11 months old

Eleven Months.  To think that I will have a one year old in one short month just blows my mind.  This time last year we were anticipating her arrival and now I look at her and think how fast the time went by.  She has taken off in leaps and bounds.  She is pretty much eating what we eat now.  I still mix a baby oatmeal for her at breakfast and dinner just to make sure she gets the right nutrients but whatever we have for our meals she has too.  So far she's tried every food except eggs, seafood, and tomatoes and done fine with everything (Charlotte had slight reaction to tomato sauce the in her first year, but she does fine with it now).  Emily is speed crawling around this place and has pretty much learned how to cruise the whole house by holding on to something as she goes.  She is clapping, high fiving, saying Mama and Lola, waving hello and bye-bye, giving kisses, and playing patty cake.  She still loves to be around people.  As long as she is near me she is pretty content to play by herself for awhile....as long as I am holding her she is content forever.  I have learned how to accomplish most tasks one handed!  

Emily lights up this whole house with her laugh and her smile.  Happy Eleven months pretty girl!

Ok, Mom.  My attention span isn't that long, that's all you get!

Christmas Day

Exhausted is not even the word to describe how tired we felt.  By the time we got Charlotte settled down to bed after hours of coughing and crying for the second night in a row we had to get everything ready for Christmas morning.  If Charlotte had been any younger and we could have moved Christmas to the next week I so would have done it but alas, we had already moved to the 24th on our advent calendar and we could not disappoint.  

 After an uneventful Christmas morning we all took naps and got ready for my family to come over.  We had a pretty low key Christmas day just letting Charlotte be lazy.  She really did not even want to play with her new toys.  The steroid treatment we had been prescribed was only for three days and on the fourth day it was like a whole new child again.  My sweet Charlotte was back!

Christmas Eve

The night before Christmas Eve was a doozy for us.  We spent the day getting ready for the upcoming fun times with family by wrapping presents and baking.  We laid both girls down for a nap and I heard Charlotte coughing over and over again.  She'd had this cough for awhile, but I actually had her at the doctor on December 12th and they listened to her breathing and said to just wait it out.  When Charlotte got up from her nap she looked miserable.  She was hot, had red cheeks, and just kept on coughing.  After reading her temperature at almost 102 Bryce and I made the decision to take her to an urgent care facility.  The only one open in our area (because of the holiday) was a non pediatric one, but they were still open so Bryce ran up there with her.  They came back home with the diagnosis that she had Pneumonia, and worst of all that she had been given a steroid shot on the way out.  She was traumatized!  She literally was still crying about the shot, even after bath time and in bed.  They gave us four different prescriptions for her, including a nebulizer treatment.  I have heard of "roid rage" before, but man I had no idea how fast it happens!  Charlotte was up thrashing around in her bed every two hours and NOTHING would calm her down.  She was still screaming that she didn't want a shot, and as soon as I would calm her down she would start coughing again and start crying all over again.  We were all miserable.

We got up the next morning (now officially Christmas Eve) to a relatively calm toddler.  Thankfully, Emily slept through the night so we felt like we were coming to the other side of this mess.  The Fulchers really wanted to see us so we went to their house for some presents and dinner.  Charlotte really couldn't even handle that.  She had melt down after melt down.  I literally felt my heart squeezing tight for her, she just didn't feel good so we had to go back home.  We did manage to get some good pictures from the day, though every time I look at the ones of Charlotte I feel sad thinking of how sick she was.  No Mommy wants their baby to be sick, but being sick on Christmas feels even worse!

Saturday with Santa

Bryce's school had a Saturday with Santa where you could bring your kids and get their pictures taken.  Charlotte absolutely loved playing in Bryce's office and getting to see all the pictures of her on his desk.  Charlotte asked Santa for a "Unicorn Cuddleuppett" (she's been running around the house singing "cuddle cuddle up it, blanket that's a puppet).  I swear those As Seen on TV Ads should be banned from kids stations!  Emily did well meeting Santa for the first time.  She didn't cry and she didn't pull his beard, success!

10 months old

This gorgeous girl is 10 months old now.  I remember having the same revelation with Charlotte....that she has officially been on the outside of my body for longer than I carried her on the inside.  I have no doubt in God's divine plan though, there is absolutely positively a bond that attaches to your heart when you give birth to your child and no matter where they are or how far they go you can literally feel it squeeze inside you. Emily is amazing.   She is so curious and very good at figuring things out.  She is really interacting with the world around her now.  She is saying "Mama" and added "Lola" at the end of this month.  She loves it when I open the back door to call Lola inside and crawls over yelling "Lola, Lola!".  She is waving hello and bye bye.  She is smacking her lips and blowing kisses.  She will pucker up for a kiss now too.  She plays patty cake by herself and loves to clap for anything and everything.  I just ate a bite of my food and you said good job?  YAY, CLAP CLAP CLAP.  You just changed my diaper?  YAY, CLAP CLAP CLAP.  She loves her Momma.  She will literally follow me EVERY WHERE no matter what hurdle or obstacle is in her way.  She has done circles around our house to hunt me down and then proceeds to crawl up my leg until I hold her.  She is standing on her own for a few seconds now and will walk as long as she has a hand to hold on to.  She is pretty good at entertaining herself as well, as long as there is another person in sight.  She is still nursing 4-5 times a day but has pretty much transitioned to solid foods.  By the end of month 10 she is eating a majority of what we eat for lunch and dinner.  She is so happy.  She makes us so happy.  All of us, because her happiness and laughter is so contagious.  Even when we are out to eat or at a store people will stop us wherever we are to talk to her and walk away with the biggest smile on their face because of her.  Happy 10 months Emily!!

Deck the halls

It was Bryce's year to choose the place we would get our tree from and we just happened to find this little farm right down the road from our house.  Charlotte was happy to get dressed up and pick out our Christmas tree, but she was even more excited to break out all those ornaments!  She was so sweet looking at each and every one so lovingly.  Every one that she unwrapped was a new exclamation "Oh, Mommy look at this one!  It's so beautiful!".  We had several casualties that day (thankfully none of my expensive ornaments-she knew not to touch the ones in the fancy box!) and HOURS later we had a fully decorated tree. Emily was a bear to handle while we were putting all the decorations out, but she was surprisingly uninterested in the tree once it was up and all the boxes were put away.

Big girl seat

After Emily's 9 month check up we found out that she was only 5 ounces away from being too heavy for her infant carrier (my arms should have told me that though!) so we made the decision to go ahead and move her into a rear facing car seat.  This of course was great fun for two little imaginations!  Charlotte had a great time "driving" Emily around!