Auntie Day!

Dixie was lucky enough to spend Wednesday with her Auntie Adrienne and cousins Sam & Ada! Her Auntie took very good care of her and took lots of pictures to share with her mommy (me). I’m so lucky that Dixie is such a well adjusted little girl. She takes to other people pretty easily, which makes going to work everyday that much easier for me. Thanks for the great day Sam, Ada & Auntie Adrienne!

Little Miss Independent

We took dixie to a petting zoo/kids park this weekend, and she showed off her independent side in a big way. She decided that she ONLY wanted to walk around the park, the stroller was just not acceptable. Plus, she REFUSED to hold our hands while walking. Normally she happliy holds onto our hands for security, but this time she decided that she can walk just fine on her own, thank you very much! She also did not look back to see where we were the entire time. She just happliy walked infront of us, deciding on her own direction, and she could have cared less if we were behind her or not. This is a little bit scary to her mommy & daddy, as we know we're in for a really good (or bad) case of terrible 2's ahead! But, its also so cute to see her assert her independance.

XOXO
Eve

14 Months

My baby girl is 14 months old! Here are the highlights:

Her motor skills have developed by leaps & bounds over the last 2 months. She is walking everywhere, although she hasn’t quite figured out a breaking mechanism yet. She goes full speed until she either runs into something, or until she trips and falls. She Loves to climb pretty much anything that appears "climable". I cant keep her away from the stairs in our apartment complex- they are her absolute favorite. This climbing has caused one pretty nasty face plant on the concrete. Luckliy nothing was seriously damaged (I got her checked out at the dr)... all cosmetic scrapes and bruises, but boy oh boy were there alot of tears shed.

She knows where several body parts are and will point to them on demand, including her belly button, her head, her ears, her fingers, her toes, and her nose. Although, she usually points somewhere on her face other than her nose, but I know she knows what it is, because she can point to “mommy’s nose” without a problem. When she shows you her fingers and toes she wiggles them!

Dixie loves to play hide and seek with her daddy. She usually starts the game out by going around a corner, peaking out, and giving her daddy a mischievous grin. This means “game on”. She also really likes Peak a boo.

We have a big box from Costco sitting in our apartment, and we just cannot toss it, bc it is honestly one of Dixie’s favorite toys. She sits in it and gets “rides” from mommy and daddy. Well, mostly from Daddy, as hes a little more energetic that I am these days. She has such an adventous little spirit… I know shes going to love amusement parks once shes old enough.

Dixie really only likes food that she can feed herself. She rejects anything that is spoon fed to her. So I pretty much have to cut up all her food in tiny pieces so she can easily feed herself and swallow without choking. Her favorites are blueberries, strawberries, quaker oat squares (downed in milk until they are soft and squishy), chicken nuggets and well anything else sweet. But, she does accept spoonfuls of Nutella from her daddy as a special treat. I use the term “special” loosely, as it generally happens on a Daily basis.

Dixie has a keen ear. When Sean and Dixie visit me for lunch at work, Sean always buys a rice crispie treat wrapped in crinkly plastic. Sean will unwrap it very carefully under the table, in an effort to hide it from Dixie, but she’s way to smart. The minute she hears a crinkle she spits out whatever food she is currently chewing, ducks her head under the table and sticks out her hand demanding her fair share of sweets. ADORABLE I tell you!

Dixie really loves her stuffed animals. She plays with them for 15-20 minutes in her crib every night before she actually falls asleep. She babbles and babbles with them and it is so adorable to listen to. In the morning she plays with them some more, and when she’s ready for us to come and get her, she throws them out of her crib onto the ground, and then starts crying for us to come rescue her. I’ll bet she’s thinking, I will save you my fluffy friends!!

Finally, Dixie is big into mimicking us. She puts our cell phones up to her ear, she “types” on the keyboard, she is constantly changing the channel on the remote control, she helps us fold laundry (and is always putting everything over her head, in an attempt to put it on, and usually ends up with a pair of undies around her neck), and she loves to help in the kitchen. When I am cooking (a rare occurrence, I assure you!), she begs and pleads for me to pick her up so she can see everything I am doing. It makes cooking rather difficult, stirring and chopping with one hand and 21lb Dixie in the other arm.


We love our baby girl, and we absolutely love watching her grow, learn and develop. She is oh so special to both of us.

XOXO
Eve

Temperamental

My baby girl was sick this morning. Instead of waking up with her usual excited energy, she was all tears and sadness. It’s so sad when your baby is sick or hurt. Dixie had her first major fall on the weekend-she smacked her head on the concrete while attempting to climb something (shes a major climber these days). It felt worse that if I myself was hurt. Poor baby girl. Anyhoo, this morning I just held her on the couch for 2 hours, hand fed her breakfast, watched some Disney cartoons, read a plethora of stories, and played with her toys, all while in cuddle position. It was actually quite nice, as she is usually not a cuddlier, except at bedtime. While I was an hour late for work, I enjoyed every second of my intimate morning soothing her troubled little soul.

DRUNKEN SAILOR SWAGGERS TO THE RAISINS

E*N*E*R*G*Y

Lately I've been wondering where all of my energy has gone? When I was preggers with miss dixie, after the first tri-mester of exhaustion, I was back in the game 99% and I had the energy to work out 4-5 days a week. So... I figured it would be much the same this time around. It Isnt. I barely have energy to squeeze in a workout 2 measly days a week. I know, this is sad and pathetic, and im going to no doubt hate myself for it later.

So, I was murmering this to sean last night, and he set me straight. He pointed out that now I wake up at 5:30am to hang with Dixie, instead of sleeping until 7:30am (+2hrs), plus I play with dixie for a couple of hours afterwork, when before I would hop right on the ellipital after work (+2hrs). So I am essentially 4 hours busier each day than I was in my first pregnancy, which would explain why when 8pm rolls around, i would rather vegetate on the couch for an hour before bed rather than put on my running shoes and work out.

These are not excuses however (I have just been pondering this issue as of late)..... I know that I need to treat my body better. It is afterall my lifelong machine, and I need to ensure it operates smoothly.

Tonight's goal is to do 45 min on the ellipical after I put dixie to sleep. There, now that I've written it, I am accountable and it must be done! wish me luck :)

XOXO
Eve

THE BELLY BUTTON

T*H*I*R*T*Y

Last week i had a milestone birthday- I'm an oldy moldy dirty 30! My BFF Iris tells me that 30 is the new 20, and maybe for her it is... but I dont feel anywhere close to 20.

But I'm not freaked out by this new decade... im actually quite excited. A whole new era has begun... gone are the days of frequent nights out, travels around the world, daily gym workouts and long weekend runs. Well, maybe the running part will come back, but for now, Im building a baby instead :)

Now its time for formulate the next 5 year plan.
Lets see:

1-MOVE OUt of this APARTMENt already! sometimes this seems like a hoop dream , but I think with baby Lucy on the way we are going to quickly outgrow our apartment and need to jump ship.

2- DEVELOP a Hobby. Or shall I say further develop a hobby. My hobby since Dixie was born is sewing, and I'm having so much fun learning new projects. I need to take some more classes to learn the more difficult techniques. In fact... my love of sewing has somewhat taken over my love to do hair. Sean thinks this is because I am really too busy to squeeze hair clients into my schedule but that once I'm a S-A-H-M, I'll get back into my love of hair again.

3- FINISH Having Babies. I am well on my way to this goal. Some people ask me how many we're going to have.... but i like to think one baby at a time. For now it'll be Dixie and Lucy and that fits me just fine. 2 Kids= totally manageable. PLus, its not like i started procreating when I was a fresh 20 YR old (thank heavens), so i really don't have that much time anyways.

4- and after having BABIEs... I am going to get my pre baby body back. No doubt about this one! In between babies I will run a half marathon or 2.. but besides that, there is really no point in losing that last 5 lbs until I'm done. And boy oh boy, I cant wait to look good in a pair of jeans again!

Well, thats all I can think of for now. I'm sure more lofty goals will come up as I begin this decade.

I lovingly say Goodbye 20's. You were fun. I graduated BYU, Got my first real job which turned into a Career, that Im actually really good at, married the love of my life, Travelled all over the place, became a licensed CPA & Cosmotologist, Ran several half marathons, 2 triathalons, ate lots of fancy meals paid for by my employers, and had my beautiful baby girl Dixie Mae. Yes, 20 was a great decade. 30 is going to be completely different... but i love change, and I'm excited.

Cheers to 30!

XOXO
Eve


ps- My actual birthday was Jan 14, and it was the best day ever. I had the day off of work (my employer now gives everyone their birthday off as a PAID holiday!), Sean had the day off, we went for a lazy brunch, a long walk with Dixie, I sweated my butt off at my favorite spin class, and then me and a group of 8 friends feasted on Red Meat at the Sundance Steakhouse. It was soooo yummy. This pregnant girl Loves her some red meat, the juicier the better! Oh.. and i got some great gifts too, my favorite is the tracy anderson perfect design series dvd set... which i probably will come in really hand for goal #4 above. A perfect day. love those!

Dixie's Giggles

BUSTED!

Every time we turn around lil' Dixie is getting herself into the most precarious positions. Her recent climbing escapades are occurring with greater frequency as this little girl unleashes her adventurous side. The following pictures are some of the safer events. Mommy and Daddy did not allow time for the camera to be retrieved during her more dangerous stunts. By the way, the ultrasound tech told us Dixie should be expecting a sister come June (see previous post for further details)!

Preggers again!

Yup, thats right, im preggers again! Im 18.5 weeks right now and just had my ultrasound today to find out the sex.

We were fairly certain going into the test that we were having a boy, as we took the ridiciously expensive $40 Intelligender Pee test from Walgreens, and it unequillivically said BOY! OMG, what was I to do with a little boy????

So anyhoo... the test was totatly wrong. You were right Sandra.. there is absolutely no Science behind it- so dont waste your money. We're actually having another baby girl and Dixie's going to be a big sister! I am over the moon excited, as I really really wanted a little sister for Dixie to play with. Especially after seeing how well my neices Georgia and Ivy were playing together over Christmas. I want the same for my Dixie Mae!

FAQ

We've already picked out a name... I guess we are leave nothing to surprise.. her name will be Lucy Angel Werner. Lucy & Dixie... cute right!?! Lucy because we like it, and Angel as a middle name after SEan's best friend Angel. Angel is actually a guy, but Sean thought the name was too girly for a boy.. hee hee.. sorry angel!

Dixie and Lucy will be 18 months apart. Yes, i know this is close, and yes I know it will be very hard the first year. After that though, I know that I'll be happy i did it!

My due date is June 4. Im planning on working until May 15 unless something changes.

I'm not sure if im going to try to go natural or via epidural this time. I think I'll just play it by ear again and see how it goes. Although im really not looking forward to feeling my body tearing in half from the bottom up again. That was not fun at all!

We have a mini van!

If im not careful we're going to end up with 7 kidlets, as Sean and I are apparently very compatible in regards to Eggs and spermies! We got pregnant immediatly after I finished breastfeeding Dixie, in Sept.

Im feeling great, as im in my 2nd trimester now. My energy is back and the nausea from the 1st trimester is gone. Plus Im so busy with Full time work and Dixie that I just dont have time to focus on being preggers. However, I was extremely tired, and I got a lot sicker in the first trimester than I did with Dixie. Thank goodness that is over.

Im not as good as exercising as I was with Baby Dixie. I try... but lets be honest.. im only doing it like 3 days a week.

Finally, Lucy will also have a cousin born in July, just 6 weeks later!

Well thats all. We are so happy, and feel extremely blessed.

XOXO

Eve

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.