look what I can do!

9 months ago today

I squeezed this beautiful thing out of me:


Last night I was reading this article about lighting. And the guy was saying sometimes the best lighting to shoot people in (with a camera not a gun) is when it's overcast. And sometimes the sun will poke through and throw a sweet color over people. So this morning it was two things:
1. Mary's 9 month birthday
2. Overcast
Coincidence? I think not. What do ya know...the lighting really makes all the difference.




A lot of times I will look at a picture and think, "how in the world did they make it LOOK like that???" Like I wouldn't even know what to do, but I'm starting to think that people just go out at the right times, when light is the best. They learn when the best times are to take pictures!
And lastly, two funny/frustrating pictures:
She was looking right at me and then heard a truck go by...drat

Beyonce butt:

Big girl!

So, this probably isn't a big deal to most people, but Mary can feed herself! We've been trying for almost a month to get her to feed herself and last week she finally started to get more than one piece of food in her mouth at a time! Here's a video:

Flippin' exciting

This is how much she likes being upside down.

Goofy Girl

Mary is quite entertaining. She makes weird faces and ends up all over the place so it's pretty funny to watch her. It's cool to see a little person discover things for the first time.

Good morning Mary!

This is Mary when I walk in to get her in the morning.


She's always so happy after a refreshing sleep! Plus we play games where I hide behind the crib bumper and she comes to find me ;) In the second picture she had pulled the bumper down so I couldn't hide from her anymore...it's not just a hat rack!

It wasn't raining when we left for our walk...

But it was when we got home!


I felt so many eyes judging me as it started to rain on us. All the cars driving by were totally thinking what a bad mom I am walking with my kid in the rain. She was soaked when we got home, but she LOVES walks so she didn't make a sound the whole time! What a trouper!

ps she always closes her eyes when I use flash, that's why she looks stoned in the second picture.

too funny NOT to take a picture...

She is out like a light! This picture speaks for itself.

How she ever fell asleep like that I'll never know!

Before and After

We have done SO many things to our house. And every time we redo/build a room or tear something down etc. we never take before and after pictures! Well this time I did. Once again Jacob has done some work on our house, but this time it's the outside! We finally did something with all the flower beds around our house. Jacob did most of the work, and when he was done I put some flowers in! Here are some before and after shots...
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

The first one is the biggest transformation. Actually the back is probably the biggest but I didn't get a picture of that! So anyway...our house looks a little nicer with every year we live in it ;)

First mother's day:

Here's what I loved about the day, in order:
5. Having a babysitter the night before so we can have dinner and play at Dave and Buster's! You girls are supposed to be watching Mary!!!!! Oh well:

4. Showing the princess herself in the mirror. This is what life would be like if there were two Mary's!

3. A chance to dress her up and take pretty pictures:

2. Time with family:

1. The knowledge that we are parents...AHHHH!

I have a confession. Number 1 is actually that I got to sleep in til 10 this morning. That's right. I haven't done that since high school. But I got up and fed her at 7 then Ian took her! Woohoo! Don't judge me.

Searching

Mary will now search for things. It's so cute when something's missing she used to just forget it existed, but now she will peek around things we hide behind, lift things up to find stuff...you get the gist! I've been poking my finger through the hole in her exersaucer then taking it away.

Tickle Fest

Mary is ticklish now and she knows the appropriate response: laughter. Before she would just push us away when we tickled her. Like, "Hey, stop annoying me." But, as you can see in the video, she laughs now!

Frustration

Mary has been getting so frustrated with her immobility lately. She will intentionally roll on to her tummy as if to practice crawling! But then she ends up getting frustrated because she pushes herself backwards. She can't really get up on her hands and knees yet, but she tries to. In her efforts she pushes up on her hands and tries to get her little legs going but ends up sliding herself backwards with her hands. It's cute but sometimes I have to leave the room. I get so frustrated FOR her! Sometimes I try to help her, but it doesn't usually do any good.
Today I took pictures while she was 'practicing'

gdiapers

So I finally bought some gdiapers and we tried them out today. They worked really well with the cloth diaper inserts I already have. And they are really cute. They're a little bulky in the front with the cloth insert, but it doesn't seem to bother her;)

Craftiness pt 2

I guess I'm feeling extra crafty lately. I'm making invitations for Amber's (friend) wedding and Krystle's (future step-sister in-law) bridal shower. For amber's we found some we really liked at exclusivelyweddings.com and wanted to make something similar. I came up with this:




And for Krystle's shower I wanted to go with her colors because I'm crazy about things matching. I swear I don't just do it to be annoying. There's literally something wrong in my brain. When things don't match (or when things aren't logical) I lose it and get really confused. I only work inside the box! That's why I married a way outside the box kinda guy! Tangent...here is the invite: