Fish!

We finally got around to getting fish in the tank we got Jenavieve for Christmas. She always loved watching them in the store so we thought she'd enjoy them at home too. We were right! We have the tank right on the floor so that once she's mobile she can get to it herself (it has a child lock on the lid) and she loves laying in front of it, watching the swim around. The woman at the store recommended 6 fish to start, and then more in a week or so if we want more. We got some mollies and some platies because they are colorful and a bigger size than a guppy so they're easier to follow.

 
 

Christmas!

Jenavieve had a great first Christmas! She got tons of great toys and got to hang out with lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. I put the pictures we have in a web album, we made the typical new parent mistake of taking 9 zillion pictures of Jenavieve and very few of anyone else, especially with Eric's family (oops!) but there were at least 2 other cameras at both Charnesky events so hopefully they will share (hint hint!)

There are captions explaining what is going on in some of the pictures, hopefully I'll find the time to post more about all the events though!

Christmas 2009

Cute jammies

These might possibly be the cutest pajamas on the cutest kid ever!

Church this week

There is a family at church that I know you've all heard us talk about. They have 4 great kids that we just love. This past Sunday was my day in the nursery, so Vivi got to hang out with the youngest 2 boys. Joey will be 6 in January, and is an excellent reader. He checked a book out of the church library called The Stable that Bob Built (It's a veggie tales book that is very cute!) and decided that he was going to read it to all the babies. He is the oldest in the nursery, the other kids are 2, 18 months, and Vivi. The 2 little boys were sitting at the table eating their snack, so Joey had a captive audience. He started reading each page, and then showing the boys the pictures before turning the page. After a few pages, Vivi wanted to get down so I put her in a chair at the table. When Joe noticed her, he paused the book and went back to the beginning to show her each page. After their snack was done, the 2 little boys got up to go play, but Joey kept on reading, and at the end of each page, he would get up, go find both boys, and try to make them look at the picture. Then he would go back to the table, turn the page, and do it all again. It was so sweet!















That same day, Eric, Joe, and Joe's dad were all wearing blue shirts and sweater vests, so we had to get a picture!

Lego Castle at the Henry Ford

We had so much fun at The Henry Ford the other day that we made Eric want to go too. The lego exhibit ends in a couple weeks so he wanted to see it.

The princess and the dragon

This week

This week has been the calm before the storm, gearing up for all of the holiday craziness. On Tuesday we went to my grandparents' temple for a Hanukkah lunch and Klezmer band. It was really fun! Vivi had her first challah and matzoh ball soup, she liked both, and she really enjoyed the music! There was a group of high school girls that came to see the band and they were clapping along to all the songs. Vivi kept looking back and forth between the shiny instruments and the kids clapping. She loved it! She was the only baby there so she got a lot of attention. My grandpa also showed us the braille bindery where he volunteers; that was really cool! They have people that type in books and they have a program that translates it into the braille dots, and a special machine that makes the bumps on the paper. Then they have to bind the paper together and send it out to people. They don't charge for the books, it's all a charity thing run by volunteers.

I am now done working until January, so we have lots of time for family and have a couple of play groups scheduled. Starting in January our library is doing some fun things for Vivi's age too, so we'll have lots of outings. We're also signing her up for a parent/child swim class that starts at the end of January, we found a bathing suit on clearance at Babies R Us last night for $3.70! Score!

Last night Jenavieve and I went to the library to hang out and get some new books. Our library is awesome, it has a lot of stuff for all ages. Vivi loves the instrument section; they have a soundproof room with all kinds of instruments to bang on.

 
 

Henry Ford

Today, Kaylee, Vivi and I went to the Henry Ford Museum. Macy's does a thing for kids every 2nd Monday where kids under 5 get in free and they have special activity stations. It was pretty busy because one of the attractions was seeing Santa and getting a free picture with him. I didn't think Kaylee would want to see him because she is going to another event to see him, and she's seen him at the mall, but even after seeing how long the line was, she still wanted to go. They had a station where you could write a letter to Santa, then we got in line. We were in line for an hour, but Kaylee never complained. They had musicians walking around playing Christmas music and volunteers talking to the kids, so they kept busy for most of it. When we finally got to see Santa they took 2 pictures, one for each girl to take home. I got to take pictures with my camera too. Then we had hot dogs at The Weinermobile Cafe and wandered around the museum for awhile. There is so much to see, we just saw a very small part of it. We bought a membership so we can come back and see the rest later.

Kaylee's favorite part of the day was the giant hot dog bun that you can lay in and get covered up with stuffed toppings. Jenavieve thought it was pretty funny too.

Gingerbread party at Brandon and Allison's

I guess we forgot to get a picture of the finished product, but I know Aunt Ann Marie took some (hint hint!)

Gingerbread

Reading the hymnal at church

 

First present

I should have posted this one before the Hanukkah one. Vivi got her very first Christmas present, from her Great Grandpa Frank and Great Grandma Jackie. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it, and was much more interested in the wrapping paper than the cute clothes inside!

Hanukkah

You'll have to bear with me during the busy holidays, I haven't had as much time to sit and post. There are a lot of pictures of each event, so I'll be making picasa albums and putting the links here. In lieu of a long post about each day, I'll be putting captions in under the pictures to explain what is going on.

Here is the Hanukkah album. We had a great time with the family and ate lots of yummy latkes. I got some very cool books, a Montessori book I had been wanting, and The Frugal Gourmet on our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes you should have gotten from your grandmother. I love that part of the title! It has a few pages of recipes from countries all over the world, with a little bit of history on each country. Recipes and reviews to follow. Right now I'm blanking on what Eric got...I'll have to post that later. I know he was happy about it though!

One of the things that didn't cross my mind when thinking about being a parent is that people will want to spoil Jenavieve and buy things just for her. It is so sweet to think of people thinking about her and shopping for special gifts for her. I loved seeing the little gift tags with her name on them. Eric thinks I'm weird though ;)

Vivi got 2 adorable dolls and some fun books, as well as some cute clothes. I'm so glad she got the dolls, she just loves touching their faces and hands, and of course she loves books. One of them is a cloth book, so it is really easy for her to turn the pages on her own. She was really getting the hang of opening presents, she would play with the toy, then Amy would bring her another present and she would drop the toy and grab the present and start pulling at the paper.

Hanukkah 2009

Frankenmuth

Pictures from our annual trip to Frankenmuth. We went on my dad's birthday this year, and Vivi got to see Santa. She loved him!

Frankenmuth

Another food post

Vivi has been doing a lot of eating lately! She seems to have a little bit of thrush, so we bought some yogurt to try to clear it up. Did you know that YoBaby yogurt (yogurt made for babies) has sugar as the second ingredient? Seriously??? So we ended up with a big tub of plain grown up yogurt with no sugar added. And she LOVES it!

So far she has eaten:

Fruits-apples, pears, prunes, banana, avocado, mango, pomegranate, grapes

Veggies-squash, green beans, peas, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, hummus, potatoes, cilantro

Dairy/Protein- yogurt, sips of daddy's milk

Grains-brown rice, a couple of cheerios soaked in water for a minute (she wasn't sure what to think of them, but it kept her busy while I was cooking)

So far the only things she didn't like were potatoes and brown rice. Potatoes make her cry, and brown rice I decided to wait awhile on after she had bumps on her back, but I'm going to try them again this week. We're also going to start adding other flavors to her foods with spices and herbs. Pretty soon she'll be eating right off our plates!

This lovely mess is yogurt and prunes. Yum!

7 months

Each month it is getting increasingly harder to get a 'good' bear picture, but luckily every picture of her is adorable!

She's actually growing at a pretty steady pace now, it seems like she just started wearing 3-6 months and now she's growing out of them. I guess we got spoiled with her being in 0-3 for 5 months! It's funny, when we got 3-6 and 6-12 month stuff at her shower, we couldn't believe how huge it was and couldn't imagine her ever fitting in them. And now we look at the preemie stuff and can't believe she was ever that tiny.

Bad blogger

I've been a very bad blogger, we've gotten busy with all the holiday goings on...

Vivi's first Thanksgiving(s) were great. She was cheerful, and socialized with everyone, and ate her food along with everyone else-we took apples and pumpkins to all 3 Thanksgivings.

At Aunt Karen's, we were cheerleaders for the annual football game until dinner was ready. Then we all said what we were thankful for (when they asked Vivi what she was thankful for, she gave me a hug-that made my day a little bit). Then we ate lots of yummy food. Aunt Karen put some potatoes aside for Vivi, so I mashed them up and gave her a bite, and she cried and pushed it out with her tongue. That is the only food she has done that with.

From there, we went to my parents' house to change clothes and get some coffee before packing up and heading out to the Howell outlet mall for their Midnight Madness. We had never done it before, and since Vivi is a night owl, we thought we'd stay up late instead of getting up early. We would have gotten there just a few minutes after midnight, except for the hour long backup! We sat on the HIGHWAY for an hour! I was so sure there would be no parking spaces and we'd have to go back home. After 15 minutes of driving up and down the aisles and a near accident, we finally found a spot. Since there was nothing that we really needed, it was fun to just run around and shop. We ended up finding some really good things at the bookstore, some fun books for Vivi, and a set of 4 map posters for under $2! She can learn her states, countries, landmarks, and flags!

At about 1am, Vivi woke up to eat, and was up until 3, talking and giggling at surprised shoppers. When we had hit all the stores we wanted to , we headed back to Novi to Kohls. Every Thanksgiving, without planning on it, we run into Belinda at Kohls. This year, we spotted her right as we walked in the door. She had her 11 year old son with her, who looked tired, but was pretty excited to be out shopping. I had to chuckle at the people who looked at me like I was crazy for bringing a baby out so early in the morning. If only they knew!

We went home and napped until it was time to go to Eric's parents' house for their thanksgiving. Vivi loved seeing her cousins again. The kids played, and then we ate more food. Anya and Asia had made a cranberry applesauce that they were proud of, so we let Vivi taste it. She liked it! I let her taste potatoes again; she did not like that. We hung out until Vivi got tired and a little cranky, and went to bed early!

Saturday my mom did a Thanksgiving dinner for just her kids. More food. Vivi had sweet potatoes for the first time and couldn't get enough!

Here is an album of the pictures I have-we spent more time enjoying the day with Vivi instead of taking pictures so there aren't a ton. I'm pretty proud of the hairstyle I did on her, it was easy and cute!

Thanksgiving 2009

More entries to come, I promise!

Hummus

Jenavieve is always interested in what we are eating lately, and as long as it isn't something like cake, I like to include her and let her have a little taste. Usually it is a new taste and she makes a face and is done with it.

Last night I was sitting on the floor with her while she was playing and I was eating pita and hummus. When she noticed that I was eating, she wanted some, so I let her have a taste from my finger. She liked it, but didn't want it from my finger, she wanted the lid. In her defense, hummus looks like baby food, and we do give her baby food on a plastic tupperware lid. I held it out for her to have a little lick, and she grabbed it from me. And, like mother, like daughter, she loves her hummus!

Sink bath

6 month check up and the sickies

Vivi had her 6 month check up yesterday, which was good because the night before she started getting stuffy and feeling sick.

I made sure they measured her height correctly this time too, so she was 14.75 lbs (17th %) 26.5 inches (68th %).

She is still developmentally ahead, her doctor was impressed again at her strong neck and back muscles and that she copied her hand movements when she was gesturing. She asked if she was grabbing things yet and I said yes, then she asked if she had tried transferring objects from one hand to another, which she's been doing for weeks. So she held out her pen and Vivi reached out and grabbed it right away. The doctor said "What are you going to do with the pen? Are you going to transfer it?" and right after she said it, Vivi transferred it to her other hand. My little performer!

She is still sick today and I have a little cold too, which probably wasn't helped with my being up all night with her the night before when she was stuffy and annoyed. So last night we got some soup, tea, pudding pops, and the 40th anniversary Sesame Street dvd, and today we just hung out in our pajamas. I'm enjoying the Sesame Street dvd more than she is; since we've never let her sit and watch tv, she doesn't quite know what to do, but she does like the singing and dancing parts. They show a song and skit or 2 from each of the 40 seasons, so far we've only watched 1-5. So, no Elmo yet (her favorite) and Oscar is orange! I had a hard time taking his I love trash song seriously...

My little sickie

Relaxing on the couch

uh oh...

I think we may be in trouble...Vivi has decided not to worry about crawling and go straight to pulling herself up on the couch. Last night she stood there for almost 10 minutes and then tried moving down on the couch. She hasn't figured out her feet yet, but she walked her hands down a few steps before getting stuck. It looks very funny to see her standing without us holding her, she's just over 2 feet tall.

Food!

Vivi has really been enjoying eating food with us. So far she has had apples, squash, bananas, avocado, peas, green beans, brown rice, and little tastes of grapes and pomegranates. She loves pomegranates!

So far her favorites are squash and bananas, although she'd eat more pomegranate if we'd let her, she gets excited when she sees one on the counter. So far she has done really well trying new things. She may have had hives after the rice, but it could have just been dry skin. We haven't given her grains since just to be safe.

We have a mesh net that we use to give her chunks of frozen apple to chew on. Yesterday when I was eating grapes, I let her taste it and she got excited so we put a grape in her net. She enjoyed that too.

Her favorite thing is getting an apple slice from the same plate we are eating from!

Vivi and Daddy

We are final!

Today was our court date in Utah. Our lawyer called earlier to let us know that it's all official! He'll be mailing us our adoption decree, and then we'll order her birth certificate! Woo hoo!


I don't have a picture to post for today yet, but I'll get one when she wakes up :)

Rings

6 days old














6 months old