Farm-a-versary

Farm-a-versary

celebrating 12 years together, 4 married

We arrived Friday afternoon for the warmest weather that the weekend would bring.

Here is farmer Matt in the milk parlor where we all successfully milked a cow. Well not Gavin but he is pretty good at getting milk if you know what I mean.

Here is a kitten enjoying leftover formula used to feed the calf and lamb during milking (7am and 4pm).

Here is Mia holding a bunny. After weeks of talking about it, her dream to hold a baby animal was realized. We also saw bunnies so young their eyes were still shut. The chicks were a tad too old to hold but she and some other kids were allowed to be closed in the chicken coup and chase the chickens around. Mia was too scared to pick one up but she put her hands around a couple.

An early morning family picture just after Mia bottle-fed the lamb.

A view from the barn

A Gavin sandwich (all the warmer on this chilly morning)

Cutie :)

Mia had a little lamb. . .

The Choo Choo barn (see all the cabooses? cabeese? we ate breakfast in one, see below)

Strausburg Railroad: a view from the hayride/wagon tour

Watching "the deer movie" (aka Bambi) while Gavin takes his morning nap. It was too cold to stay outside long.

Sunday morning, see the silo in the background and farmer Jed in Gavin's hands? We only allowed farm toys on this farm-a-versary haha well not really but we also brought a farm puzzle or two.

Sunday breakfast on a caboose.
Quarter (well $0.50) toys outside the diner.

One more ride on the swing before leaving to go home.

Although our family has visited many places, many people and even gone to conferences in various cities together, this was our first family vacation in that we were not working or visiting others but rather just celebrating our love and reconnecting. Many have asked what we did on our trip to which I reply "not much", and that is exactly what we intended. No itineraries, no places to go, just lots of stress-free giggles and spontaneous tickles. We almost went to a pretzel factory one day. Mia enjoyed a hay tunnel multiple times. Dave and I enjoyed alone time with Gavin when he awoke before Mia in the afternoons. We really enjoyed the large family style breakfast Saturday morning complete with homemade yogurt, applesauce and even a black raspberry buckle. One memory that stands out in my mind was the happiness at having had the forethought to choose a double room (Mia and Gavin shared a room while Dave and I had our own) because although the family time was amazing, this was our anniversary after all :)

Mia update

Mia often likes to join in the fun during Gavin's bedtime routine. Here she is kicking in his crib with him, which makes Gavin crack up when he is tired and irritable.

Here is Mia pretending to give her kitty cat a piggy back ride.

Here is Mia in her handmade Max (from Where the Wild Things Are) hat playing her computer.

Painting, she still loves it, just like her dad.

Mia's first movie (March 3rd) , seen with daddy (they had popcorn and water), Mia wore sound attenuating headphones the whole time (see below, Mia 5 mo) because I knew she wouldn't like how loud it was. Dave says from the first preview Mia's mouth was agape and remained so until the end.

• 2/7/12: Mia sounded out CAT (after Dave did "cow" with her) hasn't done it again yet but occassionally annunciates really awkwardly while she talks in a way that makes me think she is trying to figure out what letters are in the words we say.
• Mia constantly lets me know what letter begins the words I say to her (like if I say it is time to go to bed she will inform me that bed starts with a "B").
• I taught Mia the alphabet in sign language and for awhile she wanted to learn a a new word in sign language every morning or so. Although we've slowed down out of pure forgetfulness, we learned coffee, tea, toy, pajamas, mom, dad, please, thank you and many more
• Mia can now click her tongue and even curled it once.
• Mia is now very good at her balance bike: running on it and then lifting up her feet and balancing. Of course it is easier on the way down to the playground then back up (slight incline) but still since Mia is typically a bit clutsy, I am pleasantly surprised at how well she picked this up.
• Mia has asserted that she is no longer duddy m'goody as Dave would occasionally call her. . . she is Mia Macaroni. Has a ring to it huh?
• Mia has been, for some months now, really into imaginative play (doll house!!, cinderella with mommy's shoes, doctor). She can't get enough of it and even puts band-aids on her stuffed animals or fetches a ball for some improptu make-believe fun.
• Mia is now sassy, she talks back ("no, it's not"), just like a little teenager. We've decided to start an ignore tactic since admonishing it and sticker charts haven't helped much.
• It is a HUGE deal to Mia that she is all grown up (like us) although she still often needs (or wants) help taking off shirts, putting on shoes and so on.
• Lately Mia has been saying X is similar to Y a lot. For example, she recently said tigers and lions are similar. She also does it with sounds though. Like when she said that "choo choo" and "toot toot" are similar.
• Mia and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. . . .some days are like that, even in Philadelphia. She didn't want pants on under her skirt despite it being cold, was very rude to her mom all day telling her she can't do things because she doesn't listen or that she should cook the cookies on her own, even though it had been Mia's idea to make cookies for daddy) and then the MEMORY game incident occurred. Mia refused to clean up some Memory cards before dinner and even dumped the ones her mom had started to help clean up. Mia chose to go to bed without dinner since her options were to clean up and then eat or don't do anything else until the cards are clean. After being put to bed, Mia came out of her room at least a dozen times and had even said, "the cards are keeping me from eating" about the memory game cards. Boy is she stubborn! This incident prompted me to search for more positive parenting books to help us through this rough, but normal, phase whereby Mia is trying to become more independent. Remembering to let Mia learn through her own experiences and not force is important.

Mia & mommy

Gavin went down for his early nap Sunday March 18th and so Mia and I stole away for a little mid-morning adventure. I told her we were going to find some trees and a river. So we went to Fairmount park (near the Children's museum).

My view

Her view

Gotta love the automatic setting :)

The next weekend, as has been our tradition for a couple of months now, we went to the

we all go as a family but we don't typically bring our camera and only got pictures of Mia and me this time:

inside joke. . . you wouldn't get it, it is just BUG

mmmm yogurt smiles!

St. Patty's day zoo outing

Mia and Simon at the fountain

Hand in hand

Snacktime

At home after the zoo/nap (green love)

St Patty's siblings :)

in a tub

Allison

How is Dave getting his dissertation done with a baby and preschooler in tow you ask? Well Mia goes to daycare from 9am-12pm and while she is there Allison comes over (has been since Gavin was just barely 8 months old). She is a wonderful woman and a UPenn engineer senior getting ready to start her career at a medical device company this summer/fall. But for now, Gavin is enjoying their mornings together (Dave reports giggles galore) and Dave continues to plug away while adding job applications to the mix (sigh).

Mia also knows/loves Allison from her babysitting during our date nights.

A getaway to York, PA to see Betsy

It was just the kids and I (leaving Dave to dissertate) and we left just after they woke up from their naps at 4pm and got on the road. After a bit of Conshohocken traffic getting out of Philly it was smooth sailing after that. We pulled over to the side of the road everytime I had to get someone a snack or a toy since I couldn't safely reach but other than those it was all good. We got there in time for dinner and everything. Here we are Saturday morning having breakfast:

all smiles though Saturday was cold so we mostly stayed in although we did go out to eat at Isaac's

Sleepy Sunday morning (Mia and Chance, her favorite of the two dogs)

Gavin's new trick (feeding people) that Mia loves! Here he feeds her Cheerios

It wouldn't be visiting Betsy without a walk with the dogs (here is Chance again); it was still chilly

Timer mode! Here is everyone (even Tyson):

notice that the adults are the only ones paying attention to the camera

A trip to the park before getting on the road.

Mia was so teenager-y at the park sitting way away from us like she was too cool for school so I had to snap a picture of it. I think she was watching a family having a BBQ

Gavin (pointing) and Betsy

The drive home was great, the kids slept the whole way and there was no traffic. Mia fell asleep reading one of her favorite books: the fairy tale book Sarah S. got for her for her baby shower.

Thanks Betsy for the relaxing escape, I'm sure Dave appreciated the time too!

Gavin is 10 months old!

What a big boy! Month 10 has brought with it all sorts of new developments (and teeth). Where to begin. . . well he got his first freckles this month though I can't exactly remember where I saw it. A leg perhaps? He is clapping and pointing now and at the beginning of the month he started sharing his bottle with daddy. Now he commonly shares food with everyone (his biggest fan is Mia- see Betsy post). We went to the Penn Museum to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Eating: This month may possibly mark the last "first food" month because he is just eating our food more often than baby food though we do occasionally supplement with pureed fruits or veggies if ours are too hard for him to consume without molars. This month he had his first crepe, lentils, spinach, parsnip, potato, tofu, pineapple, strawberry (in yogurt), egg yolk cottage cheese, olive, mushroom, cauliflower, and probably many more I'm forgetting. He now squinches up his face in a cute way when he doesn't want what we give him, which isn't much (he loves all these new foods and only dislikes a couple of items, one of which is bananas that aren't cut up).

First grown up dinner where he ate what we ate

Teething: Today was also the month of the teeth although he isn't a bad teether (so far at least). His 4th tooth (top left central incisor) came in, 5th tooth (top right central incisor) came in Valentines day and his 6th tooth (top left lateral incisor) came in 3 days later. So 4 on top and 2 on bottom.

first time brushing (he is very good about sitting still but likes to bite me)

Sleeping: Although Gavin took 4 naps on 2/7/12 (growth spurt?) he is definitely down to 2 a day by the end of the month. AM nap starts at 9:30-11am for 1 hr and PM nap starts from 2-4pm for at least an hour but sometimes 2, which means he and Mia are finally overlapping for naps. . . Yay!! At night he is still waking up just once on average at around 4-5am when I nurse him for 10 mins or so.

Talking: We're pretty sure Gavin said "more" ("mam") while signing it (hands together) on 2/10 but we never saw this replicated so his first word was probably "kitty cat" that he yells at the top of his lungs like this "KEE KAH" very fast. He also said, "nana" a bit for banana and once said "byeeeeeee" while waving when Dave left the house but only the kitty and the bye have remained. Much more common than bye though is "hi" and he says it like this "haaaaa" while flapping his cute chubilicious arm up and down. One time he even mimicked the word "strawberry" surprisingly well but this never happened again (for this or any other word). He definitely signs 'more' to mean 'food' and still signs 'milk' and once said, "all done" (as "ada") while signing it but now just uses the sign. Since his milk intake has been decreasing we're starting to try to teach him a distinction from nursing and milk by saying 'nanas' to mean nursing. Towards the end of this month he went on a nursing strike that wasn't complete (he would still latch but he would come off immediately and he would still nurse at night, and it seemed like it was more often; perhaps to make up for the lack during the day). This lasted way too long (2 weeks? but is now fine.

Moving around: Our content cherub is still fairly happy to be just in one place or at least he is unable to get around and doesn't seem terribly distressed by it. He just started going into a hands and knees position right around when he turned 10 mo but before this he would just get around a bit by sitting and scootching ever so slightly such that I don't know exactly when it started or if I ever even saw it. One minute I put him here and the next minute he is a foot over in one direction. But as his hands and knees started, so has crawling (or sliding is more accurate) backwards. Mia also went backwards for a solid month before she figured out the forward thing and then just decided to walk instead.