One Last Hurrah-Beach Fun!!

Yesterday promised to be a gorgeous day on the beach so we got up and got our stuff done and headed out. We knew we were going to hit the beach at high tide so we opted to go into Seaside first and do our trinket and taffy shopping. I have to go to this one place to get taffy, they make the best. Elizabeth found a cute pair of ear rings for herself and a friend. The boys found a shop that deep fat fries EVERYTHING so naturally they had to get something. Jonathan had the deep fried snickers bar which wasn't too bad, and Nathaniel got the deep fried twinky that was wrapped in bacon. Oh heart attack! He loved it, I thought it was just ok. Tasted like a sweet corndog. We saw one of those guys that likes to dress up like a statue and dances or does tricks. Seth honestly thought he was a robot because the guy had something that would whir like a robot when he moved. We gave Seth a dollar to put in the bucket and the guy was nice enough to put Seth on the pedestal and let us get a picture of the two of them. Seth loved it! After all that we headed out to a spot on the beach and just hung out for a few hours. I hung back under the umbrella shade with the two older boys and the baby and Rob joined the other two in the water. Meredith loves the sand! She couldn't get enough of it :) The ocean...not so much. I walked her down to talk to Rob and she started whimpering then screaming the closer we got to the water. Poor thing. She did kinda get over it and spent some time down by the water with Rob but after a bit she ended back up in the sand with me and the boys. All in all a great day and was nice to get away one last time before school starts back up.

This is how my teenager enjoys the beach now, watching a movie on my iPod :)

Quality time in the sand with her big brother.

Rob could dig in the sand for hours and hours if you let him.

Still watching a movie.

Meredith goofing off while Nate continued to, yep you guessed it, watch his movie :)

She still walks with her arms up, make me laugh every time!

One Year Old!!!

It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by! Meredith has become quite mobile, she took her first steps the other night. In the past month she has also developed the funniest sound. It's like she's growling, but it's her happy sound. It's just the funniest sound. Thankfully she's started saying more mamamama's and babababa's the last week or so. She's got one or two more teeth, one kept her pretty miserable for almost the whole last month. It finally broke through the other day and she's been much happier. 

For her birthday we just had a small family get-together. The most hilarious part of the whole night is when we let her have her cupcake. She didn't hesitate, once she saw it on her high chair she grabbed it and tried to shove the whole thing in her mouth! Cake and frosting everywhere! None of our kids have gone crazy with their first birthday cake so this was great. So fun to watch her go at it. We gave her a piece of the bigger cake when she was done and she ate that with just as much gusto. She loves cake!

Yay! Clothes! I totally needed bigger clothes!

I can dress myself just fine.

Just love the expression on her face here :)

You guys have totally been holding out on me! I LOVE CAKE!

You don't think I can eat another piece? Just watch me!

Sugar coma setting in?

Showing off one of her new outfits. 

Look Who's 11 Months Old Today!

Getting so tall!

During her 10th month, Meredith finally figured out how to do a normal crawl, go up and down the stairs quickly (though coming down is still iffy), learned to walk around the furniture and acquired one more new tooth on top with another trying to come in. Meredith has also perfected her screeching. I'm not sure how to break a child of this. I am totally up for suggestions. I swear I can feel a little bit of my hearing disappear forever every time she does this. Today at church she stood on her own for a few brief seconds several times. I put her up against the wall at church which is covered in scratchy fabric. She didn't like resting her hands on it so she would keep puling her hands off which left her standing and she didn't know it :) She loves to eat anything we'll give her.

We have pictures of all the other kids asleep in the high chair. Meredith does not fall asleep in her high chair. BUT the other day she was tired enough she fell asleep in her bouncer so I had to grab a photo.

Friday morning was hard for whatever reason for Meredith. I couldn't put her down without her screaming. I tried pulling her pj's off to see if she was too hot. That worked for about a minute and then the screaming started again. A friend came over to use the sewing machine and I needed to put Meredith down so I could rethread it. She was totally content to pull all the diapers off her changing table and she wasn't screaming anymore so I let her. She then got a hold of some batting and starting shredding it. I was saving it for another baby quilt but the no screaming was worth letting her tear it apart. Some days you just have to choose your battles :) 

New Clothes for Meredith

I don't have the time to sit and work on quilts like I'd like to. When I quilt I like to have a good 4 or 5 hours to just sit and work on a quilt. Yah, I don't have that right now with Meredith :)


I was just itching to sew something so I decided to make a dress for Meredith. The pattern comes with a pants pattern too and since it is still cold around here I thought that would be good under the dress. I'm finally done. Took me longer than I thought but the outfit turned out pretty cute! Now if'she'd just leave a a bow in her hair it would be perfect :)

I have fabric for two more dresses and another pair of pants. Need to get on them :) 

Ten Months Old!

Meredith is now 10 months old. She has 4 teeth, which are hilarious right now as one upper tooth came in way before the other. She's doing more real crawling but still prefers to just pull herself around. Meredith can now pull herself up on things to stand. She especially loves standing at the piano and making noise with the keys. I'm finding it harder to get anything done as she follows me all over and tries to get into things :) Her favorite thing is to come over and stand by me while I'm using my laptop and try to either push the on/off button or pull the cord out. Such a stinker!

This and That

Elizabeth had her second recital a few weeks ago. She played a song called "Skating". She is really loving her piano lessons and her teacher Ms. Kristine. I love that she loves it!

Meredith is now pulling herself up on everything she possibly can.  

Unfortunately, the kitchen chairs are not so stable. Yesterday she pulled one over on herself while on the tile. Luckily her diapered butt landed first then her head so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Still scared us both pretty good.

This last Friday was gorgeous out and it just so happened my brother was in town. So we all went to the zoo! It's been a looong time since I've taken the kids, we hadn't seen any of the changes yet. They redid the monkey enclosure and added lions to Africa. It was all pretty neat, and fun to see new stuff! Was also very nice to spend the day with my brother.

Getting tall!

Meredith liked the orangutans.

That Didn't Take Long

Meredith started yesterday trying to pull herself up on things. She just figured it out :) Of course, it helped to have the sax case there to help her up.

Uh Oh!

She can't crawl right yet but she can now climb the stairs!

First attempt last night.

Success this morning.

Another attempt after nap time got her to the 2nd step. And that's as far as I'm going to let it go. Time for the gates!