Grandma's Helper

Mena helped Grandma decorate for Christmas when she spent the night. This is what Grandma said about decorating together: "When I set up the nativity, I handed Mena the pieces, and she put them up. The animals are in front, Joseph is facing away from Mary & baby Jesus, and the Wise Men are not together. I told her that the sheep didn't usually stand up so if they laid down that was okay. When she put baby Jesus in, she said, "He lays down right?" She loved putting the ice cycles on better than the purple glass balls. She also liked putting 2-3 ice cycles together!! It was fun having a kid to help me decorate again!"

While Mena was at Grandma's, I thought Maggie would be thrilled to have Mommy and Daddy to herself. I was surprised that instead of trying to get our attention, Maggie was totally focused on playing with her toys. I think she was thrilled that no one was around to take her toys away! Maggie was particularly focused on the picnic basket that she got for her birthday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Frye's. The first picture is of Jake and Maggie taking turns with the toy. Luckily, Maggie is pretty laid back about toys being taken from her; Jake decided when it was his or her turn and she just let him take it and waited for him to give it back. The cousins get along well! Grandma Frye took the picture of Gene, Jen, and Mena. I took the picture of Maggie and I by holding the camera out in front of us. Mena is quite the Grandma's girl. She was cozy on Grandma's lap. Mena got to spend the night with Grandma. When we were getting ready to leave Mena said something about "my grandma." I asked if she would share Grandma with me and she said "yes." I then asked if she would share Grandma with Grandpa and she said, "no." Grandpa laughed along with the rest of us.

Happy 1st Birthday! Cake

Maggie gave us strange looks while we were singing "Happy Birthday" to her. She wasn't sure she wanted to taste the cake or frosting. Then she licked her lips and decided this was good stuff. She dug right in after that!  Tyler was disturbed when just a little frosting got on his finger--so different from Maggie!

Happy 1st Birthday! Presents

 

 

Maggie's stats from her 1 year check up:  30 inches tall (76%), 23 pounds 2 ounces (90%), Head 18.75 inches (95-98%).  Maggie now has 7 teeth (4 on top and 3 on bottom).  She walks while holding only one of our hands and within a week of her birthday, she took 2 steps on her own and began standing up on her own in the middle of the floor where there was nothing to hold onto.  Maggie has quite a few "words" that she is consistently saying that I understand (others don't always understand them):  uh oh, ow, hi, no, more, num (yum), ya, go, woah.  I haven't used sign language consistently with her since Maggie is using so many words.  Maggie is wearing size 18 month clothing.


Maggie wasn't sure what to think of our party or opening gifts. Mena was very excited for Maggie's party.  Maggie was very excited to find the toys inside her presents that Mena helped her to open. Maggie's enjoying her new puppy, picnic basket, swimming penguins, and gas station with car wash. We had my family over to our house for supper and cake with ice cream. The new table Gene and I found on craig's list worked wonderfully! We added in the two leaves and were able to fit 10 people around the table. The big kids sat at the picnic table.

Salome

Gene got a cat. We went as a family to look at the possibilities and found a very mellow female at the humane society. Gene named her Salome. She spends most of her time hiding from all of us. In the first pictures, Maggie is inspecting the cat supplies. In the last few pictures, Mena and Daddy are looking at Salome hiding under our bed. We'll need to get a picture of the cat now that she's starting to get used to us. We removed the door to the basement and have a gate up at the top of the stairs so the cat can go up and down and Maggie can't go up and down. So far the cat has scaled the gate to go back downstairs, but we've always had to carry her or open the gate for her to come upstairs. I think she likes the calm of the basement :)

Cherub Choir

November 13th, Mena's Cherub Choir sang "I've Got the Joy." Mena again stood up in front of the church nicely. She didn't sing, but she did some of the actions this time! She really enjoys choir and looks forward to the Wednesday nights we spend at church!

October Fun

Mena and Ky didn't want to listen to me explain the rules of Candyland; they just made up their own rules and had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun inside and outside during October. The weather was mild so we could enjoy the backyard.

This is the last month with pictures of what we do during the day.  October 24th, I started working outside the home.  I'm now teaching 4-6 year olds at Colorful Minds Child Development Center.