Happy Heart Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love, Reese

I am off today so we are having a fun day playing, piddling at Target, eating lunch, and making Valentine's cookies!

Sleepy Girl

My poor child. Lately she has been boycotting her morning nap, which means she gets an early lunch during which she gets reeeeeeally tired. She actually falls asleep during lunch while she is eating! Part of the time she is sleep eating. It's true- once you figure out your child's schedule, she changes it on you! Here is a sequence of photos that I caught today of her sleep-eating in action.

And she's down! Poor thing! I feel like a bad mom seeing this but the girl will NOT nap in the morning any more! And if she does, it's like 20 minutes and then she flat out will not take a nap in the afternoon. So I've been putting her down right after lunch and getting a solid 2 hour afternoon nap. She cracks me up!

Glamorous Mommyhood

Being a mommy definitely has it's glamorous moments. I had such a glamorous moment last night that I have to share! I don't want to forget about this years down the road!

So last night Reese had spaghettios for dinner. She loved them. She was covered in them by the time she was done. So off to the bath we went. After a nice long bath I let her crawl around her room naked for awhile. She loves it and feels so free. I'm sure you already know where this is going. I thought we were safe since she'd already pooped twice. Well, we were not safe.

So she's standing at her little play fridge when I hear this really loud sound that sounds like water running. So I look over and she is PEEING standing up ALL over her fridge! I couldn't help but to start laughing! She looked so confused by the pee! I was like oh well, it's just baby pee. So I went to grab a towel. I walked back in and that's when I heard the tooting. She was POOPING standing up!!! So I RAN over and stuck the towel under her to catch "it". Thank goodness I got there in time. Whew! Crisis averted...or so I thought. I wiped her hiney and then ran the towel into the laundry room to spray it with my trusty oxy clean. I head back into her room and see that she has crawled into the bathroom and is POOPING while crawling! It was all over the rug and she had crawled all through it! It was all over her!!! Oh my goodness I didn't even know where to start! So I just turned on the water and stuck her back in the bathtub for a second bath! That girl got a diaper IMMEDIATELY after getting out of the bath, and it will be a long while before I'm brave enough to let her go diaper less again!

Andrew got a good laugh out of it when he got home. Especially when I showed up the rug that was waiting to be washed! I think there may have been some gagging involved!

Snowmaggeden 2011!

I thought I was clever to make that little phrase above up until I heard many other people saying it. Oh well! It has been a crazy weather week here in Texas! We heard we would be getting some snow this week and that it could potentially be the coldest temperatures TX had seen in years. Well it happened!

I worked Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday this week. It was supposed to start sleeting early Tuesday morning and then turn into snow for most of the day. So Monday night I went to Kroger with the rest of DFW to stock up. I am sooooo glad I did b/c I didn't leave the house until Saturday! The sleet woke us up around 4:30 Tuesday morning. There was already a good inch on the ground and it wasn't stopping any time soon! I decided to just go ahead and start getting ready. Driving in these conditions SCARES me so bad!!! I just hyperventilate the whole way! After much deliberation we decided that Andrew would go in early and we would drop Reese off together at daycare (1 mile down the road), so that he could take us to the DART rail to ride that into each of our works. April decided to meet us there and ride too. There was so much ice and snow on the grounds already! There was a THICK layer of ice and the snow was really coming down when we left. We got Reese safely to Tonya's and then slowly made it to the DART. Well that plan would have worked great except the rails were shut down due to ice! Not good! So April bravely drove us into work while Andrew went to pick up Reese and stay at home.

Somehow we all made it! Work was so weird that day! All day we were wondering how and if we would get home! After hearing how night shift made it in we decided the best and safest choice would be for April and I to just take the backroads to my house. It only took us a little over an hour, but we made it home! April spent the night and we had a fun girls morning the next day. We were sad to see her go, but she needed to get home!

So Wednesday and Thursday were filled with lots of playing, looking out the windows, and exploring the house. The high Wednesday was 19! In fact we had 100 straight hours of below freezing temps this week! Crazy!

Reese was very intrigued by the dishwasher for the first time.

This past week was the week I have seen her eat the most! I was so proud! We had lots of home cooked meals thanks to my Kroger run and she got to try most of them! She liked the beef stew and was even voluntarily eating carrots! She tried this gerber meal thing I found that was mack and cheese with chicken and veggies. The girl was SHOVELING it into her mouth! She could not get enough! I feel like we have struggled with eating and I was so happy I could have cried to see her eat so much of something the liked!

Here she is shoveling...

Being silly playing with a necklace...

She worked on her climbing skills all week.

So excited to see the pretty white snow outside!

She has been playing while squatting like this recently. It cracks me up!

Andrew went in to work for a few hours on Wednesday and Thursday. I invited my parents to come hang out on Friday if they were still out of school. They had already been out Tues-Thurs. Well once they got the call Thursday afternoon that school was canceled Friday they headed out to us. A drive that normally takes them 50 minutes took the better part of 3 hours! They brought Spring Creek Bar-b-que with them. Reese was already in bed by the time they arrived. We had a yummy dinner. We were supposed to get a "light dusting" of about 1 more inch of snow around 4 am Friday morning. I woke up at 2 am and looked out the window and it was already snowing. Hard!!!

Imagine all of our shock when we woke up Friday morning to see that our "light dusting" had turned into about 6 inches of snow!!!!

We couldn't believe it! Oh my goodness it was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. Andrew and I bundled Reese up and just stood in the garage staring at all the beauty. There wasn't a single sound in the whole neighborhood. Nobody had even driven yet. It was such a sweet, peaceful moment that I will never forget.

I made pancakes for everyone that morning.

Andrew attempted to go to work around 10 and finally made it several hours later. Nanny, Grampa, Reese and I just bummed around the house all morning. Basically the 3 of us just stared at Reese as she made her way around every toy in the room over and over again. It never gets old! She is not hurting for attention that's for sure!

We took her out for a quick 5 second photo shoot in the snow!

NOT THRILLED!

Reese has decided to drop her morning nap. They have just been getting shorter and shorter so we let her stay up through lunch. Well this girl fell asleep while eating some toast in her highchair!!!

She never got tired of standing at the window looking out.

Reese had so much fun with Nanny and Grampa! Nanny gave her snacks and Grampa played lots of peek-a-boo!

I managed to get all of our laundry done AND organize the pantry! That pantry had stuff in it from 2009! It felt so good to purge!

Once the sun came out the snow was even prettier.

Grampa making Reese laugh during her dinner.

Andrew made it safely home from work thank goodness. After getting Reese to bed, I made crawfish rice for everyone. This is probably my favorite meal right now. We had snow ice cream with chocolate chips for dessert and it actually was pretty good!

My parents decided to stay Friday night too since it was still icy and FREEZING. On Saturday they offered to watch Reese while we had a quick lunch/movie date! We jumped on the offer! I had not been out of the house since Tuesday night! It was so refreshing to get ready and leave the house. We ate at Flying Fish and then saw The Dilemma, which was pretty good but often kind of hard to follow. After the movie Reese was still asleep so we even had time to swing by the grocery store to restock. Oh my gosh it was a madhouse since everyone was probably doing their superbowl shopping and restocking their kitchens all in the same day!

I have never seen weather like this in TX. We get a few snow days a year but never this many days in a row! It may actually sleet tonight and there is another potential snowstorm next Wednesday! Crazy!

10 months!

Miss Reese how did we get to the double digits!!! You are a whoppin' 10 months old! You have suddenly become this very independent little girl! You are on the go and literally do not stop moving! You are just blossoming before our very eyes. You seem to really get what we are saying sometimes. You seem to know when we are laughing at something you do and you will laugh right along with us. You are such a fun little buddy that I love to spend my days with. I miss you so much when I work as usual, but feel so refreshed when I get to be home with you. I think it makes me a better mom!

weight: 20 lbs (according to our scale)

diaper size: 3 (4 at night)

clothes: 6-12 month gap and old navy, 9 month carters

teeth count: 4 (the top 2 popped through this month. 1 the first week of you being sick and the other the next week. It was R.O.U.G.H.)

Your 10 month pictures were pretty interesting to say the least! I even had April helping me! You basically just gave us this blank stare most of the time. I think out of 80 shots I got 1 smile and 1 almost smile.

You are taking four 6 oz bottles a day (last one of the day is 7 oz). One upon awakening, one around 10:30, one around 2:30, and the last at bedtime around 7.

You sleep from 7-7. When you were not feeling well you were getting up screaming at 5:30 am!!! Now that you are feeling great you are sometimes stretching to 7:30. Thank you!!! Your naps are not on a great schedule now. We are desperately trying to get you back on. You were napping great twice a day but after getting sick you are completely off schedule. We are thinking maybe you are trying to drop your morning nap?

Your favorite things to do are wave, pull up to the window and look out, touching the now covered electrical sockets, and putting things in and out of containers. Your favorite time of the day is when daddy comes home. You take off and crawl so fast to him and cry to be picked up. Then you just stare at him and smile and get really excited!

You LOVE the intro to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. You will stop whatever you are doing and look at us and let out a yell and start doing this little dance to the intro song. Once the show starts you could care less and go back to what you are doing.

When you crawl around from place to place you have started doing this really funny laugh. I'll have to post the video of it.

It seems like the eating finally clicked for you at the end of this month. You pretty much had zero interest while you were sick so we just stuck with bottles and we'd try food here and there. This past week you have just turned on the eating switch! The main thing is you will try it if you can feed it to yourself, aside from your beloved yogurt (which you sadly gave up when you weren't feeling well, but are back to loving).

For breakfast(8:30ish) you love cheerios, pancakes, and yogurt. For lunch (12ish) you will eat turkey, cheese, beans, crunchies, wagon wheels, freeze-dried fruit, and yogurt. For dinner (5ish) you are liking those lil gerber meals or if I am making something baby friendly you will just eat that! You have liked red beans and rice, pei wei, pizza, beef stew, chick-fil-a, etc. You basically are trying to tell us that you are not a baby and want big people food! For snacks you love mummums, crackers, yogurt melts, and puffs.

You had your 1st and 2nd snows this month. The first one was a Sunday and we were all off so we enjoyed watching it all day! When it started we went up to Pei Wei to have lunch and then Yogurtland for dessert! We watched the pretty stuff fall while we ate. Then we headed home before it froze over. I was supposed to work the next day but had to call in b/c you couldn't go to daycare since you had pink eye. Your second snow was a little more dramatic. It was predicted to be pretty bad, but ended up much worse! That is a whole nother blog post of and in itself! It was actually 70 degrees 2 days before this snow! Only in TX...

You have enjoyed looking out the back windows quite a bit this month at the pretty white snow!

This was a VERY rough month for you. You spent about 2 1/2 weeks of it sick. It started with pink eye, then moved to an upper respiratory infection complete with LOTS of snot, then moved to a nasty cough, then turned into a double ear infection, then a stomach virus, then the cold, cough, and snot came back AGAIN!!!! Oh and mommy and daddy had all that too. Oh and you cut your 2 top teeth in the middle of everything too! I can't even imagine all the germs that were in this house. We also had our hardwoods redone in the middle of it all. It was very stressful to say the least. After multiple rounds of antibiotics for all of us we are finally all feeling better. We seriously went through about 10 boxes of tissues. There was lots of holding and comforting while you were sick. You did NOT want to play at all and only wanted to be held. You also did not want to nap in your crib so we held you for many of your naps. It was so sad, but the cuddle time was nice! Praying that there is no more sickness for us anytime soon!

This was day one when you had pink eye. Little did I know what was to come...

You have MASTERED pulling up! You spend about 90% of your time standing now at various things.

You are much more speedy with crawling. You still crawl with your R leg up though dragging your left leg. You are really getting around pretty fast this way! I guess it is just natural to you to crawl that way!

We think you are intentionally starting to say a few words. You will say dada all day long! You have also said cat and duck only it sounded more like "ca" and "du". You said cat every now and then and point to one of the cats. You said duck in your bath a few times and one time when you were crawling across your room you picked up and duck and said "Du!". I was so proud!!!

You have all these wonderful toys but would much rather play with every day things i.e. your food cabinet, tuperware, a paper towel, kitchen utensils.

You like it when we put a bunch of toys on the ottomans. You will then bang each one around and then throw it down.

You have discovered this console table we have against the windows. You love to climb it and look out the windows. We had to remove everything from the bottom level. You think it's so funny to crawl up the side of it and across it and down the other side. We have to watch you closely b/c you have almost fallen off the side so many times!

Now that you are more mobile the cats don't have a chance! You take after them with your one legged crawl! Jack loved to taunt you with his tail. He loves you so much!

We lowered your crib mattress b/c you figured out how to sit up!!! It is also making nap time pretty much non-existent b/c when we lay you down you immediately sit up and start crying. You refuse to lay back down too. At night you if you sit up you will fall back asleep sitting up and face plant with your feet still in the sitting position. It is so funny! You are just now figuring out how to lay back down with your feet behind you rather than under you.

You have the funniest expressions! This is your pensive look. You wear it alot especially when you are trying to figure something out.

You love to circle around these ottomans we have. You go round and round and round! You are getting very good at cruising. If you lose your balance you used to just face plant off the side of these, but now you are getting very good at catching yourself! It makes me much less nervous now!

Little girl you are such a bright ray of sunshine!!!! You are so fun and happy and light up every minute of every day! We love you sooooooo much! We are so thankful for your sweet spirit! 10 months have FLOWN by. Thank you for loving us so much!