Hello, anyone??

If anyone is still "reading" this incredibly neglected blog, the wait is over! I almost just gave up on it because how can you catch up on 4 months...but I'm not a quitter- just procrastinator.

Here are a few highlights of what we've been up to. Mae is 22-months old now and is really so much fun. She's talking so much and literally learning something every day. It's fun to see her little personality develop!

Some funny things she's saying..."One more minute" whenever we are approaching "quitting time" on any activity she's enjoying. "See ya soon" when we say goodbye to anyone. "Where are youuuu??" with much inflection whenever Jason or I step out of sight for a moment. She counts 1,2,3,7. She says "Thank you, honey" to us now. She calls Jason's beer "Daddy's apple juice." She also thinks Santa is Jesus...keeps calling him Jesus whenever we see Santa. Pretty funny...or at least we think so.



Mae is loving trains these days! We've been making frequent trips to Barnes & Noble to play with this great train table.We've enjoyed going to the Dallas library and reading in their cozy reading nooks.

Mae also loves playing with the pillows on the big bed in her room...especially likes to pile them all into her bed.


Mae has been a big help with the leaf-raking as well....one leaf at a time...we're making some good progress.


Here's Mae as Minnie for Halloween. Jason and I were Minnie's parents- creative, right? At least we got Jason to "dress up". Unfortunately, it was hard to get Minnie to slow down with all the excitement (aka candy) so this is the best pic I have.


We spent Thanksgiving in Memphis and had a great time with all of my family. Here's Mae getting some love from Uncle Sammy and Aunt Susie.


Now, we've made it to Christmas and all the fun that is brings for a 22-month old. Mae has really enjoyed everything...from a Christmas parade in downtown Dallas, seeing Christmas lights, meeting Santa, a holiday train display...She wasn't such a fan of Christmas card picture posing though. We got a good one after about 40!

Here are some out takes....I know how she feels in this one.



Sums it up. But it was worth it, right??




Hope everyone has a great Christmas!!! Thanks for sticking around and keeping up with us! I did load the blogger app on my phone, so now I should be able to just quickly post a picture on the go. We'll see if that helps!

Summertime!

We've been busy with lots of pool time this summer. Mae has been taking swim lessons once a week since early June. She loves swimming but hasn't taken too well to the "pressure" of the structured class....it's safe to say she's "bringing up the rear" in class right now. :) She's does great with us though! Here's a video Jason took of us the other day at the pool. I just got the new iPhone and love the video feature!! Hope to be posting more and more videos on here on the future!



This is what happens on the way home from the pool almost every time...

15 Month Pictures

Here are some great pictures Kady Dunlap took of Mae at 15 months. As usual, I love them all!:) http://www.kadydunlap.com/Mae2010/index.html

We also went in for a 15-month check up and, mainly for my own records, Mae weighed in at 23 lbs 4 oz and was 30 inches tall-- a little on the short side (30th percentile). Her head is still hanging strong in the 90th percentile though!

Here are a few other pictures from the past month or so. Mae is walking everywhere and getting into everything these days. She has even mastered climbing into the big leather chair in our den all by herself, as seen in the picture below. She is very proud of this new accomplishment!

We've got a walker!

Mae is walking! She took her first steps last week and is getting better and more confident every day. She isn't just taking off without us yet, but she'll take a few steps by herself and walk holding onto one of our fingers-- more for comfort than need, I think. I can't believe it! She seems very proud of herself. As are we!

I haven't been able to get many pictures lately since Mae seems to be constantly on the move. She'll still when she's eating though...so here's the best recent shot.

Here she is in the backyard trying to push her ball around but really just laying on top of it. It's hard to push when you have your fists clenching sticks all the time....

My parents are coming in town this weekend for Easter, so I'll be sure to take more pictures of the egg hunt, church etc.

Snow in Dallas!

I can't believe how much snow we got in Dallas today! I think the last count was nearly 7 inches! The most in over 30 years. I was able to take a few pictures of Mae out in the snow "playing"...actually just holding onto a chair and laughing at Tex running around.

Hopefully we can go out in the morning and play a little more since it's not supposed to melt until Saturday. so fun!

Birthday Bash

Mae turned 1 last week and we had a little party for her on Saturday. Jason's parents and sister came in town- but mine actually got stuck in Memphis because of the ice/ snow storm there. sad! They are here this weekend celebrating with us though which will be so fun.

Here's the birthday girl at the party!

She seems excited about the cake when we brought it over...

Maybe so excited that she reached out her little finger and extinguished the candle...and proceeds to have a meltdown.

We recover and try one more time. With the candle a little farther away this time.

She wasn't too interested in eating the cake after all that though.

Overall the party was really fun though. Can't believe she's 1!

Here's her best buddy, James Dunlap. They are deep in "conversation".

James is the most loving boy I've ever seen. He constantly gives Mae hugs. It's so sweet!

Of course, Tex can't let Mae move in entirely on his look out post.

Here's out best attempt at a picture at dinner on her actual birthday.

We got her a Sprinkles cupcake that night after dinner and she really liked it. She just ate one little "pinch" of icing at a time.

Jason's parents gave us this GREAT wagon for her birthday. She has loved it! Can't wait for the weather to get a little better though so we can use it more often.

Just a cute pic of her waking up.

My parents gave her this microphone/band stand for Christmas. She loves trying to sing into it since it amplifies her voice. just thought these were funny pictures.

We also had Mae's 1 year doctor appointment last week. She weighed in at 21 lbs 9 oz and is 28 1/4 inches long. She seems to be getting shorter- 20th percentile now but is still around 60th in weight. Her head is still staying strong in the 90th percentile though!

Christmas...better late than never

I figured I needed to post some pics from Christmas before January got away from me entirely! We were in Memphis for Christmas and the whole family was able to be there. We had a great time together and all agreed that Christmas is so much more fun with a little one around. I think we all enjoyed her "opening" her presents as much as we did our own...or maybe that was just me.

Here's the first pic on Christmas morning. Jason and I are as excited as anyone about waking up on Christmas morning...but when Mae wanted to get up at 6:00, that was just a little early even for us. Here she is in the den happy after her bottle while we awaited the rest of the crew to wake up.

She seemed to like what Santa brought!

Mae did great job "opening" all the presents she got, or maybe it was more that she did a good job reacting to all the presents. She played with each one-- and you know she likes it if it ends up in her mouth!

Aunt Susie gave her the cutest pink stuffed horse. We love it!

"I LOVE Christmas!"

Four generations! My grandmother loved getting to spend time with Mae this visit. I think they are going to have a special bond.

We have yet another big "first" event coming our way...Mae's first birthday! It's a week from today. I'll try to be a little more timely in posting about that one. Can't believe it!

Sweet Mae Flower

This year some friends came up with a cute Halloween theme for Mae and me-- Jason doesn't dress up... but he might want to next year since we were so cute this year :) Mae was a May flower and I was April showers. I figure that I'll only have a couple years where I can dress her up in whatever I choose. She surprisingly did well with the petals sewed onto a headband. I thought she'd rip that off after a few minutes, but she didn't seem to mind it.


We actually had a little get together over at our house on Halloween night and Mae had fun watching all the other kids...maybe that distracted her from the headband. Next year, we'll actually go trick-or-treating which will be so fun to see her running around.

Mae also had her 9 month check-up last week. She weighed in at 19 lbs 4 oz and is 26 3/4 inches. I thought surely she'd be 20 lbs, but I guess the crawling has slowed her weight growth a little. Her head is still in the 90th percentile though...a Dallas trait. Everything else checked out great, and our next appointment won't be until she's 1 year! I can't believe it!!

Growing up

Mae has been achieving some more milestones these past few weeks. Most notably, she started crawling last weekend! She is getting better and better at it every day. She's not crawling all over the place just yet-- mainly just when you give her an incentive, like holding out the remote or cell phone. I tried to capture it in a picture below. We have a video but I don't know how to post it on here..sorry.

Mae also now eats "real" people food and can feed herself. She loves avocados, chicken, turkey, fruit and likes peas, carrots, squash okay. She loves drinking water out of her sippy cup too. She's trying to master drinking from that by herself....most of the time she drops it but she's getting better. It's so nice when she can just sit next to us and feed herself while we eat. She hardly needs us anymore :)

We bought her first pair of real shoes a couple weeks ago. Some good ole Keds! We think she'll need them since it's starting to get a little cooler here and she'll want to walk around while holding our hands. Here she is modeling them. I think she is starting to really look like a toddler in this picture.

Here she is "playing" with Tex again. He is still her favorite toy...although I don't think the feeling is mutual.

Here are a few more shots of our happy girl!