bananas

Violet doesn't really like bananas. She's kindof weird. She'll eat one or two bites then push the rest away and refuse them. Maybe she's taking after her Uncle Jay who doesn't really care for them either! I found that if she does eat more than 2 bites, she's not in her high chair. If I grab a banana then head to the living room, she will follow me and open her mouth for a few bites, but rarely will she eat a lot of it. I know...nitty gritty detail...but when I think of them, I blog it! Thats what this online journal is for, right?

sprout!

she figured it out

Seems like today is the day she figured out how to stand up on her own in the middle of a room without pulling up to stand. She got into the crawling position, got both feet under her, and just stood up and started walking. She's got much longer hair, and its so adorable up in a clip on the top of her head sticking up like a little sprout. She's gaining hilarity. I think thats how you spell that word! She thinks everything is funny!

Violet turned ONE today!

Little Violet is a big girl now! I posted earlier this morning, but now the day is almost over and its been a great day! I'll give a short report on how the party went. We woke her up with a few songs (including happy birthday!) and videotaped it. We spent the morning getting ready and preparing the food. We cut up the fruit (pineapple, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries) and made the strawberry creamy dip, baked the pepperoni bagel bites, made the (dyed blue and purple) cupcakes and frosted them (purple and yellow dyed frosting), and mixed up the grape punch (made with red and white grape juice and sprite, topped with strawberry sherbet). We made the pumpkin muffins last night. Dave decorated the house with pink and white streamers. I kept Violet up later in the morning for a later nap...so that she would stay awake long enough to make it through her party from 2-4. She slept from around 11-12:30. She had her lunch which was potato cheesy soup. She's really eating a lot more food now and nursing less, maybe 4-5 times in a day, which is a lot less than a few months ago, which was around 8-10 times a day. So our guests started coming around 2. All in attendance were Grandma and Grandpa Hardinger, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Jay, Molly Hart, Nathan and Marisa Anderson and Devin Anderson. We all ate for a little while, then played the 3 games we had planned. They were: Guess how many cheerios were in the jar, guess how much Violet weighs, and a "how well do you know Violet" quiz. Rachel won the cheerio guess (actual was 633, her guess was 585), Marisa won the weight question (actual was 23 lbs, her guess was 22 1/2), and Molly got the most questions correct! Violet tried helping open her presents. Obviously, she didn't really get it. She loved finding new toys to play with though! She got a pink piggy bank with plastic coins, a couple new toys, a stuffed monkey, new books, some pink booties, some clothes, a silver bracelet (from Great Grandma Rowena!), and a contribution to her education savings fund. Oh, and yes, she stuffed her face with the cupcake we gave her. Frosting was all over her face! Her favorite thing to play with at the end of the day were the collection of balloons that Grandma Jo brought. She loved to squeeze them tight and let them go, and watch them float back up into the air.Soon everyone left and things got back to normal. We got the house cleaned up. Rachel is staying the night, and Jay is hanging out with us tonight, so we're all talking. I'm going to stop typing and join the conversation! Goodnight! Welcome to year 2 Violet!

the morning she turned 1

Its 7:39 am and I'm awake much earlier than I usually am. Its the morning of Violet's first birthday! I feel so giddy...like its my birthday or something. Dave was up around 6:45 am doing something with the fire and I woke up, realizing that it was almost the moment that Violet turned one...exactly...at 6:59 am when she was born. I stayed awake to see the clock! I'm weird like that. I thought about video-taping the clock but then realized that would be a little obsessive. It would have been fun, I guess...but oh well. Dave climbed back into bed to stay warm (on this chilly morning - its like 4 degrees outside or something very cold) and we started recalling the events of exactly last year. Some odd-early time in the morning we had opted for a c-section for the birth after very hard but unprogressive labor, and Dave recalled announcing "Its a girl!" after she came out. Then we settled in for a 5 day stay in the hospital. So much has happened in this year. Today we're having a little party for Violet. Dave and I put up pink and white streamers all over the house. We got all the appetizers ready, sortof. There's some stuff to do yet, but we're mostly ready! We are having pumpkin muffins, fresh fruit cups, mini bagel pizzas, maybe ham & cheese puff pastry roll ups, grape punch, and cupcakes. She's awake. I just heard her make some noises down in her crib. I think we'll get out the videocamera and sing to her or something to greet her this morning. I need to go wake up Dave! K...I'll write more later about the party. Happy Birthday Violet!

brush those teeth!

My sis...Violet's favorite Aunt Rachel is going to be starting orthodontic school this summer. She's moving to Oklahoma! She came to visit Monday and showed us the proper way to hold Violet while I brush her teeth. As you can see in the pic, she's pinned down and held in place! She has 5 teeth (2 lower centrals, 2 upper centrals and 1 lateral) and her 6th tooth, the other lateral, is coming in right now. She sucks on her upper lip a lot to relieve the pressure. She isn't really crazy about getting her teeth brushed, but she tolerates it. She has her first dentist appointment with the "doc" her Grandpa Jon on Friday the 19th. The 2nd pic here shows how she just loves to stick her fingers in holes. She is sticking her fingers through the little plastic hook holes that the shoulder straps hook onto. They weren't hooked in this pic, so she found them and kept her little fingers there until mealtime was over. The last pic is Violet ripping magazine pages to shreds. She grabs the magazine paper with two hands and pulls hard with all her might! The piece that ends up in her right hand she chucks behind her, and she continues to grab the remaining piece left in her left hand with both hands and tries again to pull it apart. Sometimes she doesn't get it to rip, and she tries again. If it doesn't rip by the 3rd try, she chucks the whole page behind her and grabs for something else. I know she loves doing it, so I start a tiny little tear for her and it makes for a big RIIPPPP making her face break into a big crazy smile. It must be satisfying to her or something.

that finger...

Violet's "comfort" thing is to suck on her finger. Just the index finger, not two at the same time, but just one. She usually turns her hand upside down and knaws on it until its soaking wet. If you look at the pic in an earlier post of her standing up in the pink outfit for the first time, she's doing it there. Its seems like a phase though...she'll do it a lot in a day, then stop for a day. She got to go on her first snow sled ride the other day. Dave and I walked down to the mailbox and back and she sat in the sled behind us the whole time. I'm not sure if she loved it or not, but it was an activity to get outside and see a change of scenery for once. The winter blues are getting to us! I hope we have fun outside this summer. She'll get to run around and discover all sorts of things! Oh.....we had her 1 year pics taken at JCPenney on Monday the 15th. I know, 5 days early, but I figure she'd look pretty much the same 5 days later! I wanted to get it out of the way and done with! She did so good. She kept wanting to stick her finger in her mouth every time the photographer would make her smile and jump back in time to snap the shot. We got some great ones! We ended up choosing the pictures that reminded us most of Violet's personality. We picked one of her standing up on her own with jeans and her white shirt (which has an adorable little "smirky" smile), a pic of her sitting on a white stool with her "crazy evil grin" and her favorite purple stuffed bear, and a very reflective and curious Violet pinching the #1 on a birthday cake with a pink background. She's not looking at the camera, she's instead looking very intently at the #1 on the cake with her little lips pursed in concentration.

She's walking all over the place now!

Its been a long time since I've written much on this blog. I don't feel like messing with the font or size, because today I'm sick, achey, and stuffed up. Violet has changed SO much. I know all parents say that about their kids and it sounds chiché but its so true. Violet has gone from a crawler to a walker for good now. She cruised along furniture for a long time but within a couple weeks she just took off and is now walking from room to room and carrying things with her. I'm not used to finding a toy relocated, but I guess I'll have to get used to it! She will be 1 on Saturday. A full 12 months has passed since we came home from the hospital, and it feels like last week, I swear. She is 23 lbs and around 31" tall...though the height is a guess and the weight might be a 1/2 lb off since we sit her down on our scale and it rounds up or down a 1/2 lb. She growls a lot. She sees a stuffed animal, she growls at it. She growls at Abby, our dog...but she stopped saying Abby, I'm not sure why. She boldly says "BA BA BA" and occasionally mutters a "mama mama" here and there. That's about it. Her "new" thing...and these "things" last maybe a few days or weeks then fade away, is laughing at everything she does. She'll grab a toy cup and bang it together with something else, laugh to herself, and look at us to see if we were watching, then laugh again. We are having a small party for her on her birthday here at our house. We ordered some cute invitations online but they haven't arrived yet...which makes me upset. But...only my parents, Rachel, Jay, Molly, Nathan, Marisa and Devin are coming. I hope she likes her first cupcake! I'm sure she'll figure out how to do this sooner or later, but she can't yet stand up on her own in the middle of the floor without something to pull on. She will use anything...someone's pant leg, the cabinets, or a chair to stand up with, then she'll take off walking, and she'll even stop walking, bend over to pick up something and stand right back up, so I know she could do it, but I think its just a matter of figuring out how to do it herself. She LOVES the bathtub -- even more than she used to I think. She goes right up to the tub and starts squealing and screaming before I even get water in the tub. She is increasing in her agility and ability to move around, slide across the bottom of the tub, stand up in the tub and move around...basically everything she needs to start being a toddler, not a baby! Its amazing to me. :) Right now here's her "schedule" .... give or take a 1/2 hour with naptimes. She's mixing things up lately. 8:00 wake up, nurse with me in bed (Dave usually brings her up to me so I don't have to get out of bed!) 8:30 breakfast of some kind, usually toast or cereal 9:00-11:00 playtime 11:00 nurse, naptime until 1:00 1:00 lunch 2:00-4:00 playtime, small snack 4:00-5:00 nurse, nap (this one is getting very short!!) 5:30 eat dinner, play around until 7:30, take bath, 8:30 nurse, bedtime