remained consistently our high needs child. One minute she is bursting in laughter and the next minute she is bursting in tears. She is definitely a momma's girl, seeking hugs and kisses, and not liking it when anyone else has my attention. And while I could do without all the fussing, I love it that she lives her life with so much passion, and I fully enjoy all her snuggles.

Some skills Lydia is working on are eating with a spoon and riding ride-on toys independently. She loves to climb and always wants to be on the furniture, but is a little too short to do it by herself. Both her receptive and expressive language are growing quickly. She follows many one step instructions and she says around 20 words. She does not consistently say "momma" - pretty much everyone is "Dada".

Lydia loves to eat all kinds of fruits, breads, cheese, and crackers (goldfish are her favorite). She is not big on veggies or meat, but will usually eat a small portion. She does not like any form of potatos (unless you count tator tots) carrots or broccoli. She likes to drink milk and apple juice.

Lydia is wearing mostly size 12 months and a few size 9 months clothes. She has 7 teeth - 5 on the top and 2 on the bottom.

This is a picture of Lydia after she had rummaged through the closet. It kept her busy for a good 15 minutes, and only took me a couple minutes to clean it up!

Bananas are Lydia's favorite food. After her accomplice took them off the counter for her, she tried to eat them, peeling and all!

Lydia is wearing Reggie's pants! Not a common occurrence, but we had a little accident while Brett was sleeping in the room her clothes are kept and we had to make do with what we could find in the laundry room. Don't they fit nicely?

soul food saturday

We did our soul food menu on Saturday this weekend. We chose some of our favorites: fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits, and banana pudding. Bryan tried a new recipe for the fried chicken and made the banana pudding from scratch. It was the best fried chicken we have ever made, and the kids loved the pudding so much that they needed a bath afterward! I cheated and used my Mom's recipe for potato salad, because you can't mess with that kind of perfection!

We have really enjoyed incorporating our sons' heritage into our home through preparing and eating soul food - some familiar to us, and some new things. It was a fun way to celebrate together as a family since we all enjoy cooking and eating! I think it might become a new Wedan family tradition, but I don't think I'm going to wait until next February to make another sweet potato pie!

dating again

It's not as bad as some couples I know. You know, the ones where they just can't part from their baby for a couple hours for a date. I think we've actually done pretty good, considering the circumstances. We left both Brett and Lydia overnight by the time they were 5 months old.

Can't say that with Reggie - not that we wouldn't if given the opportunity. It's just that our kids are a lot of work. Neither one of our regular sitters are willing to watch all 3 of them solo unless they are all sleeping. So, that means if we want to go out, we need 2 sitters. By the time we pay for that, we'd have to pack a lunch and spend our date walking around the block - and I guess that wouldn't be terrible if it were sixty degrees warmer.

So, after Valentine's Day came and went without a date, it was decided that something had to be done. Ironically, one of the few blogs I still keep up with had a post about Project 52: Dating my husband one week at a time. The Project was started by another blogger - a busy mom with small kids who pledged to date her husband one night a week and then blog about it (and others are now doing the same). The dates are usually a set hour of the week after the kids are in bed, therefore not requiring a sitter. We've tried something similar before, but we quickly ran out of ideas of things to do, and it ended up just being another TV night. The great thing about this is we can go to the blog for ideas, so hopefully we will stick with it.

So, we had our first date Tuesday night - we had each written "bucket lists" and discussed them over ice cream. I don't plan to blog about our dates, but thought I'd post about it once. It is too easy to give all of our energy to our kids and let other relationships coast.

(We do actually have a real date set for this weekend! One of our sitters talked her roommate into helping her out and they are giving us a good deal.)

soul food sunday

This week's soul food menu was Bryan's Choice. He found the recipes, bought the groceries, prepared the food, and cleaned up afterward (like always!). We had jambalaya, fried okra, and hush puppies. Bryan and I had eaten everything before, but never made hush puppies. It was all new for the kids, and although they were willing to try it, they ended up dining on cheese, applesauce and grapes. But Bryan and I enjoyed the food!

not my idea

I have to respond to all the gracious commenter's who give me way too much credit for being creative. Most of the activities I do with the kids are not my ideas, and many come from "The Toddler's Busy Book" by Trish Kuffner. She has other books for other ages. I have found most of the activities to require little prep and they use items I just have around the house. Some activities are a flop, and some activities are surprisingly entertaining.This activity required an orange or grapefruit, a marker, and a paper towel. When you push your "bug" along a hard surface, it "jitters" around. Very cute and Brett really enjoyed it!
Trish Kuffner's book has come to the rescue on many cold days! (Thanks, Mom.)

highlights and lowlights

There hasn't been much to post about this week, but there have been a few highlights and lowlights:

• Reggie is definitely sitting without support.
• The wash machine broke down. The repair bill was $129 for a guy to spend 10 minutes pulling one of Lydia's sock out of the pump.
• The temp inched above freezing! We played outside twice this week, with sunshine and plenty of snow left for exploring. Reggie had his first play in the snow!
  
  (this is not in a snowbank, just randomly in the backyard)

• We tried out an ECFE (Early Childhood and Family Education) class for the first time. It was a lot of fun, especially for Brett, but trying to keep track of all my little chicks was exhausting! It paid off when both Brett and Lydia slept for 2.5 hours and Reggie slept for 1.5 hours when we got home.
• Two of us came down with the stomach flu, fortunately after the washer was fixed.
• We finally got Brett and Lydia's play kitchen from Christmas assembled. It has been a fun mid-February surprise for the kids.
• Lydia put her head under water 3 times in swimming lessons - no tears or coughing up pool water! Brett had to miss his swimming lesson due to the flu, but we successfully manipulated the situation so he didn't notice.

soul food sunday

We continued our celebration of Black History Month with some more soul food. On the menu was chicken and dumplings and pineapple upside down cake. The chicken and dumplings were good, but pretty ordinary food around here (although we used a new recipe). I had never made a pineapple upside down cake and it was yummy!

And a little story for Valentine's Day - early in our dating relationship, I told Bryan that red roses were a generic flower to give. In nearly nine years of birthdays, anniversaries, and Valentine's Days, Bryan has never given me red roses. But this time he did, and I am thoroughly enjoying them!

love is in the air

Reggie is 6 months old!

Reggie is 6 months old! He weighs 19.1 lbs and is 28.25 inches long. His weight is important at this point because it means he can continue to ride in his carrier car seat, and Lydia can keep riding backward in the convertible car seat - once he reaches 22, he'll move to the convertible, and Lydia will move to a new car seat facing forward.

Reggie loves to jump in his jumper and walk around the activity center in his seat. Of the three kids, he caught on to it the quickest. Although he has not been incredible interested, he is starting to eat solids. He seems to like oatmeal better than rice. He is rolling over from his tummy to his back.

Reggie moved into Brett's room, so it is unofficially now "the boys' room", although I haven't gotten personal items or decor moved yet. Reggie is a good night time sleeper for the most part. He will typically sleep from 7:30pm-5:30am. He is not particularly fond of naps.

Reggie has a beaming smile that is hard to capture - once he sees the camera, he puts it away. He is mostly easy-going, although he sure lets you know when he's not happy about something. It is fun to see him starting to interact with his brother and sister and to start to try new things.

But I'm not ready for him to be mobile yet.

Reggie enjoys the Children's Museum, too.

Reggie got tired of waiting for me to put his brother and sister down for their naps.

Reggie at 3 months

Reggie at 6 months

This video is not exactly action-packed, but I think all the grandmas who haven't seen Reggie since Christmas will appreciate it.

soul food sunday

On this Superbowl Sunday, we decided to cook up some good soul food! On the menu: barbecue pork ribs, collard greens and beans, corn bread and sweet potato pie. It was the first time any of us had tried collard greens or sweet potato pie, and Reggie had sweet potatoes for the first time!

Brett loves to help cook and bake. He helped with the pie and the corn bread!

dead of winter

It is the dead of winter here in Minnesota. Even though I post a lot about different outings, most days, we just stay home - looking at the same four walls all...day...long.... Yes, we get a little stir crazy. So, here are some of the things we have been doing to pass the time away - looking forward to warmer days.

playing with shaving cream
mixing ketchup and mustard in a ziplock baggie

playing in our fort

playing dress-up

wrapping ourselves in left-over Christmas paper

then making a ball with the paper

then playing a little game of broom ball

The ground hog saw his shadow, so does that mean spring is really only six weeks away?