Goldfish Giggles

All of this just because apparently the way I eat goldfish crackers is hilarious.

Busy times with Jane Eyre

Things are kind of crazy around here, not much time for blogging.  We had Christmas, and family visiting, and we bought a new car, and this week we are moving into a house, and next week Billy starts school again, and Maryn is growing so quickly, and all of these things and more deserve their own individual blog post.  Soon.  In the mean time here are three things I read today that were encouraging.  And one ridiculously cute video of Maryn.  Enjoy.

Cast Your Home Cares - from the girltalkers

Don't Carpe Diem - a mom blog

My Better Half - by R.C. Sproul Jr, who just lost his wife to cancer

Itsy Bitsy

This video is from 3 weeks ago and is too cute not to share. The Itsy Bitsy Spider is Maryn's very most favorite song right now and she asks us to sing it over and over every day!

Maryn's Got Wheels

Thanks Grandad and Gran!

Push-Walking

I have a couple of blog posts in mind once I actually get the time to sit down and put them together.  Until then, I thought the grandparents would enjoy video of Maryn's newest skill - walking with the push toy we got her for her birthday.  She gets better every day and she has a ball with it.  Sorry that the video is sideways; I forgot to change it.

Birthday Bash

As you can imagine, we had a lot of fun celebrating Maryn's big (birdie-themed) day.  We had our friends the Gaudets and the Smiths (no relation, lol) over to par-tay with Maryn.

The day had a rough start.  Maryn's one-year old intuition told her something was up.  Thus, she refused to take any naps that day.  She was a big cranky pants.

Then 5 o'clock came around, and Miss Brette walked in the door; all of Maryn's grumpies disappeared immediately and stayed away the rest of the evening.  Thank God for Brette.  :)

With the Smiths - the younger, more likable ones :)

First taste of pizza

She got to open LOTS of gifts, because we saved all the gifts from relatives for the party.

Olivia was a big help.  I think she enjoyed opening the gifts a lot more than Maryn did.

I think the baby doll from Momma and Dadda was her favorite.  She immediately started hugging and patting it while saying "aww" and pretty much hasn't put it down in the week since the party.

Sweet baby Kyle slept for most of the time.

The cupcakes (made by a co-worker) were fantastic.

Maryn's special cupcake.

We watched the video montage of her first year; no one enjoyed it nearly as much as Maryn did.  She danced and laughed during the whole thing.  She loves being the center of attention.

Maryn and her friend Olivia in a brief pause during the sugar-high madness that ensued.  I think both girls slept really well that night.

Maryn also loved her tambourine.

In sum, Maryn had a happy birthday indeed.  And no two parents were ever so blessed to celebrate such a wonderful one-year-old gift from God.

Maryn's Birthday Video

I promise I will get around to blogging about Maryn's birthday party and her 12 month old/1 year update post (I'll wait until after her check-up with the pediatrician later this week).  In the meantime, suffice it to say that Maryn's birthday was a blast and we had a wonderful birthday weekend together celebrating our sweet little baby-cakes.  Here is the video I made to show at her party and to re-live her amazing year:

Crawling!

Two days before turning 11 months old, Maryn started crawling. She has had a huge burst of development in the last 2 weeks. And she is even better now than in this video. It's a very slow, deliberate crawl and absolutely adorable! I'll do an 11 month update soon, but for now, it is with great celebration I present to you...crawling:

Da-Da Gets A Kiss

Maryn is a genius :)

Aww Face

Sippy Straw!!!

Here's a video of one of Maryn's newest skills: drinking from a straw! She's always refused a regular sippy cup, but took to the straw immediately. Which makes me happy, because before she preferred my cup, which led to yucky "floaties" in my drink. Please ignore my embarrassing commentary. And the fact that we still have frames that have not been hung on the wall. :)

Single Baby

Maryn recently started "dancing" - you know, how babies bounce to music? It is quite possibly the cutest thing ever. Here's a video of her dancing while watching the music video for Beyonce's "Single Ladies." The song is stupid and shallow, with annoying repetitious music. But a while back, Billy and I read an article about how babies really like the video and song, because of it's primitive beat and movements, and black and white color scheme. Now that Maryn is dancing, we wanted to do an experiment to see if she, too, seemed to like the video. I think the answer is yes.  (She also shows off her new clapping skills.)

Maryn says "gggg"

Bob Loblaw