Thanksgiving in FL

Here are a few photos from Orlando, where we (Jeff, Mirah and I, and his brother and parents) went to celebrate Thanksgiving with his aunt, uncle, and cousins who live there. These are from Downtown Disney, where we walked around in the fabulous weather on Saturday before heading to the airport. They had a statue of Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty:
and a huge dragon made of legos:and the best part, as far as Mirah was concerned, a train and carousel that she could ride! Here we are on the train:

Here are Aunt Deb and grandma Karen cheering us on on the carousel:
I have a really goofy expression, but I'm adding this one to show that Mirah was a fearless little girl, she even let go to wave after a while!
Mirah had so much fun, we had to go twice on each ride, and even that wasn't enough! It should be fun to go back to actual Disney when she's older and can appreciate it, but these "rides" were great for her first trip!

matchin' kicks

Auntie Leigh Leigh and Mirah have the same shoes (albeit different sizes)

More recent pics

So Leigh gave me the memory card from her camera with LOTS of great recent photos, so here we go:
On a recent visit by my parents, we managed to catch a photo of all of us at once, squeezed into Leigh's kitchen.

And then here's a snuggly moment with the whole (immediate) family--just me and Mirah, Jeff...and his iphone!
Here's a jaunty hat my mom got Mirah for her birthday (there's an outfit to match, we'll wear it for Christmas)
And another warm winter option from Mom...well, the face says it all. (It's ok, mom, she'll like it when it's cold! Nanook of the North did :)
And just to wrap up, a nice photo of the spread at Mirah's party, since I didn't have a good pic of it on my camera. It was a fairy cake!
-Claire

Birthday party!

So I have a couple photos of the birthday party we had for Mirah's 1st yesterday. We were in the studio at Several Dancers Core, decorated with style (in purple and green, with a fairy theme) by my sister and her friend, Farah. Leigh also got her a fairy costume, and there aren't any pictures of me, but I went all out and wore the sparkly skirt and hair jewelry to be festive too. The headband from the costume didn't even last long enough to get a picture, but here are a couple pix of Mirah the fairy princess:
We took video of her and the cake (she wasn't all that impressed, until we made her take a bite, she wandered off then came back demanding more. Go figure!) But still haven't figured out how to connect to the computer with the new(ish) camera. If we can get it to work, I'll definitely have to put the cake and presents moments online.

One year!

Mirah's first birthday was yesterday! We don't have any party pics yet though because the party didn't happen yet thanks to illness (that Mirah was over but I had caught by the time we were supposed to celebrate, yuk.) We did go ahead and let her have a taste of ice cream (which she spit out) and cake (a bite or 2 of chocolate cupcake) which she LOVED.
Here's a pic of her showing off her belly button:
And one in her adorable birthday outfit carrying a new book:

walking!

Mirah's walking, yep, she's walking and Jeff and I are about to start getting our exercise! I don't have a photo that's caught her in action, and I can't promise video either, it's a little beyond my time to spend to figure out how to make that work. But I'll try to get some more general cute pics up soon.
-Claire

Weekend on the "farm"

Mirah enjoying the grass in the front yard (while mom tries to keep her out of the occasional dog poop!)
Here's the little mini-horse, Frank! You don't really get the idea of his small stature from this photo, but let's just say he was raised with a labrador retreiver! And you can see his blue eyes (and where he gets sunburned on his nose because of the white hair! Have to put sunscreen on him!)

Here's Mirah's first ride on mini-horse Frank, turquoise mini-saddle, overalls and all! She wasn't all too sure about it, but she did ride a few steps with us holding her. She wasn't as intimidated by Frank as by the full size horses, who she was a little afraid of, especially at first (they are a LOT bigger than she is!) She also liked the cockatoo who can talk a little bit, and all the other animals (cats, guinea pigs, dogs, another bird...)And here's the family sans Leigh (who's taking the picture) out in the yard on our way out to the car to leave. We had a fun weekend on the "farm"--who says you need to pay $300 a night to actually visit with some animals and play in the grass (as they do in this NY Times article on farm stays.)

The Stairmaster

So Mirah has been climbing the stairs for a while now, and she's gotten pretty good at going up. However, aside from one or two somewhat successful tries, she still hadn't figured out how to go down. On Sunday night she decided she was going to puzzle it out and so now she can go both up and down. In celebration she when up and down the stairs like 5 times before she went to bed Sunday. She'd climb to the last step before the top, then turn around and go back down, turn around and go back up... smiling all the while. She was quite proud.

On the standing/walking front, she can pretty much stand at will now, only occasionally needing something to steady herself, and she's getting really good at cruising. She still hasn't made it more than 3 or so steps without holding on to something, but she has walked pretty long distances a few times when we've held her hands. I'm sure it won't be long now.

-jeff

Cruisin, and bein' cute...of course

Ok, only crawling here, but she IS cruising and has taken a couple of steps on her own (before plopping down on her butt, but after longer and longer!)

This adorable little outfit is a gift from a friend, though you probably can't see it all that well in this photo, it is very soft as well as cute. And it's 12 mo size, but fits already (a little big in the shirt, but not crazy big and the pants fit length-ways!) And of course, the accessory must have, the pink and green water bottle! She wouldn't let me take it away for the photo w/o screaming, so there it is.
So she didn't feel like really smiling for this one, but it's still pretty cute!

The pearly whites

As promised, it's pictures of the teeth! I took these yesterday on the car ride home. What a smile :)

Also, on the new stuff Mirah is doing front, she's been quite fond of Cheerios for a while, and usually we just feed them to her. If we put them on the table she'll pick them up, but she hasn't been able to put them in her mouth because they're tough to grasp with just fingertips. A few days ago she started picking them up and feeding them to us the same way we feed them to her. She'll grab one and stick it out towards your mouth until you come get it. Then this morning she finally picked up a Cheerio and fed it to herself. She was quite proud.

She's also figured out a week or two ago how to feed herself with a spoon. She still can't scoop things with it, but if you load it up she'll take it, feed herself with it and then hand it back to you so you can put more stuff on it. She's also managing to stand on her own for longer and longer, and even walking a little if you hold her hands.

-jeff

The full set

Mirah now has two top teeth, bringing her grand total to four. It is so adorable when she smiles with them now. I'll be sure to post a pic of it soon.

In other news, she has figured out how to feed herself with a spoon, and is very proud of this. Also, if you say Yay! Good job! to her now about things, she'll look at you and clap if you aren't already clapping for her so that you will. So cute!

-jeff

A new fang is born

Last week Mirah had a new tooth come in. It's her first upper fang, so now she can finally gnash her teeth. Her nose-biting routine is now much fiercer...

jeff

Cute Outfit

Here's the newest outfit from Grandma Shirley modeled by our lovely Mirah (with wooden block accessory, a must have!) It's got a hat with it too, that matches the shorts, but unfortunately that doesn't stay on very well since there's no chin strap on this one.

Mirah was our model for more pictures this weekend too; we had family portraits done by Jeff's friend from aikido. When we get those back, I'll post them. She was fussy for a lot of the time because she didn't want to have to stay still, of course. Especially since we were in the dojo and there's a big expanse of mat just waiting for her to crawl across! (Not surprisingly there wasn't a single clutter free spot in the house we could use!)
-Claire

Old McDonald

Last weekend Mirah decided to sing along. Now, sometimes when you sing the song to her, after you say "Ee i ee i" she says "o" at the end. So...cute... She's also actually managing to stand on her own for a few seconds at a time now, but she's still a bit wobbly. She crawls pretty fast at this point though, right at whatever she shouldn't be getting into...

As an addendum to Claire's Mother's day post, here's a picture of Grandmom and Mirah on Mother's Day.

-jeff

Crawling!

Yes, she's done it! She's started crawling! Last week she figured out the belly to sitting by pushing back transition that she was missing. And Saturday night she went for the iphone where Grandma was talking to her about 4 feet of actual crawling! Now she does it whenever she really wants to get to something, and then she's very proud of herself. It's so cute! (and oh boy, here comes trouble) Not to mention she's started doing a very nice and ear piercing shriek whenever she's frustrated about something. She's doign it right now because I'm not paying attention to her. So I'll go and get her ready for bed.
--Claire

Jumperoo and swimming too!

So I'm trying to respond to the request for some jumperoo pics, but alas, she's smiling and squeeling and bouncing...until I get the camera ready! So she may not look like it here, but she really has fun in it, and she's so tall now we've even had to move it up a notch to the "2" slot!

We're doing a parent and baby water aerobics class that she seems to enjoy well enough (she's not totally sold on how cold the water is getting in, or being cold and wet getting out...but the part in the water seems ok.)

And here's one photo of the outfit Grandma Karen got on the day that it was cool enough to wear...and alas, may not be again before she outgrows it! But here's a photo of how cute she was in it! :)
And it's bedtime--off we go!
--claire

Mother's Day

Alas, we have no photos, but we had a fabulous Mother's Day! Jeff's folks (aka Grandma and Grandad) came to town and Leigh also joined us for lunch at Horseradish Grill. Mirah loved the swing in the garden, and we all enjoyed the meal. Then my present from Jeff was to get some of the funny toe-shoes (no, not the ballet kind, but I'm not sure how else to describe these) and so I'll have lots of fun wearing these odd, but comfortable footwear! And we're getting Grandma a web cam so she can do peak-a-boo with Mirah from Columbia! :)
Mirah has yet to crawl (not yet, since that last post a couple days back.) She's soooo close, but the knee thing is holding her up (she wants to use her feet instead but can't quite manage that either.) I don't know about other babies, but Leigh says her problem is that she inherited my super flexible hips...her knees just go out to the side, it's hard for her to get them under her. I'm sure she'll figure it out! She's realized just recently that that rolling thing she can do will get her off her tummy when she doesn't want to be there. So she may have outgrown "tummy time" she disliked so much.
7 months on Tuesday! Lucky for her, that doesn't mean any more shots. She's growing like a weed, of course, and avocado continues to be her favorite food.
--Claire

Any day now

Crawling....so....close....

Much chasing lies ahead of us.  Guess it's time to get serious about baby-proofing.

jeff

It's May!

This is just a random cute picture of Jeff and Mirah smiling (we caught her in the act!) so I thought I'd post. Since the last post, let's see, she had her 6 mo. doc visit, and requisite shots, which gave her a fever and kept us all from sleeping too well for a night. But then she was ok, and we all slept (whew!) And she now has a tooth! And almost 2 or 3 more all coming in here sometime soon. She continues to enjoy avocado and banana, is ok with carrots and sweet potatoes, and hates peas (ok, so I haven't even tried peas again lately because the reaction was THAT bad.) Oh and beets were a definite "no" too, though no one is surprised by that one!

-Claire

Easter

Haven't posted since last week, but here are a couple of photos from her 6 month birthday, which also happened to be Easter. She's meeting Stubby, Jeff's parents' corgie (used to be Jeff's too). Mirah really likes animals in general. I think she talks to Simon cat more than to Jeff and me, and she just squeals in delight when she's around dogs.
The little dress she's in is a 6 mo. and already the bottom wouldn't close all the way. It seems like she just had a big growth spurt, getting a lot longer...we'll see!

High chairs, no peas please!

The biggest news is that Leigh has moved to Atlanta! She's working with babies even younger than Mirah at a school in Morningside. She's got her dog, Rosie and her surly bunny, Lulu, both of which Mirah thinks are really, really funny! Though here Mirah's doing the bite-lip face...

So we got Mirah a high chair from Nick and Angie's neighbor's garage sale. I asked if it was in good shape, which it is, what I didn't think to ask was if it had strange markings...for some reason it has John Lennon autograph and quotes, so every time I feed her I get "Imagine" stuck in my head! It's also very large for her at the moment...her plastic baby throne...
She also has been experimenting with different foods and peas are definitely on the "do not feed me" list! Luckily, the cat seems to like cleaning up the little bits of leftovers. Not suprisingly, she likes the blueberry and banana baby food much better than the peas!

Here's Mirah and Grandma Karen, with Mirah sporting one of her many sunhats.

And a new dress I couldn't resist at the little organic boutique-y place (they got me in with the sales, darn them!) There's just something adorable about a the mini-sized diner waitress look! "You want coffee with that, hon?" The shoes are also vintage, a hand me down from Angie, yes, apparently they were Angie's, not her daughter Sam's.

Cute baby photos + sick baby :(

It has been far too long since I've posted, though fortunately Claire has been good about picking up the slack.  It's kind of a good news/bad news post.  The bad news is that last night we had our first emergency room visit.  Mirah had a pretty high fever, but after she got some tylenol her fever came down.  It seems like she probably caught some virus or other.  She's such an awesome baby, that despite not feeling well she really didn't cry except for when they took her temp and when she had to wait for the doctor and was hungry.  Her fever isn't as bad today, so hopefully she gets well soon.

The good news is, since I haven't posted in a while I have a good selection of baby photos to cull through and post.  Some of these are a month old, but their cuteness remains undiluted.

Sleeping baby = overwhelming cuteness.

The next few photos are from a series I took while I was watching her at Claire's office where she was making all kinds of faces.
Mmmm.....can't wait to eat real animal. ;)
You're actually taking photos of this?!
This is probably the biggest gem from the set.
Blue steel...it's not ready yet.
More cute lip biting.  Since she's been teething she actually still does this quite a bit.

-jeff

Roll over

Mirah rolled over from front to back this morning! I don't think she realized she did it, but that's the second time (first I'd seen...Jeff saw her do it a while ago and she hadn't done it again for weeks.) Hopefully she'll do it again soon because she wants to be moving badly (especially when she throws things too far to get.)
Claire

5 Month itch

I don't have a photo to commemorate, but Mirah's 5 months old today and we went to the pediatrician for some shots, and to get a rash looked at. The rash is unidentifiable and we have a cream for the itch. Yippee. (I'm afraid it may have been something from being on the floor in the dance studio. It's always pretty nasty and even though I put down a blanket, don't think there's anything that would keep her clean.) It seems to be getting better on its own anyway, so no biggie.
She's 15 lbs now! Not quite as huge percentile-wise as she was a couple of months ago, but still about 75th percentile, so not a teeny lady either.
I have a bunch of things she's outgrown that I'm going to pass along. My friend Juana just let everyone know she's expecting! She's about 3 months, so her baby will be about a year younger than Mirah. I pulled out all the plain white onesies to give her for now. And some preggie books. If she finds out its a girl we can send more stuff her way. Seasonally, that'll work better than passing them down to the younger baby in the psych dept., who's only a couple months (?) behind Mirah (really warm footie pjs, not much good in Atlanta in June!)
--Claire

Sunday in the park with Mirah

Top photo: Mirah shows off in a sunhat and my sunglasses while we're at the Peachtree Dekalb airport playground this afternoon. We met up with the older kids: Samantha (with Nick and Angela) and Eli (with Ann and Ben) and I think she enjoyed the nice weather and getting to see the other kids (though of course she's not up for playing on the actual playground yet!)
The sunhat actually matches an outfit she wore yesterday at Peidmont Park. She got to sit on the ground and pull her first grass yesterday--it was brown winter grass, but grass nonetheless. I have a photo on my phone but of course it doesn't come with a cord, so I can't upload (not paying for the internet on my phone.)

So we had a nice outdoor weekend--just a week after it snowed! Crazy!
--Claire

NC trip and highchairs!

Mirah went out of Georgia for the first time last weekend with us on a trek to the Triangle area in NC. Jeff was going for an aikido seminar and I got to visit friends who still live around there and introduce them to Mirah. We also visited with Grandma and Grandpa on the way through Charlotte.
While we were in Raleigh, we went to dinner with a bunch of folks, and Mirah sat in a high chair for the first time. (See bottom photo.) She didn't stay there for long though because it was her bedtime and the restaurant was loud, so Jeff and I ended up taking turns holding her and eating. Considering everything we're lucky she didn't have a complete meltdown!
The other 2 photos are playtime, including a tummy time where she wasn't screaming her head off (yay for being able to hold her head up better!) Mostly her frustration right now is that she can push/throw things far enough away that she then can't get to them again. So she's gettin ready to get up and go--chasing her is imminent!
--Claire