Up, Down, Touch the Ground

I haven't been good about writing lately. Chrisily is keeping me very busy! She has gone from rolling/army crawling as her mode of transportation to full out crawling and she is even doing some 'cruising' (walking while holding on to furniture). She has been crawling for several weeks now. She is a pro at it and very rarely reverts back to army crawling. At first she would drop back to her belly to do the army crawl since she was faster that way, but not anymore! Her vocabulary has also expanded. She says mama, dada, nana, and sometimes it sounds like she repeats 'hi' or 'hey'. She is still the happiest baby. She has learned to pull up on things to stand and she does it All.The.Time. She is starting to experiment with letting go for a second or two. She is also perfecting her 'sit down' from standing. It seems like every day she masters a new skill or says something new. Just the other day she climbed the doggy stairs. You read that correctly, she climbed the doggy stairs!
It is so hard to believe that she is already 9 months old. She has now been out in this world for as long as she was in my belly. At her 9 month appointment she weighed 20.6lbs (72%) and was 29inches long (92%).
These last 18 months have been the happiest of my life. She makes my heart smile. It melts my heart to see how excited she gets when Jacob comes home from work. She loves her daddy so much. Ihad planned to write more but Chrisily has decided to only take a 45 minute nap, so my motherly duties call!

Dada?

When you become a parent, you look forward to the moments when your child can say mama, dada, when they can give you a hug and tell you they love you. On Valentine's day, Jacob came home from work and was spending time with our sweet girl while I cooked dinner. She was sitting (or standing) on his lap and all of the sudden she says "dada". I turned around and said, "Did she just say that??". He was grinning from ear to ear. Since then it has gotten more regular. She has said mama three times but doesn't do it consistently yet.

Proud Mama and Dada

The title of this post says it all.. Jacob and I are so proud of Chrisily. We have been showing her some baby sign language to help her communicate with us. I must say that I was a bit skeptical and therefore I didn't do the signs as consistently as I should have. Yeah, the thought of it was pretty cool but I just didn't see how a little baby was going to pick up on it. Well, Chrisily proved me wrong the other day. I was feeding her lunch and showed her the sign 'more'.. I noticed she kept doing the same movement with her hands but it didn't click at first. All of the sudden, I realized she was trying to show me 'more'! I got so excited. She did it a few more times then I had to get it on video. Take a look at our smart girl in action:

Kisses

In the last month or two Chrisily has started giving us kisses. It all started when she was sitting in her high chair after eating. I would play with her for a few minutes while her food settled. She would always open her mouth really wide and lean towards you. I started saying, "Give mommy kisses" and leaning in. Sure enough, she would open her mouth and lean into my cheek. So sweet. Jacob didn't believe me at first. I had to videotape her doing it before he believed me. She has gotten much better at giving kisses, however, she only does it when she wants to- not when you want her to. Usually when we are playing on the floor I can get her to give me kisses. I have also started a bed time routine where I give her a big hug and ask for a kiss before putting her in her crib at night. The last few nights when I pick her up from the changing table, she has automatically given me the biggest hug. It is the sweetest thing ever. The first night she did it I just stood there for five minutes (maybe more) and held her tight. She brings so much joy to our lives. I love watching her learn and grow.. and I LOVE her kisses.

Love is in the Air

Let me pick up where I left you last.. Christmas has just ended and we celebrated New Years. Everyone had gone home and we were getting back to our normal every day routines. Chrisily turned 6 months old on January 4th. What a milestone! I can't believe it has been half a year alredy! On January 7th (a Saturday), she decided to begin crawling. I use the term crawling loosely. She began to scoot with her legs and pull with her arms to be mobile. Paired with rolling- she is moving around a good bit! We were in shock when she just started pushing herself across the floor to a toy. *tear* My little girl is not so little anymore (I know, I know.. She really is still little, but still!!!). At her 6 mo. appoinment she had to get some more of those nasty shots but we learned that she was 17.4 lbs and 27.25 inches long!! She has grown so much.

We had my friend Melissa (http://www.melissalynnhuntphotography.com ) take some 6 month pics.. She did a fabulous job as always and we have some great pictures as a result. Here are a few..

Isn't she just precious?? I love all of her little faces/smirks. She has such a fun personality and is truly and happy baby. The rest of January was pretty uneventful.
Luke and Meagan were able to get away from work for a few days to come and visit us in February. They arrived on Friday, Feb. 3rd and left on Monday, Feb. 6th. We had a really good visit with them. It was nice to just be able to hang out and catch up since the last two times we saw them there was a lot of craziness surrounding the Townsend weddings. Chrisily was also big enough that they were able to play with her and just get to know her a little better. Family is very important so it warmed our hearts to see her with her Uncle Luke and Aunt Mae Mae. Chrisily turned 7 months old while they were visiting and her first tooth broke through! What a day!! It was superbowl weekend so we had a very lazy day on Sunday but it was perfect! Here are a few pictures from their visit..

Once Luke and Meagan left it was back to the grind for Jacob. Tax season is heating up and he is working long hours again. I just keep telling myself, it will end.. it will end.. it will end. :-)
On Feb 11th, Chrisily's 2nd tooth broke through. Two in one week! We also had a low key celebration for Valentine's day. Life will probably be pretty calm and quiet for Chrisily and I while Jacob is working so much. Don't worry- I plan to make up for it once he gets done!! These are the last pictures I will post for today..

Lots of Love,





Valentines day

Pictures In Pink Valentine's Card

Click here to see graduation announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

I know it has been a while since I have written. I wanted to catch you up on our holidays. Chrisily had a wonderful first Christmas (I think we enjoyed it as much, if not more than she did)! We were lucky enough to have both mine and Jacob's parents here to help us celebrate. Sadly, Jacob's brothers and their wives were not able to come. Jacob and I have talked about our Christmas traditions many times and we have also started talking about the family traditions we want to have for our family. We feel it is important for our family to be home on Christmas. That means we'll be traveling either before or after Christmas to see the Townsends. This was our first year at home as a family of three! We kicked off the festivities with Christmas Eve church service and then headed to my Grandma's to eat barbecue and open presents (my family has done this forever). Aunt Carol and her family nor Aunt Cathy could make it that night so it was my family and grandma. That evening we headed home to get in bed so Santa could come! When we woke up the next morning we started up the video camera and went to say Good Morning and Merry Christmas to our precious girl. She was all smiles- as always! We couldn't want to go see what Santa had brought her. She got a few outfits, bibs, and a couple of books. Then we opened presents from each other. Chrisily got an activity table and a shapes/numbers cookie jar that sings! She enjoyed eating the paper as much as seeing the gifts. After we opened our presents, my family came over. We exchanged our gifts to each other then it was time to clean up and head over to mom and dad's for the annual Barbee Christmas Morning Brunch that dad cooks for our family and friends. We spent most of the afternoon over there before heading home to get Chrisily settled into bed. Jacob headed to the airport to pick up his parents! We were so excited that they were joining us for Christmas this year. We visited with them that night but they had to wait to see Chrisily until the morning- KK was about to die!! :-)  Once Chrisily woke up the next morning we exchanged gifts with Jacob's parents. We had a pretty lazy day around the house just hanging out so KK and Gramps could play with Chrisily. Aunt Carol and her family arrived Monday evening so we headed over to Grandma's on Tuesday evening to do Christmas with them. We ate barbecue until we could barely move and visited for a while before heading home. The rest of the week was spent hanging out with Jacob's folks, seeing my family, and enjoying our vacation time together. We finished up our holiday celebration on Friday with Mom's family. We all went to Casey and Stephen's house for our annual White Elephant gift exchange. By the weekend we were tired and ready for a few days of rest- but it was New Years! We decided to keep it low key and hang out at home with our sweet girl for New Year's Eve.
I spent the evening reflecting on what a fabulous year 2011 had been. I knew on New Year's 2010 that we were going to have a good year, but I had no way of knowing just how much my life would change forever. I will always have fond memories of 2011 and I look forward to making many more special memories in 2012. Happy New Year my friends.