My Big Helper

Now that Mary Hyatt is standing and is starting to cruise holding on to things she has become quite the helper around here! Every time we get home from the grocery store or if I'm looking for something particular, she power crawls to the door and stands up inside. I think it's pretty cute.

(I promise my child isn't ALWAYS naked. haha We had gotten home from church this particular day and I had just taken her dress off because she was having issues crawling in it.)

 She also loves "helping" load/unload the dishwasher...(ie, crawl all around it and make me have to hurry and remove all of the knives/sharp objects before she can reach them)..

(We had been outside playing in a water table so that's why she is in her bathing suit!)

 She also LOVEs to help us "drive."  I'm pretty sure if I blink twice, she'll be old enough to drive by herself judging by the rate time is flying these days.

Yea, don't judge... our new house (more on that later) is literally two houses down from some of our good friends.  After we had taken a tour of the house, Ben Mary Hyatt drove (I walked) down to visit our friends house.  Not sure if you can tell, but Mary Hyatt had the BIGGEST grin on her face.  She seriously gets the biggest kick out of doing things she knows she's not suppose to. 

She helps give me the motivation to exercise... though I still don't do it nearly as often as I should. It's so much more fun to walk while pushing a stroller....if only I didn't work until 6:15 every day I'd do it much more often, at least that's what I tell myself. :)

 She helps us shop.  Lately she's been thinking that riding in the seat part of the buggy is for the birds.  She would much rather stand in the big part. Again,she is so proud that she is doing something she probably shouldn't be doing. (Yes, Ben and I did have a woman stop us in a store the other day and scold us for letting her ride in the big part.  She gave us all these reasons about babies with traumatic brain injury from falling out, and then asked us to either carry her or buckle her in the seat. We did, until the lady was out of sight and then we put her right back in like we had her. After all, I was walking right beside the buggy and it's not like we were racing down the aisles. I appreciate her concern, and she did try to fluff it up at the end by saying "that baby is much too cute to end up like that," but let me be her mama please, or at least approach us with a little more tactfulness. Thanks.)

 And, the last few weeks she has been helping totally slowing me down and making me wonder how in the world I'm ever going to get everything done me pack.  I'm sure she is totally confused as to why our house is one giant disaster and there are boxes everywhere. She'll know soon enough since we are moving this weekend!

I love having my little helper around!!

Mini Vacation

This past weekend we headed down south for a little mini vacation.  Jack and Courtney were having an engagement party at Courtney's bay house, which was about 40 minutes from Gulf Shores so we couldn't resist making it a mini weekend beach trip.

We left Friday after work and Mary Hyatt did beautifully on the ride down.  She slept most of the way.  When we got there, even though it was way past her usual bed time, she perked up as soon as we got her out of the car.  She must have known we were on vacation.  She spent a little time loving on her Grandaddy, Lovie, Aunt Sally, Aunt Meg and Uncle (almost!) Kris.  

The next morning when she woke up we took her out on our balcony to get her first feel of beachy weather. Didn't she look precious in her beach pjs? 

 The condo that we stayed in was actually on a golf course.  Directly below the main balcony there was a pond.  We were surprised to see this creature swimming around right below us...

Saturday morning the guys went to play golf and the rest of us headed to the beach.  I couldn't wait to see Mary Hyatt's reaction to the sand.  It definitely didn't disappoint! She LOVED it!! She crawled all over the place and kept picking it up with her hand.  

Look at that tongue haha...

 After the guys finished their golf game they joined us for some beach fun.We were so thankful for decent weather.  It wasn't really sunny so no tans for us, but luckily the rain held off. I guess i'm pretty glad for little sun shine because MH is so fair. 

 She liked putting her feet in the ocean at first...

 but after a big wave rolled up she quickly changed her mind, and that was the end of that.

She instantly went right to sleep the second I held her in my arms.  I guess the beach wore her out...not to mention the sound of the crashing waves was pretty soothing.

So much so that I even ended up crashing...

Yes, Mary Hyatt is wrapped up in that towel haha.  I promise she could breathe. We ended up sleeping for about an hour like that.  The rest of the gang, except Ben, headed back to the condo to start showering.  That was probably one of the best naps I've had in a while.  I probably could have slept even longer if Ben didn't wake us up to go back and get ready.

Mary Hyatt actually stayed asleep in my arms as we walked back to the condo, and then she slept with Ben in the bed for another hour and a half.  She was exhausted. The engagement party was that night so we all got dressed and headed out. 

Mary Hyatt loves her Uncle Jack! 

 The party was absolutely fabulous.  I should have taken more pictures but I didn't.  It was at Courtney's family's bay house which was absolutely beautiful.  They had a guy playing some music and for the first time ever, Mary Hyatt started standing on her own while watching him play.  We were so amazed!!  She stood for about a minute independently, as long as she had that water bottle in her hands. 

We took her out in the yard and kept having her practice.  She was doing so good! We were so so proud!!

 It was a great trip.  We are so glad that we were able to go and celebrate Jack and Courtney, and squeeze in a little beach time while we were at it.  It was such a nice weekend!!

10 Months

Again, I am two weeks late in posting this, but I did actually take the pictures on the exact day that she turned 10 months old. 

 It was another crazy photo session..

 That ended very quickly because some little peanut never sits still for longer than 5 seconds...EVER

 It's a good thing I'm almost done with these monthly pictures because I don't know how much longer she could fit in the laundry basket..

 At 10 months Mary Hyatt is BUSY! Her teachers at daycare always tell me that she is the most fearless baby they have ever had.

I'm not sure how much she weighs at this point or how long she is but she's a growing girl.  She's eating all kinds of new things at this point.  One of her favorites is pancakes and she loves cheerios too. Tonight I fed her mandarin oranges and she was a big fan at first but then about halfway through dinner decided she didn't like them anymore and spit them out every single time. She also learned to drink from a straw tonight!! I mean suck up the juice through the straw and then spit every bit of it out on the table. Pictures to come.

Mary Hyatt absolutely LOVES books...but only board books, or the kind that have touchy feely pictures. She will sit and play with a book by herself for a long time (in baby time).  She has learned what to touch on each page and loves to feel it when I'm reading it to her. My mom kept her for us one night and she said that Mary Hyatt was all over the place until my mom pulled out a book that I had packed and she said MH sat and looked at it forever.  I hope she always loves to read!

 She is sleeping great these days.  We have been putting her to bed between 7:30 and 8 ish and she sleeps until at least 6:30.  There was one morning that we had to wake her up at 7:30 because we had to leave for work.

 She is continuing to babble some but still doesn't say anything real consistent.  I think she is starting to understand things more though.  We can now say "want baba" and she will start grinning and flapping her arms like she is so excited.  Sometimes we will say "where's mama/dada?" and she will look around.  She has also started to LOVE pointing at EVERYTHING.  When we walk down the mall or in a store she just points at things or people.  She is so friendly and usually will grin ear to ear at people and will often wave at them.

She loves riding in her stroller and going places.  One afternoon after work I took her on a walk and she rode the entire way like this, just looking back and grinning at me. haha

This month she also had her first bubble bath.  She was really into it at first but now it's like no big deal to her.  It doesn't even phase her and she doesn't get excited.  Maybe when she gets older she'll appreciate how cool the bubbles are! :) 

 She is still crawling everywhere and is super fast. I have occasionally caught her standing by herself for a couple seconds, but I really think it may be a while before she is walking.  She isn't really making any effort to walk.  She still pulls up on everything and cruises around furniture, but once she wants to leave it she instantly drops to the floor and takes off crawling.  I guess since she can get anywhere she wants to  while crawling, she doesn't feel the need to walk yet.   (Excuse the wet spot on her pants in the next picture... she had been playing with a water bottle and it opened and spilled everywhere.)

She has started to get a little bit of a temper and I can tell we may have our hands full when she gets older.  If we tell her "no" she will look at us and grin and then go right ahead and do whatever it is that she's not suppose to.  She will also start whining and pitching a fit if we take something from her or don't let her do what she wants to do. Her little fits only last about 30 seconds, thankfully, but we can still tell she's got a little stubbornness in her personality. I don't know where she gets that from. :) 

Mary Hyatt is at such a fun age right now and we are loving every minute of watching her grow! She really does seem to be changing daily right now and her personality is really starting to bloom.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE being her mama!

A Couple Videos

I have totally been MIA lately.  I'll have to do a full update soon, but just for a quick explanation...Ben and I are having to move out of our house by Memorial Day weekend! I have been spending every free moment looking for a house and trying to figure out our plans.  I never imagined it would be this hard to find a house to rent in a city as big as Birmingham...and to be honest, we still don't have one lined up and we have to be out in 3 weeks! Talk about stress....hence the reason for the blog abandonment.  But, just to tie you over (hopefully I'll do some more updating this weekend), here are a couple of videos of my precious girl.. She is getting so big!

She's been doing a lot of jumping... She loves this thing! Whoever invented this was a genius!!



And,  she has even learned to do "Patty Cake."  Such a smart girl! Here she is doing it with my mom one day while we were at Zaxby's eating lunch..



More updates to come!!

Good Eats

Over the past week, we have really introduced Mary Hyatt to a variety of new foods!  One night when Ben was out of town, I stopped and picked up some veggies for dinner.  I decided to let Mary Hyatt try some of the mashed potatoes, green beans and macaroni and cheese all mushed up.  She was a big fan! I started feeding her with a fork, but she kept knocking the fork out of my hand and reaching to grab the plate.  I finally just caved and let her dig in...

She was really enjoying herself...

And of course it started to get everywhere...

But, she was just having so much fun so I couldn't stop it..

 Yum.. Yum....

And it eventually started to get a little out of hand... I guess this would have been a good time for me to put an end to all of this...

 But I didn't...

I mean, after all, this is how babies learn right?  She was just exploring new textures and new tastes... it was just a learning experiences.  That's what I'm telling myself anyway. haha ;)

And of course, since I didn't stop this learning experience, the plate ended up on the floor... food splattered across the room...and Ellie was right there loving every minute of it!

And Mary Hyatt was too! :)

Eek!

Then, one night this week, we gave Mary Hyatt a pancake for dinner...(with a tad bit of syrup that had soaked into it). 

And she started drinking some juice/water from a sippy cup...

 Since when did my baby girl get so big? 

She loved the pancake.  She especially loved that she could pick it up and feed herself.  

 Can you see her little pearly whites?