Dixie's 1st Birthday Party

Dixie's first birthday was super fun! She was the perfect little birthday girl. We timed it perfectly so that the party started right after her nap, so she was happy the entire time! She played with all of her friends/cousins, ate almost her entire birthday cupcake by herself and she loved all of her presents. She even wore her birthday girl hat, just to please her mommy. She was pretty tuckered out by the end.



Dixie played really well with Ada and Sam. Sam was probably a little bored, bc all we have are baby toys, but he was a great sport about it anyways. Ada and Dixie played side by side very well!



Dixie and her mommy!



Dixie and her proud papa!



Dixie's first grab at her birthday cupcake. I wanted to give her the chocolate/chocolate combination, bc thats my favorite, but Sean insisted on the Vanilla/Chocolate.



Yummy... she loved the icing the best. (just like her mom).



About 20 minutes later she had devoured almost the entire cupcake. Good work Dixie!



Finally, she had had enough cake and decided to take of her birthday girl hat. She had presents to open up after all!




Dixie got right down to business opening her presents. She loves the things that light up and make noises the best!




Dixie, I remember when you were just a tinee Tiny baby. I'll forever miss our endless snuggles, but i Love watching you grow and learn. You are highly active like your mom, but easy going like your daddy. We love you baby girl! Happy birthday!

Happy 1st Birthday Dixie Mae!



My baby girl is 1 years old! Dixie has been such a joy this last year.

The first 6 weeks of her little life were brutal. I refer to them as “baby bootcamp”. She was breaking us in from being swinging single’s to having a 24/7 responsibility. It was a little overwhelming at first, but luckily Sean took 3 weeks off work, so I was not alone. I’m not sure how the mother’s whose husbands only take a few days off do it. Dixie has the best daddy ever!

Her personality started to really show at 3 months, and it’s been a progression ever since. It’s been so fun watching her learn new skills, and watching the wonder in her eyes when she looks around outside. She loves all of the birdies flying in the sky, she loves touching the different textures of tree bark, and she loves animals of any kind. I think she even likes the spiders. There was a little one crawling on the bathroom floor the other night and she was just watching it in wonder.

Dixie is a social little girl. She plays with her little Friend Graham twice a week while I work, and has a ball. I miss her a lot, but I know she’s in good hands and is having fun.

These are her most recent accomplishments- in her 12th month of life:

1) Dixie is pretty much off of pureed baby food. She much prefers to feed herself over spoon feeding. She LOVES bread. Her favorite foods are spaghetti and pizza. She also loves ice-cream. But don’t worry, we also feed her lots of healthy stuff too.

2) Dixie loves to drink out of a straw. Her big chubby cheeks look oh so cute when she does this, with her puckered lips and button nose. I need to take a picture so I can always remember how cute she looks drinking from a straw.


3) Dixie loves to tear apart the apartment. Her favorites are to take all of the books off of the lower 2 shelves, and emptying out the bottom drawers of the fridge. I keep the apples and potatoes in those drawers, so there are always tiny bite marks. Cutest thing ever! I remember Nunu and Bunny doing this same thing. I’m sure there will always be a tiny bite in my apple for the next few years, but I Love it!

4) Dixie users her pointers all of the time. She points at everything. I should probably start saying the word of whatever it is she is pointing at so she can start to learn words. For now though, she gets along just fine with her little pointers.

5) Dixie has 7 teeth. 4 on top and only 3 on the bottom. I thought teeth always grew in pairs, but I guess not! Hopefully shes not missing a tooth.

6) Dixie is 88% for Height and 35% for weight. Shes currently 19.5Lbs. Cant wait for her to hit 20lbs so i can switch out her carset. Hopefully she’ll be a great volleyball player and can go to university on scholarship!

7) Dixie is smart. Whenever her daddy is eating a treat she crawls next to him, climbs up his legs and points directly at the treat. The girl knows what she wants! The other night he tried to hide his pastry from her and she got so angry. Little girls angry are so cute! Hopefully its still cute as a terrible 2.

8) Dixie has started to cruise along furniture, but no walking yet. I don’t mind though.. I’m sure she’ll be even harder to keep up with once the walking starts. I’m also pretty sure she’ll never let me pick her up once she starts walking, because she loves to do things herself. Very independent just like her mommy.

9) Dixie has the cutest giggle in the entire world. She really makes you work for her giggles though. You pretty much have to think of something she’s never seen before to make her laugh. You can’t just pull old tricks out of the bag, it has to be new!

10) Dixie loves to clap, clap, clap! Whenever there is applause on TV (like at 3pm when she watches Glenn Beck with her daddy), she automatically starts to clap. She also usually claps instead of waves. She knows how to wave…I think she just prefers to clap.

Dixie’s birthday party is on Saturday. Im so excited! We’re getting sprinkles cupcakes and lots of yummy appetizers. I’ll be sure to post some birthday pictures next week.

XOXO
Eve

DIXIE MAE'S BFF

Dixie has really taken to the stuffed panda bear Uncle Angel gave her. When she goes down to bed for a nap or for the evening, the first thing she does is crawl towards Mr. Panda....SO CUTE!

Early Mornings, Clapping, and the Harmonica

11 months

Dixie has been giving lots and lots of hugs this month. I think she finally knows who her mommy and daddy are. It’s really so sweet and we cherish every hug we get from her. In addition to being scared of the vacuum cleaner, we’ve discovered that she is also afraid of the harmonica. So whenever Im in need of a good Dixie hug, I pull it out and let out a little whistle from it. I get a good 2 minute hug session, so it’s totally worth her fear!

Dixie absolutely loves the park. She goes on the swings, plays in the sand and crawls around the play structures. She gets super dirty in the process! Whenever we put her in the stroller to leave the park, she throws a little temper tantrum. She stiffens her body, kicks her legs and screams. I think we’re going to have some major toddler temper tantrums on our hands soon enough. But her little face looks so cute angry, all scrunched up with that button nose, that I don’t think we’ll mind too much.

Dixie was a lady bug for Halloween. She was so cute in her little costume I wanted to eat her up. I took her to my work Halloween party and to the church’s trunk or treat. She had a great time at both, as she got to socialize with lots of little friends and eat lots of treats. She especially loved playing in the hay stack.

Dixie the ladybug

Dixie harrassing cousin Jaden

Dixie does not like to travel right now. We went to Phoenix for Jayden’s baby blessing (who is a complete doll), and she was a miserable little monster the whole time. I think a lot of it can be attributed to her teething at the same time. She wouldn’t sleep, she barely ate, and was very temperamental and hard to please the entire weekend. What was supposed to be a nice relaxing get away to meet our new nephew turned out to be a train wreck. Don’t get me wrong though, we’re so glad we were able to be there for the blessing, and we’d go again in a heartbeat just to cuddle little Jayden and eat Michelle’s yummy food. A positive note was that we took Dixie to the Zoo in Phoenix, and she LOVED it!

Daddy hauling Dixie around the zoo

Dixie in awe of the warthogs

She loved the fish, all the birds, and especially the wart hogs. It was so precious to see her awe and wonder. We had to hold her back from crawling into the fish pond- it was just too tempting for her.

Dixie is moving off of pureed baby food, and much prefers finger food. She loves shredded cheese, bread, pizza crust, and pancakes. I always throw in some fruits and veggies in the mix of food, but she is super smart and avoids these little niblets at all costs. She will eat around all the fruits and veggies and go straight for the carbs. Hmmm….. how can I get her to start eating the greens? I might have to pull out my deceptively delicious cook book and start disguising them as muffins.

Dixie the explorer crawling into her little cove and falling back out of it

Dixie’s movements are getting quick and confident. She crawls over and under anything in her way. She pulls herself up onto anything (even flat walls with nothing to grab onto), and she even stood up without support for a couple of seconds before falling flat on her face. I wonder how long before she starts to walk??

We had our Christmas Photo Shoot, and the pictures are fabulous. A hugeThank you to Lailah for doing such a great job (http://lailahmuetingphotography.com). You should all be excited for your Christmas cards this year. Send me your address if you haven’t received one from us in the past, or if you've moved recently and I’ll be sure to include you on my list.

Dixie's Day at the Local Pumpkin Patch

Dixie absolutely loved the time she got to spend at Lemos Farm with Auntie Nunu, Mommy, and Daddy. It wasn't just because she got to play in the pumpkin patch.

Her flings with the pumpkins were nowhere near the most eventful part of the day. The event in question ended in the way most things involving Dixie do....trying to pry something out of her mouth.

We first became aware that a foreign object somehow made its way into Dixie's mouth when we observed brownish colored drool oozing from the sides of her mouth (you may have to zoom in to see exactly what we mean).

Numerous videos and snapshots were poured through in an effort to discover what Dixie had been chewing on and how it made its way into her mouth. After examining our photographic evidence, we were able to pinpoint the exact time and location said foreign object made it into Dixie's oral cavity. Usually we notice when Dixie puts something in her mouth, but she as you can tell from the following picture, nobody noticed lil' Dix make her latest deposit.

It was later determined that a contributing factor in this incident involved the excitement over the goats on the part of Auntie Nunu, Mama, and Papa. While they were distracted by the cute baby goat, Dixie made her sinister move. She snatched some of the goat food out of Auntie Nunu's hand without anybody noticing and then shoved it into her mouth before anybody was the wiser. That little girl is becoming too smart for her own good.

Lesson learned...never let the goats distract you while your child steals animal feed out of your hand.

The End

Dixie's 8 Month Photoshoot

I bought a group~on for a photo shoot, and here are the pictures. I think they are good, but they are pretty generic, and ended up being really expensive, even with the groupon.

Enjoy!

10 months- October 8, 2010

Our baby girl is 10 months old. Still super cute., and very Mobile these days. Her biggest achievement this month was learning how to pull herself up to standing. Now each morning when i go into her room, shes standing in her crib and beaming with pride :) Its super cute. Although, shes also developing a little stubborness- now at nap time, if shes not 100% ready to go down, she immediatly stands in her crib and screams at me, heee heee... i love this girl. She has also moved on from the navy seal crawl to a normal crawl, on her knees and hands. She is still a little tentative, but is pulling this out of her bag of tricks more often than not these days.


Dixie Mae LOVES food. Anything really. This month she discovered spagetti with sauce. She absolutely loves it. Probably because it has so much more taste that jarred babyfood. Anytime I want to eat a meal, I have to include something on my plate that I can easily feed to Dixie, because whenever she shes me eating, she crawls on over and begs for a taste.

Dixie has microscopic vision. We vaccume our place almost every day, but still she manages to find tiny particals of dirt, hair, fuzz, whatever. She carefully picks of her treasures and deposits them in her cheeks for safe keeping. Once they are in her mouth, it is really hard to get it out. She wont open up willingly (for fear of loosing her treasures), so we have to trick her into smiling in order to retrieve her little treasures. Daddy is definatly the best at making her smile.

Dixie LOVES people. Seriously, shes the easiest baby ever. No stranger anxiety here people. The only thing is scared of is the vaccume (still). When she sees it come out of the closet she immediatly crawls in my direction, looks up at me with pleading eyes, and then hangs on to me for dear life while I vaccume. She doesnt settle down until I put it back in the closet...... she must think its the monster in the closet!

Dixie has been going to a babysitter a couple of times a week when Sean and i both have to work. We've found a great situation that works really well for us. There is another little boy there, who is 2 months older than Dixie and the get along just great. They both get really excited when they see eachother, and immediatly start playing together. I checked out corporate daycares, but they were so sterile and impersonal. I dont think I could ever take dixie there, it would break my heart.

Dixie's 4 front teeth are all coming in at once! the fangs came in first, so she was looking a little twilight-ish for a few weeks, but now the 2 front ones are breaking through.

Finally, is big enough to sit in the shopping cart, and she absolutely loves it! I usually hit up the produce section first and get her an orange or bananas to play with. She has such a ball looking around the store and flirting with everyone she makes eye contact with. And she hoots and hollers the whole time. So adorable.

We cant wait for Halloween! Dixie may is going to be a pretty little lady bug, And next week we are going to the pumpkin patch with Auntie Nunu to pick out a pumpkin.

Happy 10 months baby girl! you are so special.

XOXO



Mom & Dad

Feeling better!

Dixie and I took our turns getting sick last week with the stomach flu. It was not fun at all. I used to *not mind* getting the flu, as it meant a paid day off of work, staying in bed all day, watching movies, and loosing a few lbs in the process! Not bad!

Being sick with a baby is a completely different story. No sleep for anybody, lots of throw up to clean up, running out of pj's for your baby, and did I mention NO SLEEP, when that is all you really want to do? And Sean was home to help.. I dread the first time I'll have to deal with a sick baby and a sick mummy with no seany sean around to save the day.

So anyways, we're better now, and we got to spend the day together, just Dixie and me and it was great fun! I love my days with my baby girl. Her cheeks are just so kissable. Next up, we're getting flu shots, thats for sure.

9 months~



Dixie feeding herself....



Dixie's curious look

9 months~

I cant believe my little bebe is 9 months old today!! This has been a breakthrough month for Dixie in terms of sleeping. Shes never been a good regular sleeper, and finally this month she has been sleeping through the night consistently and taking 2 very regular hour or more long naps every day. Its fabulous!!! It must be all of the army-crawling she does all day long. It just tires her out. By bed time I just plop her in the crib, she rolls over, lets out a couple weak cries of protest, and then she is out in less than 5 minutes. A true miracle in the Werner household.

Truth be told she could have possibly slept through the night a few months ago... i think i was the weak link here. I was doing hair on Monday and my friend told me to just "Close her door". To this point We've always kept it open at night so we know that shes ok..... but we listened to my seasonsed friend (a mother to 3 darlings). We closed her door that night and we've been sleeping soundly ever since. No more fighting with my dear seany sean about whos turn it is to get up at night. Huge Thanks Katie... you've consistently given me the best mom advice ever.

Dixie is also fully and completely on the bottle and off nursing. This again was Katie's advice. For some reason i thought i HAD to nurse until Dixie was 1 yr old. Its what the doctors are saying, the billboards are saying, Le Leche, so i just thought it was so. When we both turned up at a friends baptism, and she asked me if i was still breastfeeding (dixie was 6 months then), i said "yes", thinking "duh- of course I am... what kind of mother do you take me for?".... but then...... i let my mind think about not breastfeeding anymore. I had afterall reached the 6 month mark, and she was getting so wiggly, so aware and just too alert to nurse anymore, it just wasnt an efficient feeding method with all of her wiggling around. So at 7 months I decided to start weaning her.... and by 8.25 months we were completely done. I still snuggle her as I bottle feed her at night. And you know what, I dont miss it at all.. not one single bit, especially not in public.

Dixie also holds the bottle on her own. We'll often leave her nighttime bottle by the couch and then when shes tired and ready for bed she crawls on over, picks up the bottle and feeds herself. I love this girl! So independent already :)

Dixie loves to crawl over to the floor length mirror, perch herself up as high as possible and gaze at her cute self. This keeps her entertained for several minutes at a time (=gold)!

What else, I've been back at work for a few months now on a part time basis. While I love my baby girl more than life...I love her even more when i get to to play with her all day long on my tweener days off :)

9 months stats to follow!

Curious baby dixie :) we love yoU!

8 months

Dixie's little personality is showing through more and more each day. She has a very determined little spirit. She is mobile now, she started crawling right at 8 months and is doing a modified crawl using the right side of her body to push and the left side to balance. She crawls over things, under things and often gets stuck behind the elliptical machine. She loves the many many cords we have, and always finds new treasures in the carpet which go directly to her mouth. I keep a pretty close eye on her and have rescued her from the many pennies, material scraps, leafs and other debris that she finds. We've been pretty diligent about vacuuming every day now (a chore that we used to only do once a week), because if it is there, Dixie will find it and eat it. I wonder what she has eaten that I haven't caught?

Here are a few things my girl is up to these days:

Dixie is scared of the vaccume cleaner. Its really the cutest thing ever- whenever i am vacuuming she gets very wide eyed and makes a little whimpering sound until i rescue her.

Dixie Loves Dogs! Especially the small ones that she is at eye level with. Whenever we are at the park and there is a dog near by shes gets really excited, flaps her arms and then giggles when we go to pet it. However she doesn't have the "gentle petting" concept down yet and prefers to just grab little tufts of their fur. Poor little doggies. She especially loves it when they lick her face- it always sends her into a fit of giggles. note that i try not to let them lick her face, but dogs are unpredictable and i don't always see the lick coming. I should probably be more careful on this front.

Dixie Loves the baby bjorn that her daddy carries her in. I used to take her for short walks it it, but now that shes 20lbs shes just too heavy. But her dear daddy loves her so, so he does it anyways. When dixie sees sean pick up the bjorn shes gets super excited and flaps her arms about. She knows that it means a walk outside. She prefers the bjorn over the stroller any day of the week, i think bc she can see and feel everything.

Dixie Loves to eat. Whenever i am eating in front of her she gets really anxious and basically demands that i share with her. These days I usually give her a taste of whatever it is I'm eating. Just a small one... shes pretty much eating everything anyways! Its really fun to watch her "chew" little pieces of bread or oatmeal. There is a whole lot of tongue action moving the food around her mouth, and she kind of resembles a cow chewing grass. It makes me giggle.

Dixie loves to drink from her sippy cup and her mama's water bottles. Again, she demands a sip whenever i have one.

Dixie is a social butterfly. When strangers walk by she follows them until they make eye contact with her, and then she gives them her biggest gummiest smile possible often followed up by a little babble. I think it makes her a little confused when they dont look at her. Maybe a little sad too...

Dixie knows that the crib bumper is really meant to obstruct her view of her mummy and daddy when they open the nursery door to check on her. Yesterday when i went in to sneak a peak, there she was, hand on the bumper holding it down with her head perched up, waiting for one of us to come in! She caught us! so cute!

Dixie is an early bird. She wakes up at the butt crack of dawn, bright eyed and eager to play. This is not good news at 5:30am. I think i should suck it up and just take her out for a jog... but im just too tired. Plus she is still waking up at least once at night to eat, so i have yet to have a full nights sleep since pre pregnancy days. I'm sure if i listened to the sleep training books i've read and followed their counsel she'd probably stop this in a week. But i just cant bear to hear her cry. Yup, i've been caught in her trap.

ok, thats all for now. We love our sweet dixie mae :)

Don't mess with Dixie's Ice Cream

Dixie and her cousin Trevor posing in front of the BYU Bookstore decked out in their new BYU hats. Dixie just loves to stick out her tongue when posing for pictures. Not quite sure who she inherited that from.

6 months:

Latest Pixs of Miss Dixie
(Courtesy of Liz Baker)

Three Poses Dixie has been practicing as of late:

1. I have teeth now and like to show them off in hopes of getting yummy solid foods (like the tasty treats daddy always seems to be munching on as he walks through Costco)

2. Don't worry mommy, if you let me breastfeed I promise not to bite you. See, I don't even have any teeth!

3. Dixie's austere pose: She likes to let us know that even though she is a baby, she needs to be taken seriously.