Annie Walks!

What? Updating again so soon? Well I've cut down on my Facebook time, so I have lots more time to devote to gushing about my baby girl! Yesterday, Sept. 19th, Annie walked independently from the dishwasher to the refrigerator. Jon called down to me to "come quick." I came down, and he showed me how he held out her hands in front of her as he walked backwards. Then I tried it, and she walked even further to the laundry room.

From then on, she has been walking all over the house without our prompting. She even showed her stuff at Alison's birthday party in the quad cities. She'll be running soon enough. Video to follow!

Annie Who?

I'm not going to try to play catch up. Annie is 11 months, 1 week, and 4 days old. Tonight she started walking. Okay, she officially took her first step at Lay-Z-Boy with Grandma on Aug. 28th. But tonight she walked between items, taking two or three steps each time without hanging on to anything. She does not like it if you try to get her to walk such as tricking her by letting go of her hands. If we do that, she promptly sits down on her bottom.

She has been hugging the dog a lot. She crawls to her and then stands up; she plays with Callie's collar and then gives her a big hug. The dog is putting up with it pretty well. Anne used to pull her ears and poke her in the eye, but that has thankfully stopped. Callie can only put up with so much!

She began to crawl around 9 months. She wall walked at the same time. Basically that means that she was walking along the walls, couch, tables, etc. but not taking solo steps. Her crawl as of today is diverse. Some times it is a normal crawl. But more often, she uses one foot like a walk and seems to drag the other leg. It is cute, but gimpy. Today she did a Mogley walk, up on all fours.

She has four teeth, She got the first two on June 1st. They are the bottom two or as Jon says, "O" and "P". For baby teeth, dentists use letters, not numbers. Her top two came in with a big gap ("E" and "F")! We are thinking for Halloween she will be a bunny because of the funny look of her Bugs Bunny teeth. What's up doc?

WORDS! Anne has lots of sounds. she has a gaga, mama, dada, baba, and many more, but they don't really mean what we want them to mean. Then, out of the blue, she started saying "Hi" when she saw someone, when we gave her a stuffed animal, when she liked something etc. It is kind of like Aloha, meaning hello, good bye and everything else. However, she dose say it as a greeting for sure! Just this weekend, she began saying "uh oh." Grandma took her over night while mom and dad went to a movie and got to get a good nights rest. Anne kept dropping the refrigerator magnets and Grandma would say, uh oh! So now we have two words.

Anne is still eating her baby food (mostly stuff that I make) but she is eating all sorts of grown up food as well. Tonight she had some roasted chicken. She likes string cheese, yogurt, cheetos, mashed potatoes, baked beans, pasta, lo mien noddles, and just about everything else we give her. she is NOT a picky eater like her mama. I guess she gets that from dad. He eats everything.

Okay, that's my update. I promise to do better!!!

Annie is asleep. good time to clean the house, wash dishes, catch up on last night's TV shows I missed, take a nap, or blog. for the first time in a long time, I'll choose to blog. Anne turned six months old this week. She is getting cuter everyday. We have been sitting up in the bath tub. She is very into everything I am using. If I am on the phone, she wants to eat it; if I am tying at the computer, she wants to hit the buttons; if I am changing the channel, she wants the remote.

We have begun to eat three times a day. Here is an example of a typical day: Wake up with daddy at about 5:30-6:00am. Play with daddy/watch Fox and Friends while daddy irons his clothes. Mommy wakes up around 7:30 and feeds Anne oatmeal and some fruit. By about 8:15, Anne nurses for about 15-20 minutes. At 8:45, mommy and Anne leave to go Jazzercise for an hour. Anne watches the ladies dance around for about 35-45 minutes. When it's time to cool down and do stretches and strength-building, Anne wants out of her carrier and plays on the floor by mommy. Head home around 10:15. Take nap while mommy takes a shower. Wakes up around 11:00-11:15. Time to eat again: fruit and veggies. Daddy comes home for lunch and plays with Anne from 12:15-12:55. Mommy then nurses Anne and gets her to take a nap. Nap might go 2-3 hours, but usually about 90 minutes. Mommy uses this time to clean up the morning messes, do dishes, style hair and/or put on makeup, make the bed, etc. When Annie wakes up, she'll nurse and then we play until Daddy comes home. Daddy takes Annie so Mommy can make dinner. Anne will eat around 6:00, more fruit and veggies, and will nurse around 7:30. Anne will rub her eyes around 8:00. We get ready for bed by changing diaper, putting on jammies, reading a story and out she goes. With this new "three times a day" feeding schedule, Anne has slept through the night from 8-5:30 twice. The other two times, she got up around 1:30 and wanted to eat a little. That's not so bad! she was getting up every night at 3:30 for the last month. I hope this new trend continues.

Anne is really starting to sit up on her own. She leans forward in her bouncer, sits up in the tub chair, and can eat in her high chair. If I prop her up on the couch or in the rocker/recliner, she is able to stay sitting up for a long time. I have even stood her up in her crib and backed away. she will stay standing for a long time as well.

NEWS ON THE ROLLING OVER FRONT:

No real news to report. Anne rolls to her side from her back to get things, but has not gotten all the way over on her own. Twice Anne has rolled over from her tummy to her back, but she hasn't done it consistently. When on her tummy, she moves her legs like she wants to crawl, but hasn't gotten to that point yet.

Anne is smiling big, reaching for toys with both arms and with one arm (which is apparently a big deal). She babbles and sticks out her tongue to make all sorts of funny noises. She recognizes people, and sometimes Anne gets upset when she sees Mommy and isn't being held by her. Anne is fine when someone else has her, but when she sees mommy near by, she;ll scream and reach out for Mommy. It's cute right now, but it will soon be not as cute and more burdensome.

Anne will be moving to her new house in about a month. She will have lots more room for all her toys, and there will be room for Anne to get new brothers and sisters...down the road.

So there is Annie's catch up blog. Hopefully mommy can get her act together and keep up more often. We'll see...

Random Saturday

It seems that the weekends are the best days to Blog. Jon has just completed his first nearly unassisted bedtime. Mommy usually cleans up Anne (either bath or just a good diaper change and lotion massage). Then she puts on the PJs, swaddles Annie up, nurses her, and reads two books. By then Annie is off in never-never land. I did give her the bath and the massage and PJs, but I let Jon give her a bottle and read the stories (I had to redo his swaddle) and she was out! Yea for Daddy. This is practice because Mommy is going out on Tuesday night and we had to make sure Anne would go down for him. Very successful!

Her latest and greatest are the screams. She has found her voice and insists on using it at full volume on a regular basis. I will try to capture this on video and add it later. "It's so cute" says GiGi's coworkers, except Mommy has a perma-headache. Anne uses this new voice to exclaim excitement, frustration, hungry, and anger. When she is upset, the screams can go on for quite awhile :( Mostly she has been screaming these last few days because the Sweet Peas we gave her are give her gas pain and making it difficult to go potty. She is hurting and it makes us so sad. The nurse told us to add Karo Corn Syrup to her food or bottle and that should help. so it has. Other advise we got was to give her prune juice or apple juice. We haven't had to do that yet. She seems better tonight.

Feeding her is getting fun. The rice cereal gives her gas I think; she loves the oatmeal (just like her daddy) and eats it every night before bed; she likes the carrots; the sweet potatoes are okay; the sweet peas are not that popular; and the squash is pretty good. Tomorrow we will add a fruit, probably applesauce. All this food has added the need for more bathes. She gets the food in the folds of her neck and it is really hard to get out. she wont let me stretch out her neck and clean it out so it's off to the tub! This past week we have been taking more "big girl" bathes. She really loves splashing except when she gets the water in her face. Anne has a bit of cradle cap, so I got some special lotion that is supposed to help. It did, but it smells so bad. We have washed her hair at least four times since, and the smell remains. I have tried to mask the smell with baby oil, lotion and powder. Nothing helps. All the washing doesn't really help the cradle cap...hmph!

Lastly, Anne has really come a long way with her grabbing and grasping recently. She can hold onto toys and fingers, blankets and bibs. She brings them to her mouth and can hold them there. She reaches for the spoon or the cup of baby food; she reaches for Mommy's hair; Daddy's favorite is that she grabs her feet or sometimes just her thighs when we change her diaper. It won't be long before she puts those toes in her mouth!

Almost forgot. We took Anne to the wedding our beloved niece, Stephanie. The plane rides were not that bad, some were better than others. The car ride over the mountain (we flew into Reno and went over Dover Pass) was good as soon as she fell asleep. At first we were worried because all the rental car place had were upright car seats. Anne did fine though. Annie was in the wedding as the "Radio Flier Baby." The cute little flower girls pulled her in the wagon down the aisle. The veil was Stephy's first communion veil. We had a great time, and were excited to share in the joy of Stephanie and Peter. They makes such a great couple. There is no other man worthy or appropriate for Steph than young Pete. They have a great life ahead. Glad we could be a part of it.

Random Sunday

Three Month Old Annie Ainsley

It is a slow Sunday afternoon. I haven't showered since after Jazzercise class yesterday; I've eaten 5 peanut butter cookies (need to go to Jazzercise class again); Jon has shoveled the office but not our driveway yet; Anne is bouncing between being as sweet as pie, all smiles, to crabby and hungry even though she ate 45 minutes ago. We got her 3 month pictures back from Sears last week. I got most of them off in the mail, and I hope everyone loved them. She is really a cute child. Um, I know that I am her mother and all, but dang is she cute! Don't believe me? Check out the rest of the pics!

This month Anne started to really enjoy her jungle gym. She was batting at the hanging rattles and looking at herself in the mirror a lot (she must get that from me. I am a bit vain!). This week she has gotten even better with the gym. She grabs the hanging rattles and shakes them. She is actually trying to hit at them when she flails her arms whereas before she was just flailing and hitting them sometimes.

For Christmas, Nana and Papa (Jon's folks) got her a Baby Einstein video. She loves it. She watches it with undivided attention. The colors and the music mesmerize her. It is how I am able to blow dry my hair and put on makeup. I used to have to wait until Jon came home for lunch to shower and get ready. Now that we are out and about more often, I need to be ready sooner. I hate to put her in front of the TV but it can't be too bad! She liked it so much that we got her two more (mostly because I was getting tired of the same music). I can hear Jon watching it with her right now. This one is Beethoven. The first one was Mozart.

She is getting very verbal these days. For the last month she has been talking to us in these big long sentences "lalagabalajara" etc. with an occasional "BLA KA!" for good measure. This week Jon got actual laughing giggles out of her. It was so cute.

But the biggest step this month came last week when we started solid food. We started to give her rice cereal once a day. We may graduate to two times a day. (picture to come when camera battery charges) This was a big step for us because now Jon can feed her too. Whoa, she is really screaming now! Gotta run!

A Year in Holiday Style

Anne Ainsley was born on Oct. 3rd, just in time for some holiday fun. As the year continues, more and more holidays keep Anne decked in cute outfits. Anne's first year of holidays has started off with a bang. I can't seem to decide on outfits, so she usually gets two or three (or more). We hope this makes your holiday brighter!

HALLOWEEN

Anne's first holiday was, of course, Halloween. We had some trouble deciding between costumes. I went shopping on Oct. 30th and found a pumpkin costume at Kmart and a Peapod costume at Meijer. I couldn't decide so I got both and tried them on first. I got Anne in the Pumpkin one, took her picture, and then decided it was too big. I then put on the Peapod. By this time, she was not excited about putting on costumes anymore. She wasn't all that pleased in the pictures. For the big day, Anne and I went to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Hudson to pass out candy (we only get about 5 kids at our house). It was a beautiful day and we sat outside in the porch and watched the trick-or-treaters. Anne received many complements on her adorableness. Dad came over when he was finished working; Grandma and Grandpa came home, and we all had dinner. Everyone took turns posing for pictures with Annie-Peapod. I returned the pumpkin costume on Nov. 1st! Amen to Kmart!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was Annie's second holiday. We went to Grandma's again. The Gregory family gets together on Thanksgiving. Aunt Sharon & Uncle Dave, Mike & Jenny + Will, Lauren, and Rachel, Jason & Jennifer + Allison and Nick, Uncle Mike & Aunt Bobbie, and Annie's Uncle Scott were all in attendance. We played pool, ate turkey, watched football, and visited with all the fam. It was a nice afternoon. Anne had a really cute "Baby's First Thanksgiving" outfit, but when she spit up on it, she had to put on the beautiful dress I had brought.

Pictures and more Holiday Stories to come...

Watch Annie Grow

Annie grows so quickly. It seems like we every time we turn around, she gets bigger, she can do more, and grows more beautiful everyday. To demonstrate just how fleeting her babyhood is, watch her grow month by month! BTW, I have no idea how to get the captions to line up with the pictures.

Annie at 2 weeks

Annie at 1 month

Annie at 2 months

Annie at 3 months

Annie at 4 months