ThE HoLiDaY SeAsOn

Here's a recap of our busy, but wonderful holiday season.

For Thanksgiving we stayed here and all my family came. Bash created a fort and he and Piper played underneath the blanket.
Piper giggling at her Great-Gramps

This is a picture of my mom's entire side of the family. They all came to Dallas for the Baylor vs. Texas Tech football game at Cowboys stadium. The Baylor fans are outnumbered in the family, but everyone was very nice about the good effort Baylor put forth at the game. We all enjoyed seeing the new stadium.

Piper sandwich!

We all "ran" the Turkey Trot with 35,000 other people Thanksgiving morning. It was a fun time dodging walkers and dogs with a jogging stroller. After burning calories we all came home and had a great meal.




Now on to Christmas 2009!

Sibling Christmas pic

At Piper's daycare Christmas party the kids put on a performance of songs. Piper danced/jumped along the entire performance. It was super cute!

Sitting on Santa's lap. She was totally fine with Santa, just really tired as his visit was at the end of the party. She did enjoy running her fingers through his curly beard.

Family Christmas pic

lazy morning enjoying the time of from school

Playing with Cousin Kelly in Kerrville

Uncle Matt holding Piper - now that she can move on her own, he's not afraid of her anymore and they had a great time interacting over the holidays.

After opening presents at Mimi's

Looking out the window, she enjoyed this as we don't have any glass doors at our house where she can do this

Piper getting her Bambi deer out of her stocking - she loves this deer and giggles everytime she sees it.

Bash's favorite present - he wore this everyday after he got

New Years 2010

Over the winter break we traveled down to Kerrville as my Pawpaw was very sick. We knew this would be the last Christmas with him. We were able to take a 5 generations picture since my dad was here. We were also able to enjoy our time with Pawpaw as he could still have conversations and join us for meals.

Piper and Pawpaw checking each other out. Piper enjoyed crawling after Pawpaw when he used his walker to get around.

Five days after Christmas, on December 30 Pawpaw passed away. His funeral was January 2, 2010 and Chris sang his favorite Irish song, "Danny Boy." He was 82, had lived a very full, blessed life, and blessed many who knew him. I am so thankful that I had him in my life for 29 years. We miss you Pawpaw and love you, but are thankful that your pain has ended and you are with Your Maker in Heaven.

Bash is here!

Bash arrived on Saturday and we've put him straight to work. After a fun round of golf with Dad, he helped attack the yard which has unfortunately become overgrown with weeds and dandelions. They raked the leaves (front yard) and he did an excellent job of mowing while Chris fertilized. They are quite a team and now our yard doesn't look quite so bad. Here's the fruits of his labor -

This is only half of the yard, the other side had just as big a pile and now we have 8 bags of leaves in the alley.

Crazy November

Why do the months with holidays always seem crazy? November (and a few weeks before that) has been busy. Here's a quick update - A visit from Grammy and Pops at the end of Oct.

A trip to the Pumpkin Patch on Halloween day

These pictures are her 7 month pics because I forgot this month to take pics with her lamb chair. Oops! And I realize that next week will be 8 months, but better late than never trying to record her accomplishments each month. I do have a goal of making her a real baby book on Spring Break when I'm done with masters classes and I hope it becomes a reality although I realize that this blog may end up being her baby book.

It has been a month full of milestones - Piper has mastered sitting up alone, is crawling, is pulling up and walking along furniture, and saying ma-ma. I chose to believe that she knows I'm ma-ma and says it when she's talking to me and Chris lets me believe this so we're happy.

For Halloween - we got a puppy!

This was in the school book parade.

Our puppy can sit, roll over, speak, attack, and play dead.

We invited Piper's birthday buddy Sally over and Piper played rough. She didn't understand why Sally didn't like it when Piper crawled up her back. We're going to have to work on her social skills with babies since she's the youngest at daycare and the other kids think she's so cute they let her get away with being rough and scratching.

Chris and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. Woohoo! Chris got me these beautiful flowers which are a replica of my wedding bouquet. Thanks Robin and Rachel at Cymbidium.

We were fortunate to be able to go on two dates to celebrate. We had a great time and did a good job of not focusing on the little cutie we left at home.

Here is Piper's winter hat

Chris baptized a guy in our small group - Burton. We are amazed at the people God has put in our group and feel so fortunate to be surrounded by such wonderful friends who care for us and support us through everything.

And finally evidence of Piper's new tricks (sorry the pictures are in such random order)

Just Too Cute

Let me start this post by saying that there are so many cute pictures of Piper, too many to put all in her 6 month post that I have made many new posts. I stayed up past midnight, I hope I don't regret it tomorrow, but I pretend that there are many readers of this blog (or just obligated family members) so please scroll down and read all the new posts.Just lounging in the bouncy chair. Most days she is not this calm in this chair. If she drops her toy she will lean over to get it almost flipping out of the chair if it weren't for the safety strap and the balance designed legs we would have had an accident by now. We also put Piper in this chair to keep her bowels moving. The vibration button is great.
You have to click on this picture and zoom in to check out her crazy hair. These curls go all over the place, except where she has bald spots. New growth is coming, but I think the fact that she lays down for the majority of her day is stunting her hair growth. Usually when we pick her up from daycare they are tight little ringlets, I guess she sweats a lot over there or it's really humid there. Other times we have major frizz. In the back it gets so matted and then just sticks straight out in knots. Chris is really good at getting the knots out. We have tried baby oil and this Dove curl product, but neither really work at making the hair curl and not frizz or tangle. If anyone has any suggestions we're open.

Girl pajama party - my mom sent Piper and I matching pj's to wear the weekend Chris had a boys golf weekend.

Oh the tongue - starting solid foods has really brought out her attitude. She makes it very clear now when she's happy or mad, if she likes what you're doing or she doesn't. I know we've been very blessed to have had such an easy, happy baby, but I hope this personality isn't a sign of what's to come.

She also enjoys pursing her lips together and blowing right after a bite of food so food goes spraying in her eyebrows, up her nose, dribbling down her chin and bib, across the tray, and all over mommy. Sometimes more food is sprayed than ingested.

Yum - Socks!

Piper is currently fascinated with her socks and loves to pull them off and stuff them in her mouth. She is just crazy sometimes! Uck - fuzz in the mouth
What are you looking at?

This look reminds me of my dog Colby when she's snatch a sock. Piper doesn't seem to care at all that we're watching her put a sock in her mouth. Many times she stuffs it so far in her mouth that she gags. We have used it as a distractor when changing her diaper, which was the case when these pics were took. Hope she doesn't hate us later for these naked baby shots.

Western Festival

A few weeks ago we went to the Western Festival in old downtown Lewisville. It was on the last hot day of fall, we were sweating out there, but we had such a great time. Chris dragged us out of the house leaving behind chores, studying, and school work to have some quality family time. His main attraction was the Los Lonely Boys performance, that we missed because we were so hot we couldn't stay outside any longer, but we enjoyed fresh squeezed lemonade, corn dogs, and wearing our sunglasses. Also we found the perfect piece of art for our entryway. Sorry I don't have a picture, but it's a rusted old cross on a glazed frame. It's really cool and just perfect for the space.

Now some people think Piper's sunglasses are dweeby, but I have to argue with them and say that she looks super cute and stylish with pink shades. And I believe she loves wearing them because she never pulls them off or even touches them when they're on.

Moving Around

Piper has started moving around and Chris and I have to be very careful where we put her or things. She can grab stuff of the table and when she sees a toy she wants so can get it. Here she is on all fours. She rocks back and forth like she's revving up to go, but as soon as she lifts a hand her knees slide out from under her and she ends up on her belly. She's getting a little better at lifting one hand and then lunging before landing on her belly. She does this 3-4 times to get across the floor and retrieve the desired toy. Chris said she did one crawl this weekend, of course it was while I was in the other room, so I'm sure we'll soon be posting about her crawling once we've both witnessed the miracle with our own two eyes.

Sitting up with assistance. The doctor told me this is the tripod. She is working very hard to get to this position on her own. She will lay on her side for a long time trying to time it just right to bring her knees up and push off her elbow to sit up. This girl is working out her core muscles.

Pushing on her arms.

Now she likes to roll over multiple times and back and forth. It's amazing when you lay her down and turn away for just a second and by the time you look back she's two feet from where you laid her.