This & That

Violet is very mobile these days. She cruises the furniture one handed and let's go to stand alone (by herself, not holding on to anything) for a minute or two at a time. She took FOUR steps the other day!!! Since, she has taken one or two steps, but she is still testing the waters. When she crawls, she is so fast!

She has also sprouted teeth #5 and #6. So her top four front teeth are in and her two bottom front teeth. She no longer looks like a vampire. ;P

We have a framed 8x10 photo of her up that was taken just before she turned 6 weeks old. If we say, "Say hi to the baby," she turns to it and waves and tries to say "hi!" It's pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.
The animals now let her hug them and pet them more and don't seem to be nearly as annoyed with her as they used to be. In fact, our dog Mona has become her BFF since realizing that whatever food Violet drops, she gets to nom on.
At her 9 month pediatrician appointment, the doctor said she is doing incredibly well. She is hitting her milestones early/on time and is healthy, happy and normal and we are more than happy and proud! :) Here are the stats: 28.5 inches tall, 20 pounds and 7 ounces.
This summer is breezing by, but we are having a blast and savoring each moment of Violet's first year. All of her firsts and each new milestone she hits truly amaze us. I know each new parent says these kind of things, but there is a reason for that! We've already started the planning for Violet's first birthday party. This may seem crazy to some, but time seems to go by so much faster with a baby in tow. Just trying to keep our bases covered. :)

'Til next time! <3

NIMBY

The Vandals have this song that I am constantly thinking of while searching for a new home. Not In My Back Yard. The song is about denying G E Smith (of SNL fame) admittance to their community. For me, it represents the nuclear reactor on the outskirts of town. Now that I think about it, G E Smith was probably meant to represent General Electric because the Vandals can't write a song with a straight face. And that's a good thing.



I really believe nuclear energy can be safe. So what's the concern about? It probably parallels the common apprehension of flying. The fear doesn't make logical sense because flying is statistically safer than driving. But on the other hand if anything did go wrong, the whole lot of passengers would be royally F'ed.

So there is a slight chance we will have an "incident". But there's also a chance Violet's turtles will show an interest in ninjutsu when they reach their tweens.


"We caught him when he couldn't play the lead from Tattooed Love Boys."

9 in / 9 out

Violet's been an outside baby just as long as she has been an inside one. This gives her the experience to make an educated choice of which she likes better.

I'll Stay! I Love America!

Our Nikon has a 32GB memory card. Even at the whatever-infinity-times-two-megapixels we are shooting at, that is a lot of storage. So this means we don't have to delete any photos as we copy them to the computer. This also means while scrolling through her 9 month photos we can skip one photo too far. Then it's *zip*, space-time has wrapped around itself and we are staring at a 2 week old baby, who hadn't yet rolled or babbled or crawled or cruised. But because this moment wasn't touching enough, didn't make us instantly realize how fast time moves, we began sorting through clothes she's outgrown since moving back to the Philadelphia area. We had to rub jalapeño seeds in our eyes to calm down.

Philadelphia is been berry good to us.
We've got two more moves before we can settle. Violet is loving the apartment living. We are tolerating it as a necessary evil to our relocation. More on that later. For now, check out how Violet spent month eight, more or less.

Milestone-a-mania!

It's been awhile and we have been busy bees. Violet has been hitting milestones like a mad lady/baby. Lady baby. Baby lady. She pulls up on the furniture and cruises from piece to piece like a pro. Unfortunately, bruising comes along with the cruising. But she's a rough, tough cream puff, as my mother would say.
She now has four teeth. (Her lower central incisors and her upper lateral incisors to be precise.) She went to her first birthday party which was also her first FIRST birthday party. Her friend Charleigh turned one year old on Saturday and we all had a blast, especially Violet!
(I did receive my first ::facepalm:: comment in which the young girl - quite possibly a high school student/college freshman - compared my child to one of her pets. I was less than pleased, but I suppose you'll have that in NEPA.)
Mike and I got Violet a musical sit and stand table and a musical, interactive nursery rhyme book. She loves them both! She also imitates the sound the Count from Sesame Street makes. Rather, she imitates us imitating the Count. It's pretty funny and I am sure there are videos somewhere on one of our iPhones, but I will have Mike edit this post later or make a new one to add all of the fun stuff that people really come here for; pictures and videos. We have been randomly uploading cell pics from our Picasa apps on the iPhones, iPod Touch and iPad 2. We are iSheep now, I suppose!
We have officially caught the birthday party bug, by the way. Yes, even Mike. We have a time and a date and a place set and paid for and just have the cutesy little details to iron out and we are golden. I know we have some time, but we have a lot planned between then and now and would like to have it taken care of already. While we are a little sad about her getting so big so fast, we feel so privileged and proud to watch her blossom into such a beautiful little person. Plus, watching her with her 'smash cake' will be a hoot!




I will leave you with some reading material! A friend posted this link and I could not agree with it more. How To Talk To Little Girls

Totally ARM'ed (or Splish Splash Clap Clap)

Totally Hurst is totally armed with cuteness...

and with ARM processors (har har). Violet's awesome videos are now shot, edited, and uploaded with the iPhone. And aside from her monthly photo shoot, her pictures are now coming from the iPhone as well, directly into Picasa. And when we're blogging on the iPad, I never have to touch a dirty Pentium (except professionally, it's my job to touch x86 all day long). As proof, auto-correct has no idea what a Pentium is and suggested I was attempting to type penguin.

They say, "the best camera is the one that's with you". Our point-and-shoot and Flip cameras are cursing the insightful bastard that came up with this as they collect cob webs in whatever drawer they've been banished to.

And now, without further ado, I present SPLISH SPLASH and CLAP CLAP.





And check out Violet's 6-9 month photo album ( <== over there). It's a hoot!

New Toy!!!

Violet went shopping today and got a new toy.

A friend had recommended this to me and I am so glad she did, because Violet is in love with it (so far!) We took a video of her first reactions to it because it was so sweet. Since then, she has stood up with it and pushed it around (with Daddy behind her of course!) Going to have to try and snag a video of that one day, too, I suppose. (For proof and to show the grandparents how fun, funny and cute she is with it!)

Enjoy, family! <3

Just Keep Swimming (Into 8 months!)

On Monday, Violet took her first dip in the pool. We told her it was the Big Bath so she wouldn't get too freaked out. It worked! The weather was scorching and the water was warm, so she did not mind being dipped right in. It wasn't long before she discovered splashing. After that point, it was a nonstop splash fest. Toward the end, she decided to dive head first into the water, but I said, "Whoa there MichELLE Phelps! Baby steps!"
We ended up getting the first dip and first splash on video for the grandparents.



On Friday, Violet turned 8 months old. She has been zombie crawling so quickly, it's like 28 Days Later up in here! She started getting on all fours and rocking so it is only a short matter of time, we hear, before she is officially crawling like a big girl. Currently, I am dictating this blog entry because I am busy walking with Violet back and forth across the living room. (Her hands are in mine as she puts one foot in front of the other.) She has been doing this for awhile but now she seems to want to do it all the time. Lea and I are going to get her a stand and push baby walker to help her out.
Her first tooth has popped through but she's like Violet Incredible (powers of invisibility) when it comes to tooth pictures apparently. No we did not name her after a cartoon character or anyone actually (except for her middle name.) It looks as though she might be sprouting a few more teeth in the very near future.

 Oh hai bunny! 

Violet has three plushie bunnies from Oh My! Ophelia that Lea bought from her talented friend. 

Violet is in love with them!
(Here is one of them in this first picture)

Happy!

Behaving!

Whatchoo lookin' at, Dad?

Happy Part II!