Happy Birthday, part 2

My parents came over this weekend to celebrate Niki's "birthday," even though she doesn't really turn one until later this week. We had a glorious time watching Niki experience all the traditional joys of turning one. For instance, she got her own little cake, and Daddy helped her blow out the candle. Niki then took the cake and smeared it all over her baby doll. I guess she was sharing. I got a great video of her attempts to figure out what she was supposed to do with the cake, but it's nearly four minutes long, and I don't even want to think about how long that would take to upload, so you're just going to have to come over and watch it yourself. But she insisted on sharing it with her baby, which made for a very sticky baby. She then crawled all over Mommy, but we don't have pictures of that. Suffice it to say that the room was much stickidified, and the dog was disappointed that we wiped it up before he got at it.

Then we moved on to presents. Like all babies, she doesn't quite get the unwrapping bit, but she was ecstatic to get new toys. She's been wanting her own cell phone ever since she figured out that Mommy and Daddy's cell phones made noise. (She still tries to steal our cell phones, but now we have a way to distract her.) She also got cds, clothes, blocks, and dishes, but the cell phone took the cake because it made noise.

Not even the ribbons intentionally chose to entertain her (as part of that "the wrapping is more interesting than the present" tradition) could compete with it for long. Note that in all these pictures, the cell phone remains firmly in her hands.

She did, however, take a moment to read her cards and say thanks to everyone who sent presents.

And finally, a picture of my little activist. This picture was taken about six months ago (see how much she's grown), but I finally got a copy today. Choose life, that you may live. Amen.

It's that time again.

Time for another Boo Boo photo mantage. This photo montage is the beginning of the commemoration of her first birthday, which will occur a week and a half from today. Yes, I know. It caught me by surprise too. So why not wait for her birthday to post pictures, you say? Well, because 40 Days for Life starts this Wednesday (mark your calendars), my parents are coming this weekend for an early celebration, and I just don't know if I'm going to have the change to post again before the big 01. If she keeps growing like she is, though, she might post them for me. It just doesn't seem possible that she's going to be year old, but here she is, nearly walking, nearly talking, nearly a toddler instead of a baby. I know she's growing up because I caught myself wanting another baby the other day. Good grief.

I love the different attitudes represented in these pictures. As my parents would say, she's such a little person. You can tell that there are some very definite thoughts running through her head.

(This one's my favorite.)
Annika is also forging relationships with her toys. Her favorite toy right now is the dolly that Beppe gave her for Christmas. She carries it with her everywhere, often upside down. She rocks it, hugs it, and pats it on the back, and sometimes she even sleeps with it, all snuggled up on the crib.
And it is also Spring! I know this because Friday our weather was so nice that Seth was tempted to . . . yep, to break out the grill. We had brats for dinner, grilled to perfection on Seth's grill. Of course, today it rained, which is the second sign of Spring. The weather around here likes to play with us. It announces the season of torrential downpours with a week of gradually warming sunshine. But hey, brats are brats, especially when grilled, and anyone who wants to live in the most beautiful place on earth has to learn to roll with the punches.

Still growing.

And she's off, and nothing's going to get in her way! No, she's not actually crawling yet, but she is digging in drawers and climbing furniture and helping me wrap Christmas presents and pulling herself up in her crib. I'm beginning to think that she's going to forego crawling altogether and go straight from scooting to walking.

Our table has iron bars on the under side. I cringe every time she gets near one because she already has two bruises on her forehead from running into them, but she thinks they're great fun. This is Annika on her way down. She was halfway over the bar when I grabbed the camera.
She loves the drawers on the bottom of the china cabinet. She crawls out of her room in the morning and goes straight to the drawers and pulls them open and jiggles the handles and pulls all the stuff out.

'Tis the season of rustling paper, tape, and scissors. What baby doesn't love paper, tape, and scissors?

We've started some new foods too now that she's older. I thought we were supposed to avoid dairy products until one year, but the authorities ( Drs Sears, family doctor, my mother, and my mother-in-law) agree that babies of nine months can handle yogurt. Of course, feeding baby yogurt and letting baby feed herself yogurt are two different things. I was a little tired last night, so I just let her have the whole yogurt cup. Doesn't she look like an abstract painting? I'll call it arte enfant (would that be correct? I don't speak French.). What do you think?

Baby's first Thanksgiving

Hi, y'all. Happy Post-Thanksgiving. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

Niki and I spent the weekend with Seth's folks down in Oregon, where Niki was, of course, the star of the show, but she had a pretty good supporting cast. It was wonderful to see everyone down there and to watch Niki actually interact with people. She does a lot more of that lately.

The actual Thanksgiving meal was held at Pake and Beppe's (grandpa and grandma's). Beppe cooked us a mountain of food and was very concerned when we didn't eat more than half of it while we were at the table. Niki with Beppe, whose namesake she is. You can see the box of leftovers in the background. That shows you how much food there was.

This is my father-in-law. He is a man who believes in good food, good spirits, and good company. In short, Thanksgiving is his holiday.

Niki playing with my mother-in-law. Niki was so much more social and playful this time around. She played with everybody, which really surprised me because lately she's been in a "mommy-or-nobody" mood.

The high chair was at least thirty years old, and had no crotch bar to hold Niki up, so she kept slipping down throughout the meal. I don't think she was very enchanted at the prospect. However, she did like the little bit of turkey and carrots that she got.

Shy of the camera no more, she positively seeks out the opportunity to get her picture taken.

Niki exploring her Christmas present from Beppe.

Niki playing patt-i-foot with Auntie Alice. I call that her hobgoblin grin. Doesn't she look self-satisfied?

Posted too late.

I was hoping to get these pictures posted a little earlier, but it's been one of those days. I think Niki has teeth coming in again. There are moments when nothing makes her happy, but Seth called me from Guam yesterday, which made Me happy, so that's something. If I had gotten these pictures up earlier, he would have been able to see them today, but now he'll have to wait until his next stop. Sigh. I guess he'll just have to be content with the memory of my voice.

I know I say this with every post lately, but Niki is almost crawling. She can get up on her hands and knees now. She just hasn't connected that idea with the idea of forward motion. She is also getting the notion of grabbing on to things above her, though I think it will be a long time before she begins to pull herself up.

My parents came over for the weekend to attend a cousin's wedding shower and of course to see their grandbaby. My father was delighted that Niki is big enough to begin playing some of his favorite games. This one is called "Trap the kiddo between my legs and don't let her go." Niki was pretty impressed with herself and the general standing position. I was pretty impressed too. She's practically standing by herself right there. On the way over to the shower, we stopped at McDonald's, and Niki had her first french fry. I think she likes apples better, especially if she gets to hold the whole thing and chew on it at her own pace. She's also doing things like waving bye-bye at unexpected moments, saying "pa-ta-ca" when she claps her hands, saying "Oh-ooooo" when the dog howls, and just generally making me wish that I had a video camera attached to my hand so I could capture firsts instead of fifteenths. Good-night, everybody. God bless you.