My Little Monkeys

Chloe is really moving all over the place now. She rarely crawls any more - only walks, except on those few occasions when she's too tired and resorts to crawling. She's also become quite the climber. She loves to climb on things - Aubrey's little rocking chair, the step stool, the small chairs in Aubrey's room, and the steps, of course. (She hasn't figured out how to get on the couch yet. Thank goodness!) She's been pretty good this week and hasn't gotten into too much. She did manage to get into a plant we have on a table twice and ended up eating some dirt, but other than that, she's been great! I'm waiting for her teeth to come in. Her top two front teeth are so swollen and can be seen through her gums, but they haven't broken through yet. Maybe that will be a birthday present. :)

Aubrey is finally getting over the need to be constantly played with and has begun to play by herself again. Hallelujah! We did have other children come over twice this week to play which helped too. She's really into puzzles again and loves putting the pieces back together by herself. She keeps talking about her birthday and can't wait to have a purple birthday cake!

Aubrey helped me make brownies . . . Chloe's just climbing.

Chloe got mad when I told her to get down.

Aubrey and I went outside to play on the big snow pile Calvin made for us.

Chloe loves to sit in this chair and read books, talk on the phone, or just play on it.

Baby Goats

The past week and a half has been very busy for Calvin. Some of our goats have begun having babies, which means extra work for Calvin. He has to put them in separate pens, make sure the babies are nursing (and if they aren't, he gets to bottlefeed!), make sure they are warm enough, and keep tabs on all of the others to see if any new babies will be coming soon. We have twelve babies so far and many more to go! They sure are cute though!

Chloe is Walking!

All of a sudden today, Chloe started walking a lot more and a lot farther. She gets so excited and starts going fast, but then loses her balance and plops to the ground. It's actually pretty funny! She was also her usual into everything self today. She disappeared only to be found halfway up the steps, had sugar all over her mouth because she got into the sugar bag that was in the cupboard, and threw her bread into the potty. She also got really mad at me when I put the baby gate up at the bottom of the steps. Life is never boring when Chloe's around! (I tried to post a video, but I couldn't get it to work. I'll try again tomorrow.)

No, No Chloe!

I feel like this is a phrase that is used continuously in our house. For example, today I was trying to videotape Chloe walking. Of course, she wouldn't walk for me. Instead, she bypassed me altogether and headed for the steps. After looking at me several times, she proceeded to go up the steps and tune out mine and Aubrey's "no, no Chloe". As I ran over there to get her down, she thought it was a game and went up even faster! She was halfway up by the time I got her back down. Then after lunch, the girls were playing tea party together. Aubrey kept filling Chloe's cup for her and Chloe kept "drinking" (more like spilling it). I tried to get Aubrey to take Chloe's cup and fill it for her, except that Chloe didn't want to let go. Long story short, they both are crying and Aubrey finally gets the cup away from Chloe only to realize that the handle is broken. I look for the piece only to find it in Chloe's mouth! How she broke part of a porcelain cup I'll never know. I take it away from her and glue it back together. I then go back over to Chloe to find her chewing on something else. I fish around and find a big hunk of cheese. I have no idea where she got that! I think it was the piece that Aubrey didn't want and left on the table. She must have gotten it off of there? I definitely need to keep a closer eye on her! On a side note, Chloe has been saying "na, na" almost like it's supposed to be "no, no". Could this be her first word?

Aubrey decided that she likes to wash dishes. I just may delegate this job to her! :)

Playing tea party together - before the broken cup

Chloe's New Antics

Chloe has really started developing her own little personality here lately, along with doing many new "tricks" (I hate calling them that but for lack of a better word). The past few days she has really started walking more. Where before she would crawl if it was more than a foot away, now she actually walks as far as she can before losing her balance. Today she walked about 3 feet from the desk to the kitchen chair. She also started crawling up the steps today. She's always liked to play by the steps, but she never went up more than a step or two and would get down as soon as you said her name. Not today! I took her down at least five times and put her somewhere else in the kitchen. As soon as I put her down, she would turn around and start climbing up again. I'm going to have to put up a baby gate at the bottom of the steps to keep her off of them. She's also becoming quite the eater. She loves bread, cheese, noodles, cheerios, crackers, and puffs. Whenever anyone is sitting at the table, she thinks that she should be eating too. She'll come and stand by your chair until you either pick her up (and she then tries to grab your food off of the table) or put her in the highchair and give her something to eat. The other cute thing that she has started doing is she'll pretend to hide. She's usually the last one in the tub at bath time. After the water is all gone, I'll go to get her out and she'll turn her head away from me, like if she can't see me, I can't see her, and then try to crawl away from me so that she doesn't have to get out of the tub. It's pretty amusing!

Aubrey's been into this "uppey" thing this week. She wants to be carried and will follow you around saying "uppey, uppey". Calvin thought that maybe it's because we carried her around a lot when she was sick. I don't know, but I'm ready for her to be over that. She's still going through withdrawal from Christmas when we had lots of people here and there were lots of people to play with. She hasn't wanted to play by herself as much as normal. It will be nice when Chloe gets a little older and they can play together more.

Calvin's been working a little more in the basement and has most of the first coat of mud done. He still has to do all the mudding around the windows, which will take a while as there is a lot to do.

Aubrey was trying to hug Chloe, though it looks like Chloe's being choked! :)

Chloe's 11 month picture - can you believe it?!

She really enjoyed this biter biscuit!

One Final Christmas

Last week (New Year's Day) we had our last Christmas - the Wagner Christmas - at Grandma Wagner's house. It was a full house, but so nice, as we got to see some of Calvin's cousins that we don't get to see on a regular basis (and got to eat some yummy food!). Aubrey was excited to open more presents of course, while Chloe was kind of crabby due to her cold and a not long enough nap. She did have a few good spells where she either tried to steal Clare's Christmas present or played with the wrapping paper. All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas!

Grandma and her 13 great-grandchildren

Calvin's family