Tutus and Finger Foods

Memaw came up last weekend to watch Marlee so James and I could go to the Razorback football game and watch the Hogs lose...again.  

Before we left, I dressed Marlee up in her Razorback tutu that Alissa made for her.

She couldn't quite figure it out

After quite some time of trying to get her to smile, this is all she wanted to give us

And then she decided that she would rather play with her musical barn

Tutu's sure are hard to crawl in,

But, boy, they sure are fun!

Marlee also practiced her pick up skills.  Memaw even made her a grilled cheese!!  She is doing so good and loves everything except green peas.  I think we are completely finished with baby food.  Yay!!

  We also went shopping for some fall clothes and went to church while Memaw was here.  And of course, we watched some Baby Einstein.  I just love those jeggings! 

 Thank you so much Memaw for staying the weekend with Marlee.  She had such a good time, as always.

More Music Please!

Marlee has obviously outgrown her excersaucer, but I have left it out because she still likes to stand by it and play with all of the toys.  And lately, she has figured out how to push the little barn which plays a song.  And she can't get enough.  Our daily nightly playtime goes a little something like this:

"Hey Mom, have I shown you that this barn plays songs?!"

"Isn't that AWESOME?!"

"Wait a minute...you have that cool looking camera out"

"I think I'm supposed to get up close and show my teeth"

"CHEESE!" 

 And then she goes back to the musical barn and I can't help but to take a picture of her backside.

 "Seriously Mom, stop taking pictures and check this out."

 "This barn plays songs!!!"

 "Coolest. Thing. Ever." 

Labor Day 2012

We spent Labor Day weekend at the lake with Memaw and Papaw.  Here is our weekend wrapped up with pictures.

Marlee drank Memaw's Sonic on the boat.  She is quickly learning that anything with a straw in it is pretty good stuff.

This little girl LOVES to splash.

I love giving this cutie a "sunscreen mohawk"

This picture just cracks me up.

We didn't hang out on the boat long because of the heat, so we went back to the house and changed so we could cheer on the Hogs.

The next morning, Papaw brought in a walking stick for Marlee to chase.

Then we all headed to the pool because it was just too hot to go back out on the boat

Later that evening, we took a boat ride to Shangri la for my Birthday dinner.  It was still way too hot and Marlee ended up eating dinner in her Birthday suit.  She didn't mind.

Before heading back home, Miss Marlee took a mid-morning siesta with her Dada

I just love long weekends at the lake.

Our World Lately

I was in LA all week for work and when I came home, Marlee had learned to push her walker, stand up without support, squat down to pick something up, and then carefully stand back up.  I can't believe she has changed so much in one week!  This little girl has a stomach virus, a really bad diaper rash, and a terrible cough and cold, but that isn't going to stop her from fine-tuning her newly learned skills.  Here is Miss Marlee showing off her walking skills this morning.

9 Months Old

This little girl loves her bunny

 

 "Hmmm...I sure would like to chew on this sticker"

 "You are so funny, Dad!!"

"Whoa!!"

 We just went to the doctor yesterday and Marlee weighs 18 pounds, 13 ounces.  At s6months, the doctor wanted her to be at at least 16 pounds by her nine month appointment.  She is such a big girl (for her anyway)!  She is still in the 25th percentile for height and between the 20th & 25th percentile for weight.

Still wearing 6-9 month clothes and still wearing a size 2 diaper

Crawling everywhere and standing up everywhere and she uses her right foot to give her a push when she wants to go fast.  She also loves to cruise along the couch and she can stand up on her own for about a minute before crashing on her booty.  I believe she will be walking before she is 10 months.   Oh, boy!!

Still sleeping 11 hours at night.  She is back to sleeping from about 8:00pm to 7:00am, which makes me very happy.  She is just recently down to two naps a day and so far they are about 1 - 1.5 hours in length.  I've finally had some time to get some things done around here!!  She only takes one 2 hour nap at school, so she usually crashes hard for her second nap once we get home.

She moved up again at school to the "movers" class.   She will be in this class until she is 15 months old.  They have a real table and chairs and the teacher says she sits there and eats her snack.  That just cracks me up!!  And I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but her teachers label everything in her class "Marlee Mae" and just the first name for all of the other babies.  I love this.

Still drinks 6oz every four hours/four times a day and now eating all table food (with the exception of peanut butter, honey, fish, and egg whites).  She is such a good eater and still likes just about everything.   She has gotten much better with her pick up skills, but about 60% of her food still ends up in her lap.   She is doing so much better with her sippy cup.  She just needs to learn how to tilt it up and she will be all set to drink whole milk out of it when she turns 1 year old (it will be here before we know it!!)

We went to Target last week and she rode in the shopping cart for the first time.  She loved it!!

It has become a real challenge to change her clothes and diaper.  We are not sure how to tackle this problem...and I'm sure it is just going to get worse one she is walking!!

Babbling like crazy and loves to just say "dadadadadadada" all the time.  We are working on the "mamamamamama"...haha!!  She loves when we talk to her in her language.

She absolutely LOVES Frank.  And I believe Frank feels the exact opposite about her...LOL.  Here she is trying to get Frank's bone.

And when he gets in the way, she just crawls right over him.

 We still read a book most nights and she is really starting to concentrate on each page (as long as we read a book with about 4-5 words per page).  We do a lot of pointing to objects while I tell her the word.

She is such a good traveler.  She has traveled somewhere the last three weekends and is so good in the car.  I think it is good for her to get out and about and stay the night in different places.

And just because I think she is the cutest Razorback cheerleader ever... 

 We love you more and more every day, Marlee Mae!!!

Weekend in Bernie

We went to Bernie a couple weekends ago to visit my grandparents.

Marlee got to swing with Memaw Doris

and play with Aunt Helen

 Marlee also got to play on the piano at Memaw Doris' house...just like I did when I was a kid 

 We ran into Aunt Karla at church, so Marlee got to play with her and even took a little nap on her during the sermon.

 After church we had to get some pictures of Marlee in her precious dress from a local boutique.  It's still too big, but I'm afraid it will be too little next summer.

I love how this picture shows her bottom two teeth (still the only two she has).

 Marlee practiced her newly learned Indian chant with Aunt Jana 

 I think she really liked Aunt Jana

 This is the best picture I could get with Papaw Roy.  She was really into that button.

 We stayed at Memaw Pauline's house, so we spent our evenings playing at her house.  Marlee had such a good time.

 We also saw Holly, Lana, Darrin, and Darri, but I didn't get any pictures of Marlee with them.  I will have to be sure to make up for that when we are there this Christmas!  It is always nice to see everyone and we sure do wish they lived closer to us.