Lucy and Ellory- Thirteen Months.

Lucy and Ellory are 13 months! It's crazy that we are this far already. This last year was such a dichotomy at times- so hard, yet so good; tiring, yet also joyful; long, yet short, etc. I think our whole family grew a lot this last year for the better. We are busy busy, but we are in a good place. Watching Lucy and Ellory grow up is a blessing and it's so fun!

Stats/Doctor visits: Very thankful to not have any doctors visits this month- we've been healthy!

Teeth: No teeth this month.

Feeding: The biggest news with feeding is that we are done nursing! Right before their birthday, we started weaning. First, I quit pumping for their afternoon bottle time (before starting to wean, we were down to morning nursing, before nap nursing, late afternoon bottle/pump, and before bed nursing). Then, each week I cut out a nursing session until we were done, so it took about a month. Overall, it went very well! Lucy and Ellory both like whole milk and haven't had any issues with it thankfully. At first, we mixed a little of my milk or formula with whole milk, but now they are down to just whole milk and that's it. They now have sippy cups when they wake up, followed by breakfast right away (usually yogurt or a puree and some cheerios), lunch, sippy cups before afternoon nap, a 7-8 oz bottle when they wake up, supper, puree for bedtime snack, and 7-8 oz bottle before bed. They have their sippy cups during each meal also. They still have a few bottles (with whole milk), because I didn't want to completely cut out both nursing and bottles at the same time, and we are still giving them a little time to get used drinking more from cups. They handle it well, but don't drink very much out of cups yet compared to bottles, so we wanted to make sure they were still getting enough milk. We are trying to lessen now heating up the bottles (they still like the milk better warm).

For solid foods, they eat pretty much everything now! Whatever we eat is what they eat. It's always a big mess to clean up afterwards, but they like it. Ellory is more selective and doesn't eat as much as Lucy, but Lucy eats anything and everything and lots of it! They need bibs now for all the messes, but Lucy usually always rips hers off. They are on a “normal” breakfast, lunch, dinner schedule now, with a bit more milk and a bedtime snack thrown in.

Diapers/clothes: Wearing size 3 diapers and 12 month and 12-18 month clothes. They are now wearing a size 4 diaper at night, because they were starting to leak out pretty regularly in a 3, and switching to a 4 at night helped a lot.

Sleeping: Yay for good sleepers! When they were nursing, they used to nurse in the morning and then go back to sleep, but during weaning we tried to cut that out. For awhile they still woke up early and had a bottle instead and then went back to sleep, but for the last two weeks they've been sleeping all the way through the night and skipping that milk session entirely. Now they sleep all the way through from about 10:30-9:45. They take an afternoon nap from 1:30-3:45ish, and an evening nap from 7-8ish. Having a consistent sleep routine is great for all of us! Lucy seems to need a bit more sleep, probably because she's moving more, and she's usually the first to sleep and last to wake.

Words: Lucy says dada and a lot of baby talk. Ellory is saying a few words! She says dada, mama, Norah, baby, bath, and bye-bye.

Developments: Lucy's biggest development is walking! She walks more and more everyday. She took her first steps right before their birthday, at 12.5 months was taking 10+ steps, and now is almost full time walking. She loves walking and is quite content with her new abilities! It's so sweet to watch her tiny body walking around. She's still a little wobbly, but does quite well. Ellory is not interested in walking yet, and will just sit back down if we try to get her to walk. Lucy is more active for sure, so maybe she'll be into sports, and Ellory maybe will be our speech/music girl. Ellory loves music and dancing. Outsiders wouldn't know that though, because she is very shy and hesitant in new situations and with anyone non-family. Lucy was usually more outgoing in public, but both have had more separation anxiety lately and like to stay close to Kley and I. (We tried to take them to the nursery at church for the first time, and it didn't go well, which didn't help the separation anxiety issue!) On February 28, the week after their birthday, we switched to their convertible car seats, which also meant putting their big girl seats on the stroller too. They handled it fine and like their seats! It's a bit more work now loading all three into the car, but it's not too bad because it's also getting nicer outside, so we walk more places now. They are starting to try cause and effect type things, like building a tower and knocking it down, and matching things, like shape sorters or puzzles.

Favorites: Lucy loves being on the go, walking and climbing. Though, now that she is walking more, she isn't climbing as much as she used to. Ellory tries to wink if you wink at her, and she loves to put any baby blankets or the kitchen towel over her head and play peekaboo. Both girls love to give kisses, high fives, and recently they started doing “so big,” which is adorable. Lucy likes to spit and scream (like just scream for fun because she can make the noise). They both like to take baths, be outside (Lucy especially gets excited when we put her coat on), dolls, play down the basement, see what's in the fridge or dishwasher if they can sneak in when it's open, and Ellory is especially fond of the instruments. We try hard to keep the bathroom door closed, but they love to unroll the toilet paper if they can get at it. We love you both so much!

They weren't in the best moods for these pictures and not very smiley, so this is the best we got!