Easter, Signing, and more!

Well sorry it has taken me so long to update this...Annabell has been keeping me super busy! She has been walking while holding on to things a ton lately...she actually prefers that over crawling...and learning how to step up and climb! She climbed all 4 levels of the jungle gym at the park the other day, and preceded to bump her nose when she face planted while going through the tunnel. She has had a ton of bumps this week. Well her 1st Easter was nice. She even participated in the egg hunt at church and picked up an egg (she only wanted the one egg). She was excited to have it! I had to tell the older kids to let her have the one egg since they were very competitive and was ready to take her egg right out of her hand! ha. Well she finally showed me that all the signing has paid off! She was crying the other day and I could not figure out why...and then I looked at her hand and she was asking for MILK! 2 times she asked for it that day and both times it is what she wanted! I was so impressed that an 8 month old could tell me what she wants! She is so adorable and SMART! She also randomly said hello (very clearly) to a biker passing us while walking at the park on the path! I was shocked because I wasn't instructing her to say hello or anything! She also now says bye very clearly. Before, she already did hello and bye but I think I could see it more than others, now it is very clear. She also loves to play Patty Cake. She will roll her hands when the song prompts her to. I am amazed at how everything is clicking with her all at once! It's very encouraging when teaching her to sign. A friend of mine told me to only work on one sign at a time, and that's what I did and sure enough that week she got it! We are working on momma now. She says Dada so we'll try to sign momma first..ha ha. Yesterday I was trying to get her to say momma and she kept saying Dada...needless to say Brad soaked up every second of it! ;) Well she is having her 1st sleepover with Grandma (away from both mommy and daddy for the 1st time!) since we have to chaperon an over night trip. It will be hard, we were even planning on taking her with us, but her Grandma and Big pop are so excited and looking forward to it that we decided it would be best. I'm sure she'll be spoiled by the time we get back tomorrow. ha Well here is some video, she says bye in this video (at the end)...she is feeding herself these days, she's starting to shun from baby food and wants what ever we are having which I am actually happy to oblige most of the time. She ate Turkey yesterday and provolone cheese! She LOVES cheese and meats. She also loves tangerines! Well I hope y'all have a great week! Oh and there are some pictures from Annabell's play date with my friends Rachel and Stefanie's children, Lilia and Mason. Annabell was following Lilia around since she can walk, she was trying to keep up with the big girls! Mason was trying to give Annabell her first kiss but never quite landed it! ha

Baby girl

Today had been a beautiful day in Florida. Annabell and I have gone to the store and the park. She loves going to the store and seeing all the new and interesting things! She is getting so fast with her crawling! She likes to follow me around from room to room. She also tried meat today for the first time, turkey. She liked it pretty well. She also did the sign for Milk today! I was ecstatic, but I would like to see it a few more days before I'm 100% positive. She did do it several times though! Well here is a video so you can see her crawling. She spits up a little in the video, but don't worry, I cleaned it up after filming. It happens often now that she is crawling so much! Love y'all!

More firsts...

Well today I hosted a shower for one of my girlfriends who is expecting her first baby girl on May 6th. Annabell took a nap most of the day, but when she was awake she enjoyed watching all the adults notice her as she crawled and talked. She liked to play with her friends mom, Brooke, which made her friend a little jealous, in a cute way! Anyways, we took Annabell to the park today and she crawled up the stairs on the jungle gym! She was so proud of herself! Daddy had to watch her close though or she would of fallen straight back on her head! She also grabbed the spoon while her daddy was feeding her and fed herself! She just seems to be growing up so fast! Her new thing is standing up, so she can practice sitting down, she seems to love that! Well here are some pictures of her playing! love y'all!

Crawling,,Standing...holding...

Well we returned from TN on Tuesday and I have been playing catch up ever since. We had a wonderful visit. Annabell was spoiled with attention by her cousin Mikayla, her aunts Kari and Sarah and her Papa! She also got to see her Big Nanny and Big Papa which was a wonderful surprise! I know you all would love to see pictures but I forgot my camera! I KNOW! But my sister Kari should be sending me some of hers and then I'll post them. Well since Annabell has started crawling she has slept better, played harder, and thrown up more! Ha. She now follows me from room to room. She is so proud of herself when she catches up to me. She also stands up constantly. Her new thing is to be standing when I walk in her bedroom in the morning or after a nap. Her naps are still wonderful, 2 times a day for about 1-2 hours. Her eating has decreased slightly but shes drinking more bottles than normal. She now laughs out loud just by looking at her and smiling which is so much fun. She LOVES blowing raspberries and laughs if you mimic her! Oh and while we were in TN I was feeding her a bottle and she took it away from me and began to feed herself! She is such a big girl! It snowed while we were in TN so we stayed inside most of the time, with the exception of going a few places, one being Go-Jump. An indoor jump house for children. They have a toddlers area that we let her aunt Sarah took her into, but she didn't like it much, she just preferred to bounce up and down on her butt with the help of her aunts. We had a great time, and she LOVED spending time with her papa, she would let him hold her tight and rock her to sleep. It was so cute, a few times they fell asleep together, so I guess she rocked her papa to sleep! Well let's see. I think that is it for now. Here is a picture of her sleeping, she pretty much rolls onto her belly shortly after falling asleep. Love y'all!

Noah and the Beach

Well my best friend Courtney came to visit us from NC this week. She brought her son Noah along with her. Noah and Annabell played pretty well together with the exception of sharing toys, ha. But besides that they did great. They also got to go to the beach together which was a lot of fun. Annabell had a blast playing in the sand! She wasn't too fond of the cold Gulf water but she loved crawling in the sand and running the sand through her fingers. She thought it was pretty funny. She has had a runny nose for about a week or two, it just seems to linger and she is constantly chewing on her fingers and toys, so I think it could be teething, but only time will tell. She is back to sleeping pretty well, at least the last two nights she has been. She was waking up all hours of the night last week. That's another reason I think it could be teething. Well tomorrow we are off to TN for vacation/business. I am very excited for my family to see Annabell. In just a week her crawling has become unbelievably fast! She also thinks she can walk, she pulls herself up on everything and will test her balance by holding on with just one hand. She's getting more and more brave everyday. She also says maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa now, it's not really directed to me though, so I'm not counting it yet. She is loving the "b" sound this week. She is such a jabber box, for several months now she will sing along with the radio or me/brad/grandma when we are singing. It's so cute! She seems to love anything with music! She had an adorable cheer leading outfit on yesterday, compliments of her daddy. She was doing cheers in it all day which was so funny. Well here are some pictures and we'll post more once I'm back from TN. Please pray for traveling mercies! Love y'all! P.S. We did Noah's hair fun for this picture, can you tell...he's soooo cute!