Holland 10 Months

Oh this girl is just as sweet as a honey. Being 10 months old has meant a lot of changes for Miss Holly.

We have started feeding her more types of food. She still really doesn't like baby cereal mixed with milk. But she does seem to like sitting on my lap at dinner and be finger fed soft food from my plate. She has had rice, bread, tortilla, avocado, asparagus, banana, and grapes. We have done avocados the most. Since I feed her mostly from my fingers, when she sees something that I am holding that she wants to eat, she grabs my wrist/arm/hand and moves the food to her mouth that way. I am officially a spoon.

Holland is also starting to get more and more mobile. She can now move herself pretty deliberately forward. Not so much a crawl as a scoot. She pushes up on her knees and toes and kind of flops forward to get ahead a few inches. That, combined with rolling and moving backwards means that she gets around. She has just barely started to follow us. I will put her in a room next to the kitchen, and a few minutes later (with lots of loud breathing and struggling sounds) I will hear her soft hands starting to pat the tile, or the whine noise that means "I want to be picked up, Mom" at my feet.

She loves, loves to play with her tongue. It is almost always hanging out of her mouth! She twists it a lot and also clicks it. She also likes to smack her lips. It is adorable!

See that tongue! She also likes playing with other toys. Especially she likes being sat next to the tub of magformers and unloading those bright toys.

Holland's new tricks include waving and clapping hands. It is about the cutest thing in the entire world. Really, I think that is an accurate rating on the cuteness scale. :)

We ask her to wave and clap, which she will do, but it works better if we do it while we ask her so she kind of copies us.

She is getting so big! Her very first tooth came through on April 8th. Nearly 11 months old--not bad! I love that gummy smile, but I bet those teeth are going to be adorable. She doesn't drool nearly so much anymore but has been a little fussy. We will blame the extra fussiness on those tender gums.

Holly has also started to recognize the word, "Milk." Especially when John says, "Do you want some milk?" I often get a little frantic baby on my hands.

She is so giggly and sweet! She loves being tickled and playing peek-a-boo. She still loves baths and splashing like crazy. We love our Holland!

Easter 2016

I have three girls! It stands to reason that they must be my real life baby dolls, right? So when it comes to a traditional time to buy them sweet new dresses and take their pictures, this year I couldn't resist. Every time I went to Costco for the month or two before Easter I would see these beautiful spring colored dresses. Of course I resisted and resisted, until the selection was more limited. And when I finally gave in, I couldn't find the right sizes.

Fortunately for me (or maybe unfortunately for my wallet) Phoenix has no shortage of places to spend your money, so there are at least 3 Costco's within 25 minutes of my house. I visited all three. Of course my mom and I chose to do this the morning she was flying back to Utah. So we pushed it close enough that we almost made her miss her flight--actually this is pretty typical and hardly journal worthy.

On Easter morning we went to the nearby park and took these family photos. For once everything seemed to go right. The light was pretty. The children were fairly cooperative (although Miriam almost dug in her heels). The baby did not blow out on her dress, even though she was overdue for an epic blow out. It was amazing.

One, two, three, click, click. We were done in 15 minutes. It was a miracle! I didn't have anyone there to do a full family shot so we used the tripod and the remote which worked pretty well, although I have no idea how to get a baby to look at a camera without someone there to attract her attention. Also, you can see the remote in my hand--I didn't think to try to hold it more discretely. Whoops! Whatever I still love how the photos turned out! I love the individual shots of my beautiful three girls!

Eliza wanted to show the four-leaf clovers she found. She said she found six. It made her whole day!

Holland. My goodness, what a sweet baby! I love these photos of her!

I made Eliza do a couple without the clovers. Mean mommy, no she was really happy about the whole thing. What a blessing that girl is to me!

Me and my girls!

 Holly's new tricks are clapping and waving.

We did an Easter egg hunt that afternoon. See the fun Easter craft we did? Wrapping starch drenched yarn around water balloons, let them dry and then pop the balloons. Turned out it was a bit too hard for my Miriam so it was mainly Ellie and I that did it. Still fun! We hid eggs around our front room and the three girls looked for them. Okay, Holly's participation was minimal. :)

There were a few other treasures besides candy. Like this forever shedding boa.

Sweet Holland was happy to just play with the eggs.

The older girls were more interested in what was inside the eggs. They especially liked the white chocolate Cadbury mini eggs. John and I thought they weren't worth the calories, especially compared to the dark chocolate ones--yum! I have eaten way too many of those this candy season!

That boa sure is cute on the girlies though!

Feathers, feathers, everywhere!

That morning we had a cream cheese Danish for breakfast with a pineapple bunny!

The Saturday before some friends invited us over to an Easter egg hunt at their house.  I think she filled 400 eggs for all of the kiddos. They have the nicest yard! Grass, pool, patio with grill, play ground, two seating areas, trampoline, etc. He's an optometrist...

Cutie Holly!

Look at all of those cute kiddos!

What a nice morning! I feel grateful to have met such nice people down here! I am still hoping to meet my 'best girl friend.' But there are a lot of people that are super nice. Also, I feel like I have the best friend possible in John, so I couldn't ask for anything more. Happy Easter!