Our Baby is One Year Old

Dear Mia,

It is so hard for us to believe it's been a year because the time has flown by so fast. This time last year, I was on my first week of leave from work and planning to spend the day catching up on some things around the house on Monday. But at 11:20pm I was awoken by my water breaking and you were soon on your way into this world. From our perspective, things around here have changed a great deal. I no longer go to "work" every day in a car, daddy and I eat a lot more at home than we ever did, we haven't slept past 7am in a year, and our lives seem to circle around your napping schedule. It's been a big change but has been worth every second. Your smile can steal a room and you have stolen our hearts. We look forward all of the fun times ahead and I am so thankful to be able to be with you every day.

Happy 1st birthday baby girl! Mommy and Daddy love you more than you will ever know!

Auntie Erin Comes to Visit

Wow, what a great week! Auntie Erin came to visit for February break and boy did we have a great time. We....

Celebrated Valentine's Day with balloons from daddy.

Went to the park....

Bought some cool movie star shades...

Discovered the cool train table/castle table at the bookstore (which we visited twice)...

Went to the gym to play with our friends...

Made lots and lots of bubbles with our new bubble making tools....this also caused Mia to perfect her pronunciation of the word "bubble"...
And made art with some washable paint! Whew! What a great week. Hope you had a good one too!

On my way....

Mia is in the home stretch to being 1 year old! This week we had beautiful warm weather in Charlotte so we spent most of the week outside. Mia thought this was outstanding. The front yard was a whole new play ground to explore. She got her first taste of walking in the grass....crawling in the grass...eating the grass.
In fact, she loved the front yard so much that I opened the front glass doors to get some leaves out of the threshold and she pushed past me and crawled out the front door with determination and speed like you have never seen!

Mia's other favorite activity these days is playing in the kitchen. She loves to push the chairs around, try to pull stuff out of drawers, and crawl around and find any available crumb on the floor (note: this is not to say that mommy does not sweep the kitchen floor daily only that Mia is a pro at finding anything no matter how small that is out of place in a given room).

Leggo my Eggo! Mia's favorite breakfast food....

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!!! XOXOXO

Make sure to check out the video link especially. There are some really good new video's!

Almost 11 months!

I feel like I say this every month but I can't believe Mia is almost 11 months old. I was just at a play group today where a mom leisurely sat and watched her 4 month old play on a blanket and I ran around after my child and stopped her from stealing toys, chewing on a granite top side table, and from throwing pieces of my lunch on my friend's floor. It was today that I realized...wow...my child is actually almost a year old but sometimes I feel like she still only a few months old and laying on a blanket. We have never had a year of our lives go by so fast.

Mia spent the majority of her 10th month teething. One tooth took 4 weeks to finally break the gum. The poor girl chewed on everything she could get her mouth on as you can see above. She proudly has a new chopper bringing her to 6 teeth and so many still left to come.



We wouldn't be surprised if Mia just gets up and walks some day soon sort of how she decided to crawl all of the sudden. Every once in a while she lets go and will stand on her own for a few seconds without holding on to anything. She loves to push her car around, push the kitchen chairs around...actually it doesn't matter what it is, if she can push it to get where she wants....she will.

We have officially entered the playing with kitchen utensils phase. Mia now has her section of the kitchen which is not locked up and lots of fun stuff to play with. Who needs toys when you have pots and pans right?

Yesterday Mia started making a devil child voice (kind of a low raspy tone). It is funny but really scary. Lisa actually said to me "well if she starts crawling on the ceiling you'll know it's time to call a priest." I got it on video so I'll have Sam upload it soon. I was really relieved to hear another child her age doing it today at playgroup so hopefully this is just a phase. :-)

On a non-baby note, I have big news....ok to me it's be news but maybe not to you...I pulled down the horrid wallpaper in our mudroom...yes even the wallpaper on the ceiling to encourage myself to start the painting project. Now you may ask, why am I embarking on this project? It is because the wallpaper is from the 70's and I just can't stand it anymore?...no it is because IKEA is opening here in 12 short wonderful Swedish meatball filled days and I intend to purchase and install a coat rack in our mudroom. Yes, I am ripping down wallpaper and repainting so my coat rack has an appropriate new home. Sad but true.

Some day I promise to be like my dear friend Holly and update this blog weekly. Don't forget to visit the picture and video links to make sure you have seen the latest!

10 Months--Can you believe it?

Mia is officially 10 months old which is so hard for me to believe. It just doesn't seem that long. But all of the sudden, we have a little girl around here instead of a baby.

We have been officially crawling for a week and a half. Each day she gets faster and faster and more daring. This morning when I put her down on the floor in her room she immediately crawled under her dresser and then in the closet just to check things out. Between the crawling, walking while pushing her car, and pulling up on almost everything she is one busy girl these days...and so I am as we are trying to child proof as much as we can. In other news, Mia has decided that since she is a big girl in other ways that she wants nothing to do with baby food or anything on a spoon unless it's baby yogurt (apparently that is still considered big girl food). She is also talking up a storm although most things are just "da da". If you point to the cow in the book and say "cow", she says "da da" no matter how many times you repeat "cow". My favorite display of the use of this word comes when reading one of her favorite books. See below.

Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton

A cow says moo.
A sheep says baa.
Three singing pigs say la la la!
No, no you say that isn't right.
The pigs say oink all day and night.
Rhinoceroses snort and snuff
and little dogs go ruff ruff ruff.
Some other dogs go bow wow wow.
And cats and kittens say meow!
Quack! Says the duck.
A horse says neigh.
It's quiet now, what do you say? Mia--- "DA DA"

Without fail she says it every time. Mia is also dancing up a storm and you have to go check out the video link on the right hand side for the new videos because they are too funny. Ok, that's all till next week!

Side note- Welcome to Ben Levy who entered the world last night! Congratulations Joel and Monica!

Happy 2009!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year! We have been busy little bees the last few weeks. Here a few pictures to catch you up.


Mia went to visit Santa Claus for the first time and actually did not cry. Thanks to great grandpa she is a big fan of men with beards!

We had our "Charlotte Christmas" the day before leaving for Boston. Mia was more interested in teething on the presents than opening them.

Our first day in Boston, we ventured out into the snow to introduce Mia to her first barn yard animals (a donkey and some goats).


There was plenty of cookie making.

Christmas morning at grandma and grandpa's was lots of fun.

But you know what they say about baby's first Christmas....the boxes are more fun than what is in them!
Then we had Christmas afternoon at Great Grandma's and Great Grandpa's. Mia had so many presents she had to open them both before and after a nap!

Despite Mom's efforts at finding Mia the perfect teether, Mia's preferred teether is a cold unopened soda can. And who can blame her, while we were in MA Mia got 4 new teeth. Three of 3 which cut on the same day!Mia had her first sled ride...which she wasn't a big fan of!

We went to feed the ducks for the first time when it warmed up and all the snow melted.

And a Christmas trip would not be complete without Mia's first snow storm the day before we left. Judging by Mia's noises when out in the cold she is also very thankful we live in North Carolina.

Breaking news not in pictures yet....Mia is crawling. She just woke up yesterday and decided to crawl across the room. Yay, Mia! We are very proud of you.

Oh Christmas Tree

This whole month has been filled with lots of Christmas fun. Mia has been enjoying her first Christmas tree. Surprisingly, she doesn't seem to have too much interest in it but loves the ornaments when you bring her close up to the tree. We are well aware that we have gotten a break this year and next year she will be much more interested.

Mia received an early Christmas present from Auntie Erin...a pink tutu. Although it was an 18 month tutu, mommy couldn't resist and pinned the tutu to fit so we could play in it now. As you can see, she is practicing for her upcoming lessons... :-)

One of Mia's favorite things in this world is her daddy. She just loves her daddy. We went into uptown to have lunch with daddy and to see the Bearnstein bear orchestra play Christmas music. Whenever Mia sees something slightly out of the ordinary (such as 4 foot mechanical bears singing and playing music...she says "ooohhh" over and over. It's really very cute.

We keep getting the question...."is Mia crawling yet?". The answer is technically no. She is much better about playing on her stomach and gets into the crawling position. She moves herself slowly towards her desired location by doing an inch worm move lifting her butt in the air and then propelling herself forward just a little bit. Cruising, however, she is a pro at. She will pull up and then calculate the best way to get her destination using couches, coffee tables, walls, etc to get there. In the picture below, she had started off holding the slats on her crib and ended up over on the side wall to check out (much to our dismay) the phone jack behind her bed as well as the electrical outlet. Breaking news today is that she is walking by herself while holding a push toy in front of her so maybe we will have a walker before you know it!