Merry December!

It seems this blog has become a monthly deal, so welcome to December! :)

It may have snowed in Houston during Sierra's first December, but alas, there was none to be found this year. Luckily, the HMNS did the work that Mother Nature couldn't and delivered 80,000 lbs of "snow" for the kiddies to play in. (Here's a parenting conundrum: how do you dress a toddler to play in the snow when it's 80 deg outside?)
Sierra wasn't a big fan of walking on the (mostly icy) snow, but she really did enjoy sliding down the little "hill" on her bum.

We met our friend Holden & his mommy Taylor there also! :)

It was a pretty quick adventure into "winter", but still fun. After a snack, Sierra snuggled in for a nap in the Beco while Mama & Papa toured the Real Pirates exhibit. If you're in Houston, I recommend it! 

Princesses DO wear hiking boots!

...or at least baby Tevas!
Sierra is no stranger to hiking, really. But for the past year, this has meant being strapped into the backpack while Mama or Papa do the leg work. Not any more! Now that our little adventurer is fully mobile, she got to do a little of her own tramping at the Memorial Arboretum. A nice little hideaway in the middle of Houston- their longest trail is a whopping 1.9 mi loop! Gotta start small, right? (I figure for little toddler legs, that's equivalent to about 20 miles.)

PS: The title is a reference to an adorable book of Sierra's: Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots?

Warning: I found WAAY too many of these pictures adorable, so I may have bordered on picture-overload here...

C'mon Mama- pick up the pace!!!

More leaves!! (That's the sign for "more")

Wait... explain that to me again, Papa?

No, Papa.. don't you see the bird!!

Hey, what are you doing up here, Papa??

LOVE!

Beautiful girl, enjoying the outdoors!

We may need to get in a bit more practice on the flat-land soon though. We head to Arizona in a couple weeks and plan to hike around in the canyons for a few days. Cold, maybe snowy, and with a toddler- should be a fun challenge! No doubt there will be many more (fabulous) photos to come.

Happy Turkey Day (Eve)! Be full, be merry, be thankful! 

QUACK or TREAT!!

So this was not technically Sierra's first Halloween- last year, we had a squishy little 8 day-old ladybug.
Awww..  :)

But of course, a year makes a really big difference. WOW! She even has the perfect little ducky waddle!

 

Wait, why does that pumpkin look like me? 

Trick-or-treating at our neighbor's house. LOVE this picture- soo cute! Look at that big ducky rump!

Then we headed over to Aunt Charlotte & Uncle Dick's house, but a mile is a long walk for a little duck, so our ducky loaded into the duck-wagon.
Hahaha- this cracks me up! or should I say "quacks me up"???

Hi Cousin Jenny- would you like to feed the ducks?

I guess a mile is a long way for little ducks, even in the duck wagon.

Actually, by the time we got her de-ducked and ready for bed, our sweet little trick-or-treater had a fever of 102. :( And the next morning, Mama and duck were both sick with a cold. Bummer! Good thing there was plenty of candy around the house- it's better than chicken soup.

Happy Birthday Sierra!!

Before we get to the birthday thing, we have to say a big, huge congratulations to the newly-wedded Travis and Ashley Stewart! Yay! We had a fantastic time in Austin celebrating their wedding last weekend- the wedding and the bride were gorgeous and the family and festivities were loads of fun. Unfortunately, I didn't make it out with any pictures of my own, so we'll have to wait for the full wedding recap post. Here's one Travis took of Sierra and GrandDoug waiting for the ceremony to start- 100% precious!

Also, is that not the cutest dress ever? Mamaw is credited with the find on her adorable silk Strasburg and Aunt Arlene for hauling it around Texas to get it all cleaned up and ready! Definitely more pictures to come....


aaaaaand... BIRTHDAY!
Little Sierra Elisabeth is now a BIG, toddler Sierra! Wow what a year it has been. By which I mean the absolute best, most love-filled, rewarding, exhuasting year of my life. I'm definitely sad to see the baby-days slipping away, but also excited for the fun toddler milestones that I know are in our future. Like talking. Walking is no longer a challenge, but her communication is still limited to "point-and-grunt." She's definitely a good-natured baby- almost always happy, sleeping through the night, sweet as sugar. She's up to 8 teeth now! We're just in a constant state of teething I think. She loves finger foods- no patience for Mama & that spoon- and she'll almost anything you put in front of her. How could her parents not be blissfully happy? :)

On her birthday morning, we sang her first "Happy Birthday" and opened presents in our jammies.

To celebrate her special day, we took a trip to Dewberry Farm to meet some farm critters, test our navigational skills in the corn maze (Mama failed, no surprise), and pick our pumpkins with GrandDoug, GeeGee, Uncle Travis, & Aunt Ashley.  

All day, we talked about the day she was born. And I remember feeling just like this.  :P Hard to believe I weighed 55 pounds more last year than I do now! (Well, my knees believe it.) Wow!

After a not-so-quick dinner out, we headed home to start working! what? Yep, cake & cookie time in preparation for Sierra's birthday party! Papa rocked the cookie decoration- pink butterflies & dragonflies. What a sweetie. :)

Our "theme" was girly bugs.  Overall pretty impressed with my first attempts at cake decorating.

 

 Sierra had her own little cake to maul. I looove the little leaf plate I found- if you look closely, you might see the "chewed" out holes along the edge.

Birthday Girl!

Super-cool gift from GrandDoug-  he made this little hippo that chomps his mouth when you roll him along!!

Birthday banner: "Baby year in review." High girly factor- the clips are hair barrettes!

 

Look how much she's grown! It's pretty amazing when you see it charted like this. (By weird coincidence, the bottom edge of this thing is 19.5 inches- her length at birth!) We'll add in the 1 year point after her official "weigh-in" at the pedi on Monday!

We had a great party and really, really appreciate all the loving friends and family that came to celebrate with us. Sierra loves you all! :) Thank you all for the sweet gifts and adorable outfits- we'll have a fashion show soon! 

And just to be nostalgic, her first picture!

And now... bed. Phew!

Super Mega Post

So yeah, it's been a month, plus. Sorry! I blame my laptop this time- my hard-drive finally got so full I couldn't download pictures anymore. In fact, it was so full, I could no longer copy&paste or even run Photoshop- that's bad. Anyways, thanks to a new hard-drive (installed by a sweet hubby who got sick of my whining), I'm now armed with 600GB of empty space, so that should last me another couple months. Now, on to the fun!


Part 1: The Kitchen
It's done, it's done!!! Phew what a whirlwind couple weeks. We decided to plow through and get everything done as quickly as possible- a slightly painful approach- but life with 3 humans and 3 dogs and no kitchen is not pleasant. So here's the laundry list: We knocked out the hanging cabinets between the kitchen & den to open it up (there was an existing bar, but it was basically unusable), had a carpenter build new doors & new drawers (with glides!!! a major improvement over the old wood-on-wood design), tore out the old tile countertop & replaced with granite (Kashmir Gold) & a travertine backsplash, new sink & faucet, and (finally) replaced the old cooktop. After some rewiring to add new switched outlets, Travis installed some sweet LED undercabinet lighting & a purty new LED spot above the bar. We're REALLY happy with how everything turned out and feel good about getting enough "bang for the buck."
Ok, enough talk- here are the before & after shots:

When we moved in. Fantastic hardware, plaid wallpaper, old appliances, tile countertops- and completely filthy. There was an immediate mini-fix-up to replace hardware, repaint the cabinets, and update a couple appliances (like the 1960 oven). And lots of cleaning. LOTS.

(seriously, there were handprints on the ceiling!)




And, tada! The new and improved kitchen. yeah, side-by-side doesn't look nearly as impressive... in pictures at least-oh well!!

Here's a comparison of the other side, where we knocked out the hanging cabinets:

This really made a huge difference in how open the kitchen feels. You can actually see the TV from the kitchen now! And it makes the den much brighter. SO glad we finally did this!



Part 2: Ashley's Bridal Shower
The clock was ticking- loudly- during the kitchen remodel because my mom & I were hosting a bridal shower for my (very) soon-to-be sister-in-law Ashley at our house a week later! Eek! But everything came together and we had a wonderful party!  For those that don't know the story, Travis proposed over a game of Scrabble, so I made tiny chocolate Scrabble tiles to decorate the table and the chocolate mousse desserts. Ashley has some fabulous style, so we showed off some yummy "something blue" stilettos as the centerpiece.  But this may be my favorite part- we framed some of the dress designs my grandmother had sketched when she was young (and stuck in bed due to asthma).  Many, many thanks to Mom & Arlene for their help! And yes, Ashley got to keep the Tiffany boxes... and the martini glasses inside them. :) We're so incredibly excited to be adding Ashley to our family! Just 23 more days to go until their wedding- we can't wait!

The lovely bride-to-be, Ms. Ashley Lauren.

All the goodies.

Yummy Marc Jacobs centerpiece (something blue... and borrowed! haha!)

One of my grandmother's dresses, drawn in 1939. (something old!)

And lots of somethings new!

Being the terrible Scrabble player I am, this was the most advanced play I could pull together. :)

Part 3: Lil Longhorns
We took a quick trip to Dallas for more wedding-related fun: Ashley's bachelorette party & a bridal shower. While we were there we stopped to visit with our friends Tommy & Audra and their adorable little boy Jack, who is just 3 weeks younger than Sierra. Being the good Longhorns they are, they have some tiny orange duds for Jack, so we had to get some cute pics of the Lil Horns. Photographing 2 babies is hard enough, but add in a bucket full of toys, 3 dogs (their 2, Max & Albert, plus Zoe), and 2 impending nap times and it's a serious challenge.

Next up: Sierra's first Texas game!!! Whooo!! :) And walking- that's pretty cool too..  ;)

Roseola & Kitchen Cheerleader

We passed another new milestone for our little soon-to-be-toddler: our first real illness. Boooo!!! Last Sunday evening, she suddenly started running a high fever- by bedtime it was 102, despite the ibuprofen. By 2:30 am, she was up to 103.5. Not fun for anyone. A sick, shivering baby is the saddest thing! Mama & Papa took turns sleeping with her in the La-z-boy, and we got a trip to Dr. Cohan Monday morning. To rule out a UTI, the doctor needed a urine sample, which for a little baby means this bizarre bag that goes inside her diaper or a catheter. Well Mama was quick to offer up Sierra's potty skills as an answer. Much to the surprise of everyone at the the pediatrician's office, Sierra sat on the potty and peed in her cup! Woohoo!!!
So, yes, our infant uses the potty. She's actually been doing this for about 2 months now. Call us crazy if you like, but she's a champ at it and there are many fewer dirty diapers- and who can argue with that?? Anyways, no UTI, the fever disappeared a couple days later and she broke out in a rash- good 'ol Roseola. A week later, it has FINALLY disappeared. No worse for the wear and hopefully we won't have to go through that one again!

Yeah, she'll hate me for this picture someday...

In other, more fun news...
We finally did it- we started remodeling our kitchen! I promise pictures will be coming soon- this project has to get done before I lose my mind!
Sierra has been cheering for all the workers in our kitchen. Yesterday, she was clapping for all the tile guys. Too funny!


And today, a magical moment between a baby and her dog....the beginning of a beautiful friendship. :D

Wave to the camera!

Our newest skill! She also now waves at the dogs, the tv, and inanimate objects (including the ceiling).






















Another new skill: unfastening velcro.

Sierra and her crew keeping an eye on Papa in the backyard