16 months old...

my sweet sweet Violet, you turn 16 months old today....you are my teeny tiny little BALL OF FIRE:) you are the most opinionated & spirited little one!  And i mean 'little one' quite literally...you weigh all of 16lbs and although we have spend your entire first year of your life worried about your weight your daddy and i (and your doctor) have finally just decided that is just the way you are!  You have the sweetest most quite voice...but the loudest most passionate cry.  The words that we can clearly  hear from you is mommy, dada, pippa (piper), puppy, pa, no, ball, weeeee(for slide), shoes, bubbles (for actual bubbles and for bath), drink, nana(banana), caca (cracker), cookie, down, up, baby, cheese, and tonight for the first time you said BIBLE!  yeah, i may or may not have cried. And you still sign for all done, water, banana, milk, thank you, bird, eat, more and cheese. We have struggled with your seperation from me:(  that loud passionate cry comes out ANY and everytime you are left, for the entire durations...which up to this point no one can last with you more then 30 minutes...they all say that you are very cough strong cough.  Your favorite books are "SO big" (which was also your sisters at this age!), "Beautiful Oops" and your 'words' book.  It is so hard to believe that when your sister was this age i was 4 months pregnant with you!  I feel like you go most days eating only crackers and milk...you have had eating issues since your early reflux days and you are still incredibly picky. You are working pretty hard on your 'fang' teeth and it seems to be pretty painful...but inculding those you have 16 total teeth!  Your love for water has grown and you will finally take a long bath and play in the water with your sissy:)  Speaking of your sissy...you want to be just like her and copy every thing she does.  And you love Piper so much that you will randomly reach out to hug and kiss her all the time...which warms my mommy heart!  You still fight naps hard and even when you fall asleep in the car its never longer then 20 minutes....and NO MATTER what time you go to sleep you are awake by 6am.  You are the sweetest, most loving little girl who i think will challenge me our whole lives....i'm up for the challenge;)

should i do it!?

should i get back in to the swing of blogging?! I read my blog often...its my little family's life and yet the last year... basically our whole first year in Texas is no where to be seen:( it made me sad today as i was looking back at old memories and it made me wonder if it was time:) i could spend an un-Godly amount of time 'catching up'...but that is a bit overwhelming to me...so i'm going to do it...i'm just going to pick up like i never left...

 Today Piper started her fall semester swim class...she is a 'advanced aquatot' and we are beaming with pride! We started this summer taking classes at a swim school here is the Dallas area called Emlers Swim School and we have been overwhelmingly impressed with how they have turned our 'my NOT going underwater' 'clinging to us with death grip in the water' little girl to a fully SWIMMING 3 year old! My mom loves to tell the story of the 'my future family' book i made probably in jr.high complete with jcpenny catalog cut outs of models of my 4 children all whom where swimmers (and yes this was before the Phenom of Micheal Phelps!). It probably had something to do with the fact that my best friend at the time was a swimmer...but non the less i wanted my kids to be swimmers...and i'm not saying that Pipe will be our little Olympic winner (although i would not put it past her;) she is having a lot of fun in her very first 'away from mommy' class and she is learning a life long sport! here are some photos from last week on her last day of her summer session with Ms.Tami (which thankfully she also has Ms.Tami this semester too!)

milestone catchup....

~about a week ago Violet started this crazy super-baby style push-up...she is so strong, she would completely lift her entire body off the ground...everyone who saw it was amazed:)...it wasn't long after that she started actually getting up on all 4's and rocking!!! just shy of turning 5 months old! Having babies that are pretty much attached to me until they become mobile and get a taste of a bit of freedom...unlike most people, i LOVE it when they start crawling/walking...its defiantly a milestone i very much look forward too (weaning, starting food, leaving me for pre-school...not so much:)...

~if we are friends on facebook....i obsessively try to get advice on how to handle my high maintenance sleeper (piper ann seaton)...so much so that it has been overlooked that Violet is an AMAZING sleeper! And since she sleeps in her own bed (bassinet) much better then her sister ever did (as in she ACTUALLY does;) we decided to pack up the co-sleeper...and set up the crib!!!! We had to re-arrange our room a bit to fit it, but i actually think we like it better now:) She is sound asleep right now in her very first big-girl bed:) Eventually we really want Piper and Violet to share rooms...but we are not in any rush. I think she likes it:)...

~a little over a month ago we were at our new library looking over the movies... my eye caught a movie that a friend of mine had mentioned..."Potty Power!" we were not ready to dive into hard core potty training yet... but i thought we should check it out. When we got home i pulled her potty chair out to the living room (just in case she felt motivated;) and popped in the dvd...within minutes she was ripping off her diaper saying that she had "Potty Power!!!" and went pee on the potty! And I'm not kidding...since that moment she has had underwear on for every waking moment!!!! Potty training has been the easiest "hard" parenting achievement we have gone though!! All my readers (and future 13 year old piper) will be happy to know that i do not have a photo of this:)...

our little Viley is 3 months old!!

wow! 3 months! officially a baby, not a newborn anymore :( In the last 3 months you have met tons of family and friends...been to lots of library programs and playdates (in Oklahoma & Texas!), been diagnosed with reflux (and now doing SO much better, mommy hardly ever has to give you your medicine anymore!)... received TONS of kisses from a certain big sister of yours...had your first little cold...spend longer then a baby should have to at an audiologist just to be told your can hear perfect!...you are now starting to fit in 3 month clothes! which i guess means your starting to pack on the pounds!...you finally started wearing cloth diapers...you moved to TEXAS(yeah thats a big one)....you have been swimming A LOT, that happens when you have a very busy sister and a super nice pool at your new house :)...you started giggling this week which is so beautiful to me....you rolled over from your back to your belly yesterday!...you still LOVE to be swaddled, and pretty much have to be swaddled to sleep in your co-sleeper...you only nurse when your hungry and want the paci when your tired... you start off great sleeping in your bed the first part of the night (which gives mommy a nice break) but pretty much ends up in our bed by your first waking...you have been on a small trip to our state Capital Austin...and already have had many hotel stays in your short life...you are much less *clear throat* high needs then your sissy...most of the time you are a pretty happy and content baby... your awake times are getting longer and longer....you LOVE watching your sissy play...

These last 3 months have FLOWN by! With how crazy our lives have been lately i already feel as though i will look back on this time with Violet and feel like i didnt "take it in" like i should....i'm trying so hard to be aware of that! I love her so much....she is so beautiful and i could kiss her little cheeks all day!

Frisco Apartment Homes Tour 2011....

Part 2: Piper's bathroom/closet/bedroom






Yes people you are seeing things correctly....that is a BIG GIRL BED in her room!! Since Violets still in our room in the co-sleeper....we thought, that when we moved we would not even set the crib up...there for the big girl bed would be the Cool new thing in our Cool new house:) She has done AMAZING with it! It still takes 2 or 3 times of going in and laying her back down at night before she officially falls asleep...but MUCH better then i was expecting!