8 Months!

The coolest new skill is talking!  This last week, Eric said "Heather, come look.. she is moving her jaw up and down."  It is so cool....now saying "hi, dada."  We assume she is putting sounds together, not actually understanding, but still so neat.  Also, to just make us melt even more, she is giving big open mouth kisses to our cheeks.  Amazing.   
But, this weekend her screaming eagle screech has returned.  It arrived one weekend awhile back, went away and is now back! It is not the prettiest sound.

After Christmas we started with consistent sampling of foods.  So far she seems to enjoy all of the different foods.  She made a pretty funny face for broccoli, but has still been eating it.  Blueberries seem to be a favorite as she has been shoveling them in.  Her pincer grasp isn't quite there yet, so she rakes them to the base of her fingers and sticks most of her hand in her mouth to get them.  She tried egg yolk for the first time today.  I found a great "recipe" for roasted pears and bananas....just roast pears and bananas (or just pears)for 25 min. on 400....then puree....delicious!!

About a month ago she started tipping over her toy box and emptying its contents.  All of these toys were once in the box; she's pretty good at flinging them over her shoulder.  This toy basket has since been removed after she had a sharp piece of wood from it fully in her mouth.

No teeth yet.  I thought she was teething about a month ago since she had a rash on her face, but it was really splotchy so we thought maybe a reaction to oatmeal.  I had been keeping track of the foods she was eating and the rash was occurring every time she ate oatmeal.  We have since held off on it and serving barley cereal for now.

I guess she is finished with the pacifier.  We just noticed we hadn't offered it to her in a few days so we decided to just be done with it.  I know the sucking reflex is gone now anyway, so she doesn't need it.  I'm glad I don't have to try to "get her off of it" in the future.  A friend here was saying she took her one-year-old's away and he went and got one of the stuffed animals that had one and put that in his mouth and was crawling around with the toy pacifier and the stuffed animal hanging off of it!  ha ha.    

Bundled up to go for a walk.  

Bundled up to watch Mom shovel.

Carrots!!  I've been letting her feed herself for the most part even though it is very messy.  It's the OT in me, plus she wants to.  We've been having her practice using a regular cup with water at meals.  She is getting better at actually swallowing some and not just lapping the water like a dog.  We've tried a mini-straw, with some sucking action, but not enough to reach her mouth.

She is really enjoying books.  It is so wonderful to have her sit on my lap all snuggled in our bed and she will relax to listen to story after story.  The Going to Bed Book and Moo, Baa, La La La, both by Sandra Boynton, seem to be her favorites and she will turn her head to look at me anticipating certain parts....so cute!!  It's also funny when she clearly is not interested in some books as she starts looking around for a new one.  She now initiates touching the touch and feel books.

She loves to play with zippers and strings on our clothes.  I don't know why they don't make toys that look like lotion or diaper cream because that is all she wants to grab.  Taking dad's glasses off or even Grandpa's off on Skype is a favorite activity.  She is laughing at everything lately and raises her arms to be picked up.   

Loves to splash in the bathtub and now holds her hands out to feel the water pour onto her.  Lately she has been crying post bath; I'm not sure if it's just too cold or if she knows bed time is coming or what.  We've tried earlier bedtime and bigger towels, but no luck so far.  She is still a night owl, often going to bed between 9-11.  Thankfully it has been closer to 9 lately.  She then usually gets up around 1:30 and 6:30 (and sometimes 3:30), but stays sleeping until 8:30 (occasionally 9:30).  She hasn't done a nice 8-9 hours sleeping stretch since she consistently did at four months.  Sleeping seems to be something that changes often depending on what skills they are working on, how their day was, maybe what they ate, if they are hungry, thirsty, gassy, hot, cold, etc, etc, etc.  I've decided not to sweat it.  Luckily I easily fall back asleep myself. 

The other night was crazy as she was up 8 times by 3:30am and then I just had to hold her until morning.  Every time I went to get her she was up on all fours rocking away.  I would pick her up and she would fall back asleep right away.  I promised her I would let her work on crawling the entire next day if she would just go to sleep!!  The next day she performed the move from lying on her stomach to sitting up for for the first time, so I think she was "working" on that the night before.   She did the same thing before she mastered rolling...was up every hour.

 Blueberries!

Happy Valentine's Day!

"Did you say I am 8 months old today?  Are you sure?"

Cold Winter Day

We are snuggled indoors today protected from the cold.  Perfect time to wear her new sweater vest made by my long-time friend Laura St. Onge.  Thank you, Laura!  It is so beautiful.   

I've been putting tights under her thin pants for warmth.  Yesterday I heard her getting pretty mad about something.  I went to see what she was up to, and she was just a pulling and pulling and those dang socks weren't coming off!!

Christmas 2012

First flight!

Thankfully, she was a great flyer.  Ate, slept, played. Whew!

She was quite interested in the paper and was able to rip out the tissue paper from gifts.

I didn't think Annabel was going to be able to sit by Christmas as she was quite tippy just before we left.  But, she must have thought she ought to get her act together as she had people to impress.

Baby's 1st Christmas morning!

New blocks from Uncle Nick  "Look, I did this myself!" (not really!)

Christmas Day at Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa's

Playing with my cousin Robyn's Julia and Jack

Christmas Day in the evening at the Micheels' Christmas

Aunt Chelsea

Sisters--Eric's Aunt Karen and mother June

Made sure to maintain a firm grip on Sophie.

We were able to have Annabel baptized on Dec 23, 2012.  It was a wonderful service and she was so good the entire time.  Immediately after the service, however, she had "had enough."

Neil and Jodi (Eric's brother and his wife) are expecting a baby girl in February!  

Our favorite.  I found this outfit in storage at my parents.  It may have been my baptismal outfit, but I couldn't find pictures to prove.  

After the baptism, she was very serene, soaking in the event.  Or, very tired!

This adorable outfit was a gift from our friend, Imke, in Saskatoon.  The booties were made by Annabel's Great-Great Aunt Doodie.

My favorite part of Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas; so thankful to have been able to fly home to see family.  We traveled to Minneapolis for Eric's mom's family Christmas and made multiple short trips between Ridgeland and Colfax.  Gratefully, a lot of family and friends came to us for visits.  The Moen family Christmas had 83 in attendance--the brothers and sisters and their children (and now their children).  Three generations of Moens in one building (we had it at the community center, as we obviously cannot comfortable fit in anyone's house anymore).  I think Annabel was held by 75 of them; one of my cousin's 2 year-old even held her!  She was such a trooper and seemed to enjoy being passed around.

Eric was able to get together with some high school friends for dinner out a couple of nights.  I was able to meet some friends for brunch one morning, where they were able to meet Annabel.  Very fun to catch up in real life!

Annabel slept a lot when we got home.  It's funny that even babies can run on adrenaline.  She just kept going and going over Christmas and crashed when she realized the only two people she had to entertain was me and Eric.

Thank you to all who made Christmas very special this year.  

Christmas...what fun it was.

Big day today: 6 months!

In case you didn't know, Annabel is the first child ever born.  We are quite amazed by everything she does.  Eric and I are no longer saying "can you believe we have a baby," but are constantly saying "can you believe how lucky we are to have her?" 

Showing off her parachute move at at friend's house

She has quite a feisty personality and entertains us with lots of babbling and movements.  She's very determined, curious, fun, and sweet.  She started a new sound this week that isn't so cute, but is really funny.  She sounds like a sick goose or the sound you would make if you were imitating the buzzer at the end of a basketball game.  It makes us laugh a lot. 

This past week she has greatly improved her sitting skill.  It's so crazy how babies can all of a sudden do something new.  One day she was able to sit.  Of course, she still tips over often but seems to be enjoying playing from a new perspective.  She is making some distance scooting on her tummy, moving about 5 feet, so we really need to get a gate fast and rearrange some household dangers.  I guess the extreme drooling from last month must have been preparing for stomach for digestion rather than teething because, so far, no teeth.

On the first of the month, she tried her first solid food of pureed avocado.  She loves eating and grabs the spoon to bring it to her mouth.  Now that she is 6 months old, we will slowly keep adding new foods.  There are so many theories about what to feed and when, it's hard to know what to believe.  For example, the Baby Weaning theory states that a 6 mo. old's digestive tract is ready for any foods and we could give her a stick of cucumber or sweet potato and she could eat it herself.  It is hard to know where to start.  We'll just do our best and experiment with tastes here and there.  Food at her age is mostly for experimenting rather than nutrition anyway.

As I've said before, neither Eric or I had spent time with babies in the past.  I took a couple child development classes and held a few friend's babies, but just for a few minutes (until they cried).  When I saw a baby in public, I honestly didn't pay too much attention to them and I certainly had no idea how much planning had gone into that mom being in public or that she was keeping track in her head when her baby last ate or had their diaper changed.  But, the planning is getting easier as she becomes slightly more predictable with eating and sleeping schedules.

Love those tiny little hands holding up the bottle

A graduate student and her boyfriend graciously babysat for us on Thursday night so we could attend a professional production of The Sound of Music.  The play was spectacular!  Annabel was happy, content, and drank her bottle which was the opposite of last time they watched her a month ago.  

Yesterday we did a little Christmas shopping.  We watched Elf and The Family Stone last night to get our mind off all of the tragedy.  I love the Christmas movies where all of the family travels home and stays at the parent's house.  Growing up, I thought that looked fun, but didn't think we would live far away.  Well, traveling it is.  And of course the visits are not as romanticized as portrayed in the movies, but they are similar in many ways.

Three sleeps (that's how they say it here) until we fly for Christmas.  We are so blessed to be able to travel and see our families and friends.  The only thing I am worried about is if Annabel will get enough attention. :)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Snow Season

I've been appreciating this star right outside our living room window.  We can see it from our couch.

It has once again been snowing most of the day with a couple inches piled up.  The temperatures lately have been hovering around 0 degrees or as Eric likes to say, there has been no temperature in Saskatoon for the past weeks.  We heard the snow plow budget for this year has already been used up, as there usually isn't this much snow before Christmas.

Beautiful hoar frost (per Eric's knowledge of frost identification) for the first Sunday of Advent.  The service was full of music, the choir sang Breath of Heaven, and Annabel jumped and flailed her arms and legs to the band the entire service!  She was so exhausted afterwards, she took her first ever 2 hour daytime nap! (but, now it is past 11:30 pm and she has yet to go to bed.  She's not crying, but nothing seems to be working tonight.) 

Knowing that few people will see our decorations and the fact that we won't be here for Christmas made it a bit hard to find ambition to put up Christmas decorations, but I put them up and felt better afterwards.  I just love sitting in the evening with Christmas lights in the house....I'll have to make hot chocolate some night to enjoy the scene even more.  We have one main living area with our living room and kitchen all in one, so all of our decorations are in the same space.  I had a bunch out, but felt it was a bit of red and green overload, so I put some away.  One day we'll able to put up a full size tree and get all of our ornaments out of the box.

The mall was offering a chance to see Santa where we could take our own photos.  I thought it was a good option because we weren't sure how Annabel would react.  She hasn't been afraid of strangers (or "making strange" as they say here), but we just didn't know about a man in red with a big white beard.  But, the line was so long we had to skip out.  I imagine we will get another chance since Santa doesn't have as far to travel from the North Pole.  He could probably manage to make a couple stops before Christmas Eve.
 
We have been Skyping quite a bit lately and Annabel is just starting to react to the screen by smiling and seems to be recognizing some voices and faces. 

It's helpful to have a sister who is an infant teacher so she can give me cute craft ideas.  Eric really enjoyed this Thanksgiving birthday gift from Annabel:

There is a neat one for Christmas using the baby's fingerprints as Christmas light bulbs and Chelsea said she wants to do a penguin one with Annabel when we are home for Christmas.  Fun stuff.