Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Our Christmas

Yes, I'm running a little behind this year...

We had a wonderful Holiday.



Christmas Eve...
Was a pajama party at my parent's house. We ate yummy food, opened presents, and the bigger kids frosted sugar cookies.



Christmas morning...
My husband is an early riser, and by early I mean like 4:00am. So Christmas morning he woke me up at 7:30 and asked if we could wake Marlee. I, of course, told him no way. We sat around and waited, and waited, and waited. Around 8:30 Dave and I got impatient and opened our presents from one another.



Finally, just before 9:00, Marlee woke up. She had Elmo Live waiting for her under the tree from Santa and a few presents from Dada and Mama to open. It was so fun watching her get into the wrapping paper. I can only imagine how fun it will be next year.




Her list of presents:

Santa...
Elmo Live
Elmo movie and toothbrush in her stocking

Dada and Mama...
My first laptop
Sandra Boynton books
Pajamas

And Dada got her a special ceramic angel. The tag was addressed to "my little angel." This is the second year that Dave has gotten M something special just from him and it makes my heart go pitter patter.

Christmas day was spent running around like a crazy person to get out of the house to spend the day with family. It ended with a dinner out in Pahrump that my Grandma Bea hosts every year and a major snow storm on our way home.

I'm a little perturbed that I did not have one picture taken of Dave, Marlee, and me on Christmas. We did, however, take a picture in front of our tree a couple of days after Christmas with the new DSLR Camera my husband surprised me with on Christmas. But I'll have to post that another day!

Thought I would share my 2008 Holiday Card with you too!

I hope your holiday was overflowing with as much love and joy as mine.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Happy Birthday...

Happy Birthday to my..
wonderful
kind
giving
caring
helpful
selfless
hard-working
patient
understanding
smart
funny
happy
and, of course, handsome
..Husband

I love you..so much.
Thank you for always being so good to Marlee and me.
How lucky we are.

Happy Birthday Sugar. Hope you have an extra special day.
Muah.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

One Year Five Months

My beloved daughter is 17 months old, one year five months. I can’t even believe it. I blinked and in one year, Marlee went from this:


December 2007

to this:

December 2008

My big girl.
She is growing up entirely too fast. Her personality and vocabulary are exploding. A busy bee she is. Around 12 to 14 months when people would ask me if she is walking yet, my response was no, she does not walk, she runs. My daughter runs from the moment she wakes up until the moment her head hits her mattress.

My big girl.
I will say that this past month of sickies has brought out a different side of Marlee Kay. She has become quite the snuggler. Now, before nap and bedtime she will let me rock and read to her. Before she would not sit still long enough. If she starts to get antsy and tries to sit up, I will say you want to go in your bed? She will lay back down and freeze, understanding exactly what I am saying.



New developments these past few months:
-teeth. She has so many teeth, twelve total and working on thirteen. Four front top, four front bottom, four first year molars, and she is cutting on of her canines.

-she knows eyes, nose, mouth, and button (belly button). I will ask, Marlee, where is my/your nose? She will then point to my or her nose and say I, everything is I. Whether she is pointing to her nose, mouth, button, or eye, it is I.

-tantrums. As I stated in my previous post, tantrums are a daily, probably hourly, occurrence. It is quite amusing to watch.

-biting. Need I write more?



Marlee’s Favorites
-she still loves checking out her reflection in mirrors and windows. She will do something silly and watch herself.

-she can’t get enough of books. The bookworm in me loves that she loves books.

-eating the dog’s food. Every chance she gets, she runs into the laundry room, grabs and handful of dog food,and shoves it in her mouth.

-the Bubba’s (aka dogs), Cooper especially. Every dog is CooCa.

-crackers. M would eat crackers for all three meals if I let her. Numerous times a day she goes to the kitchen, points to the counter, and says QuaQua over and over. However, do not give her a broken cracker. Somehow she knows the difference and she throws a fit until we give her a "whole" cracker.

-bath time. She loves taking baths and running around the house naked after bath time.

-going to the park, especially swinging on the swings.

-Daddy. Definitely her all time fav. At the end of the day when I hear Dave in the garage I say Marlee, who is it? She gets so excited. Throughout the day she will walk around the house saying Da-ddy.

-Mr. Bear, Mr. Dog, Mr. Frog. Her three lovey's. However, Mr. Bear is by far her fav, followed by Mr. Dog.

-Elmo. Or as Marlee says, Oh.

-climbing. Marlee climbs on everything…furniture, into her hi chair, up onto our pony wall (this one scares the hell out of me), almost out of her crib, our patio furniture, up ladders, and anywhere else that looks tempting.



Marlee’s Vocabulary
Man oh man is her vocabulary exploding. She is one smart little girl. These days, she repeats about anything we say. Her choice of words are: Da or Da-ddy, MomMom, baba (bottle), CooCa (Cooper), quaqua (cracker), Oh (Elmo), ball, hi, hot, dadie (baby)…
Other words: cup, park, bath, poop, doggie, moo, shoes, and many more.

She sings the ABC’s. Well, her version of the ABC’s. This is by far her favorite song for us to sing to her. She also sings the chorus of Old Mcdonald, the E-I-E-I-O.

Oh how I adore this girl.

As a side note, November was probably one of the hardest, most challenging months for Mama. Between sickies, tantrums, sleep deprivation, and clinginess I happily embraced December.

The photos of M outside in the brown dress and the middle photo courtesy of my sister, Lesley. You can also view her work here and here.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Let there be SNOW

It snowed today...in Las Vegas. I could not wait to get Marlee up from her nap and take her outside to experience snow for the first time.
Needless to say, she loved it.
My little snow bunny...








Even Mollie got in on some of the action.

Seeing Red

Yes, I am upset. I just got done writing a 17 month post for Marlee that took me days to finish. I went to post and wa-la, something horrible happened and it's all messed up...ugh.
Stay tuned. Time to start over.
And before you suggest I write it in a word document and save it, I do. However, my computer restarted the other night and I can't recover it.
I think it's high time for a new computer....doubtful.

And btw-it's SNOWING. I live in the desert and it's SNOWING. Stay tuned for some pictures of Marlee experiencing snow for the first time.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Tidbits

Just a few things I feel are noteworthy that I want to document...

Last Monday as Marlee and I were running errands, I decided to go through one of those drive through car washes. After I paid and started through the wash, I realized Marlee had never been through one of these before and I wasn't quite sure how she was going to handle it. Well, she LOVED it! I turned around to watch her and she was throwing her head back and forth and laughing through the entire wash as she looked through the side windows.

Disclaimer: poop mentioned.
Marlee is usually a nap time pooper. When I go in after a nap or in the morning, she has pooped. Upon the unpleasant whiff I get entering her room, I always say did you poop? The other day I walk in her room and get the whiff. My daughter jumps up, holds her arms out for me, and says poop, poop. She completely understands what I am saying and is relating the word to the act (or object). Wow.

Tantrums are in full swing here at the Ross house. When M doesn't get her way, whether it be us not picking her up and holding her while standing (this is a new one), or we take something away from her, she sits on the ground, slowly lies back and starts to scream and holler. It is so amusing because she is so careful as she puts her head back on the ground.

And for your viewing pleasure....

Because what's a post without an adorable picture? Isn't she getting so so big???

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Shout Out

A huge thanks to my big (little) Sissie, Kristy, for surprising me with my new page. Isn't it so cute?


Photo taken at my baby shower (May 2007). I was 8 months pregnant with Marlee and Kristy was about 4 months pregnant with Carter Bug.

Thanks again, Sissie!