I did manage to take her weekly picture today. I set the sign on her bear and got out the camera. She gave me a big smile from across the room and walked on over as fast as she could and stood next to the chair waiting for me to put her in it! Very cute. I liked this pic the best, kind of "I love my sign..."



Great Grandma Peggy stopped by this afternoon and brought her this cute red chair. Kacey loved it as you can see in the pics!! She stayed in it for about 15 minutes while grandma was here and then another 30 minutes or so after she left!!!

Yes that is right, she is 11 months old... and 2 days! Where is her picture from yesterday? Well I haven't taken one yet as she was sick yesterday! Poor little thing was dripping like a faucet all day (to quote Alex) and just miserable. We even skipped class. :( She didn't eat much solids but still did fine with nursing so I didn't have to worry about her getting dehydrated. Her naps sucked. Jamie even tried driving her around in the afternoon to see if she could sleep sitting up. He said she would nod off a bit and then snortle and wake herself up.

At bed time she fell asleep nursing but as soon as I laid her in the crib she started screaming. My mom was over so she rocked her and finally got her down. About 45 minutes later she was screaming again. I went in there and she was sitting with her back against the crib just staring and crying with big old tears running down her cheeks. I picked her up and she just kept crying and talking. DIDIDIDID, OOOHHHOPOOHHH, DIDIDIDID, BAPBPAPAABPPP. When she would OOOOHHHOHHH, her mouth would make this big O and she just looked so pathetic. She got my skin which means her nose gets bright red and everywhere a tear touches turns bright red so she was a mess. Her breathing was so rattly so we gave her some Tylenol and took her in the bathroom. We turned on the shower on hot, turned on the heat lamp and just sat in there for 10 minutes or so. She finally stopped crying and calmed down a bit. We used the snot sucker (such a cruel invention!!) and cleared her up a bit. I then nursed her again and finally got her down.

She slept until 12:30 and just as I was getting out of bed to check her she stopped crying. She woke again at 3:15 and I went in and got her. Crying, snotty mess. I nursed her and it seemed like she was starving (probably was considering she hardly ate solids all day) I got her back down and she whimpered a bit but seemed to fall asleep.

4:15 she starts crying again, I got her and rocked her and she instantly stopped crying. She just laid her head on my shoulder and relaxed. When I thought she was asleep I laid her in the crib and she started wailing, got on her knees and reached out to me. I got her up again and rocked some more and again she fell asleep almost instantly. I tried the crib one more time and the wailing all over again. I gave up and told myself that I am one of the luckiest people in the world to have a beautiful baby girl who wants nothing more than for me to hold her. There are much worse things in life!!! So I picked her up and got as comfortable as possible in the rocker and tried to fall asleep myself.

At 5:30 she was snoring peacefully and I was getting cold. I decided to lay her in the crib again and if she woke up I could call my mom who could come over at 6 and take over (can't call before 5:30!!!) and I could at least get myself a blanket. Lucky me, she transferred ok, gave a tiny whimper but rolled over and started snoring again. I went to bed!

At 6am she woke up for good and this time Jamie got up with her and called my mom who was happy to come over and play with her while Jamie got ready for work (he's supposed to be on a 3 week vacation! AGH! they asked him to come in for just today to help out, longgggg story) I slept until 7:30.

Later this morning when I was getting her ready for nap I saw something white in the back of her mouth. I saw it yesterday too but thought it was food since she was eating at the time. I stuck my finger in and low and behold, SHE HAS A MOLAR!!!!*** It's the second from the back on her right hand side and it is only half in, the half against her cheek. Hopefully this is why she has been getting up at 3:30 the last few days and once this cold goes away we can go back to full nights of sleep!!!

***Tooth #8 is a molar, who'd have thought?

Playing in the bounce house with daddy!!



At a local park there is a music thing on one of the big play gyms. Jamie was showing Kacey to use it and you can see in the video that she did NOT want his help!!

We stole this one from Taline's blog. Too cute!



At the local fair!

This dress was just tooo cute! I had to get a picture!


Kacey loves this book. It's a travel book about London!


Playing in a bucket with Dashell


Kacey was hanging (literally!) in the corner of the bounce house and here comes Dash!


She LOVED this car. I thought she was done at one point and took her out and she started screaming!



Looking out at daddy!



Swinging with daddy.


Orangie enjoying the poppies in our front yard.

The other day we went to our favorite Mexican place and on a whim I gave Kacey soem black beans and she loved them, so I gave her some rice, then some carnitas (pork), some chicken and some beef. She loved it all!!! She ate more that day than I have ever seen her eat and that was AFTER eating most of her own lunch.

Daddy took this video of her eating this corn tortilla that was shaped into a shell and had his refried beans in it. As you can see, she loved that too. The best part of the video is at the end, it shows our beautiful girl at her absolute cutest.

AND PROUD OF IT!!! (note both kitties and her monkey are in her lap :)



A few stories I would like to remember. She is getting such a personality! I love just watching her learn stuff. She very regularly plays on her own and just goes from thing to thing, observing, touching, analyzing and thinking.

- She has a basket of plastic eggs from Easter. Jamie has been teaching her how to open and close them and she hadn't really completely figured it out. The other day I was watching her as she tried to pull one apart. Sometimes they are tight and you have to squeeze then pull and she couldn't quite get it. After a long time of trying she looked at me and then handed me the egg. She watched me do it and took the egg back and proceeded to try to put it back together. That's the first time she has purposefully given me something to do for her!

- She is starting to get angry and frustrated if she can't do something. She has this set of 12 mini board books that come in a box. The box was upside down for some reason and she wasn't able to open it (much easier when it is right side up!) She started grunting and then actually screamed at it! I flipped it over and opened it and she instantly calmed down, took out a book and proceeded to read it.

- She constantly wants those two kitties and the monkey. I keep them in the crib when it is not nap or night time mainly because I don't want them to get lost. She knows they are in there and when we go in her room to get ready for nap or night time, she walks over to the crib, pulls down the bumper and reaches in the get them. If one is out of her reach she screams until you go over and move it close enough for her to reach. She will then carry all three around the room as she reads books or plays with other toys.

- During bathtime a couple of days ago she was trying to put a toy pelican into the faucet cover. The faucet cover is a big plastic duck and the top of it's head lifts up (it's wearing a hat so you are lifting the hat, not as lobotomylike as it sounds.) The head lifts so you can put bubble bath in there and it will then come out with the water from the faucet making lots of bubbles. Anyways, she was trying to fit the pelican into the hole which is WAY too small for the pelican. She kept screaming at it. She would try again and the pelican would fall and she would scream. Complete tantrum, my mom and I kept trying to conceal our giggles but it was so hard! Gotta give her credit, she didn't give up for quite a while. When she finally gave up she went to the corner of the tub and just stood there like she was pouting.

- She has started to throw food onto the floor when she is done with it. Oh goody.

- Whenever I eat a banana in front of her she gets really excited and comes over and opens her mouth. I offer it to her but she gets one whiff or a lick and shakes her head no and then starts grabbing for the peel. Today she came over and I offered it to her and she took a bite..... drumroll please... she then chewed it up, swallowed it and opened her mouth for more!! She ate about a third of the banana!! This might sound silly to some people but remember, banana was the food that made her vomit profusely from one bite and she never looked back. Liking banana opens a whole new world of possibilities!

- She is now only crawling about 10% of the time and is starting to bend her knees when she walks. She is also walking a bit faster and much, much farther.

- She is starting to give hugs. She will put out her arms and when you get her she will lay her head on your shoulder and rest there for a minute. Melts my heart. She has only done it a few times but I think it will start happening more often.

- She is starting to copy things how. I put a block in a cup and shook it up and down to make noise with it. She watched me for a minute or two and then started to do it too! That's just one example, there are others like it.

I guess that is it right now, seems like there are so many more to write about.... how will I ever remember it all? It's just going soooo fast. Only 5 more weeks until she is 1 year old, how did that happen?

Too cute, too cool, just plain awesome. Thanks Flotsom!

Tweenbots

WOW, mommy look at all these books!!

This one is very interesting. How will I ever read them all?

Peeking at a boy, you can see a bit of him on the right. Fascinating!

Walkin, walkin.



I think she really liked it!

Here she is showing her fantastic "Ignore mommy" skills and how good she is with standing and reading a book at the same time.

Dave and Dash

The backstroke


Alex, Garo and Taline
Daddy is very excited about Kacey jumping into the pool!


Adam and Ellis

Here is little Miss walking into the pool.



and a video of her just walking around

46 weeks old!!!



Last Thursday.... (I know, I am a bit behind!) We went to Taline's house for a play date. Here are the best friends playing in Taline's crib.



In this video you can hear Taline's Oma talking silly to make the girls laugh. Please note how different they already are in personality. Taline spends alot of the time trying to get Kacey's attention and trying to hug her. Kacey spends most of the time flirting with Oma and moving away from Taline!



Later that afternoon we went to the park and played on the toys. This was Kacey's first time on more than the swing and slide. She had a great time walking on the equipment and crawling through this tube!

Don't know what I am talking about? Go read this.

Did you read it? Pretty freakin awesome huh? Jamie and I both read that article in our Wire.d magazine (which I HIGHLY recommend. Fan-stinkin-tastic magazine) and Jamie remembered that he had played the game while visiting some friends in Edinburgh. He remembered really liking it and it sounded fun so we bought it.

Last night we played it for the first time with my mom and we all three agreed it is a great game. If you are tired of having to make everyone feel like crap and bankrupt them in Monopoly or you are tired of shuffling cards for another game of bridge... try Settlers of Catan. Jamie also said it was much better than another night in front of the tv and that is saying quite a bit!

Alex and Garo, you are on notice!!! We are bringing it to Sequoia!

The music table that Grandma Marie gave Kacey has a little compartment with a lid. When you open it is says "Open" and when you close it it says "Close" in a very sing songy voice. A few days ago I thought it would be fun to put a few cheerios in the compartment to surprise Kacey next time she opened it. It did surprise her and make her very happy! She stood there opening and closing it as she ate the cheerios one by one. It was very cute!

Unfortunately now she constantly goes over to the table and opens the compartment looking for cheerios. It seems like most of playtime is spent with her going over there and looking. She'll get distracted with something else for a few minutes then she'll see the table again and she's back to looking. I guess she is learning disappointment early in life.

Yesterday tooth #7 just appeared out of nowhere!! I was changing her diaper and she was smiling at me (that's pretty rare in itself!) and I noticed a bit of white next to her bottom right tooth. So I felt it and ta-da, another one!

Speaking of teeth, I got guilted into brushing her yesterday. I kept putting it off because it just seemed like such a hassle and that she would hate it. I used to rub her gums and then her teeth with a washcloth after I wiped her face but she started to bite me and that ended that. Well now with 7 teeth I can't not do it just because it's a hassle. So I pulled out the little baby toothbrush our dentist gave us and started after dinner last night. Well this little monkey is always surprising us! She liked it!! I brushed the front, top and bottom and even got the back and she smiled the whole time. I then went to the sink to wash off the toothbrush and she started grunting and baring her teeth at me. So I went back and brushed them again. This happened three or four times!

Update on the walking. I would say she is now walking about 60% of the time. Almost everytime she is standing she will walk to the next place she wants to be. If she falls she will crawl the rest of the way but she usually starts out walking. She can now walk almost the length of our living room and still gets the biggest, most proud smile on her face when she does it. :)

Talking about Dashell sharing, here it is on video:



and a very cute one of daddy making Kacey laugh. The best part is when she falls over at the end.



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Complete change of subject. Here is an example of why the wedding we went to on Sunday was so much fun. Here is the groom and his mom doing their version of the mother son dance.

Kacey reading an Easter card from her Great Grandma Hazel


What is this green stuff inside?

Whatever it is, I like it!


On Saturday we went to Descanso Gardens for their Egg hunt. It wasn't much of a hunt though. It was more of a "Kacey, Kacey, Kacey... look here Kacey... Kacey... it's an egg... Kacey don't eat the leaf... look at the egg. Kacey, Kacey.... no hunny, don't eat the twig, look at the egg. See we put the egg in the basket. Kacey, Kacey... please don't eat the rock....." I think you get the idea.

Here she is enjoying the pinwheel Dashell gave her. She loved it and the other stuff in her basket too. Dash is such a Romeo!


Speaking of Dash. He has learned to share. Here he is giving Kacey one of his eggs. She never once gave him anything. Dash can you please teach her your lovely manners?



Here we are with Dash and his mommy Gwynn and daddy Dave.



Dave and Jamie liked the Easter baskets. :)


Kacey got to ride in Dashell's car. Vroom, vroom!


I don't think any of us got a picture with all three babies looking at the camera (Taline got there a little bit after the egg hunt.) We all probably looked like idiots trying though. "Kacey... Dash... Taline!! Look over here!!!" We were all yelling it, no wonder the kids never looked, they were too confused!

On Easter morning we went to Great Grandma Peggy's house for our traditional blintzes. GG Peggy gave Kacey a big purse that had little gift bags in it. The gift bags had clothes but Kacey was much more impressed with the actual bags!

You cross a bunch of Philipinos and a bunch of Englishmen???

A really beautiful and extremely fun wedding!!! Congrats Sean and Lea!!!



Click HERE for more pictures.