See ya, Mom & Dad!

Felicity is officially off and walking! And loving it, I might add. She took her first steps right before she turned 11 months (Jan. 27) and pretty much took 5-6 steps over the next two weeks. I never realized how hard it is to decipher the "official" date for these milestones, but Justin and I agreed that it was probably on Feb. 23 that she officially started "walking". That was the first time she didn't use anything to pull herself up and took a substantial amount of steps, walking to who else, but her daddy. Oh my, how she loves him. ;-) She ventures all over the house now and loves to explore things from her new viewpoint 2 1/2 feet up in the air.



First character obsession

Justin recently went on a business trip to Orlando and was so sweet to pick out a few Disney souvenirs for the Lici-bear! As a side note, I am just counting down the days (or years) till Fe is old enough for a trip to Disney. I have so many fond memories of trips to Disney World with my family and still got lost in the wonderment of it all. I can't wait to see her little face when she sees the castle, meets Minnie, rides the teacups...ok, I'll stop going on and on about it - as we have no trip planned anytime soon, but as you can see, I'm already pumped! 

Back to my story... One of the things that Daddy picked out for the little lady was some Disney princess bath toys. They are precious and at first she gave all six of them a shot at being her friend. Here she is playing with Cinderella and Belle (among others) in the bathtub...

But now that she has gotten to know the girls, she's found a fave, for sure -- ARIEL. Lici loves the little mermaid. The dolls now spend more time out of the bathtub than in it, and Lici drags Ariel with her everywhere. I will put them in a big tub, and inevitably she digs through them all and gets Ariel out everytime.

She will sometimes still play with the others, but she refuses to sit Ariel down.

It is so precious to me...maybe because oh so long ago, I was also a little girl obsessed with Ariel. :-)

60 years together

We drove to Longview this weekend to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. My grandma and papa are two of my favorite people on earth and I am so thankful to them for setting such an example for what a Godly marriage looks like. They inspire me often to think about what type of legacy I will leave.

We went to Enoch Stomps, a winery in East Texas near Longview for a yummy lunch and wine tasting. I must say, Longview is getting snazzier and snazzier.

The happy couple...

The whole gang (minus Harry, who is serving in Afghanistan). It actually happened to be his birthday on the day we celebrated. Happy Birthday, Harry - we miss and love you!

Pretty peas!

Felicity has an official favorite food: PEAS!!!

She probably eats at least 1 whole cup of peas a day. Not much more to say than that...I just felt it was worth documenting.

11 months

Fe turned 11 months today! We're just one month away from her first birthday. I won't get all sentimental yet, but yikes! I can't believe we're already here.

(Please excuse the red, chapped cheeks. This winter storm has done a number on her sweet baby skin.)

• No wellness check-ups this month so I don't have official weight/height, but when we took her to the pediatric after hours clinic they weighed her (with her shoes and clothes on) and she was 20 lbs. 4 oz. She is definitely slimming up.
• Size 12 months clothes and size 3 diapers...I'm thinking by the summer she'll be wearing 18 months.
• She's still nursing four times a day and sleeping 11-12 hours at night. I'm planning to wean her at a year.
• Her naps have changed a bit and I'm still working on adapting, but in an ideal world she goes down for naps at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and sleeps for two hours each. The afternoon nap is usually shorter though.
• Felicity's hobbies include:
• Waving: This is her absolute favorite thing. It takes us forever in the grocery store because she just sits in the buggy waving at every single person, so of course they stop. If you don't see her, she will just keep waving until you notice her...and if she really likes you, you might get a double wave with both hands. Anytime she leaves a room or you leave a room - you get a wave.
• Dancing: Fe is a little dancing queen. Anytime any music comes on, particularly commercial jingles, she gets a huge smile on her face and starts-a-moving. If she's standing, those little legs start bending and she bounces up and down. If she's sitting down, she's starts twisting at her waist and waves her hands in the air. I love it!
• Sharing: Anything she has, she will give to you...and then promptly want back. She also likes to share her food and expects you to eat it.
• Playing pretend: She loves to pick up invisible things and hand them to you. She will wait patiently until you take it from her and pretend to eat it. And she has really started loving on her baby doll Honey gave her for Christmas. (See post below.) It is precious.
• One not-so-fun thing we are dealing with at this age is separation anxiety. We've been paged once from the nursery at church and some babysitting sessions have not gone so well. Hopefully this will pass soon, but for now she really prefers mommy and daddy...lots of "clingyness" going on at our house.
• Lici is still eating good, but getting a little pickier. She basically eats whatever we're eating now, just cut up into smaller pieces. She will pick through what is on her tray and throw whatever she doesn't want/like on the floor. I refuse to have a picky eater, so I'm determined to feed her a wide variety of foods to develop her taste buds. 
• She's not walking yet, but on Thurs., Jan. 27 (for my records) she took her first steps!! It was so exciting. Justin and I practice with her and try to entice her to walk, but she's still happy cruising around holding onto the furniture. She will take a few steps now and then...it's only a matter of time. She finally figured out how to use the little car we gave her for Christmas to stand behind and walk. She is so proud of herself walking down the hall waving bye bye.
• Hands down her favorite word is "dada"...she probably says this hundreds of times each day. Other faves include "mama" and "yaya".

We love you little lady!

Melt my heart

Fe has become a little mommy.

She has really started taking an interest in the baby doll Honey (her great grandmother) gave her for Christmas. She will pick her up, rock her and feed her the bottle. It is so precious. Looks our sweet baby is starting to turn into a little girl...except for the fact that she feeds herself the bottle more than the baby.

The Black Plague

Talk about a bad two days. The dreaded stomach virus paid us a nasty visit this weekend and boy, was it rough. Friday night we went out to dinner and all was well. Saturday morning was when the storm broke. It all started when Justin went in to pick Felicity up from her crib when she woke up and the poor little thing was covered in throw up. We felt so bad, but we had no idea. She hadn't made any sounds after we put her to bed, so we figured everything was fine. I thought maybe she had just overeaten the night before since she had quite a lot for dinner and had tried some new foods for the first time....so we got her cleaned up, I nursed her and fed her breakfast as usual. That's when the real drama began. It wasn't long after that until she started constant rounds of vomiting and diarrhea. A Saturday full of that is just not what you want. We finally took her the Pediatric After Hours Clinic that evening as she wasn't keeping anything down and we were afraid she was getting dehydrated. A large deductible payment later, we were given the strict medical advice to go home and just "wait it out." I guess we should have known, but being first time parents, we didn't really know what else to do.

Pitiful, isn't she?...but sort of sweet at the same time.

(We were trying to get her to stay still and watch Sesame Street, which lasted all of about 5 seconds. We're not into staying still these days.)

After one last vomit session she went to bed Saturday night, and thankfully she was fine the next day. I won't go into details about my bout with the bug, but the next morning my stomach started to feel a little uneasy. "Surely not me too," I thought. Ha! That evil thing took hold of me before I even knew what hit me. I can honestly say I have not been that sick in a very, very long time. I seriously thought I was going to have to go to the ER and get an IV of fluids. I could not keep anything down.

Total vomit count? Justin threw up once, Fe topped out at six times and I lost count somewhere after I hit 25 times...needless to say, we are very glad that it has left our house! We're still taking it easy around here, especially with the diet, but so far, so good. I guess the only positive thing that came out of it was that I lost seven pounds in one day. Now to the mounds of stinky laundry and 'Lysoling' the place...