9 months in, 9 months out!

It's hard to believe that pregnancy was really this short! And from teeny-tiny speck, to newborn baby, to crawly-cruising almost-toddler has been 18 months! Really?? After our pedi check-up on Friday, we scheduled her 1 year appointment! Holy time-warp, Batman, is that right??
Anyways, here are her most recent stats:

Length: 28"
Weight: 19 lbs, 7.5 oz.
Head circumference: 17"
Another point on that 50% growth curve! At least for length and weight- the only thing this child has of mine is her head (25% percentile.)

Papa even got to join us for this pedi check-up! And lucky him, it's the only one we've had in 9 months where she didn't get a shot. Of course, he got doubly lucky when he was called in to work for an hour right as we were taking her to the lab for a blood draw (standard lead testing). In true Sierra-fashion, she was over it and smiling about 2 seconds after they put the bandage on her finger. Then we fed the ducks our Puffs while we waited for Papa to finish at the office.

Other random pictures from the last couple weeks:

Playing in the ball pool at Nana J's house- such fun!!

Her first outdoor theater show! Going to see Little Shop of Horrors at Miller Outdoor Theater. A bit of an adventure when curtain is 15 minutes before her bedtime and it's threatening rain, but we still had fun!

Big girl transitions: sleeping in her crib! At least for naps and starting the night. By about 2am, she's cuddling with Mama in her bed again. (yeah, doesn't look so much like sleeping here, does it?)

Mobility can get you in trouble! Haha- I promise I didn't put her in there. She's fascinated with everything the doggies have- their beds, their bowls, their bones. It's a constant battle all day to keep the dog stuff out of her mouth. I thought I'd have trouble keeping the baby's toys away from the dogs and it's the complete opposite!! Oh well....

And her newest piece of gear- the big girl car seat! She's getting dangerously close to outgrowing her current infant seat. So, given the new recommendations by the AAP, we went on the hunt for a convertible seat that could keep her rear-facing as long as possible (5x safer than front-facing). We decided on the Sunshine Kids RadianXTSL. Here's Sierra modeling it at the store:

This means she can be rear-facing until 45 pounds (given her current trajectory, she'd be like 6 years old!), then continue front-facing in this seat until she's 80 pounds. I'm also hoping this new position will keep her happier on the highway, since our last couple road-trips have required non-stop singing to keep her from screaming. Fun times!! :)

Summer Silliness

Just the word "Silliness" is whimsical, isn't it?
After grumbling at the laptop's "No space left" messages for a couple months, I finally burned a pile of DVDs and dragged a few (dozen) gigs of files over to the trashcan. And now that all that pesky lab data is gone (yikes), I actually have room to import all the random snapshots and videos of Sierra (and the rest of us) that I've collected over the last couple months. Just think of it as our "Behind the Music" special. :)

 Having fun at the Mad Potter making Papa a Father's Day gift.

Happy first Father's Day Papa!!

Parachute play at the Meyer Public Library

Story time like a big girl!

Silly Papa...   :D

Caution, crawling baby on the loose! Dogs, I'm sorry.... 

Also, Sierra apologizes for her fashion disaster- she didn't know she was going to be on tv.

And cruising along the furniture. A little distracted by the dogs, who are hungry and restless.

Playing with Papa. Pulling up and "dancing".


Her first chance to play at the piano. I'll spare you the whole "banging baby" routine, but instead torture you with me attempting to sight-read while Sierra "helps". (This is also my first chance at the piano in more than 6 months. Ms Elise, if you watch this, I'm sorry about the fingernails.) ;)

And what I think is the cutest. She was interested in what Mama was doing on the laptop, so I showed her the magic baby that lives in the computer (ie: the webcam). Turns out, they had a lot of fun together.

Fireworks & TURTLES!!

Wow, sorry 'bout the lapse in updates here... Yeah, no good excuse!

For the long Fourth of July weekend, we invaded Beeville- all 6 of us!!! We had a wonderful weekend full of food, family, friends, and fireworks. Sierra got to participate in all but the last- she was safely snoozing back at GrandPapa and Mamaw's house while the parentals snuck over to Granddaddy's for the annual explosive fun. Well, Chrissy is still too chicken to actually light any of these things, so Travis, Rosalie, and Stacey did the dangerous work, while Chrissy took pictures.

Since we missed the hatchling turtle release in S. Padre, we were keeping our fingers crossed for a release to happen at the National Seashore that weekend. Monday was our lucky day, so we dragged ourselves out of bed and hit the road at 4:30 am! Sierra was still in her jammies- lucky girl! We drove straight to Corpus Christi, crossed the causeway, and headed down the island to the park. Then, 10 miles from the beach (and 10 min from the release time), we were stopped at a police barricade. The road, the only one down the island, was closed due to a large brush fire (presumably a result of the fireworks the night before). The officer told us it would be hours and the only other way down the island was along the beach. Since we'd already driven 1.5 hours, we figured it was worth a shot- we had a Subaru, right? Well, we made it about half a mile down the very narrow strip of beach (and around one very stuck minivan) before we decided to give it up. So, we parked the Subie on the beach to just relax and enjoy the sunrise.

The afore mentioned Subie. (Subaru IS love, if anyone was wondering.) :)

A beautiful Texas coast sunrise. Ahhhh.... who could be stressed watching this?

I couldn't resist a picture of a baby in jammies on a beach. And Travis couldn't resist pictures in sunrise lighting.

Mmmmm... sand. I remember this stuff!

Wait, did you see that?

S'Ok.. I know I'm cute.

While Travis had the camera out, several groups of brown pelicans (juveniles, I think) flew overhead, cruising in the coast winds. Awesome. :D (Hopefully they're staying away from the rest of the Gulf Coast.)

While Papa was taking pictures, Mama was teaching Sierra a lesson about cleaning up.
***Soapbox: If everyone would just pick up 3 pieces of trash every time they went to the beach, can you imagine how clean it would be? We picked up 2 drink bottles and a lightbulb.***

After our nice 30 minute beach trip, we headed back out to the main road towards Beeville. We thought, "oh heck, let's see if the road is open". The turtles would be gone, but we could at least go visit the park. The barricade was gone!! (Lots of grumbling about the uninformed cop.) We drove into the park, practically ran to the beach, and found the release was still happening! The last 30 or so (of 107) hatchlings were still making their way to the water- yay!

Very cool experience. I definitely recommend attending a release if you can- check out their website and plan your visit!

In other news, Sierra has started crawling, cruising and standing up! I'll post videos soon!