Pictures

Nicole has really enjoyed the sunshine these past weekends.


Here she is getting ready for her first bike ride!



Here she is knocked out during a long walk on a local trail.

I've also been taking her out to swing on her swing set. She really likes it, but she needs a toddler swing for her birthday.

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Catching up

I haven't updated this blog in awhile, but I keep meaning to.  It just seems that so much is happening that I don't know where to start with an update.  Nicole is 11 months today and I'm anxiously planning her birthday.  We are going to have a party here at the house.  I'd love it if all her family and our friends could be here to celebrate, but it is impossible to get everyone together from all over the place.  I haven't lived near all of my family since I was five, so I'm pretty used to being away from them, but I hate that Nicole won't grow up close to her cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.  Oh well, it is what it is and we will make the best of it.  This party is going to be lots of fun.  I have her birthday pictures scheduled in a couple weeks, so that we will have the pictures in time for the party.  I got her the cutest little birthday outfit.  I can't wait for everyone to see it. 

Nicole is such a little monkey.  We have jokingly called her that for awhile, but now that she is really on the move, she is really earning the nickname.  She isn't walking just yet on her own, but she wants to walk everywhere she goes.  She just has to hold our hands.  She is getting a little better at standing on her own for longer, but when she realizes she is doing it, she drops down to her knees.  She climbs everything! EVERYTHING! We were looking out the back door yesterday waiting for Roxy and she starting "walking" up the door.  She climbs all over us when we sit on the floor with her.  She tries to climb in and out of the bathtub on her own.  She has so much energy.  I remember the first time we saw her in an ultrasound, we said she was "dancing."  I don't think she has really stopped moving since. 

The weather is starting to get warmer here and it is really beautiful! We went out and got a bike trailer that we can pull behind our bike.  She LOVED it!!  When we put her in, she just kept making this silly face.  Once we started moving, she just looked around at everything and then started to make sounds with her mouth.  As we were going over the bumps, she liked the way it sounded.  I don't think she stopped making those noises until we were done.  I can't wait to get her out on more rides.  We've also dusted off the jogging stroller and we took her out for a 4-mile walk last weekend.  It was such a nice day and she just passed out almost as soon as we started.  The more I look at the picture, I wish somebody would push me around in stroller on a nice day, so I can take a nice long nap.

Nicole still isn't doing well with her sleep.  She still needs Mommy to put her to sleep and she still wakes up a few times throughout the night to either eat or make sure I'm still there.  I've been reading all the sleep books and I'm finally ready to start doing some sleep training.  I'd like to have her falling asleep on her own by her birthday.  Then I will finally get a good nights rest (at least I'm hoping I will). 

I think this is a good update for now, hopefully I'll find more time to do this again soon.
 I'll post pictures from my phone in a second blog post.

1st Christmas

I have been so excited to celebrate Nicole's first Christmas!  I had to hold myself back and not buy her everything I wanted for her.  I know she doesn't need a bunch of toys.  We've only been in our house for a little less than a month and this month has been really hectic getting everything settled, so we didn't get a tree put up until Christmas Eve.  I'm glad we got it up though.  It was fun to wake up on Christmas and go and open presents by it.  Nicole and Roxy were both pretty overwhelmed by all the excitement.  Nicole played with anything and everything.  She loves her toys though.  Here are some pictures of her playing with them.

Here Nicole is hanging out by the Christmas Tree.  We just painted the walls this color.

Nicole helping Daddy open his stocking

Nicole was crawling around and picked up a tail

She loves this book.  It is her friend Scout and he reads to her as she turns the pages

Miss Krystal and Baby Jake reading Nicole her Christmas presents from them.

Thanksgiving (Part 2)

I can't believe I made a Thanksgiving post without posting a picture of Nicole with her Thanksgiving dress on.  She looks so cute in it.

Gobble Gobble

I've been trying to get her to try more foods, but she really doesn't like them much.  On Thanksgiving I had to get her to try Turkey, so I mixed it with sweet potatoes.  She did not like it at all.   Here is a pic.

Thanksgiving

There are so many things I'm thankful for this year.  Especially my beautiful and healthy little Nicole!

Since we have been in Virginia, we have been in a hotel and Nicole hasn't really been sleeping very well.  This has prevented us from traveling around to see all our family like we planned.  We had grown really tired of the hotel though and decided we should probably get out of town for the week of Thanksgiving.  We decided to go to IL.  Nicole did awesome on the flight.  She played on the first leg and then slept on the second leg.  Then she slept the whole drive from St. Louis up to my Dad's house.  It was a great day!  I have a lot of family in IL and I wanted to see all of them.  Nicole met so many people!

We had such a great week and Nicole was even good for the return flight.  She even started teething while we were gone.  She was really congested and I think we may have discovered she is allergic to cats.  Despite all that, she was great and everyone she met fell in love with her.  I love showing her off to people.  Her smile just lights up the room.

Enjoying Grandpa

Playing with Aunt Jackie

Kisses from Grandma

Uncle Dave and Aunt Marie

Nicole and her Cousin Drew

Christmas

I can't wait until Nicole's first Christmas! She is going to love it! I can't wait for us to move into our house to decorate for it. I updated our amazon wishlist to add stuff I would like Nicole to get. It is going to be so much fun. I've ready had fun buying a couple things. Here is a pic of one of them.



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Back to normal

We have been living in a hotel for over a month now. We have 23 more days before we can move into our house. Gradually we are getting settled in the new area. We love the area here. We both have our cars now and we both started work this week. I like my new office. The people are really nice and I think I will like the job. Shaun wasn't really sure where we was going to work and what he was going to do until Wednesday. He thinks he is going to like it though. He even have his own office.
Nicole also started daycare this week. It was rough for me to drop her off. I know she will like it, but I will just miss spending the day with her. She is always so happy and she has been so much fun. The daycare is great and she seems to like it. She is in a room with other kids under a year. This is really the first time she has been around kids around her age. I think having a regular routine is helping her sleep, too. She is getting much better when I put her to bed.
23 more days and we will finally be so much closer to a normal routine and life. We can't wait!!!



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