Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
We hope that your meals were as delicious and your company as wonderful as ours.

Our little family made the drive to Lewisville to spend time with one side of the family. We got to see Graham (Grahampa), Cheryll (Cherry), Claire, Travis, Meemaw (Great Meemaw), Shirley (Great Shirley), and PawPaw (Great PawPaw). Oh, and Roxy and Ava.

Stage one of hibernation is complete. We are getting fattened up for winter. Apple pie is hanging off my sides and Mara dove headfirst into the turkey (figuratively).

NC State lost (Boooooooo!) And Cherry tested our inner resolve... Mara is a SMART girl. Carolina? CRY!!!!!!!! That's my girl.

Mara was not as cooperative with photos as I would have hoped, but she did have a busy weekend.

Lots of foreign toys to break in and people to win over. We got home and it's like she wanted to pack right up and head back to Grahampa's and Cherry's!

Either that, or she thought it was hilarious that Mommy was huffing and puffing and dragging her around the house.

I do what I can to keep her entertained, ok?! I need to hitch up the dogs, I think. Save me from bending over to keep the suitcase angled so she doesn't spill out. She read a book while I varooommed her around and around.

That's all I've got! Enjoy.

Fairy Tale Times (11 Months!)

Hello, our devoted stalkers.

Is that a double negative? Devoted, stalker...

Not that I blame you for your habit.

Sometimes you just need a fix.

Much like I crave Diet Coke and would probably go into serious cardiac arrest if I did not consume my daily supply, you threaten me with text messages, emails, and droopy internet chat frowny faces if I do not deliver.

So hopefully this post will satiate your baby Danny-Devito-esk (our resident hair bucket baby) craving. See? See? STRANDS! Rumpelstiltskin teetered his way over to our house, weaving gold into hair, or something, for the future Rapunzel...

I think I'm criss-crossing my fairytales. Either way, Miss Mara was waiting for her prince to come.

That prince would be, her Daddy. Yes. DaDa. And she solicited her noble watchpuppies for help.

Although waiting for her prince proved to be quite exhausting. She had to comfort the help.

And she became so absorbed with doing so that, for a moment, she forgot she was human.

Hmm, what's this good for?

Ah, I know! Nom nom nom.

I can confidently say that my reflex timing now rivals warp speed/hyper drive. There I am, nonchalantly chatting with friends.
Quick seize the dinner knife from Mara's fingers!!!!
Continue chatting.
Dive catch the launched sippy cup!!!
Finish my story.
All in a day's work, people.
Yes, parents are practically superheros. We may not be faster than a speeding bullet, but you haven't seen 5 AM comatose Daddy teleport to the other continent side of our bed to grab a footie pant leg before it goes tumbling over into the abyss.

We may not be more powerful than a locomotive, but if I hurled a poopy diaper at you, you'd wonder how I'd been able to lift it.

What?

 
We may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound... but that's because someone thought that was silly and invented a more practical, more fun, more total baby awesomeness, way...

This is a building, right?

YAY! Clap with me!

Mara no longer crawls. I think she invested in a mini or invisible skateboard or something that she straps to her belly like those roller sneakers. She's across the room before you can blink. And then she's doing this:

Because some genius *COUGH* husband *COUGH* taught her how to climb the stairs (under supervision). But since her method of getting back to base is as follows:

That might not have been such a wise idea, huh? HUH? HUHHHHHHH?
Ok, end vent.

Mara has started to put more and more items into spaces that she thinks are interesting. Her toy elephant.

Her binky into a circle...
(don't ask me why, I'm not a baby psychologist)

 Baby pumpkin into big pumpkin...

I've seen her elbow crawl across the room because she had toys or food clutched in her fists that were too important to leave behind. I get so distracted by the things she does or how she reacts to situations. Something's funny or amuses her? Cue the cuteness and alert the Gerber baby that Mara's taking over.

Something annoys or frustrates her?
FLING item across room!
Pout.
Then assume the pose.
(She's like a small mouth bass, just.. well, here comes square mouth)...

So it's not reaalllly square, but you can tell when she's gearing up for it because she stretches her mouth in weird ways.

Last, but not least, Mara was teaching Daddy this morning that "Dogs" are "Dah!" and pointed at each one of the pups. Very seriously.

This was super cute when she just rolled over Arson.

Yeah, he didn't care.

He's a good boy. And Mara looooves him.
And her loves her, too.
Mostly because she's a crawling food factory.

She crawled over to me this evening and a spaghetti noodle dropped off of her. Whoops!

Good boy, Dah! I love you.

Until next time, faithful stalkers. :)

Growing up so quickly

I didn't get a chance to take Mara's 11 month photos today - I was too distracted by everything she was doing. Here's a few videos from this past week:

And she's so goofy sometimes:

Sometimes we get out and about - mostly after she crawls over to her stroller and bangs on it.

  Here is her enjoying some tub time:

 And she can now do THIS:

She claps and has started to pull her shirt up... exposing the baby belly and more... much to our dismay!


She is MARA! HEAR HER ROAR!!!

And here's the big finale!

While I was gone on a work trip to Houston, she started putting shapes through their holes in her toy elephant. And today she was
jabbering on about something and seeming to repeat "Mara" and "Baby" although they sound more like Maha and Baba. But she was saying this while pointing at herself on my phone when I showed her a video. She is so incredible.

November Updates

Well, I finally pulled my camera back out. You're probably feeling like this:

And Mara mostly is, too... except for not really napping today. Oh, and a top right tooth coming in. I noticed this morning that it broke the skin/gum. This explains all the waterworks:

And...

And...

No, she isn't copying her Daddy and growing a beard... drool is like a magnet for the small amount of dog fur that graces our floors...

Mara likes to point at things now.

Her vocabulary has expanded to lots of jibberish. But the words I can make out are "Mah Mah" (YESSSS!!!!), "Nah Nah" and even a "Tah Tah." "Dah Dah" makes up 90% of her speech, but today I caught a "Daddy." She is incredibly snuggly, and in the moments that she isn't, she's gone! She goes from 0 - 60 in, well, okay... she just gets places a lot faster. And she's been quite determined the last few days...

This afternoon, she grabbed my leg and got both feet flat on the floor in a low split a couple of times. We really thought she was going to do it! But who's rushing her? She just recently started crawling really well. But this pulling up thing seems to also be a hint to Mommy...

Get rid of this dog hair, Mom! Or I'll turn into a monster!! RARRR!

You won't mistake her for a monster, though. Not with these:

 

That's right. I finally did it. Get over it. The longer this child goes without hair, the more parts of her I might paint pink.

Mom... there area few sprigs...

Another positive note - she's started signing to us! Just the sign for "milk" as far as I can interpret. And since I'm so used to rewarding the dogs right away for the right action, I find myself screaming YES GOOD GIRL, whipping her off to a room with a sofa, and bringing out her lunch boxes like I have ants in my shirt or something. (sorry for the PG13 description...)

We'll keep working on more words/signs. But she does listen to everything we say. For example, she was rolling around on the floor playing while I was sprawled on the carpet reading her a book. I'd been reading for awhile, not knowing if she was even paying attention since she was engaged in some baby activity, when I read the word "no" and she started shaking her head back and forth, back and forth. Gotta' watch what we say!

You have probably already watched the video where she can cluck her tongue. She's been enjoying graham crackers like it's nobody's business. Zack and I just updated the daycare food menu with items she can try.

Giving her a bath is always fun, but now if my hand is behind her, she'll fall backwards until I lay her down and then she'll kick and kick and splash.

She loves to flip the pages in her books, especially the peek-a-boo doors. She giggles when I brush her teeth and makes faces at the baby in the mirror. I put her in this bag and swung her and carried her around (Zack found it hilarious) and she loved it!

On a sad note... NC State lost today...

Mom! That's enough pictures.

 

Ok ok ok.

Last thing, she loves to wave bye bye and hi!

:-D Thanks for reading!