A walk with babes and mommas

This past week a few friends and their Mommas

set out for a walk along Lake Champlain.

It was a chilly morning but we bundled up and went

out and had a great time.  Here are a few glimpses

at what it was like!

Piper checking things out

Alex chillin'

The four friends! 

L to R

Hannah, Maia, Piper and Alex!

Hannah fitting off the urge to take a nap, she fought hard!

Maia basking in the sun!

And the momma that drove them!
L to R
Becky, Zaneta, Verena and Amanda

After walk play time out of the strollers before the long
ride back home!

Hannah loving on Maia, she found her zipper
pull and thought that was pretty cool too!

Hannah Age 1 and growing!

It is hard to believe that Hannah is 

1 year old already!  To look back on the

pictures of her as a newborn and pictures now, wow!

I think it is probably the only year where you 

age the most over a course of a life time,

and where aging is the most celebrated!

Hannah is doing more things than she did last year,

well that should be a given.

Hannah has been walking for a month now

and is her preferred method of transportation.

She is slowly going from the Frankenstein looking

walk to letting her arms down a bit.  And she has

enough control to squat down to pick something up

and stand back up to continue her walk! 

She is also getting better at saving herself from 

stumbling and falling, but not always.

Hannah's vocabulary is growing as well,

not only what she says but also what she understands!

Her words or sounds she says is: Hi Dada, da,

ni-night, ba-bye, whats that, and as of last night she

said Amen after dinner prayer.

To tell you what she understands from us would 

require a lot of thinking.  She is understanding

more than I believe we know she is.  And she

is able to communicate with us by her facial expressions

as well.  For example she is getting much more picky

over the last couple weeks of what she eats

and if she does not want it she pulls a face and

shakes her head no repeatedly.

Here are a couple pictures from the last

couple months that we were not able to post:

 We went to Stowe for a weekend in February.  Here is Hannah

sitting in a rocking chair in with her snowsuit on, and less

than excited about it!

 Playing in the our bedroom and chatting away!

 Her last day of swimming "lessons", we had

a great time in the water!

 If we do not know where Hannah went, the first

place to look is behind the curtains looking out

the sliding door!

 This was the same time when she had taken

some steps on her own in March.  She walked about

5 steps from this toy to another toy she wanted to be at.

She walked over to the other toy without even

thinking about it!

 Behind the curtains again!  Now look up at

the picture above and see how she changed in about

2 months time!  She looks so much older here!

 Out to dinner with a bunch of family and friends.

Here is is so excited to sit next to baby Maia and to touch

her, it was so sweet to see her excitement!

After dinner was all done!

Hannah's Baptism and Birthday Celebration!

This past week we had a great celebration 

in Vermont!  Hannah was baptized on April 3rd

and her 1st birthday was April 6th!  Plus we had our
nephew Caleb's 10th birthday!  We had family

and friends from all over come to celebrate with us!

We rented a house in Morrisville, because we could

not hold 16 people in our place. We had a great week of food,

cake(s) and lots of games and excitement!

Here are a few highlights of the week!

 The week started out with Hannah's baptism at our church
The grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins
and some friends were able to attend!  And we
were all surprised that Hannah did so well!  She
did not even cry when Pastor Ryan took her for
the baptismal portion!

After the service we had a first birthday and 

baptism party.  Hannah was quite overwhelmed,

as we showed up late for her own party and there

were a lot of people at the house.

 Hannah eventually got down and dirty with her cake.
I had to feed her a few bites before she would touch
the cake.  But then when all was said and done she loved
to play with the cake, squishing it in her fingers
and playing with the frosting.  She even smeared some
on my face as well.

Her Lolo (grandfather) gave her a huge
balloon for the party.  She loved to punch it!

Opening gifts took quite some time as she would
rip off small pieces of paper and hand them to us before
tearing taking off another piece.

 She liked the xylephone, she like to hit things
and she did great!

Hanging out with Dada!

We also got to celebrate our nephew Caleb's 10th
birthday while we were in Morrisville!  He loved to
play with Hannah, here he is showing her his new
drums he got for a gift.

 We made personal pizzas for dinner, the night
we celebrated Caleb's birthday.  Here is Adrian showing off his
pizza crust throwing skills!

 Hannah enjoyed the pizza as well!

 One of our trips out was to Cider Hollow and we also
did a wine tasting.  Here are the kids waiting for us to finish.

The cousins all together:
Caleb, Ella, Lydia, Clara, Dominic and Hannah!

 We had a pinata for Hannah's birthday but we did not
crack into it until a couple days later.  Hannah got the first
swing, too bad she could not have the contents of it!

The Steeby family picture on the deck!

And the Seah family picture!

Almost there!

Hannah is almost 1 year old!

Cannot believe it so much is changing

again here on almost a daily basis!  

Hannah has been walking for a couple 

weeks now.  And everyday she is walking more

and more and leaving crawling behind or

only when it is necessary in her mind!

She is quite a persistent little one as well!

If she does not like what she is eating or does not

want to be fed she will let you know!  Or if she 

does not want to do what you would like her

to do she will let you know as well!

Her words are about the same,

she says "hi" and loves to say "hi dada".

She says ba-bye, but usually after anyone hangs up 

the phone or hangs up from skype.  And she can

say momma and ni-night.  I cannot think of any others

right now.  But she is starting to understand us more and

more.  She knows what no means, just does not always choose 

follow it when she is directed.  

We have a night time ritual of reading books,

milk and snuggle time before she is escorted off

to her bed.  She is getting to understand this.  In fact

if we try to read books to her during the day she will 

not sit for us to read them, probably because

she thinks that bed time is sure to follow!

This coming weekend we are having Hannah

Baptized at our church we have been attending.

We are also celebrating turning the single digit for

the first time!  A few family and friends will be joining 

us in the celebration!

I am still working on getting this blog to allow me some

more picture space and I am cleaning it up.  It is just taking

longer than I thought it would.  Hang in there, more posts

and pictures to come!

Changes

Changes are coming!

Okay I need to do some work on the blog!

I have run out of space to put up anymore

pictures.  So I am going to do some cleaning

up and rearranging of the site.  Sorry if there are no

new pictures for a bit!  We have a lot things going

on so I will get it up as soon as I can!

Hannah is doing great!  Yesterday she stumbled/took

her first step almost two steps to me.  She is not exactly

crawling.  She can scoot around while sitting.  She also 

gets around while she is laying down by pushing

herself around, it is her version of crawling.

It is like the doctor said all babies have their version

of crawling and I guess this is Hannah's! 

Today her next tooth popped thru her gums! 

It is the bottom left tooth.  Her top two are ready 

to come in but they have not popped thru the gums yet,

but I feel they are there!  

Hannah is also understanding things that we tell her

more and more each day.  He is getting the word no,

she understands "look at .....", look in the mirror,

and she has known where is momma or where is dada

for a while now.  There are other things that she is understanding

and it is great to see!  She can wave and say ba bye.  She can

give us a high 5!  And yesterday Adrian asked her to play

music for us and she found her toy that plays music

and pushed the button for us to listen!  So exciting to see her

at this age and see what she is learning!

I will get some pictures up from our latest trip to visit

Aunt Suanna and Uncle Nate and others when

I get the site figured out!

9 months!!!

Today Hannah turned 9 months old!
Man the time is flying by so quickly!
She had her 9 month check up today which
thankfully did not require any shots!  She did
great, well that is what the doc wrote!  She is
29.25 inches tall which places her in the 90th
percentile and she weighed 19 lbs. and 14 oz.
putting her in the 50-75th percentile.  She remained
in the same percentile for height but slipped a bit
in the weight.

She is getting closer everyday to crawling, walking
and pulling herself up.  She always look for hands
and when she finds them that means she wants to stand
and pronto!  She is even letting go of our hands while
standing, especially if she has a toy in hand or is reaching
for something.  She is starting to drink from a sippy cup, although
this might is a while.  She knows how to do it but not to stop
when she gets a mouth full and proceeds to let it spill out
of her mouth.  She definitely knows who Momma and Dada
are.  She prefers us to most people.  But is starting to be okay
with going to my friend Verena and will quite often
go to Karon with no issues and is starting to go to Zaz as well!

And Friday she is starting swimming lessons at a local
place here.  She will be taking them for 6 weeks with
a friend from playgroup!  I am excited to see what will happen
with her, since she likes to be in the tub so well!

Here are some pictures from last month an a couple fresh
ones as well!

Aunty Karon and Uncle Dave came over before

they left for their Christmas travels to give

Hannah a present.  And to give us a present

"from" Hannah.  This is Hannah giving Adrian 

our present.

Karon took Hannah aside one day and made a

hand print ornament for us.

Then on to the important gift, Hannah's

of course, right Aunty Karon?  She loves the

paper especially in small pieces.

Here she is with her new toy!

She is too young to walk behind it but

loves to sit in front of it playing with all the options!

Here are the presents from Momma and Dada

We gave her a Little People tea toy set and a Kai Lan doll

She loves to chew on the tea set!

Opening her gift from Cory's family

Playing with the piano

Momma opening her gift, books!

 Hannah almost fit into the medium sized
flat rate box from USPS but it broke.  So I guess
no one will have her appear on their door step!

Hannah posing in her new PJ's from Aunty Amy and Uncle Kyle

Look at me!  I am 9 months old!!!

These videos are her talents that she learned this past month!
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0pLU4XTLjM

This talent she is showing off with the teacher!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV5JWLiJDj0