snippets

today charis signed "eat" for the first time. she is now using signs for:

more
eat
cracker
milk
duck
all done
up

she is almost saying "duck"...i think we'll have to count it as her first word, but there's no "ck" at the end...though when she sees them, it's a very distinct "duh" accompanied by the sign for duck.

she has popped her second molar on the bottom...now her mouth is balanced again.

she is flirty. hugs strangers in restaurants (kids, mind you), and is generally smiley, shy and flirty with anyone willing to look at her.

she learned to blow bubbles two nights ago with derek in the bath. she figured out how to make her little squishy toys blow bubbles under water, and finally got the idea how to do it herself after all those swimming lessons with no bubbles.

she just makes us laugh all day long. she's adorable and hilarious and i don't think she could be any more perfect.

i know, i know!!!

i'm so incredibly delinquent...i assumed i'd be able to keep this up pretty faithfully until charis was a year old, but look at me now! i blame facebook. seriously! it is sooooo easy to post little tidbits and photos on facebook, that i feel like i'm being redundant to put things on the blog, especially since it's more cumbersome...but i think some of you aren't on facebook, so i'm sorry!!!

charis' one year birthday is quickly approaching...in fact, we are having her party this coming saturday. it's a family-only thing, so it will be relatively small... i cannot believe she is already a year old!

she has been changing so much in the past few weeks...making up little games to play with us...getting more confident with her walking...and her wants and desires are becoming more obvious as she is becoming more obviously stubborn! she wants what she wants!

mother's day was so nice...it was technically my 2nd, but charis hadn't made her grand entrance yet, so i wasn't fully initiated :) she got me the best gift she could have possibly done...she only woke up once all night long!! the rest was icing on the cake...lovely gifts from derek, a relaxing afternoon at the park, graeter's, and a leisurely cookout at mom's with grandma.

our big news is that we sold our house on saturday! it is pending, of course...we have inspections on thursday and the closing is set for june 12...coming up fast! we don't have a house yet and are looking for a short-term lease on an apartment in the interim.

there's just way too much to catch up on, so i will end there for now...there is just so much to do to get ready to move! here are a few pictures to enjoy...

mother's day...

ok, so she started doing this funny thing when you ask her what's in her mouth...usually accompanied by a quiet "ah" sound... we laugh so hard when she does it!

trying to push grandma's swing

first mother's day...

four generations...

also mother's day...playing at orchardly park...
spinning...

cruising...

making friends...

common morning scene...

nine months already!

well, she's been out as long as she was in. almost. we'll just pretend those two extra weeks of waiting didn't really happen.

she is really starting to blossom, i must say. yesterday, derek was laying on the floor with her and she initiated a game of peek-a-boo with him! she was hiding his face, then finding it, and so on. she did the same thing with him today too. it was so much fun, we just couldn't believe she was playing games with us! man, we gotta get some video of that. it almost sounded like she said "daddy" when she would find him, but i'm sure it was just her little babblings. :)

i didn't have time today to do official nine months pictures since we have been trying to get things clean before our realtors came today to put the condo back on the market...but i did snap a few casual shots of her. i'll try to do some official ones in the next day or two.

swimming!!!

we are in our third week of swimming lessons...next week is the last week. we're having so much fun! charis seems to be enjoying it...though tonight, she refused to float on her back, and the water was a bit cold and she was shivering! my mom produced the swimsuit she's wearing from the depths of her attic...it was mine when i took lessons with my mom at charis' age...in the very same pool. enjoy!

what color are her eyes??

ok, so here is a picture that pretty accurately shows the color of charis' eyes. anyone care to tell me what color they are? seriously. click on the photo and look at it enlarged and PLEASE someone tell me what color they are. apparently i didn't learn this color in kindergarten.


also, this is charis after some blueberries, and enjoying her tambourine:


and finally, these are the front and back pieces of the sweater i'm knitting her...i'm starting on the sleeves soon.

anecdote.

ok, so charis loves to nurse. i mean, the girl will be playing with her favorite toy, put it down and crawl over to me and worm her way into my lap to nurse...just for a few seconds, then off to play again. the last few days, she's been nursing A TON. i think she's making up for when i was dehydrated last week. it's cool. whatever.

the funny thing is, sometimes she tries to nurse on anything she can find. like my belly, if my shirt happens to be shoved up enough for her to see it. it's bare skin, it's in the vacinity, it must have milk to give.

to tonight, i was laying on my back when she crawled over to me and found my exposed belly and crawled up and put her mouth on me. well i thought she was trying to nurse, and i was getting freaked out she was going to bite me, which happens once in a while. then i realized she wasn't trying to nurse at all.

the last couple days, whenever i've changed her diaper, i pull up her shirt and give her razzberries on her belly. and here she was, trying to give me razzberries on my belly! it was so adorable...i could hear her making little buzzing sounds with her mouth. so derek came over to the other side of me, and did it...then she would laugh and put her head down and do it. and she and derek went back and forth like that for about 5 minutes, just blowing on my belly. holy cow was she cute.

it was pretty amazing seeing her imitate me like that...like she had learned when someone's on their back and their belly is staring at you, it's the polite thing to do. you give them razzberries. man, i love my little girl. she just makes me smile.

eight months old.

well, charis is now a super-duper crawler. she gets to things before we even see her moving, it seems. not sure this place will ever be completely baby-proofed, but it's manageable for the time being...until she advances a bit more and puts us back on the defensive :)

she's been fighting a cold this last week, as have i. she LOVES when we suction her nose, as i'm sure all babies do. and by LOVES i mean HATES. hysterical screaming hates. we're getting better at it though, so the sessions are quicker than they used to be. somehow, i don't think she's grateful for our improvements.

she is falling a lot, as i'm sure is common for babies who are pulling up. but she is bruising herself quite a bit, and i get nervous what people are thinking when we go out in public. speaking of public, we have had two of our four classes of the nursery song & sign class at the rec center, and it's so much fun. we're learning new little rhymes and games to play with her, and she loves them. it's so nice to have some little things to do with her throughout the day. next week we start her swimming classes, so we are excited about that.

i'll mention now that i have to go in for surgery on february 6. it's minor, and outpatient. things didn't heal properly after the birth, so back to the OR i go. we're planning to relist the condo a week or two afterwards.

we are running out of room on our computer, so i am not putting many pictures on the computer just now...we are waiting for a new version of the video software we have so that we can move our video files onto a backup drive. once we do that, i'll have more pictures to put up. that will hopefully be in a few weeks.

so here are just a few pictures to enjoy...

finally, a family portrait!

this was taken the last time charis modeled for evenflo snugli...they did a portrait of us together and it turned out so well!

testing...

so this is my attempt at video...

a lot.

a lot has happened in the last couple weeks, obviously...christmas, new year's...but also, charis has had a lot going on! she has three more teeth (which we found consecutively on jan 2, 3, 4), and two more to come -- so she will have eight teeth soon!! she spent most of last week sick, and new year's eve was the worst...poor thing was miserable, but we think it was just a cold and she is doing much better now. she is pulling up on EVERYTHING! which also means she's falling down a lot and bumping her head...

as for christmas, she had so much fun opening presents! she quickly learned how to tear off paper, and at first was solely interested in eating it...but soon discovered there were surprises hiding under the paper.

we've spent most of this past week just trying to help her feel better...derek was off from dec 23 thru yesterday, so we had a nice long break together. yesterday we took down the tree and derek spent some time trying to babyproof the fireplace, which is still a work in progress but soon to be completed.

derek gave me a bunch of knitting stuff for christmas -- books, yarn, needles, etc...and i am knitting like crazy! he found a free class on monday nights that i'll be going to for the 2nd time tonight, and i am loving it! i'm almost done with my first little project, and i'll soon be starting on a little sweater for charis.

ok, so enough talk, more pictures, right??? we'll start with christmas morning!


sick little charis with red/watery eyes and runny nose :(



i took these today for my sister who gave charis this cute dress/leggings and the little stuffed lamb for christmas...enjoy, sis!