10 months old !!!

How is it truly possible that my girl is already 10 whole months old???  I can hardly believe it has been that long- but boy does she change and blossom into her own self more and more each month!!!

She is so fun at this stage!!  She is doing so well at her new Day School- and she is such a hit with her teachers.  They love their Chloe girl!!!  The other day I picked her up and one of her teachers said she was so cute that afternoon, she was rolling the ball back and forth with one of her friends Jonathon!!!  I wish she had caught it on film, but just the thought of it makes me smile!!  Her first little boy friend!!

She is doing sooooo well with crawling now.  She crawls everywhere and she is just beginning to pull up on things to try to stand.  She has not stood up yet, just one her little knees but it wont be long for sure!

My sweet girl has decided she likes to be rocked at night to go to sleep now.  Her whole life, we have just laid her down in her crib with her little blanket and she soothes herself to sleep on her own- such a good baby.  But lately she has wanted Mommy to rock her to sleep and I sure don't mind snuggling with my angel, but it's interesting that she is changing in this way.

Grandma bought her a Little Tikes swing that we are hang on a wooden brace that Daddy built in our backyard and she LOVES that swing!!!  She loves to swing in it and it is so nice not to have to travel to the park every evening after a long day at work.  We all go outside and swing her for about 30 mins and then she is exhausted, and wants to be rocked to sleep and that's it, until 6:30 am in the morning!!!  She still sleeps 12 hours a night!!

She still is the happiest first thing in the morning when we wake up, as evidenced by these pictures.  These were taken this morning right after getting her up and getting her dressed in her little piggy dress for her 10 month pictures.  She was so full of smiles!!!

We truly are so blessed to be the parents of this amazing child.  She is far more than I could have ever dreamed of all those years that I yearned for a child.  I guess I didn't want to let myself go too far in my dreams of my baby and what they would be like, so each day is such a fun and new adventure with her.

I want to thank all of our blog readers who are praying for and have sent me sweet facebook comments on the fact that they are praying for my grandmother. We went to visit her Saturday and she looks so much worse than the last time I saw her. She has lost all her hair from the radiation/chemo and she is so very tired and weak. But Chloe made her smile and of course was the star of the show. In speaking to my uncle he said she has made peace with the situation and is comfortable and not in any pain. I don't know how long she has but it isn't that long- I'm glad I have been able to see her and tell her that I love her and somehow make peace with the situation myself.

Until next time...... be safe and hug your loved ones!!

44 weeks old!!!

This little angel is such a tease these days!!!  She loves to make the face shown here and show everyone her cute little teethies!!!  I can not believe she just turned 44 WEEKS OLD!!!  This is so very close to 52 weeks old and her being one years old!  It has been an amazing year and it has gone by so very fast- just like everyone told me!! 

She doesn't just sit there and let me snap her pictures anymore- oh no!!!  She has to touch everything!!! And she is beginning to show her dislike for when you take something away from her!!!  Now that she is crawling she has been told no about 6 million times already, but when she is headed  for something she knows she shouldn't touch, she turns around mid crawl and looks back smiling to see if anybody is watching her!!!

Beautiful Chloe's smiling and showing us her little pearly whites!!!!

Her favorite thing to do these days, especially while I 'm trying to take her picture is to break out clapping and yelling "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!"  But man she is so stinking cute- I need to get this recorded so I have this frozen in time!!!  It's just sooo cute  :)

I hope you all enjoyed seeing her 9m professional  pictures in the last blog post.  The photographer is so wonderful, I mentioned to her that I was surprised that more pictures in front of the barn did not come out- because I really loved that setting.  She said she was also, but she wanted to ask me if we could go back to the spot where we took the pictures and shoot a few more of her in that spot as well as do the one outfit we didn't have time to put her in because she was getting so fussy.  I said are you serious?  Sure more pictures of my angel- who wouldn't snatch up that opportunity?

So we are going to take some more pictures the day after tomorrow, on Thursday afternoon, and I cant wait to see how they turn out!! 
The photographer April has really gone out of her way to make this a wonderful experience for us and she has worked so hard on making sure the photos are right and that we are truly happy!  I just love that about her!  If any of my local friends reading this reading this need a local, extremely reasonable priced, excellent photographer for any of your family's needs, please let me know and I will give you her contact information!!!  She is really fun to work with and she is great with children!!

Next week, we will be going back to the Neurologist for Chloe's next appointment.  At this appointment, we will be making the dreaded appointment for her first year MRI.  They will have to sedate her for this and I am so not looking forward to it, but they really do need a baseline level of her full body and make sure nothing is growing abnormally.  So that will be probably be in October sometime I would guess.

When this last picture was taken, she was pooped out from all the clapping and smileing she had done and just laid herself down right where she was.  I thought it was such a sweet picture, and a good way to end this post.  I am pooped myself baby girl- but we will find our joy and strength in the Lord!!!

Until next time- be safe and hug your babies and your spouse every single day- you never know when it may be your last!!

Chloe's 9m Professionals

We are thrilled to be able to share with you Ms. Chloe's 9 month professional photos.  We are so happy with how these turned out!!!!  If you should happen to want one of these pictures in print for yourself, please le me  know which ones and what size and I can get them printed for you at cost through our phorographer!  She is nice enough to just charge us the cost price, so a 4x6 is about $3 and a 8x10 is approximately $13.  SHE IS SUCH A WONDERFUL PHOTOGRAPHER-!!!!!

Click here to view these pictures larger

43 weeks old!!!

Wow, we have 9 weeks until my angel is a year old!!  I can not believe it!  She is blossoming into her own independent, sassy little self.  She is very aware of when I leave her now, and she is learning the meaning of "No" very quickly these days.

 Chloe is crawling on all fours now, and she can get anywhere she wants to go!!!  She is all over the floor, and we have tried to baby proof the den, but she seems to find everything!!  So we are looking into one of those large baby gate systems that hook together to make a play yard , so we can section off a safe place for her until she can walk.  She is trying to pull up on everything these days and it will not be long until I will come into to get her out of her crib and she will be standing there to greet me!!

 Baby girl had some real milestones this past week!!!  She actually ate a whole waffle french fry by herself without choking at all!  This is really her first solid food to speak of and I was so proud of her.  She actually used her 4 little teeth in the front to chew on it, and she swallowed it no problem!!!  So with that information, I think I am going to fore go the Upper GI study that is scheduled for tomorrow, because I think she is solving her own problems in time.  Yeah!!!

 Also on Saturday, we had her 9 month professional portraits made!!!  I have gotten several proofs to share with you but I absolutely can not wait to share these with you!!!  One of my students used this lady as her daughter's photographer for her first birthday and that's how I found her!  She is soooo reasonable in price and spends unlimited amount of time with you and lets you do as many outfit changes as your baby can stand!!  LOL  We went to an arboretum here locally and it formed the most beautiful backdrop for these photos, not some stuffy ole studio.  I love the classic candid shots or just taking pics while they do their thing- the forced still shot is good in limited areas, but these came out just as I envisioned!!!  So stay tuned!

 We also just introduced the sippy cup to baby girl, and she can hold it really well, but she gets very frustrated because she can not get anything out yet.  She does not know how to suck on it- but she will learn it in time!  I mean I remember holding her for the very first time, and now we are weaning her off her bottles????  Really???  Where did all the days go???

 I am looking so forward to fall and the cooler weather so we can get outside with her more, and be more active doing outdoorsy things.  It has been a brutal summer and the humidity is suffocating!!  But that's life on the East Coast for ya!!!

 And this past Tuesday, we had our monthly Operation Hope baby play date and Chloe had so much fun again with her little miracle friends.  Of course this momma had the camera in their faces to capture a few shots, so I will post those this week hopefully!!

And my girl is adjusting so well to her new day school!!!  Last week was out first full week where she did not miss any days due to illness!!!  Yeah!!  She is becoming more and more comfortable with the ladies there and when I get there to pick her up, she is playing with her little friends and it just makes my heart so happy to see her interacting and socializing with babies her age!!!

Not too much happening this week, but hopefully my next post will include her beautiful 9m professional pics!!  Until then God Bless!!!

42 weeks old!

I am so incredibly blessed!!!  The Lord has given us everything we ever dreamed of in our daughter- and MORE!!!  She is without a doubt the most precious miracle we have ever had the honor of being a part of, I mean I am just humbled that the Lord chose us to be her parents.  This little spirit is so sweet and precious- and as she is now growing more aware of who Mommy and Daddy are- and showing us love in return- my heart is overwhelmed with this amazing blessing of motherhood!

Our little Princess gets cuter by the day and we are having sooooo much fun watching her grow and experience new things!!!  So this past weekend was a huge step for her - and US!!!  She began to really crawl!!!!  On hands and knees and boy are we in for it now!!!  :)

So if we have ready said "No Chloe" once we have said it a thousand times!!!  So we are baby proofing the living room in earnest now, no decorations down low of any kind, and we put that padded bumper stuff around the replace brick to protect her if she falls into it.  That's one of my biggest fears is that she will hit that brick and gash her head in!

She is now in a size 3 diaper and still in some 6 m clothes, but mostly 9 m especially for the length!  She has recently been pushing away her food, but she still loves her formula/rice cereal bottles.  We have not had the swallow study or upper GI done yet (had to cancel bc she was so sick) and I guess I am secretly hoping she is going to grow out of it and start eating and I don't have to put her through all those tests.

Chloe is doing so well at nursery school now.  This is the start of the 3rd week there, and this morning when I dropped her off she went right to Ms. Emily from my arms and actually waved bye-bye to me with no tears or anything!!!  That makes me so happy!! She was like "See ya later Mom, I'm going to play with my friends now!!"

Any mom who has had to drop off their precious at a sitter during the day, know how wonderful it feels to know your little one is HAPPY and not crying for you all day!! Now if we can just make this her first full week there- and not home any days because of germies we will really have hit a home run!!!

The picture below is actually showing "the hand behind the curtain" of Daddy's who is always behind me making her smile when I am taking her pictures!!  I thought these were so cute I would include them this time.  After I'm done snapping pics, he will let her have whatever toy or animal he is using to p with her- and these were just so sweet when I look at her the sheer joy on her face when she actually got her hands on this puppy of hers!!  :)

And one more update- she was supposed to have her pictures made this past Saturday- but she woke up all congested and crying after being up much of the evening- so I canceled them and we will retry again this Saturday.  I was so bummed bc we have had this scheduled for such a long time- but hopefully it will all come together this Saturday, and I will have some beautiful professional shots of my angel to share with you!!!

Until next time~ God Bless and we love you all!!!

A nice relaxing weekend and a new mobile for Chloe

So this past weekend was pretty nice and relaxing.  Baby girl had just gotten over being very sick with something she caught at nursery school, and Sweetness and I did not have a whole lot planned so we really enjoyed our time with our girl and were desperately trying to get her to crawl- as she is soooo close!!!

This is a picture of Chloe on Saturday morning with our dog Maggie, she was playing on the floor and Maggie came over and layed down beside her-I just had to get this adorable picture!!

Later in the day, Grandma came over to see us and I recruited her to help me with a project I have been wanting to do for a long time in Chloe's room.  So we brought Chloe into her room with us while we attempted to make a masterpiece!!!  LOL  She looks likeYou are gonna make what Momma?"

So basically I ordered many different colors and sizes of paper lanterns from various stores online, mainly amazon was a huge source.  Then you open up the lanterns and clip them to the open position, then using regular ole fishing line you hook them on hooks you have screwed in the ceiling.  You then arrange them until it has the shape and look you are after.

So this is how it looked before we started.....  just a plain corner of her room....

Then after opening up the lanterns, I laid them out on the floor to get a rough idea of how I wanted them spaced out!!!

Then I had my tall Sweetness come in a screw a few cup holder hooks in the ceiling to hold our fishing line, and we began to hang them up there--- in no particular order- just seeing what looked good!

Chloe was so sweet while  were doing this- she only wanted to play with the packaging that the lanterns came in!!!  Kids are so funny- you buy them an expensive toy and they only care about the box!!!

After it started coming together, Chloe was getting excited!!!  Yeah momma- this is so pretty!!!

And after an hour or so of arranging and more arranging- Mom and I finally got what we thought was the best placement for her new mobile!!! We layed her in the crib and she just loves looking at it!  Here is a shot of the final project!!!  I just love how it turned out

The view of the new mobile from her doorway!

An up close view

And a view from the closet in her room!

I just love it- I want one in my room now- but Sweetness is like ummm no!

So I know some of you have asked about her upper GI last Friday- well it had to be canceled becasue she was so sick.  Sweetness stayed home with her and took her to the doctor and they said she had a bad virus.  But her fever was so high- she could not have the test done.  I have not rescheduled it at this point because after she got well this past weekend- she then came down with a horrible cold on Monday evening.  Hubby stayed home with her on Tuesday, and I stayed home with her yesterday.  Thankfully she seems to be improving now and is back at nursery school today.  Man I knew kids were germ factories but this is crazy!!  My little girl has NEVER been this sick in her entire life and she has been around other children.  So hopefully she has some immunity built up now and is on her way to a healthy rest if the year- wishful thinking I know!!!

But this Saturday are her professional 9 month pictures- so I am so glad she is feeling better because we have had these scheduled for a time now!  I will be sure to post them later next week!  Until then God Bless!!!