Shortly after she got the news that pooping your pants earns you a spot on the "naughty" list...

If you look real closely, you can see Santa here trying to give her a candy cane to appease the situation. Nothing doing. 

Merry Christmas.

Nine Months

Miss Britta is over nine months old and is starting to seem less and less like a little baby every day. At her check up yesterday, she weighed in at 16 lbs 1 oz, which surprised me because it is only in the 12th percentile. She measured at 27 3/4 in, in the 47th percentile. I can't remember the story on her head, but it's big. I mean c'mon, she is Chris' daughter. 

She is developing her personality even more all the time and is so fun.

At nine months:

She is obsessed with hair. Her "security blanket" is my hair. When she is tired or upset, she will bury her face in it or take pieces of it and rub them across her eyes. Recently she has started twirling her own hair when she is tired. It is kind of adorable.

She is loving the Christmas tree. She will just stare at it in the mornings when she get up--I love it. She also loves singing along to a good Christmas jam. We went to a Christmas concert the other night and had to take her out because apparently she thought it was a sing along deal. 

I swear she says "Dada" sometimes. Never when I try to get her to say it though.

She still hates being on her stomach and I am starting to think she will be one of those babies who skips crawling. 

She has been sleeping a ton lately and I keep thinking that either a) she has died in her sleep, but I am too lazy to get out of bed and check on her and instead I will just enjoy sleeping in until 9, or b) she will be three feet tall when she finally does wake up.

I am sure there is more about her that has changed, but all in all the big changes are that she is learning and growing by leaps and bounds. 

 We went to the Nutcracker and she LOVED it (the first half anyway). P.S. Does this look like a child who is in the 12th percentile for weight? I'm just sayin'...

 She loves socks and shoes, just not on her feet. 

 Grandparents!!

Four generations of pure awesome. 

Happy nine (almost ten) months.

White

The people spoke and the clear winner in the kitchen cabinet debate was white. I am nothing if not moved by the people's choice, so while I think dark would have looked nice too, I am really happy with the decision to paint my cabinets white. It was probably ten times cheaper and easier than it would have been to do anything else.

Before:

After:

The red knobs would not have been my first choice, but I already had them from NY and I still need to figure out a window treatment, but you get the idea. It really brightens up the space and I am glad I did it, so thanks for your votes!

Thanksgiving

This year I was super bold and decided to host Thanksgiving at my house. It was really just a ploy to get my parents to come up from Utah. So, we took on both sides of the family and not to toot my own horn, but since no one got food poisoning and the turkey didn't come out Griswold Family Christmas-style, I am deeming it a success.

You want pictures? Well, here you go.

 Every year Chris is seriously concerned that there won't be enough Martinelli's. He stashes them throughout the house in order to make sure there is some leftover. Answer to this problem--give everyone their own bottle. Pretty sure at the end of the night I gave a Costco pack to my mother-in-law to take home, and I still have five unopened bottles in my garage. We know how to party.

Home made truffles? Yes, please.

This one was really not feeling the camera on Thanksgiving. She was teething/had a cold of some kind. It actually worked out to my advantage because she slept the majority of the day while I was cooking and such.

 This lucky duck got to taste everything. Best part, though? The napkin. Hands down.

I hope you all had a wonderful Turkey Day as well. I am now counting down the days until I get to see my family again for Christmas.

You know that phrase "I love you like a fat kid loves cake?"

Well, I'm pretty sure that's how Britta feels about our visits to IKEA.

Tell me that isn't the most hilarious picture you've ever seen. Seriously.


Oh, and this is yesterday's news, but we had a wonderful Halloween trick-or-treating; and I am having a wonderful post-Halloween gorging myself on "Britta's" candy. I don't think I was fooling anyone.

Months Seven and Eight

Since I neglected to do a seven month post about Britta in time and she has now hit the eight month mark, I will just combine the two months together.

When I took her in for her 7 month check up she weighed in at 15 lbs, 11 oz (19%), and measured at 26.25 in. (40%). I was shocked at her weight since she was such a chubby baby to begin with. Maybe I should stop starving her, right? She wears 6-9 or 6-12 month clothes on top, and 0-3 month clothes on bottom. If you are reading this, you might think she looks like "little people, big world," but I assure you she is still pretty cute. Here are some random pictures to prove it.

We went to the fair. She was pretty stoked about it.

She takes her beauty rest very seriously.

Absolutely loves bath time.

At seven/eight months Britta:

Loves to eat and definitely has her favorites already. She loves, bananas, apples, pears, and peas. She will scream like Tarzan while she is eating these foods like they are so delicious she can't even put it into words.

She talks with her feet. Her feet and toes are constantly moving. They have always been like this, but are especially active now. When she is happy, she literally does the wave with her toes and feet. I need to take a video because this is hard to explain.

She sleeps a ton. 12 hours at night and usually 3 hours worth of naps a day. Love it.

Still has no teeth. Fine by me.

No signs of crawling. Big surprise. She refuses to stay on her stomach for longer than two minutes. She has started scooting backward a little, though.

She can pick things up with her thumb and pointer finger and bring them to her mouth. 

She talks a ton. She says "bababa" or "blah, blah, blah" when she is happy, and "mamama" when she is crying. Apparently she associates my name with unhappiness or pain. Wonderful.

She is learning every day and getting so big. We love her so much.

Who doesn't love a good pumpkin patch?

Because I know I do. Does anyone else love October as much as I do? Seriously, the crisp fall air, the leaves turning colors, and pumpkins. I love pumpkins. My only regret this fall is that we are not on the East Coast to see the amazing colors. We should have waited just a few more months before moving to the "evergreen" state.

We spent some quality time with the cousins this weekend at a local farm/pumpkin patch where we petted the animals, picked our pumpkins, ate fresh corn on the cob, and pretended like Britta cared as much about this being her first Halloween season as I do. Bliss.

27

This hunka-hunka burnin' love turned 27 last week. As he was traveling on his big day, I of course did  what any good wife would do and completely forgot about it. He had to call me finally and ask "don't you have something you want to tell me?" It still took me a good thirty seconds to figure out what he was talking about. Then I forgot to blog about it.

We did have a chance to celebrate on Sunday before he went out of town with a treasure hunt, minute to win it games, and a doughnut "cake". He loved it, I'm sure.

Britta and I would be lost without our main squeeze, we love him even more than he knows. Here's to many more happy birthdays to come!

Opinions, please.

This is my kitchen.

Re-doing the oak cabinets is my next big project. So, in the spirit of full disclosure I need your opinions. White or a dark stain?

White would be easier and cheaper, but I am leaning toward dark--like closer to the color of our dining set.

But I change my mind almost daily and I really just need to get started. This is where you come in.

Since we've been here.

1.) We have spent a lot of time with family. Britta has met her cousins, including Reagan who is just one month younger than her. They had a pretty long DTR and decided to be BFFs.

2.) I chopped all of my hair off in an attempt to dissuade B from pulling and sucking on it every 2.5 seconds. No dice. The new length is even more enticing to her. At least she volunteered to pose in this self-portrait with me, though.

3.) We have spent so much time painting that if I never saw a roller again, I could die a happy woman. I wish I had taken some "before" pictures of the walls, but just imagine lavender only brighter. Seriously, on every wall. The trim was also an oak type color and on a whim we ripped it all off the walls, windows, and doors so I could paint it white. 

Before

During

Here is some finished product in the dining room.

4.) This morning I successfully locked Britta, my keys, my phone, and my wallet in the car in the Costco parking lot. How the car managed to lock itself in the time that I put my purse in the driver's seat and B in her car-seat, remains a mystery. Of course, just about the instant that I realized I had locked my child in the car and my spare keys were in Ohio with Chris on his business trip, it started pouring rain. A locksmith came and saved me, opening my door to find that there was a baby in the car. He looked at me like a crazy lady and said, "Why didn't you call the police?" Duh. That thought hadn't even crossed my mind. Oh well, there's seventy bucks I'll never see again.

She likes to feed herself...

...and sometimes it is just not worth the strategic maneuvering required to keep the spoon out of her hands, so you give in.

 This was taken shortly before we moved, but tonight was a similar episode featuring green beans.

Blackberries

Sometimes when the babe is whining and the hubs is working late, there is only one thing to do. We Baby Bjorn'd it down the road, bowl in hand, in search of some sweet berry goodness. Success.

Even though we are missing some aspects of New York more than we thought we would, Washington is not wholly without its charms.

Six Months

Things have been super busy around here and in between moving, painting, furniture shopping, and baby lovin' I forgot about my blog. The fact that I still don't have internet has payed a role as well. Tevs.

The little misses turned six months old while we were in the Beehive State. We celebrated by forcing her to sit for an hour straight with a camera in her face. These awesome pictures were taken by Burke Alder, and aside from the fact that Britta refused to smile in any fashion despite the weird noises and faces we all made, he is the bomb.com. See for yourself.

I am counting this last one as a smile. There is a reason Chris calls her "lizard"--her tongue is out like this approximately 65% of the time.

At six months Britta is:

Sleeping through the night and not at all fazed by the three our time change from NY to WA.

Finally settled into a solid nap schedule where she sleeps for longer than 45 minutes. She has slowly but surely been moving this direction for a month and having her crib back seems to be the golden ticket. I think she might love to sleep even more than I do.

Eating all kinds of baby food and loving every bite.

Still not a fan of tummy time-- in fact, she is whining about it right now. So predictable.

Sitting up on her own.

Becoming more clingy, which is good and bad.

Sporting her first haircut. Goodbye rat-tail, long strands behind the ears, and bangs in the eyes.

Is enthralled with the world around her. When she is a crank-monster, the most surefire way to get our angel baby back is to take her out in public. She would spend hours in NYC just staring at every single thing with her mouth wide open. I find that Target holds a similar appeal.

Here's to half a year!

Utah: Week One

Washington Square Park

After one last slice of pizza and visit to Soho, we kissed New York goodbye and headed back to the great state of Utah. We have been here one week now and most of our time has been spent visiting friends and family and skyping with Dad.

 Chris did get a break this weekend from new hire training, which he spent unloading our moving truck in WA. I was real cut up that I was not able to partake in the manual labor as well. He did, however, have a layover at the SLC airport, so B and I made a field trip up to see him at baggage claim. It did not disappoint.

We are on to week two in the Beehive State, and all I can say is that I hope it includes some Cafe Rio.