Tuesday, July 26, 2011

10 Months & Almost Walking...

At 10 months:
June 30th Morgan brought home her very first art project...despite what the picture shows, she really wasn't the canvas ;) She might just be the next Picasso.

Morgan is starting to pull herself up on everything! We borrowed this activity table from daycare and little miss is so proud of herself and the independence she is gaining!

Speaking of independence...Morgan has celebrated another holiday for the first time...the 4th of July! She was
dressed very patriotic for our BBQ celebration and also was able to partake in seeing sparklers for the first time. Bad news was that bedtime is 7:30pm and since it was still dark out we had to improvise and do the sparklers in the light...probably not quite the same effect, but it worked.



















Nana, Papa, Hailey, and Addi spent the weekend with us! We stated our Saturday with a pancake breakfast followed by the Ankeny Summerfest Parade! We had a wonderful time and collected tons of candy, which the girls and I loved :) Our neighbors Josh and Jen joined us! We came home for some much needed naps after the parade and then all the girls went back for rides at the carnival while the boys stayed behind to make us dinner...we know they really volunteered to stay behind so they could have some peace and quiet. ;) I went on the scrambler with Hailey...whew...my stomach certainly isn't as solid as it once was and was very thankful Hailey wanted to go on the Tilt-a-whirl alone ;)


















The Langrehr family came to visit a couple weeks ago and despite the sweltering heat, we had a wonderful time! We made a trip to the Blank Park Zoo and played in the sprinkler out back. Morgan and Meg are about 6 months apart and they seemed to really enjoy one another...they are going to be BFFs.





 Jenny sent me this picture from an afternoon at daycare and I just loved the expression on Morgan's face as she experienced a rocking horse ride for the first time. Since this picture, I felt it was a must to find one for our house! We have two borrowed horses and another just arrived in the mail from "Auntie" Bethy as an early birthday gift and she adores all three!


The little wood one is from Ronda (a gal I work with)...her 21 year old daughter used to ride it. His name is Sliver. The tall wood one was given to Trevor for his 1st birthday and is on loan until Meg gets big enough to ride it. The new one is blue and is all her own and she seems to cause the least damage on this one being that it is plastic.



 10 months also marks Morgan's first translatable word...she says "Hi" and waves as she does it. Her first official word probably was "DaDa", but we aren't so convinced that she knew the correlation between her DaDa and just making sounds. We are pretty sure she said ball last month too, but it was only once. So I am making the executive decision and saying "Hi" is the first word followed by "baby" as her second word. She loves to point to her baby pictures above her changing table and say "baby". She also says a word that closely resembles bottle as she points at it.

7/15/2011...this is a big day...Morgan took some steps while holding onto her fire truck and then did it again a few days later with a dump truck! She can't walk yet on her own, but really does well as long as she holds on to things...it won't be long!



Miss Morgan was sick for the first time this past week...she started running a fever on Tuesday 7/19 and had one on and off until Saturday morning. The fever ranged from 99-102. You could just tell she felt icky and really didn't want to play much. She wanted to be cuddled constantly, which was so sweet, but we felt so bad for her that she wasn't feeling well. 10 months of no sickness is pretty darn good! We are pretty sure it is because she has been cutting teeth...her two top front teeth have been working their way in. She also has come down with some sort of a rash as of Friday...looks like a heat rash due to the humidity and heat index of 100-115 degrees this past week. Poor thing. However, she is on the mend now :)
Floyd...you will be hearing a lot about this pink stuffed animal puppy. He is Morgan's new cuddle companion and she likes to snuggle him whenever she gets the chance...thanks Jalayne...he was a great find! Brad named him. :)

Turns out our child had no interest in using any sort of a pacifier the first 9 months of her life, but we did have plenty of them lying around the house and she has now taken a liking to what we refer to as her "binkie". If it was up to her she would have it in her mouth 24/7, however, we have be trying to limit it to sleeping time (some days are better than others).

A favorite thing to do for play is to roll around on pillows. Morgan will walk over to the couches and pull them all onto the floor and then proceed to roll across them as she giggles. Amazing all the money you spend on toys only to find that they every day household things or paper is what she tends to play with. She also loves a toy that shoots plastic balls out of the top after you hit a button...Morgan knows exactly what to do and caught on really quick!

Another new step little miss has taken is she has been using a sippy cup! She is doing a great job with it and has given up bottles at daycare, but will still drink out of the bottle here at home. She also loves to drink out of DaDa's cup, but assistance is certainly needed or all of the water goes down the front of her shirt and onto the floor.

Morgan has been trying almost everything that Brad and I eat and seems to already have some favorites such as hotdogs, lasagna, mac and cheese, and bananas! She tried the mac and cheese for the first time at daycare by stealing it off another kids plate and she can't shovel the hotdogs in her mouth fast enough!




She has also been practicing throwing the ball for Tehya...pretty sure she I will have to give up my hopes of  her being a south paw, but she does has quite the cannon! Morgan also really enjoys bubbles and books! You can find her quite often crawling to her bedroom to find both.

This week ahead brings many more fun times...Gramma and Pappa are in town this coming week to spend QT with Morgan! We can't wait!

Until then!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

MM's Ninth Month

We can hardly believe how fast time is going by...is our little princess really almost 1 year?! She is growing up so fast is learning so many things. We had her 9 month check-up and she is right on track for her age! Here are her stats:
28.3 inches long (69%) ~and~ 19 pounds 12 ounces (63%)

At 9 months:
We celebrated our first Mother's Day and it couldn't have been more special! We went to pick out some flowers for the pots and vegetables to plant in the garden. The day was beautiful and filled with lots of family time. Morgan watched as Brad and I did the planting, but seemed to enjoy the outdoors. She and Brad also picked out a new pair of shoes for me...black and white ballet flats with jewels...absolutely love them! Morgan also came home from daycare with a special Mother's Day card she hand made for me...brought tears to my eyes.

5/19/2011 was certainly a day to remember ~ Morgan crawled for the first time! I was lucky enough to be home the day she started the child proofing of our house :) There is no stopping this little one now! She giggles as you crawl behind her and she tries to go faster as you tell her "I am going to get you!" Too stinking cute!





Now that it has finally started to warm up outside, daycare has been making many trips to the Ankeny Splash Park and Morgan loves to splash in the water! She seems to really enjoy being outdoors. Daycare also heads to the park often for picnics and playing on the playground equipment. Morgan loves the swings! Jenny snapped this photo of her unconventional swinging style...guess whatever works ;)











I did a little home photo shoot of little M to get some pictures of her for the blog and this is what I ended up with...look at this face...I can just see the attitude we have in store come the teen years...yikes ;)

We celebrated Brad's first Father's Day! We is such an amazing husband and father! I just love seeing Morgan and him together and just smile at what a wonderful family we have. I see the future of the two of them and she will be daddy's little girl...following him as they head out to the driving range or out to do yard work. He is so sweet with her and you can just tell that she adores him. For Father's Day we went on our very first family picnic to Hawkeye Park in Ankeny...I know I know, why in the world would you go to a park with that name...turns out the park name must have been a mistake...the park is actually really nice and peaceful. ;) We sat on a blanket by the fishing pond under a shade tree and ate chicken salads, fruit, and for dessert, graham crackers with frosting. Morgan picked out a new baseball hat and golf shorts as gifts for DaDa.

Another picture from a day at daycare...this was lunch time...I sent with mixed vegetables and turkey dinner baby food for lunch...guess we chalk this one up to a dislike. Jenny said she cried the entire time she had to eat it. Jenny finally gave in and gave her something else she would eat.

Morgan is such a big girl! (6/26/2011) We went to the grocery store and she rode in the shopping cart for the very first time! She really enjoyed being able to sit-up on her own and look all around. We only had one crying fit when she threw her head back and hit it on the metal cart. We now put her changing pad behind her head to prevent that incident from happening again. Before we know it, she'll won't want to even be in the cart...oh boy!