Hadley is 3 and a half!

Our spunky little monkey is now closer to four than three - SLOW DOWN, FATHER TIME - seriously!  I get a bit teary just thinking about how she's already been enrolled for preschool three days a week in the fall.

Since our last update, Haddy has had a few more milestones...she's finally broken the 30 pound barrier (I think she's around 33 pounds now) and is around 39" tall.  She wears mostly 3T & 4T clothing now.

 She received her first haircut in May and did an awesome job! She was so excited when Angelena put sparkles in her hair, too!

 

Haddy has been taking swim lessons for a while now - she's becoming quite a little fish!  In addition to the ones that she went to with Grammy at the Y, she also took a session of Little Bears at Ursinus College (her teachers were Mr. Brett and Miss Allison) and loved it! Her favorite part was jumping off of the starting block!

We also recently visited a little farm near MumMum & Pops's house - Haddy LOVED feeding the goats, cows, and fish!

More than anything, Hadley still loves Nemo (at least that's what she'll tell you if you ask her who her favorite character is).  She loves to play dollhouse, hair salon, and pretend to take Carlie to swim lessons.  She loves to be a helper and to do things independently (getting dressed and undressed, doing puzzles, etc.).  Haddy loves to write notes with pictures to give to people and she is awesome at signing her name (H-a-d-d-y - NOT the one with the "l-e" in it, she'll tell you!).

 

Haddy's also quite the little conversationalist (she doesn't get that from her parents, that's for sure!).  She'll talk to almost anyone (though she does seem to have a good sense of who is a friendly person to talk to and who is not!) and loves to make new "buddies" wherever she goes.  I hope that she's able to continue to be so bubbly and personable all through her life!

Carlie is TWO!

 

Our sweet, little Carlie is really two years old! I know I say this with each update, but it just never seems possible that so much time has passed in our lives! There really is SO much truth to what they say that kids just grow up so fast!

At her two-year well visit, Carlie was awesome!  She climbed right up on the big kid scale and only cried at the very end for her shot.  She weighed 27 pounds and measured 33.75" with a head circumference of 19", which put her in the 50th, 50th, and 75th percentiles, respectively (right in line with what she has been all along).  If we can go by the algorithm to predict their final adult height, Carlie could end up being about 5'6"!  That's pretty good for her genes!

Carlie is really a mover and a shaker these days!  She can be very mischievous and is into just about everything (which I'm sure, at least in part, is due to attempting to keep up with her sister!), but she is also a little lovey who loves to snuggle and cuddle and rock in the chair in her room at the end of the day.  She has been giving us some issues when it comes time for going to sleep, though, which is a new development with her!  Carlie still sleeps great, but she has learned some tricks from Haddy about how to avoid the dreaded bedtime!  She's also shown her true colors a few times with some epic tantrums - luckily they're still few and far between!

Currently, Carlie wears size 4 diapers, size 5 shoes, & size 2t clothes.  She loves to kick, throw, and catch balls and balloons.  She loves to go to the playground to swing on the swings and climb up the slides (probably more than sliding down them!)!  Carlie loves to go on stroller walks in the "pink stroller" and pick fuzzy dandelions to pull apart!  Now that the weather is warming up, Carlie can't get enough of playing at the water table and in the sprinkler with Haddy.

Carlie went to a practice dance class with Haddy!

 But more than anything, Carlie loves cats (or rawr-rawrs)!  She even had two kitty birthday cakes to celebrate!

 

Carlie's 21 month update

Carlie is now 1-3/4 years old! I can't believe our little surprise miracle will soon be two! How in the world is that even possible? These days, Carlie's talking up a storm. We came up with a list of about 100 words and phrases that she says (mostly recognizably, though sometimes Mama is the only one who understands her) and she continues to amaze us with her displays of what she understands. Carlie can correctly name all of her colors (though she once in a while mixes up yellow and blue for some reason) and most of her shapes. She's really awesome at sorting activities, which was a total surprise one day when I went over to help her do a puff-ball sorting activity that I had set up for her & lo and behold, she had finished it herself! Carlie is in the early stages of learning to spell her name (when asked to spell her name, she says, "C-A, mama!"), but if you ask her what her name is, she'll tell you Bubba Scholl, which is her translation of Carlie ISABELLA Scholl. What a little nut! Mama was also really proud when a fellow mama at story time (whom I later found out was a speech pathologist) noted how verbal Carlie is and how well she communicates!

Carlie has grown 1.5 inches since her last update, making her about 33" tall & she weighs about 25 pounds (up 1 pound, so she's thinning out a bit!). She is mostly wearing 24month-2T clothes, size 5 shoes, & she just graduated to size 4 diapers. She still LOVES to eat and really is not very particular, though truth be told, she doesn't really like sandwiches and will likely just eat the filling out of it when served one!

Carlie is obsessed with everything that has anything to do with kitties. She will excitedly jump and exclaim, "Rawr-Rawr!" anytime she sees a cat in a book, on a show, or even on clothing. In fact, when we went to pick her up from the play room at church recently, she had two kitty toys, one in each hand - and the time before, she had the helper read her the same cat story over and over again. The girl loves her cats!

Car-Car also loves to look at books. She's perfectly content to sit on the floor and search for "Rawr-Rawrs" on her own, but she also loves to be read to. Her favorite stories right now are "NuNu Rhymes" (Nursery Rhymes), "BED" (Ten in the Bed - she loves to sing the 'Roll over' part) and "Dumpy Doo" (Humpty Dumpty). Besides her "Marie RawrRawr," Carlie's other favorite toys these days are "DooDoo" (Dory) and the dollhouse. She loves to put all of the play characters down for naps.

Haddy and Carlie are currently obsessed with the Frozen soundtrack & can be heard quoting and singing it randomly while playing (as you will see in the video below). It's pretty funny to hear Carlie spout off, "Go away, Anna!" and singing her rendition of "Let it Go" complete with hand motions and dreamy stares into the sky!





Another new development with Carlie recently has been CLIMBING! Carlie loves to climb on everything now - up on the bar stools around the kitchen island, up onto the ottoman (where she then likes to jump!), up into her high chair by herself, onto Haddy's bed to jump (which resulted in a broken bed when they both joined in on that together!), up and down the stairs - you name it, she'll climb it!

Our baby's not so baby anymore!

Hadley is THREE!

I can't believe that our Hadley is REALLY three years old! It is so surreal that she has been a part of our home and our family for that long - it seems like only a moment ago, I was agonizing over her months upon months of sleepless nights...and now we're daily agonizing over giving her the freedom that she needs to grow and learn, but the structure and discipline she needs to be kind and loving.

At her 3-year-check up, Haddy did an awesome job!  She stood on the big kid scale and height stand and really liked having her blood pressure taken.  She answered all of the doctor's questions and was really such a super star (right up until the dreaded flu shot - but then she only cried for a second when Super-Nurse showed up with a Nemo sticker and saved the day!).  Hadley weighs 28.25lb (25th percentile) and is 36.75" tall (40th percentile), 25th percentile for BMI.  Haddy also made her first trip to the dentist about a week after her first birthday!  She was a rock-star and the hygienist loved how chatty Hadley was.

Hadley is our sassy and precious live wire.  She loves to dance and sing.  She loves to make up words to songs with whatever pops into her head at the moment (like her Daddy).  She loves to be with people.  She loves to swing, and jump, and climb.  She loves Nemo, Doc McStuffins, Daniel Tiger, and Monsters Inc.  She is so intelligent and loves to ask questions.  Haddy hates to have her hair fixed and doesn't really like to take naps (even though she needs them).  Haddy loves to go to swim class & splash with Carlie in the tub.  She is daily learning how to be a good and kind big sister.  She is a pro at using the potty (and almost diaper-free at night)!  Hadley loves to push the limits and test the waters.  She loves to be sassy and fresh, but she can also be an awesome snuggler.

We love you more than you will ever know, sweetheart.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Hadley Rebecca Scholl!!