Une Petite Mise à Jour

In the post about Carys' 15 month doctor appointment, I mentioned that there was a bit of a concern about her inability to gain weight.  Bebecita had to endure bloodwork to make sure there is no medical reason (other than an enviable metabolism) for her lack of weight gain.  I am so thankful to let you know that all of her bloodwork came back normal.  We were simply left with the instructions to 'fatten her up.' And, we were instructed to come back in six weeks for a weight check.  Praise be to God!

Speaking of the Aforementioned Rodeo

I mentioned earlier in Ye Olde Blog that we took the girls to the rodeo this year. Uncle Josh and Dawson were coming down from Virginia to experience this distinctly Western experience.  So, we knew that we had to be there, too! Yiayia and Dado wanted to make sure the grandkids' experience was as authentic as possible, so Cora, Carys and Dawson got brand new cowboy boots.  Dawson and Cora also got awesome cowboy hats.

Can I get a Yee Haw?!?

We got there in time to look at a few exhibits before the rodeo began.  And, we grabbed some yummy fair food for lunch while we headed to our seats.  Fortunately for us, we were in seats on the end of a row.  The kids did not have the attention span to stay in their seats for the duration of the rodeo portion.  In fact, I spent most of it walking around the AT&T Center with the bebecita.  (Her father was alarmed to find out that she spent a good deal of that time flirting with a teenage boy who was wearing a letter jacket!)  But, I did get to spend enough time at the rodeo to try my and Cora's hands at riding the bronco.

Clearly, we are naturals!

John switched off with me when it was time for the concert and walked around with the wee babe.  So, I got to sit and enjoy Keith Urban while Cora slept in my lap.  The concert was a lot of fun, and when Keith Urban decided to jump up into the audience, he was right below us.  None of us were the recipients of the autographed guitar he gave away, and that's okay.  I don't think my highly sensitive to noises 3 year old would have appreciated his proximity as much as I would have!

The rest of the weekend was nice, too.  We don't get to see Dawson as often as we would like, and Cora was soaking up the time and attention of her cousin.  They are a hoot together.  I can't wait until we can see him and the other cousins again soon!

15 Months

Can it be that sweet baby girl is already 15 months?

She is a mess, I tell you!  And, we adore it!

Carys always seems like she has an agenda in her little mind.  She seems to be purposeful about everything she does.  Most of what she does continues to be taking things from one spot and putting them in another.  If she is fortunate enough to find herself unattended in the guest room, one of her favorite things is to remove as many books as she can from my bookshelves before she gets caught.  Her other favorite thing is taking all of Sister's pajamas and undies out of the dresser drawer.  When it is too quiet, this mama has learned to go looking for what Sissy has gotten into!

Carys is very talkative.  Most of that talk is just gibberish, but she does say a few words.  Her favorite words are: mama, dada, pup-pup, Dita (Perdita), Sisser, ball, and baby.  Sometimes, I think that she says 'thank you' as well, but I am not 100% sure.  It comes out something like 'tachoo.'  She can sign 'more,' 'please,' 'milk,' and 'all done.'

Carys loves to play peek-a-boo.  She will cover her eyes and then dramatically reveal herself and smile while we say 'peek-a-boo!'  She also loves to play 'How big is Carys?'  She will raise her hands high after we ask her.  And, we reward her response by saying 'so big!'  That game always gets a big round of applause from the bebecita.

It appears that Carys is going to be my sweet girly-girl.  She loves to play with the baby dolls.  There is one baby doll in particular that seems to be her favorite.  She likes to give the baby a paci and put the baby to bed in the doll bed.  Don't pity Perdita; sweet puppy still gets the most love!

Carys is a surprisingly great eater.  When we had fajitas this week, she devoured more than big sister.  Not being a huge meat eater myself, it was so funny to watch her shove fajita meat into her mouth.  Naturally, and just like Sister, she adores crackers as well.

Stats:
Teeth:  12 very sharp little teeth
Height:  28 1/2 inches (4th percentile)
Weight:  17 lbs, 1 oz (3rd percentile)

You can see she is quite the wee little thing.  What a change from how she started!  Despite how much she eats, there is no way we can call her 'chubilla' any more!  I had feared that she had not grown very much since she is still wearing the same pajamas she has worn for months.  And, just as I had feared, we had to get bloodwork done.  Carys was pretty angry about that.  But, she is a tough cookie and seemed no worse for the wear later in the day.  We're praying that everything comes back normal as we wait (not so) patiently for all the results.  In the meantime, I'll just continue trying to keep up with my sweet and active little miss!

Little Daredevil

When we took Cora over to the carnival portion of the Rodeo, she was so excited to see all the rides.  Yiayia, John and I all offered to get Cora some tickets so she could ride some things, but she adamantly and vehemently refused.  I'm not gonna lie; this tickled both John's and my financial funny bones.  This might just work out well for us monetarily!  It was not but a couple weeks later that we realized that it wasn't exactly going to work out for us after all.  Witness babecita:

Yup, that's my barely one year old throwing herself down the slide.  I held her hand one or two times, but then sweet baby girl insisted on doing it on her own.  I should not be surprised by this.  When Carys is left to her own devices while Sister is at gymnastics lessons, she will toddle clear across the gym and get as far across the double mini as she can before mommy comes flying over to grab her.  I can only imagine the hit John's wallet is going to take when she's old enough to ride the carnival rides!

Sabbatical, and a Little Taste of What We've Been Up To

Hmm...I suppose I took a little bloggy sabbatical.  I didn't intend to, but with all the other stuff going on, I didn't have the inclination to blog.  Thankfully, it's coming back.  We have some fun stuff to share with you.

It has been lovely here in the evenings, so after dinner we've been playing in our back yard.  Usually, this involves a lot of "On your mark, get set, go!"  and games of catch with the beach ball for the big girl.  The little girl just loves to try to do whatever Sister is doing.  Last night, John got in on the beach ball action.  And, this is what happened:

Yup, that's our beach ball stuck in the top of one of our live oak trees.  If you look very closely, you can also see one of Penny's toys lodged underneath it.  Clearly, the dog toy failed miserably in getting the beach ball out of the tree.   If you ever wonder what love looks like, it is this:

When the rocks and dog toy failed to dislodge the ball, John dutifully climbed up the prickly tree and shook that ball loose.

Cora waited ever so patiently and offered plenty of timely advice - "you gotta get that beach ball, Daddy!" and "you climb up the tree, okay?" 

The babecita wasn't too terribly interested in the whole scenario.  But, she's still pretty cute if I do say so myself!    

Cora wanted to get in on the photography action.  These are some of the better shots.  Not too shabby, eh?!

More to come on other exciting adventures!

It's the End of an Era

Our sweet little Carysita is definitely a full-fledged walker, if not a runner!

Considering her self-appointed job seems to be hiding different objects in places throughout our house, nothing is safe.  Turns out Carys is an excellent teacher.  She branded this lesson in my brain last week.  This is how it all went down:  One morning Cora happened to sleep late.  I thought I would sneak a quick shower in before she got up, so I let Carys wander around the bathroom and play with toys.  This worked out great until she disappeared into my closet.
          Fortunately, she wasn't gone for long and promptly came out.
          Unfortunately, she had located my shoes.
          Fortunately, she only had one shoe at that time.
          Unfortunately, she was headed straight for the toilet.
I'm guessing you can see where this is going!  Fortunately, I was able to save said shoe from a watery death.   I doubt it looked pretty as I hurtled out of the shower risking death on the slippery when wet tile, but I saved the shoe nonetheless.  I'm sure you can understand why I constantly live in fear of finding somebody's lost treasure in the loo.

With that thought always in the back of my mind, I'm not sure why I was so surprised at her actions tonight.  Carys was all ready for bed, but before she went down for the night, I wanted to put some things away in her closet.  I had totally forgotten that beloved Perdita was on top of the dresser.  Carys was puttering around in the bedroom when I heard the scraping of Cora's stool on the wood floors.  When I turned around, Carys had finished pushing the stool up to the dresser and was in the process of pulling herself up using one of the knobs on the drawers.  She grabbed Perdy, sat down to step off, and triumphantly walked away with puppy's ear in her mouth.  Forgive me a proud mama moment, but OMIGOSH, SHE JUST SOLVED A PROBLEM ALL BY HERSELF BY THINKING THROUGH THREE SEPARATE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY CHALLENGING STEPS!  HOLY MOLY! Okay, proud mama moment over.  And, now reality sets in: OMIGOSH SHE REALIZED THAT SHE CAN REACH THINGS THAT ARE OVER HER HEAD WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF AN ADULT! HOLY MOLY!  Lock up your cookies, keys, and cell phones.  Babecita is on the loose!

A Whole Lotta Random

The title pretty much describes these last few weeks.  We're back in our weekly routine after the craziness of the holiday season.  And, while we haven't really done anything monumental, we do have several noteworthy things that I don't want to forget.

First and foremost, we officially have a full-fledged walker.  Miss Carys has been taking steps for the past 6 or so weeks, but as of this past week, she now spends more time walking than crawling.  I'm having a bit of mommy melancholy about the whole situation. I mean, on the one hand, I was so excited for her to start walking - especially in order to spare the knees of all of her pants and dresses!  But, now I find myself missing her cute little slap crawling.

I'll have to get some video of her walking about.  She's such a funny little creature.  She can walk pretty fast, but she manages to do so while keeping her upper body perfectly still.  It's almost like she's walking around with an invisible walker!

I am also amazed to report that Carys is in the process of tripling the amount of teeth in her mouth.  She's been working on her molars for quite some time, and the poky little things are finally starting to pop through. She is also getting her remaining four incisors.  She will very soon have 12 sharp chompers.  Sister better watch out!

The big news for Sister is all about gymnastics.  This past week was especially exciting because Cora finally mastered the 'seat drop.'  (A seat-drop is a skill on the trampoline where you jump, drop down on your bottom and back on your feet with one swift move.)  We've been working on this since August, and she just couldn't quite master getting her feet back under her.  It would be the understatement of the year to say that she was excited on Tuesday when she popped back up off her toushee.  And, that small (huge!) success seemed to motivate her for the rest of the lesson.  She was more focused and tried harder than any other time that I can recall.  It's funny because whenever I observe one of my student teachers I also subconsciously observe the students to try to figure out which one is most like Cora.  This past week, at a local high school, I saw a sweet girl, small in stature in a Spanish class.  When she got up to leave, I noticed that she was wearing a t-shirt for that school's gymnastics team.  Ding, ding, ding!  We have a winner!  I had to laugh at myself for thinking that way.  High school is still a decade away.  Besides, who can think about high school when we have the Olympics to focus on! ;-)

Things My Child Has Eaten Today

Or at least, things she has attempted to eat:

dog food
an acorn cap
a live oak leaf
Penny's chew bone

This is in addition to all the other 'usual' toys, foods, and family members that she puts in her mouth.  Apparently, the idea to let them try it once, and they won't eat it again does not apply with a certain 1 year old.  To make matters worse, she is now dexterous enough to open up the lockable container that we store the dog food in.  It is very disconcerting to have your child's and your dog's breath smell exactly the same.  I'm just sayin'!

One Year Well Check

Carys had her one year well check on Thursday.  Knowing that it would mean shots, I decided to wait to take her until after our Christmas break.  Even still, we decided against the flu vaccine.  Cora always had a terrible reaction to it, and since the girls are home with me, we didn't really see the need to put Carys through that.

I was curious/anxious to see her stats.  Carys has been wearing the same size 6 month pajamas for quite some time now, and considering that she is a year old and that Cora had a bit of a difficult time gaining weight, I was uncertain how this would sit with Carys' pediatrician.  Here are her stats:

Height:  27 1/4 inches (less than 5%)
Weight:  16 lbs, 10oz (less than 5%)

It turns out that even though she has grown an inch and a quarter, she has lost a couple of ounces.  I guess she has Cora's freakishly wonderful metabolism after all.  She eats like a horse, but apparently, she is active enough that she doesn't gain weight that quickly.  In fact, despite being a full pound and a half heavier at birth than Cora was, she is a little over a quarter of a pound lighter than Cora was at one year.  Funny how things work out.  Our little chubilla doesn't fit her moniker anymore.  Dr. Mitchell was not too concerned at this point.  She has enough weight for her height.  (It would have been cause for concern if her height was of a higher percentile than her weight.)  But, I guess when you spend your days climbing on top of the coffee table, you tend to burn more calories!

Due Date Anniversary

Well, Carysita, we were supposed to be celebrating your birthday today.  I think we all know how that plan turned out!  Happy Due Date Anniversary, sweet baby girl!

 January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

 September

 October

November

December

Fri-Deja Vu

Cora - 2009


Carys - 2012

Worth a Thousand Words?

Here is a sampling of Cora's photography:

Daddy and Carys

Mommy and Daddy

Her feet and her finger... poor girl!  She gets her knack for having a finger in the lens from her mother!

 And, her thematic photography:

Her series on the dinner rolls...

And, her series of Buttercup, her cousin's toy horse:

They have a certain artistic appeal, no?!  It's going to be fun to see what pictures she comes up with next!