A Year Flies!

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I last wrote.  I totally forgot I even had a blog, let alone finding the time to blog.  I wish I would have kept up with it more because it's so much fun to look back at it.  Well, Piper turns 2 in a couple of months and I can't believe it!  She is very very active, running everywhere, loves to spend as much time as she can outside, and goes to Mother's Day Out twice a week and really enjoys it.  Since our trip to Belize we all went to Spain for over a week to spend lots of good quality time with Sam's family.  It was a great trip even though it took forever to get there, and with a 1 year old - it was super exhausting!  I don't think we've flown since then ha.  Sam and I had our first weekend away for our 5 year anniversary in September.  We spent 3 nights in Austin and had so much fun.  Piper spent 1 night with my sister and 2 nights with my parents.  I am hoping we can take another trip just the 2 of us before we get pregnant with #2.  Which is TBD ;)  Oh also Sam's mum Val came over to see us in Houston for Thanksgiving and got to spend a lot of time loving on her only granddaughter, reading her stories, getting up with her in the mornings, it was a great visit!  Coming up we have a trip to Connecticut with Sam's parents, sister Jemima and her husband Andrew and son Alex.  Then in August we will spend 2 weeks in the UK for Sam's cousin's wedding.  Which means we will spend Christmas here in Houston again, yay!  Waking up in our own house this past Christmas and watching Piper open her stockings in our bed was so special, I want to do that every single year!  Alright, that is all for now - here are some pictures.  I have so much more to update but can't even think of it all!

Belize Family Trip, April 2012

So we decided to take a family vacation to San Pedro, Belize in April.  People thought we were crazy for going there for 7 days with Piper but I didn't think it would be so bad.  It probably wouldn't have been except the night before we flew out she got a 104.6 fever and we spent all night in the ER!  They couldn't figure out what was wrong with her, said it was just a virus and we were fine to fly.  So on very little sleep and very quick packing we were on our way the next day!  Piper was pretty fussy the first few days, but once her fever broke, she got better and snapped out of it she was really happy to be there and happy to spend so much time with us (esp her Dada).  She started walking just after she turned 10 months and is pretty much running now!  It made the trip a lot better and easier to have her on the beach!  Her 1st Birthday is in a couple of weeks and I'm having so much trouble wrapping my head around that fact!  Time flies when you're in love with your baby I guess!! 

10 Months Old!

Been a while since I posted. Piper is 10 months old on Monday, she says mama, she has 3 teeth and she walks!!! She took her first steps a couple weeks ago and then 7 and the other day I counted 25! She is just so adorable lately, very sweet, hugs us, wants to cuddle, laughs all the time, babbles and is so curious. My birthday was yesterday and it was so cute having her bring me my presents! Though she wasn't a fan of actually letting go of them ha. She is finally eating a lot, basically anything we give her (especially finger foods) she'll eat it. She use to be so picky so it was a struggle to get to this point. We go to Belize in a few weeks and can't wait! I hope she is fully walking by then so there is less sand in the mouth but who knows! Alright, will try to post again soon! xo.Swingin' at the park...loving her thumb.
Ready for summer in her new romper
Sleepy mornings
Waving hello at the park (find the toes). Her new nanny Kisa took this photo!


Andrew LOVES being chased by Piper, it's so cute!


Here she is walkin' around the kitchen.


She gets what she wants

20 Weeks!?

"let's get physical...physical!"

"oh hello there...i'm kinda nude"

her Nana knitted her this sweater - she can't wear it in Houston so we took it to Vancouver

Piper turned 20 weeks old yesterday - how is that possible? Someone once said "the days are long but the weeks are short with a baby" and it's so true. I have loved every minute with Piper and am finally realizing how grateful I am to be able to stay home with her and watch her grow and learn. She really has made it pretty easy on us, yes she has her fussy times but when it comes down to it she is a great sleeper, she smiles 95% of the day, and she makes my heart sing...she's amazing. I am so bad at keeping this blog but I hope to get better mainly so I can have this as a record later of all my favorite Piper moments and achievements. Lately we're trying to get her to eat some rice cereal but it's not going well, I finally added a little banana and she's starting to take tiny nibbles. I'll keep trying! She's so active in her crib, I go in there in the morning to get her and her legs are dangling out of the crib bars or her hand is stuck, she's not even close to where I laid her down - she is on the move! Above are some of my favorite pictures from the last month. The 2nd two are from our recent trip to Vancouver. Our trip to Vancouver was great, she slept on the way there and on the way back. It's almost a 5 hour flight - so it kind of prepared us for our trip to the UK for Christmas - 10 hours just doesn't compare to 5 though so I'm still a bit nervous.

I'll start uploading these videos to the blog at some point but for now here are links to them...she's so vocal now and playful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1dC4R3DrGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhrBrOGAg7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4BpFlZZ2CA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0HIislThJU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boL4kHSK6Vw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB8KiGTeQaI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b17CHRS1rU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y-bAgBEPJ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YRcHf3YBRg

Piper Photoshoot

Sam's co-worker has a little photography studio at her house and offered to let us use it. So in June, when Piper was a month old, Sam took a ton of these photos of Piper and we got to borrow all sorts of girly little props and use her lighting, etc. It was great. I really never thought I'd put all this girly crap on my little daughter but there I was, covering her in pearls, feathers, and tutus!! ha. She did great and we love the photos we got. I think we'll go back at 6 months and a year to get more shots. Actually now Sam wants to turn our semi-converted attic into a little photography studio, I think maybe that's the best use for that space up there so am all for it. Our little baby is almost 12 weeks old now, I can't believe it. She smiles at me every day and I just MELT!! There's just nothing like it. She kinda laughs sometimes so I know those will start coming more and more and I can't wait!

Introducing Piper Evelyn!

Sorry I never post anymore, obviously a newborn doesn't exactly give me time to do these things. This will be a short post, just wanted to put a couple pics up of my beautiful baby girl. Born May 26, 2011, 8lbs 6oz, 20.5", 12:41pm via c-section. I'm pretty much fully recovered and she's super healthy and things couldn't be going any better! I loved her the minute I saw her and I love her more every day, I swear I think I kiss her over 100 times a day!

37.5 weeks, the clock is ticking!

Ready to pop!

Pip's nursery is finally done!

As of today, I have 9 days to go! C-section (pip is breech) has been scheduled for May 26th. So that's exactly 1 week before original due date. I think I'm glad, I'm not sure I could make it to June 2nd haha. I'm so excited to meet her and kiss her and see Sam holding her, I just can't wait!! I'm not a huge fan of knowing the exact date that she's coming cause it makes me a tiny bit anxious but I am taking full advantage of knowing. We've scheduled a maid to come while we're at the hospital, it's easy to plan for someone to come get Marley, I am getting a good long pedicure the day before, easy for Sam to plan his paternity leave, oh and I know I get to watch the last Oprah before the big day ha. I couldn't be happier with how the nursery turned out, I just love it. We keep going to sit in there, it's just so peaceful and elegant. So since I'm so bad about posts my next one will probably be when our baby girl is a couple weeks old ha. I'll apologize now. Sam is taking 2 weeks off work to take care of his girls and we know it'll be a tough couple of weeks with a newborn but we're also looking forward to spending so much time together as a family! Stay tuned for the birth announcement after next Thursday! :) xoxo