it's been awhile...

Sorry to those of you who check here all the time for an update. It's been hard to update lately for several reasons:
1) my laptop stopped working, so I now can only get online when my little girl is sleeping--something she doesn't do very well!!
2) we all three have been sick--Daddy is still sick, I'm not sure but I think I may be getting sick again, and our little one is getting over an ear infection.
3) I subbed at my old school Monday and Tuesday of this week, so there were several busy days in there. Grandma came down to babysit, which was great, but they were still tiring days for me. I don't know how you working moms do it!!

So anyway, no updates....sorry.

Let's see, what can I tell you about? She's got another tooth--one of her two front teeth popped through last week and is steadily growing in. I'm sure the other one is close behind. Her gum is swollen right there. She's crawling like a pro and cruising around the furniture at record speeds. She's learning to keep her balance and can let go and stand on her own for a few seconds at a time. She'll be walking before I know it.

That's about all that is going on here. It's freezing cold, so we've been staying in as much as possible. I'm looking forward to warmer weather so we can get out more. Cabin fever is going to set in before too long. I guess I got spolied with the warm fall and beginning of winter that we've had. Now that it's really winter, I'm not ready for it!

across the room!

We have an honest to goodness crawler on our hands now! I think she's been holding out on us, because this afternoon she just up and took off across the living room! She crawled to the window, which is low to the ground, pulled up, and stood and looked out for 10 or 15 minutes.






Then she got down and crawled back across the room to her Incrediblock toy and started to play. Daddy caught her on video, so I got to see it, even though I was gone at the grocery store! Soon after I got back I got to see if for myself as she crawled over to see Mommy. Since then she's been all over the place. We can't leave her alone now.

Here she is crawling to Daddy, who is inside her house (a Christmas present). She loves pushing the doorbell, which turns on the light (the light is her favorite part).

standing, standing, and more standing

Boy, does she ever love to stand! She used to play so contentedly on the floor by herself while I got something done. Those days are long gone. Now she wants to stand up to everything, and if she's not standing, she's trying to pull up so she can stand. She's now perfected the art of walking around and around in circles around her leap frog table. She does this for a good 20 minutes or so before getting frustrated and wanting to move on to something else.



And the most frustrating is that she's learned to stand in her crib (thankfully after we moved the mattress down this past weekend!) So now when she goes in to go to sleep, if she feels like it she'll pull up and stand, and then cry and cry because she can't get down and go to sleep. I never know if she's crying because she's standing or if she's crying because she just is tired and having trouble going to sleep, so I always have to go check on her, which makes her even more mad because "Mommy came in and didn't get me!!!" I guess I need to teach her how to get down if I ever want this phase to end!

look what I can do!

I should probably cross off "crawl" from the last post.... she really only crawled twice that day and only once since, so she really isn't a crawler (which is fine with me...much less chasing around that way!)

But she can stand up to things and walk with her walker! I think she's going to walk before she really crawls. She loves to stand and pull up (and wants to do it ALL DAY LONG...on Mommy, of course!). She dosen't really know how to get down yet, so she cries after awhile when she's had enough and realizes that she's stuck!

We're still struggling with eating. She had her nine month check up this week and the doctor is sending us to a nutritionist, because she's dropped to the 10th percentile for weight. She's supposed to be able to give me tips to get her to eat better, and maybe some sort of nutritional supplement or something to get her to gain weight. Last night we were so proud of her--she ate an entire container of baby food for the first time ever...but then she threw up in bed, right as she was going to sleep. What a mess! So much for eating a whole container. Maybe her tummy is just too small!

Despite the eating issues, though, she's full of smiles and is as happy as can be (most of the time).
She loves music, and anytime one of her toys starts playing music she gets a huge smile on her face and starts to "dance."

some new tricks

I forgot to mention yesterday that she's added some tricks to her repertoire!

Let's see....she can now
1)clap her hands
2)dance to music
3)crawl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, the crawling just happened this morning. She really didn't want to be sitting on the floor where I had put her, so she started coming toward me. She's been doing that for weeks, but she never gets further than putting her hands on the floor, leaning towards what she wants, then doing a nose dive. But today she crawled two crawls before doing a nose dive! Progress!! She's been practicing all morning, too. She hasn't done more than two crawls at once, but hopefully that'll improve with practice.

Now we've got our work cut out for us...........

Happy New Year!

Whew! What a busy couple of weeks it's been in our little world...lots of traveling, presents, food, presents, more traveling, and did I mention presents??? We're going to have to get a bigger house to accomodate all of the toys!!!

Let's see...I'll start with December 22nd. That night we pretended that it was Christmas eve at our house. In my family growing up we always got to open one present on Christmas eve, and it was always new PJs. So I continued the tradition and on her first Christmas, she got some new PJs, too.



However, she didn't get to open them because Mommy didn't wrap them. But she DID get to open a present--it was the book, "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Mommy and Daddy had picked it out together for her and we chose this one because we liked the pictures the best. After bathtime and putting on the new PJs, she opened the present and Daddy read the story to her before bed.

The next morning was going to be our Christmas morning. She woke up wanting to eat at 5:00 AM, and Daddy wanted to get up then to open presents! We were both so excited about giving her her presents. But we put her back to bed and waited until she got up around 7:00 to open the presents. How many times will that happen--that we're waiting for HER to wake up Christmas morning!?

Daddy went downstairs to turn the lights on while she got up and got her diaper changed. Then we went downstairs and saw everything Santa had left. She opened her stocking first and loved the different chewy balls Santa had put inside. She also got a little tamborine in there that she really likes. Then we started the presents. She was more concerned with eating the paper than what was actually inside, but she did enjoy seeing Elmo and chewing on his eyes! Her big present this year was a toy box that Daddy made for her. It's not quite finished (it still needs to be stained), but it is all put together so Daddy brought it in for her to see Christmas morning. He did such a beautiful job on it.



After playing for a little while and taking a nap, we got packed up and left for Grandma and Grandpa's house up north. Riding in the car with her is always an adventure....she sleeps for the first 1 1/2 hours, but the final hour is always a crying fest. Ugh. No matter what we do, she cries. But we made it to Grandma's and she perked right up, enjoying a whole new set of toys and people to play with.



The next day, Christmas Eve, she got an even bigger treat--her cousins came to visit! She hadn't seen them since the summer, since they're in North Carolina for the year, so everyone was so glad to see her and Emma especially was so excited to have another girl to play with. She was so good with her--playing peekaboo, bringing her toys to play with, and giving her hugs and kisses.

Christmas morning she opened the stocking at Grandma's house--more fun things to chew on!! She got to see Grandma get her big present from Grandpa--a new car!!! It was a huge surprise to Grandma, but we all knew she was getting it. She was shocked. After that excitement, we packed up and went to Granny and Papa's house. There she saw lots more cousins and had several presents to open. She started to get a bit overwhelmed with all of the people and noise, but she was a trooper. She slept in the car on the way back to Grandma's after lunch.

Then we had Christmas at Grandma's, which always means lots of fun, presents, and a BIG mess! She got better at opening her presents as the day went on, but especially enjoyed the ribbon on the package her baby doll came in from her aunt and uncle and cousins.

We stayed for a few more days and then came home to our house again. It was nice to get back into her routine and have her sleeping in her own bed.

Last night we had a party....not really a new year's eve party, because it was only from about 3:00-7:00 pm, but we wanted to have a Christmas party, and there weren't any dates that worked except for New Year's Eve! It was fun to see our friends and have the kids get together to play. Everyone enjoyed the new Christmas presents, and she did a good job of sharing her toys!

So there you go...a recap of the last couple of weeks in the world of weed. It's been tiring, hectic, but fun. I'm ready for things to return to normal for awhile, though!