a few more...

So fresh and clean after a bath... using the motrin box as "fabric"


beach baby (just going to daycare, but I love this beachy outfit from grandpa!)


WHAT DO YOU MEAN DADDY'S OUT OF TOWN AND I'M NOT GOING TO SEE HIM FOR 3 DAYS?!!!!!?!?!?!?!?

Sorry it's been a while!!!

Things have been CRAZY lately, leaving little time to blog!!! I could write a long shpiel, but lets face it, you only check this blog for the pictures, so without further ado...

Please, no more pictures... I know I look cute, but I'm just not cut out for this life of paparazzi!


*YAWN* it's tiring looking so good!


Getting my yoga out of the way...


I call this look "blue steel"


You wish you loved anything this much!


yummy!!


Only 1 year olds can get away with wearing a crown on their behind


Feed me now, or there will be consequences!!


This is my pantry. I like to go in here to get some privacy. Lately I've been sneaking in here to take care of business.


Excuse me for a moment...


Um, I said excuse me! What's a girl gotta do to get some privacy!!


That's what I'm talking about!! (note the tiny fingers closing the door by herself)


until next time!!

Jenna the Genius

We have a TON of leftover little rubber duckies from Jenna's ducky-themed 1st birthday party. They make great bath toys, so I brought a bunch upstairs to assist with her bathtime fun. Every night, when I drain the bath, I put all 6 or so duckies up on the corner (outside) of the tub.

Tonight, I put the duckies in the bath with her, and she played/chomped on them as usual. When it was time to get out of the bath, I asked "Jenna, where do the duckies go?" One by one, she methodically took each ducky and put it them in the same corner where I keep them. The corner was soon full, but there was still one ducky left. She looked at it for a while, then put it in her mouth to chew. A few seconds later, she put it up on the other side of the tub, away from all the other duckies.

I got her attention, pointed to the other duckies, and asked her to put that ducky with the others. Sure enough, after one last trip to her mouth for a quick chomp, she put that ducky back up with the others.

Totally blew my mind!! Someone call Mensa!!

a few of the duckies...

I love this picture!

I think I posted a similar version before, but her face was too dark from shadows... the wonders of photoshop!

"Me"

There's this website, meez.com, where you can go make a virtual rendition of yourself, doing whatever you want... here's mine... I think she kinda looks like me!

Check out Max's blog to see Kim :-)

I Love this Age!!

Jenna has always been an incredibly happy baby. Very good natured, she rarely cries, fusses, etc. Always has a smile on her face. But... she was never an easy laugher. She giggled often, but not on command. I've interacted with plenty of babies whom, if you shoot them a funny look, or tickle their tummies, will burst out in laughter. That was never Jenna. She laughed, but you had to earn it. She made you work for that glorious sound!

Last night, the little miss decided that she wasn't tired. Figured, the one night during the week when I had to work late, she decided to stay up and play. So Josh was downstairs in the basement (converted to Jenna's toy-room) watching Jenna with one eye and football with the other. I decided to take a quick break and run downstairs to check on my favorite people. Jenna was amusing herself quietly, and Josh seemed content.

I decided to pull out one of those pop-up, crawl-through tunnels. We have a few that connect to make a longer tunnel, but last night I was just using one of the small tunnels, identical to one of the yellow ones coming off this big thing...

I got on one side, and Jenna got on the other. She poked her head in, and every few seconds, I'd poke mine in as well. You would have thought I was Chris Rock on his best night. For a solid 5-10 minutes, I had Jenna rolling in hysterics unlike anything I've ever heard from her. Josh and I were cracking up as well, cause we've never seen her react this way. The squeals coming out of this kid would have made a hyena jealous!

I had to return to work shortly after that episode, but this morning Josh told me that he had her going again later in the night. Who would have thought that a $3.00 tunnel from Toys R Us would have been the key to unlocking Jenna's inner hysteria. All I know is, the tunnel may have cost $3.00, but those ten minutes were priceless.

Flipped a learning switch

I really believe there is some sort of internal switch that flips at 1 year, when all the sudden they go from being babies to little people. In the last week, Jenna has changed so much. All the sudden she's this litte person, who listens to us, clearly thinks before she acts, expresses herself much more clearly than before, etc. She is talking up a storm, pointing to Josh and saying "dada", looking at me and babbling "mamamama", making all sorts of connections (if you just say hi or bye, without waiving, she immediately waves. While waiving, she makes a noise that sounds like "hi" but isn't quite there yet).

If you ask her where her nose is, she points to her nose, same with her mouth. If I ask her "where's Mommy's nose?" she points to and touches my nose. If we're reading a book and I ask her where elmo is, she not only points to elmo, but leans in to kiss him. She always looks up at me for approval before she does anything she's not sure of, like she's waiting for me to tell her it's okay.

She also no longer takes bottles during the day. She has two sippy cups, her milk sippy cup and her water sippy. She MUCH prefers the water one, but we try to force some milk in every once and a while. At night she still has a bottle of warm milk, but she'll even push that away from time to time. In the morning, we bring her into our room, put on a "baby genius" video, and she watches with rapt attention as we get ready for work. If we walk past the TV and block her vision, she moves to the side so she can see better. I can almost picture her saying "mom, get outta my way!!" She LOVES doggies, and always goes right up to them with no fear. In fact, the dogs are usually the ones backing away from her!

This is just such a fun age, and I know it's just going to get better, the more she understands and is able to communicate. One is fun!

Here are two more party pictures that were on my dads camera, plus a labor day weekend picture of my dad with his two babies!