18 Month Old Wren

Our little miss Roo is 18 months old!  She has grown so much, and has the most fun, feisty, sweet personality.  Here's a bit about 18 month old Wren:

• Her sleep situation has improved a lot, but she still has those bad nights.  We've recently put a night light in her room, and that has seemed to help. 
• We've been slowly transitioning away from the bottle, and this has proven to make nights/nap time hard.  We finally just stopped using bottles altogether, and her stubbornness is coming through!  Haha.  As of late, whenever we hand her a sippy cup, she takes one look at it and just chucks it across the room in disgust.  
• She has a temper.  (See above, haha).  We try really hard to not give in to her tantrums, but it is really hard not to laugh.  She throws major fits (throwing her head back, kicking and screaming over seemingly insignificant things ALL THE TIME).  Sometimes we have to just look at each other and laugh.  
• She knows a lot of words, and has clearly learned everything through imitation.  She will watch your lips very closely when you speak, and will undoubtedly repeat the last word you say each time. "Hi Roo"... "Roo"    "Should we get dressed?"... "Dressed"  "Sit down to eat."..."eat".  It's such a little thing, but it makes my heart melt all day long.  
• She absolutely adores Trey and wants to do everything with him.  They don't always play very well (learning to share is hard, haha), but it's been fun to watch their relationship grow.  They play with hot wheels cars a lot, and she loves it.
• She loves loves LOVES her baby dolls. They are by far her favorite toy.  She constantly walks around with them "shushing" them and putting them down for naps.  
• We read to her each night before bed and she always asks for more. "book....book..."  We have a few touch and feel books, so she assumes that every book is, and always touches the page and looks up at me like "What is this supposed to be?  These all feel the same!"

Wren has us laughing everyday.  We joke a lot that she is a little stinker, but she really brings us so much joy.  We love you Wren, Roo, Roo Bear, Roo Babe.   

4 year old Trey

Trey has had to grow A LOT this past year as he transitioned into being a brother.  He is such a BIG BOY, and sometimes I can't even stand how fun he is!  Once turning four, I feel like he is really starting to grow out the of the "hard toddler years" and it's been fun to watch his personality grow.  Here's a little bit about our Treybies (we still call him that sometimes. I'm not sure how long he'll allow that, so I'm holding onto it as long as I can! haha).  

• His personality has exploded and he loves his independence!  Because of this, some stubbornness has started to creep in (ha), but it's been so fun to watch him grow!  
• He loves to get himself up, get himself dressed and make his own breakfast.  He is very much a morning person (obviously got that from Dave).  There has been a lot of times that we get up for the day, and he's already made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone  He is always so proud of himself!
• He LOVES to cook and experiment with different "recipes"...which includes grabbing anything and everything out of the fridge and cupboard and making "meals".  
• He's recently started preschool, and he loves it!  It has been really good for him to be with other kids.  He loves to learn and is always so excited about going to school and daycare.  
• Trey really likes being able to help people, and do tasks such as unloading and loading the dishwasher, sweeping, mopping, taking out the garbage, weeding...he loves it all!  He's the best little helper and always wants to be busy doing something!  
• He loves to dance and will often request certain songs.  His current favorites are 24K Magic by Bruno Mars, Feel it Still by Portugal the Man, Wake Me Up Before you Go-GO by Wham, and Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant.  Listening to the radio is so fun with him.  He'll randomly ask "What is this?  I like it."  
• He is still very inquisitive and loves figuring things out.  He loves playing with Legos, Hot Wheels, and jigsaw puzzles.  He recently learned how to play Mario Kart, and he loves being able to "earn" games throughout the day to play with Dad before bedtime.  
• He loves any and all reasons to have a party.  All holidays are his favorite, and he looks forward to everything about them. 
• We have the best conversations, and he makes us laugh every day.  

We love you Trey! 

Wren is 1!

Our little Roo Bear is one year old!! This past year has probably been the longest in my life, and yet I can't believe she is already one!  She sure has come a long way in one year!  A little about Wren at 12 months:

• She still despises sleep and has a really hard time going to sleep, staying asleep, and waking up.  She usually gets up once a night, and is up for the day around 7:00 or 8:00.  I'm convinced that waking up is her absolute least favorite thing in the world (she got that from me), and she lets everyone know it!  
• She loves to walk with her walker, and is so proud of herself.  She has taken a couple of steps on her own here and there, but for the most part just likes to hug the walls/furniture to get around.  
• She loves to eat whatever Trey is eating.  She really likes applesauce, puffs, and noodles.  Most of the time however, everything we feed her just gets thrown on the floor, or squished in her hands.
• She has the sweetest personality, but has no problems letting you know when she is upset.  She's got a "look", and when she gives it to you, it's so hard not to laugh.  She is very weary about strangers and will always look people up and down before warming up to them.  
• She loves music.  The best way to cheer her up is through music and dancing.  She loves watching Trey dance tries to copy his moves.  
• She is so talkative and is always yammering on and on.  She very clearly has her own language and it is so cute.  She'll look at you as she's babbling on as if to say... "Hello, why aren't you understanding me!?" 

We love you Wren!!

11 month old Wren

This past month Wren has seemed to grow so much.  She's really starting to get a personality, and it's fun to see.  She sure is a feisty one, but is adored by pretty much anyone who knows her.  Here's Wren at 11 months:

• Your hair.....THAT hair.  We all love it so much.  She has far more hair than Trey did at this age, which is fun.  It's got a mind of it's own, though.  It's wild and likes to stay wild.  It's super, SUPER fine and strawberry blonde.  No amount of gel can get it to stay down. Those super fine strands love to just do their thing and it makes us laugh every day.
•  We've had a rough time with sleep lately, but I think we're finally getting better.  We've started her bedtime routine a little earlier and that has seemed to help.  She goes down at about 7:30, usually only gets up once to eat, and then up again at 7:30.  Can't complain!  She really, REALLY doesn't like waking up and screams the instant she opens her eyes.  It's really sad, and I wish I knew what was causing it.  I think she just doesn't like being alone.  Poor Roo.
• She has started imitating us.  She loves to click her tongue at us and grins wider and wider when we copy her and then she copies us.  
• She has started doing this evil laugh/shout thing that just has us in giggle fits all of the time.  It sounds like "ha HA!"  She laughs super loud and her face is so expressive when she does it.  We can't help but imitate her when she does it.  
• She spent most of this month learning to pull herself up and walk around furniture.  Now that she knows how, it's ALL she wants to do.  She got brave this week and started walking with the walker.  She loves it and is so proud of herself.  Her stubborn personality shines through when she hits into something and falls, or runs out of room.  She throws herself on the floor and throws some major temper tantrums!  We love her, but hoo boy, she's got a temper.  Haha.
• She's been eating much better since being over colds and whatnot.  She only really eats one "meal" a day along with her bottles.  Her favorite by far is mangos.  Most of the time she'll just have a few bites here and there, but she'll gobble up mangos.  She also loves chedda1r goldfish crackers.  Who doesn't?
• We've recently started reading books with her and she loves them.  She always uses her pointer finger to carefully point to everything on the page and babbles as she does: "uhda????  Babu???"
• She has several dolls and loves to sit and examine their eyes and eyelashes.  It's kind of weird, but she is just so fascinated by them.  
• She has started to show that she knows when she's doing something wrong.  She'll turn around and look at you with this mischievous grin as if to say "I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to anyway.  

She's our little Roo Bear, and we love her so much!