Rowan turns one!

Well here we are, one year (and change) later and now three kids to show for it.  Rowan turned one on St. Patrick's day and we celebrated with a family get together at our house.  We had a great time and she enjoyed opening presents while trying to box out her sisters who were more than ready to "help" her.

On April 4th, we went to our one year checkup, yes I realize it's late but our doctor canceled on us during the scheduled Saturday appointment we had.  To the stats:

Weight: 23lbs --> 80th percentile

Length: 30in. --> 75th percentile

Head Circumfrenece (aka smarts): 47cm --> 90th percentile

She has been walking since about a week before her 11th month and continues to hone her skills.  She is also now climbing up on anything she can find such as chairs, the coffee table and our favorite, the air hockey table.  Good times.  She is definitely vocal and  will sing if you turn on a song.  She'll say mama and dad but her favorite word is "uh oh".  So cute!  She seems to have taken an interest in Sesame Street when it's on and has picked Big Bird as her favorite thus far.  She loves her big sisters, even when they try to squeeze the life out of her by picking her up when mommy's not looking.  We started on cow's milk a couple weeks ago and have slowly added some to her bottle at school.  Fingers crossed this "sneaky" approach will work!  She has held steady with 4 teeth on top and 2 on the bottom for some time but it appears two more are coming in up top and based on the recent drool levels - I'm sure there's more to come!

Here are some of her favorite things to do:

- stack blocks and knock them down

- play hide and seek with Mommy

- Dance (especially when Mommy and Daddy encourage her!)

- "Jump" on the trampoline

- She loves to turn Mommy's iPhone  and Daddy's iPad on!

- She loves to give kisses

She is a super happy baby and we are so lucky she is ours!  Here are pictures from her birthday and the party.

Here are all the girls on Rowan's birthday, also known as St. Patrick's Day.  As I've learned to expect, there is no way to get all three girls to smile without Photoshop.

We started off with the cupcakes, so as to maximize the sugar high and fully take advantage of the crash and burn thereafter.  Made with love by Mommy.

The birthday girl patiently waiting... figuring out the best way to attack.

Meanwhile, the vultures fly low nearby...

Wait for it, wait for it...

 

The approach?

Dive bomb!  This one year old did not disappoint the throngs of cameras abound!

After only 2 bites of cupcake (where is that Fuller appetite?!), the birthday girl was transported via Dada to the living room for present opening fun!

Once again, the vultures her sisters were right there to "help" her unwrap her presents.

Now that she is 1, Rowan needed several breaks during the present opening to stay fresh.  This break consisted of playing in a car seat we plan to move her to soon.

(until she is 15 apparently thanks to the new suggestions!)

 

More help from her sisters.  Not surprisingly, they thought they should have received gifts for Rowan's birthday too.

Finally, a moment to herself.

Another break...

She found the girls Elmo slippers and wanted to put them on.  Who are we to deny this cuteness?

We had a great time and were so glad all of our family could be there to celebrate!  Based on this picture I'd say it was a hit!

And because this post doesn't have enough pictures, I thought I'd add two more of my favorites from the last couple weeks...

Sassy!

And another cute one!

Rocking Out!

This is a priceless video if I do say so myself!  Daddy downloaded a guitar app onto his iPad and we've all been having fun "playing guitar".  The girls decided to start a band before bed and this is what they performed...

 

Check out Grace's behind the back guitar moves!  Awesome!

Apologies

Wow, it's been a long time since my last post!  It's not my fault, the kids haven't done anything cute since February 9th.

Kidding of course.  We've had quite the time this past month with Rowan going from walking between Mommy and Daddy to Rowan sprinting in the 50 yard dash in the backyard! (Don't worry, we bundled her up and never made her run when it was raining outside!)  In addition to her sprints, she is almost at an 8 minute mile and working so hard everyday to get it down to 7:50.  We are SO proud of her!  She finds her biggest training asset is the staircase.  Many a squeal can be heard from an unhappy girl who can't get upstairs because of mean Mr. Gate.  More updates on Ro-ster after her one year check-up on the 26th of this month.  Before that though, more pictures of Ro-boat on Thursday of this week, St. Patrick's day and her BIRTHDAY!

While the big girls imaginations have been fun to see shaping over the years currently they are out of this world.  They each have an imaginary other mother, whose house they sometimes visit.  They only talk about her, they don't interact with her like an imaginary friend.  Boyfriends - which are sometimes played by each other, seem to be Grace's new thing with Peyton willingly taking the "boy" role.  The tables have turned!  They informed me the other day that vultures eat people when they die.  How lovely.  They were studying the letter "V" in school and apparently talked about vultures.  I'm assuming a particular teacher told them that vultures eat dead animals and they assumed that when you die, vultures eat you.  Awesome. 

I think I'd like to interview them for an upcoming blog post and ask them some questions like; favorite color, food, animal, etc... Let me know if you have any ideas or thoughts on some good questions I should ask them or something you'd like to hear the answer to!  Should be entertaining and hopefully something I can keep going throughout the years.  Should be good fodder for the future rehearsal dinners (or wedding day itself!).

I'll leave you with some pictures I took yesterday of the big girls.

Unassuming Grace

 

Watchful Peyton

Smiling, Sweet Grace

Aaaaaand... here's Peyton.

 

I'm guessing she is training for her teenage years?

Rowdy Rowan

Rowan's new found freedom and love of most things edible has provided our family with some unique snapshots and stories we will hold onto and treasure until that first boy comes over to take her on a date.

For instance:

She was so proud of herself.  

Of course, now every time the dishwasher is open it's fair game.  Oh the price we pay for cute pictures!

Spaghetti O-no's!

Stoic.

 Yummy!

Look at how cute and messy I am at the same time!

 

Hey Hey!  

Come give me a hug!

 

 

January Zoo day

Our birthday weekend was made complete when we got to go to the Zoo on Sunday!  As I've mentioned before, we are Zoo sinners.  With a little bit of mist and some cool temperatures we had the zoo to ourselves that morning! 

First though, we decided to model some new dresses we got the day before at our birthday party from Mrs. Steffie and Mr. Rob!

Presenting Pose-able Peyton and Aunt Jemima!

 

What a mess these two are!

This one would have been so sweet without Grace's fake smile! ha!

 

The big sisters doing their job, making Rowan laugh.  I love this shot.

 

 

 Finally, we made it to the zoo and I got this super cute shot!

 

 I'm still loving my new camera - I was actually a good 100 feet away when I took this with my telephoto lens. 

An almost family shot.  I think Daddy is the only one looking at the camera!

As fans of child labor, we are so glad the girls are now four and can work a couple hours more each day.

 Our backs were really starting to hurt!  Thanks Peyton and Grace!

Jumping into year 4!

We have made it!  Year four and sassier than ever!  Also, cuter than ever...

While I generally speaking do not monogram (kids grow out of clothes WAY too fast and the younger kids never have the same name!) I thought this would be a great time to personalize on a day that they both share. 

Here are the birthday girls in all their glory!

 

 I had a good friend recommend the lady that did my shirts and she was great! I LOVED how they turned out and so did the girls!

Once again, 1 out of 2 smiles is something I am proud of!

We had our party at JUMP in Southaven.  It's an indoor bouncy place that is surprisingly clean and well run.  We had the 11am - 1pm slot.   Here are the invitations we sent out.  

 

Grace dove in, head first.  Literally.

 

Lucky for Mommy, their names were on their shirts for this event!

Here's Peyton!  So grown up.

 

So helpful!

 

The girls have a good friend at school who's party we went to in October at JUMP.  His mom had an awesome Toy Story cake made and had the AMAZING idea to have cupcakes for the kids and the cake part for the adults in attendance.  

 Genius!

 

BabyCakes Bake Shoppe in Olive Branch created this.  You can pick up her yummy cupcakes at Wimpy's on Goodman (awesome burger joint) or CityHall Cheesecake in Hernando!  Not only did it look great, but it tasted 10 times better!

Here are the birthday girls enjoying their cupcakes! 

Along with the ever so important cupcakes we had Uncrustables (PB&J), some fruit gummies and goldfish.  A well balanced meal for 4 year olds!

Then it was on to presents.  Luckily, master photographer-in-training and super friend, Steffie, captured the present opening shots while mom and dad were handing the gifts to the openers.

 

The girls got some awesome gifts - their friends from school know them well! 

Mom tried her hand at the favors which came out pretty well I think.

 

Then it was on to the house where family came over to unwind and to the girls delight, open more presents.  It was the second coming of Christmas.  Seriously, the girls are going to need a 12 step program in about a month because they won't be able to function without opening a multitude of presents for some reason.  The girls came away with some awesome pillow pets, ballet lessons, and a grill among a plethora of other great gifts.  Shockingly, no one got us an extra 1,000 square feet in our house for us to, you know, put all of these new great toys... I digress.

Mom and Dad's big present was, of course, the party but we also managed to get a couple things for them to enjoy.  One was the original Cinderella on DVD and the other was...

Wait for it... wait for it....

 

A trampoline!  

Yes, it took every ounce of Mommy and Daddy's being not to jump on this.  So far, we are remaining strong.

Rowan was surprised as well!

 

We had a great birthday weekend and even got to go to the Zoo on Sunday!  More to come...

New Haircut

With the girls refusing to put their hair up anymore, Maribeth was able to go much shorter than we had in the past... and I think it's adorable!

Short is maybe an understatement?

It's a miracle! Peyton gave me a half smile!

The light in the shot, which is framing Grace's face perfectly,  was of course on purpose. 

 

And here's a cute one of Rowan for good measure!

Who might possibly need a haircut in the near future!

Rowan at 10 months

Since we don't have another check up until 12 months I thought I'd use the 10 month mark to post an update.


Row-ster is a great baby and is most often super happy.  She loves to be around her sisters and the smile she now gets on her face when Mommy or Daddy walk in the room is priceless!  She has adopted a few fun new "activities" in her baby arsenal which include but are not limited to:

- Shrieking when she wants your attention.  Like Blair Witch shrieking.  I must say, it's effective which is probably why she's still doing it.  The words 'vicious cycle' come to mind right now.

- Eating.  While this should come as no surprise, Rowan has started eating basically anything that is put in front of her at daycare.  This includes sloppy joes, fish sticks (yuck! Mommy forgot to look at the schedule this day!), Mexican chili and chicken salad as of today.  When she gets home, we don't seem to be as successful but she does a great job eating her mandarin oranges, spaghetti, taco soup and Gerber wagon wheels among other things.


- Walking.  She took her first couple steps before falling into my arms (on purpose) today and if she's not doing that she is reaching for your hands to walk her around EVERYWHERE.  While my back isn't appreciating this super cute new skill she loves, it is cute when she searches for your hands when she's ready to go!


- She loves peekaboo and waving 'hi' and 'bye' and will even give kisses on demand about 80% of the time!

There's lots more but let's be honest, you want to see pictures... here are some of my favorite shots of her from Christmas break with my new camera!

The center shot is not so bad if I do say so myself!  Thank you Canon!

Cuteness all around!  I will say that middle picture looks nothing like her...even though it's, you know, her.