Lately...

It's been a busy busy few weeks and I feel horrible that I have not been keeping the blog up to date lately, but here goes a quick review for anyone interested.

Gwen has started standing up on her own now. She pulls herself up on footstools, her bouncer, the floor, her exersaucer...pretty much anything! She is really taking some chances when she is standing, too. She lets go and falls down on her butt, she steps different ways and ends up doing the splits and even pushes up in front of her and gets stuck with her butt in the air!

Her vocal range is amazing now. I swear she is trying to be an opera singer with some of those high notes! She is answering us with sounds, getting our attention through her "words" and when I say words, I mean yells, lol. She loves blowing raspberries, doing the Indian chant with her mouth and making a cackle noise (kinda like ahht ahht ahht ahht) and her laugh has become a regular part of each interaction with her.

We got her 9 month pics taken on the day of her actual 9 month unbirthday. She smiled like crazy the whole day, but decided to not smile once in her pics. Hey, they turned out ok anyways so we were happy. I will scan them in and post them soon.

Her 9 mth well baby check up was today and she is in the 10% of height at 26 inches and in the 15% of weight at 18.5 lbs. BUT the Dr. said she is proportionate, growing healthy, head/brain size is good, eating right so he is not worried. Gwen is just a petite baby they said. Then they happen to mention that "Mom is short, so that is probably explaining it" THANKS Dr. Yes, I am short and when I was a baby I was really really petite until I got my tonsils out, then I grew like a WEED! I hope that is not the case here, lol. Hey, we are happy is Gwen is happy and healthy and she is so I guess I can just kiss her being taller than 5 ft 7 in goodbye, ha!

Gwen got recruited by a talent agency this weekend and we had a meeting with them last night. Well, long story short they "wanted her to be in print and TV" and acted like they cared so much and then wanted us to fork out $550 for head shots, NO THANK YOU! Needless to say when they could tell we were not going to get suckers in, they shut down and had us leave. Oh well Gwenie, I am sure somewhere somehow you will be famous :) hehe.

If you don't know, I joined Mary Kay as a consultant for a 2nd job. I wanted something that could make some money, but not take up any specific hours during the week and this gives me the freedom to be with Gwen anytime I want. I have high hopes for this adventure and hope it works out great!

Gwen's fun Valentine :)

Another holiday, another fun piece of art work from Gwen :) Here is the Valentine Gwen made for her grandparents! Her feet are getting SO big!

Valentine's Day!

I took Friday off so I could go to Gwen's valentine's day party at her daycare. I know it's not a huge deal when they are little, but I have missed the Halloween and the Xmas ones and I really wanted to see one at least!

It was cute. Almost everyone in the school was wearing red/pink. Each class had some type of decoration on them. The infant room got necklaces with hearts on them that said "I (heart) U" and of course, Gwen ate hers, lol. They had a parade inside through all the classrooms, all met in the largest room where each set of teachers of each class sang 2 songs for/with the kids. Gwen was so excited during the singing, she was laughing and bouncing on my leg...loved it!





After the parade/sing-a-long each room had their own valentine's party. This was an interesting time because this is when I found out that daycare had been giving Gwen goldfish crackers, cookies, fruit loops, lucky charms and cheerios at parties. This is not a HUGE deal to me, but being that I NEVER said it was OK to do this, I am a little shocked it has been happening. I didn't want to put a damper on Valentine's day so I just said, "we are OK with her eating things like that as long as it is small enough and she can choke on it." Honestly, we had not given her ANY of those items yet so I was a little mad about it inside. Oh well. She eats well and has 6 teeth...if she wants a fruit loop at a party in daycare, I am OK with it. I just need to make sure they are not giving her these treats everyday...I don't want that.

The cute part was how all the kids stood around the table in a circle eating their little treats...Gwen stood right up there with them, too! She is actually the 2nd youngest right now so I was pretty shocked she acted so "grown up" lol. They said she sat at a chair during a birthday last week for someone in the class too, good girl!




There is a funny story with Gwen and the swing at daycare. They never turn it one for her because she gets it going herself. I knew she did this, but to SEE her actually do this was hilarious. I HAD to video it. Check it out, and remember THE SWING IS NOT ON!!!!



I also took some more pics of her art work. They have a bunch of it hanging around her room. It is so cute!





Gwen is in the middle...I guess she didn't want to play with any other color that day so they let her just blob down the bluish color, haha...such an attitude!



And finally, Jason got me flowers! He had them sent to my work. First time I have ever gotten flowers at work! I actually took them in to the meeting room for everyone to see at lunch, LOL! They were beautiful and I loved the, :)

Apples!

So we got these netted food holder thingies at one of my showers and tonight we decided to put some apples in there (without the skin) and let her chew and gnaw on it. SHE LOVED IT! She was chewing so much so actually got angry when it was not crunchy anymore. Those things are great! I think we might try some real green beans in there soon...I mean she eats stuff like that a bit now on her own anyways, but this makes us feel safer to let her chew on it without huge pieces getting in her mouth. The pics are too cute :)




A fun Valentine's hoodie from Lori, Jemma and Tom...it's so cute!

New York Comic Convention!

Gwen went to her first comic convention this weekend. Shockingly enough, even though people were dressed up in tights, masks, stilts, capes, and even fishnets...Gwen got quite a bit of attention from the crowds! I had 4 people stop and ask if they could take a picture of her...I kinda wanted to ask for money, lol...but hey, if she can make someone smile because they get to see her pic, fine with me! The NYCC photography crew actually came over to Gwen and I when we were sitting down and she was sleeping in my arms and took a pic of us so maybe we will be in a magazine or online, cool! Jason had a lot of fun and met some great people. I have actually grown to love comic cons...especially when there are famous people there, hehe. This time we stood behind Seth Green and Breckin Meyer in line for pizza...they are so small! Here are a few pics from the weekend.



Gwen's NYC protection!



Joe Sinnot - one of the industries legends. He saw Gwen and kept trying to make her smile at him...if only a job for Jason could have come out of that interaction, lol.




Tuckered out sleeping.

Gwen's Art Work

She is making so many things at daycare lately, it's adorable! I really don't know how we are supposed to keep them all...if she keeps doing this many projects a year, my walls will not even need painting because they will be custom designed by Gwen's art work! HA! I don't even care, who needs paint when you have messy finger paint snowmen :) hehe. Enjoy her artsy fartsy work!

Bean Town :)

Boston was awesome, seriously I could live there IF Jason and Gwen moved there with me, hehe. I was pretty impressed with myself though. I really thought I would have broken down or worst of all, had to leave early from bootcamp, but I didn't! I really did miss Jason and Gwenie, but I think keeping super busy through out the jam packed week, it made it easier for me. I never really had time to sit in my hotel room and think about how much I missed them. Thank heavens for that!

This might have been one of those work trips where you actually learned something and enjoyed it at the same time! I made a bunch of new friends, met some amazing people, saw a beautiful city, shopped a bit (mainly for Red Sox gear for Jason and Gwen!), and of course, learned so much from the people at Head Quarters. Honestly one of the best work trips I have ever taken!

Out to eat at Tapeo for Aisha's Birthday.



Ate at The Elephant Walk. A Cambodian/French restaurant. Yummy!!





My creative eye jumped back into place this trip. I took a lot of creative/funky pics while in Boston - it was actually pretty easy to get the creative vibe again from that city, the architecture and design of the places around you just bring it out in you! For some reason I was so keen to textures, I just could not get enough!







We went bowling one night at Kings. Parts of the movie KingPin were filmed at this bowling alley and we actually rented out the "KingPin Room" for our party. They had a bunch of the paraphernalia that was in the movie along with the script and a lot of autographs from the cast. It was really fun and I bowled pretty darn good in both my games!







I did have an encounter with a ghost in my hotel room while I was there. If you believe in such things, like I do, I welcomed it! I actually named the ghost Herman and told the hotel about it in case anyone else experiences anything. Basically one of the nights I went to sleep I turned off all the lights and left the TV on. I woke up at 5 am to 3 of the lights on as well as the TV. That is the night I named him Herman. The next night I got into bed and told Herman I would really like to sleep tonight without the lights being turned on please. He obeyed :) SO, unless I got up and turned the lights on myself that night, it was totally Herman.

Enjoy the slide show of Boston...about 170 pics in there, sorry!

I''m leaving on an Amtrak Train

That should work if you sing it to the tune of "Leaving on a Jet Plane." Yea, I am horribly sad, but excited to be going to Boston at the same time. I am sure Gwen and Jason will be fine, they both do great with each other, I am just nervous she will forget me! I know that is dumb, but I just can't help but think it! Needless to say I spent this entire weekend smothering her with mommy that I am sure she will be like, "geesh woman, give me some room" and won't even know I am gone until Thurs. afternoon...then I will be back on Friday so it won't actually be THAT long to her. Ok, Im crazy. Actually do to this cool new thing called the Internet and Ichat we are going to use our camera on our computers and see each other every night...so at least I won't be COMPLETELY out of the picture for 5 days. I am just praying it works or I might just hyperventilate, lol. :)

On the other hand, Boston is going to be amazing and I am looking forward to meeting new people that work for Aquent in different offices. I am also hoping I see some Red Sox players so I can chase them down for autographs...I am pretty good at that! I am sure I will try and update about my trip while I am away, but who knows.

I wanted to post some cute pics of Gwen from this weekend. I swear she is changing every single day. She LOOKS older now, too! It's crazy! She is standing now, with help of course, and she usually ends up dancing while she stands. I am sure we will video it soon.






Another piece of Art Work sent home from Daycare...it's mittens!