The rest of March and April

Much of the rest of March, I spent sewing. I was working on making baby blanket sets that I presented to the two MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) groups at my church. Initially my goal was to make 25 of them. Then I thought maybe 30 would be better. During that month, I sold 6 sets prior to the presentation so I ended up making 36 blanket sets that month, which for me is quite a lot. I was fortunate to have help watching Courtney. My mother in law watched her in the afternoons during their visit and my mom came out a few times a couple of weeks later so that I could get more sewing in. I was happy to achieved my sewing goals. The presentations went well and helped me get my name out there if nothing else. Oh and now I have some ready to go inventory should anyone order the patterns I already sewed. It's been fun having a little hobby to do from time to time, but I am thankful that it is not too overwhelming or consuming.

At the beginning of April, Christopher left for 10 days for his annual real estate cruise. It is interesting to see how differently Courtney reacted this year, which I expected since there is a huge difference between a 5 month old and an 18 month old. She asked where he was more and got to learn a few new words in the process like 'boat' and 'bon voyage'...she had a bit of trouble saying that one though. She handled it well, but boy was I exhausted and ready for a bit of a break by the time he got home. Courtney had gotten sick near the end of Christopher's trip and ended up having a fever for 12 days. It perplexed her pediatricians and became a bit disconcerting (it never seems like a good thing to perplex dr's). After 4 visits to the dr and various tests, they still couldn't come up with much so they opted to give her a shot of antibiotics to see what would happen. Within 24 hours her fever was gone. Apparently her tests results indicated that shouldn't have fixed the problem, but we were very glad it did and that no hospital visit was required.

At the end of April, we enjoyed a few visits with Gigi (Courtney's great grandma on my mom's side). Courtney really enjoyed her time with her and has since included Gigi in her prayers every night. While I say nearly all of the prayer, she always reminds me to pray for Papa, Gigi, and sometimes daddy too (although I do pray for other people as well, this is apparently her current 'list'). Courtney's vocabulary has been growing by leaps and bounds and her personality seems to be coming out more and more. She is a sweet, funny, helpful, and detail oriented little girl. It is so interesting to see the characteristics that she has from both her dad and I. Here are some pictures of the things she is into lately.

Still loves, loves, loves reading

 She has a thing for scarves...and drama ;)

 Playing with her hair or my hair. She does this really often especially when she is tired.

Sitting or standing on anything she can.

Dancing...she has come up with some new arm movements.

Climbing :-O

She loves her baby

Back in March

In March, Christopher's parents came out for a visit. During their trip, we took Courtney to the zoo for the first time. She was less interested in the animals than I had hoped. I think she called most of them 'doggy'. Since we bought an annual pass, she will get a chance to learn to love it though. She certainly enjoyed being with all her grandparents that day.

Her sunglasses for the 2 seconds that she wore them

I don't get what the big deal is with all these weird creatures

Cruising around with grandma and grandpa

 She loves her daddy

Love that little face!

It's all about the snacks.

Clearly I love when she wears Papa's hat as I seem to take a lot of pictures of it. My little cowgirl.

Walking with Nana and daddy. All done for today!

I may be the worst blogger ever

How is it that my last post was almost 5 months ago now??? That is like an eternity when your kid is nearing 21 months old. Sigh...how to catch up on the last few months. Well I will write a few separate posts on things that have happened in the last few months and hope that will suffice. I will also have to set an alarm on my calendar to remind me to post more often. It is so hard to not just get sucked into the every day life stuff and take time out to document it. At least I have been doing decently with taking pictures and videos.

So back to February...at the end of January my whole family met up in Union, Washington. My parents booked a place through their timeshare and we were able to book an additional unit for the time we were there. With the kiddos there are now enough of us that there is no way we were all fitting into one place. On this trip, my brother and his fiance Kristin announced their engagement so the family continues to expand. The trip was lovely and didn't scare me away from Washington in the winter at all. It did rain some, but not excessively. We were able to go on a hike in what I felt like was an enchanted forest. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately Courtney wasn't too happy with being cold so she and daddy didn't hike as long as the rest of us. She also caught a cold from cousin Caleb on the trip and then I caught it from her, so we were slightly miserable by the time we came home. However, the time we were there was great just spending time with family. Makes us miss them all the more once we come home.

See what I mean by enchanted forest?

 Jon and Kristin :)

 

I was sad Courtney and I had to miss the little road trip around town, but we weren't feeling well that day. The scenery looked amazing!

Sad these are both a bit blurry, but Court enjoyed wearing Papa's cowboy hat.

 These girls love their books!

New words almost every day!

Courtney is at such a fun age. While she gets frustrated because I can't understand everything that comes out of her mouth, she is learning so many new things so quickly. It almost feels like she picks up a new word every day. One of my favorites she started recently is 'danger'. It is not a word I use often so I was really surprised the first time I heard her say it. Today when I went to change her diaper, which she often complains about these days, she whimpered 'danger'. So sad, but so cute at the same time. She also says 'church' and at the end of prayers (or at the end of reading a book) says 'ah-men'. When she sees herself in a mirror or in a picture she says 'baby'. She can't pick out who mama and dad are in pictures, but for some reason always recognizes Papa and occasionally Nana too.

She loves loves loves books. She will pick one out and run it up to me and say 'pleeeeeaasse'. She often wants to hear the same book read 5 times in a row before she tires of it and moves on to another one. Courtney also loves music and dancing. She has a few toys that play music and she will bend her knees or rock her head from side to side when a song is played. She is also a huge fan of Cheerios. I think she could probably eat an entire box in one sitting. She is getting to where she is more able to communicate what she wants. She will say please about ten times and will then walk over to her play table and point to the cup where I put her Cheerios. It's so neat to see her make connections and figure things out. I know she understands a lot more than what I am even aware of. One day we were skyping with Christopher's parents and I mentioned the 'seat' she makes for herself, which is really just a place on the floor in between a large speaker and small trunk (I described this in an earlier post). I asked her if she wanted to go sit in her seat and I didn't even think she would understand what I was talking about, but she walked right over to her spot and sat down. As a parent this is both a cool and scary realization. It makes me think how careful I need to be about what I say and I know that will become increasingly important as she will start to parrot all of it. There is nothing like having a child to keep you accountable.

Holding one of her musical toys and 'walking' her dog

Christmas at home

This was the first year in our married lives that we did not travel for the holidays. It was actually the first time ever that Christopher did not fly home for the holidays. There were a lot of things that went into making that decision, but anyone who has traveled with a year and a half old would understand. We were sad to not see the Poplins, but we did look forward to making the best of it and having a relaxed Christmas at home. It was nice to not have to deal with the stress of traveling. We got our Christmas tree the first weekend in December. Courtney loved the tree almost as much as I do. She quickly learned the word 'tree' and would say it constantly. It was the first thing she would say when she woke up. She liked the lights on it and would wiggle her finger at them. One night we took her to Hastings Ranch to drive through the neighborhood and look at lights. We got a couple ooohs and ahhhs from her, but not as much as I had expected. I think she was already a bit too tired to thoroughly enjoy it.

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house and opened our gifts with them. Courtney took one item out of her stocking and then was over it. We helped her along with opening everything else, but at this age it is easy to get overloaded. We spent Christmas day at home and it took a good few hours to get through the gifts we had bought as well as the ones the Poplins and Bradleys had sent. She seemed to really enjoy her new toys. She played with each one and seemed to have trouble deciding what to do because she wanted to play with them all at the same time. Of course the wrapping paper, bows, and boxes were a bit hit as well. I made my first holiday meal at home (with Christopher's assistance). It turned out really well and we were able to eat at a normal pace and in silence during Courtney's nap. It was wonderful.

Today we took down the Christmas tree and boxed up the decorations. It was sad. I love Christmas and I was also sad for Courtney. I wondered what she is going to look forward to now as soon as she wakes up? Will she be disappointed that there is no tree when she goes downstairs? Of course, she really didn't seem to notice much of a difference and didn't complain at all, but I will miss hearing her little excited voice saying 'mama, treeeee'.

I've always loved this advent calendar my mom made when we were all little. Apparently Court likes it too.

Christmas morning at home. Lately she loves pushing the laundry basket around the room. I couldn't resist adding the bow to her jammies.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. My sister and her family flew down to California and joined us for the first time in almost 10 years! That is definitely one of the difficult things about her living in a different state. We rarely see her at the holidays anymore, but we were so thankful they were able to come this year. My brother and his girlfriend also flew in, so all of them plus my grandma made my mom's house quite full. We drove out there nearly every day during their visit. Courtney and Maddie are getting closer to being able to really play together. I'm hoping that in the next year or so I will get to hear them chatting or singing along together. We took lots and lots of pictures of the kids and also quite a few group shots since it is so rare that we all get together. We all had a lot to be thankful for this year, but I was especially thankfully to have my family all together.

It's so hard to take pictures of kids this age (my kid was the most difficult)

One of our holiday traditions is designing unique rolls. Good job this year, folks!

We took the kids to a nearby playground a couple of times. Courtney loved the swing and it was the first time she wore shoes! Yeah I know some people think it is weird, but I felt like she didn't need any until she could walk well enough to be able to use them.

Firsts

The past couple months Courtney has had a handful of firsts. Two days before her first birthday she took 2 steps. Of course she did this almost immediately after I left the room, but thankfully Christopher was there to see it which was nice since I get to see most of her firsts first. For the next month or so she just took 2 and 3 steps at a time. Then right around when she turned 13 months, she started getting braver and within a week was walking across the room. I love her little toddle. It's so cute! She likes to scale along the wall and will still use the bins for balance some times, but she continues to get more and more comfortable with walking.

Courtney has also started talking some. She has said mama and dad for months now, but still doesn't call us them very regularly. She does say 'daz' for dance and then will wiggle when she says it. She also recently learned 'car' (and even pointed it out in her book) and will say 'cool' (last night she said it when we were reading her bible verses. She apparently thinks 2 Timothy 3:16 is coooool). I have a feeling that the talking will be like the walking was and that one day she will just start saying all sorts of words. In the meantime I enjoy listening to her chat away to herself using all sorts of inflections and sounds I don't understand.

Unfortunately there were also some less exciting firsts. Shortly after Courtney turned a year old we finally left her in the church nursery. We've been asked from a few people why it took us so long. It was for a few reasons. We had been attending a very large church and just didn't feel comfortable leaving her with people we'd never met and it just felt like she was too young for a while. We also kept hearing people say their baby would get sick after being in the nursery and I wasn't ready to subject her to that. She also is just a sensitive girl. She pretty much has been from the time she was born. She knows who she likes and doesn't like and is only really comfortable with a pretty limited number of people (most of whom are family). We began attending a different church this summer and while it is still a big church, thankfully the nursery area doesn't have too many other kids in it. We've left Courtney there maybe 4 times now and they've only called me to come help her once so far. However, both times I have taken her there when I've gone to MOPS, they've had to call me, but in all fairness almost two and a half hours is a long time for her to be away from me. I still feel so bad every time she cries when I leave. People keep telling me it will get better and I am sure it will, but in the mean time it breaks my heart that she has such a tough time.

Maybe related to that and maybe not, Courtney also got her first cold about two weeks ago. I actually thought it was great that it took over a year for her to have any illness (yay breastfeeding ;) ). It really wasn't even a bad cold. It was mostly just her nose running a lot and her having trouble sleeping because of it. Unfortunately I caught it too so I was trying to take care of getting myself better as well as her. We're both better now and are thankful for good health. I forget how much I take that for granted most of the time.

Taking a stroll

I took these when she was sick. She still had a pretty good attitude.