How's Hannah?

That's a question I get a lot. People want to know how Hannah is handling having a baby in the house.

The answer? Hannah is doing much better than I expected, but it has still been a bit of an adjustment for her. When Hannah came to see Maelie in the hospital, she could hardly contain her excitement. She loudly told anyone who would listen to her, "My baby sister is tiny, tiny, tiny!" and "She has a belly button!" The initial excitement lasted through the day that we brought Maelie home. The next morning, when Hannah saw that Maelie was still here, she looked a bit annoyed. That evening was the first of Hannah's many attempts to leave Maelie at home while we went out. Instead of going alone with her daddy to get snow cones, Hannah wanted her mommy to go too and to leave Maelie at home. Sorry, Hannah. Never going to happen. (One day Hannah also told me to "stop kissing Maelie" and "watch" her.) Fortunately, even through the first couple of weeks of Hannah not wanting Maelie to go on outings with us (or to be kissed by me), she also seemed to love her and tried to smother her with hugs and kisses and wanted to hold her frequently. Thankfully, the jealously has mostly left and the sweetness has mostly stayed. Hannah still smothers Maelie (more gently) with hugs and kisses and wants to hold her several times a day. And the only thing Hannah says more often than "No, I don't need to __________" is "Maelie's SO cute!" It's stinkin' adorable. I also love how she frequently tries to comfort a crying Maelie by saying, "Maelie, Maelie, Maelie. It's ok, sweetie pie." Oh, and I almost forgot my favorite. If Maelie fusses while Hannah is holding her, Hannah sweetly says, "I got you. I got you. It got you, sweetie pie." Melt my heart. Hannah is also pretty helpful--fetching diapers, burp clothes, and the like for us. Sometimes she's a little too helpful and insists on giving Maelie her pacifier with her dirty hands or sharing her dirty toys with her. Hannah also loves to bark orders at us when Maelie cries. "Pick her up!" "Feed her, Mommy!" "Maelie needs her diaper changed!" Gotta love it. I'm just grateful that Hannah has not been aggressive with Maelie and has only accidentally hurt her a couple of times. Knock on wood.

Hannah holding Maelie.

She loves to kiss her baby sister.

Anyway, besides being a very kind and sometimes helpful big sister, Hannah is also a raging two-year-old (I often tell Scott that Heavenly Father really knew what he was doing when he made two-year-olds so stinkin' cute and funny). Hannah is extremely cute, hilarious, smart, irrational, and aggravating--often all at once. She continues to alternate between being super stubborn and oh so sweet.

Let me give you some examples...

**One of Hannah's favorite past times is changing her mind. She'll want one thing and then tantrum when we give it to her, saying she wants something else--only to tantrum again when we give the second thing to her as she screams that she really wants the first thing. Good times. Scott told her how he feels about this, and so now Hannah has added the word "annoying" to her vocabulary. :)

**Hannah plays several baby activities with her dolls. Some of my favorites are Tummy Time (pictured below) and feeding her baby by putting her baby's face against her belly. :)

Rapunzel, Cubs Barbie, and her doll in Tummy Time.

Hannah is a hands-on mommy. :)

**Hannah is the most mischievous and disobedient while I am nursing Maelie. She'll get into things she doesn't usually get into (like scissors) because she knows that I can't immediately put her in time out. I think it's time for Scott to finally install the child locks we bought months and months ago.

**Hannah recently started putting her dolls in time out (pictured below). It cracks me up to hear her talk to her dolls about why they're in time out.

 

I think her doll wasn't listening to Hannah. :)

**About a month ago, Hannah was talking to her aunt Diana who was asking her what her name is ("Hannah Mary Carter"), what her baby sister's name is ("Baby Carter" and "Maelie"), what her mommy's name is ("Annie"), and what her daddy's name is. Hannah first stated that her daddy's name is "Daddy Carter," so I asked her, "But what do I call Daddy?" And she replied (with a straight face), "Go get this for me!" Absolutely hilarious! We were all cracking up. She's a little too observant of my ways. :)

**Hannah doesn't like to be left out of conversations. Almost every time Scott and I try to talk about something, she interrupts and demands, "Stop talking! I have a question!" Then she'll say or ask something totally random that she has already said numerous times that day. We're trying to teach her to be more polite.

**Hannah is going stir-crazy. One of the first things she asks me every morning is, "Where are we going?" And I almost always tell her, much to her displeasure, "Nowhere until Daddy gets home." Now that I'm finally feeling much better I'm going stir-crazy too, but I'm too terrified of three possible scenarios that could occur on the cement stairs leading up to our 3rd-floor condo--Hannah falling to her death, me dropping Maelie as I try to rescue Hannah, or me throwing out my back as I try hard to keep either of them from getting hurt. So I have only ventured out alone with both of them once (pictured below)...



 

I carried Maelie down the stairs in the front carrier (much lighter than the car seat) and held Hannah's hand to the car. Then we drove right up next to a fruit stand to get corn on the cob (Hannah cried the entire time I was buying corn because I wouldn't let her out of the car). We then went through the drive-thru at McD to reward ourselves with fries. We're party animals, you know. The outing was nice but exhausting.

**When I tell Hannah that she's cute, she exclaims, "No! I'm not cute! I'm funny!" The funny thing is that her cousin Hannah used to say the exact opposite. We would call her funny, and she would say, "I"m not funny. I'm cute!"

**Hannah still loves to sing. She seriously is either singing or talking all day. For reals. Hannah still loves Primary songs, but now her favorite thing to do is make up her own songs about whatever she is doing or seeing. She also likes to listen to the radio or cd's. By about mid-song, she'll start singing along with just about any song that comes on. And she claims that about half of them are "my song." Hannah has also made Scott and I sing her version of a round. An example: she sang "I Am a Child of God," she had me sing "Jingle Bells," and she had her dad sing "I Love to See the Temple." It was beautiful. :)

**Hannah loves to tease, and she cracks herself up often. She's especially fond of potty humor. Wonder where she got that...

Today Hannah insisted that I take this picture of her. She was laughing hysterically.

She also thought it was hilarious to have me take this close-up of her a few days ago.

**Hannah still loves the alphabet and often spells words out that she sees and asks me, "What that spells?" I'm pretty sure she could read short words if I worked with her a little. I'm not sure how much to push her though.

**Hannah is still obsessed with Bubble Guppies and Care Bears. She loves her Bubble Guppies outfit from her aunt Jen and her Molly dolly from her cousin Sierra.

Sorry this is sideways. Sleeping with her precious Care Bear and Molly dolly.

**Hannah is also still absolutely in love with all of her cousins and talks about them all day, asking me repeatedly where they are and asking when they are "coming home."

**Hannah still loves to do most everything by herself. Sometimes she'll ask where something is, but when we show her where it is she gets mad and says she wants to find it herself. At least she's cute when she's irrational. :)

**Hannah repeats herself and asks the same questions over and over again all day long. It's a little "annoying." She also gives a loud running commentary on what she is doing, which she especially likes to share with strangers when we're out and about. Some of them pretend to care. :)

**Hannah is super stylish...

I took out the camera to capture her stylish glasses on her head only to catch her in the not-so-stylish act of picking. Super funny!

What a cutie!

**Hannah still has a super-cute scruffy voice. My favorite word that she says is "Joe-Bus," which is what she calls her cousin Joseph. She also sports a British accent when she calls a mirror a "mirrah." And I can't get enough of hearing her say the word kangaroo. Way cute. Oh, and she often tells me, "I want to kiss you for (on) the lips." Silly girl!

 **Hannah loves to match things and colors. She even points out when what I'm wearing matches with someone else at church. Lately Hannah loves to pick Otter Pops that match her clothes or the bib she is wearing. And she loves looking in the "mirrah" afterward to see how her tongue matches her Otter Pop.

**Hannah still adores her daddy. You should hear her sing "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home."

Adorable!

A few bonus pics...

Hannah helping her daddy get Maelie's corner of our room ready.

Hannah's shirt says it all.

An incredibly rare occurrence--Hannah fast asleep mid-chew of her banana at lunch.

Hannah loves taking over all of Maelie's toys. Good thing Maelie doesn't mind...yet.

We sure love our sweet and sassy Hannah!