Merry Merry!

{18 months and other random October things.}

Really? It's been like two and a half months since I last updated? I must lead a really boring life; need to work on that. Help?

Since there's never anything to write about except the little munchkin, I figured I'd post about her being, well, 18 months. We went for a checkup a couple of weeks ago and she looks great. Her stats are as follows:

Height: 31.75 inches

Weight: 23 lbs 7 oz

Head circ: 46 cm

So that means in the past six months, she has gained about 2.5 pounds and is 2.75 inches taller. She is still in a size 3 diaper (size 4 at night), but she has gone up a shoe size to a size 6. She is in 18 month clothing - mostly. I have a feeling it will be hard to buy jeans for her this fall, because the 18 month size is too big in the waist, and the 12 month ones fit in the waist, but the legs are too short. Guess I'll need to really do some shopping around.

She can say 75+ words. I've kind of stopped keeping track as far as writing them down.

We got Macy a school bus slide thing for her 18 month 'birthday.' We would have waited until Christmas to get it for her as a big gift, but since she had started to climb up on everything, we decided to to ahead and get it for her so she could get some practice, both on climbing and sliding. She goes up and down about 4,058 times a day.

I signed Macy up for Kindermusik recently, which we have been going to for the past month or so? I enjoy going to it. And I think Macy does? Maybe? I'm not really sure. Because she wanders around most of the time and then about halfway through gets whiny and wants to go. Seriously? She's never around other kids except at Kindermusik and there's songs to be sung and all kinds of fun stuff to do (I think she does enjoy all that though) and it gets us out of the house for a little while, so I don't really understand why she always wants to go after we sing the welcome song. Attention span of a fly, I tell ya. Anyway, I do plan on signing up for next semester too.

And it is now October, which means we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the newest addition to the Nowell family, who will be here very soon! October is my favorite month - fall, fair, festivals, birthday, friends' birthdays, and Halloween! Still trying to decide on a costume for Macy. I'm leaning strongly towards either a ladybug or Alice (in Wonderland). We will see. I probably will not take her trick-or-treating around the neighborhood since she is still so little, but we will probably go to the trunk-or-treat at the park the Thursday before Halloween. Oh! And another thing I look forward to is starting a tradition of going to the pumpkin patch and going on a hayride and taking pics in fields of pumpkins and choosing one to bring home! Eeps!

{words}

This is more for my record than anything else really, but I just wanted to post Macy's words at 16 months! She has picked up a lot since her 12-month list!

English

*baby (which could mean baby, belly button, or the iPad)

*nigh-nigh (night-night)

*bo-bo

*boo (balloon)

*ah-doe (all done)

*daw-bay (strawberry)

*new-me! (for excuse me! after she burps) -my personal fave right now :)

*bye-bye tee-tee! (when we flush)

*bop bop bop! (for hop hop hop like a bunny)

*cacka (cracker)

*cookie

*why-why (Super Why and french fry)

*dooooo (close.. as in close the door)

*bow (bowl)

*way (rain)

*gop! (cup)

*gah (car)

*guh (girl)

*goga (yogurt)

*shoe (can't really spell how she pronounces it!)

*pea (peach)

*the-the (for paci or sassy as I sometimes call it)

*bah! (bath without the 'th')

*co-co (color.. as in color with crayons)

*yayyy!

*day dow! (lay down)

*Poppyyyy! (my dad), Da-da (Dottie, which I think she just confuses with the word daddy), and Kee (Chris).... although she doesn't really call any of them by name yet

*and just today she said "day-doooo" (thank you) when I gave her a cracker

Thai

*Mo-Mo yu nai? (Mo-Mo where are you?)

*bai baow (let's go)

*and she will put her hands together for the Thai greeting "sawatdee ka"

Sign

*milk

*sleepy

Also, something interesting that we've noticed is that she has translated a couple of words. The other day I told her to drink some water and she said "naam" (which is of course Thai for 'water'). And then Burin sometimes distracts her by holding her and going around to all the windows to look outside for Moby, and he says "mei mee" (which roughly means 'he's not there'), and she says, "no MoMo." I just find this fascinating, but I think that it is common for bilingual babies to do that.

I love that she is talking more, and she will try to repeat almost anything I ask her to. So fun!

{Strawberry Girl}

(Yes, I cut off her name. She moves too fast. And no, she won't smile for the camera.)

Macy loves strawberries. Loves them. Asks for them by name. By the name of "daw-bay," that is. And she cannot say "daw-bay" without a smile on her face. Every time we open the refrigerator, she says "daw-bay! daw-bay daw-bay daw-bay!" She will eat strawberries any time of the day - morning, noon, or night. Whenever you put one in her face, she will eat it.

So, since she loves them so much, what did I have to do? Get her a daw-bay shirt, of course! I headed on over to Etsy (Etsy never fails), and came across this children's t-shirt shop called ispotyou, and had to immediately put my order in for a personalized strawberry t-shirt! It is so cute and well-made, and I look forward to shopping there more in the future when she has a new favorite obsession!

Splashing through water and squealing with delight

How do you spell love?

Piglet: How do you spell love?

Pooh: You don't spell it. You feel it.

Baby's Name

I just recently started following KellysKorner blog, and every week she has this "Show Us Your Life" meme. This week the theme is baby names. I decided to participate this week and explain how we came up with Macy's name. I simply copied and pasted this from my December 2008 post, so some of you may have already read this.

First name: Macy

No, not after the department store, Macy Gray, or William H. Macy. We just like the name, it's a little different, it's only two syllables, easy to pronounce, and it's short (up against her gigantizoid last name). Also, when I was looking at the Nowell family tree (after we had decided on Macy), I came across a Macy Nowell who was born probably in the late 1800's/early 1900s, and was my great-grandfather's brother's daughter. How cool is that?! So it's a family name too.

Middle name: Blair

It's my mom's maiden name. Simple as that. And it's pretty.

Second middle name (yes, that's correct): Bunman

Pronounced boon-MON, it's Burin's mother's first name. He really wanted her name to be a part of the baby's name, and his mom meant the world to him (she passed away in February 2008), so I can understand. :) And, Macy can just use the middle initial B, which will go for either middle name.

Last name: N.

Sooo.. there you have it: Macy Blair Bunman N.

Macy update at one year old

What is our one-year-old-who-thinks-she's-two-years-old, Little Miss Macy, up to lately? Well, she is walking and going everywhere and getting into everything. She tries to run if you chase after her, she tries to kick balls or whatever else is in her way, she dances when she hears music, and she climbs on everything she can get her little legs up on. She took her first step at 10.5 months and has been going non. stop. ever since. It's so weird to me sometimes because I hear about 13 month olds who are just beginning to walk, and here Macy is owning the place.

She is blabbing up a storm and quickly learning new words. Here's her vocabulary so far:

English

• bye-bye
• mama
• dada
• nana (banana)
• momo (cat.. our cat's name is Moby, but we call him MoMo)
• momo (Elmo)
• daw (dog)
• baw (ball or balloon)
• no/no-no
• uh-ohhh!
• bubba (bubble)

Thai

• num (for "naam," which means water/sippy cup)
• bah! (for "bai!" which means "let's go!")
• gai (chicken)

Sign Language (she doesn't really know how to use these properly, but if I say the words, she can sign them)

• eat
• more
• all done

She went to her one-year checkup a few weeks ago, and is average for height and weight, at 21 pounds and 29 inches. She is wearing a size 3 diaper (size 4 at night) and size 12 month clothing, with some 18 month stuff here and there, and a size 5 shoe.

And speaking of clothing, I have been loving shopping for her some spring/summer clothes - sundresses, t-shirts and shorts, and swimsuits - eep! We finally got her a little pair of sandals too, which I love. They're the white Mooshu sqeakers with the little slots for interchangeable bows! That way, she can wear the same pair of shoes, while switching out and wearing coordinating/matching bows! Needless to say, I've done a little shopping on Etsy for some bows... and thinking about learning how to make them myself.

She knows where her hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, belly button, and toes are.

She loves to play outside, which we're doing more of now with the nicer weather, and still loves to play in water either during her bathtime or at the little water fountains we've taken her to at Dogwood and Renaissance (although it's still *just* a little early for outside water play). She still sleeps about 12 hours a night with a two hour mid-day nap, and will play quietly in her crib for the longest time after she wakes up (she likes to throw all her little stuffed animals overboard). She is eating almost completely table food now, and still takes three bottles a day - morning, pre-nap, and night. I know it's about time to wean her from the bottle, but... I don't think I'm ready to. :( She's my BABY still and is growing up way too fast!

So that concludes this edition of a Macy update! Time to go make that marking on her new wall growth chart...

Hello Spring

Last Thursday evening, we decided to go to the park and let Macy run around. But at the last minute, I thought it would be a good time to get some Spring/Easter pics, so I put her dress on, grabbed her basket, threw in some Easter eggs, grabbed my camera, and off we went.

I had only gotten a couple of pictures on the normal setting, and somehow my camera got switched to the color swap setting, which is currently set to swap out green for a pinkish color. I did not even realize it had gotten switched, but I thought some of the pictures turned out amazing, and it gives them sort of a vintage-y/dreamy type feeling to them (or at least that's what I think anyway.. I do have sort of a different 'taste' when it comes to some things, hehe).

(love love love this one)

(and this one)

(and love love love this one too)

These next few are just some I had taken at my parents' house when we went over on Easter day.

And here she is with her Easter basket that she got when we got home Sunday evening!

And as usual, more pics on facebook!

Goodbye Winter

The snow has melted, the sun has come out, and winter has faded away! I know it's a little late, but here's a little re-cap of some of our winter highlights that I don't think I ever posted on the ole blog.

We celebrated Daddy's birthday!

We sent Christmas cards.

We celebrated Christmas.

We played in the snow.

Macy took a nap... in the snow.

And Burin went snowboarding!

Macy's First Birthday!

I swear it seems like just a few days ago we were bringing her home from the hospital, but in reality, we celebrated her first birthday! We kept all the celebration to a minimum, but still had a lot of fun.

Last Thursday, on her birthday, we dressed her up in her 'birthday girl' t-shirt and headed out for lunch and ice cream. We had planned to also take her to the Play Place that morning, but with swine flu coming back around and with strep going around, we decided it would be in our best interest to stay away from those 'germ central' type places. The first time we took her, we couldn't keep a plastic turkey leg out of her mouth (and who knows how many other kids have tried to eat that same turkey leg!). So, since the weather was nice, we went and walked around Renaissance and had lunch at Sweet Peppers, then walked around the corner to Maggie Moo's and got a big ole cup of ice cream to share.

On Saturday, we had her little birthday party here at the house and dressed her up yet again in her birthday outfit, and added her tutu! It is sooo cute on her! I think every little girl needs a tutu.

(waiting at the front door for her guests to arrive!)

A few things to point out in the photo above - I may have under-decorated, ya think? I was planning for a really simple party, but didn't realize how simple it was until I got it all put together! You see that ghettofabulous 'happy birthday macy!' sign? Yeah, that was done at the last minute because I realized that there was nothing that said 'happy birthday!' Also, Burin ran out at the last minute and picked up that gigantic balloon along with the little flowers. And to be honest, the cups and tablecloth were left over from my baby shower, so I decided to go ahead and use those. I'll do better next year, I promise. (Note to self: more colors, more decorations, more balloons, a better theme perhaps? make it a happy place!).

I think my cupcakes and cupcake tree turned out pretty sweet though!

Macy loves to share her food and is always reaching out with a tiny bit of something on her fingertips to feed us. So yes, she had to share some of her icing with me, Burin, my mom, Chris.... as Sean called it, a "communal sharing of the fingers." I guess it was kinda gross if you think about it.

So all in all, I think she had a good first birthday. Some of her gifts included clothes, books, and of course, toys.

I really can't believe a year has passed already, but I can say with 100% certainty that it has been the best year of our lives. We love this little girl so much!

(More photos on facebook!)

Eleven Months

My baby girl is eleven months old - only one mere month away from her first birthday! Planning is in progress for that, even though it'll be a small shindig.

So what's Macy Blair up to right now? Well, she just started walking and she is just so proud of herself. She has five teeth (only three on the bottom - it's the weirdest thing.. that fourth one is nowhere in sight!), and the two on the top have just come through. She loves SuperWhy, Wheel of Fortune, bathtime, and books - I think she'd rather play with books than with her toys. Her favorite book right now is a little Bambi book that she wants us to read over, and over, and over, and over... though I think she likes to have any book read to her. It's so cute when she goes to get a book and bring to us to read.

She is also growing attached to a pink blanket that somebody gave me at my shower. She couldn't get attached to a small security blanket that I bought for her months ago. No, it's gotta be a big soft fuzzy blanket that I can just SEE me having to pack up everywhere we go when she gets older and really attached to it. It's ok though. There's just about nothing sweeter than a baby girl toddling around dragging her pink blankie behind her. :)

No first words yet, but we're working on it. She does seem to say "bah!" over and over when playing with her books. I don't know if she is trying to say "book," or "Bambi" maybe?

She loves to eat anything and everything bite size and crunchy - Cheerios, puffs, crackers, whatever. And bread, she loves bread. And yogurt, good lord she loves yogurt. If she will eat nothing else, she will eat yogurt. She loves to chew on a chunky green apple stick and suck the juice out of a piece of clementine or orange. And thus far, she has tried and liked American, Mexican, and Chinese food. The milder stuff, of course, but I know she likes a little bit of spiciness here and there. Like this one time (at band camp), I gave her a Hot Fry to taste and she was wanting to chow down the whole thing.

She likes to be tickled and to play peek-a-boo and for me to crawl around and 'chase' and catch her. She just collapses in a fit of laughter - which is another thing she loves to do and does a lot - laugh. And I love the fact that I can make her laugh.

Boredom

*sigh*

blah.

I've kinda been feeling... bored, lately. As most of you know, I'm a stay-at-home-mom, and that's just what I do - stay at home and take care of Macy. Now, I LOVE doing this, but I don't ever DO anything else really. Burin goes to work, I stay home and go on Target runs, Macy isn't really old enough to do anything with, we've never had a playdate, we go to my parents on Sundays to visit, and I see one of my friends about every other week or so and grab something to eat and maybe go to a movie. And as far as true hobbies or 'extra-curricular' stuff - zip. zilch. nada. I feel a little like I've lost myself since I'm not in school or at an outside job anymore.

So, I've been thinking lately about some stuff I'd kinda like to do:

*Get my 'craft' back on. I used to have an Etsy shop, but closed it before Macy was born. Actually, it was when I found out I was pregnant because I couldn't use resin due to the toxic fumes. But, I've kinda missed those bottlecaps, rubber stamps, and magnets. Granted, I only made a few sales on Etsy, but it was fun just making stuff for the heck of it. Maybe I should dig it all out again.

*Learn Thai. Burin and I have been together for ten years and no, I haven't learned Thai yet. (What. You expected me to be fluent already?) I read some reviews about the Rosetta Stone program, which is supposed to be the best language learning tool out there, but there were lots of bad reviews of it and the way it was set up. Basically, I think it teaches as if they expect you to already be able to READ Thai. You expect me to be able to read those spaghetti noodle curly-Q's? I don't think so. Speaking is one thing, but reading and writing it is a whole 'nother thing. I do know a few phrases and words, but that's all. Anyhow, I still think I need to learn it, and Rosetta Stone is still a possibility. I don't want Macy and her daddy to talk about me and not be able to understand it!

*Learn some kind of graphic arts program. I'm a very visual person and I like to design my own things. I was trying to work on Macy's birthday invitation last night using Picasa - a photo-editing program. I guess it's cute (and I might use it) but it was gettin' on mah nerves. The text/font kept wanting to do its own thing. Anyway, I'd love to be able to make my own Christmas cards and all, like the one I ordered from a girl on Etsy. There are some cute first birthday invitations on there, but I really don't want to spend a lot of money on it since I won't be sending very many out. Any suggestions for easy-to-use graphics programs? Adobe? ......?

*Cook more. Or should I say, learn to cook more. I can hardly boil water, folks. Cooking is not a passion for me, and I don't really enjoy it. When I do cook, it seems like I make the same stuff over and over. And it seems like most of it comes out of a box or a can. Ugh. And I'm a very picky eater, so that doesn't help much. I don't typically like soups or casseroles, there's not a lot of veggies that I like, I don't eat seafood. Seriously, if it swims, I don't eat it. Period. Burin, on the other hand, will eat absolutely anything you put in front of him and not complain about it. I'm always looking at new recipes, but nothing has jumped out at me yet. But seriously, I need to learn to do something because Macy will soon be eating only table food! Having a kid just changes everything, doesn't it? (And ironically, I think I could watch cooking shows all day long. Something about them just fascinates me.. the ingredients, the food prep.. not that I would ever eat any of it though! lol)

*Read more. Books, magazines, whatever. That's an easy one though. Just gotta peel my eyes from the computer long enough.


So there you go. That's my kick-boredom-in-the-butt list. Now someone just needs to give me a butt-kick so that I can get into gear and do something!

Sailor Chicks

I've never been interested much in sailing or anything, but I recently (as in yesterday) heard about a 16-year-old girl from California who just left on a mission to sail around the world solo and unassisted, going for world record for the youngest to circumnavigate the globe. There's also another 16-year-old out there from Australia who is doing the same thing. Anyway, I have become fascinated with their stories and just started following their blogs. Even though all that sailing lingo goes right over my head, it'll be interesting to follow their journeys and see where they are and how they're doing.

Talk about following your dream, huh? I know I'd be scared to death doing something like that - being alone, out in the middle of the ocean, encountering bad weather/rough seas and possibly pirates?! No thanks. But I do admire their courage.

Here are their links:

Sailor Abby from California

Sailor Jessica from Australia (I LOVE her pink boat!)

Flashback Friday

Pretty cute kid, eh? Yea, that's me when I was about two years old or so. Probably in the winter of 1980, because it looks like there's snow on the trees in the fake background behind me. The picture is obviously from the late 70's or very early 80's when all the pictures had that wicked red tint to them. Lord only knows why, because it's not very appealing, is it?

Do any of you have old pictures you'd like to share? Go - do it! And then link up over on ChristopherandTia's page! Don't you just love her button over there, and down some? ---->

Earthquake

The Haitian earthquake is all too reminiscent of the 2004 tsunami in Asia which devastated some areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, and took over 230,000 lives. It's so hard to wrap my mind around natural disasters of this magnitude, and I just cannot comprehend the high death tolls associated with them. I hope to never, ever experience anything remotely close to an earthquake of this scale. The one I experienced last year in California is nothing compared to these, but it was enough for me. And the tsunami - I was too close for comfort for that too. We happened to be in Bangkok at the time, about 600 miles from Phuket (which was the hardest hit area of Thailand), so we were safe. I decided to dig up my old xanga blog post about our experience while there, and re-post parts of it here:

December 26, Monks and Tsunami. Quite an interesting day. It started out with us going to some kind of monk ceremony thing for Burin's nephew at a temple. He was beginning the process of becoming a monk for two weeks - a process I like to call "monkamorphosis." After this, we went back to the house where there was a separate monk event that was to take place. Nine monks arrived in a monkmobile, and they came in and did all the chanting and so forth, for the purpose of 'blessing the house.' Traditionally, Thai people, when they move into a new house (this was a new house), hold a ceremony where monks come in and bless the house, and it's all basically for good luck really. There were lots of family and family friends there that day, so the TV was turned off. But later in the afternoon, when we finally did turn it on, we learned of the earthquake/tsunami that had happened about 10:00 that morning, that took thousands upon thousands of lives all over Southeast Asia, including some on the island of Phuket (Thailand). So needless to say, our parents, friends, and almost anyone I ever knew freaked out and were worried about us. Luckily, we were about 600 miles away from where it all happened. What's scary is that we were actually planning to go to that island at some point while we were there. Thank God we hadn't gone yet, and for the lucky-monk-party. I even got holy water sprinkled on me that day by the head monk, and got a tiny brass good-luck elephant (elephants are a national symbol for Thailand, and symbolize good luck). Was it meant to be?

December 30, Burin Goes to Phuket. Yesterday on the news it was announced that the hospitals in Phuket needed volunteer doctors and interpreters, so Burin did the heroic thing and signed up to go, since he can do both and he is exactly what they needed. So he left early this morning to go, and he even got to take a military plane to Phuket so he thinks he's a bigshot now. :) I think Sean and I would have liked to have gone to help out, but unfortunately we had a flight out the next day to come home, and we couldn't really be guaranteed that we'd be back in time, so it was a little too risky for us to go, so we stayed behind. . .

December 31, Mississippi - here we come! ...we went to the airport to pick Burin up around 6pm ... as we were waiting, it was kinda sad because we saw a couple of people who had just gotten off a flight whose heads and arms were all bandaged up.. apparently, they were survivors of the tsunami...

It turns out that the hospital Burin went to already had enough doctors and things were pretty much under control by then, which is why he was there for less than two whole days (notice he didn't go until 4 days after the tsunami).

------

My heart goes out to all the survivors and victims of the earthquake in Haiti, to their family and friends. I hope they can soon find peace and comfort.