a pretty picture for sunday

these are my two wonderful sisters.

don't comment on how the curly hair genes ran out before i was born. it's a semi sore subject.

why am i still awake?

well it's because my honey is out of town and i hate going to sleep without him.  so i procrastinate going to sleep.  to help me do that, i edited pictures from july (with the exception of the first half from the beach and atlanta and baby's birthday party) and posted them on facebook.  i also killed time doing a number of other mindless things online before i went into a daze about how much i'm obsessed with my child and how i am doing a terrible job of recording the little things.  like how she got her SIXTH tooth right after she turned one.  she got her bottom two and then her top two and then the top one to the (my) left and now the one on the right!  yikes that's a lot of teeth.  my new bff kirstyn has a little girl six months older than baby.  kirstyn's kid has at least 14 teeth and wears a size 6 shoe!  will my baby grow 8 teeth and 4 shoe sizes in the next six months?!?!  i am so not ready for this.

today i woke up early to go to the dmv to get a colorado license.  which i never did the last time i lived here.  y'know how i hate the post office with all my heart?  well i hate the dmv like i hate the post office, although because colorado is so wonderful, i really haven't had a terrible experience with either of those yet in this state.  but that doesn't mean they're not evil.  anyways, the dmv is dmb.  i mean dumb.

so i rewarded myself with chick fil a for breakfast.  i got the chicken minis for the first time.  verdict: not as good as the regular chicken biscuit.  but you have to try new things just in case it could be better.  like the time i tried a chili slaw dog at the varisty and i'll never go back to just a regular chili dog.  oh my goodness i could totally go for some onion rings right now.  what i wouldn't give to be able to eat at the varisty more than 2 times a year...

so after we picked up breakfast we headed to the park to play with new bff kirstyn and another girl in our ward.  we headed home for lunch and naptime.  for the both of us.  then we met up with kirstyn again at the outlets.  i live ten miles and seven right turns from the outlets.  literally all i make it right turns to get there.  i was thinking about it on my way home and i decided it was pretty cool.  i got a $5 dress for baby for next summer and two tops for me from banana.

we each had a fabulous dinner, baby went to bed, and then i spent the next fifty hours being lonely and avoiding sleep.

ps- my kid is getting a little too attached to sleeping with a binky.  i know i can blame it on teething but i still don't like it.  and when on earth with this oral stage fade?!?!  we have about fifty near death experiences a day with all of the inedible objects and choking hazards she tries to eat.  i need to be able to relax... this is taking years off my life.

pps- i started giving baby whole milk a few weeks ago and she absolutely loves it but she won't chug it out of a sippy cup.  any ideas on how to get her to drink more throughout the day without having it be a "grazing" sort of thing?

spinning in circles

this is from last week.  i'd venture to say that she did this for a good 5-10 minutes.

and i haven't seen her do it since.  ;-)

this is all i can muster

i'm pretty sure i've lost my motivation for blogging.

pat and steph

this weekend our friends pat and steph got married. we are so so happy for them and their cute little boy adam.

i'm a born leader

ha, that's a lie.  i am a born follower.  i'm a born team player.  apparently my ward is doing this thing where they're calling everyone to callings far outside of their comfort zone.  so i was a little nervous about what my calling would be.  a member of the bishopric asked me if i had any music experience.  i told him i used to play piano but haven't since high school.  "no worries, it has no bearing on your calling."  and then "we'd like for you to be the ward music coordinator and chorister."  i think that was my favorite part.  that he straight up told me that even if i had absolutely zero music experience, i would still have been extended the call.  it gave me greater confidence to accept it.  

so today was my first day on the job and i gotta admit it.  i did a really great job.  probably a 98% since i didn't screw up at all but there was still room for improvement.  even though it seemed like a pretty solo calling at first i'm realizing it is totally not with all of the people i coordinate with and practice with.  so it's helping me meet even more people and i'm loving it.

so that's my story and i'm stickin' to it.

i am an accomplished woman

today i...

got a free baby toy and stroller off of craigslist.  i went at 8:30.  the early bird gets the goods.
mowed the lawn.  front and back.
showered.  this is a rare occurrence.
took a million screws out of the stroller to detach the canopy, fabric, and basket.
washed all the stroller stuff with hot water, detergent and bleach.
reassembled the stroller.  this was no easy feat.
went to the grocery store.
made a dessert and salad.
swept out the garage.
reorganized the stuff in the backseat of my car.
had baby take two naps instead of one.  it's amazing how much more i can get done this way!
need another shower.  i should have held off on that for later in the day.

ps- did i mention the dessert was my wonderful cousin marianne's cookie yum yum recipe?

my baby is one year old!

baby is a whole year old!

i had really wanted to do a post at 11 months because i felt like baby had changed and grown up sooo much.  but things have been super busy and now the changes seem even more drastic because my baby turned into a kid!  here are some things my sweet girl has been up to these days.

she is not entertained by toys anymore.  they are boring and uncool.  books are the thing now and she loves turning the pages and then tossing it aside for a new book.  she also likes to eat books but i'm trying to break her of that habit.

she actually still likes to eat everything.  when is this oral stage supposed to end?  it does not matter how often i vaccum, sweep, or clean, she will find something she's not supposed to eat, and eat it.  bugs, old food, lint, dirt, hair, paper, you name it.  i have yet to find something she won't eat.  she scours the carpet for treasures and if there's nothing in the carpet to eat, she'll pick at it with her fingers and eat the carpet [lint] itself.  what to do with this child.  the other day she bit off some of the plastic wrapper on her puffs container (we've kept it as a toy) and then she swallowed it.  luckily i'm practically a trained professional in this area since a doctor i knew once told me that kids clean out their systems really well on their own.  i got her in a comfortable sitting position and soothed her as the dry heaving started.  and i continued to sooth her as the spitting up and [light] vomiting started.  and sure enough.  a tiny little piece of pink plastic came out!

see the pinchers?  she's trying to eat it again!

she loves to be upright and is walking like crazy.  three weeks ago she wouldn't really walk or move unless she was holding on with both hands.  then she realized that if she was only holding on with one hand, she could pull you wherever she wanted to go.  her favorite thing now is to walk up and down stairs.  the funniest part about it is that she walks up stairs just like an adult, alternating feet, one on each step.  but, even if she can't walk up them, baby loooves stairs.

baby started talking while we were at the beach.  her first word was "yes."  she just woke up one morning and decided she would start answering everyone's questions.  yes yes yes.  the next day (and ever since, really) it was "no."  i don't think her answers really mean anything quite yet ("baby, do you want more strawberries?" "no" and then she opens her mouth really big) but when she says "no" on her own it is almost always correct.  the most common situation is when she's in her highchair.  she'll pick up a piece of food, hold it over the edge of the chair, drop it, and then look at me and say a very distinct "no!" just like i say to her when she does something she's not supposed to do.  i try not to smile at it but it is kinda funny to hear a "no!" while i'm doing something and see the tell tale piece of food on the floor.  her "no" can not be mistaken for anything else, but the "yes" always varies.  sometimes she holds the "ssss" and sometimes it's short.  sometimes it sounds more like a "yeah" and sometimes it's a whisper.  anyways, it's really really cute so we're always trying to get her to say it.  common situation: "baby say yes." "no!"  "say yes."  "no!" and on and on.  we're having too much fun with it.  she also says hi, hello, bye, and uh oh.  she's repeated words too but i don't think that counts since it's just parroting.  i'm still getting used to all of this.  i didn't expect her to talk for a long time for some reason.

guilty

baby's sleep is still kinda all over the place but that's mostly just negligent parenting.  the only consistent thing is that she sleeps.  sometimes we put her to bed at 7:30pm, sometimes 10:30pm.  sometimes she'll wake up at 6am, sometimes as late at 11am.  today she woke up at 8:15 so really, it just varies.  a lot.  i'd say more often than not, baby wakes up once during the night, nurses, and goes back to sleep.  last night she didn't wake up at all.  on days where she wakes up early, she takes two naps, both normally between 2 and 2.5 hours long.  on days where she sleeps in i just give her one nap and she'll sleep for about 3 hours, give or take.  she still completely burrows her face in the crib bumpers.  how she hasn't suffocated yet is beyond me.

baby was not the easiest trip-mate when we went to atlanta/the beach two weeks ago.  she was a handful on the plane (not realizing why she couldn't get down and crawl everywhere), she was so busy and getting into ev-er-y-thing, and her sleep was terrible, especially at the beach.  i had to nurse her to sleep every time, give her a pacifier as well, gently place her in the pack-n-play, be super super quiet, and still prepare myself for her to wake up in 45 mins if it was nighttime or sleep less than 2 hours if it was naptime.  and then to put her back to sleep at night i would have to repeat that whole thing (which normally wouldn't work the second time) or just bring her to bed with me.  so she slept with me and my blogging sister every single night at the beach.  i am soooo glad she's back to sleeping great in her crib again!  the other thing was that nothing was childproofed... especially the sandy beach.  this kid ate a LOT of sand.  more than once i resorted to trapping her on the beach in a pack n play.  ;-)

i was so excited to teach baby sign language but she's just not into it.  she did all done for a few months and then stopped a few weeks ago on our trip.  she's only done it a handful of times since we got home.  i know she knows how but she prefers to just look at me like i'm some sort of idiot.  the new sign for "all done" is pulling at her bib while pushing on her tray.  not sure who's teaching who here.

baby's clothes now range from newborn to size 12-18 months.  it just depends on the brand, style, fit, etc of each piece of clothing.  i've finally started consistently putting her in shoes when we go out and she wears a size 2.  she's still wearing a size three diaper and probably will be for a loooong time.

7.19.11 - 1 year appointment

16 lbs 7.5 ounces  1%

29.5 inches  63%

hc 44.5 cm  25%

on her birthday, baby woke up a little after six (i blame the garage door because that's when honey left to go to work).  i nursed her and we played for a bit.  she seemed sooo tired during breakfast and wouldn't eat so i just cleaned her up and put her down for a nap... at 8 am!  officially the earliest nap she's ever had.  she practically jumped out of my arms into her crib.  she was exhausted and slept until 11:15.  i nursed her and we headed to the pool for a little while and hung out with some kids.  baby seemed a little bored in the baby pool and was showing much more interest in the big pool so we swam around in there until it was time to go home for lunch.  she was in a good mood but seemed exhausted again so i put her down for her nap at 2.  she was still sleeping at 6 when honey's family came over for her little birthday party!  she had so much fun eating cake and opening presents and hanging out.  it was a really great day.

baby girl i love you so much!

i'm a slacker

so much has been going on it's unbelievable.  one of these days i'm going to get my act together and start posting again.

ps- i wish i could freeze my child in time.  she's such a kid these days.

happy birthday!

to my very favorite one year old.

i sure love you.

the sorhams!

this was the highlight of my day! brunch at mimi's with a few of my very favorite people!  sorham and lydia, when you finish school and residency, will you please please please please move to colorado? until then, just make sure we're always in town when you come to visit your family. we love you!

we have four words in our vocabularly

sung to the tune of "i've got five people in my family".  although i always sang it that i have six people in my family.  i've got two sisters and a brother and a mother and a POP!  i'm sure sesame street would approve of this adaption.

anyways.  while we were at the beach baby consistently spoke her first word.  any guesses as to what it was?  well you are wrong.  her first word was "yes" and it is the cutest yes you've ever heard.  the next day she spoke her second word.  "no."  she doesn't necessarily always mean what she says - it makes me think of a magic eight ball - but it's pretty correct.  today she dropped some green beans at dinner, we made eye contact, and then she said "no."  so at least she knows how i feel about it although it's too bad that it wasn't enough to keep her food on her plate.

she also says "uh oh" sometimes and "bye" occasionally when she waves.

looks like "mama" and "dada" are not high priorities here.

ps- my baby loves milkyway ice cream.  of course.

they're so cute

this is for my dear sister eliza. who says you don't have great pictures with your kids?!?! this now tops my list for you. love you.

the beach - in a blink

wow, that went by fast. the beach was awesome and we loved it but we're looking forward to things being a little quieter, a little calmer, a little less cramped, and a few other things. we'll be hanging out in atlanta for a few days before we fly back to colorado on tuesday so it'll still be a while longer til i get pictures and posts up.

in other news, baby has sprouted yet another tooth and she started talking this week and has a few words in her vocabulary. july 9th. this was my due date last year. i can't believe that a year ago i was hugely pregnant and i hadn't even met this kid. my how things change.