19 months and funnier than ever!

This girl is changing so much and becoming such a little character that I thought I would do a 19 month post so I don't forget some of these things! Here's the latest and greatest on this chick:

1. She begs for food all day long. Not a moment goes by that she is not standing by the pantry door, specifically wanting a Graham cracker. Breakfast ends and she runs to the door. I think she wants a graham cracker to be her dessert following every meal 😂😂

2. She loves to throw her veggies on the ground and the other day she saw me picking them up so she started to help and then threw them in the garbage. She has now taken it upon herself to clean up what she has thrown on the floor after each meal... And she's good about picking up everything! I am not complaining!!

3. She gets really excited when I pull out a cutie for her and when  I peel it she squeals and basically jumps up and down in anticipation... Don't worry though the graham cracker still always wins! She'll do the same thing as I open the pantry door to get one of those for her most of the time too!

4. She loves dancing to music and in addition to waving her arms and swaying she now throws spinning around into the mix!

5. She can say hi, what's that, Dada, mama, yeah, no... There might be more but I myself am still trying to figure out her gibberish. I think she's trying to say a whole lot, I just have a hard time making sense of it. She's very smart though at still communicating what she wants by by pointing to things and such.

6. Most of the time after her nap, she likes to play with me through the crib for a little while. I know this because I try and get her out and she runs to the other side of the crib. She likes to show me things out the windows, peek at me through the slats, bounce up and down and bury herself into her mattress. She's as happy and smiley as can be and it's probably my favorite part of the day!

7. Her favorite part of the day is definitely when daddy gets home! She runs to the door when she hears it opening and is ready to greet him. She LOVES bedtime routine since he's a part of it and he reads her the bedtime book quite animatedly and there's usually a big tickle fest at some point. She gets pretty riled up and loves it, which might sound counterintuitive before bed, but she still goes to sleep and sleeps like a rock so it works for us!!

8. If daddy hasn't left yet in the morning when she wakes up she will not leave his side until he's gone and she waves bye to him when he leaves! She also waves bye anytime I'm on the phone and she hears me say "bye" 😂

9. She has major stranger danger and has started to wrap herself around one of my legs whenever anyone comes near that she does not know. She will wave at anyone and everyone happily from a distance while we are out and about, but come close and it's a different story!

10. She has gone to nursery a couple times now and hates it. The first time we dropped her off, she didn't even care or say bye to us but after a few minutes it clicked that she was with a bunch of strangers and she lost it. Since then one of us has to be in there with her or else she runs after us crying with her arms extended if we try and leave. 😭  

11. She loves sitting on a regular chair at the table for snacks. She often insists she sit there for meal times too, but for now we are sticking with just snacks since they're easier to eat and the table is a little high from there for her! 😂

12. Today I was in the kitchen dishing some food onto a plate and I heard Adam's voice through the phone say "Hi Maeve" - I look over and see her holding the phone to her ear listening to him. At first I thought she dialed him, but turns out he called and she happened to answer correctly. She was excited to hear his voice and for the most part it was a one sided convo, but she did say "hi dad" at one point quite appropriately! Proud mom moment.

13. She loves my phone in general and is obsessed with taking selfies, but also with me taking pictures of her. She gives me the phone and runs off and poses - over and over and over. I have so many pictures like this on my phone of her in random places doing random poses. A lot of the time they're blurry because she starts running back toward me before the pic has taken, but sometimes they turn out cute too! It cracks us up.

14. She knows where her head, shoulders, ears, belly, and mouth are. For some reason the nose confuses her and she points to her chin every single time. Not sure how that happened, but it cracks me up that she consistently gets it wrong in the same way.

I think I've hit on all the main things. She's just such an animated, funny, happy little girl and we love watching her change and learn more every single day! She sure puts the spice into my life that I need and I don't know what I'd do without her.

12 months come and gone!

I can't believe Maeve has been here with us in this world for as long as she has now! In some ways it seems like just yesterday she was born, we blinked, and then she turned 1. It's not even fair that my big baby is becoming a little toddler. She used to look so big to me, but now that she stands on her own and is walking some, I look at her and she just seems so little to be able to do that stuff! Perspective really does change everything. Anyway, 12 months have come and gone and here's pics from our photoshoot to prove it.

Immediately messing with the sticker of course

This picture literally kills me. So serious.

Just seriously relaxing over here.

This is her saying "ohhh!"

"Here mom! Butt paste solves everything!"

Flirting

That is a seriously seductive look right there. 1 going on 18.

That smile peaking through kills me!

That silly face!

Aaaand she discovered it.

I'm surprised the headband stayed on as long as it did honestly. This was bound to happen!

"Thank goodness! Why does she put these dumb things on my head!"

Now for some details on what this busy little lady has been up to from 11 to 12 months (or really, now, which is basically 13 months):

1. Probably one of the funniest new developments is that Maeve will pretend to be dead, or at least that's what it seems like she's doing. She'll just be sitting there playing and then all the sudden throw herself flat on her belly and extend her legs and just lay there for a minute. After it happened once I just laughed and then the next time I saw her do it I said "okay night night!" and she laughed and then did it again. And now it's a little game she plays multiple times a day. It literally kills me. Here's a video of her doing it, as well as playing hide and seek. Don't mind the little butt thrust at the end, ha!

2. I'm trying to remember the first time she really took some steps. I know towards the end of my time in Kentucky in mid April she was starting to stand on her own and I think probably a week before she turned 1 was when she took like 7 steps on her own for the first time! Before then she'd only taken a couple of steps here and there so this seemed big! We didn't see much after that but then on Sunday May 15th she took another 7 steps a few times in a row. I thought she finally might be getting her groove but then we went through another lull. She definitely started to become more and more steady though standing on her own and even maneuvering things while standing. Finally on May 27th, she really committed and I got three videos of her walking! Since then, she is walking more and more but still falls a lot and when she does just converts right back to crawling. Hopefully soon she'll be exclusively walking! Here are two of the videos. 

3. A few times she has planted her head on the ground like she's doing a headstand but still has her feet planted on the ground and her booty straight up in the air. It is so dang funny! Silly girl. 

4. I swear that she says "yeah" and "oh" now - whenever I ask her yes/no questions she always responds with what sounds to me like her version of "yeah" and I think she really is agreeing. And then whenever she hears unusual sounds or whenever she hears that I've gotten texts or other notifications on my phone she gets excited and goes "ohh! ohh!" Girl after my own heart!

5. I've been weaning her from breastfeeding basically ever since she turned one. I would have probably gone a little longer but she had bit me slightly on one nipple and I guess it made it raw enough that it literally felt like a knife was cutting into me every time she would nurse on that side. After a couple weeks of it not getting better, I just could not take it anymore, so that's when the weaning process started. I cut out a feeding week by week and I now just nurse at night before she goes to bed. I probably could already have cut out this final feeding, but the pain went away and I'm having a hard time fully saying goodbye to nursing. It's definitely bittersweet. We have both enjoyed it for sure, but I do think she's ready so we'll probably call it quits after I get back from our trip to Duck. Given that we've been weaning, she's been getting more and more used to her sippy cup. It took trying a handful of different cups but I think we've finally settled on the one that is easiest for her to use and she's finally getting a better hang of it after a rough start. She seems to like rice milk and soy milk mixed together the most! 

6. Girlfriend poops 3 to 4 times a day. A couple weeks ago it started to hit me that that was getting super consistent. She will consistently poop after each meal now. It's kinda crazy but I googled it, and apparently up to 4 poops a day is still considered normal. Just my luck to get an extra poopy girl!

7. She loves to dance now! She is always moving her legs up and down and when we say "oh yeah, are you dancing!?" she gets excited and keeps doing it. It's so cute.

8. I may have mentioned this in the 11 month post, but just after she hit 11 months, she officially would not keep a headband on her head at all. So we've been going headbandless for some time now. It makes me sad, but there's pretty much nothing I can do about it!

9. She is SO stinking chatty, like literally is babbling all day long. This video is pretty good evidence of that. I love all the different sounds she makes, they crack me up. Such an animated little girl full of personality. 

10. The combination of Maeve and food is never good. You let her control anything and a huge mess is going to ensue. For example, she loves to "eat" her peanut butter bread, which I'll put on her tray and leave her to eat while I get something done. On a few occasions I have come back to see her tray empty and her looking all proud! But then I see her bread strewn all over the floor. Like literally, she must throw it because it will make it as far as our bookshelves sometimes. Someone's got an arm!! I swear sometimes she throws every single piece without even eating any. One time she managed to pull a loaf of bread off our kitchen table and I came back to see all the bread dumped out around her, every last piece! Another time she got a hold of a bag of chips, somehow with me right there, and yet I still wasn't able to get it away from her fast enough before all the chips were dumped out onto the floor. She's always ready to create a disaster! 

11. She is obsessed with opening the bottom drawer in our kitchen by the fridge. Every day she is messing with the stuff in that drawer and taking it out and throwing it on the kitchen floor. And of course the way the drawer is designed none of the child locks work on it. Oy! That little body in these pictures below is killing me. She's so little just standing there. 

She also loves to open her drawers to her dresser in her room and pull every last article of clothing and diaper out of them if I let her. She even got to her old binkies recently and literally played with them, examined them, and took them in and out of the drawer over and over for 10 minutes before she attempted to put one in her mouth. I was so surprised it took her that long! 

12. Little lady HATES her diaper and clothing changes with a passion again, but yet she will totally cooperate when I want to put shoes on her. A few times now not only has she sit still, but she will also lift each foot one at a time for me when she can see I'm ready. It seriously kills me! So cute, but why can't she be the same way with the diaper and clothes??? #Bipolar 

13. I've discovered that she loves anything that drapes over her. If I'm using our blanket and it drapes off of the couch, she will just lay still underneath it (she probably loves how soft it is). She also was laying underneath me the same the way when I was wearing my extra flowy maxi skirt and it was draping over her. It's so funny to see because she's usually so busy and will rarely just lay still anywhere! Another funny thing she does with the blanket is bury her face in it. And sometimes she'll bury her face into me and I'll squeeze her and then she'll proceed to do it 20 more times. And with force too (her throwing her face into my chest can kinda hurt)!

14. She loves to take things out of their normal spots and put them where they don't belong. Like the day I found the trash from the trash can in the bathroom thrown into the tub and then I found a pair of my underwear in the kitchen trash can. She got a little mixed up! We have a candle in our bedroom on my bedside table and she has discovered that her play mcdonalds fries fit perfectly on top of the candle and you can still manage to put the lid back on the candle. So naturally, it's where they belong now. I agree Maeve, I agree. 

Alright, enough is enough. I could babble all day long about all the new silly and funny things that this girl of ours is doing, but I think I've covered the best ones. We sure love how she's changing, growing, and learning all sorts of funny things. Happy 12 months of Maeve!

TX >> KY >> GA

I've been blogging in spurts lately, which is somewhat annoying, because it means the posts aren't exactly spread out. I don't really understand my relationship with blogging. It's a love hate relationship for sure. It takes everything in me to sit down and actually do it, but once I do, I enjoy the process. So why it's such a process to get myself to do it, I will never know. Even though I enjoy it, I still see it as a chore, and I need to change that mentality pronto!

Anyhow, I've been feeling the pressure now to finally blog about the trip I took in early April to Kentucky and Georgia with just Maeve and it's probably because I'm about to take my next trip in two days to Duck, North Carolina. It'd be pretty embarrassing if I couldn't pull off doing the one post about the former trip before taking this next trip, considering they're two months apart, ha. Slacker!

In February, my mom texted me saying that my sister said I should come to her house in KY in April when my mom was going to make her way over there to babysit. My mom then mentioned she was going to drive to Georgia with my dad at the tail-end of that trip to see my brother's place and I thought I would jump on that opportunity, since I'd never been to his neck of the woods. I mentioned it to Adam and he said "sure why not!" and two days later I had booked my ticket! And that's one of the best perks of being a stay at home mom with a baby - that I can impulsively decide to do something like that and suddenly have a trip booked only 2 months in advance. Boom baby.

It was a fun trip! I spent 9 days in Kentucky and about 4.5 days in Atlanta. We left on Wednesday the 6th at the crack of dawn (literally) - I had to wake Maeve up at 3:45am. Our flight was at 5:25am and I thought for sure there would be no line, so I showed up with probably 30 minutes to get through the airport. To my dismay, I was wrong - on a Wednesday in April at 5am there was quite the line. I was definitely sweating, but we literally made it to the plane just in time. Maeve was a champ during the traveling. From what I can remember, the worst thing she did was whack the lady beside us with the one of the pamphlets from the seat pocket in front of us that she was playing with. It was actually kind of comical because what can you expect from a baby who is not in full control of her limbs yet, but I did feel bad!

It doesn't look like it, but she actually is asleep on me in this pic. Had to document the cuddles. 

Intrigued! She loves looking out the windows.

My sis and her hubby left to go to Utah later in the day after we ate dinner that first day I got there, so for the first 6 days it was my mom and I with all the kiddos. During that time, with 5 kids, we decided staying in would be best and basically only got out to go to Walmart one day and church on Sunday. Both happen to be across the street from my sister's house (seriously, you can see the church parking lot through the trees in their back yard and you can also see the Walmart sign in the one spot there are no trees near her neighbor's yard) - go big or go home right! To keep things exciting though we had the American Idol finale to watch, the wii and other games to play, and Little Rascals to watch for movie night. We even got Little Caesars on night! It was a party, for sure. Maeve "enjoyed" being knocked around by her cousins (which really means they constantly loved on her oblivious to the fact that she was trying to push them away when they hovered for too long ha!) and I think most of the trip her and Zach were exchanging sippy cups back and forth. Zach's method of affection towards Maeve was hitting her, but luckily she remained pretty oblivious to that probably thanks to her layers of fat provided cushioning against the blows. He also completely sat on her and smooshed her at one point. These are things she gets to look forward to doing to her future siblings once she's the older one. Monday the kids went back to school after their break and Monday night Rach and Kev got back late. Here are some pics from this part of the trip.

Just fitting right in with the boys. 

This is precisely how Maeve feels upon waking up when I don't immediately put my phone in her hand. 

Cutie boy 

I mentioned this in Maeve's 11 month post, but this when she decided it would be fun to wake up at midnight and stay awake until 3am. Yay.

Her pants! Hahaha! 

I decided enough was enough when she'd managed to get to Tess's tiny butterfly clips aka choking hazards! 

Those sweat pants though!

Zachy (almost 2)

Tess (4)

Liam (6)

Bennett (8) - this boy killed me at church when Maeve spit up and he went to go get a wet paper towel for me to wipe it up. For some reason he wanted to put it in his pants pocket but didn't want to get his pocket wet so he took the time to wrap the wet one up in a dry paper towel. Hahaha!

Stealing Zach's cheerios! 

Mr. Handsome

This pic makes me laugh - she's so happy to have the brush!

That profile though

Yummy! 

Creating a disaster wherever she goes 

The bigger the screen the better

I love Tess's hand on Maeve's - these two love each other!

Curlers and Hello Kitty! This girl would look too cute with short hair.

"Let me down!!! I want to be where the fun is with the big kids!"

Some highlights of the three days we had with Rach around included doing a spin class at the gym (my first time! two thumbs up, although she gave me a hard time because I wasn't sweating enough afterwards -- apparently I wasn't pushing it hard enough ha!), playing outside and swinging on the swings, going to Tess's dance class, and going to a LuLaRoe party (which was helpful for me, but that's for another post). At the LuLaRoe party, I actually ran into a girl that I used to know in high school through a guy I dated in my stake back then who now lives in KY and is friends with my sister's sister in law. What are the odds! It was pretty funny. It was a quick final 3 days. My dad arrived on Thursday night and we left Friday morning to head to Atlanta. Pics below from this part of the trip.

These two sweeties though! None come sweeter.

That leg and that tongue!

That's quite the straight face.. 

Tess at Ballet!

Great form!

Cool baby! In sunglasses and wrapped in a blanket like it's winter... 

This picture cracks me up because she looked so cute at the time but for some reason it did not translate into picture form... ha!

Cutest sippy cup drinker. That lasted about twice until she would no longer drink out of that cup! 

She was seriously in Heaven on this swing! Notice the sweet moment between Rach and Zach in the background in all of these photos to come. Too cute.

She kills me!

She loved Kate, Tess's friend!

Small talk 

Kiss on the forehead 

Going in for the real kill!

Seriously how is she so chunky and happy??

On the way to Atlanta, we stopped in Tennessee to see my Aunt Deb briefly so that my mom could give her some of her old clothes. My Aunt Deb did not know that Maeve and I would be with my parents and she'd never met Maeve (we wanted to surprise her) so she was pretty blown away and excited to see us! Maeve gave her some smiles and she loved it and it was fun quick rendevous. Once we got to Atlanta, we ate dinner at Chick fil A and then spent the rest of the night chit chatting with Josh and Tiersha and shopping Tiersh's LuLaRoe inventory. It was such a cute little area that they lived in and their complex was even nicer than ours! I could totally live in Atlanta.

The girls got balloons at Chick fil A!

Saturday was a fun filled day. Their complex was doing an omelet breakfast, so we went to the main office and it was seriously a feast! Our complex here in Texas needs to step it UP! Not only did they make customized omelets for us, but there was also a bunch of fresh fruit, pastries, muffins, and juice! It was delicious. We ate outside and unfortunately it was really windy. So windy that once my plate was almost empty (key word being almost) it flew towards me and hit me in the face! A strawberry flew off it and also hit Maeve in the face and she did not like it one bit! Sadly, a poor ending to a great breakfast, ha. Anywho, we then started a little tour of the city, which included the MLK District (Museum, his house, a church), the CNN Building, and the main park. It was fun to see it all and the best part was probably listening to a guy who recited MLK Jr's I Have A Dream speech and literally sounded just like him. It was crazy. We ended the day with dinner at Chuys and man it was quite the experience. My love for that place was already pretty intense, but this visit really blew me out of the water. We said we were celebrating my mom's birthday which was the week before and our waiter ended up giving her Tres Leches cake but then also gave us a container of the salsa to take home that was literally the size of a container of salsa that you'd buy at the store. I could not believe my eyes! We also got two smaller containers of creamy jalapeno to take home and plenty of chips. It was insane! My dad tipped him pretty much the amount that the bill was because it was such awesome service.

MLK's house

That happy face at the park in the tunnel! 

My dad took this photo - too cute!

This cracks me up of Charlotte on the monkey bars!

Sunday we went to church and then walked around the temple grounds afterwards which happen to be right next to their chapel. Pretty awesome. We took plenty of photos and enjoyed the nice weather. We relaxed back at their apartment for a bit while Maeve napped and then went on a drive to see my mom's old house that she lived at when she was a child living in Atlanta. We saw that an old lady still lived a few houses down from hers so she went and talked to her and sure enough she had lived there way back when my mom was a kid! She even remembered my Grandma! How crazy!! It was a cool trip down memory lane for my mom and fun for us to see too. We had some BBQ for dinner and called it a night.

Temple grounds 

Bad lighting but there's the temple!

Cheesing it!

But do I have to take pictures??

Fine...

This is dumb!

I'll just give a straight face like my Dad! 

This about sums up how Maeve felt when anyone else tried to hold her the entire trip. Total complete breakdown.

Yes she fell asleep with her finger in her mouth! Ha!

Monday we did a little bit of shopping before we were all supposed to leave and then I saw that my flight had gotten cancelled because of the weather in Dallas. This happened at Christmas time for us too and I think it's something I'm going to have to get used to with the crazy weather that can happen here in Texas! Luckily I'm not tied down to anything so it isn't really an issue for me! I wasn't able to get another flight out until the next day at 5pm. My parents ended up still shoving off so Maeve and I just kicked it with Josh, Tiersha, and Charlotte. It just gave me more time to shop in Tiersha's house and see her run her business up close and personal. I even organized her inventory for her by style and size! On Tuesday we went on a walk to a little cookie shop and ate dinner at a little sandwich shop. My flight ended up getting delayed a little bit, so on our way to the airport we ended up stopping at the aquarium, which was a definite bonus! Maeve loved it and this video definitely proves that!

Here are some other pictures from Monday and Tuesday!

A LuLaRoe shipment came in the form of an angry baby!

Apparently she does not like being inside boxes...

Goofball! 

She's getting so big and long! Growing up before my eyes.

Glamorous 

Because hangers are more fun than anything else really. 

It was killing me how high her pajamas were on her waist!

That bum!

After preschool and dance! That bun was so cute. 

Aquarium love!

All in all it was a good little trip, but Adam definitely missed his girls. It was good to get home and get back into the grind. Here are some other little videos from the whole trip... some of them are seriously too good!!!

And that's a wrap folks. Over and out.