14 Months

It has been a crazy month! Christmas holiday flew by. It was a really eventful time with the passing of my Grandpa Magleby and Christmas and New Years and trying to see everyone. I have many posts that I need to do to get all caught up, but for now I am going to do an update on Violet since I feel like she has been changing so much lately. 

Her vocabulary has sky rocketed since we got to Utah. She learned how to walk while we were home and I'm pretty sure she gained the most weight over the holiday. She is seriously such a crack up. She tries to copy almost any word you say to her and it's usually pretty close to sounding like the real word. The other night we were at dinner with our friends Patrick and Sarah and she practically said Patrick perfectly. She still fake laughs whenever she hears other people laugh. She has started acting silly on purpose, which I love. She will make goofy noises or blow spit bubbles and look at us and laugh histerically. She is still sassy and sweet and a hoot all in one.

She learned everyone's names while we were home. She can say Grandma ( Mamaw) Grandpa ( Papaw) Max( Maaa) JoJo( Doe Doe) Kate ( Kay) Vinny( Dinny) Frankie (Ankie) Jayne( Nane) Dayna( Nana) Steve( Seeee) Chloe ( CloeCloe). 

She learned new animal noises- Snake, Lion, Elephant, Bear, Bunny( this one she just blows air out her nose and wiggles it) and Alligator( this one she claps her hands together and says chomp)

She learned new animal names( she doesn't say them well but if you ask her to point at it she knows which one it is) Zebra, Giraffe, Elephant, Snake, Rhino, Alligator and Bear.

She learned to say 2 after you say 1.

She learned to say "Go" when you say " ready set".

She learned to say peek a boo and cover her eyes and throw her hands up.

She learned to blow kisses

She now pretends to be on the phone when she hears the phone ring and says " hello"

She learned to say snow right in time for this crazy storm that hit Michigan.

She learned to say please and thank you and all done. Lots of times when I give her some food on her tray she says thank you without me even prompting her. It's really sweet.

She learned the word no which has not been my favorite thing. It has been helpful in lots of instances for her to genuinely tell us she doesn't want something. I am not loving it when I try to wipe her hands and face though.

Her most favorite word is show. It was so nice in Utah because she had cousins to play with and new toys and we were out and about a lot. She hardly ever watched any shows( I would prefer it that way honestly) Then coming home on the airplane she got to watch to her hearts content b/c if she does she is the world's easiest traveler. Now since we have been home she constantly asks me for a show. It's not that I am anti TV or anything. I actually think she has gotten so good at her animal noises and names  because of baby einstein but I love it when she reads her books and plays with toys. 

She walks all over the place now and has yet to pull anything off a shelf or open a single cupboard. Seriously you guys the only thing she pulls off are her books from her toy shelves. Fingers crossed is all I have to say!!

She builds towers with her blocks. She is actually really good and gets them really high.

Now for the not so fun parts. She still hates it when any other baby comes into her space and touches her ( example: using her to pull up or steady themselves) She cries and will lots of times tell them no. We had a few instances with her cousin Frankie and hitting. Oh joy! She does not like being crawled on having toys taken from her. She doesn't seem to react that way to kids her size or older but if they are smaller than her she gets really defensive really quickly. We have taught her being soft and it is working for the most part.. except when she is soft with her sippy cup on babies heads.We will be working on that.  She gets very distraught when I tell her no show. It usually involves some amount of crying and pouting. About once every other week she totally avoids her afternoon nap and plays in her crib for an hour or so. It makes for a really fun evening. I think we will be transitioning to 1 nap soon. She is a total drama queen if she falls or bumps into anything while walking. Mike and I usually just ignore her but she can pull out the theatrics real fast. We are not shocked at all that she has a flare for the dramatic. We could tell from a pretty young age that she was going to be like that.

Sorry this is such a long post but this is my journal for Vi and our family so if I don't jot it down then chances are I won't remember. Violet is a sweet heart and incase you were wondering she is still totally in love with her daddy and asks for him all the time. I still snuggle her to sleep almost every night because I love that time with her. She makes everyone happy around her because she is such a happy girl! I am grateful for her content personality and her ability to learn. She is already so compassionate with people and stuffed animals( seriously she holds them and pats their backs). We love her so much! I can't believe how big she is getting and how long her hair is starting to get. Before I know it she won't be a baby and that kind of kills me a little. Anyway that's our update on the Vi girl.

Standing up is not so easy for this girl with her giant belly

Blowing kisses with a fat face

One TWO!

Peek a boo!

Not so easy putting that bow back on once you pull it off

Hey hair!! It is in a super awkward phase right now. But she does love her walker

The Big Apple

So when we found out that my aunt Holly would be moving to New York for a year for culinary school Mike and I knew we had to make the trip over Thanksgiving to see her. She was going to cook the whole meal!! Sign me up! That was not the only reason we wanted to go. My dad's other sister my aunt Heather and her family live in New Jersey. We hardly get to see them and since we are so close to the east coast we thought it would be a great chance to spend a holiday with them. Mike had also never been to New York! My good friend Amanda lives in New York too and I had not met her cute little girl Emma Perry yet. My cousin Klane and his wife Angie also live there and we don't get to see them very often either. So as you can see we had a serious amount of reasons to go to New York. 

So Tuesday night before Thanksgiving we hoped in our car and drove almost the whole way. Then we hit that nasty snow storm that came in and decided to call it a night and get a hotel. Wednesday we got up and drove to NJ to my aunts house. She drove us into the city to drop off our luggage at my cousin Hayley's house, who we would be staying with. Then she drove us right into Time Square. Okay so the weather that first day was pretty awful. There was lots of rain and wind and it was cold. So we tried to stay inside the best we could. We went into the shops around time square. I especially wanted to take Vi into Toys R Us to see the ferris wheel and all the characters. We went to the New York Public Library and saw the children's book exhibit and walked around a christmas market there. I loved it. I think it is so important to read to children and I appreciate so much that my parents made an effort to read to us. It was so interesting to see. We had pizza two different times that day! One was from a hole in the wall place around the corner from Hayley's house. The pieces were seriously bigger than our heads. The other was a brick oven style. Both were really good. They were out of banana pudding at Magnolia's so we got cupcakes( Am I the only one who is not really a fan of their cupcakes??) We walked and saw Rockafeller center and watched the christmas display on the side of Saks. Inside Saks was breathtaking with all the snowy branches! I loved it. We managed our way on the subway and got Vi down for bed at a decent hour. She was eating up all the attention from new people.  I decided to take these posts one day at a time since I am still catching up on orders for the shop and Vi is napping. First day despite the weather was still very fun!

Oh and P.S. the post should really be Mike goes to New York bc pretty much all my pictures are of him. I was just so excited for him to be experiencing it all!!

Notre Dame

About two weeks ago Mike and I went to the BYU Notre Dame game in South Bend. It was so much fun. It was a 2.5 hour drive from our house and luckily we got there with no big weather issues. Our amazing friends offered to watch Vi during the game, which ended up being a life saver since it was so cold. I also might have cried when I said goodbye to her. It was really weird to be baby free for that long. We got there with enough time to walk around campus a bit and hear the band make their procession into the stadium. It is a really beautiful campus. The game was really fun. The Notre Dame fans were so kind. Everywhere we turned people were welcoming us to Notre Dame. The people who sat behind us at the game were so friendly and kept telling us all the cool traditions that Notre Dame football has. The beginning of the game was so exciting. They play this Irish music and the whole crowd started jumping up and down. it was such a cool environment. During the 3rd quarter the fans all started throwing thousands of marshmallows in the air. It seriously looked like a snow storm there were so many. I guess it is a tradition for senior night. Mike and I got the best soft pretzels I have ever had during half time. We were sad to lose but it was still such a fun game. I think it should for sure be on your bucket list to go to a Notre Dame game. It was freezing however!! On our way home we stopped at one of the best donut places, in Kalamazoo. I seriously dream about that Oreo donut. Luckily Vi really missed me… not. She didn't even care that I was there. She started crying when I took her away from mike. Whatever, I will never be as loved as he is by Vi. All in all it was a great day. 

Go Cougars!!

Mike and touchdown Jesus.

I could not get a good picture where the marshmallows actually showed up but this was the best one. Look closer the the heads of the people.

JFK

This past weekend was the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. One really cool thing about where we live is that we are 30 minutes away from the Henry Ford Museum. That is the location of the car JFK rode in as well as a lot of other really great historical items. It was a really cool experience to be there on the anniversary. Mike and I had recently been watching a series about the Kennedy family and so we were both that much more interested in the whole conspiracy and all the discussion going on about the assassination. There were tons of people in line to see the car and police officers all over the place. We had a really fun time with our friends the Blomquists, walking around and seeing all the different exhibits. We saw the Rosa Parks bus, the chair Lincoln was shot in and the JFK car. There were lots of other cool cars and even trains. Vi really liked it. They had a few areas where there were play houses and toys. There were also lots of things you could go and sit in. It was a fun afternoon. We want to go back when the weather is nicer and walk through the village that is right next to the museum.  

Getting to ride on some farm equipment 

Sitting in the sink of a prototype home from the 60's. It was actually really cool. The whole house was 1,100 square feet and was an aluminum circle. They had revolving closets and very tiny sinks.

They had an avatar exhibit while we were there

Cutest little bums around

Watching the train go by

Riding on the Rosa Parks bus