We Have a Walker!!!

It's been a while since I've updated the blog...things just got to be crazy busy!  We went on a weekend trip to Montreal as a family and then Quinn and I went to Arizona for what was supposed to be a week's long vacation...and got turned into 10 days because of Superstorm Sandy!

While we were in Phoenix, Quinn took her first couple of steps and there has been no stopping her now!  She's able to walk farther and farther each time before falling on her bum.  We call her walking "Frankenstein walking" since she has her arms straight out in front of her when she's walking.  Catching her on video is the next task...especially since she likes to grab for the camera and gets distracted.

Since we got storm stayed in Arizona, Quinn ended up going trick or treating there.  We had to buy a last minute costume, which worked out in our favour because it was 40% off!  At home, Quinn was going to be a ladybug - it was all plush, soft, and definitely warm.  Which makes for the perfect Hallowe'en costume for our weather!  But in Arizona, where it's still 20+ degrees after dark, Quinn got to be Tinkerbell in a sweet little tutu and matching candy basket.  It was too cute!  We took her to a couple of our friends' houses and to a few houses in their neighbourhoods.  It was so fun to hold her little hand and walk her up to ring doorbells.  Next year will be even better!  Since we missed actual Hallowe'en at home, we dressed Quinn up as a ladybug on November 3rd, when we got home, and took her to a couple of friends' homes and to see Auntie Linds at work.  Both costumes were too sweet!

Quinn's vocabulary is growing at a rapid pace.  She mimics sounds that you make, or the cadence in your voice, which is fun.  Now Quinn can say "baby" (although it most of the time sounds like ba-ba), replies "bow wow" when you ask her "what does a doggy say?" or whenever she hears a dog bark, she can say "Nanny" (but sometimes it's just "nana"), and she is still great at saying "mama", "dada", "nana", and "yah".

For her birthday, Quinn received a gorgeous wooden rocking chair passed down to us from a close family friend.  She has discovered how to crawl into it, rock a few times, and then slide out of it.  The newest task is making sure that she doesn't stand on the seat...which she of course does all the time.  We're working on the "sit on your bum" rule...but she's quite resistant.  As I'm writing this, I had to take a break and take the chair away from her since all that she wanted to do was stand on it.

On that note, that's it for this post!  I promise not to make it almost a month between postings, especially since Quinn is doing new things all the time!  Here are some pictures and videos. Enjoy!

Having a swim in Nanny's pool

Her hair has finally grown long enough to put in a bow!

Playing in the fountain at Blackstone CC

Face full of mac and cheese in Arrowhead Mall food court

With my little pumpkin on Hallowe'en

Pretty Tinkerbell all set to go trick or treating

Walking door to door

She loved this spider

Trick or treating a couple of days later back at home with Daddy

There's a ladybug on the floor at Auntie's store!

Our cuddly little ladybug

Playing in the Leaves

On Thanksgiving Monday we decided to go to Rideau Hall to check out the leaves.  This is our favourite park in the city - Steve and I used to go walking there when we started dating, we had our engagement photos taken there, and we also took Q there last fall.  It's amazing in the fall as the ground is just covered in multicoloured leaves...and what better fall activity is there then scuffing in the leaves?

I also made my first Kijiji purchase of a new jogging stroller, so we decided to take that out for a test spin in the leaves.  What a difference!  I was only imagining what our other stroller would have been like going off-road.  Quinn also seemed to really like the stroller.  I can't believe I bought one to be honest since I'm not a big runner...but Q and I have been doing more jogging at Strollercise now and really enjoying it.

Quinn really liked the leaves!  We held her hands as she walked through them and tried to "baby scuff".  Her favourite thing to do was to gather them up and get her hands all dirty though.  She was sitting underneath a big tree and was stopping traffic with her cuteness!  Even some tourists were stopping to take her picture.  What a cutie!  Here are a barrage of photos from that beautiful day:

Scuffing in the leaves with Daddy

Pointing out the bright colours

Found one!

So happy that we got a good family photo on that day!

Gathering them into a pile

Baby blues

Quinn now has 6 teeth and has progressed from crawling on her hands and knees to crawling on her hands and feet.  She started that yesterday afternoon...it's like a backwards crab crawl.  It looks quite funny - we're wondering if maybe it's how she is trying to progress to walking and standing.  Time will tell!

 

"All Done"

We've been trying to teach Quinn to do a sign for "all done" at the dinner table...that is, as opposed to her just throwing her food on the floor when she was finished.  A few months ago, we started putting our arms up above our heads and saying "all done" when she was finished eating.  We had gotten that idea from a friend of ours.  Quinn never mimicked the "all done" sign then.  But all of a sudden in the past couple of weeks, she spontaneously started doing it!  Sometimes it's just to say, "I'm all done with my cucumber, now I want milk", and then usually she does it at the end of a meal.  She still is throwing food on the floor, but I don't find that it's as often.  The biggest thing is just to make sure to take her tray/food away when she does the "all done" so that she knows that we mean it.

"All done!"

Something that I noticed this morning is that Quinn is starting to point to things that she wants.  Usually if you put her sippy cup on her highchair tray, she will throw it down when she's done - so I decided to put it on the counter to the right of her.  As she was eating her breakfast this morning, she pointed to her sippy cup, so I gave it to her and she actually drank her milk right away...no throwing or pushing it away!  This afternoon during her snack time, she pointed to the counter where the container of yogurt-covered raisins were.  She only had a couple left on her tray, so I gave her some more and she ate them up...followed by "all done"! So proud!!

Tooth #5

Last week (Sept. 14th actually), Quinn got her 5th tooth!  It's on the top right and didn't seem to cause her too many problems to come in.  The days preceding "the discovery" she had had a bit of a runny nose, tiny bit of a diaper rash, and wasn't eating like a horse, which is definitely a change for her!  Then at dinner time, Steve noticed #5!  It also looks like #6 is close behind, also on the top...but no white showing yet!

Quinn's newest favourite thing to do is to open up the kitchen drawers and pull everything out onto the floor...this drawer also holds all of the baggies.  Needless to say, the baggy boxes aren't neatly packed anymore!  Today I installed the drawer locks and Quinn is a little perplexed as to why she can't open the drawer more than an inch now...although she claps for herself when she closes it back up!

Quinn mastered the rings last week too!  You know, those stackable ring toys that have been around for ages?  She doesn't always stack them in the right order, but she gets them on there.  Usually followed by a round of applause for herself too.  Isn't she humble?

1 Year Old!!!

We made it!  We made it to Quinn's 1st birthday...and what a birthday it was!  We had our families here to celebrate with us, which made it that much more special.  Continuing in a silly tradition that my sister and I have, we gave Quinn a little slice of birthday cake for breakfast (following her toast of course) on her birthday.

Not too sure about her first cake...

We hosted a super fun birthday party with lots of friends and family...and lots of little ones too!  Complete with 2 cakes and a BBQ, I think that Quinn had a great time!

Feeding a gum paste butterfly to her Daddy

The destroyed "smoosh" cake

In other news, Quinn had her 1 year check up and is doing great!  She now weighs 18lbs 7 oz and is following the 10th percentile curve.  She's just petite!  Quinn also just had her check-up with the ortho doctor about her club foot progress and Dr Kontio was very impressed with how she was doing!  We don't have to go back to see him for another 9 months!

As of last night, we started to give Quinn some whole milk at bedtime to start weaning her off of breastmilk.  She was nursing twice a day - once after waking up in the morning and the other time before bed.  Since we are hopefully going to be trying for baby #2 soon, it's time to wean little Miss Q.  She's definitely ready as the doctor has said that it's time to start weaning at this point anyway and I'm emotionally ready to stop.  Not to mention that with her teeth, it's starting to get a bit uncomfortable and she sometimes bites! Ouch!  I can't believe how quickly she's growing up!

Almost Reached The Big "1 Year" Milestone!

A year ago today, everything was set in motion for the arrival of our little Quinn - it's the anniversary of the day that my water broke!  It's hard to believe that it's been a year!  So much has happened and we are truly blessed to have such a fantastic little girl to call our own.

The past few days have been busy getting ready for Quinn's birthday.  I've decided to make a lot of her decorations since custom decorations aren't cheap!  The pictures will be posted after her party...no spoilers here!  We also have our family coming up to spend Q's first birthday with us, so that's really exciting too.  Quinn's so surrounded by love.

It's been a little different lately with our daily routines.  Both of my friends who had been on mat leave with me have returned to work, so the dynamic is definitely different.  I try to structure our day by having at least 1 outing per day.  Usually it's strollercise twice a week, but we also go swimming on Fridays and other days Quinn hangs out in the daycare at the gym while I get a quick work out in.  Can't complain about that - the gym has an excellent day care with fantastic staff and Quinn loves to wave to everyone.

Quinn's also transitioned now to being in the "big girl bath".  We had been using an inflatable ducky tub, but now that she's outgrown that, it's time for the big stage!  She loves being able to splash around and try to chase her toys.  Tonight she really liked the noise that her feet made when she slid them across the rubber alligator decal on the bottom of the tub.

Still no walking or standing on her own, but she's starting to get a little bit more confident.  We try to get her to walk while only holding one of our hands, but she's still quite hesitant.

Quinn's still eating like a champ!  She's a big fan of yogurt lately, so we've taken to buying the individual Activia yogurts in different flavours.  So far vanilla and blueberry are a hit.  Quinn also decided that she really does like fried eggs, so that makes it easier on me for meal times to add in some different varieties of protein.  Her 1 year doctor's visit is coming up and that's when I'm going to ask the doctor about the reaction that Quinn had on her face to hummus.  Hopefully we'll get some good guidance there!

Here are a few pictures from today! Enjoy!

She loves these nutrigrain-like cereal bars for babies

She shoved that whole piece from the picture above into her mouth

Also a big fan of Mom's baked pasta casserole!

Gap-toothed grin!

It's Been a Busy Week

Last week was my sister's wedding and the week was definitely hectic!  Luckily, we have a fantastic little baby girl who was good as gold!  Keeping Quinn on a semi-normal schedule was a bit of a challenge, but that's what play pens are for.  It was also really helpful to have family around that could watch Quinn while I was busy with maid of honour duties.

All that aside, we made it through the crazy wedding week relatively unscathed.  Now it's just time to get ready for Quinn's 1st birthday - which we can't believe is already here!  We're so lucky to have family that are going to be traveling to celebrate with us.

Quinn's still eating up a storm!  Raisin bran muffins, hummus on bread, havarti cheese...you name it and she'll try it!  Also, after a long time coming, Quinn has 4 teeth and got them all in a month!

A little fussy but beautiful for the wedding

She loves going grocery shopping!