As usual, a lot has taken place since my last post. If you keep up with Piper and me on Facebook, then some of the following may be a repeat. Since Facebook is a secondary site, I much prefer to post things here, yet it sometimes takes me a bit longer. This particular entry will reach back to the Labor Day weekend and go from there, so let's get started!
First off, Labor Day weekend was a blast. This year we once again went over to my brother's house, the brother who spawned my adorable nieces (not to discount my adorable married-in nieces from my other brother's family), and did the usual cooking out and swimming. I swore I was not going to get into a bathing suit this year, and I had a damn good excuse not to. I'll have to admit there is nothing worse than popping out at baby right at the beginning of swimsuit season! Regardless of my vow, I sucked it up, threw on my maternity suit, and decided to hit the water. I allowed Piper the immense pleasure of going swimming on the Fourth of July with my brother, but this time I wanted to be the one with whom she swam. I so regretted not being the first person she ever swam with, but a close second I will take.
Had to get a duplicate shot similar to my brother's picture with her!
Piper absolutely loves the water! I'm not surprised as we are all a bunch of water babies in my family. I mentioned in a previous post how I could swim before I could walk. My favorite method was a few inches below the surface, on my back, and with eyes wide open. I so wish my parents had footage of this bizarre style, but maybe I'll get lucky and Piper will do the same. If not, oh well. I can already tell, even if she doesn't adopt my odd swim style, that she is fearless of the water. I took her under a few times, and even though the first time she got a bit choked, she didn't cry or get scared. The next two times she was already a pro at it and there was no fussing or choking at all. She actually started to kick a bit when I pulled her through the water, so I'm going to take that as a good sign that swimming will come very naturally for her. I can see us spending a lot of time in the pool next year.
Loved being in the water with her!
Happy as can be!
Kisses!
Swam her pants right off!
Before all the swimming festivities, my nieces, mom, and myself put Piper through an impromptu photo shoot. She has this adorable black with pink polka-dot MudPie outfit my mom bought her (see first pic of this entry). With it came a hat that had a pink ruffly part underneath. Here are some of my favorite pics from that shoot!
Love her peepers!
My personal favorite!
Are we done yet?
Once we finished up with swimming, we sat around and hung out for awhile. At this point, Piper really began to show off. She has begun this thing with crinkling up her nose when she gets excited or is trying to learn a new skill. It's not just a crinkle, usually there's a huff and puff or other such sound that goes along with it. It is the cutest damned thing I have ever seen a baby do! Yes, I'm partial to my own little darling, but I've been around a lot of babies and have never seen anything like it. Anyways, my oldest niece had her giving great nose the entire afternoon!
Too cute!
Me trying to get in on the action...not so cute :-p
I mean seriously cute!
I managed to take a few more pics that day that I adore, so here they are!
Piper with her other niece...such beauties!
Love this look!
Always with the hands!
Face of an angle!
Look ma! No hands!
Got to love the turtle lip!
Well then, that about wraps up Labor Day. Of course there were many more pic, but those were all my favorites. I just love my new camera as it allows me to capture special moments like never before. I do still love my camera phone, though, for it allows for more spur of the moment shots, or "selfies" with Piper. And speaking of selfies, I snapped a great one of us in our Hog gear for the first game of the season!
Woo Pig Sooie!
The pic above is not her greatest facial expression, but she really does look adorable all dressed up in her college football best. We had such a horrible season last year I didn't watch any games just so she wouldn't hear our losing streak in the womb. Hopefully with our new coach, this season will be better...it better be because her cheerleading uniform is too awesome not to wear! We've won our first two games, so fingers crossed!
Okay, what next? Maybe a couple of videos? Remember the crinkle-nose I told you about? Well I sort of caught it on tape one night. I know, miracle, right? I'm hoping to catch a better film of it later, but this will have to do for now. She started doing the crinkle while trying to crawl. It has crossed over into other scenarios, but this is a great crawling effort video.
Here's another video, one of her in her swing. She loves Baby TV and watches it every weekday morning while I get ready for work. I know TV is not the best thing for her, but it's educational, she loves the channel, and it helps us both stay sane for an hour while I run around getting myself in gear!
Let me jump back to the crawling thing. Piper has been trying to crawl for a few weeks now. I swore she'd be doing it by 4 1/2 months, but she is still doing her commando crawl for the time being. I am so okay with this! I love that she is smart and physically ahead of the game, but I'm enjoying her not yet being completely mobile while I can. Now don't get me wrong, she cannot be left alone unless she is strapped into something because she has no issues with getting around at all, she's just still slower than she will be, and very soon I imagine! She just turned 5-months yesterday, so she's still ahead of the game for now. I know she'll be crawling before six months.
With her trying to crawl, she is also trying to move to a sitting position from her knees, which she almost has down. She is sitting completely upright without hand support now, something she started this week. She can also twist side to side and freely use her arms, although she still topples over or slouches forward when tired. She can also move to a crawling position from a seated one. Additionally, she has just this week started trying to scoot on her butt while sitting. She doesn't move fast nor far, but it is dang cute.
Well, that should take care of the video portion of this post. My goodness, this is getting to be a long one isn't it? I've been so busy with my 52 acts of random kindness that I haven't spent enough time focusing on Piper. She changes so much on a daily basis now, learning new skills at a breakneck pace, it really is hard to keep up. That's why I highly recommend following us on Facebook (see link at bottom of page), because I post there daily. For my Facebook fans, many of these pics are old news, but I'm sure they do not mind the re-hash, at least I hope they don't!
Since I've been drawing this one out, I'm going to wind everything down with some more pics, go figure! I've taken a bunch over the past couple of weeks, so I hope no one is too overloaded with cuteness at this point.
Sometimes I let her get naked and messy for dinner!
Still love breastfeeding her. Best part of my day!
A pic at the office, please ignore diaper bag :)
She loves breakfast time!
I bought her a 3'7" sock monkey on a whim. Needless to say, she loves it! And who wouldn't? I actually have cuddled with him in bed a few times. Just for the record, his name's Sake.
Is he mine?
Adores!
I spoil her!
We were accidentally matching this day!
Oh my goodness, I think I'm finally out of pictures to post. Well, don't let me lie, I have hundreds more, but I'll just keep all the rest to myself. I have so many pics it's actually causing me anguish trying to do her baby/life book. I finally started working on the first page last weekend, although it won't actually be the first page in the book. Of course, I can't be like everyone else and just throw some pics into an album. No, I've got to hand make the damned thing! So far, I've almost completed one whole page, woohoo! It really will be spectacular, at least in my eyes, when it's complete. Hopefully, if I do a page every week, I'll have it done before she is 20. In the end, all the hard work and over thinking will pay off, but I have seriously got to narrow down my pic selections for it or I'll never even get it started past that first page. Oh well, that's another post altogether. For now, I'll wrap things up with a snapshot of that first page. The album is going to have a mixed-media designed wooden cover held together by rings and ribbon. Inside are 12x12 chipboard pages with beau coups of embellishments, special touches, envelopes full of goodies, pull-out portions, etc. It's more scrapbook/keepsake/life treasure map than anything else. Anyways, here's a glimpse at the first partially completed page. I'm thinking of adding more embellishments and quotes from the blog within the open spaces. Who knows how it'll look when finished, but it will definitely be eye catching! It's my first try at something of this nature, so hopefully it will get better as I go along.
Love creating the picture borders from scratch!
Okay, now I am finally going to end this rambling and release you all from this post! I hope you have enjoyed catching up on all things Piper. If so, show us some love and throw us a vote over at Top Baby Blogs by following the link below. Remember, you can vote every 24 hours. So if you've voted before, please do so again. Also, come join us on our other social sites by following the links below. Facebook is by far where most of the action happens, so if nothing else, come join us there! As always, thanks for stopping by!
The 4t of July has come and gone, and boy was it a fun one! Every year we get together at my brother's house for a family celebration, and although my other brother and his family were away on vacation this year, the rest of our clan had a blast as usual. As this was Piper's first fourth, we of course wanted to make it a memorable one. What better way than to make things special than to gather the family to witness Piper's introduction to swimming.
With her cousin Haven and Sam, the puppy.
With her cousin Larkin
With her funny Papa! No, he didn't really giver her beer!
My parents taught me and my brothers to swim at very early ages. I was swimming fully underwater, sometimes upside down underwater with my eyes open, before I could walk. We never used water wings or other safety devices, my parents just simply tossed us in the pool and we did what came naturally to us. I know that tossing one's child into the water without a floatation device is frowned upon these days, but none of us drowned so it can't be all that bad of a method for learning to swim, right? Well don't worry or freak out, I didn't do that to Piper at only 12 weeks old. This swimming lesson was more an introduction to the pool rather than an all out swim-or-drown party. Mostly I wanted her to get comfortable being in a body of water larger than her bathtub. Fear of water is completely unacceptable in our family, so I guess it's a good thing she took to the water like a pro, just as I had expected she would. Yay!
Not only did she love the pool, she also went all day without any complaining. She splashed in the water, played with her cousins, sucked pickle juice off her papa's fingers, wore her new sunglasses like a superstar, got licked by her first puppy, and just had a damn good day all the way around. Unfortunately, by the time it got dark enough for fireworks, she was smooth worn out. In all her revelry, she forgot to take a nap...wait, she never naps! Anyway, she oohed and aahed at the initial sparkler I lit, tried to cry a bit when the first loud fireworks went off, and then settled in for some comfort nursing during the rest of the show. Hopefully next year she will be old enough to really appreciate the fireworks, but this year it was all about the pre-show party.
Getting her sea legs!
Meeting Sam the puppy
Fun with her uncle Christian
Center of attention, as usual!
Surfin' USA!
More surfing
Speaking of pool parties, you probably noticed the man in the pool pictures with Piper, that is her uncle Christian, the younger of my two older brothers. He is probably one of the most amazing fathers I have ever encountered, including my own. The two other girls in the pics are his daughters and they are the most stable, adorable, well-behaved, level-headed, thoughtful, outgoing, funny, and kind young women despite going through a divorce and all that a divorce entails. My brother has full custody of them, which speaks volumes for how much they are loved and adored by their father. I hope to be half the parent he is and raise Piper to be at least half as lovely as they are. I'm glad to have both my brothers as part of Piper's life. They will both contribute to her understanding of what real men are supposed to be and how real men are supposed to treat women...of course my dad is another prime example for her to have around. So although she may not have a father living in the household, she does have strong male role models in her life. We are extremely close, so there is no shortage on her witnessing these men in action on a daily basis, especially her Papa who is part of her immediate household.
Before the dunk...
...after the dunk!
Cuddles after swimming
On Nana's lap for her first fireworks.
I'm bringing this up because I know a lot of people are curious as to how the "father" figure will be represented in her life. I couldn't think of a better way than through her two uncles and Papa. They may not be her father, but they are some of the best dads in the world. I feel much more confident in them sharing this role than in one of my lousy choices in men having such a great responsibility placed upon them, lol. I'm really bad at not picking scum sucker losers to date, so I'm very thankful and gracious that good men came with the family I was born into. I honestly think she is getting the best of the best in this regard, what a lucky little girl!
Too finish off this segment, I'll show the pics from our fist in the mouth contest. Piper is teething and constantly has her entire fist in her mouth. My niece Haven challenged us girls to see which of us could also accomplish this feat. Here goes...
Piper started it...
Haven challenged us...
Larkin's attempt...
Not my most flattering look!
Nana's turn!
The challenger wins by one-upping us all!
Yes, we are a goofy bunch!!! Wouldn't have us any other way :)
Now here comes the spiel, again, cause it's easier to copy paste it than rewrite it every time!
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