New Each Day

So many things are happening that I haven't had time to keep up with posting. We took Brie to the beach, the pool, visit family in TN and MO for Memorial Day and tomorrow we plan to take her to the zoo. She is AMAZING. Her walk has quickly become closer to a run and she is trying desperately to talk. She started saying Bye to everyone and she has a little southern accent so it comes out sounding like Bah. She also tries to say see ya later. It comes out a bit garbled but it's clear enough that you know what she's trying to say. She has been making her bible and trying to "read all about Jesus" with her little finger in her hand. She of course has the YEAH (clap) part down. She picked out her own clothes, jammies and Jellies sandals at Walmart when we were shopping with Grandmom. She was floored. She said if she hadn't seen Brie doing that with her own eyes she would have never believed it. I have tons of pictures to add to this post so check back. She played in the sandbox with her cousins and had quite the big time. And she tried walking Tippy (great grandparents dog). I'll add more after the zoo trip, but I just didn't want to forget to mention stuff.

Rockin Babe

So Dave is determined that Brie becomes a rockstar. Not only did he get the Elmo guitar for her for her birthday... he also has a Gibson magnet that she runs around with...then he was practicing his own playing last night when she stood mesmerized in his doorway. Seeing the effects...he grabbed his mini amp and brought it out into the living room and let her play his guitar. She was so excited....but I'm not sure which one of them was the most excited:) We got it on video and if I can figure out how to attach it I will later. I just had to write about it before I forgot!

Growing Up Fast

This age is amazing. She learns so much so fast and it's incredible, hilarious and at times a bit disconcerting. Gabrielle and Walker have been fighting today! Pushing each other, sitting on each other, screaming. It's all of a sudden and very intense. But it stops just as quick as it starts. I separate them and within 30 seconds they are laughing at each other and playing nice again. CRAZY!

We've been slowly letting Brie try her hand at feeding herself with a spoon. Last night was the most hilarious. I was letting her feed herself sweet potatoes out of a little dish. She started trying with the spoon,





then went to her hands


and finally turned up the dish and tried to drink them.




And apparently she thought maybe smoking them would work better:)
It was so funny!

Baby Girl is ONE!

We made it a whole year and didn't kill her or the plants I got in the hospital. Miracles are alive and well:) And to top it all off...she started walking more than one step at a time...ON her birthday and really showed it off at her birthday party the next day.

We had a lot of fun partying with our friends and family. Her Elmo guitar from Dave was the hit of the party. She was hilarious with her ladybug. She wanted to get on it and slide off the back. Forget rocking...that's what the guitar is for:)

In the past month Brie has changed so much. She is very aware of so many things and able to interact just all of a sudden. She loves being outside and wants to touch all the leaves and flowers. She has eaten dirt twice. She says a few different things other than uh-oh and boo which are the most common. Her newest thing is to grab your face and turn it to where she wants you to look and point at something and she says look. She eats all sorts of things now...especially pasta and mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes. She loves all chips and makes us work hard to make popcorn safe for her consumption.

She also loves to play with the computer and makes it quite difficult to update the blog, so I must go.

Middle Name Game

Here are the Rules: Post the rules on your blog, and then give your answers. List one fact about yourself for each letter in your middle name. Each fact must begin with a letter from your middle name. If you do not have a middle name, use your maiden name(or create a middle name).Once you are tagged, update your blog with your middle name and your answers. At the end of your post, tag one person for each letter of your middle name.

Okay...Teresa tagged me for this like 2 months ago, and I'm just now checking into it. Computer time has been scarce!

A-authoritative: Can be good, but usually isn't so much....just ask my husband:)

N-nice: I'm generally a nice person...I know that sounds boring, but when I'm not being authoritative I'm being nice.

N-new: If you've known me for very long you are well aware that my "look" changes regularly. I like not being boring and so I think new is a good description for me.

E-enabler: By giving my husband Benadryll he has named me the enabler:)

Okay, I now tag:
Amy, Amber, Wendy and Kristen
You may post in the comments so all can read your fun:)

Brie's Vocabulary

Since I am basically using this as a reference for when I can sit down and document in her baby book...I suppose that it would be a good idea to document that she's learning to communicate effectively. She knows what she wants and will shake her head no if we don't give her the right thing. She says Mi for milk, otherwise we work off trial and error for food. She says Momma and Daddy, baby, uh-oh, puppy for skoshi and she actually says Lacey.
She is getting to be quite good at crawl tag around the island in Grammy's kitchen and she will play peekaboo forever with us, with herself in the mirror, with her baby or a stuffed animal. She even tries to say it...mostly it ends up as just boo. It's so much fun to have her interacting so well and it's just incredibly amazing to see how much changes from day to day. We expect her to walk any day now, but we're definitely not pushing it:)

Easter Adventures

Well, Gabrielle has had her first Easter and she made it a memorable one. She's been sick since I got home from being TDY in Utah. We had fever and then extreme ear and tooth pain. We headed up to the Urgent Care last night after about 5 hours of not being able to help her even with medicine for her teeth and ears. Finally she fell asleep in the car on the way there and Danny went in and talked to the Doc to find out what we could do.

She loved her Easter basket when she got up this morning. She snuggled her super soft little Bunny and played peekaboo with her hippo and a cup in the car on the way to church. She was having so much fun. She ate a few of her Alphabet cookies that Grammy put in her Easter Basket in church this morning and behaved all the way through until the last song! That's really good for her:)

We got her home and she finally ate...but then proceeded to gag herself and puke everywhere...with company over for dinner and everything. So she got a bath in the sink while her Daddy went outside to hose off the high chair. All of this seemed to not affect her in the least. She was just having a good old time through it all! What a little mess! She finally let us get her dressed back up for pictures and then crashed out for a nap.

We are just so glad that the screaming is over. I know her poor little ears had to have been killing her because she just kept yanking at them and crying...even when we put her numbing ear drops in. The joys of SC during pollen season....

Our hilarious growing girl

Our sweet Brie now has 5 teeth and is working on number 6 on the other side on top. She is doing well with weaning and is just about done. She drinks yogurt, soy and rice milk and can make it through the night without nursing or taking a cup. She loves all kinds of juice and I'm quite happy about giving her stuff with carrots and sweet potatoes in it:) I feel like my sneaky mom, but that is how I have to get vegetables down Danny, so I might as well let Brie drink the juice too! She likes to eat all sorts of stuff...like Potato Chips. She is so hard to resist. She'll yank on the arm until she gets to bite whatever you're eating.

Or she'll come stand and look up at you with those big eyes and that silly toothy grin until you let her try a bite:)
Brie absolutely loves playing with Babies and Stuffed Animals. She is always grabbing and hugging one and she even pats them on the back now. It is too adorable. She takes after her Grammy in that way.

Brie has been spending time with Micah lately too. She is pretty funny with him. He just talks to her like she's one of his buddies and she seems to go along with it. He tries to fool her if she has something he wants, but it won't work. So when she screams he quickly gives it back to her and watches quite impatiently for her to be done with it. As soon as she puts it down he snatches it right up! It's a good thing they get along reasonably well since they'll have to play together for a whole day next week! I'm going on an Air Force trip for a few days and she's going to be staying with the Castleman's for one of those days. Hopefully she doesn't kill Micah! Who knew?!?!

Go Milk!!

We are trucking along here. No walking yet, but still much standing. She is looking so much older though...I don't really know how that works. I talked to one of her doctors and then decided to start her on soy milk yesterday. She LOVES it! She drank a whole sippy cup full on her own in the car last night. She was just sucking it down. She likes it SO much better than formula and it lasts longer than 72 hours once opened. This will totally make things easier. She doesn't nurse during the day, but she wasn't getting any milk other than what she got in her yogurt once a day. So, now she can drink milk again.

She is totally a jabber box now too. She "talks" incessantly with voice inflection and facial expressions and everything. It is incredibly adorable! She got a little chair called Baby Jamz that lets her "mix" some nursery rhyme hip-hop songs with sound effects. She and Walker have a blast with the chair.

We've been ill, but all is well

It's been a sick couple of weeks here in Lexington. Hopefully our house is through with it. Luckily we only had colds...but bronchitis, pneumonia, strep throat and the flu are all running rampant.

Through her cold Baby Brie has continued to learn tons of things and she's grown up so much in such little time! She says Uh-oh now...ALL the time. It's incredibly adorable. She has this new thing where she shakes her head from side to side grinning uncontrollably. And then there's the matter of standing. She has been standing almost non-stop for 3 days!

She even has me put her down into a standing position and then she sits down on her own. The end is near I'm afraid!:)

The other thing she's getting good at is eating solids. She was sitting on her Grammy's lap last night while her Grammy was eating some bread. She took both hands and grabbed the arm that had the bread attached and pulled it down to her mouth to try to bite it. It was hilarious! She's very determined to eat solid foods:) She can actually eat her Teething biscuits now too. It's quite messy, but she enjoys it.

We also decided that there are too many times little Miss Brie needs to be contained, so we got her a "pen" as her daddy calls it. That way she can crawl around or walk around and play without getting into bad stuff. It makes our lives a whole lot easier!

We also reached another benchmark...I spent a weekend without her! She stayed with Grammy and Grampa since her Daddy was sick. They had a big time playing and snuggling since she wasn't feeling her best.

And...I didn't even cry! So, when we went to the doctor right before I left to make sure I wasn't leaving a dying kid :) she weighed in at 17 1/2 lbs. They didn't measure her length, which I'm sure is changing daily because her little chubby thighs are thinning out.

She still loves to play with Walker. Now that they're both well, they seem very happy to be reunited. She seems more on the same level as him now too. It's pretty cool to watch!

Brie's first Snow!

Last night we had a beautiful snow! It didn't stick for long of course and it only took a couple of hours for it to turn into rain, but it was gorgeous while it was coming down. Gabrielle had a big time with Grammy showing her the snow.

This week was also her first week of "playgroup". On Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm watching a little boy from church who is two months older than her. They are really enjoying each other. Being with Walker is teaching her how to appreciate her pacifier more (she loves to steal his...I guess he makes it look good) and it's helping her to want a bottle.

Brie had a fun grocery store trip last night as well. She was completely taken with the Publix bagger. She even cried when I took her out of the cart to put her in the car and she had to stop watching him! She's such a mess...and she totally flaunts those little teeth with huge grins all the time. She is still stealing hearts!

Little Big Teeth

Gabrielle's right top tooth finally broke through 2 days ago, so she is a much more pleasant little girl. She's crawling all over the place and she started pulling up yesterday to stand. She'll even be in the middle of the floor playing with something and she'll push herself up to her feet but she's all bent over with her hands still on the little toy on the floor. It's completely adorable. Now that she's mobile she plays very well by herself...but I of course have to be right there because she's into EVERYTHING!






The weaning is going pretty well. She consistently takes one bottle a day without protest. Next week, we'll work on two. She eats solids REALLY well though. She's eating 4 times a day! So far I haven't found anything that she won't eat, which is very refreshing. She loves the Wonder Pets and music in general. When songs come on she stops what she's doing and "directs" the music. It's hilarious and beyond cute.

We had our first doctor visit this week for an "illness". I was so concerned because she had a "rash" over the weekend and it was horrible on Sunday morning. When the doctor came in she said, "So, your here for a rash. I see she has some eczema. Where is this rash?" Well, that was the rash in question. Apparently she has a very mild case of eczema and she should outgrow it. It's already cleared up with just a few days of use with her prescription lotion and I just have to lotion her 2ce a day with good thick moisturizer. So, we've gotten into a good routine and she does great with it. No more signs of this "rash":) Part of our routine has been that she showers with Daddy in the evening and they both love it. She just snuggles into his chest and totally relaxes as soon as the water hits her. And what Daddy could resist such a sweet snuggly babe? Life is getting slightly predictable at the McNeil house, so I'm sure something interesting is going to happen. Things don't usually stay in a state of normalcy for very long!