Daddy!

Over the weekend Violet has really been babbling. On Saturday she starting saying "dadadadada daddy dadadada" and hasn't stopped since. She doesn't quite know what it means yet, but we're sure she'll figure it out soon! Nate is so excited and loves to hear her say dada daddy over and over again.

Eating

Vi really loves feeding herself like a big girl. She LOVES mum-mums, puffs, and is warming up to Cheerios.

Sometimes she uses the pincer grasp to show off her fine motor skills:




And sometimes she just shovels 'em in!

Sometimes

Sometimes we have a crabby afternoon. Sometimes mom will put you in the Moby wrap under a jacket and go for a walk on a blustery afternoon.


Sometimes you just put your feet up on the table and chill.

5K

Today I ran my first post-baby 5K. It was fun to be back at the Sweat 4 Pets run for the 4th year in a row. It was a big goal of mine to do this run with the jogging stroller, and I'm so glad it actually happened. It was a beautiful fall morning and Violet slept nearly the entire time. I got a pretty decent time and was happy to have some friends and my main squeeze waiting at the finish line for me.

Before the run


Just powering through the last little bit



Even a video!

Crawling - for real crawling!

Now that she can get up on her knees, the army crawl is yesterday's news.

Friday - slow and steady


Saturday - a little faster already!

Photo shoot

A few weeks ago we had a photo shoot with our favorite photographer Keri Dummerth in Faust Park. She got some great fall shots of us and we love all of them!

Here are some of our favorites.

lunch

I love it when both of my sweeties are home for lunch!

Some days you take a lot of videos

Cruising!


Squeaky and sassy


Watch out, Jackamo.

Truman girl

In February we took a little "babymoon" to Kirksville, MO to visit our alma matter. We walked around the Truman State University campus and talked a lot about how much has changed since we first met there over 8 years ago. We celebrated our 7 year anniversary of togetherness and visited some of our favorite spots.

Her name was still a secret then, but we wanted to get a few pictures next to Violette Hall. It's what makes her name so special to us! Our first date was in Violette Hall. We went to see a movie that was playing in the auditorium and even though it was a horrible movie, it was the start of something beautiful for us. It's pretty sweet and sappy, so

Looking pretty good for being almost 9 months pregnant!




While we were there, we bought a little Truman shirt for our baby girl. We thought she'd look so cute in it, but we had no idea she would be THIS cute!


Truman, if you're looking for a baby model look no further!


Blurry but happy!


Couldn't you just gobble her up?

giraffe

Violet, meet Winston. Winston, I hope you don't mind having your tail pulled and being chewed on and possibly ridden in the future!

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa Tenholder

Click here to view these pictures larger

crap

I walked in yesterday to help her settle down for a nap and I found her standing up. We lowered the crib mattress last night and I thought would help. Alas, I found her like this while she was trying to take a morning nap. She can pull up on just about anything, but doesn't know how to get back down.




We're heading to Target later today to get some safety guards for the top of the crib because she was gnawing on the wood!!!

Halloween

Our little sweetie was a ballerina this year for her first Halloween! She was so cute with her ballerina tights and tutu. We took every opportunity to put her cute costume on!

We made a quick stop at the Shook house to show her off.


On Sunday morning she wore this super cute bee outfit from Grammy. Every girl has to have at least 2 special outfits for Halloween!



We went to the Little Gym in the afternoon


She loves to hang onto the bars and watch the other kids


She was in bed long before trick or treating started, but she did get to check out our traditional Yo pumpkin.


Happy Halloween!

7 months

I'm having trouble editing down the 7 month pictures to post here, so I'm posting most of the good ones. I'm feeling particularly nostalgic this month. I think it's something to do with 7 months being officially closer to 1 year and in my mind 1 year = not a baby anymore. I know that she'll always be my baby just as I'm still my mom's baby, but she'll be moving on to more and more big girl things before we know it.

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite things about 7 months (so far):
-the sleeping: 12 solid hours a night!!!!! It took us a long time to get to this point and it is fabulous!
-experimenting with new foods: she pretty much loves everything I've made so far and can keep herself busy with a mum-mum for a good 5 minutes. She gets so excited when we get out the little pink cups with her food or the box of mum-mums.
-crawling, cruising, sitting up, etc.: she can go nearly anywhere she wants to explore and she's so curious about everything. This is hard sometimes but I try to see things through her eyes and how everything (like the bathroom trash can) is a new thing to explore.
-increased interaction: she can help "turn the page" of her books, obey to turn around when she's getting into something dangerous, share her toys with daddy, squeal, blow raspberries, and lots of other things. She is also learning how to crack us up and also how to be sassy when you take something away.

Happy 7 months, Violet Olivia!

You can see her two bottom teeth in this one!