10 Months

Today's conversation went like this:
"Here I am! Cheese!"
"Ok, my turn to use the camera!" (which means putting it in her mouth)
"You know I can't sit still! Look at what a big girl I am!"

and here she is after dinner, where she loves to smear her food in her hair...
Blake is quite the busy bee. She is a fast crawler, likes to pull up to stand on people and furniture, can "walk" down furniture, loves music and will sing along, is very excitable, loves to give kisses and sounds like she's panting when she gets really excited. Blake has 6 teeth, 2 top, 4 bottom, which you can see pretty well in the above picture. She has been sick for 1.5 weeks of this past month, but like I said before, she is acting like herself again. She can wave bye-bye (for real, not her straight arm version), and LOVES playing in my closet with all my shoes... the kitchen drawers, dishwasher, and refrigerator are also becoming favorites.

Cowgirl

This lucky little girl, or loved little girl, got a horse for Christmas. Isn't this Radio Flyer rocking horse the cutest thing ever??!?! Blake loves it!! She'll point to it and kind of grunt, which is her way of telling us what she wants. So you turn it on and it whinnies, clip clops, and plays "Home on the Range." She really gets excited when it starts playing the song. That's when she really starts bouncing. You can either bounce up and down, or rock back and forth. She's barely heavy enough to bounce and hasn't figured out how to rock it yet. When the song starts she usually starts flapping one arm up and down, which you can kind of see in this next picture.
Yee Haw!! Thanks Mammy and Big Daddy!
PS. Blake had a check up at the pediatrician today who said her lungs sound good, but her ears are still infected. She's on day 6 of 10 of her antibiotic so hopefully by day 10 it will be all cleared up. You can tell she's back acting like herself though!!

Better

Well Blake is better now. She still has a cough and a little runny nose, but is acting almost 100%, so that makes for a happy mommy. Speaking of me, I have been sick since the first Monday of my Christmas break, so about 3 weeks now, and went to the doctor last Thursday and have started meds. I am on the mend now, even better enough to get Oscar's for us (drive through only)! Tim is now getting it and is starting to go downhill, I just hope his doesn't last 3 weeks and that we can get all of us well!! Blake is considered contagious until all her symptoms are gone... We have definitely been cooped up lately. I'm not taking her out anywhere!

Sick!

It all started last Monday when Blake starting running a fever, coughing, and having a stuffy nose. By Tuesday, as the fever climbed to 101 degrees, and then 102, I went ahead and made an appointment to see the pediatrician. He was not there that day, so we saw a different doctor who examined her and said she had bronchiolitis. All we could do to help Blake was to just make her comfortable. So I spent the next week suctioning out her nose that just dripped with snot, and came out even worse with her big sneezes! She just coughed til she cried, sneezed, and slept. I spent most of the week laying on the couch with Blake so she would sleep. Cut to yesterday, when we went back to the doctor, this time seeing our usual pediatrician. She still had fever of around 100, still coughing, congested, same story. So after 4 hours, labwork and chest x-rays..... Blake has bronchiolitis, and RSV. She seems to be a little better today and has even laughed a little. Hopefully she is now on the road to recovery!

First Christmas

We are back home after a whirlwind first Christmas for Blake. We celebrated early with Grandma and Grandpa (a.k.a. Pappaw) here Tuesday night before we left town. Blake wasn't really sure what to think about all the presents, boxes, and paper everywhere, but I would have to say that her favorite thing of all of the great presents she received was her little bendable Pinnochio. She's chewing on it in this picture!
Then, after Tim worked a half-day on Wednesday, we set off for Frisco to see Grandpa and Grammy. It was Blake's first big trip in her new car seat! But, like her other seat, after about 4ish hours in it, she had had enough! If I had my way, I would squish Texas to make everyone closer together.
Grammy and Grandpa put Blake to bed that night so Tim and I could go see Bleu Edmondson (love him!) at Hank's with Tim's brother Juan and some friends. Great concert!!

Here is our cutie pie in her Christmas Eve outfit. Yes, it's Polo and yes, Tim picked it out. ha ha! We attempted at wearing her cute new shoes for Christmas Eve mass, and they stayed on her part of the time...
A small blizzard blew in that day. (I know if you're used to snow it was nothing, but for me, it was a blizzard!) Mass at 5:00 was so crowded as everyone was trying to go before the roads got worse. P.S. We are still working on Blake's inside voice! We always try to sit in the back of church and luckily we were forced to stand by the door it was so crowded.

Then we celebrated Christmas at Tim's Grandma Petra's. Let's just say that there was lots of good Mexican food and lots of family! We had to leave before gifts because of the roads, Blake's overdue bedtime, and partial meltdown.
Christmas morning Blake went to scope out the tree and did notice that many more presents appeared than were there before. Can we say spoiled??
Blake was showered with gifts from grandparents, great-grandparents, family friends, aunts, uncles, and her mom and dad! We saved our gifts to open on Christmas day. Then that night we had a little Christmas party with friends and played an "As-seen-on-TV" white elephant game. Thanks for whoever brought what I received. ha ha.

All in all, a great Christmas, but also tiring!!! I am glad to have a week off to settle back in, do laundry, unpack, and organize all our new stuff. Thank you to everyone for all our gifts and memories.

9 Month Check Up

Well, I am off from teaching for 2 weeks (yay!) but am not feeling so great. Hopefully I feel better before we go to Frisco to visit Tim's family. So sorry, but no picture today! Blake had her 9 month well check this morning, and I was looking forward to her first visit with no shots, but she ended up getting her seasonal flu booster and the H1N1 shot, which she'll get a booster for in 30 days. Blake has gained 2 pounds and grown 2 inches since her 6 mo. checkup, which puts her at 30 inches long (97%) and 19 pounds 4 ounces (80%). I prepared myself for the fussiness and slight fever Blake usually gets from shots... but knock on wood- so far she's so happy! My little monkey is crawling all over the house these days, pulling up on everything, "walking" down the couch using her hands, and getting into any and everything! And I wouldn't want it any other way!

9 months

Oh.My.Gosh! Really 9 months already??
Today's conversation went something like this...
"Mom, don't you know by know I'm not going to sit still???"
"How about we read this book instead?"
"Ok, I'll stay in the chair! WOO HOO!"

Blake is such a busy child! (I think every mother of a young child says that...) But she really is. She is crawling now, and really fast at that! She loves to look at the Christmas tree and pull the ornaments off! So only the top 3/4 of our tree is decorated. And just today as we were all three sitting in the living room, I looked over at Blake who was STANDING, holding onto the couch with one hand while waving the other hand around. I can't believe my baby is standing! Slow down life!!!!
Blake still wears size 12 month clothes, size 3 diapers, and weighs about 19 pounds. She has 5 teeth, with the 6th one about to poke through any second now. We go for her 9 month check up on the 21st, so I will update with more specifics then.