Walking with no (mommy) hands!

I picked up a well-used walking toy at a neighbor's garage sale last weekend, and this was Hannah's first journey!

It's been a while!

Story time with Papa.

What a fun time we've been having! We had a wonderful visit to Carlisle, PA for Thanksgiving with the LeCuyers. Hannah got some great time with Grandma and Grandpa, and got to play with (watch and be amazed by) her older cousins. We kept up the family tradition of all doing the Turkey Trot at the local Y and enjoyed another wonderful group-effort dinner! Anna sent us home with another huge bag of wonderful hand-me-downs for Hannah. What a blessing to have such a generous family (and a niece who's not too much older than Hannah). I'll post Thanksgiving photos when I get them from Karen. She takes wonderful photos, so we didn't even bother taking our camera!

Hannah's a real joy these days. Even when she's tired, she's generally in a good mood. She spends a lot of her day standing and cruising around various pieces of furniture. When she's not doing that, she's emptying the contents of a drawer - preferably the tupperware drawer. It's a lot of fun to watch her sort through and find her favorite objects. A couple of times recently, she came across a sock then kept searching until she found another one, then joyfully presented them to me. Baby girl can sort! I tried really hard to capture her accomplishment on film, but she kept crawling towards the camera.

Hannah sharing her passion with her friends after music class.

We joined other McKinsey families for the Dallas Christmas Parade a couple of weekends ago and got a photo of Hannah in McSanta's lap. She hadn't napped all day, so this was the best we could get!

In grownup news... Andy's wrapping up his current project and will be taking a long break for the holidays - yay! I've managed to get myself back into decent shape and ran half of the White Rock Marathon with my mom friend Cynthia last weekend. We ran a cool 2:18 and lived to enjoy a hearty IHOP meal with they guys and the babies! I've also just wrapped up my first session of baby music classes. It was really neat to get to put my experience to use at a new level. Thank you to the moms who participated!

Some fun photos of Hannah...

Exploring my 30-year-old scooter!

9 months

A visit from Grandpop (my dad) marked the end of a busy couple of weeks at the LeCuyers. The painters have almost finished a complete repaint of the exterior of our house, and some new trim work makes it look great! Hannah is an accomplished crawler and puller-upper, and cut her first top tooth yesterday - with no noticeable crankiness! I'm expecting a delayed reaction any minute now. (Or maybe this will make up for 3 colds in a month.)

It's amazing to me that I've now known Hannah for as long as took to wait to meet her. This has been a wonderful age. It's such a joy to watch her discover her world and grow into her own little person. I've been wondering lately how I can possibly stand to see her grow up! I can't imagine not getting to hold her cuddly baby self and not being the recipient of so many gorgeous gummy smiles.

Fun Hannah things...

She laughs often, even snorting like her mama sometimes. She protests little at meals (though she mysteriously dislikes sweet potatoes right now, which is discouraging when you see how much orange there is in our freezer!), and has for the first time ever not been draining every ounce of every bottle. She pulls up on everything and is usually quite content to play at the coffee table or playing kissy-face with her reflection in the oven door. Speaking of... slobbery baby kisses have become a regular occurrence around here. If you're lucky, she'll stick out her tongue, yell, or chew a bit while she kisses you!

Favorite toy - the coffee table and whatever's on it.

Note the snotty nose. A much-too-common occurrence! From pumpkin pants to playing in the pumpkins.
So much to discover in her world!

The apple of her grammy's eye

On the swing mugging for Grammy.

Grammy Doggett was in town last week, and she was nice enough to make Hannah a Halloween costume while teaching me some sewing basics. Andy's Princeton friend, Sarah, had knitted Hannah an adorable apple hat, so we made a costume to go with it! I realize that it's not actually Halloween yet, but we got some really cute photos that I couldn't wait to share.

We've also had a great get-away to Austin a couple of weekends ago and are looking forward to a visit from Grandpop Doggett next week. Fall has finally arrived in Dallas, so we're making the most of the great weather with family bike rides on the weekends and lots of walks. I'm excited about jeans weather, since I can finally fit into my pre-pregnancy pair. I've been wearing clothes I haven't seen since spring of '06! Good thing I'm not a very trendy person.

Sleep sitting

I edited out the part where I layed her down and she screamed, very much not going back to sleep. Well, they don't say "Let sleeping dogs sit". Mom mistake number 5,493,987.

She crawls!

For so long, we could put Hannah down to play, walk away, and return to find her sitting happily in the same spot. Or maybe not always too happily, but at least in the same spot. Now the spot moves! It's really fun, though, and we're always looking for new objects to tempt her to move - usually a cell phone.

Before I ran to get the camera, she was sticking out from under the console.

There are fun, colorful toys nearby!

Note the addition of the gate, which also covers the fire place, which she discovered shortly after the stereo find!

Hannah's also getting better about eating food. Her favorites are fruits, yogurt, and cereal-like puffs, but I'm managing to convince her that she likes some veggies, too. My parents have got to be enjoying this. I was so sure that I could keep Hannah from being a picky eater like her mama. Hah!

Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park. Fabulous!

We spent last weekend in Denver visiting Andy's sister (and Hannah's middle name-sake) Claire. We enjoyed a little hike in the Rockies and Hannah got to meet her Great-Grandma LeCuyer. It was really nice to be in the mountains and have some family time. Plus Hannah really likes her Aunt Claire, and we always appreciate and extra set of hands to help with the baby wrangling!

Happy hikers and sleeping baby. She was in the cool backpack carrier that our friends loaned us, but she got really cold. Thank goodness for that sling!


Just for fun. In case you can't figure out where all of her limbs are,
her left leg is under her and her right leg is completely out of the crib.
She barely stirred when I pulled her leg out. Oh, to sleep that soundly!

Food, fabulous, food!

Morning play.

For nearly 2 months, I've been trying to get Hannah to actually eat a meal of actual food. For about 3 weeks, the longest nap she's taken has been an hour, and that's on a really good day. By the middle of last week, I was desperate for one of the two issues to resolve itself and was having major mommy guilt over feeling like all I do is complain about my daughter.

Empty dishes. Woo hoo!

Sure enough, the next day baby girl ate enough food to be considered a meal for a small person such as her self!! We're still working on finding the magic timing to get this to be a regular occurrence, but it's definitely improving. My dreams of an open-minded eater who will try anything are fading, but who needs to eat anything besides yogurt and sweet potatoes? My feelings are hurt by the fact that she seems to prefer the organic jarred stuff to my home made, but at least she's eating something!

To top things off, Hannah napped for nearly an hour and a half this afternoon. That means Andy and I got to eat lunch and sneak in a cat nap on the couch - golden.

Our fun recent baby/kid purchase is a bike trailer. Andy's knees really don't allow him to run much, so this means we can finally get out as a family for our weekend exercise. Hannah seems to enjoy the ride and even smiles at Momma riding alongside. In personal exercise news, I'm a bit disappointed that I won't have lost all of the baby weight in 9 months, but I have worked back up to running my 9-mile loop around the lake on the weekend. It takes a lot longer with diaper and bottle breaks, but it is fun to have a buddy along. My goal is to be ready for the Half Marathon in November, and it's going to feel great to run it without the stroller!

We're off to Denver this weekend to visit Andy's sister, Claire. Nothing like a hike in the Rockies to get Autumn off to a good start!

Favorite way to be - standing up! She's getting quite adept at manipulating our hands to a position that allows her to pull up. Key word, manipulate!
Daddy's little girl.

A tale of 2 babies

It's been a week of contrasts at the LeCuyer home this week. Hannah's had an allergy/teething runny nose for a while now. I think the photos speak for themselves.

Luckily, she was in a good enough mood to play with her papa and knock over the fun block towers he made. She's also been giving "kisses" lately. Okay, she's learned to put her drooly open mouth on your cheek, nose, chin, whatever, and maybe even chew on you a little if you're lucky. She was holding out, but finally kissed her daddy this weekend! She also seems to be starting to connecting the syllable ma with her loving mama. As often as not, there's a few too many "ma's" to make it a real word, but she's good at rattling them off when she wants something!

Hannah would like to take advantage of Mama's blog to do a little teaching. When you spend your nap time doing this...

You spend your play time doing this!

Speaking of teaching, I'm starting the first session of the Hannah and Friends Baby Music Class next month. I'm excited to try something new, but also nervous about adapting my elementary skills to this format. Wish me luck!

Water baby

Hannah and I are starting swim classes tomorrow, but she got some practice in hanging out at her running buddy Lukas' pool yesterday. (Lukas' mom, Cynthia, and I keep hoping that the babies will do the running, but it hasn't worked out that way yet.) She loved chilling in the baby-lounger, until she figured out how to lap up and drink the pool water! Apparently other babies do this, too. The kid can't drink out of cup, but she has no problem with a pool! Our other recent development is Hannah's ability to sit and stand up in her crib! Yippee... The day she figured it out, she took one 30 minute nap. No crawling yet, but she's definitely making all of the moves that show it won't be long.
I haven't managed to catch it on film yet, but our little angel is showing herself to be quite the drama queen. She giggles more often now, but she's also prone to sudden crying episodes over things like mom blowing her nose or someone laughing when she's tired (or apparently when she doesn't think it's funny anymore.) I think she's hurt some folks' feelings! The problem is, she starts with the most pitiful pout and quickly disintegrates into full sobs, which I usually find to be hilarious. I'm no help at all.

Then and now

10 days old - sleeping all the time, except at night!

We have no photos of her asleep at night - probably because we went straight to sleep ourselves any time it happened. Picture this... a baby swaddled as tightly as possible, wearing a hat, strapped into a vibrating bouncy seat. This is where she spent most of her nights.

1 month - slept in her crib for the first time. (For a nap.

Night time still required repeated swaddling, which she was by then learning to get out of.)

2 months - one of the lucky times her thumb found her mouth.

She's so tiny in the bouncy seat!

Jump to 7 months - this is one of her most common sleeping positions.

I think she'll crawl in her sleep first.

6 months and a much bigger fit in the seat. She likes to sit up and mouth the bar!

This was last week. Baby wants to stand!

And this was her morning nap today.

No more tiny baby lying swaddled in the middle of the huge crib!

Our Hannah Bear has gone from a helpless newborn who would rather sleep than eat, cried when you layed her down, and could spend hours making friends with the living room lamp post to a big baby who loves her formula, wants to stand all the time, has been known to melt down because someone sniffed at the wrong time, and continues to melt hearts with her not-so-toothless smile wherever she goes!

Livin' la vida LeCuyer

We spent last week at a house on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in New York with the LeCuyer clan. Cold and rainy weather kept us inside relaxing for the first few days (after a quick trip to the mall for some warmer clothes), but we were able to enjoy the lake by the end of the week. We also enjoyed walking the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution, which looks like a really cool place for a future trip. Also afforded Andy a chance to see me get down right giddy over seeing 5 Steinway boxes stacked back stage for a concert. We didn't even go to the concert, I just got excited about the boxes! (Google The 5 Browns to find out why so many Steinways.)

The best part of the vacation, by far, was the family time. Hannah was appropriately spoiled by all of the loving arms to hold her, and I took full advantage of some much-needed mommy breaks. She also go to spend time playing with her 1-year-old cousin, Juliet. Juliet finds something irresitably smackable about Hannah's head, but Hannah feels the same way about Juliet's thick, pullable hair, so it's all good. 3 1/2-year-old cousin Elliot was much more interested Grandma's laptop and the tire swing than any boring babies. Andy and I made good use of the kayak, and I also got in some quality time in on the swing. By Friday, it was hot enough to motivate us all to brave the extreme lake weeds and get in the water.

There are many, many extraordinary photos from the trip - on Karen's camera. I'll post some when I get them! In the mean time, I'll post some random shots from the last couple of weeks.

New found joy - the neighborhood park swings!

I can't quite catch the full smile. Camera delay - ugh!

If only we'd let her ride like this...

Hannah's review of dinner.

Another new joy. Plus mom got to enjoy adult

conversation at a McKinsey Moms event.

Not so glorious food

The kid likes her formula! And apparently nothing else. We've been trying various cereals and veggies, but she still does the tongue-thrust "get this yucky stuff out of my mouth" trick. I was determined to hold off on the sweet stuff, but I think sweet potatoes or bananas will be our next attempt. I've been enjoying putting the new mini-prep food processor (thank you, Karen!) to use and taking photos of the results.Hannah's getting more physical and is really working on pulling up to standing. She even tried to use my pants legs to pull up on this morning! They're drawstring pants, so I'm glad she hasn't really figured it out yet, but you can see where this is headed.

A new way to play with the bouncy seat.

The tooth continues to move up - very slowly, but I suppose that's normal. I've been trying new ideas for games that are supposed to be fun for babies at this age. Stack some small boxes and knock them down, fill a water bottle with soapy water and food dye and make pretty suds, play with cups in the tub. All games quickly turn into "put the new found object in your mouth and get mad when Mom tries to get you to 'play' with it". So for now it's fun to give her something new and watch her explore it. It's really amazing how well she can control those little hands that used to randomly whack her in the face when she was trying to sleep!

Naps are a beautiful thing.