46 Weeks!

I believe I have the most stubborn baby on the planet.  She can stand alone but chooses not too.  When she does stand she doesn't fall, she just gently bends her knees and sits down on her butt.  I don't know if it is more comforting to know she is able to do it if she wants or if that makes it that much more frustrating.  Annabelle is very good at humming tunes these days as well as dancing along to anything that remotely sounds like music.  She has picked up a lot of words and has the ability to say them.  She can even say two word "sentences", her favorite being "hey kate!"  My child believes that dog is the greatest being on this planet and will never fail to wave both of her arms off at her or to even speak to her through the windows. 
When we ride in the car on long trips she gets very upset if Kate is not in the back looking at her.  She likes to hold onto the divider and pet Kate even if it scares mom mom. 

Annie prefers to call her daddy dad day and I am mom mom.  She can say, Josh, Veronica(yes, I know it is amazing but she can say it), Jake Jake, Seth, Kate, Hey, Hi, Jen, Dave, backpack (yes amazing again), cat and a couple other things.  Annie must be in the mood to talk or she will just look at you like your silly if you ask her to repeat things and she doesn't want too.  The look of "mom, what are you talking about? I can't say that!"  She also will fake cough anytime anyone in a store coughs so I am sure all of Target thought our kid had the swine flu (she is very convicing) and laugh anytime she hears laughter.  All typical for a baby her age :)  She continues to be the happiest child on the planet and mom mom loves nothing more than to hear her laughing and giggling.  It is extremely adorable and makes me smile no matter what.  I rarely have moments where I do not feel well but if I am having a down moment that baby always changes it by just being here. It really is hard to be upset over anything with her around.  I can't honestly even remember the last time I was upset, my new attitude on life has made things very easy for me.  I think it was when my old yellow lab Klesko died or the time I had to take care of Kate alone while Jason was on a work trip, whichever of those came last.  Both happened during my pregnancey, okay I guess I'm completed excluding my short experience with baby blues, but that is for another time and is perfectly normal.

Our precious child is only 43 days away from being a year old.  The new Disney movie The Princess and the Frog comes out on her birthday.  If she is showing any interest in all in tv by then I plan to take her to see it.  As of now she doesn't really care for anything on television except for sports.  I guess that is a good sign but sometimes I'd really enjoy just to sit on the couch holding her while we watching a movie or something. 

Annie & dadday are on their way to becoming inseperable which makes me realize that one day she will be 100% daddy's girl.  If it were not for being a breast feed baby she would probably already be there.  That is just something that dadday can not do for her :) 

The decision is made...

I believe we are going to begin the switch to special big girl milk around Annie's 1st birthday. I have been thinking a lot about this lately and it might be the best choice to make. I am still proud that I will have given my baby the best for a year. My mind may change between now and then especially if it is clear that the time is not right but for now this is what I have decided. It almost breaks my heart but I think it is the best choice.

Vote for Anniebelles!

http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/thewelches/750254172/


Annabelle W. submitted by thewelches for the Gap Casting Call
Source: family.go.com
Annabelle W. Entry submitted by thewelches for the Gap Casting Call. See if Annabelle W. has what it takes to be the next Gap Model.

Happy Birthday Auntie V!!

Today is my sister's birthday, she is 25!

Happy Birthday, we love you :)

45 Weeks!

Reality is setting in that our little baby is not going to be a little baby much longer. She has six teeth now, saying words and continuing to be little miss wild child. She can say Josh for her uncle Josh, which makes her Aunt Veronica mad still working on other words and on signing. She will look at us like we are silly when we sign to her and then just giggle. She loves to be tickled and will kick her daddy as she now calls him to tickle her. Annabelle has always loved her daddy but it seems as more time has went by she wants to be with him more. She gets so excited when he gets home from work and just wants to play with him and be with daddy. She is very sweet which is miraculous as I'm not a sweet or lovey person. I'm a nice person just not a sweet one :) I guess that is something she takes from her daddy. She is so stubborn that she refuses to walk or even stand by herself for more than a few seconds. I really don't think she will be walking by her first birthday afterall. She was so ahead on everything else but I know all kids are different and they are expected to walk until 12 months so I need not worry. She will do it in her own time just like she has done everything else. One of the best things I have done as a mother, aside from breast feeding, was to not put my baby on a schedule, we let her schedule herself. I think this is why her personality shown so early and one of the reasons why she is such a wonderful child.

In the next few weeks we are looking forward to many different things, Annie's first halloween, her first Thanksgiving and her first birthday. I can't believe she is almost old enough to be celebrating her second Christmas. I feel more like it is her first as she was only 2 weeks old the first time. I know she is going to love seeing the decorations and seeing Christmas lights. After this past weekend when we donated a lot of clothes to the Goodwill do I feel that my house will be clean enough to actually have a party there. I can not believe the amount of clothes that we had and the money we had spent on them. My goal in the future is to never have that much stuff again. It is a total waste to spend money on clothing, we should have been saving that money. Oh well, I guess you live and you learn.

44 Weeks & Our 4th Anniversary!

Oh the things my baby can do. She is still the biggest comedian around, even funnier than her dadda. We are practicing walking with her each day, she is working on it but it just being oversly cautious. She is very precious and we don't want her to hurt herself, even though we clap whenever she falls. I don't know if that is the best thing to do but I don't want her to cry each time she falls. The cute little teeth hellcat has gotten make her look so different. Right now there is a pretty good size gap, sometimes she makes a face which looks just like a squirrel. We have started buying Christmas presents, it is so fun! Found her a lot of summer stuff on clearance to give her when it gets warmer. I think Jason & I have more fun buying stuff for our baby than we would have ever thought. Party planning is going well too, we are buying stuff a little at a time. We need to do an inventory of what we have so that we can go ahead and finish getting supplies. We bought a few things at IKEA last weekend just junky stuff that was cheap to used to decorate with. We got a couple Christmas presents for our friends kids too.
Annie has tried to sign back with me over this week so it isn't going to be long before she is able to do it. All the working with her is going to finally pay off!

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary, we had planned to go to hiking today at Cumberland Falls but due to the rain we decided to hang out at the house. Since mom has been watching the baby this week (our sitter's boys have swine flu) we went out and about by ourselves for awhile. Not the most extravagent of our anniversaries but we still enjoyed it. Anytime I get to spend with Jason and Annie is better than the things we used to do. They are blowing up an exercise ball for me right now so that I can use it and be able to walk in the next few years. Tomorrow night is Big Blue Madness! It will be a wonderful time, we can't wait to see the team with all the hype, I just hope they can live up to it.

Yah!

My sister is engaged! :) I can't wait to plan their household shower and their wedding! It will of course have to wait until I am done planning Annie's 1st birthday party. My sister's ring is beautiful, I must say Josh did a very good job of picking it out. I can't wait to see the ring in person. Annabelle is going to be so pretty as a flower girl!! I hope they have a happy life together :)

This means I must go on a diet and try and lose the rest of the baby weight I gained. I only have a few months so I better get started today!

10 Months!

To my beautiful girl on your tenth month of life,
You are still the best baby in the world :) Right now you and dadda are playing in the floor and you are giggling so loud. You love to laugh, have fun and play with anyone. You are always grabbing people's attention anywhere that we go, sometimes when they start paying attention to you you start to ignore them. We are still working on signing and walking, neither of which you show very much interest in. There have been times where you get so excited that you have let go of momma and tried to take off after something and that something is usually dadda. We try to keep you confined in the living room because you are constantly on the move but now you have found a way to push the baby gate into the kitchen open and you can squeeze through the road block in the hallway. You are not really a talker yet but you are building your vocabulary and have said cat, en (for Jen), pop, pretty and other random things at least one time. You are super silly and make momma and dadda laugh constantly especially at night when we are trying to get you to sleep. You laugh at anything we laugh at which makes it even funnier. We have been letting you try different types of food over the past month since you don't really care for baby food. At the zoo yesterday you had both chocolate and vanilla ice cream, you definitely prefer chocolate but it makes you hyper. When we left the zoo you put on a show when we were eating, there were probably at least 5 napkins in the floor plus your food. I have always known you were a nature/animal lover and you enjoyed your time at the zoo so much. You tried to grab the birds that people were feeding and then your dadda put it on your head. You also enjoyed petting the dwarf goats with dadda and Uncle Scot. You were so happy and smiled pretty much all day long. It made momma so happy to see you having such a great time.
You are learning so many things, watching everything that goes on and entertaining anyone and everyone around. You are so social, one thing about it is with a baby like you we have to learn to talk to strangers because lots of strangers we see talk to you or to us about you. You make our lives so wonderful and interesting, we love you so much!

-MOMMA

43 Weeks!

I do not care for the background of this blog anymore but have been too lazy too change it. Doesn't seem I have had the time at work nor at home. Hellcat is into everything, mostly throwing everything off the ottomon, couch and toy box into the floor. She has developed a new way to eat cheerios or puffs from her high chair, she just licks them from the table part of it. This way she knows they go in her mouth and they don't stick to her hands, ha. We are using cousin Brody's highchair, hopefully it will still be in one piece when we return it lol. I guess you could say we are lazy parents as she doesn't really sit and eat in it a lot. We give her a little table food these days and a little bit more baby food than we used too but as she is still breast feed she mostly just gets milk. I put some whole milk in a sippy and usually she will just carry that around for awhile or throw it under something or turn it upside down and shake it. She really is wild, few people believe that and I would want her no other way :) I thought she would be walking by 10 months but she doesn't seem to have the desire. Why would she through when all she needs to do is put her belly on either the glider foot stool or any of her toys and move across the living room. Seems like she has been cruising on furniture for three months so maybe it won't be too long before she lets go. She still howls at us or growls, especially if you do it to her first. Most of the time though she will just look at you and growl, she does it so much Jason is afraid it is going to bother her vocal cords :) Her front teeth are on their way in, they are big! and there is a little gap, I know they will be pushed together as other teeth come in but its kind of funny to see her grin now. She isn't our little baby anymore.
This weekend we are going to Cincy for Hallzooween at the zoo. I've not decided if we are going to let her wear her costume, it will probably be cool enough. It is such a cute costume, made even cuter by my little Anniebelles. I got some party favors in for silly girl's birthday party and I love them. Etsy is my favorite website ever! :) Her party will be so bittersweet. Hopefully I don't cry the entire day.

Shew!

I realized today that I have turned into one of those moms. One of the moms that I said I would never be like, I was never going to let my baby sleep in my bed or never extend breast feeding. I have done both :) Well maybe not considered an extended breast feeding mother just yet but we are working on it. We are just a little over two months away from being a year. It is the best thing I could do for my baby. I love the time we have together and the bond that we have developed. I'm sure we would have bonded otherwise but not like we have with breast feeding. Only mom mom gets kisses from Annie. Daddy just gets hits!

Seriously, I didn't want her to bed in our bed. For the first few weeks she wasn't but then I realized I didn't need to lose sleep if she slept with me, I could feed her laying down. From that time on she slept through the night or if she woke up she just nursed herself to sleep again. Seriously we have the best baby and are probably the most well rested parents around or at least I get plenty of rest. We are thinking about getting a co sleeper to put beside our bed, as a transition to her crib, if we don't get one for Annie we will get one with our next baby. We will probably need it more then since Annie will probably still be in our bed. We are running out of room as it is and its a king, the cats take up half of it and Annie the other half. There really is nothing better than waking up and seeing her pretty smiling face, when she moves to her room I will miss that.

October - Breast Cancer Awareness Month

FYB Week - October 9th - 16th, 2009 :)

42 Weeks!

Ten more weeks until my baby is 1 year old....so sad. She is currently cutting five teeth, four on the top and one on the bottom side. We went 8 months with no teeth and are now going on seven. She is so adorable with her little snaggletooth grin. The weather around here is wonderful and we are getting to dress Annie so comfortable, I just love it. We have been working on stuff for her birthday for a couple weeks now but we are going to have to step it up, it will be here before we know it. A couple nights ago we were getting out of the car at the mall, Jason said something to her about getting out of the car and she replied "okay" as clear as anything. Probably clearer than momma or dadda. She also has a special work she uses for the cats and for Kate. Yesterday I looked over at Annie and Scottie and they were trading jabs at one another. Only one time have the cats even made a mean sound to Annabelle and when Scottie did it Annie looked at me with such a sad face, her feelings were so hurt. She got over it and then tried to grab her fur some more :)
Annabelle lays in the floor now and gets in a position like she is a cat and growls at Scottie. It is so funny, they love each other so much :) So many things happen so fast, she will be grown before we realize it. I love that little baby so much. She is going to the zoo for the first time next weekend, I can't wait :) We are also going to see the McIntoshes. All of our friends have moved away and we miss them.