The Croquet Mallet Discovery

And the baby has discovered the croquet mallet!

After twenty minutes, she still wasn't sure what to do with her new treasure so we took a lunch break.

Food Rules

So growing up with four hungry younger siblings, we all sort of developed our own food rules. These are mine. Some of are funny, so I thought I'd share a little with you.

1. When eating pizza, no one except for the head of the house takes the biggest piece. But you're allowed to pick off the mushrooms and onions if you do it discretely.

2. When eating ice cream, you never eat out of the container unless you're home alone and it's the very last bit that you received parental permission to eat. {This rule has been a little flexed once I got married and picked up a couple bad habits from my husband.}

3. Seconds on pasta is awesome, but you have to ask first for thirds.

4. The best part about getting yourself seconds is that you can leave behind any chunks of yucky squash {or whatever} in the pan for someone else. Just don't pick out all the goodies for yourself.

5. Everyone has their own unique quirks. Hating cheese is one of mine and its totally cool; just don't make me feel bad about it cause then I won't like you and will binge on pizza and ice cream to spite you. :)

6. Babies eat off of Mummy's plate, not Daddy's. {This isn't my rule; it's my baby's; she thinks the food tastes better on my plate than her dad's more often than not.}

7. If mom doesn't eat her piece of cake or brownies that's been in the fridge forever, then after three days it's up for grabs. Same goes for my mother-in-laws' maple doughnuts, according to my husband.

8. One person does the cooking and someone else does the dishes.

9. If you make a mess, you have to clean it up.

10. You can never have too much chocolate. Unless you have a stomach ache from eating lots of chocolate, in which case you had too much and should go lay down for a bit.

Snow Day!

In early with all the flowers in bloom, we had the legendary Snow on the Dogwood which usually signals the end of winter for us.

In the span of about an hour and a half, we had a good three inches on the ground.

My husband woke me up around eight asking how snowy it was at our house. After texting back and forth for awhile, he decided to come home early since our car doesn't have four wheel drive or chains.

So we enjoyed a snowday with hot chocolate, snuggles under warm blankets with the baby and soup.

Of course, being me, I couldn't resist the snow so I put shoes on and bundled up the baby to go outside. This is my herb garden.

And these are my poor roses. One of them broke in the snow.

And this little adorable snow monster is the baby wearing Meme`'s outfit.

She had fun walking until I let her sit down and gave her a snowball.

She really didn't know what to do with it.

So after staring at it some more, we got back up and walked around a little more and then retreated to the warmth of the house.

She still had fun though, only the second time she's ever seen snow.

Our Routine

So our daily routine goes something like this: Husband gets up at seven and goes to work, Baby sleeps restlessly till eight and then we get up to enjoy some oatmeal in bed before getting dressed and starting the day.

Once dressed, the very energetic baby is set on the floor and released. On this particular day, while I made the bed, she made a mess "organizing" the DVDs, her toys and the pillows on the floor.

Apparently it was a lot of fun being a mischievous little baby.

She also attempted to help make the bed when really she just wanted the camera.

When she was denied the camera, she went back to her floor.

And sprawled across Mount Pillow for awhile.

Then I started cleaning and straightening up. Usually this involves taking dishes to the kitchen, picking up socks and trying not to trip over the baby.

She follows me around and gets into her little favorite areas to mess up, like the bathroom cabinet or the canned food cabinet which has since been blocked off.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, us girls pile into my sister's truck and go work the store. The baby was digging her borrowed car seat in the above picture when both her parents forgot to take hers out before Daddy went to work.

While at the store she is usually well behaved but does have her areas of interest.

Meanwhile, back at home on non-store days, I'll pick an organizing project for the day and she'll "help." On this day, she found a granola bar and spent an hour chewing, sucking on and carrying around the bar, occasionally pretending to be a dog with a bone.

It was very cute.

By then, I've usually done all the surface cleaning and organizing {see socks and bed making above}, so we break for lunch before tackling the dishes.

Sometimes the dishes get pushed back because Baby needs a nap and I don't like doing the dishes while she sleeps. In which case, I work on my current story, read or journal till a squeak in the bedroom lets me know she's awake.

And then we're off to do the dishes and make dinner for when Daddy comes home.

On particularly trying days, both Daddy and Baby are super tired. On this day, they were both so tired they fell asleep waiting for me.

Although I'm pretty sure Daddy was just pretending for the picture's sake.

Anyway, that's generally how our routine goes.

Baby's New Dress!

We got the baby a new gorgeous dress last week. It was 50% off and looked like a version of Elsa's dress from Frozen.

We were so excited about it that we had to try it on her, despite it being size 4T.

It fit her really well!

Although the lacy bit did shrink a little when we washed it.

She was unimpressed and flopped down to prove it.

But she really liked the hanger it came on.

And of course the camera once she noticed it.

Baby's First Birthday

On a lovely Saturday in late January, we celebrated my baby's first birthday. Most of the celebrating was due to start in the evening, so we went about our usual Saturday activities. We did grocery shopping, laundry and had lunch at our local pizza place.

The cutie amused herself with various toys while we waited for our pizza.

Then she decided she wanted the camera.

We had a fun spontaneous photo session. Daddy's photo didn't quite turn out but that's okay. He got others in throughout the day.

All that fun and pizza toppings wore the baby out, so she took a nap on the ride home and relaxed for a few hours.

Then we all got dolled up and headed off to a barn dance! Several friends were there, as well as my Dad, brothers and sister.

While Daddy danced all but two dances, my sister, Dad and I took turns babysitting. The cute birthday girl wanted very much to be out dancing with everybody else, but considering she can't walk on her own just yet, she had to be contented with holding onto somebody's hands and dragging them around as close to the dancers as she could get. In this picture, my sister had a hold of her.

She really liked the camera and was getting tired by the time I got it out, so she consented to sit on my lap for a dance or two and take selfies.

The dress she is wearing was a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law and it fits the baby so well.

There's Daddy out on the dance floor.

Meanwhile, back with Mummy, the birthday girl tries to wriggle away.

Grandpa and Uncle Sam both had fun babysitting when Mummy decided to dance.

And here's the baby showing her mischievous side.

Aunt Maddy had her first waltz with the birthday girl - also the baby's first too.

The baby really liked getting close to take pictures of Daddy while he danced.

To his amusement.

We made him hold the baby when he was resting and they both looked pretty tired in this picture.

She looks so mischievous again.

We left when the dance ended at ten pm and when we got home, Baby and I enjoyed some leftover pizza. While I ate the whole slice, she contented herself to picking off the onions and peppers, and eating the olives. With a tummy full of olives, she drifted off to sleep.

The next day we were still celebrating.

My family has an unofficial tradition of turning birthdays into three-day parties.

So we headed up to my parents' house where my sister was frosting a delicious homemade carrot cake with yummy cream cheese frosting.

It was probably one of her most stunningly decorated cakes to date.

When it was all ready, we rounded up all the stray uncles and gathered around to sing the birthday song to the baby.

She was rather suprirsed and more interested in the candles than anything else. She decided not to sample the cake until the next day and enjoyed the frosting more than the cake itself, of course.

For presents, she got an early one in the form of a Little Bunny's Bible {which she adores}, and two late ones - a 9" Winnie the Pooh toy with plastic in its ears {to her amusement}, and a blue and white toddler sized headband that looks so adorable on her! I can't find a picture of it right now, but I will be sure to post it once I do.