Ariana at 21 months

The thought came to me the other day that Ariana's not a baby anymore.  She's a little girl!  Not quite two going on eleven it seems.  It's definitely bittersweet.  As much as I hate to see her getting so big, I love all the new things she does as says these days!  She surprises me all the time.

Our little Miss Sassy-pants has finally hit twenty pounds (21 on a good day) and she's got six front teeth and molars, but nothing in between. :)  She loves hats and dresses and fancy clothes, including a "vintage" pair of flowered corduroy overalls my mom picked up at a garage sale.  She doesn't keep bows in but loves sporting her curls, and she now tells me when an earring falls out and patiently sits while I put it back in.  She's very particular about which shoes or coat she wears and has favorites that change every few days.  A true fashionista.  I love it. :)

She LOVES to read, dance and sing.  Her current favorite songs that I'll catch her singing throughout the day are "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "ABC's," "Old MacDonald," or David's Spanish soccer fight song. :)  She'll do "Ring Around the Rosies" (or "Ashes Ashes" as she calls it) a dozen times in a row if she can find someone to do it with her.

Reading with Cami and on her "rock-a-bye" chair...

Here's a little video of the soccer song...

She knows a ton of words these days, and has just begun stringing together two-word sentences.  Some of her common phrases include...

"No way!"

"Whatcha doing?"

"Butter jelly sandwich!"

"I love you - so much!"
"I did it!"
"You see dat?"

"Come on! Hurry!"

"Where's Bryan?"  (or daddy or Matthew...)

"Paci!  Blankie!" (always in that order)

She can also count to ten on her own!  And she's good enough to tell me when she's pooped. :)  And she loves going through and naming all the different people in our family, like in this little video...

The cutest thing is watching her play with her baby doll toys.  A friend gave us a little high chair last week and Ariana was thrilled!  She also likes playing with her new fairy dollhouse and is learning to role play a little bit, which is really fun to see.

And of course she still enjoys playing with her brothers, especially Matt.  I think he likes playing with her fairy house more than he'd like to admit... :)  He's a great little buddy.  Here they are being a little bit silly at lunch.

She's an amazing little helper in the kitchen.  She jumps at any chance to unload the dishwasher and knows where everything goes!  If she can't reach it, she'll hand it to me.  Saves me a lot of running around!  When there aren't dishes to put away, she finds plenty of other things to entertain herself with, most of which have to do with water and spoons.

And she continues to be our best little eater.  She regularly out-eats her brothers and we warn them that she'll pass them up one day (though that certainly won't happen anytime soon).  I was surprised to find that she absolutely loves salmon, and she eats tons of chicken as well.  She still loves avocados, oatmeal, sandwiches, cheese, fruit, and yogurt.  She ate pudding for the first time and couldn't get enough!  Thank goodness for good bibs...

If she's this fun at 21 months, I can only imagine how fun the coming months and years will be!  I just hope they don't pass by too fast...  I love this sweet little face way too much!  

Precious PA memories

I'm finally posting the last of our pictures in PA.  They're the fun, random pics that don't really fit into any of my previous posts.  These low-key moments are some of my favorite memories.

Ari sure loved being with Grandma and Grandpa.  She misses their hugs and snuggles and just hanging out!

This isn't the best picture of Dad, but I think it's cute because I have a picture of him eating on the stairs with the boys a few years ago as well. :)

Ari loves posing for pictures these days, so here are several pics of our sweet girl.  She had fun trying on some of Grandma's costumes, playing out back, and being her normal silly cute self.

(I love this little shirt!)

We had a hard time keeping her out of the sweets...  I think she definitely takes after her mom and grandma!

Just look at that face! :)

Grandma and Grandpa had lots of little projects for the boys to do while we were there.  They had so much fun building and painting and trying new things!

I had to laugh one time when Matty and the men were out working on the car in the garage, and Bryan was in working with his Perler beads. :)  He's a lot craftier than I'd ever realized!

Of course, during the three weeks we did quite a bit of shopping, which wasn't always fun with three kids.  Mom was patient enough to entertain them best she could while I looked for holiday bargains.  Thank goodness for occasional playgrounds and kiddie rides.  And the kids couldn't resist busting some moves on the catwalk at the mall. :)

The adults weren't the only ones to enjoy playing games.  Bryan and Matt played every chance they got.  They're not the best sports, though, when it comes to losing.  Apparently both were in tears at some point during this game of Sorry...  Bree was good enough to put up with them and all the drama. :)

While we were in New York, Mom and Dad took the kids to Tumbletown to let them burn off some energy.  I would have liked to see them in action.  It looks like they had a lot of fun!

And here they are relaxing afterwards in Grandma and Grandpa's "little swimming pool."

The day before we left, we went one last time to visit Mom's preschool class.  Bryan would have been really upset if we hadn't have given him a chance to go.  It's such a fun place!  I get ideas for things to do with them every time we visit.  (Thanks, Mom!)

And that's it!  I've finally finished with all our pics.  We had such a good time - so many fun memories.  Three weeks was a long time to be away, but it was so worth it!  We just can't get enough time with Grandma and Grandpa so every day was a special one.  We love you, Mom and Dad!  Thank you for a wonderful holiday vacation!

New Year's - Pennsylvania Dutch style

After our big day at Hersheypark, we took it easy for New Year's Eve.  We ordered yummy Chinese take-out, put the kids to bed (though Bryan tried to convince us otherwise) and played games.  We were pretty hard-core gamers at my parents' house - we rotated between Hand and Foot (family card game) and Settlers.  My dad turned the dining room into the special game room and every time we played we'd lay out tons of treats and snacks and play for hours. :)  Cheesy, I know, but I loved it.  We didn't take any pictures (too busy trying to win, I guess) except for this one by Bree as we were setting up on New Year's Eve.  I love Dad's smile in this one, though. :)  Good times.

Here's Dad putting together some healthy snacks for a change.  It was good, but it certainly didn't compare to the Maple Donuts Bree had brought home a few nights earlier...  (I'm still thinking about those donuts!)

When midnight rolled around we cheered along with Dick Clark and the rest of the crowd in Times Square, and Bree ran outside and banged pots and pans and even blew Nate's trumpet a few times.  I'd like to say we stayed up longer and celebrated the night away, but with kids it's just not feasible.

The next day, David and Jose left for their trek back home.  We were sorry (and nervous) to see them go, but thankfully they made it home without any problems and only a small stretch of bad weather!

Bree had been promising the boys for days that she's make tie-dye shirts with them, so that afternoon they kicked off the new year making some new shirts.  I forgot to take a picture of the final products, but they turned out really cool!

That night we had a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch meal.  They believe out there that if you don't eat pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day, you'll have bad luck for the rest of the year!  I'm not a huge sauerkraut fan, but I didn't want to chance getting bad luck, and it actually tasted better than I'd anticipated.  We made some pretzels to go with our meal and it added the perfect PA Dutch touch. :)