Our little Foodie

Yesterday marked Adelyn's 10 month and 1 week birthday. She has been eating 'table' food for about a month now, which has expanded her palate tremendously. What does she now eat you ask?

• Waffles- she eats one nutri-grain Eggo waffle with her yogurt/fruit each morning, and loves it.
• Oatmeal- now that it is cold out, we sometimes give her a bowl of apples and cinnamon oatmeal to eat with her waffle instead of a yogurt/fruit combination.
• Bananas- Now that she can eat a banana the regular way, she loves them! Sometimes she will eat a whole one in a sitting
• Pasta- her favorite is little elbow macaroni. She pretty much likes both tomato and alfredo sauces, but her favorite is cheese. The girl loves Mac & Cheese, I have no idea where she gets it from :)
• Anything with cheese on it. This morning she downed some eggs and grits with cheese. She loves cheese enchilades... her theory, at the moment, seems to follow "as long as there is cheese, I am on board".
• She has also tried, and loved, shrimp, crab, red fish (aka spot-tail bass), ham, ground beef, prime rib (the last was on Christmas at the urging of Daddy), mushrooms, pretty much any type of bread, guacamole, chicken...
• She does not like rice. Or spagetti noodles. Maybe I should drench both in some cheese and see if that changes her mind...

I am still nursing 3-5 times/day. I let her eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, will nurse after each meal and then feed on demand throughout the day.

Christmas!

Not that there would be any questions, but Adelyn LOVED her first Christmas! She received so many presents- from Santa, Mommy & Daddy and all of her aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents. Thursday morning we did our Moerman family Christmas before heading to Brunswick to spend the holiday with my family. We did santa and stockings and then opened gifts from each other and Paul's family. We are so thankful! Later that afternoon we went to my parents house and spent the rest of the weekend enjoying friends and family. As you can see, Adelyn thoroughly enjoyed herself...

Santa came!

Daddy, can we do Christmas every day?

STOCKINGS!

Loving my gifts from Nana and Pop-Pop

My FIRST Christmas

I love bows!

Hanging out with Mama

Aunt Bec, Aunt Anna and Uncle Ben

Uncey B-Dog!

Playing with Papee

I love my present from Mama!

Crawling!

Adelyn has decided that while the 'army crawl' was an acceptable way of getting around (she still uses it sometimes), crawling on all 4s has proven to be a much more effective method of getting around.

(for some reason the video uploader is not working at the moment.... I will try and upload again later...)

We were in Brunswick this past weekend for a wedding, with some down time Saturday morning, we decided to take an outing to the park... Adelyn LOVED the swing!

I love it when Pappy pushes me on the swing!

So much fun!

Playing with Aunt Anna

Other than that we are enjoying getting everything ready for Christmas, particularly the tree ornaments. The bottom portion of our tree is noticeably more bare than the rest of the tree because of little hands that try and grab everything within reach.

I am so good at helping Daddy decorate the Christmas tree

Pulling Up

This is what I now see everytime I go to get Adelyn out of her crib in the morning and after naps...

1st Thanksgiving

Hello all! We hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving, we certainly did! The three of us went up to Atlanta wednesday morning to spend the holiday with Paul's family. It was a very very busy household, but Adelyn LOVED spending time with Nana, PopPop, all of her aunts, uncles, and cousins, Clare and Alix. As everyone cooked their dishes, we put some aside for Adelyn so she could eat everything we did- her favorites were sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn casserole and cranberry sauce. I got talked into doing a 5K with Aunt Kati Thursday morning, it took me a total of 2 min into the race to realize I have run a total of about 1.5 miles in a year; I nearly died, but did not feel guilty with everything that I ate all weekend. Aunt Kati won her age group and got a trophy! We spent Friday watching football and enjoying each others company. Saturday Nana wanted to take Alix, Clare and Adelyn to ride the Macy's Pink Pig; we got to the mall and there was Santa. Adelyn was very interested in him, but as soon as we set her on his lap, she started screaming. We will try again down here when I have a camera.... Saturday afternoon we watched some big rivalry games; unfortunately none of our teams won but we still celebrated mine and Clare's birthdays that night. Sunday everyone got decked out in their black and red and watched the Falcons beat the Packers. Adelyn loved it! She thoroughly enjoyed all of the people and the noises and we cant wait to take her back to another game.
We made it back safely and are starting to get back into a normal routine. We are looking forward to getting our Christmas tree up because we brought home a lot of presents to go underneath it. We cant wait to celebrate Adelyn's first Christmas, I can already tell she is getting excited!

I cant believe I forgot to tell you! Adelyn has learned how to stand up in her crib AND she has a new tooth coming in. We peeked in on her when she was supposed to be taking a nap and she was just standing there looking at us; I wish I had my camera with me, but I know we will have many more opportunities to capture that shot now. The tooth hasnt quite broken through the gum yet, but it is right there. She will be a snaggle-toothed wonder very soon!

Congratulations...a little late

I realized today that I forgot to announce the winner of the 'guess the weight/length' of Adelyn game, so... congratulations to one Miss Lindsay Friedrich who guessed 7lbs 11oz and 21.5in (real weight/height 7.12 and 21.5). When you decide to make your debut back into the US, you get a drink on me...
Also, I would like to say congratulations to my cousin, Jennifer.... Adelyn's youngest 2nd cousin, Cameron, was born this morning!

9 months and a check-up

Friday marked 3/4 of a year for Adelyn. I know I say it all the time, but seriously where has this year gone? Thanksgiving is less than a week away.... Anyways, we went to the doctor and, thankfully, she did not have to get any normal vaccinations; she did have to get the first of two flu shots, though and a small finger prick for a hemoglobin test. She took them both like the big girl she is! Her measurements are:

• 29 inches (above 90th%)
• 19.13 lbs (70%- she is starting to lose some baby fat!)
• head circumference: 19in (80%)

Dr. Thompson is very pleased with her growth and development. What can she do, you ask?

• creep: she is very close to crawling on all 4s, but for now she still enjoys getting into EVERYTHING sliding around on her belly
• She has just started getting into a sitting position from her tummy
• Pull up to standing from a sitting position (on some things... not everything quite yet)
• Plays "Patty-Cake"
• Talks a lot- she has a basic mastery for all consonants combined with an 'a' such as baba, gaga, mama, dada, etc.
• Attempts to feed herself cheerios and other finger snacks. She knows they go in the mouth, but sometimes she finds it more fun to play 'where is the cheerio?' with Buck.

Dr. Thompson did tell us that she is now old enough for us to essentially feed her everything we would eat- being careful of choking hazards, of course. I am still hesitant to feed her meat, so I will probably hold out on that one for a little longer. For now we are enjoying life with a busy little rugrat and look forward to celebrating our first Thanksgiving and Christmas with her.

Bathtime Blues

When initially beginning this post, we had been having some bad luck during bathtime. Adelyn still loved it; however, since moving to the 'big' bath, she has been terrified. The ONLY time she seemed to enjoy bath in the big tub was while in her little blue tub... we tried transitioning to a big blow up rubber duck- which blew up in my face. She could not get out of the way fast enough... she was absolutely petrified of it. Needless to say, it was returned rather quickly. Since then we have tried, unsuccessfully, to put her directly in the tub. It was a screaming match until tonight. Thankfully, we had a very successful bath tonight. I hope that it will continue, but we will see....

Mom, what do you mean I am too big for this tub?

Family Reunion

Sorry I have been so delinquent in updating the blog lately, we have been a little busy here. Ayways, the weekend before last my mom's family came to town for a mini family reunion. It was great to see everyone and Adelyn LOVED all of the attention. Here are a few pictures to tide you over until our next update... which will be very soon, I promise!

Happy Halloween!

We hope that all of you had a wonderful halloween weekend, we certainly did! It was relaxing, which is always nice. We never ended up carving our pumpkin, which I think had more to do with lack of motivation and conflicting football schedules/nappy time more than anything else. Oh well. We watched NC State, Duke (via computer updates) and the Jaguars all WIN!! Thankfully neither Paul nor I are die hard UGA fans, so when they lost in OT, we were not completely broken hearted. We got dolled up last night and went to a friends house who does a trick-or-treating hayride for all of the kids; much to daddy's chagrin, we are not yet at the trick-or-treat stage, so we only stayed on for the first non-stop ride. I think our little mermaid had a lot of fun, though was a little confused by all of the silly costumes.

Pumpkin Patch

Sunday we took a small family outing to the 'pumpkin patch', which is not so much a patch but an empty field next to A1A that happens to sell pumpkins. I thought about how artisticly I could place Adelyn and the amazing pictures I would have been able to take, but alas, the mind of an 8mo old... she was MUCH more interested in the cars going by than the pumpkins. We got a few pictures, but they did not turn out as I had hoped. We will enjoy carving our first pumpkin this weekend, though. A little late, perhaps, but better than never :)

She has also recently learned how to hold, and drink from, her sippy cup! She loves apple juice!

The Age of Mobility

Poor Buck, he never saw it coming. Adelyn had become very proficient at turning 360 degrees on her belly, and we knew that it was only a matter of time before she began crawling. Yesterday, not a week past 8mos, marked that day. She is creeping at the moment, but she is fast. She locks her eyes on something and off she goes. Mostly it is towards a toy, shoe, or, more often than not, Buck. Procrastination has once again done its job and the time for babyproofing has come. Enjoy...

Tour of Farms

Yesterday we all went out to north central Florida to tour a chicken farm and a cow farm. We have started getting our beef from Deep Roots, which comes to the Fernandina farmers market once a month. We found out all of the farms involved in that particular co-op had tours going on all weekend so we decided that it would be a fun family outing to see where our beef really comes from. Since I have always told Paul that the only way I would eat chicken is from organic/free range farms, we decided to tour one of those as well. The chicken farm, Abundant Acres, is only about 45 acres, a literal mom and pop organization. We spent about an hour there, got a couple of birds and headed the 30min to Deep Roots. We got there just in time for their 2:00 hayride tour... Adelyn had a blast! She loved watching the cows as we went by, the tractor in front of us and the never ending supply of hay for her to eat and throw. Based on that experience, I am sure there will be many more hayrides in our future.

I thought this was funny because we stopped to get gas and this man just drove up in his tractor.

We have a camera!

It is true, after much deliberation and procrastination, we have finally gotten a new camera. I forgot how much I enjoy having one around for those all-to-often quirkly moments with Adelyn that need to be captured for all to see...

She climbed over to her lamb chair and wanted to play, she clearly did not think she was too big for it.

It has since been put away :)

We went to the beach with Nana and Mama Alice last Sunday, the sand must have been quite tasty

The water felt wonderful, which is good since we were very sandy!

Down Time

This weekend was finally a relaxed one spent doing nothing. Saturday we went to the farmer's market and then to breakfast at one of our favorite places. Adelyn, of course, was the center of attention, hamming it up for anyone who even glanced in her direction. We also went to the beach for an hour or so- she LOVED it. It was the first time I really put sunscreen on her and let her just have some fun in the sun, sand and surf. She got completely covered in sand and when she was finished eating it, we went to a large tidal pool so that she could sit in the water without getting splashed too hard by waves. I wish we had pictures. She is a natural swimmer. She didnt understand why we wouldnt let her face plant into the water, so, instead, she splashed as hard as she could to get the water all over her face. She did an excellent job cleaning all of the sand off herself. Sunday we went down to Jacksonville to Riley Valent's 2nd birthday party. Once again we were shown that Adelyn loves to be the center of attention. She loved hanging out with people her own age, and size.
That is about it for now.... oh, and go Jaguars

Evidence of the Raspberry Disaster of 2010... this picture does not do it justice.

We love Buck.