Goofy Goofy Girl

Hi baby cakes.  I just wanted to write a little bit more after your birthday party.  And that you are a goofy one.  Just in the last couple weeks, you have really started realizing that you can get laughs from us.  And so you make funny noises or you just plain start laughing.  And not like a real laugh...but like a "I'm trying to make my self laugh" kind of laugh.  And you do it at the best times too.  I can't tell you how many times your Daddy says something funny to me or your Sissies do...and you shouldn't have a clue what they are saying...but then you give that little goofy laugh.  Which, of course, makes us laugh at you...and then you love it that you got a good reaction from us, so you do even more.  =)

I have also realized in the last week or two that you know almost EVERYTHING that I am saying to you.  For example tonight you had an apple that you just kept playing with in your mouth and I wanted to eat your eggs on your tray instead, so I say, "take a bite of your eggs" and you take the apple out of your mouth and pick up the eggs and eat them.  It's crazy...like, all of a sudden, you know everything that's going on...you just can't really talk yet.  But you do love to still ask, "Wassis?", or "Whooosis?" to just about everything you see!

We went to the doctor last week and had your 1-year check up and got your shots.  We are majorly changing your formula/milk regime.  I had started mixing in whole milk with your bottles of formula...and now, there are no bottles and we don't have to worry about getting 20-24 oz. of formula anymore.  So, I am now (per doc) to offer your milk at meals in a sippy, but no bottle at all.  Truly, you haven't gotten too much milk...you love water, but you don't drink milk too well yet.  And the Doc said not to worry about that either...that sometimes it takes weeks to get adjusted.  I feed you as much dairy foods as possible and put milk in everything that makes sense...and then just let it be after that.  You drink a ton of water, so I am grateful for that...and probably get about 6-8 oz of milk out of your sippy per day right now.  I hope that increases!

Also, your measurements are:

22 lbs, 3 oz (81st percentile)
30.5 inches  (89th percentile)
18 1/2 inches head circumference (93rd percentile)

Now...on to your party!  You had a blast...we had our house full of family and friends!  I don't think you quite got it that these people were all there for you, but you sure loved having them there!  You are little social thing.  And your first cake experience was so cute - you loved the cake, but the icing wasn't your favorite!  You even gagged a little and made a face when you at the icing.  Definitely NOT like your Mama in this department!

Here are some good pictures from your big day...enjoy!  Love you!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!!!

It's your big day...well, it was a couple days ago, but today is your party.  I don't know if I am a weirdo or what...but it doesn't put me into a fit of tears to think that you are a year old like other mommies.  I am excited by it.  I will miss you being this age, somewhat...but there is so much to come with you that's even more exciting!  And as much as others will say, "Can you believe it's been a year already...it's sad how time flies, isn't it?", I don't really feel that way.  I have drank in every moment of this last year with you and have loved it all so much.  So, now I am ready for your next year!

You are a spunky little girl.  Pretty independent...which is usually awesome...but I'd like to put in a request that you cuddle just a little bit more sometimes!  =)  You are enthralled with everything.  So much so, that it's hard for you to sit still and even drink your bottle or get your diaper changed.  You have just learned to pull yourself up (you are a late bloomer on the crawling/walking thing!) and now, a whole new world has opened up to you.  Which makes sitting still even harder for you!

You love doors, opening them and closing them.  You love cell phones, especially when they light up.  You love you Sissies and Daddy for sure!  You love new people lately too...you give them big smiles, which melts their hearts!  You love when I sing "The Wheels on the Bus"...and love to mimic the "Shhhh, Shhhh, Shhhh!" that the bus driver does in one verse of that song.  You love to point to things and say, "Waaasssis?" to ask what something is.  You love to look at family pictures and point and ask, "Whoooosis?".  You love Backyardigans on TV and VeggieTales, your whole body goes into a spaz mode when you hear the theme songs on the shows!  You love to do somersaults and puts your head on the floor and butt up in the air when you want to do one.  You love blowing out a candle...and we can't wait for you to do that today with your cake at your party!

Baby girl...you are my sweet girl.  Life has been so much fun in the last year with you in it.  Our whole family puzzle has found it's missing piece and you pulled us all together even closer.  You are the glue to all of us baby girl.  I love you so much, and it's been so much fun watching you discover more and more of your little world each day.  Thanks for making this a fun trip for your Mommy.  I can't wait to see how pretty and smart you continue to get over the next year!  I love you!

I will post some pictures of your party later - it's all VeggieTales - so lots of red, green and Larry and Bob!  Can't wait to see you eat your first piece of cake too!  I will definitely post pictures of that!  In the meantime, here are some of our family that we took last weekend.  We love them!

11 Months - The Month of Screams

Hey baby girl.  I'm just going to be honest here for a bit.  This past month was probably the roughest one yet for all of us.  The month started out great with Pa and MiMi here for a visit at the beginning of October.  You were great with them and loved them so much...and then came the screaming.  Not just any ol' screaming, like...go-to-the-bomb-shelter-because-there's-an-atom-bomb-headed-your-way kind of screaming.  We took you to the doc and you had an ear infection.  Put you on antibiotics, gave you some TLC and you got a little better.  Then you got a cold - and when you get colds, it's like every morsel of snot, drool and tears come out of your nose, mouth and eyes.  And then, you just got plain cranky.  You had been sick for a couple weeks and you had new teeth coming in...like, five of them coming at once.  And then you got the flu!  Eeek!  And that's when the atom-bomb screams really started.  There was a week where you screamed straight through it.  Mommy was going nuts and I wasn't really sure what to do...nothing mattered.  You wanted to be in my arms ALL THE TIME, but you still just screamed.  I felt so horrible for you AND I was going crazy all at the same time.  You still slept pretty good, thank goodness.

And then, one glorious Sunday morning...you woke up (not screaming) and you ate breakfast (didn't scream)...we played (no screaming)...and your Daddy and I just held our breath.  We went to church...you did awesome...ate lunch there (no screaming)...still holding our breath.  You made it through that day like the good-natured girlie that we know and love!  And your Mommy thought she had won the lottery!  =)  The rest of that week you did pretty darn good...and it's been that way since.  You definitely have a tendency toward screaming now when you don't get what you want or your ears hurt you...but you are 180 degrees different than those couple of weeks.  And we just hope it stays that way!

You are becoming such a little person.  You love to mimic sounds and words we use.  You can tell us how the monkey, puppy, cow, piggy, lion, elephant and fish go.  Yes, fish...you pucker up your lips all cute for that one.  You are into EVERYTHING.  You love exploring all over the house.  You have no real interest in standing or walking at this point because you have no need.  You get up on your knees and can hold yourself up in that way without holding on to anything....but you haven't pulled yourself to your feet yet.  And that's okay...I'll enjoy not having a walker for a little while longer!  The cabinets have been all child-safety locked and security gates are up everywhere.  I can't imagine what more we'll have to do when you are walking!

You love your Sissies.  You love waking up in the morning and finding where they are in the house.  The smile you make when you see them is awesome.  You love picking them up from school and having them sit in the back seat with you.  You love the attention they give you.  It's sweet.  In the past month or so we have gone to a ton of cross country meets for Kyndall and marching band competitions and football games for Megan.  We have been super busy with you...but you generally like traveling and going to new places.  You especially love the football games and seeing the Mountain Ridge mascot, Monte.  You think he is THE BEST.  

Especially now that you aren't forever-screaming anymore...you are such a treat for us.  You either love to play by yourself and can play for 30-40 minutes all alone...you love to stack stuff up on shelves, open and close doors and play with your fake phone (you'll hold it up to your hear or mouth and say, "Hewoooo").  Or other moods you have to be with us and be in your Mommy's arms.  Speaking of that, you have become a Mama's girl in the last several weeks - only I can feed you and hold you when you cry (at least if we want you to stop crying!).  And let's talk about this Mama thing for a second.  You stopped saying "Mama" for a long while!  At the beginning of 10 months, you stopped saying my name....in fact, when I would say, "Say Mama", you would say "Dada".  Not cool, baby girl!  That lasted a good three weeks....and you are just now saying Mama again!

And you are so pretty, baby.  I think I am probably just really biased on this one...but you are.  Strangers in public comment on how pretty you are all the time...especially your pretty blue eyes.  And your hair is growing in a lot now...and it's all wavy and curly in the back.  I love that!  You did not get that from your Mama!

You love interacting with people.  Peek-a-boo, wheels on the bus, itsy-bitsy spider, sweet baby (you love doing this with Daddy), blowing kisses (which is so stinkin' cute!), and we play like we are going to get you and you crawl away fast and just laugh your head off...you love all of those kind of things.  You have started watching shows on TV.  You LOVE VeggieTales and Backyardigans.  And Mommy relied on these HEAVILY when you were sick and cranky...and is very thankful for them and distracting you that week just a little bit.  You  should see your face light up when the songs start playing on these shows.  You are so crazy excited, your hands are flying everywhere.

With all the sicknesses of this past month, I haven't had you in your independent play time as much in your play pen...so we are currently re-learning that time in there.  This past week you have been in it every day and you are much better now...but you are still in the re-learning process there!

It was Halloween this past week too!  And you were a little chick-a-dee.  You were adorable...we went tick-or-treating with you around the neighborhood.  And then Daddy and Mommy had to eat your candy, darn it.  =)  Here are some pictures....

Here's a few more from when Pa and MiMi were here...

Next up?  Your 1st Birthday!!!!  I think it's going to be a very VeggieTale type of birthday for you!  Love you sweet baby girl!!!!

Nine AND Ten Months!

Gotta start with a HUGE apology!  I am so very late with these months of you.  But...better late than never, right?!  Right.  I'm going to tackle months 9 and 10 on this post...so, HERE. WE. GO.

Month 9

• Your Aunt Nora and cousins visited for a week.  And they loved you!  And you loved them!  We were so happy to have them here to spend time with all of us!
• Your second bottom tooth is starting to come through
• When I say, "Who's a girl girl?", you raise your hand while I say, "Me!!!".  
• If I sing, "la la la"...you sing it back to me!
• You can now sit in a shopping cart by yourself!  Yay! Which means, no more baby carrier either, you are in a big girl car seat now!
• Kyndall put you to bed while Mommy and Daddy went to a cross country meeting for her.  You did good...only ate half your bottle...but went right to sleep!
• You are scooting on your belly at 8 months, 3 weeks...you still love to roll too and have added in the army crawl.
• You love to clap, clap, clap!  To music especially!
• You know how the monkey goes!
• You moved up to the crawler room at church - even though we aren't "officially" crawling yet.  =)
• You LOVE peas!
• Aunt Edna came to visit for a few days

10 Months

• Your second bottom tooth is barely coming through
• You went to your first high school football game to see your Sister march in the band.  You loved being loud there with your Daddy!
• Right at 10 months, we took out the 3rd cat nap for you in the schedule.  The last month or so, sometimes you took it, sometimes you didn't...but now, it's officially out.
• You can drink out of a straw and love it!
• You put anything and everything in your mouth!  You pulled a small barrette out of your hair today and ate it and tried to swallow it.  Your Daddy pounded on your back and thankfully, it came back up!  No more barrettes in your hair!
• Can sit up by yourself - lowered your bed!
• Went to the doc for your well check.  You are 20 pounds 8 ounces and 29 inches long!
• Knows how to kiss!
• Clicks your tongue
• Gets up on all fours and rocks
• Says Mama and Dada a lot
• Dances to music while sitting up
• Had your first overnight with Uncle Ray and Aunt Brenda - did great!
• You try to say so many words now! 
• You can crawl!  Right at 9 months 3 weeks - better late than never!  Now you are getting so ornery with crawling!  Getting into everything!
• You love bananas - used to hate them when they were pureed!
• You eat around 20-22 oz of formula per day.  Not finishing your bottles like you used to!
• Pa and Mimi came to visit again - and you love them!  They were worried you wouldn't remember them, but you warmed up quickly!  Especially with Pa - he can really make you smile.  You love to wave at him real cute and say "Hiiiiiiiii".  It is the cutest thing ever.  You know how to turn on the charm!
• Love peek-a-boo!

Wow, baby girl...just looking through the two lists above, you are really growing!  You just got your second ear infection a few days ago, so we are fighting that with antibiotics right now.  It was almost comforting to your Mommy that something was wrong because you were screaming and screeching so much the days before, I wasn't sure I could take much more! Even your MiMi commented how you sounded like an atom bomb!  =)  You are on the mend now!

And you read it right, you finally learned to crawl!  Whew!  I think you knew how to roll so very well and could get anywhere you needed to go, so you didn't NEED to crawl real soon.  But, now that you know how to crawl...you are a crazy crawler!  Fast and into EVERYTHING.  =)  We are definitely starting to discipline!  Usually you just look at us and smile when we do.  Not cool, baby girl, not cool.  I have a feeling these next few months are going to be a bit more trying for your Daddy and me than it has been in the past.  =)

Here's some favorite pictures from the past two months....

Your Aunt Nora and Cousins JD and Cameron

Pretty girl - Aunt Nora got you  this dress

You and your Sister jamming

Sweet face!

Your Aunt Edna visited in early September!

Awesome picture!

Your pretty sisters

You and your Pa

MiMi and you just a smilin' away

This is such a normal face for you - so glad I captured it!

And a little preview of your first Halloween.....

We love you sweet face!  You are a little more to keep track of lately...but wouldn't trade it for the world!  You're the best!  We love you!

9 months! Eek!

Oh baby girl, I'm so very late with this post.  I have lots and lots to write, but it's going on 10pm and your big sis has to go to cross country at 5am tomorrow morning.  So...here are your awesome photos that we took a few days ago for your 9-month photo shoot.  The other stuff will be coming...pinky swear!  Love you!