Grace has officially moved out of her crib; actually she was never really in her crib to begin with. I think she slept in there from 2 to 5 months & then has refused ever since. After staying with Aunt Boo in October, Grace slept better at her house than she ever did here, so we tried to mimic the environment; futon mattress on the floor, feather beds x 2 on top, white noise of some sort, either fan or space heater, and either Mom or Dad of course. She now sleeps through the night in her room & probably would even if one of us was not in there with her, but we are not quite ready to let her sleep on her own on a mattress on the floor... for fear that she may get stuck in between the mattress & the wall, or open her closet in the middle of the night & fall down the laundry shoot, or scale the wall up to her window & climb out onto the roof... ok, so not really, but just waiting until we are more comfortable with leaving her alone in her room.
On Monday mornings, when I am not quite home from work yet, Andrew employs big sister to lay with her while he jumps in the shower. We do own a monitor, but this is his preference. So I came home from work one morning to find my girls snuggling. Little sweethearts! Warms my heart to see them together. <3>
I think that technically we are over our weight limit, or close to it, for sitting in our bouncy seat, but she will sit in it for a few minutes while I finish showering. Then she sits up & tries to get out on her own. She has one upstairs & one downstairs; and now she turns the vibration on & gets in them backwards like she is driving them & bounces. Too cute!
Kate has done the poms dance camp at the local high school every year. Hard to get action shots with our little point & shoot camera, but I am realizing that maybe it's time to graduate to a SLR. (Hey, just realized that those are my initials... must be an omen). Anywho, Andrew informed my Mom a couple weeks ago that she has turned me into a picture snob. I guess there are worse things.
This year they were to perform at a basketball game instead of a football game. Of course when that day came later in the week, Kate had croup. Lucky for us no one else in the house got it. I did find a few video tapings of her practicing in her room. They were actually quite funny, as she is a goof & frequently takes video footage on the camera acting as the commentator. I find all sorts of hilarious footage that I wasn't aware of. One night while I was sitting tele at work, one of the CNA's & I were looking through some of my pictures from Thanksgiving when we stumbled upon a video of Kate in Kansas City at Andrew's parents' house playing the "Barney Banjo" & dancing. I guess maybe I should figure out how to upload it. I am not sure how funny it really is, or if it was just because it was 3 am & we were all hopped up on caffeine, but we laughed sooo hard. My little videographer!
I am really not sure what she thinks pineapples are, but she always waves to them at the store or on our counter. She kept reaching for this pineapple on the counter, at which point Andrew picked up for her to examine & she decided to give it some love. Little strange, but excellent photo opportunity. Will have to add that one to her scrapbook!
Again with the fuzzy action shots. Playing jingle bells at Kindermusik the week before Christmas break. She sure does like the instruments, which is good because she got a few for Christmas. The jingle bells she found while we were walking through Pottery Barn Kids. She kept reaching for them, so I let her play with them. I have realized since that I should be prepared to purchase whatever it is she is holding because she screams if I try to take it away. Umm, not a good habit to get into; we will definitely have to work on this.
Hoarding the maracas. Sharing is another thing we are working on. I know this is a natural progression of development, however, I find it slightly rude. Grace doesn't have a choice, we make her share. We practice sharing at home, and she use to be really good at it. I would say "share" & she would hand her item to the other baby that wanted it, but then she would expect for the baby to "share back", as we call it at home, and they never do. Needless to say, we are working on sharing without expecting in return. Note to the other parents... teach your babies to share too.
I was really trying to get one good picture of her smiling, but I think she was done with the picture taking portion of the class. On another note, I am going to have lots of great pictures to choose from for the Kindermusik page in her scrapbook. Our good friend Caroline is in the background trying to eat a jingle bell. It is a constant struggle to keep all these "toys" out of their mouths. Gracie has picked up sucking on binkies again, so her little mouth is always occupied.
And here we are happy again! I must say that all the wonderful bows that Miss Sarah made for Grace when we were in Houston have gone to good use. Now the wooden letter she gave me to make a bow holder with... well, that is still waiting to be painted. Are you surprised SarBear?
She LOVES the drums! She does not have one yet, but it is on the list for her birthday. Along with a retro Fisher Price xylophone. Have you seen the fabulous retro Fisher Price toys at Target? They have a whole section! It will take you back for sure.
Speaking of my Sarah, I thought it would be appropriate to add a picture of her in here. She has 5 boys, yes 5, and 1 niece, but is so very crafty/artsy that she can make the most fabulous bows. She made Grace's Halloween bow, as well as a rainbow one to match her rainbow baby leggings (and everyone knows that I love rainbows). She made Grace 17 bows in one day while we sat together & chatted at my sister's house in Houston. I was suppose to learn how to make them, but she was so much better at it & really just needed me there to do what I do best... talk! Sure do miss the other half of my Sarah Squared!
Christmas morning in front of the tree! My girls in their matching pajamas that they opened on Christmas Eve. One of our very special traditions is new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Sometimes they are Christmas pj's & sometimes just a new pair. Either way, who doesn't love new pajamas!
I love this picture! It is so wonderful be able to experience things through the eyes of a baby, everything is brand new & beautiful. Kate is very good at being patient with her as she learns new things. Love my precious girls! We are so very blessed!
And most of the time they love each other too!
Kate helped Grace open her stocking first. This was Kathryn's first year knowing where Christmas morning stockings & gifts really come from, so she wanted to stay up late & had her own special things to put in everyone's stocking. I told her she has to believe for her sister now:)
And when Grace is done with Kathryn, she is DONE! Yesterday she was helping me by holding Grace as I unloaded the car & Grace was not in the mood for Kate. They only time I ever hear my name is when she is upset & done with Dad or Kate... "Amama Amama!" When I ask her to say it she always says "Dada", but she knows everyone's name, even the dogs. (And by the way, Violet is her favorite. Not surprising!)
Like I said, these are out of order. This picture was taken as we were taking down the tree the day after Christmas, as the tree was drying out & shedding many pine needles. The year Kate was born, Hallmark started a Barbie ornament series. My Mom started the series until we moved here, then I spaced a couple of years, then Andrew's Mom picked it back up. Lucky for Kate, Aunt Justina found her missing years & now Kate's collection is complete up to 2010. Nana Laurie started Grace a series this year from Hallmark called "Sweet Treats" & they are cupcake ornaments. So she got her first one, and the first one in the series. My Mom gets the girls snowflake ornaments every year, this being Grace's first year of course, from the Metropolitan Museum of New York. They are going to have a fabulous collection of ornaments for their tree when they grow up.
This was probably the only picture of Grace smiling in her Christmas dress. I seriously took like 100 shots in all different combinations of the girls trying to get a really good one. Kate was a good sport & Grace, well, not so much. I believe the phone call to my Mom after this session was when I was called a "picture snob" by my husband.
Grace is very sweet about sharing her loveys, but wants them back immediately. It is funny the things they become attached to. She has 6 of these, 2 blue, 2 green, & 2 pink. They all have stars on them too. They are made by Aden & Anais, and they have many designs other than the stars. One day we were in our favorite Mom/Baby shop called Sweet Beginnings, and they had a rack with many of these "loveys" on them, but she turned her nose up at all but the ones with stars. So I guess we are partial to a certain design of lovey.
Wouldn't stay still for pictures, we tried everything, loveys, binkies, toys, instruments, etc. Nope! She is on the move folks.
She likes to play with magnets, so Santa Clause gave her some alphabet magnets in her stocking. No more playing & dropping under the fridge Mommy's pretty glass magnets of my girls' names.
Back to the tree shoot in progress. My beautiful festive girls! Notice the jingle bells in Grace's hand. Distraction is key! I tried to match them as best as possible. Love that Kate goes along with it. I know it won't be much longer before she won't want to.
As you can see, we put our tree up on a table, so it would be less likely that Grace could pull it over on herself. She did stand at the table frequently to look up at the tree, but never tried to pull it down. She couldn't reach any of the ornaments on her own, but she had her few favorites that we would take down for her to look at. Kate always played the "Hoops & Yoyo" ornament for her. If you don't know who those goofy Hallmark characters are, you must find out!
Sitting pretty girl! Had to try some with the jacket & without. For some reason I don't have a lot of pictures from Kate's first Christmas, so maybe I am trying to make up for it. They sure didn't make as cute of baby clothes 10 years ago as they do now!
And, I'm done!
Wait a second, maybe if Violet joins me. Not sure what they are looking at, but it caught both of their attention. Violet is such a funny dog; she always poses herself for pictures. My Mom has a few of her too from various photo shoots here. Bruno can't sit still enough to take pictures. Darn terriers... never again!
I can't believe how grown up she looks! Watch out to all my friends who just had babies... they grow up incredibly fast!
She picked out her own dress this year. Just perfect! I told her that it suited her very well.
Last one, I promise! I know everybody thinks she looks exactly like me. I see the resemblance, but to me she looks like her own person. Similar, but not exactly. However, I will say that I have been up at her school a few times & someone who I have never met says to me, "You must be Kate's Mom? She is your mini-me." I really do love this dress on her!
Christmas morning on the couch! We take this picture every year. No Christmas pajamas for Andrew & I this year:( We totally spaced it. Then after the fact I remembered that Laurie sent me home with some. Talk about lack of sleep & forgetting things; the two go hand in hand.
Grace got a Stride to Ride Dino for Christmas! She absolutely loves it! The bench seat also opens so that she can walk & push it too. Right now she pulls up on it, then pushes it in front of her, falls to her knees & crawls behind it. Just glad she likes it! She lets Kate push her on it too... really fast. Both Andrew & I say at the same time "SLOW DOWN!" What are big sisters for? :)
We had our neighbors over for Christmas, as all of their family lives out of state too. We are so lucky to have such wonderful neighbors, that of course I did not get a picture of. They have two little girls too that Kate likes to play with. Grace loves Sheila, the mom, & goes to her with no problem on Monday mornings after I get off work so that I can sleep for a few hours. They are truly our family away from home.
So sometime in the month of December, Grace started trying finger foods. At Christmas dinner we decided to just feed her what we were eating & she gobbled it all up! Now she just eats whatever we are eating. So far so good with no allergies!
Here we are signing "more" please. She can sign for more, drink, milk, yuyums (nursing), bath, diaper change, all done, eat, and of course waves hi & bye. It is nice to be able to communicate with her already. We are still working on please & thank you. She wanted more baked beans, potato salad, ham, broccoli salad, & jello mixed with cream cheese (sounds funny, but our neighbor brought it for her picky girls & it was really yummy). Little piggy baby! She has thinned out from all her crawling around though. She weighs right around 21 lbs as of yesterday. We shall she how her 1 year appointment goes in a few short weeks.
On Christmas Eve after the noon church service, we went to Pappadeaux. For those who don't know, I waited tables there for about 4 years, on top of going to school & working as a dental assistant. I was a busy lady to say the least! It is still one of my favorite restaurants. Grace slept on her Daddy's chest throughout the whole lunch. We took our time eating, ordered a few things & shared. I feed Andrew as he was holding the babylove.
My wonderful family! God has blessed me beyond my wildest imagination. It really was such a lovely day, one that I will never forget. With Andrew working & going to school during the week, and I working weekends, we REALLY cherish our rare days off together as a family.
Kate took this picture of me:) My sweet girl is good at thinking about everybody.
Katie Pooh!
As I said before, these are really out of order. This was from Kate's Christmas ballet performance. I had to work the night before & that night, so Andrew & Grace took her. I did wake up to do her hair & make-up, however notice her ballet strings. Hopefully someone told her to tuck them in before the show started. I think from the other pictures that they were tucked in, but again with the actions shots being blurry, it's hard to tell.
Back to those loveys again. Whenever she sees them, she has to have ALL of them. If there are three in the room, then she must have all three to be satisfied. Little booger! My neighbor Sheila asked for Andrew to stop sending so many over because giving her just one is never good enough; unless it is the only one in sight. So the dolls backside in the picture? That would be Victoria, my Madame Alexander doll from when I was little. Sorry about the no clothes Mom. She is now wearing my blue baby dress. Grace likes to put her in her bouncy & turn the vibration on. Or give her loves, much like the pineapple.
Loving her loveys:) Notice how her foot is caught in her pajama leg. She now detests that! Gone are the days of lounging in our pj's until noon, we must change into regular clothes upon waking because this is what happens when she crawls around & it drives her nuts. She sits there & screams & pulls at her pant leg until she frees her little foot. Kind of silly actually. But it is nice to see her coming into her own & watching her personality unfold. We call her particular. Andrew's cousin Lindsey has a name for babies similar to Grace... intense, as she has one also. Ha, that could work too!
This one should of been closer to the top. We had her Christmas present from Santa for about 6 weeks prior to Christmas. Andrew left it sitting in her playroom because she loved going over & pushing the dinosaur scales, as they light up, play music & make noises. Kathryn thought we were ruining her Christmas, but everytime we tried to carry it upstairs she would either scream if she was in the room or search for it frantically afterwards. We finally decided we would leave it there until a week before Christmas. That would be enough time to forget about it. Kate was the one that finally carried it upstairs & even tried to hide it from us for fear that would return it to the playroom before Christmas. She was VERY into making Gracie's first Christmas a special one!
Kate had a lovely Christmas choir performance in early December. Of course it was on a weekend, so Dad & Grace went while I was sleeping off work from the night before & sleeping up for the following night. For some reason I felt better missing things on the weekend when I worked days & was actually at work. I now feel guilty when I am home sleeping after working the night shift, & preparing for the next night shift, rather than drinking myself into a caffeine overload & being there anyway. I know that is really dumb, as you cannot function on NO sleep & I would be a danger to my patients that way too. I do, however, get to make every last one of the wonderful things that go on at Kate's school. Grace & I even get to have lunch with her sometimes too. So I did get to see the choir performance at school. It was wonderful! It was titled "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and after seeing it I was so pumped up that I went & bought the girls the Dr. Suess book for Christmas. Kate is in the bottom row to the right. Know how I know? Yes, umm, that is my red scarf. Kate has gotten in the habit of borrowing my accesories, & make-up at times (not that she is allowed to wear make-up yet). I guess I should feel flattered that I have stuff she would want to borrow; either that or it is time to update a few things. She really is 10 going on 25! I always know when somebody knows my Kate because they say "she is very well spoken, articulate, & has an extensive vocabulary." Yep, that's my girl!
Actually now that I look a little closer... that is my hat too! She got to hold the star, see how happy it made her (haha). My favorite song from the performance was "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch...." Kate & I sang it all the time for the rest of December. She did teach me all the words. She tried to teach me the words to "Carol of the Bells", but I have a hard time with that one. I think I would need the lyrics right in front of me to sing it that fast. Katie dear, you have a lovely voice!
And Dada taught me how to climb the stairs, and now I'm sure he wishes he wouldn't of. She climbs the stairs constantly, with a spotter of course. I guess it is probably a good thing to get an early start because we do have a multilevel house with many small stair cases, so she probably needs to get good at it. For those who are on facebook too, you might of seen my post about being a careless mother one morning. Grace was playing in the playroom, next to the kitchen, I could see her & hear her. I opened the fridge to get her yogurt out, pulled out a spoon from the drawer, poured myself a cup of coffee & heard Grace upstairs. Umm, freak out moment to say the least! I rushed to the top of the stairs where she was sitting on the landing, smiling, clearly so proud of herself for doing it all by herself. My mind went to all the things that could of happened & felt SO lucky that they didn't. Needless to say, she is a fast little stinker. It is time for baby gates (have been procrastinating waiting on Babies R Us coupons, but they haven't come yet. Maybe I need to suck it up already?)
Playing with our jingle bells! Like I said, I took probably close to 100 shots trying to get a good one. That is the day it dawned on me that I really do need a SLR camera to get the quality of images, but then I guess I'd have to learn how to use it... hmm???
This next progression of pictures I call "What are we doing?" This is clearly her new thing.
Hope you & yours had a wonderful, very merry Christmas! Next post: Grace's First Birthday! You better believe I have all sorts of fabulous outfits planned! And my mother will be here too, which means fabulous pictures:) Stay tuned! -SR
I Love it! Had to quickly scan it because I'm at work, but I will read it all later tonight! Love my cameo! Such a beautiful family!
ReplyDeleteLove you so much!
The pineapple love is just too funny! Glad to see you all are happy, healthy and having lots of fun. ;)
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