10 months!

I can't believe you're 2 months away from your first birthday. It's hard for me to comprehend that a year has almost passed.

Tidbits. You cannot sit still. You are a wiggle worm and always on the go. You've never been a big snuggler and the times you will sit still are few and far between. You are an inquisitive little gal. You really study objects and how they work. We think you're going to be a good problem solver. You tend to work at task until you figure it out. We are having fun with puzzles, shape sorters and interactive toys this month.  You did a great job this month with having your paci only in your crib. We wave bye bye to paci when you get up from your naps. A funny story this month: I came in to get you from a nap and you had not one, but TWO pacis in your mouth. I tried to grab my phone to snap a picture, but you got upset and spit both out. Oh, well. You are obsessed with Daisy. Any where she is, you are. It's kinda cute.

Best buds:

A new favorite toy!

Teeth. You are the proud owner of 8 teeth! What?!?!?!? Your 8th tooth made an appearance this month. I have to say, you've handled teething extremely well! I dread molars. I hear they're much more painful.

Eating. It's pretty much the same as your 9 month routine; however, we have successfully added a 3rd "meal" in. I've also been introducing you to more of the foods daddy and I eat. You had my chicken pot pie,  chicken and dumplings and grandmommy's lasagna. You are doing really well with the new foods. You love all green veggies! I hope that sticks. You gobble up asparagus, broccoli, spinach, lima beans, green beans, zucchini, etc first when any assortment of mixed veggies are put in front of you. You've also mastered crackers this month. I can give you an entire ritz or saltine cracker and you have no trouble handling it thanks to your 8 teeth! It's hard to tell which foods are your favorites because you are such a good eater. I'll have to watch you when choices are placed in front of you to figure it out. You definitely prefer "dry" foods (eg- cheerios) to "wet" foods (eg- steamed veggies and even fruit). I think it's just easier for you to pick up.

Eating breakfast with Daddy

First experience with Mac and Cheese :)

Motor Development. You have really excelled this month in your motor skills. You are a busy body! You have mastered crawling and are quite fast! You are pulling up on anything and everything. We find it interesting that you "test" an object before really pulling up on it to make sure it's sturdy and not going to tip over. You are cruising well. We introduced you to a push car that helps you walk independent of us. It's fun to watch you. You gain confidence and take more steps each time you try it out. You can clap your hands and also wave "bye-bye." Your only sign is still "more" but sweetheart, you've got that down!

"More"

Separation Anxiety. It still rears its ugly head. We've found a good program we're considering putting you in this fall with a local Methodist church. We talked extensively with them about how they help kids handle their anxiety and the kind of care and attention you would get. The program is really flexible and there are a variety of programs we can choose from. We're thinking of sending you one day a week for one session (2.5 hours). You are doing better at the gym day care, but still have trouble letting go of me and settling down.

Friends. We've really enjoyed spending time with three moms and kids in particular this month: Mrs. Mindy and Conner, Mrs. Sarah and Colin and Mrs. Heather and Mary. We have weekly walks, play dates and even an occasional dinner. Conner and Colin's daddy's also travel and have demanding schedules, so it's nice to have good friends we can hang out with.

New Adventures. This month, we took you to the beach! It's a Hubbard family tradition and one we were very excited to introduce you to!  You finally earned your Delta wings. The sweet steward on the way back from the beach gave you your wings. Daddy wanted them for his brief case, but you won out in the end :) They are proudly displayed on the shelf in your room.

Hannah Kathryn, we love you so much and can't wait to see what the next month has in store. You grow and change so much every day!

A Visit with Great Aunt Bess and Uncle Rob

One of the coolest things about living in a big city is we get a lot of fun visitors. Great Aunt Bess and Uncle Rob are no exception. They came to visit Daddy and me when we first moved to Colorado. We were beyond excited when they asked to visit us in Chicago. They explored downtown on their own for a few days before heading out to see us.

Our first stop was Portillos for a hot dog and a hot italian beef sandwich..neither disappointed :) and dinner was at Lou Malnati's for Chicago deep dish pizza, of course! We strolled around the river walk area in Naperville for about an hour before heading home. Bess told us all kinds of neat stories about Gran and Dosh (your great grand parents). Your Daddy and I were all ears. We love family history. Maybe Aunt Bess will write these stories down for you one day.

Daisy really enjoyed the visit too. Poor thing... it's like she never gets any love these days :)

I think Rob would take up residence with us for a few weeks if he could :) Daisy would be pleased as punch over that!

You loved spending time with Aunt Bess and Uncle Rob.

We can't wait for their next visit :) We miss you already!

"Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat What Are They Feeding You??"

Or in the Vance House, "Smelly Dog"

Last week just needs to go down in the Vance archives as a comedy of errors. First the power outage and all that ensued, and now this...

Wednesday night, Daddy got home from his business trip. Boy, was I happy to see him! You had had a hard day.  You weren't feeling well due to a stuffy nose which led to some nursing issues (among other things). I was more than ready for you to hit the crib to get some good shut eye.

Daddy and I were both worn out. Daddy decided to go to bed first, which left me on Daisy duty. No big deal, or so I thought. She did her thing. I stood by the door waiting. There was nothing out of the ordinary, until I opened the door. The waft of air hit me HARD. There was no mistaking it, Daisy had been sprayed by a skunk. We have had Daisy for 6 years and lived in/visited some pretty rural and wild areas. A fox is really the only thing we've encountered with her around. I never thought we'd have to worry about skunks in Chicago!!!! Boy was I wrong. Apparently, skunks, possums, and foxes are popular here.

I got Daddy out of the bed and we came up with a plan of action. Upstairs and straight into the big tub. I found a wonderful home remedy online (not tomato juice...it apparently only masks the odor). We happened to have all the ingredients on hand. I whipped it up, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, doused Daisy with the solution and let it sit. Meanwhile, Daddy opened up all the windows because our house STUNK! Fifteen minutes passed, we rinsed and much to our surprise, the smell was gone! It worked!!!! The house still smelled, but Daisy was good. Since Daisy had plopped herself on the carpet before we got her up to the tub, the carpet had a lingering odor. It was nothing a little carpet shampoo couldn't take care of. We were lucky. Apparently, Daisy didn't get sprayed too bad. I read that some dogs come back dripping in skunk "juice" and that the spray can disorient them. Who knew.

We now keep the ingredients for skunk "antidote" on hand for emergencies. Never a dull moment... never.

You don't know what you got till it's gone....

Power that is...

We've had quite an eventful week in the Vance house. Monday morning, we woke up to a tremendous thunderstorm. Daddy had to travel for work, so we were all up early. As he was about to leave, weather warnings popped up on all the major news channels. We were right in a line of major storms. Daddy headed out of the door to to beat the weather. We went about our morning routine... for about 15 minutes. Then, it started. Thankfully, I'd made my coffee, Daisy had eaten and I had already nursed and fed you breakfast. This was some kind of storm. The winds were fierce and believe it or not, the storm was short lived; however, the damage had already been done. We lost power.... along with over 800,000 other residents.

This wasn't a big deal at first. I had cranked the air down the night before, so the house was cool. I pulled the shades in preparation for a warm day. I knew to keep the deep freeze, freezer, and fridge shut. We went about our normal day. Everything was fine. I called the power company to check on restoration time and that's when I panicked a little "...several days..." Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. You and I were fine. We could get out in the car to cool down and recharge at the local Starbucks. It also gave me a good excuse to eat out and you a chance to dine on some store-bought baby food :) BUT, my milk... my precious, precious, precious milk.  I had 50 bags of "liquid gold" in the freezer. This translates (roughly) into a two week supply of milk. These bags were my insurance policy. If something ever happened to me, I needed to be away from you, if my milk supply dropped, if you needed extra... this was for those times. It represented hours of pumping and a whole lot of love. I was NOT going to lose this milk. No sir, not now. I sat tight. I patiently waited, but all the while, milk was on my mind. The power company had 48 hours, according to the FDA, to get the power back on and the freezer running. Every hour that passed, I got a little more antsy.

By mid day, things were still ok. I wanted to get us both out of the house. A trip to Target for some food for you and a trip to Starbucks for a recharge of the phone (and me!). To do this, I had to manually open the garage. Not a big deal. I executed it perfectly. I backed the car out, went to pull down the garage door down, it was a little high, so I jumped.... and knocked the sensor off its track (you know, the little black box that shoots the laser beam).  Awesome. I didn't break it, I just knew it would take some work to get it realigned. Nothing your super-star daddy couldn't fix :) but not something I wanted to tell him I did (by the way, he totally calmed my fears about it when I did and it was easier to fix than we thought).

5pm rolls around, which is dinner time for you. I strapped you in the high chair to let the fun begin. Dinner time is about an hour process for you and you love every bit of it. I sit with you at the table most of the time and begin the dishes and cleaning up when you're wrapping it up. You were working on your last two Cheerios and I decided to take the trash out. Now, the door to the garage is practically in our kitchen and the big trash bin is just outside the door. Since it was so hot out (and the air was off from the power outage), I wanted to save every bit of cool air I could and pulled the door shut behind me. It took less than 5 seconds to open the bin, put the bag in and turn around to grasp the door handle. It didn't turn. Yep, I'd locked you in the house and myself out (as a side, we never lock this door since our garage door is locked. With the outage, the garage was unlocked, so I had locked the door when we came in for the night and out of habit didn't realize it) I panicked. I checked a couple of our doors. Nothing. I ran to our neighbors house (you know, the ones that picked me up when I threw my back out and couldn't move...great neighbors! probably think the new kids on the block are needy). I was practically in tears asking to borrow their phone. We all decided 911 was the best option. An officer was disbatched. In the mean time, my neighbor successfully broke into our house. Whew! (I think...slightly scary but the dead bolt wasn't on). You were still sitting in your high chair, as happy as could be. I scooped you up and covered you in kisses. We no longer needed the officer.

Mommy decided she needed to go to bed and start the day over. Thankfully, Mrs. Mindy helped mommy laugh it off, since Daddy always misses the fun at our house. We always joke about things happening when he's away.

We were lucky, our power was restored within 24 hours. My milk was safe!!!! Mrs. Mindy and Conner weren't so lucky. They didn't get power back until Thursday night. They spent a lot of time at our house and out and about in town. Never a dull moment :)

Beach Baby, Beach Baby There on the Sand...

What an amazing week! The 4th of July is something I look forward to every year. Why? The Hubbards load up the car and head to Litchfield beach. Litchfield is such a special place, full of amazing memories. It's actually where Daddy proposed to me. He set up a scavenger hunt and proposed to me in a "message in a bottle." We'll tell you about it some day. Needless to say, Daddy and I couldn't wait to take you out on the beach and add to our rich treasure chest of Litchfield memories.

We arrived on Friday, July 1st. You did exceptionally well on the plane (the ride home was a completely different story). We packed lots of new toys, a few books and lots of food. It's a good thing you love Cheerios. When we landed, Grandmommy and Grandaddy were waiting to scoop us up. Grandaddy wanted to show Daddy around Charleston, so we explored the area before heading out to Georgetown for the night. We had dinner with the entire family at a cute restaurant on the water. All three babies were really well behaved at dinner. It gave us confidence for taking the whole crew out later in the week :)

Cousins, reunited!

On the Beach, Day 1:

I was about to jump out of my skin to get down to the beach on Sunday. I was so excited to take you out! I couldn't wait to see your reaction to an environment full of sand and water. You've never had any texture issues, so I figured the sand wouldn't really phase you. You love baths and water of any sort, so my guess was that the ocean would be fun for you. I was right on both...for the most part.

You made it about two hours on the beach each day. We took you out after your morning nap and returned in time to nurse you and put you down for your afternoon nap.


Family shot under the tent.

Cool shades courtesy of grandmommy!

Walking to the water for the first time. You were a little unsteady in the sand. You'd never experienced walking on a mushy surface. Shortly after this shot, we picked you up and walked down to where the sand was a packed down and easier for you to walk on. You were much more confident in your walking  and headed straight to the water.

Grandaddy and his girls

Max man likes it!

Day 2:

You loved (for the most part) standing in the water. You were pretty intrigued with the waves washing over your feet. You did NOT like when the sand moved below your feet when the water receded. You were quite worried and occasionally cried when this happened.

Playing in the surf with Grandmommy and Grandaddy

 Needing a little reassurance that the moving sand was not going to cause you to fall.

Family shot

Happy 4th!!!

Day 3:

Story time with Aunt Sue before hitting the beach.

Max man trying out Megan's paci...

Megan's cool with that. She loves to share!

You were Grandmommy's little shadow today. You were happiest in her arms.

Dining at Lee's Inlet Kitchen. You all really were all very well behaved at dinner. We ate out three nights that week! You had your first taste of hushpuppies (and maybe just a bite of momma's Cold Stone ice cream).

You LOVE the beach!!!!

Day 4:

Buckets and toys were a favorite! Thanks Aunt Tiff and Grandmommy!

Lucky me... you learned to crawl just shy of two weeks before hitting the beach. You spent most of your time trying to crawl off the mats we spread out. I spent most of my time making sure you didn't get too far. You were bound and determined to eat the beach. I'm not so sure why babies love to eat sand, but they do. Max, Megan and you all enjoyed eating your fair share of sand. Even the baby beside our family enjoyed dining on the white stuff. I gave up after a while. It didn't seem to bother you or make you sick, so I just let you dig in. The beach is supposed to be a cure-all any way...right? I need to get a picture of Max and Megan with their sandy mouthes too :)

 Day 5:

You decided to call it quits on our last day at the beach. You lasted a little under an hour and were beyond ready to go back to the house. No amount of singing or distraction worked this time. It was ok. Mommy got to take a quick nap before Mrs. Kathy came to visit us.

Last night at the beach. We all walked on the boardwalk. It was a wonderful ending to a great week!

We even think you're going to have naturally curly hair!!!!!! It's probably the ONE thing you're going to get from me :)