Kitchen

Sienna's kitchen has become a favorite place for Ahren to play. He likes to pull himself up and play with the sink, sit and open all the door, and he especially likes to bang all of the pots, pans and dishes together!

Pull Ups

Little Bear has been pulling up a lot lately, too. He's even started cruising!!! He's growing up so quickly that it's hard to believe. We missed watching Sienna learn to crawl, pull up and cruise so this has all been new to us! She was a very easy child that was pretty independent and explorative and now that Ahren is mobile he is becoming more like that.

Check out my big man:



Trying to get to daddy at the computer:



Pulling up at school:

Bowling

Sienna had her first bowling experience at my nephew's birthday party. She had a blast and I got some attitude pictures from her.

Her first shot:



She wasn't really interested in the ball once it left her grip:



Watching with Cody:



Little Miss Attitude:

Showin em off

Ahren has the biggest blue eyes and the camera just captures them so well:

Big Crawler

Ahren has started crawling all over the place. I had forgotten how much they get into at this stage!!! He even found a permanent marker under the couch, opened it and drew all over the carpet (what fun that was to clean up)! He is so much more active and involved now that he is mobile.







Ahren tried really hard to get a bite out of this ball:

Kiwi

I make all of Ahren's baby food so he's been exposed to a random assortment of fruits and veggies that are typically left out of store-bought baby food. His latest favorite is kiwi! It was so funny to watch him bang on his tray, kick his feet and lean as far forward as possible to get more food as fast as he could!







*I added some yogurt so it would fill him up a little more. He also loved purple cauliflower and raspberries (he's not a fan of avocado, but I sneak it in to a lot of his fruits).

What a Mess!

Ahren pulled his toy box over and decided that all the toys were meant to be surrounding him. I had to snap a few pictures because he was so proud of his mess!

Chúc mừng năm mới

Today we celebrate Tết (our small version of it). We have lì xì for the kids and Sienna has her beautiful Áo Dài to show off! We attended a Chinese New Year celebration for adoptive families at a local church on Friday (the closest we could get in Springfield) and Sienna loved playing with the children (even if their outfits were different from hers).







*I had to tell her that the Áo Dài tunic was a dress (it technically is) and that the pants were not pants but loose leggings so that she would wear her outfit proudly (and happily).

Smile!

Ahren loves to show off his teeth (he does have one top tooth, but you can never see it)!





So angelic:

Fairy Princess

Sienna's cousin gave her a fairy costume and she has been loving flitting around the house as a fairy princess! She did find the time to pose for a few pictures...

To Cut or Not to Cut...

Ahren's hair has been driving Seth nuts for months and he is itching to have it cut (or to do it himself). It hangs over his ears and Seth wants it cut (and he would like his bangs trimmed). I took a few picture to showcase how long his hair is getting!

Celeb Moment

Sienna loves wearing her robe around the house, and when she came upstairs to get into the bath I realized she was having a JLo moment!

Cooking

I have started cooking more lately and Sienna has been the BEST helper. I saw this recipe on TV the other day and it looked amazing. Sienna helped to stem the mushrooms and helped to coat the veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper. She also helped arrange everything on a baking sheet and stir the pasta and sausage.

She was so proud of herself when everything was done! She was also pretty fond of the food. I will say that it looked (and tasted) great! And there was so much left over that Seth and Sienna at it the next day for lunch.

Ahren Seth

Ahren has started trying to get into a crawling position! He can get his thighs about an inch off the ground (and will sometimes rock back and forth).



He has also been finding his thumb a little more often.



Sienna loves to play with him and always cracks him up (she finds it quite funny as well).

Ice Skating

Well, we may be signing Sienna up for ice skating lessons after she watched the US Figure Skating Championships (we enrolled her in swimming after she became obsessed with springboard diving in '08). She loved the dramatic arm movements and jumps. She was also a big fan on the ice dancing routines.

Sienna had some dramatic jumps:











Some great arm movements:







And some sassy end poses:









We had to move the ottoman in front of the TV to prevent Sienna going directly into it as her ice skating moves aren't quite as polished as she thinks they are.