The One Where Aria Gets A Nickname

Okay, Okay, Okay already! I will announce to the world Aria's nickname. Several of you have asked me if we had thought of a nickname for her and I told you what it was. Well, I was wrong. As with many things in my life (too, too many things) The Boss made the final decision. I can have an opinion, sure, but in the end she makes all the decisions. 

 "And so without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you. . . "

"B"

or if you prefer

"Bea"

I know, kinda anti-climatic. But eh, what-cha gonna do 'bout it?

So, the story goes...I had a very cute nickname picked out, all ready to go, just needed to write the blog post and get it out there. Then The Boss decided to start (trying) to call things by what they are, i.e. B is for Baby (B is also for blanket, which she has much fonder affections for), Yo is for yogurt, Bou is for Book, Ju is for Juice, etc. Now that we have started expressing ourselves, the day typically goes something like this:

The Boss: "No, B, No! Mine!" (sometimes with a well placed shove, okay usually.)

Or when B has been slobbering on a toy that The Boss picks up, "Eeewww, B, growss."

A personal fav, "Go away, B!"

I hear it all the time, now I call her B too. (I've also started calling yogurt Yo. But that's just plain fun.)

So, there it is. I guess it's only fitting. My little brother gave me a nickname when he first started talking that stuck with me for a long while, "MeMe" and my friend Emily's little brother called her Emoe (M.O.E.) so her nickname became Moe. 

Here's to siblings that can't talk right yet and the great things that they say and make their parents interpret.

 

ps - if you can guess where the quote came from (the gilding the lily one) give yourself a big gold star. Billie? Got it? Hey also a "B", you're in good company.

Tent City

April 26, 2010

For Drama's 2nd Christmas Santa gave her 3 pop up tents and 2 tunnels. They all attach together in different configurations and, bonus, they fold up flat and slide under the couch. These have been the best gift ever. Every child and friend loves to play in these. Drama and Pooh Bear love to do their daily reading in them as well.

It should probably come as no surprise that The Boss and Aria love to play in them as well.

Aria - 9 Month Checkup

Aria went in for her 9 month checkup Monday. All was well until the doctor said she had an ear infection! What? How long has she had an ear infection? He, of course, has no idea how long she has had the infection. So, the good mother of the year award goes to. . . 

Me! Yea me.

So here are the pertinent measurements from Monday's visit:

Age: 9 months

Date: April 19, 2010

Length: 28 1/4 inches (75%)

Weight: 20 pounds 4 ounces (75%)

Head Circ: 43 centimeters (25%)

 Developmental Milestones:

**Listed on her developmental sheet, she should 1. sit alone well, 2. may creep crawl, move forward by scooting on bottom, 3. bear weight momentarily with feet, 4. do several other relatively boring things.**

In reality she can:

-Pull up to standing, cruse around furniture and people, stand unassisted for several seconds before she gets so excited with herself she bounces too violently and falls over.

-Eats everything she can gets her hands on.

-Claps her hands when she is especially pleased with herself or others.

-Loves attention and when she wants your attention she will put her head between yours and whatever your attention is focused on.

They poked her toe to test her iron. When I picked her up out of her crib after nap time she was chewing the band-aid like a piece of gum. Yummy.

And here is the proud big sister totally hamming it up for the nurses!

Bottle Shmottle. . .

Uh-oh. I've passed on my bad habits...

This is usually what I look like after I toss back a cold one...

Cheerios!

Yummy, yummy cheerios.

I lOvE chubby baby hands with BIG dimples.

Look at that face.

This face is upstairs crying right now. As evidenced by the drool, she's still working on those two top teeth. I should go snuggle her to sleep. Jealous? You should be.

Staycation 2010, Part 1

This year we are not going on a big lavish vacation, so we decided that we should take a fun "stay"cation in Salt Lake City. We had a lot of fun acting like tourists; we were from out of town after all. (There are way too many pictures for just one blog post so I am going to break it into several posts to spare your computer's video card from having a heart attack.)

Friday: (Drama and Pooh Bear missed school for this vacation) 

First stop was Grandma and Grandpa Van Horn's House. Aria was having her own personalized vacation with doting grandparents. Apparently she went to the Home and Garden show with them and helped pick out new carpet? She has her own set of standards, drool absorbancy being top on the list.

By now it was lunch time so we headed to Hires, yum.

Next we headed to the Hogle Zoo. I have great memories of the Hogle Zoo, sadly they have quit giving rides on the elephants (can you say lawsuit?). That sad fact aside, we loved watching the baby elephant and her mommy, the giraffes, gorillas, monkeys, etc, etc, etc. Ask Drama to show you her pictures, but only if you have an hour.

The Boss didn't like being so close to the animals real, fake, statue. No. Thank. You.

This is as close as she would get to the rino statue.

If you go to Hogle Zoo you have to get this picutre.

Pictures From My Phone

I often take pictures with my phone and then forget that I have them. Here are a few of the ones I moved over to my computer today. . .

A Two Tooth Grin

We have been working on a couple of new teeth here at our house.

 She has been the best teether, in the history of teething, ever.

The teeth poked through a couple of weeks ago, but do you know how hard it is to get a picture of those two emerging teeth? Every time you go near them - out comes the tongue with the drool and you can barely glimpse them! And trying to snap a picture is nigh impossible!

Almost As Good

as JCPenny? You be the judge.
For Christmas my big gift was a photography studio in a bag. Mark gave me lights, tripods, backdrops and a couple of things I haven't figured out and it all fits in one huge duffel bag.

We had become frustrated with the quality of our JCPenny portraits, especially after the Boss decided that her max time limit between arriving at the studio and major melt down was about 10 minutes. Having my own studio will let me take portraits on the Boss' schedule, which so far, she would rather pretend to take the picture than to be in the picture, but we're working on it. Poor Aria has been my test subject. She really has no choice. I plop her down and snap/adjust and snap/adjust and snap/adjust times infinity and she just keeps smiling for the camera. And since I started with really no working knowledge of shutter speed and apprature, it's taken a lot of trial and error and a lot of web searching but I think we might be getting somewhere.
My original intent was to be able to put up the equipment take some fabulous photos and take it all down within minutes. Reality never quite works out the way I intended it too. I put up all the equipment the day after Christmas and it's been up ever since. So, while I experiment my living room is a portrait studio indefinitely. And I think it will all be worth it in the end.

Broccoli v. Raspberry Jello

What kind of crazy child would rather eat broccoli (three helpings) and SPIT OUT her raspberry jello?

The Boss, that's who.

And the other, relatively normal children. . .

The Bald Spot

In the past I have learned to live with "baby pattern baldness." (The spot on the back of a baby's head that has all the hair rubbed off from sleeping on their backs.) Drama, Pooh Bear, and the Boss all had it and it does grow back in, that I'm not worried about. However, the older girls' bald spots were small, a rectangle about 1.5 inch wide by 1 inch tall right on the back of their little noggins. Aria, the little sweetness who's huge toothless smile can instantly make your day, has a ginormous bald spot.

(seriously, that face!)

The entire back of her head is bald. . .

My theory is that she always has to be on the look out for the Boss, cause you never know where she is going to show up, or fall out of the sky (she can climb into Aria's crib, oh dear). She is always looking around, trying to figure out where people are, what they are doing and how she can get in on the action.

The top and sides are pretty whispy now too. I've heard that if you shave their little heads it will all grow back in thick and beautiful. Maybe I will have Mark give her his hair cut.?.?.

And just for fun. . .

Aria: 4 Month Well Baby Checkup

Aria went for her 4 month well baby checkup last month. Here are her impressive stats. . .

Date: November 24, 2009
Length: 26 3/4 inches (90%)
Weight: 16 pounds 12 ounces (95%)
Head Circ: 40.1 cm (25%)

*not listed on my cute little paper but interesting to note
Aria's diaper size: 3
the boss' diaper size: 3

Halloween

A Cowgirl . . . a Kitty . . . Curious George . . .The Man in the Yellow Hat. . . (this photo is actually from the ward Halloween party that was Tuesday night.)

Photos from actual Halloween (not the ward party, not the school Halloween parade but actual Halloween.) (And, yes my refrigerator is in my dinning room. For my birthday Mark gave me the gift of manual labor. Of course the manual labor is my own. . . but that's the next post.)

And absentee parenting at it's very best. The stinkin' doorbell just kept ringin'. . .