Nine months (2/1/09)

It's February 1st and we have a nine-month-old here at the Downing household!

The funniest thing Genevieve is doing right now is making different faces and noises. She's been cracking us up and she cracks herself up too. Her giggling is adorable and it can just make your day. On a developmental note, she is eating all kinds of foods and is getting the hang of feeding herself. She uses the pincher grip (pointer finger and thumb) and can now actually get the food into her mouth. This is in contrast to the days when she would almost shove her whole hand in her mouth, but when she pulled it back out, the food would still be tightly trapped in her fist. She's gladly eaten everything we've given her so far. She'll make funny faces when she tastes something for the first time but then shakes her legs and bangs her hands on her highchair tray, signaling that she wants more.

Genevieve is also making her way back to sleeping in her crib. We can make it through most of the night and she'll wake up between 5-6am for a feeding and then she'll go back to sleep until around 8-8:30. Whether or not she gets put back in her crib after the early morning feeding depends on my own sleepiness. I wish she would fall asleep a bit earlier in the evenings but otherwise I think this is a fair schedule. I'm usually able to have some special time with Tristan when he wakes up in the morning. I can get him dressed, teeth brushed, make his breakfast, make his lunch, put his shoes on and have him ready to go to school, before Genevieve wakes up on most mornings. As I'm getting my hugs and saying bye-bye to Tristan, I hear the cries from upstairs. It's so nice to be able to have that one-on-one time with each child in the mornings and I'm grateful that James is able to take Tristan to school.

Our kids make our lives awesome! "Thank you," to both of our babies!

Random January Fun - 2009

Here is the random picture post for this month. The features include: "Is it a brush, a microphone, or a snack?", wearing our John Deere onesie while sitting in the cow chair (because it seemed appropriate), riding our bouncy zebra, Tristan modeling the headband that won't stay on Genevieve's head, and a picture of screaming, just because. Enjoy!

Ashley's Birthday

How many attempts does it take to get one good picture when you're working with little ones???










This time it wasn't actually too bad. Only nine tries (you should see our folder of out-takes from the Christmas card - ahhh). Tristan is into the "squinty eyed" smile thing right now so I knew I probably wouldn't be able to improve on that. Thank goodness for digital cameras!

We made a special birthday card for Ashley with the pictures we took and Tristan got to decorate it. He loves (his) "my Ashley!"

Later we went to Gran and Grampie's house for Ashley's birthday dinner and we celebrated with party poppers and fun hats. Happy Birthday Ashley! We love you!

Standing up (again)

Genevieve first pulled herself up to the standing position on December 26th, but hadn't done it again since then. Until today. It's mid-January and all she's done today is crawl to the nearest item that she can pull up on, no matter where in the room you place her. When she stands up, she bounces up and down and does a little dance. She's so proud of herself! We're proud of her too and I can't get enough of her little booty wiggling while she does the bounce-y dance.

P.S. How do you like that make-shift baby gate???

We have other gates but they are in use elsewhere so we are trying to get creative!

Learning about cups

Genevieve is showing an interest in drinking from Tristan's cups. She doesn't discriminate, she tries to take his sippy cups and his 'big boy' cups so I gave her a cup of her own to see how she would do. It took a couple of tries. She was disappointed when the handle wouldn't give her what she wanted, but eventually she figured it out.

A few weeks later: The downside is that she is OVER bottles, won't have anything to do with them unless you just want her to play with it and she won't drink milk out of the cup yet. So by giving her a cup, I made it next to impossible for me to get out of the house at night. Obviously no one else can nurse her and she cries if you try to give her a bottle or a cup at nighttime. We've made it work twice in the last month or so. Aunt Jennifer and Aunt Renae are troopers for trying to work their "calm the baby" magic. Thanks guys, for my nights out. Tonight is Daddy's turn...he he he. Bunko calls!

Extreme Snowman

No, we cannot say that we had anything to do with this masterpiece. Did you notice the slight "dusting" of snow we had in early December? I was so excited about it that I included a picture of it in the blog. Ha! Silly transplanted Michigander/Texan!

You have to live in the proper climate and have access to large amounts of the proper medium (lots and lots of snow) to be able to pull this off. Some of our extended family in Michigan build a giant snowman every year and I wanted to show it off. Look at that team effort! It's really quite amazing.

He is about 15 feet tall, to the top of his hat. Enjoy!!!

Eight months old! (01/01/09)

On the first day of 2009, Genevieve turned eight months old and wanted to show off her cute giraffe socks! Happy New Year!

Due to the holidays, teething and appointments getting rescheduled, our official 6-month-checkup was delayed until now. I was trying to take her to the doctor while Tristan was in school because I knew it was time for more shots. Well, the doctor's office called and rescheduled for the second time and there weren't any openings on any day before 2pm unless we waited two more months. That was a bit hard for me to believe, but whatever. All three of us went and it was almost as hard on Tristan as it was for Genevieve. He kept telling the nurse to "be nice" (to) "my baby!" His concern was cute but I felt bad that he was so distressed over it. I tried to warn/prep him about how the baby was going to cry before we even arrived but that didn't go far in the heat of the moment. Other than the shots though, it was a great appointment. Tristan sat nicely and read books and loved it when the doctor was using her "tools" to see into Genevieve's ears and such. Genevieve is growing like a weed and now weighs 18 pounds and is 28 inches tall! She's also become a crawling machine. She can go pretty fast, especially when she's heading for the kitchen or somewhere she knows she's not supposed to go. She'll look back at you with her big, cute eyes, then turn forward and make a beeline for her preferred destination while giggling wildly. It's way cute but I hope this isn't a sign of what's to come!

Also, check out those cool rockstar guitar shoes!!!

Random December Fun

Here are some random pictures from our December. There was rough-housing/attack of the baby fun, baking fun, Daddy doing some late-night work in a make-shift office with the help of wine and television, and other random cuteness.