Crazy Baby

This is how I found Rosalie asleep in her crib when I went to check on her this evening. She scooted to the foot of the crib and grabbed that pillow and put it under her head. She has recently learned to sit herself up which makes bed time a struggle on some nights, I guess she was too tired to even attempt to lay back down, so cute!

Christmastime is Here

I love the holiday season, I love our family traditions, I love the spirit of the season. I just get so happy listening to Christmas music, and I even sing along with it in the car. I love decorating, making treats to give to friends, and going to see Santa. Here are some pictures of our latest Christmas happenings.


I made cookies for our friends, these are the jam thumbprint cookies, and I also made Grand Mom Hartley's secret recipe cookies.


That is the snow on the mountains and the lights on my front railing, I love that I was able to put a little something outside this year, I know the picture is not much, but I still wanted to show my little decor.
There is our little tree with our presents underneath. I put that baby up the second we got home from Thanksgiving. I was just so excited.

Waiting in line for Santa. That was a huge ordeal, but we got it done. I think Rosalie was grumpy by the time we finally got to him.

She is trying to look at Santa, he was holding her really awkwardly, it did not make her happy.
And here we have her crying because I think she did not like Santa. I think it was a combination of things, the way he was holding her, the fact that she was a little tired and hungry, and she didn't know who the heck he was. Usually she smiles the second she sees my camera, and I have never seen her cry with someone she doesn't know before. I really think it was the way he was holding her arms down, it makes her really mad when I do that.
Oh well, Merry Christmas! Hope you enjoyed our funny pictures of Rosalie.

The Great 8 months!

getting into my papers and loving it.

drinking her juice, sometimes she makes us hold it for her even though she can do it.

We forced Rosalie to stay on all fours for the picture, now she rolls over every time I try to get her like that. She is very stubborn and does not want to crawl.

Rosalie is eight months today. I haven't done the monthly mom photo shoot yet, but I will tomorrow. She has learned so many things this month, especially in the last week. It is so fun to watch her learn and grow.
She pulls her self up to sitting position in her crib and then tries to stand herself up, but I moved the bar so that she can't reach it. This makes bed and nap time hard at first because she sits her self up and starts to play, or gets stuck at the foot of the bed wedged into the corner.
She pulls herself up to standing position, and wants to stand all of the time, it makes my back really sore when she wants me to hold her hands to stand.
She takes steps when I hold her hands and walks around, very slowly.
She still doesn't crawl, she can get on all fours, but if I put her on all fours and try to get her to crawls she smashes her face in the floor and proceeds to cry very dramatically.
She somehow is able to scoot forward a little when she is sitting on her bum, because that is how she got to my basket of papers that she is so happily standing at in the above photo.
She now says gaga, and baba along with mama, still no dada.
She makes all sorts of funny noises with her mouth.
She makes the funniest facial expressions.
She snorts her nose, like the noise the bunny rabbit says.
She was doing the noise the elephant makes by blowing with her mouth for a while, she moved on to new noises though.
She gives me "five."
She waves hello, but she has her hand facing herself, it is so cute. We can't quite catch it on the video camera yet because she doesn't always do it.
She gave her book kisses and snuggled it last night, it was so cute.
She says awwww when she snuggles.
She is learning to be soft, but gets bored and proceeds to smack our faces or pinch our lips.
She loves her little snacks, she is very good at picking things up with her thumb and finger.
She loves all of her food except for green beans.
She loves her juice and her sippy cup. She really loves our water bottles the best though.
She is squirmy and all over the place and knows exactly what she wants, we just sometimes don't understand and she gets frustrated.
We love her to bits!!!!

New Hobby

the bad quality photos comes from my phone, sorry.

don't look too closely at the onesie or you will see my mistakes

I have found a new hobby. I just needed something new to do to keep me entertained, and I had a few baby shower gifts to make so I decided to take up sewing/crafting. I called my friend Mallory, a home-ec teacher to help me get my sewing machine up and running. And I went to the fabric store, so much fun, I just wanted to buy everything. There are so many beautiful fabrics I had a hard time only getting a few. Then I got started. I first made a few tie onesies for my friend's little baby boy Max. Then I decided to try something girly and make some fabric flowers. I love how they all turned out. The onesies I sewed the tie on after using an iron-on applique so that they wouldn't fray. The flowers I made by hand.
This hobby totally beats the alternative of what I would really like to do. I want to be the most amazing baker, but I feel like I would gain 50 to a 100lbs if I started making everything I want to try. So I have started with sewing. I think I will try the baking thing when we have a bigger budget for ingredients and I have more time to spend at the gym to work off everything I have tasted while I am baking. I one day would like to own a bakery, that way I can make things and not worry about eating them all by myself. But for now I will sew.

Rosalie's Christmas Photoshoot

My little girl is just so fun and so pretty. I just had to get her pictures done again. She was so cute, at least she kept her bow on, but this time her shoe would not stay on. Check out the picture where it is actually in mid-air. I love McKenzie, she did such an amazing job.

Thanksgiving Fun!

We did lots of fun stuff for Thanksgiving week. We were able to visit Sean's family in their tiny apartment (temporary) in Southern California. It was so much fun, and I'm so glad that everyone survived a week of sleep deprivation so that we could visit. Rosalie just did not want to sleep the entire time we were there. Since we were all snuggled close together in the apartment and you could hear through the walls, she kept everyone awake.
The view was amazing, the weather was amazing and I am so happy that they are living in such a fun place. Even though I am sad that they had to move a home full of memories, one that Sean even admitted to missing, I'm glad that they are in such a beautiful fun place with so many things to do.

We went to Rick's cousin Eric's wedding.
Rosalie was able to meet her other set of Great-grandparents.
We went to Downtown Disney.

We visited the walk of fame in Hollywood. This was the only picture we got of hollywood, nice I know.

We experienced terrible California traffic. All I had to do to make Rosalie stop crying was to get the camera out, what a diva. It worked magic in that traffic though.

Rosalie wore her first bikini, and we went swimming in the beautiful 80 degree weather (in a pool not the ocean).
We made new traditions for Thanksgiving.
We went Black Friday Shopping.
We went to a swap meet, I love swap meets, wish they existed all over.

And now the traditional thankful thoughs:
-My amazing family born into and married into
-My sweet, funny, smart, sassy, crazy little Rosalie
-Sean
-Having a job/job offer
-Our little apartment
-Food
-Clothes
-baby toys that keep Rosalie busy
-Friends
-Library story time
-Diet Coke and Advil
-My sister who is one of my best friends, something I never really thought would happen
-Walmart
-Amazon.com
-Makeup
-Shopping
-Christmas trees and decor and the entire holiday season
-And much much more...

7 months!!!

My Rosalie is getting so big, and so much fun. We just love her little personality, most of the time. Here are some fun new things she can do:
She can throw a real temper tantrum at times.
She is all over the place, wiggling like a little crazy person.
She hasn't quite figured out that she can mover herself yet, she still just uses her feet as a central position and moves in a circle using her arms.
Sometimes she moves backwards, but never very far, but she can get up on all fours every once and a while.
She also rolls all over the place, it is pretty funny.
She now says "baba" and "bama" and any combination of ba and ma.
She thinks that I am hilarious, which makes me feel pretty good.
She loves to smile and make her silly face with her tongue sticking out. S
he always wants to eat whatever we are eating and enjoys trying little bits of new foods. She especially loves crackers/biting biscuits.
She is always trying to look at what is on the ground to play with when we are holding her, but when we put her down she gets upset.
She goes to bed really easily when she does not have an ear infection, I can just put her down and she goes to sleep, after the routine of course.
She still wakes up once a night, but it is after going nine or ten hours after going to bed, if she would go to bed later it wouldn't really disturb my sleep, but since she goes to bed at 6:30 or 7 she wakes me up at around 4.
She loves her Auntie Aubrey, especially when we go out places with her.
She loves going out anywhere, and also watching other kids or babies.

We are just enjoying every little moment with this sweet, spunky little girl.

I won a prize!

I never win anything, so you could imagine my excitement when the manager from smith's call me and told me that I won a Holiday dinner. There I am with my certificate to purchase everything necessary for a big ole meal, including the floral centerpiece. Happy Holidays to me!!!

Rosalie had a photo shoot

Rosalie had a photo shoot with McKenzie Deakins, and it was great, she looked adorable and McKenzie did an awesome job. I was so excited to actually get her pictures done for six months/Halloween. Check out her blog, and totally schedule your pictures with her, she is fantastic and friendly www.photobymckenzie.blogspot.com

Queen Bee

Happy Halloween!!! This year didn't go quite as I expected. I totally planned on going to the Hartley House to greet the trick or treating children and have a cute little family costume. Unfortunately they moved, yesterday. We are very sad. Rosalie is our little queen bee. She is so cute. Enjoy the pictures I took this morning. She is going through a phase where she makes this really weird face instead of smiling, so I did the best I could.

1/2 a Year!

I can't believe my baby is six months old. She is so much fun and is growing too fast. She can sit and roll and sometimes she scoots backwards, but not too far yet. She definitely says "mama" when she is upset, and she reaches for me when she wants me to hold her, it is so cute.
Some things she loves:
All of her baby foods, she has tried all of the basics and seems to enjoy it all
The bulb syringe, but only when I'm not using it on her
Cell phones, we even got her a fake one to play with
Sitting and playing with all of her toys piled on her lap
Being part of the action, she hates being left alone in a separate room, even for a minute
For me to hold her when I do just about anything
Her Einstein jumper
Eating paper
Drinking our water, and playing with a sippy cup
Playing with anything that is not a toy, jewelry, spoons, purses, shoes
Watching other kids play
Smiling for the camera, she is a little model
Playing with her monkey toy, I always find her eating it when I go to get her after a nap
Petting Lucy, the Hartley's dog
Her medicine, she has her first ear infection and she just loves the pink stuff, weird
She is just a very happy, social, fun little girl and we are so lucky to have her

More reasons to love October

Pumpkin Patches and Witches Night Out!!! Those are two amazing reasons to love October.

We had so much fun with Marci and Ellie while they were in town, we already miss them a ton. All of the girls went to the pumpkin patch and the little ones sure looked so cute exploring everything. Rosalie had her first taste of dirt. I think she loved it, haha. Pumpkin patches are just so beautiful, we totally enjoyed picking out our own pumpkin and riding on the hayride. I picked a huge pumpkin, bigger than Rosalie, and I plan to try something very fun with it. Here are some pictures of the beautiful patch.

We also attended Witches Night Out at Gardner Village. It was so much fun. I wasn't planning on taking Rosalie, but Sean was really sick, so she tagged along. I'm so lucky to have such a happy baby, she enjoyed the whole thing and was a very good sport. We started the evening at the Cheesecake Factory with a scrumptious dinner, then we made our way to the event. We danced, we shopped and we just had a blast. Rosalie even tried out the limbo. I'm so glad we could have all of the girls together for this, including my sis.