What We've Been Up To

We've had a fun couple of weeks. Through the winter, Hogle Zoo offers free admission on the last Wednesday of the month. Dave and I took advantage of this the day before Thanksgiving and took the girls to see the 'amels'. We met up with Dave's sister and her 2 kids. It was so much fun to watch Maggie. She LOVED it. She recognized most things and was signing the entire time. It was a wonderful day to be at the zoo. All the animals were out and most of them had babies, they were so cute. I took lots of pictures, here are a few.... or more than a few.

She's doing the sign for Cat.

We spent a few days up at Dave's parents over the Thanksgiving break. We were the only ones there for most of the time, and we had a wonderful time with them. Maggie has mastered their stairs and it was so amazing see how independent she has become. She would go to the basement to play with the toys all by herself, I was so proud. We played some Rook, and ate a lot of good food. I really enjoyed the time there.

Since we will be in Canada for Christmas, Maggie got her presents early from Grandma and Grandpa Betts. She is wearing her new 'boops' (which she loves and wants to wear all day) and holding her new dolly.

Gotta love Grandma time.

Decorating gingerbread houses with her cousins

We've had some pretty good snow fall this past week. Maggie likes to walk around in the snow while Dave shovels the sidewalk. She seems to love the snow, I think Dave is hoping to have a couple of Snowboarding buddies in a few years.

We've also just enjoyed hanging out at home. Chloe is getting so fun, she has quite the cute little personality. She is really starting to respond to the world around her. She thinks Maggie is great and will laugh and smile at her, it's so cute. I love watching them together, I hope that they will be good friends.

Popcorn with Daddy, what could be better?

And last, but not least...Coco has a new tooth. I know it's hard to see, but it's there. Tooth #2 is just about to break through. She is growing up so fast.

So there you go, that's what's been going on in the Betts' Family.

Genetics...or all about Chloe

After having Maggie and seeing how much she looked like Dave, I was certain that all our kids would be little Dave clones. I was sure that the Betts' genes must be stronger than Evanson's and I would be surrounded (not that it would have been a bad thing). I was wrong. I am now the proud owner/parent of my very own 'mini me'. For better or worse, my little Chloe looks like her Momma.

Oh, how I love this sweet little girl. She is so content and happy through most of the day. She likes to hang out in her swing or bouncer and just watch Maggie and I. She doesn't like to be left alone in the room, she starts to fuss if both Maggie and I leave the room...but I guess that's not asking too much. She is DEFINITELY a Momma's girl....she absolutely adores me. I know that sounds a little conceited, but it's true. She doesn't like to be held by anyone else but me, she'll put up with it occasionally, as long as she's turned out and doesn't see who's holding her. She's getting a little better with Dave, which is nice, but she just wants to be with me. This is kind of hard and exhausting thing for me, but the payoff is I get to see her eyes light up when she sees me. It's seriously one the most amazing things I've ever seen. She looks at me with such love and adoration in her eyes and her face just bursts into a huge smile. I feel so much love from this little person, good thing the feeling is mutual.

There are only 2 things that upset Chloe...riding in the car and bedtime. She hates her car seat. With Maggie, that was a sure fire way to get her to settle down...not Chloe, she screams and screams, I hate to see her get so upset. Bedtime is another hard thing, she gets really fussy starting around 8:00 and it usually takes me until 11:00 to get her settled down for the night. Once she is down, she'll sleep a good 8-9 hours, but those 2-3 hours beforehand are quite frustrating for both of us. Even when she is crying and so upset, she still will look at me and smile through her tears, my heart melts every time.

She has been in our lives just over 4 months. In some ways it's hard to believe that 4 months have past already, but in other ways it seems like she's just always been here. I can't imagine life without her. Getting pregnant with Chloe was NOT planned and I was NOT excited. I was very scared, but this little girl has been such a joy. I feel bad about all the bad feelings I had before she was born. I am so, so grateful to have her in our family. I love my little Mini Me!

Cutie Pie

Chloe looked so cute and grown up on Sunday. These pictures make me smile, I just had to share. My friend Rachel made the cute headband, I think it looks adorable on her (thanks Rachel).

Happy Halloween

It's hard to believe that Halloween is here already. Time is flying by. It seems like after Halloween, Christmas is just around the corner. Last night, we took the girls to our ward party. I think they looked so cute dressed up in their little costumes (thanks Aunt Liss).

My cute little bunnies.

I know Maggie isn't looking up, but I just think this is so cute of Chloe, I just had to put it in.

...and another cute bunny...

On Sunday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Betts' to decorate cookies. Maggie enjoyed the icing :)

Sort of getting the hang of it.

Maggie loves when Dave attaches things to his face, she thinks it's hilarious. I figured this is 'scary' enough for a Halloween post.

My sweet little Coco. She is so smiley and cute, how could I resist adding this picture :)

Family Pictures

The last time we had professional family pictures done was 3 years ago for our wedding pictures. We've definitely changed a bit. Our family has doubled in size. I'm pretty sure we won't double again in the next 3 years.

Maggie loves to sign - and we love her signs

We recorded these videos to capture some of Maggie's baby talk. Just as little kids can't quite say all of the sounds in a word, Maggie's signs aren't quite complete. She loves to sign. We've bought and been given some of the Signing Time DVDs and we've had a regular rotation from the library. Maggie is transfixed when a new DVD comes home. I think signing makes language much more of a game for all of us. Maggie probably loves how her signing helps to capture her parents' attention too. Maggie does love to jabber, and sometimes we even get a little jibber-jabber from her hands: she'll wiggle fingers and twist her hands and we have no idea what she's after, but she's happily explaining.

This first video has one of our favorite signs: bugs. The true way to sign "bugs" is to put your thumb on your nose while curling/wiggling your index and middle fingers a couple of times in unison. We'll be sad when Maggie learns how to do this sign correctly.



Here are a few more animals that Maggie knows: tiger, gorilla, monkey, owl, and porcupine (half-heartedly)



Finally, Maggie has a small blue "First Words" book from Priddy Books and she knows a sign for all 26 pages. She almost signs every single picture in the book in this video. Sometimes she gets in a hurry to see her favorites. Here's the word list: girl, boy, shirt, pants, socks, shoes, coat, cup, chair (sit), ball, boat, car, truck (she skips this one), train, plane, bear, orange, apple, banana (skips?), leaf, flower, cat, potty, dog, duck, and fish.

If you watch closely you can tell what one of her favorite things is... it was also her first sign.



9/16/2009 9:22

Maggie giggles and dances

This was just a few days after our move. We hadn't unpacked, we didn't have a couch, but we did find some ways to entertain ourselves in all our mess.



8/23/2009 19:36

Maggie's word count

We did another word count because Maggie has been learning so many words so quickly. We didn't bother to describe which words she is signing and/or speaking. This is just a list of words.

First off - the latest words:
apple
backpack
beaver
bee
belly
bike
bird
blankie
block
blue
boat
boy
bracelet
bum
bus
butterfly
camel
carrots
caterpillar
chair
cheek
clean
cleanup
clouds
coat
color
cook
corn on the cob
crocodile
cry
cup
dance
deer
done
don't (crotch)
door
down
drink
eagle
ear
elbow
elephant
Elmo
foot
fork
fox
game
giraffe
go
goat
good girl
grass
green
hair
hands
happy
heart
help
hop
howsitgoin
i'm done
it's okay
jacket
juice
jump
kangaroo
kitty
knife
libro
like
lion
look
march
mountain
mouth
muscles
necklace
night-night (crib)
noodle
nose
octopus
orange
panda
pants
peach
pear
peas
pillow/armadillo – she uses the same sign for both, but knows the difference when you ask her to point to either one.
pizza(olives)
play
popcorn
purple
rabbit
raccoon
rainbow
ready
red
runaway
sandwich
Santa
see
shark
show
sleeping
snuggle
socks
soft
spoon
squirrel
stars
stinky
stop
stroller
stuck
swing
table
tickle
tiger
toes
tomato
train
tree
truck
vegetables
watch
what
wolf
yellow
yucky
zebra

Maggie knows a few more names:

Co-co - this is Maggie's adaptation of her sister Chloe's name
Erica - her cousin who recently visited
Mary - a neighbor friend, and of course
Maggie

Maggie also has some favorite numbers and letters. She recognizes many of these letters in print, but for the most part she just likes the sound of the "words" or knows what other letter or number they follow:
4
6
10

'z' is Maggie's favorite letter - because it's so fun to sign:
'x', 'r' are her next most favorite letters and she points them out wherever she can.

Maggie's letters:
a
b
c
p
q
r
t
x
y
z

and finally, Maggie knows a bunch of words or sounds that are a part of play time or songs:
"baa"
"bill bill bill"
"bok bok"
"gobble-gobble"
"hoo-hoo"
"meow"
"moo"
"move on back"
"neigh"
"oo-oo-ee-ee"
"peekaboo"
"pill pill pill"
"rat-tat (tat)"
"round round"
"ruff ruff"
"swish-swish"
"uh huh"
"wah wah (wah)"
"woo-woo"
"yeah"
(panting) - for dogs

combine all these with Maggie's old words and Maggie's almost to 250.
"nnnkkk" (oink), baby, ball, banana, bath, bear, boo, book, boots, bottle, brush hair, bug, bunny, bye bye, car, cat, cheese, chicken, cold, cookie, cow, crab, cracker, daddy, diaper, dog, dolphin, Dora, duck, eat, eyes, fish, flower, frog, girl, gorilla, grandma, grandpa, grapes, hat, hello, hippo, horse, hot, ice-cream, keys, leaf, light, lizard, mama, monkey, night-night, no, outside, owl, pajamas, pelican, penguin, pig, plane, poopy, porcupine, potty, pretty, puppy, rain, rock, sheep, shirt, shoes, Signing Time, snake, strawberry, sun, suzie / soother, swim, swimsuit, teeth, thank you, thunder, towel, toys, turkey, turtle, uh-oh, wait, walk, washcloth, water, whoah, wind, yaa!, yes, yogurt

Maggie's 18 Month Photo Shoot

We took Maggie to get her 18 month pictures done at Target. She did pretty good, but it was hard to keep her standing in one place for very long. I also got a few done with girls together, I think they turned out good. They are pretty cute girls, even if I do say so myself!