Tis the Season

We had our first Christmas get-together for the season on Sunday at Aunt Roycelyn's.  I don't know if I look at it differently now that I have a kid, but it seemed much more calm this year.  It could just be because the kids are all getting older, but it was pretty laid back.  Ainsley got lots of attention and was really good.  She tore the wrapping paper a little bit, but lost interest after a few rips.  I'm glad there were plenty of little cousins to help her out!

Get that bow out of my face, Mom.

Ainsley and Grandma ready to go

On the move again.

Delaney:  "Here Ainsley, let me whack you in the head with this box!"

Tanner's such the helper

What's in there???

Delaney helping Ainsley open her present

She got a pop up toy from Grandma Mary that she really liked.  She ended up playing with it all Sunday night when we got home.  She can't get the animals to pop up, but loves to push them down!  Taze also liked Ainsley's toy, and Ainsley liked Taze's hair.

Ainsley sharing her toy with Taze (actually, she's pulling his hair!)

She felt bad for pulling his hair.

They're both happy...Taze playing with Ainsley's toy and Ainsley playing with a truck (maybe Taze's toy???)

Aunt Di got Ainsley to sleep!

Sunday morning before heading over to Aunt Roycelyn's for lunch, Mark popped the big question to Mom.  She said yes, they kissed, they hugged, and she put on her ring (which is beautiful).  No, she's not pregnant (ha!), and they haven't set a date.  I did manage to capture a few pictures of the event, but I didn't get one of the two of them afterwards.

Will you marry me????

It seems like Ainsley does something new every day.  After she takes a bite of food, she'll say:  "Mmmmm".  If I ask her if it's good, she'll say:  "Mmmmm".  When she's eating puffs (or anything else that she feeds herself), she won't even get it in her mouth before she starts "Mmmmm-ing".  It's so cute!  Her favorite word right now is "ya-ya".  She'll sit in her carseat and jabber away while going down the road.  If you ask her a question, she'll respond with "ya".  It's pretty funny.  We'll ask her:  Ainsley-do you like Christmas, and she'll respond:  "Ya".  Ainsley-do you like presents?  "Ya".  Ainsley-do you like toys? "Ya".  Ainsley-is Mommy the best?  "Ya".  The other day we went through these questions and Joel was standing off to the side watching and when I asked her if Mommy was the best, she hesitated, looked at me, looked at Joel, and looked back at me and responded:  "Ya!"

If you ask her what a cow says, she'll reply with "muhhhhhhh"  or something like it.  She gets her lips really close together, so there's barely an opening and says it.  We'll have to work on a lamb, or something easy next.
She's started cuddling and hugging her stuffed animals.  If she sees one laying on the floor, she'll crawl over to it and lay her head down on it and go "awwweeeeee".  If I tell her to give her stuffed animal a hug, she'll do the same thing.  She'll give them kisses, too.  She's also started doing that to your legs (if you're sitting on the floor), or if you're holding her, she'll cuddle up to your shoulder.
Joel said that she said "dadada" the other day, but only did it one time.  I think she said it for me a few days ago, but I can't get her to do it more than once.  She likes being chased down the hallway and will laugh when you start crawling after her.  She'll only crawl so far, before she has to stop, sit up, and make sure you're still chasing her.  Once she realizes you're still behind her, she'll giggle some more and start crawling as fast as she can.  One of her newest things to do is to open and close doors.  Her favorite is the bathroom door.  She'll swing it back and forth while I get ready.
Her favorite game right now is dropping something on the floor and waiting for you to pick it up so she can do it again.  If she's eating puffs in her high chair, she has to take all of them and put them in her cup holder on the high chair tray.  Once she's moved them all into her cup holder, she then takes them and drops them all on the floor.  She's also started clapping again, and will clap her hands while she dances to music.
Grandma Shelly watched Ainsley on Saturday while Joel and I went to Dad's to paint.  As we were walking out of Mom's Saturday morning, Ainsley started crying.  That's the first time she's cried when we left.  I guess she didn't miss us too much, because Mom said a few seconds after we left, she stopped crying.  I found out that while we were in Dallas last week, Grandma Shelly gave Ainsley ice cream, and Ainsley liked it!

Yummy ice cream!

Ainsley's been sick with a cold for the past week.  Her nose doesn't stop running, and she's been running a low temperature.  I'm hoping she starts feeling better in time for Christmas.  I've been busy planning her 1st birthday party.  Can you believe she's going to be one in a few weeks?!?!  Where has this last year gone?

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Joel and I went to Dallas for Dairy.com's yearly end of year meeting and Christmas party and left Ainsley with Grandma Shelly, Aunt Jennifer, and Grandma Rita.  We both missed Ainsley like crazy and couldn't get home fast enough to see her.  We left Wednesday night and got home Sunday evening.  I was anxious to see how Ainsley would act when she saw us, and she was happy.  It wasn't quite the "happy" that I would have liked, but she was still happy.  I pictured her scrunching up her face and breathing in and out of her nose real fast, like she does when she's really excited, but I didn't get that reaction.  Joel and I were both very excited to see her, though. 

When we got to Jim and Rita's to pick her up Sunday night, she had a few marks on her head that she didn't have when we left.  Grandpa Jim said they were his fault, and he thinks she hit her head on the coffee table.  She slept on an air mattress on the floor of Rita's room and she fell off of it three different times throughout the night.  We're not for sure if we should leave Ainsley with Grandma Rita and Grandpa Jim again.  She may come home with more bruises, but worse than the bruises is they spoil her rotten!  When she would take a nap, it would only be on someone's lap.  Spoiled, I tell you,      s-p-o-i-l-e-d.  I think Ainsley had fun, as well as Grandma and Grandpa. 

Grandma Shelly kept her Wednesday night and Thursday.  I don't know what they did the whole time, but Ainsley's toenails were painted when she got home, so I'm sure there was plenty of pampering.  Mom took her to Jacksonville to do some shopping Thursday afternoon, without the stroller.  Bad idea!  She went into Kirlins and JcPenney's holding Ainsley the whole way through.  The story I got, was that Mom had to go to the bathroom, so she ran into the bathroom in JcPenney's.  There aren't carts in there, or anywhere to put a baby.  What do you do with a baby and no stroller in JcPenney when you need to go to the bathroom?  Well, Grandma Shelly sits Ainsley on her lap and puts her on her hip while trying to pull up her pants.  I'm sure Ainsley really thought she was nuts.  My Mom isn't the most coordinated person, so I'm just glad they both made it out of that bathroom without any injuries!

Mom dropped Ainsley off at Jennifer's Thursday afternoon, where she was spoiled some more.  Jennifer said she was a perfect angel for her, but she didn't like sleeping in the same bed as Ainsley.  Ainsley liked to have a handful of Aunt Jennifer's hair while sleeping (she usually has a handful of Daddy's chest hair), and she also grunted and farted all night.  I seriously don't know who is gassier, Ainsley or Joel!  Jennifer said that Drake didn't let Ainsley get into anything she shouldn't, because he would yell out everytime she started to reach toward something.  I think she followed Drake and Ryder around most of the time.  There was just one mishap that I heard about (I'm sure there were more), and that is when Jennifer put Ainsley on top of the island in the travel high chair and went out to the garage for something.  When she came back in, Drake has pushed her from one side of the island to the other.   Luckily, he didn't push her all the way off!   Ryder's birthday party was Saturday night, so there was lots going on and I'm sure Ainsley loved it!  Jennifer sent me pictures of Ainsley throughout the weekend to keep me updated.

Watching the train go around Aunt Jennifer's Christmas tree

She liked Drake's train!

Ryder and Ainsley

Drake and Ainsley....I think they really look alike in this picture

I know Ainsley was fine while we were gone, but it was terribly hard on me and Joel.  What if she didn't remember us when we got home?  What if she started walking while we were gone?  What if she got more teeth while we were gone?  Oh, wait, she did do the last one.  She now has four teeth instead of two.  Two of her top teeth pushed through while we were gone, so now she has two on the bottom and two on top.  The two on top are her "fangs" and not the front two, so I'm anxious what's she's going to look like once they pop out a little more.   She also started saying "babababa" again while we were gone.  She said that a few months ago, but stopped saying it.  She started it back up and now she just jabbers all the time.

Our trip to Dallas was okay.  It was nice to get away for a few days, even if we did miss our baby like crazy.  We landed Wednesday night around 9 and then had to get our rental car.  The only car they had left in the group we had paid for was a Prius.  The guy at the rental counter asked if I'd ever drove an electric car before and I told him I hadn't.  Joel just kind of shrugged, and I took it as "okay", because he's the one that drives.  I asked the guy where we plugged the car in, and he informed me then that it was a hybrid and we didn't have to charge it.  Of course, Joel just laughed at me!  We got out to the car, and couldn't get it started.  They told us it would be very quiet when we started it, but Joel tried for 10 minutes or so with no luck.  I ran back in to see if I could get someone to come out and help us get it started and when the agent and I got back out to the car, Joel still hadn't got it started.  The agent tried to start it, and couldn't get it, so he asked Joel to get out.  When Joel stepped out of the car, it started.  It was the weirdest thing!  Once it started, we were off.  Joel complained all weekend about driving it around and said it felt like he was dragging a goat behind the car because it wouldn't "get up and go".

Christmas lights in Plano.  It's so pretty down there around Christmas!

I worked Thursday and Friday, and Joel went to see a movie each day.  We went to the Shops at Legacy Saturday morning to walk around and shop.  We got there around 9:30 and there were Santa's everywhere!  There was some sort of run that morning where everyone dressed up as Santa and ran.  There weren't many shops that were open, so we mainly just walked around and enjoyed the fresh air.  We grabbed some lunch, hit the mall, and then went to see the new Twilight movie that afternoon.  It was so nice to have a day to ourselves with no plans.  Our Christmas party was that night and then one of my coworkers invited everyone back to her house.  We had a good time visiting with everyone.  Then on Sunday, we headed home to get Ainsley!

Holy Santas!!!

Joel pulling my pink suitcase around DFW.

Ainsley pulled herself up to standing tonight for the first time.  She actually pushed herself up, but either way, we were very proud of her!  I wrapped Christmas presents in the basement while Ainsley crawled around and got into everything.  She really liked one of Drake's presents, the wrapping paper, tape, and gift tags.  It was a lot harder wrapping presents this year with a 10 month old than it was last year.  A couple of the gifts are ripped and a few boxes are smashed, but that was just Ainsley helping!

Someone wanted the camera!

Crazy hair!

Yesterday, I went to get my "braces".  They're not traditional braces, but rather clear mouth pieces that I have to wear all the time.  The only time I take them out is to eat.  My teeth/mouth really hurt yesterday, but today is much better.  I wish I would have got them right after I had Ainsley because I don't snack as much as usual because of the need to take them out each time.  Hopefully these next few years go by fast, because I'm already missing chewing gum!

Isn't that the sweetest face you've ever seen?????

I got our Christmas cards done yesterday, and I'm hoping to get them out before Christmas.  Lauren took a few pictures a few weeks ago to use for Christmas cards, and here are a few that we got.  Someone forgot the "t" in Christmas, so just ignore that!

I LOVE this one!

Ainsley and Hadlee!

 

10 months and helmet comes off!

Ainsley was 10 months old on Thursday.  (I'm a few days late!) 

10 months

She doesn't understand why she can't crawl off!

Get me outta here!!!

Rita and I went shopping on Thursday, so Joel had to pay Mr. Mom.  He took Ainsley to Lisa's and picked  her up in time to get her to her appointment at the doctor's office for her second dose of the flu shot.  He said she cried more getting her coat on than she did for the shot.  She HATES getting her coat on.  Well, she's actually going through a stage right now where she doesn't like getting her diaper changed, clothes put on, or hat and coat put on.  When you lay her on her back to change her diaper, she immediately throws her body and starts screaming.  She'll roll over to her belly and start crawling away from you as fast as she can.  After her bath and before putting her pajamas on, I usually let her crawl around naked for a while before the fight of getting her dressed starts.  Joel wasn't too happy with me last night when there was a big wet spot on her bedroom floor where she peed because I let her crawl around naked.  Oh well, life goes on.

She likes PLAYING with her diaper, and that's the only thing she likes about diapers!

Anyone know a place that sells bras for babies?!?! (She's going to LOVE me one day!)

Last Sunday, we went to Aunt Doris's for Thanksgiving.  Ainsley ate some more table food, including some chocolate pudding, which she loved!  After that, she crashed.

Uncle Thomas feeding her chocolate pudding

We finished decorating the Christmas tree when we got home.  Ainsley liked playing with the decorations and had glitter everywhere! She doesn't care for the tree too much.  It's down in the basement, so she's not around it every day, but she could care less that it's there.  I tried getting her picture in front of it, but pictures are hard to get these days!

This is how all of the pictures turned out...with a baby on the move!

We had our second physical therapy appointment on Tuesday.  The physical therapist saw much improvement over the last week.  We don't have to go back for three weeks now because of how good Ainsley is progressing.  We still need to work on getting her to pull up and open her left hand, but she has the crawling thing down.  I had to laugh because near the end of the appointment, the physical therapist said how Ainsley's personality is really showing.  She described her as a baby that likes to sit back and observe and not really get in the middle of things.  That's Ainsley!

Physical therapy

After her physical therapy appointment, we headed over to Hanger Orthotics for her helmet appointment.  We had another scan done and the results weren't what we'd hoped for.  There wasn't much improvement over the last six weeks.  We knew the improvement would start to slow down as Ainsley got older, but the CI only went down by 1% and the CVA only went down by 0.2mm.  The Orthotist said that because Ainsley is now 10 months, her plates will start fusing together and it's harder to see improvement now.  The Orthotist thought we'd be able to see more improvement after using the helmet than we did, but we had a lot of things going against us.  The main issue was the new helmet.  We had to get the special foam put in Ainsley's new helmet because she had the allergic reaction to the other one, and the special foam is softer than the normal foam they use.  The softer foam causes the head to change at a slower pace.  We also had to go without a helmet near the beginning for a week or so while the new helmet was ordered.  I'm convinced that if we would have got Ainsley in a helmet when she was 4-5 months old, we would have seen a much better outcome. 

We could have continued with the helmet, but because Ainsley's at the 10 month mark and progress will now become very slow, so we made the decision to go ahead and take it off.  Because there wasn't much progress over the last six weeks, the Orthotist said that we may get 1mm of improvement over the next six weeks, but it would be so small that only the scan would be able to pick it up and you wouldn't be able to tell looking at her.  Her head will naturally elongate on its own and we felt it wasn't worth it to leave it on if we'd only get a slight, if any, improvement. 

I do have to say that is seems like Ainsley is a much happier baby without the helmet.  I'm going to miss having the extra layer of "protection" on my baby's head.   Each time she gets near a corner, I worry that she's going to hit her head now.  She's fallen while sitting up a few times without the helmet, and we haven't had any knots on her head yet.  I'm sure they'll come with time.  It also seems like Ainsley is cuddling more.  The helmet would hurt your collar bone or shoulder any time Ainsley would try to cuddle with you, and now she just buries her little head right into your chest and lays there.  It's so nice to be able to kiss and cuddle with my baby again! 

She fell asleep for the first time in the highchair last week

I love her chubby little hands!

Joel's birthday was Monday and after Ainsley and I got home from Springfield, we headed over to The Approach to celebrate.  Ainsley's really into Joel right now and will follow him around the house.  When he walks into the room, she lights up and will crawl over to him.  Ainsley and Daddy have their own "handshake" and Ainsley will crack the biggest smile when they do it.  I'm so glad that Ainsley has such a great guy to call Daddy!

Ainsley and Daddy celebrating his birthday

Lazy day at the Freeman house