her very own blog

the last of the single digit age & thanksgiving

dear pailyn, on the last night of your single digit age (in months):

i love you.

i love your mamamamamama chatter (that isn't even always whining anymore)

i love how daddy and i, without really acknowledging it, see who can get to you first in the morning when we hear that you're awake. oh.at.the.grin.on.a.just.awake.roo.in.her.crib!

i love how you hear the door in the afternoon and begin looking for your big kids & how you light up when they walk in to greet you. i love how they love it when you show your excitement that they're home from school.

i love how the only time you crawl is to get to something to cruise. and how tonight you took a couple steps several times going after stuff daddy & i were tempting you with. any day now!

i love how those two bottom teeth are in enough now that they show when you flash that big pailyn grin at anyone who will smile back.

i love how there is a third (top right) that made it's appearance through the gums just yesterday. and that you handle teething like a champ! (this is the 29 days after cutting her second and 54 days after her first according to my tweets)

i love how your favorite toys are bennett's matchbox cars on his play table in the den (don't worry i inspect them & supervise) along with the empty boxes my portrait orders come in.

i love that this past month you've had a few near spitup-free days. i love that when you are a spitup queen that it doesn't bother you a bit.

i love that your thighs are the shortest, most compact, juicy little parts of your butterball body!

i love that you think bathtime is the bestest part of your day & will play in the tub or sink for as long as i will let you and how you sometimes cry as if to tell me i'm mean for bringing it to an end when i get you out.

i love how you cover every square inch of the den playing each day. i love that you've figured out there is more to the house than just the den & how you've begun venturing out. i love how you are able to navigate the drop down step like a pro & that you have no fear...i love that now because you are watched over...not sure how this fearlessness will play out in the future?

i love how you recognize particular lead in songs to the shows we watch, like hannah montana and reba & how you stop dead in your tracks to lock onto the tv & how you break out the dance moves whether sitting or standing. and how while dancing you'll look to make sure you have an audience.

i love that even though you aren't a 'lap' baby, you humor me at bedtime & let me rock you while you have a bottle & how even if you don't fall asleep you lie still & let me rock you for a bit before getting tucked into your crib.

i love how you sleep through the night. every.night.

i love how you are able to feed yourself snacks (puffs, pinwheels, a pinch of ritz) in your highchair while i cook supper each night. i love that you've finally figured out the sippy cup & how you think watered down low sugar apple juice is the best thing to ever cross your lips.

i love your lips, and how you do them just like this.

did i mention i love you? i do. so.so much!

this thanksgiving, i'm thankful for so many things...one of which is you...my roo.

xoxo.momma

her trip to the pumpkin patch (his too)

it's that time of year & on the first pretty day that came along, the roo, the big brother & i headed out to the pumkin patch! a local church put together a little patch (pumpkin hollow right next to the wistle stop antiques store on 51)...it was cute as could be & did the trick without the travel :o)

this next one really gets me. i don't at all see a little boy & it may be the first time i've recognized that about him. i think it might make me cry if he were the caboose. see...God knew i needed another baby. i think i can embrace his big boyness a little easier knowing there's a baby in the house ;o)

and what a fun, adorable, bursting-with-personality baby she is (if i do say so myself!)

and i do say so.

i think that roo has one picked out!

but the big brother pulls rank and sellects the perfect pumpkin!

it was a super fun time & they were both so pleasant for me! and yes, i know the roo is wearing the same outfit two posts in a row. (the days were spread out though) it isn't her only one. but, if you're concerned, feel free to expand her wardrobe ;o) nana...thanks for the cute outfit! as you can see, we must like it lots ;o)

 
next year we'll be sure to plan ahead & go to a patch that has a maze or something so that roo can run around ;o)

her first birthday party

...for a friend that is!

what a sweet little hostess miss amelia was! she greeted the roo with such love! the roo, however was in the still-waking-up stage after our drive there.

what is that? a balloon, perhaps? the birthday girl's sweet aunts are tickled by amelia's commentary towards the roo :o) a 'baa-bii'

have i mentioned the roo is a focused child?

yeah! she has it! and below we have the sweet family of three!

amelia quite enjoyed her moment in the spotlight. especially the cake part ;o)

once it was time to open gifts, the roo was very much over being held. she wanted down! check it out...she's working on same hair!

she got right to leaf eating!

amelia shared some gift bags & paper & miss pailyn was quite entertained! (note the grass near her mouth, she may or may not have eaten some)

p's first sweet :o) ...well, i know nana's slipped her some snoball in the past, but this is her first sweet with me.

i think she liked it!

and bonus that's a perfectly adorable marshmallow with colorful sprinkles! nice job angela :o)

bonus, bonus! it wasn't even messy!

the girl's farewells...

  
and one last adorable pic of the mom & dad with their sweet birthday girl (who was headed in for a nap) being a hostess is hard work!

and to show that i was in attendance too...here we are headed to amelia's birthday parking lot (yeah, :o) for real) down the street to head home with my my sugared up party girl! she was out before we hit the interstate!

we love you guys! thanks so much for such a beautiful party & a fun, fun time!

her at eight months

i'm not totally liking the idea of eight months already, but she's here...eight & a half months actually! 

and before you think it...i know posts to her blog are growing farther & farther apart. shame on me, i know, but i must point out that i do try to tweet little happenings along the way & even if you don't follow me on twitter, i have the feed posted right there to the left. if you stop by & there isn't anything new posted you can at least get a taste of what's happening with the roo via my tweets! 

without further ado...some current going-ons with the roo:

• she's growing; still a munchkin, but i was able to put away all the 0-3 month clothes across the past month; she's wearing 3-6 month now and has moved up to size 2 diapers! she's a Rollie polly & is solid; just wee.
• she has a new little toofie (her first one in fact) on the bottom right. it's the most adorable little thing ever! pailyn has been chewing on anything she could get in her mouth pretty much since she got here, so i've heard, 'she must be cutting teeth' for nearly 8 months. as of 15 days ago, i can now reply with, 'why yes she is.' ;o)
• she has been off aluminum formula for about a month...this is wonderful! her new formula is almost half the cost & while she's still the spit-up queen, the current spit up smells wonderful compared to that nasty stuff's reak!
• this isn't anything new, but i have to point out that my baby girl doesn't meet a stranger! she is the quickest to seek out any face that will make eye contact with her & give them a huge gummy+one half tooth grin you've ever seen, complete with the dimple that springs to life upon a smile! i love that she's so social :o)

• she's a waver! she waves when someone new appears in her view. she waves when you ask her to wave. she waves back when she is waved to. she waves big with her whole arm. she waves small as though she's been through pageant training with her little wrist action & a cupped hand. adorable!
• add clapper to the list! she'll clap along with pat-a-cake or just when she's excited about something or anytime i say 'yeeeaa' and clap, she'll join in :o) like here:

• she's able to hold her own bottle; does it well, in fact. but...she's *so* not interested in doing it. knowing she's it for me...i gladly sit down with her & feed her her bottle.
• she is *not* a lap baby. she wants down. she's busy, busy, busy! she only cares to be held if the one doing the holding is up walking around...absolutely not at all interested in just sitting to cuddle. bennett spoiled me...he would let me snuggle him on the couch or rock him for as long as i'd like. not her. nope.
• i mentioned she's busy. understatement! that roo is all over the place. from one end of the den (the only carpeted room in the house other than the big sister's bedroom) to the other. she's a super quick crawler, and crawls a lot, but i've noticed, she only crawls to get to a spot where she can stand up. she pulls up on any & every piece of furniture; if there is no furniture around, she'll use the bare wall.
• she's cruising around like a champ! she's been doing this for nearly two months, but now it's second nature...it's walking from one end of the room to the other using pieces of furniture along the way. she's let go completely to grab onto another piece (occasionally), but only for a few seconds. she is capable of standing on her own, but doesn't know it yet, and that's fine by me!
• she know's the word 'no' ...to her it means, stop immediately and look at the speaker of the word. slightly smile and keep eye contact for approximately 5 seconds. immediately return to the action which prompted the 'no' and repeat. she gets her hand smacked (picture pokey outy bottom lip and real tears) and then relocated away from the temptation. 9 out of 10 times she heads right back to where she was. she wears us out, that roo!
• she is madly in love with the big brother! he can just look at her funny upon coming home from school and she'll squeal with delight :o) he can make her roll with laughter with little effort. i love watching them together! love!

• she knows her people. 'pay, where's daddy?' she looks at her daddy :o) repeat with bennett, & heather.
• mma maa mma maa mma maa...that's me, btw. :o) and she calls me by name when she wants me; mostly in a whiny kind-of way (reaching for me all the while), but sometimes just to say it. her firstest word ;o)  and only word. she's babbling all the time and i've heard dada dada, & nana among other things, but we're not going to count it until it's associated with something.

• it's been noted before that i'm blessed with an amazing night sleeper. seriously in the past 4 months i think i've heard her fussing one time during the night! she goes down about 10 (9 tonight) and is out until about 9:30 in the morning. blessed! trust me, i know.

 
 
 

• while the roo couldn't be a better sleeper at night. she is *not* a good napper. she might catch an hour (lucky me if she makes an hour & a half!) in the morning, but she'll fight any more sleep until bedtime. she often wins. she'll go through a fussy patch late in the afternoon, but shakes it off & goes full speed ahead until bed. an extra nap would be great, but i'm not going to complain too much.
• cutest going-on currently with the roo is her adorable hip twist. i'll explain. pailyn has begun crawling out of rooms or in directions she isn't allowed to go in. she knows these are off limit places, so she crawls fast. when we see her headed towards the door, we say 'pailyn! where are you going?' and she hits the breaks mid crawl places all her lower body weight on her right side and twists her left leg in the air while looking back/over at us. she holds the position for a few seconds then high-tails it toward her destination trying to outrun the capture she knows is coming. chuck & i love her pose.

i have so many photos & lots of commentary i want to share on her very own blog, but the time i could be spending here blogging goes to the real her! as it should.

things are seriously quite busy in the mageehouse & have been for the past year! the daddy and i have built our new internet business and are working hard to grow it; we welcome prayers on that front :o) it is going to be an amazing thing & i know our diligence & patience will be rewarded as we've prayed for & seek God's guidance & blessings every step of the way!

while developing landsource, my one time 'mad money hobby/job' of photography has transformed into a rewarding business! wife & momma will always be my primary roles & i am so blessed to be able to contribute through my passion of photography without neglecting the priority that my family is to me!

all that is said in order to say...i'm sorry for the apparent neglect to your blog, my love, but living you & loving you every second of every day is happening whether or not it gets written about here. you are loved and loved on constantly & maybe if you'd cooperate & catch an afternoon nap once in a while i might make some time to document your very own life on your very own blog a little more often. xoxo-momma

oops! something's not right! lol

when i have to step out of the house from time to time she & her daddy have a good 'ol time without me! this particular day i was gone on a shoot & came home to p dressed in this little onsie.

notice anything? lol. that silly daddy!

...but that's okay; they have a blast & he wore her little self out!

i get tickled imagining him trying to get to those snaps to fasten her backwards onsie up! (pics taken 9.14)

babies don't keep

my house isn't the cleanest by a long stretch. we often dress out of the laundry room. there are days i don't get a shower until afternoon. supper is sometimes a ham sandwich or scrambled eggs rather than roast and rice & gravy.

things could be different. i could have a clean house & put away all the laundry. i could make it to the grocery store more often & plan out better meals. but i choose, and am blessed to have the support, to spend every moment i can soaking up the roo.

pailyn is letting me snuggle her more. she selects books from her wall case (goodnight moon is what she reaches for lately). we sing songs. clap together (she began clapping last week) when she does something spectacular. tell nursery rhymes with made up hand & face gestures. and during her morning nap, while i could be doing housework, i sit in her monkey chair once she's asleep & spend some quiet time with my heavenly father by the light of the window.

i have a favorite little book i picked up several years ago & am reading through it for likely the fourth time. i find it so amazing that God's word still applies to my every singled day. there is instruction in the form of scripture for ever single thing i face as a wife, mom & person.

everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. the scriptures give us patience & encouragement so that we can have hope. romans 15:4

you will bear children as a vine bears grapes, your household lush as a vineyard, the children around your table as fresh and promising as young olive shoots. stand in awe of God's yes. oh, how he blesses the one who fears God! psalm 128:3-4 (the message) 

i want, very much to fulfill God's purpose for my life & i believe being a godly wife & mom are meaningful, purposeful roles in His eyes. so while i may not have it all together according to any standard, worldly or heavenly...i do feel blessed to be a momma and determined to be the best one i possibly can!

all of this reminds me of a favorite r h hamilton poem, song for a fifth child. i recall coming upon it when bennett was little & loving it's message. when i looked for it to post here & saw the 'roo' line, it brought a smile to my heart & face. :o)

p.s. i might have changed the 'his' eyes to 'her' eyes. ;o) 

this may get printed to go in her nursery. its message is one that eases the guilt of my unkept house.

saturday morning...a visual

the roo in her room after just waking up.

i was quickly forgotten...

 

...then remembered...

...then forgotten again.

enter a just-woke-up big brother...

awwww.

somebody's not quite all the way awake yet ;o)

again...awwww.

hey p...what are you doing?

...just being her adorable self ;o)

half a year? no way!

it blows my mind that i'm the mom (leaving the technicalities behind) of a 15 year old & an 8 year old & now a 6 month old. watching the big kids grow up was hard. especially thinking that was it. then...surprise! the roo came along & now i *know* this is it & it's bittersweet watching her first year go by so swiftly.

some randoms i've jotted down across the past little bit:

• i can no longer rock her to sleep in the monkey chair (who am i kidding...she's not the rock to sleep kinda girl, really...she's more high maintance than that!) anyway...the monkeys on the fabric excite her so much she just has to find one & scratch it. she loves to scratch things. all things. even me.
• she likes the sound of rush limbaugh's voice...seriously. she does.
• the only thing more exciting than a cell phone or remote control is the church hymnal
• speaking of church. pailyn is sweet during the service, until it quiets during a prayer...she doesn't like quiet, i guess...because that's when she decides to talk & usually in her 'outside' voice!
• speaking of church hymnals...story time with my girl is a challenge. between sitting in the monkey chair and holding a book in front of her, not much story telling gets told! my solution? i swiped my old little golden book of nursery rhymes from nana's house & re-familiarized myself with some favorites...now i 'read' by memory :o)
• when doing computer work, p hangs out in her pack-n-play (my office is a little tight these days!) or her swing, but when she tires of that i let her hang with me in my lap. she's all about wanting to 'help' me out until i brilliantly stuck a large post it to the desk in front of her. trying to pull it off & eat it easily occupies her for long clumps of time!
• she waves hello, very excitedly to her daddy every time she sees him. so cute!
• her favorite food is easily bananas, as is evident each time she get half way through another food item and begins fussing while chanting 'nnaanaa! nnaanaa!' over & over until she gets a bite of banana :o) so..i guess banana is her first word. i'm not stretching, people. i talk to the roo constantly describing my every step during the day, (any fly on the wall might label me as 'off'), but she listens & while feeding her bananas i repeat over & over 'do you love your banana?' 'have a bite of banana!'
• she prefers most foods cold. i keep her next meal in the fridge, lol. and her food goes in the ice chest for ballgames ;o) the first few bites take her breath away!
• the pallet no longer contains her...she is all over the place. she isn't a proper crawler, although we've seen that she is able to crawl correctly, but she chooses to fall to her belly & scoot using her arms an legs like an army man pulling himself across the jungle ground. (nice analogy, i know.)
• she has begun watching me leave a room and fussing as i walk away. i peek back in & she smiles...a few times of this & she is fine with being in another room without me.
• i'm putting her to bed at 10:30ish each night and after a brief fit, she'll settle down & go to sleep. she hasn't notslept straight through the night in months! :o) she'll wake up between 9 and 11am ready to play and have a bottle. i know i am blessed to have a good sleeper...especially after experiencing the opposite for the first few months of her little life! a side note to all expecting mommies: don't let anyone tell you not to hold your baby too much, or even not to co-sleep at first if that's what works for you. your sweet baby spent 9 months inside you...i wasn't comfortable not having bennett right there with me all the time...i wanted to hold him. i had(and wanted) to hold pailyn to get any peace. both slept with me the first 2 months & then it was really an easy transition to the crib :o)
• she is moving into 3-6 month sized clothing...meaning i've had to shop for a few more summer ditties as her 0-3 becomes a bit snug ;o)
• while composing this post (interrupted by a couple phone calls regarding tomorrow's ball tournament-meaning i've been sitting her for a long time) the roo has been in the den with her daddy & big brother...i just checked on her & she is giving bennett's john deere tractor a spit bath. she's entertained herself for nearly an hour :o)

 

my little girl...i know i'm partial...but you're darn cute!

all little girls get a shiner @ 6 months, right?

...right! actually, i'm sure not.

but...the misses p. ...princess let me do what i want; i'm not too little to pull up on things in which my head doesn't even clear. aka: the roo is sporting her first shiner! while getting her splash, splash on in the sink last night (ahem, night before last since it's technically tomorrow where i sit at the computer at 1am) this momma noticed the shading of a bruise developing.

there it is below her right eye (left in the picture). for the record, the bump occurred in the den under daddy's supervision ;o) honestly...the roo rules the roost & she was using the big brother's lego box as a ladder, if you will, in climbing herself from sitting near the coffee table to pulling up on said coffee table (in which her head doesn't even clear!) ...she may or may not have clobbered her face against it a few times before being redirected toward bathtime.

an extra, unrelated tidbit. the big sister's fastpitch game got called off just as we entered hattiesburg this day (tuesday, aug 18th), so we made the most of the drive & took pailyn on her first trip to target. exciting, i know!

wondering what she's so darn excited about? oh...we were just reminiscing about the fact that monday the roo heard from her best girl sarah palin. seriously. more on that soon. a momma's gotta get some rest!

i'm in trouble!

i'm headed to bed after a long night, but wanted to get this bloged before it gets lost in all the intended posts i have jotted down on post it notes near my computer.

if you follow 'her very own blog' or know the roo at all, you know she's a pro-sleep-fighter! she enjoys being up late & sleeping in, no matter what altercations i make to her 'schedule' (and i use that word very loosely).

i quit fighting her months ago & began just snuggling with her for a bit after her last bottle & then laying her down in her crib & letting her scream bloody murder fuss & whine until she tires herself out. this process has grown shorter over time & many times i can lay her down wide eyed, turn the lights out & she'll scoot around a bit (she's never in the same place i lay her for more than a minute!) holler a few times & then pop her paci in and give it up.

tonight when i laid her down and left the room, she was especially loud. (the roo & i have been under the weather for the past two days...she's doing quite well if she feels anything like i do...hope she doesn't) i figured she just wasn't feeling herself & went to check on her. i expected to help her out by inserting her paci & tucking her blankie in her arm.

i walked in to find this:

 

man! just when i get something figured out & working she goes and learns a new trick! ;o) at what point do babies pull up in their cribs? the big brother fought sleep too, but not like the roo & this was never an issue.

look at the tear. of course, when i come near & she thinks she's going to get picked up, she turns the sad off. just.like.that. stinker!

i'm bracing myself. i've pretty much come to the conclusion & am preparing myself for my pailyn to be the child who climbs out of her crib before she should be able to. (ben never even tried.) it's just so funny to see p doing all this stuff 'cause she's such a shrimp...i mean her head doesn't even clear the side rail of her bed, lol.

she's going to be in trouble when she scales the crib wall & realizes it's a lot farther down to the ground on the other side! sigh. i'm in trouble, no doubt.