Christmas Pictures Take One

I tried to take pictures the other night for our Christmas card (which has not gone out yet!). I should have been ready with the camera when I very first put the hat on her head. She wore it for a good long time. I could’ve gotten a great shot, but I was a little slow on the uptake. Instead, we got a lot of pictures with her pulling it off. Still, we managed to get one that will work.

Christmas Pictures Take Two

Trying to get those christmas shots!

The Crawl

Here is the almost crawl. She is smart, I tell ya. She won’t do it if she can see me or Ryan, but when she thinks she is alone she will do it a lot! We will stand in the kitchen and watch her, and she will go all over the place, hanging out on her knees. But if we are there, she insists on walking or sitting on her bum.

Friends

I tried to take pictures the other night for our Christmas card (which has not gone out yet!). I should have been ready with the camera when I very first put the hat on her head. She wore it for a good long time. I could’ve gotten a great shot, but I was a little slow on the uptake. Instead, we got a lot of pictures with her pulling it off. Still, we managed to get one that will work.

Are these really my parents?

Ryan is always putting toys on his head to entertain kids. This time, he thought he would try it out with the toy on Jacie’s head. She didn’t care for that so much. Then again, she was tired. Sunday’s are hard days for her.

Wiped out and ready for bed!!

Come in Star Command, do you read me?

I bought her these ear-phones to go with the portable DVD player for the trip to Idaho. She hated them at first, but after several attempts with them plugged in to the DVD and she realizes sound comes out, she is ok with them. However, if I try to put them on myself, she cries when she looks at me. Must look kinda scary. I showed her what she looked like with them on in the mirror and she had a serious meltdown.

Destructo Baby

Ryan calls her Destructo-baby. Judging by this picture, she sure is!! I clean up her toys every day…several times every day. I will put them all in her bin after she goes down for her morning nap, after she goes down for her afternoon nap, and then after she goes to bed. She loves to make a mess, and its ok by me, because she enjoys doing it.

Giggling Girl

This video just shows Jacie giggling, so if that kind of stuff bores you, skip right over it! This is especially for my niece Challis who LOVES that the sound works on her computer, now! Love you, Challis!!

Have I posted this giggling girl lately? We have this habit I’ve mentioned before. Its of me making the bed and placing her up by my pillow and making the bed around her. Its become a play time for us and as soon as I put her up there, she gets so excited. This particular time, I was fluffing the blanket up into the air to straighten it out and she fell into a fit of giggles. After a couple of times, she started to fluff the blanket herself. I love this stage of babies. She totally wants to play and knows when it is play time! On the other hand, she has really developed that “stranger danger” thing and will not go to anyone that is not Mom or Dad or the Ross boys.

New Developments

Jacie has several new developments. First, she is crawling (yeah!!!), though only about one or two knee movements, but its crawling! Next, when she flops onto her belly from being on her knees, she will push up and sit back on her bum. She’s never done this before, and so the first time she did it I second guessed myself. She was on her belly, and then all of a sudden she was sitting up. I thought, “hmmm…I guess I imagined her being on her belly”. Then a few minutes later she did it again, and I actually saw her do it. Pretty clever girl. Next, as this picture illustrates, she loves to sit with her legs up on whatever is in front of her. That’s her preferred method for sitting in her highchair. In fact, she can pull herself all the way up and over the front rail. So…we have now initiated the buckle. Oh , and she is on to people food now. We are running through the last bit of baby food so it doesn’t go to waist, but she is getting really good at gumming down almost anything we give her.

Busy Ball Popper

We broke out one of the new Christmas gifts for Jacie. I’m still going to wrap the empty box and let her pull off the paper. It was the Busy Ball Popper toy and at first, she had no idea what was going on. I think she was a little freaked out by it, actually. Soon enough, she figured out that when the music stops, you push the red button down and it will go again. She loved it!! The Ross boys are with us this weekend (Kris and Nathanial), and they had a blast playing with it with her. She sure knows how to make boys jump through hoops for her!

Not So Happy Princess

Today Jacie had a bunch of friends over for a play date. It was actually play group and I took a turn hosting it at my house. It was really fun. We get together every Friday morning and have breakfast and the kids run around and play. Today, there were six kids, plus Jacie. We ate some yummy but very overcooked cinnamon rolls and the Moms chatted about Mom stuff. How nice it was to not think of school for a couple of hours!! Jacie and I played the rest of the day. It was really nice to focus on just her and not papers. I think she appreciated it, too.
Apparently, she didn't want to be the Princess today.

Its Christmas Time

We decorated for Christmas the other night. Well, at least part way. We got the tree up and some ornaments on it before the game came on (Steelers, of course) and all decorating stopped. However, we put up the baby’s first Christmas ornaments and it was so exciting for us to actually have a reason to put these up! Jacie loved it. We have a LOT of singing frogs, and she enjoyed playing with them. I’m sure we will go through a lot of batteries this Christmas season!

Anyone up for a good story? I wanted to get matching stockings this year, it being our first Christmas together and all. I went to this super cool craft store and couldn't find anything I liked, so I decided to find stockings that fit our personalities instead. I let Jacie pick out her own by holding up a few different ones and whatever one she picked would be it. Can you believe she didn't want the pink one?! Anyway, I found the fishing wader stocking and thought of Ryan. Next up, me. I found a big stocking and it said "I've been very very very nice". I thought that was a great one for me. Working hard, trying my best yada yada yada. When Ryan got home that night, I decided to show him the stockings. I held mine up to him and said "Nice, huh?" He had this very odd look on his face. I tried to explain that is was the biggest stocking we have, and I picked it out for me as a joke...whatever. Come to find out, the side Ryan saw (that I didn't see while I was in the store) said "I've been very very very naughty". Needless to say, I have my 'Judy' stocking hanging up instead. Playing with the Bead roller after the beads were put on the tree.
Whose turn is it now? Who, who? Which one is gonna make some noise??

Fascination

I bought her this spinner toy awhile ago. You might remember it from an earlier post. Well, she finally figured it out! Object permanence is also in place. Ryan was hiding the remote the other day under his hand (which, or course, she just has to play with), and she was staring at his hand, and then began picking up his fingers one by one to find it. Back to the spinner toy. She played with it for the longest time tonight, watching the little balls pop up. It’s so fun to watch her discover new things. It’s just downright fascinating! She is also getting so much closer to crawling. She is in the stage where she pulls one leg out, like she is trying to get onto her knees. So close! I bet we have a crawler before Christmas. One last note…she giggles a lot more now than ever before. She will be playing with her toys and I will be reading and I will here this little giggle. She is laughing at herself playing! Too cute. She also giggles when she sees Ryan and I, spontaneously! Does she have a bit of her Daddy in her?? Hmmm….OK, one more thing…I swear she is saying Mama and Dada, in reference to Ryan or myself. Isn’t it a bit young for that? But I promise ya, she does it. When Ryan got home tonight, she said directly to him Da Da Da several times. But when she is fussing for me, she says Ma Ma Ma or just Ma Ma. Too early? Maybe, and maybe it really isn’t in reference to one of us but I sure love hearing it!

Bad Hair Day

Who can resist such a silly picture as this? After bathing tonight, I rubbed her head with the towel and when I pulled it off, her hair was standing straight up! Gotta love moments like this. Oh how she will not like me so much when she is older and dating…I can already see the wedding reception picture slideshow...

Entertainment

Princess Peanut has become a lot more independent lately. It’s actually kind of nice right now, because I can sit on the couch and do my reading, and she will entertain herself for a long time! She LOVES to take her toys out of the bin. I didn’t know this, but both Ryan and I have been doing that with her for quite some time. We load all the toys into the lime green container and set it in front of her and she completely unloads it. Sometimes she tips it over and dumps it. She is in heaven—so many toys to choose from! When all the toys are out and she looks like she is losing interest, we can load it back up and she will start all over again! Cinderella has taken a back burner with this new little task! Thank you Mark and Jaymie for the bin--who knew two years ago it would end up as a baby toy?!
She literally plays with every single toy in the container. Loves them all!
I love this shot because she looks like she is giving the "yes!" pull with her fist and arm pulling down.
Didn't I mention she mimicks me? Well, here she is now, reading her own book, just like Mommy!Doesn't that just look like loads of fun? Who wouldn't want to play with so many wonerfully colorful toys?

The copycat

It sure looks like Jacie is mimicking me these days…This is a picture of the great mess I blogged about before, but this time it shows her in the mess looking so proud. Maybe if I had her do my school work with me, we could get twice as much of it done!

Thanksgiving Part Two

We had some of our friends from medical school join us this year for the Big Feast and shopping the next day. Dave and Griselda came up from the south-eastern part of the state with their three boys. Bless their hearts, they were prepared to rough it with no power!! We had a wonderful time, and Griselda helped me save the gravy from going extinct. That is a story for another day, but one I will not ever forget! Of their three boys, their youngest is 3 ½ weeks younger than Jacie. They were so cute together and Jacie just wanted to eat him up. She tried to kiss him while we had them sitting next to each other for pictures, and she giggled at him several times. Babies are so fun, but even more fun when you see them interact with each other.
Griselda and I went shopping the next morning and managed to get all the deals we wanted! We let at 7:30 AM, and went to Kohl’s where we got in line right away. One of would shop while the other waited in line and vice versa. It worked out really well. We were in line until 10:00!! It was well worth it, though. I got Jacie’s Christmas gift for half off, a down comforter for $110 off, and some other good stuff. We had a blast!

She has a plan, you can see it in her face...

Here she is getting ready to plant a big one on him. Doesn't he look like he knows what is coming?

Gotcha, big boy!

She succeeded! This little look says Triumph!!

First Thanksgiving

Jacie has enjoyed her very first thanksgiving! And what an enjoyment it was. Little does she know that thanksgiving is generally a day filled with lots of good food, visits from friends or family, browsing through the Black Friday ads, and then, if you are lucky, a nap. However, this thanksgiving, Jacie woke up at 3 AM, then 4 AM and decided it was time to play. Daddy Bear was kind enough to give Momma Bear a couple more hours of sleep before she needed to get up to prepare the scrumptious holiday food. This is all a good thought. It didn’t work out so well, though. At 5 AM, Momma Bear woke up to a screaming child, got out of bed to go see what was wrong and discovered Princess Peanut was crying because the power went out and she was in a dark basement! Finally, we got some more food in her belly and she settled in for a nice slumber, as did Ryan and I. Not much you can do when the power is out. I called the Power Company to report the outage and they said it was because of an auto accident in Flint. Little did we know we would be without power until 4 PM!! We were having 17 people over for dinner at 1 PM. What to do…Well, Ryan got up to take care of the sump pump issue so we didn’t flood the basement, and I began making calls to our out of town friends to let them know the issue. After a couple hours of not knowing what to do, I called our in-town friends to tell them. A couple of the families offered up their homes for dinner, and we took one of them up on it. In the meantime, I made pretzel salad, stuffing, put the turkey in to oven, and waited…and waited…and waited. Did you know you could cook most of your thanksgiving dinner with no power? The hard part was transferring all that food to another location 30 minutes away…in the snow no less!! Thankfully, I did a lot of the stuff the night before, like pies and devilled eggs and so forth. It all worked out, we had far more food that 17 people could eat, and enjoyed a nice warm home with our dinner just two hours later than planned. How’s that for a first thanksgiving day?! Thanks to our fantastic friends, The Youngs, the Skeehans, The Balls, and of course, The Olsens for a wonderfully full and exciting Thanksgiving day!
This is Jacies way of saying she won't eat any pie. What am I talking about...she loves food!!

Playing Catch

I always wonder what Ryan and BJ do when I am gone. Ryan has been telling me that he plays catch with Princess Peanut. I believed him, but seriously doubted they could ‘play catch’. However, I caught it on film! It is the cutest thing! We were enjoying a relaxing evening watching Steelers football on television and working on the computer (as usual). I walked over to where Ryan and The Precious were and they were in this cute little stance facing each other. Jacie was throwing the ball to Ryan. Apparently, they can do this for quite some time. If you will notice, there is an array of toys on the floor of the video. We try many methods of entertainment, but it seems the catch game is the best for long term entertainment. Who knew?

In other areas of her sweet little life, she is trying really hard to pull herself up on furniture. The other day she was sitting near me while I was on the computer (see a pattern here?), and she grabbed the table leg to pull herself up and bumped her head. She let go and looked at the table leg kind of dazed and did this “uuuuhhhhhh” sound, kind of like you would do if you were bonked in the head. Then she tried again. No success, but she has managed to pull herself up numerous times in her crib.

Big Beds and Big Girls

I make my bed most every morning, and when I do, I place Jacie at the head of the bed. I always cover her up as I go and she thinks its great. It reminds me of a story I read as a kid, but can’t remember the name of the book. Its this little bear that gets tucked into the bed and only his ears are showing. Sound familiar to anyone? Not that this is anything wonderful to share, but just thought I would share a rambling thought.

Last week she decided she would sleep through the night. Then her schedule got thrown off Friday and Saturday and she reverted back to her old ways of waking at 1 AM and 4 AM. I’ve tried the “crying it out” thing and it just doesn’t work on her, or me, or Ryan. I’m sorry, but letting a baby cry and scream for 45 minutes is not worth it to me. The longer and harder I try, the angrier she gets. I know these nights of waking won’t last forever, but those nights that she slept all the way through were such a tease!!

Future Writer

This little mess may look just like that—a mess. But I can tell you it was not intentional. Jacie was sitting by me at the computer, and she was quite for a really long time while I was doing some school work. I turned around and saw this wonderful array of my school papers strewn all the way around her. I stacked them on the floor to get them off my desk for some reason and she found a playland full of fun!

The Littlest Steelers Fan

Ryan went to a Monday Night Steelers game in Pittsburgh and had an awesome time! He came home with two sweatshirts, a third terrible towel (he already had two), Steelers Crocs (shoes), a poncho, a long sleeved t-shirt for me, and this little bib for Jacie Girl. Oh, and the local paper from the day after the awesome awesome game. They won, of course.

For those that don't know, the Terrible Towel is a yellow towel the size of a hand towel that the fans wave at the game, when they are mad, I think. Very famous thing. If you watch a Pittsburgh game on TV you can see all these yellow flags waving every now and then. Pretty cool. Now, Jacie has her very own!