Charley Bear: 1.25

[1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8.5 months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months, 12 months]

I quit doing the monthly updates on Charley, but I haven't stopped taking her picture each month. I did buy the 13-24 months stickers so I must use them! But, I figured I'd just do a quarterly update on the blog which will include way too many pictures from the last 3 months, and the pictures with Big Bear as well. Sound like a plan? Okay, good.

On top of her now being able to run away during the Big Bear photo shoot, she now tries to rip the sticker off and tear it into tiny pieces. Each month I'm having to get more creative on how to force her to sit next to a bear. Well, not force, but strongly urge. Totally a difference. Forcing would require rope or super glue or duct tape, and I haven't had to resort to those types of things. Yet.


13 Months. This was the last "easy" one. She was walking, but wasn't standing up on her own to walk yet. So she may have tried to crawl towards something to pull up on, but I had ample seconds to snap a picture before she did that.

14 months. This one was hard. The toy helped, but the little lady was running away as fast as she could each time I sat her down. I MAY have photoshopped John's hand out on the right side of the picture as he was urging her to sit back down. See that shadow on the wall? That was from his arm. This was also the last monthly picture in our old house.

15 months. In my parent's house now, which explains the different carpet and lighting. This one was impossible. When I have the camera on the tripod, Charley LOVES to stand behind the camera and "be" the photographer. She helps a lot when we take pictures of our bird mobiles by pushing the button on the remote. So, after ripping the sticker into two (you can't tell, thankfully) I realized my only way to make this happen was to hand her the remote and let her take her own picture. It worked!

She walks. She talks. She's a whole lotta fun. She's my Charley bear!

At her 15 month appointment she weighed 20lbs 6 oz (10%) and was 29 3/4" tall (25%). Still just a tiny thing. She's wearing size 4 shoes and either 12 month or 18 month clothing. The 12 month stuff is best for just shirts, and 18 months works better for length. She started taking steps at 13 months but she had to be stood, you know? Or she could pull up on something. But, she figured out how to stand up on her own not too long afterwards and has been near running ever since. It's really kind of fun to let her run around outside! And shoes! I had to start remembering to put shoes on her. I like shoes. And you have to buy them constantly as those shoe sizes are like millimeters different. But, that's okay cause I like shoes.

As far as talking goes, she's got a few words. But she communicates very well otherwise. More non-verbal communication than anything. But since it's customary to list out the words your baby can say, I'll do as is customary. She says: cat, Mama, Dada, oh wow!, whoa!, oh no!, uh oh!, dog, woof woof, meOW, night night, no no, and I think that's all. When the pediatrician asked me what words she could say besides Mama and Dada, all I could come up with was cat. Whoops.

She signs for please, and everything else gets an "uh" with a point. She'll point at the highchair and give an "uh" and that means, "Mama! I'm hungry! Did you forget to feed me again?" I don't know why she'd think that. It's not like I've forgotten to feed her ever, minus a few times.

As you know, I am SUPER picky. I pretty much eat no veggies so I am doing my best to make sure Charley doesn't learn to be picky like me. So far, so good! She eats it all. And eats a LOT. While I do let her have a treat from time to time, she actually prefers to have fruit over anything. She has quite a few teeth to chomp it all up with too. I think 16? 4 uppers, 4 lowers, 4 molars and 4 eye teeth. 

She loves to be read to, and if you sit in the floor she'll slowwwly back up into your lap and plop herself down to listen to the story. My mom got an American Girl catalog in the mail recently (because she bought dolls for my nieces a couple years ago) and Charley LOVED that catalog so much it fell apart from overuse. She's still enamored with it even though all that's left is a random page here and there.

I was asked not too long ago what her favorite toy was, and I really didn't have an answer. She still really likes the air activity table, and she likes anything that plays music. Interactive books are still good, and she does love to hug on a stuffed animal. The only thing that she absolutely must have is her lovey owl blanket. 

See! The thing she's super excited about here is a business card. Toys are for babies.

She's growing hair, but it's too little, too late apparently. Winter has arrived and that little dusting of hair isn't going to keep her head warm and she knows it. Which is probably why she loves hats so much. And headbands. Or anything on her head, really.

 

 

I give her straight A's for this quarter. Hope she keeps it up for 2nd quarter or else I'll have to schedule a parent/teacher conference. Not that it'd do any good. I heard her parents are big ol' softies.

Newish

Here's what's new with me. Or newish I should say.

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We moved in with my parents on November 12th. It was a Monday, and our plan was to move in that weekend. But, someone mentioned something to John about when a house is in foreclosure, they can come and padlock the door BEFORE the auction and you wouldn't be able to get to your stuff. I don't know if that is true or not, but the threat of that happening at all was enough for us to throw all of our remaining stuff in boxes and get it out of there.

We had both worked that Monday, and I had just gotten back from New Orleans the day before so I was looking forward to an early bedtime. Ha. Instead, we got off work, took Charley to my parent's for my mom to keep her, met up with one of John's friends and my dad, and they loaded up their trucks and trailers with stuff. A lot of our stuff was already in storage, but beds, cribs, & lots of other "what do we do with this?" stuff was still at our house. The plan was to get it all out that night, but that task proved impossible so John took the next day off of work and finished moving everything that day.

This was what we had left Monday night. The upstairs was empty, but there was still a lot of stuff to be moved.

I wanted to walk through the house one more time and take pictures of it empty and everything like a good blogger would do, but I never even went back after that Monday. Goodbye, tiny townhouse. You were good to us.

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I started a new job!

So, I had been looking for a job for a while. Not like LOOKING, but, looking. Just casually perusing the jobs posted on a website or two every once in a while. Had a couple interviews, a TON of phone calls but nothing too promising was coming from that. I didn't hate my job, I just was bored of it and was pretty maxed out in my current department and most of all, I'd love to be closer to home. The commute really sucks when added to the drive to go and get Charley each afternoon.

But, since I am buying a house, I knew that if I wanted a new job I needed to not do it right before we closed, because they want so many paystubs from the same employer before closing. We were nearing the cut off time, so I had decided I was going to have to find a renewed source of energy and start to like my job again. Somehow make it fun again even if that meant drawing unicorns on post-its or something. SOMETHING ANYTHING, know what I mean?

And then, another department's manager offered a new job to me. It was a promotion, a raise, and I knew roughly what I'd be doing so it's not starting over from scratch. I get to keep my vacation time and I knew everyone in the department so it was a no brainer. I accepted the position (although I did not negotiate the pay...WHY do I have to be such a chicken about that stuff?) and started last Monday. It's going great! The very first day I left work happy. It was like my brain was actually functioning again because I was learning new things and all is well in the world.

And then I got in my car and made my 1 hour and 20 minute drive home and to get Charley. OK, so I didn't solve the commute issue so it's not perfect. But, as good as it could possibly be at this point in my life!

(And I feel like I should note that this newish item may or may not be the reason for the radio silence over here at Life of Lacey. Not that I ever would use work time for blogging, but maybe just because my brain was sitting idle for so long at the other job I could always think about things to say, and now my brain is so busy that I'm falling behind. Don't worry. I'll find a new piece of my day to devote to blogging. I don't seem to have anything between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m. Perfect.)

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Our house!! It's going up SO fast!! (Okay, it's actually going very slow but when they actually do stuff, SO FAST!) Today they put the roof on and it is so so exciting I can't stand it. A roof! Have you ever seen someone so excited over a roof in your whole life?!

When I get home I have about 10 minutes of sort of daylight before it's dark. And those crazy worker people work until the very last drop of sunlight has shown. And since I'm a chicken, I don't like to go visit my house while they are working so not to bother them and all. So most of my visits to the house have been in the dark with flashlights after they've gone.

Tonight for instance, I really wanted a picture of my new roof. So I parked my car where the headlights lit up the house, got out of the car in the frigid cold, turned on the flash and snapped this lovely picture so I could share with you:
 

It looks like we just have a garage and some scraps of wood in the yard. That darn iPhone flash doesn't go very far. But I'll get some daylight pictures this weekend for you. I'll do it, I will!

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I chopped my hair off. I did it, just as 14 of you suggested. It's great! Well, it's going to be great....

So, here it was on the day of snipping. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Loved it so much I snapped this picture as I walked out of the salon to my car. See the salon behind me to the right?

Remember the inspiration picture I posted of the haircut I liked? Is this not a duplicate or what? My stylist's name is Melissa and she is the best ever.

She curled it with a flat iron, although she said a curling iron would do the trick too just with a different type of curl. It took her all of 5 minutes to curl it a bit and I decided I could do this. But, I wasn't going to do a thing to it for as long as it would last. I wore the salon styling for two more days, and on that third day the curl had completely fallen out of the left side but I didn't care. I knew half a salon curled head was probably better than all of a Lacey curled head.

I was right. The next morning I got up extra early to play for the first time. I should have done it the night before, but yeah. Didn't happen. Turned out that my flat iron is much too wide to curl with while my hair is so short. So then I went into my mom's hair tool box and tried a few different tools she had. Yeah, none of them worked. Clearly those tools were crap because I am positive it had nothing to do with operator error. I ended up wetting my hair again and scrunching it with the Garnier scrunching spray stuff I like. It ended up like this.

Why are you smiling, you fool? You are wasting a perfectly wonderful haircut!

 



So now I look like a girl with a great hair cut that has no styling skills until my new curling iron gets here. When will it get here, you ask? Well, shortly after I order it of course! I don't know why I'm putting it off...each day without that tool is another day of a great haircut going to waste! Someone recommend the best skinny curling iron ever that is fool proof for a hair fool like me. Please. Save myself from hair wasting, please. 

 

 

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Oh my gosh! Guess what else? I have a new nephew! His name is Weston and he's a sweet little thing. I can't believe I forgot to tell you that. He's a month old today and is the younger brother of my nephew Wyatt. I would write a 'Welcome to the World, Weston' blog post like I did for Wyatt, but I used all of the "W" words in the entire English language in that blog so there aren't any left. Except maybe walrus, wapiti, and whistle and I just can't seem to make any sense out of those words. Sorry, Weston. At least you are adorable!


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So I basically have all of the things new with me that one person could possibly have. Job, house, baby, hair. So why is it that when people call and say "what's new?" I always revert to "oh, nothing really?"

What's new with you, my blog peeps?