She also discovered how to fight back when Maddy is being pushy – Maddy now has a lovely bruise on her calf in the shape of Hayden’s 4 little, yet sharp, teeth. However, the sisters still love each other. Just check out this great dance video as evidence:

In addition to all this, we had my brother Gavin and my sister Lorna’s family over for the 4th of July, which was a blast. Dave cracked open our new grill, and the kids got a kick (much to my chagrin) from the firecrackers and sparklers he let them play with on our deck (which is made of wood, btw). The best part was that Lorna and crew stayed overnight and us grownups actually got to hang out and enjoy adult conversation over some games of cards after all the kids went to bed.

Then on Tuesday, we Phamsters had a mini-celebration in honor of Hayden’s actual birthday. Dave picked up some yummy cupcakes on his way home from work, and we gave Hayden her birthday gift – a fun toddler band set with cute “instruments” for her and Maddy to play. The best was the look on Maddy’s face when we decided to use a leftover sparkler since we didn’t have any candles for Hayden to blow out.

On Saturday, we had a fun family party in the park near our house with my Portland siblings and their families, my grandparents, and my aunt Sydney and her family. The kids had a blast on the playground, learning tennis from Dave, and blowing bubbles. Then we went back to our house for cake and ice cream. Here’s a slideshow of all Hayden’s bday festivities:

And today, we took Hayden for her 1-year check-up, where the doctor told us she has reached the frightening distinction of being in the 1st percentile for weight for her age. I’m trying not to let that stress me out. She weights 16 lbs 9 oz, is 28.5 inches tall (28th %), and her head is 43.5 cm around (10th %).

Now it’s off to Sunnyvale for me for a couple days…

…and now it’s the middle of June so the title of the post is no longer appropriate but I feel a need to leave it just so I can laugh at how long it’s taken me to get this up. Here are some highlights and media galore from our past 6 weeks that I haven’t had a chance to capture for the blog yet.

The first weekend in May, we had a wonderful visit from cousin Addi, Aunt Crystal, and Grandpa Busath, who flew up to Portland from Utah for my nephew’s blessing. We got to host them at our new house and test out the “guest quarters” in our basement, which worked out nicely. Maddy loved having Addi around for 3 whole days, and has missed her a lot ever since she left.

Below are a couple photos from that awesome weekend.

Since then, we’ve also had lots of other playdates with the rest of the cousins, which we always enjoy thoroughly despite the intensity of the chaos that ensues every time that many toddlers and babies converge (hence my lack of photos of said playdates). If it weren’t for naps and distance, we’d get together with them every day.

In addition to our fun cousin time, Maddy has been lucky enough to go on a couple other cool outings of her own when weather permits. I took her out for coffee with a friend at the cutest little coffee shop and Maddy got a kick out of playing with their dominoes and chess set while drinking a very grown up milk next to my cup of coffee. I also took her to the Rose Festival, which is a fun waterfront fair they have in downtown Portland. She loved the fire truck ride we went on, but was a little scared by the hot air balloon ride. Dave also took her back for the Dragon Boat races on a different day, which amazed and thrilled her – she seemed especially smitten with the drums they have on the boats.

Today she went to her first gymnastics class, which we hope gives her a safer place to practice the “routines” she’s been performing for us lately (basically rotating through a few yoga poses and then running around in circles). Next week Maddy starts preschool/summer camp three mornings a week! We’re very excited for her to meet some new friends up here, because she definitely misses and talks about her Cali buddies all the time, especially Sydney, Sierra, Lily and Chloe.

Oh and here’s the only video we’ve been able to get so far of Hayden’s little steps, a fun one of her giggling, as well as great videos of Maddy reading a story to her “babies” and then taking them to the “dentist,” Maddy “performing” with Uncle Gavin, Maddy “dancing” to New Kids on the Block, and Maddy at gymnastics class:

Can’t believe Hayden is 11 months old today. I thought time went fast when Maddy was a baby, but this is really ridiculous.

Over the past month, she’s been getting better and better at standing, and she’s even taken a few steps independently, but they’re far and few between.  No matter how many times Maddy shouts “Mom, Hayden’s walking!” (this happens every time Hayden pulls herself up and surfs along a piece of furniture), Hayden just doesn’t seem inspired to make it true.

She’s not so interested in saying actual words, but is making lots of noises and becoming very expressive with her face and her body language.  For example, she’s so not loving the solids we feed her, and is sure to let us know by aggressively shaking her head back-and-forth as soon as she’s done.  That usually happens after maybe 2-3 bites of whatever mashed up stuff we’re giving her.  She does love those puffs and teething biscuits, though.

Hayden’s getting good at picking up things and putting them inside or taking them out of bags, boxes, etc., and I swear a few times it’s even looked like she was turning the pages in a book following along – but that was probably just her way of trying to find a better angle to eat it from.

She’s becoming a great sleeper, which makes me very happy. Unlike Maddy at this age, and unlike herself 6 months ago, Hayden actually seems to be settling into a regular routine with two 2+ hour naps/day and almost 12 hours at night.

She still has no fear.  If I let her wander free and take my eyes off of her for ONE second (no Dave, I would never ever ever take my eyes off of her), she would manage to get herself in some pretty thorny situations.  If this were to happen, but it never has, I wouldn’t be surprised to find Hayden inside the TV cabinet, standing on top of the driver’s seat of her little toy car about to topple over, reaching into the toilet while trying to eat the toilet seat, standing on my elliptical machine wondering why her 16 lbs isn’t propelling it forward, or standing at the top of our long staircase looking curiously downstairs.  Good thing I’m a diligent mom and don’t let these things happen.

Hayden weighed in this morning at a whopping 16 lbs, 11 oz.  At least she’s finally approaching 17 lbs, but that still brings her in at below the 5th percentile for her weight.  I sure hope she catches up eventually, and I also hope our new doctor doesn’t lecture me at her 1-year visit.

In honor of her 11-month milestone, here are a couple videos that don’t quite capture all of Hayden’s cuteness, but are fun nonetheless:

My mother’s day gift to myself is permission to write this blog post, even though there are still plenty of other things around the house I should be doing. I also have about 5 other posts swimming around in my head that will hopefully be coming shortly, but for now let’s focus on another Hayden update.

I cannot believe she turned 10 months old this past week. It’s very sad to me that she will be 1 soon, but this is also such a fun phase to observe.

Here’s what Hayden’s up to:

- Crawling very very fast.

- Getting very good at standing independently, but not so interested in walking. Seems to enjoy pushing around her walker, though.

- Climbing all over everything. Just discovered the stairs last week (no baby gates up in the new house yet), and was fascinated by how high she could get just by climbing up 2 steps. Of course she had no idea how to get back down.

- Loving mommy. It brightens my day every time a walk into a room and see her face light up with a huge smile. She does this sometimes for Maddy and Dave also, but I enjoy how frequently I get those special smiles.

- Adoring her big sister and loving when Maddy interacts with her. Today they started playing a “game” which involved them bonking heads over and over again. Surprisingly they kept the impact low and there were no tears, only hysterical laughter from both girls every time their heads touched. I must get a video of Hayden’s latest laugh.

- Perfectly content playing independently as long as she’s not trapped in her playpen and has plenty of great toys to eat.

- Has developed a wonderful pageant wrist wave, which she employs constantly.

- 4 teeth now with a big gap between her top 2.

- Much less stranger anxiety. Still doesn’t especially want to be left alone with strangers, but will tolerate it if necessary and is perfectly happy to be around other folks as long as one of her family members is in the same room.

- Always has her hair in her eyes. Dare I trim those bangs????

- Weighs just around 16 lbs, still below the 5th percentile for her age – but her tiny-ness sure doesn’t seem to be slowing her down!

We’ve been watching lots of basketball at my house lately, which sometimes I love.

But other times, I tell my daddy “I don’t want to watch basketball! I want to watch Sesame!” or “I want to watch neighbors!”

Neighbors is what I call all the home improvement and home buying shows that I love, like Flip this House and House Hunters.

Anyway, mommy says I have to get ready for lots of basketball because it’s March Madness time and Syracuse has a #1 seed this year, so we’re hoping they’ll be in the tourney for a looooong time. As you can see in this video, I’m SO ready!

I’m also super excited because I have a new tooth now (if you look REALLY close, you can almost see it in this photo) and I’m starting to enjoy more foods. Thank goodness it’s out instead of still cutting through my gums, cause that hurt a LOT. Felt like it took forever to get my first tooth, but I’m already working on the next one so I’m not done with the ouchy-ness yet.

- Super-Excited-About-Everything-Hayden

P.S. Here’s a video of my talking that mom wrote about last week. I get so excited these days that I have to squawk very loudly all the time. I talk and talk and talk, but still my sister and parents don’t seem to totally get what I’m saying sometimes. Hmmmm, maybe if I talk louder they’ll finally listen?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in PhamsterWorld. I think the girls would sum them up as funfunfun, and Dave and I would sum them up as simply exhausting. Before getting into our recap, let’s pause for a moment to celebrate Hayden’s latest milestone. Yes, the little bubba is now a movin’ and groovin’ 8-month-old who says “dadada,” but not much else yet.

With all her locomoting, she hasn’t been gaining as much weight as we’d like – she’s now at just over 15 lbs, which keeps her in the 5th percentile for her age. She’s crawling/ trying to climb all over the place and gets very antsy if we leave her in the exersaucer or high chair for too long. Her favorite places to crawl to are under our coffee table and behind the recliner.

In other news, Maddy had her first real experience in the snow 2 weeks ago when we met up with my old college roommates (Amy and Joanne) and their families at Lake Tahoe. Pictures here. She loved building a snowman with Dave, and gave sledding a try but got tired of that after 2 runs down the hill in our backyard. Most of all, she loved making friends with Amy’s boys Nathan and Chase.

After that, my dad came for a brief visit and Maddy and Hayden got some good grandpa time in. Last weekend, we also had one of our super-fun playdates with Syd and Sierra and Lily at Burton Park in San Carlos.

This weekend Maddy and I have already had some fun playing around the house with Hayden and at our little neighborhood park.

Hence, I feel a need to “work” on this blog post and capture all the random Maddyisms that I’ve been posting to Facebook lately, for those of you non-Facebookers (Maren)…

This video is of Maddy hanging out in what she calls her “jail.” Seems to me she likes it too much for it to really qualify as jail time.

Maddy was sitting in the kitchen chair next to our high chair and when I put Hayden in to start feeding her, Maddy got down and said “Mommy, I get down so it can be your turn in da chair.”

Maddy watch watching Dave cook dinner and spontaneously broke out into applause. When Dave didn’t turn around, she said “Daddy, I’m clapping for you!”

Maddy wanted to share some of my yogurt with me, and I said “no, sorry because I don’t want you to get my germs and get sick.” She promptly replied with “but I’m already sick because Hayden got her germs all over me but I don’t need to go to the doctor.” (mainly funny because she wasn’t at all sick at the time)

After asking Maddy if she enjoyed her visit to Yahoo! the other day, she said “Yes! I had fun playing with Sheila! Tomorrow I go to Sydney’s house and play with Sydney, okay?”

Maddy hugged Hayden and said “sisters forever” (Dave taught her that).

When I came home from work, Maddy said “mommy I’m so glad you come home.”

Maddy loaded up my backpack one day and said: “Mommy, I’m going to my work-job now, bye!”

Maddy’s favorite word: “actually.” You’d be surprised in how many contexts she can use it.

Whenever I turned on the garbage disposal, Maddy used to run into the other room. Now, she instead runs over to Hayden and wraps her in her arms to protect her

Maddy: “I’m just going to read my pumpkin book because I love it it’s my favorite one.” (that’s the Halloween book Leigh gave her)

Maddy as I was running up the stairs to answer my phone: “Mommy, be careful!”

As a 7-month-old now, I’m feeling very mature.

I’ve grown over a pound since last month – now I’m 14 lbs 10 oz, which is still only in the 5-10 percentile for my age although mom and dad think I’m huge.

I like to “talk” a lot with my new noises, and I love to eat “solid” foods, like rice cereal, oatmeal, applesauce, pears, peas, carrots and bananas.

But my mostest favorite things these days are sitting up by myself (until I fall over) and practicing my crawling/scooting.

As you can see in these videos, I’ve made lots of progress over the past week and I love the newfound independence it gives me! I will admit that I still have more than my fair share of face plants, but hopefully I’ll figure out a less painful way of getting forward soon.

Another activity I absolutely adore is bathtime with Maddy. I sit in my bumbo chair and we play the “who can splash the other more” game. It’s super fun.

Mommy says that one reason I’m able to enjoy all this stuff is because I’m becoming a pretty good sleeper most nights and days (except when my runny nose really gets to me). I sleep 10-11 hours straight most nights, and either take two solid 2-3 hour naps or three 1-2 hour naps every day. Yay for me!

I won’t go into details about how my digestive system is also maturing, let’s just say it’s a much less enjoyable part of this growth stage.

Happy 7 months to me!

- Hayden

No one can believe it, but yes I’m 6 months old already! When mom said “Happy half-birthday” to me this morning, Maddy insisted that we put on these hats and have cake (”one cake for mommy, one cake for daddy, one cake for Maddy and one cake for Hayden”).

We got a negatory on the cake, but luckily mom had never put away the stuff from Maddy’s birthday party in September, so we got to wear birthday hats.

For my half-birthday present, my mom finally gave me an A on my sleep-training report card It was a long 3.5 weeks, but I’m finally learning to appreciate the joy of 11 straight hours of sleep. I kind of alternate between 2-nap days and 3-nap days depending on my mood, but either way I really love my naps now and always take pretty long ones.

Oh, and here’s some completely unrelated documentation of how much I love my bathtimes (this video is actually me being the most still ever in a bath):

- Hayden

P.S. While we’re celebrating, I have to say a happy actual BIRTH day to my brand new cousin, Ezra Noble Carman, who was born this morning. We’re going to be best friends, I can’t wait to meet him.

P.P.S. When I went to the doctor’s office, I weighed in at 13 lbs 9 oz (10th percentile), at 24.75 inches long (10-25th percentile), with a head circumference of 40 cm (we think they measured wrong, b/c that puts my head below the 5th percentile).