14 Months

Sierra's first haircut.  I just took a tiny bit off of her bangs to keep them

from getting in her eyes. 

 She LOVES to play with stickers!

 Sierra with her blanky (Bo as she calls it).  They are BFF's. 

 Pretending to eat the grass....

Ahhhh my sweet sweet girl 

Enjoying a sunny fall day with daddy 

With a pair of tiny pink crocks you can do anything! 

Play dough! 

Sometimes it is necessary to wear a hat with your jammies.  

Hanging out at Garland Nursery (one of mommy's favorite places) 

We celebrate a warm fall day by doing the chicken dance:) 

Learning to be a goof. 

It's been quite a month!  Sierra's imagination is really starting to grow.  She loves to play with her dolls and stuffed animals.  She feeds them, gives them drinks, rocks them, has them kiss each other, puts them on the potty, and sometimes when they are bad she tells them No!  That's another new thing this month.  She has started saying no with gusto.  She shook her head no before, but now we get the word with the head shake.  And we get it pretty frequently. 

Sierra gave up her morning nap this month.  In some ways it has given us some freedom.  We only have one nap to plan our day around now.  We may be able to make it out of Corvallis one of these days:)  It was a difficult transition and caused some serious crankiness.  There are still days  when I'm afraid she won't make it past lunch without falling asleep, so we have to keep busy.  We had some great weather at the beginning to mid October and that helped a lot!  We sure love to be outside and the rainy weather is not going to make either of us very happy.  I did order her a pair of rain boots (regularly $39.99 that I paid $4.95 for including shipping I might ad!) so we'll have to do some puddle jumping in the near future. 

Sierra's vocabulary has really taken off.  She can say so many things.  She can also recognize and say the color blue.  Stars and hearts are both shapes that she can recognize as well.  It's amazing how fast children learn things and how eager they are to learn.  I wish that it was the same for adults. 

Jesse stepped in this month to help with bedtime.  After two colds in two months bedtime started going roughly.  She had been doing wonderful until she got sick and got some molars in as well.  When she was sick I ended up rocking her to bed quite a bit because she was too congested to fall asleep laying down.  She got used to it very quickly.  After her colds went away and we got back to regular bedtime business she wanted no part in it.  As soon as I would leave the room she would cry.  For 45 minutes sometimes.  It was AWFUL.  We went through this at around 7 or 8 months when we taught her to go to sleep on her own.  But now to be going through it again when she had been a pro at bedtime made me want to cry for 45 minutes every night too.  So Jesse stepped in and started putting her to bed.  It was amazing.  She cried when I left the room the first night, but he rocked her and put her to bed awake and she was........quiet and went to sleep just fine.  Since then he has taken over night time duty and she does very well.  It is a welcome break for me too.  I am so blessed to have such a good partner in this parenting gig! 

I can't believe that next month is November already.  Where did this year go?  I have to admit that I detest the fall Oregon weather but I do LOVE Christmas.  Christmas music helps get me through the wet weather ickies.  Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.......

13 Months

We found out the day after Sierra's first birthday that my mom has breast cancer. 

She had a double mastectomy on August 23.  She is doing very well and we just found out she

will not need chemo.  We picked some flowers for mama from the garden and had to take a sniff before we delivered them to the hospital.

Waiting at the hospital

More waiting.....

Getting a snuggle the day that mom came home.  One of the hardest things for mom

has been not being able to hold her grandbaby!

We sure are enjoying berry season!  Sierra has fresh berries of some kind

with every single meal.  We'll be so sad when the season is over!

Hugs for mama

We finally got the house painted.  Well actually I didn't have the

chance to help at all.  So Jesse got the house painted.

Shucking corn with Grandpa

Sierra won't eat cooked corn on the cob but the girl LOVES it raw!



Summer is almost over.  I'm so sad because it is by far my favorite season.  It's amazing how fast the last three months have gone by!  I'm reminded every day that my little infant is gone and my big girl is now a toddler. 

Sierra started calling me "Ma" this month.  Not mom or mommy or even mama.  Just "Ma."  The three of us were in Rite Aid and Jess had taken her down a different aisle to look at toys while I was on my coupon/single check rebate/sale rampage (I get paid to shop at Rite Aid:).  Anyway, I heard what I thought was Sierra hollering "Ma!  Ma!"  And I come around the corner and Jess is holding her and she is calling out for me quite loudly.  So now I'm a Ma. 

Some other things she learned this month: she wiggles her finger for come here, she feeds herself with a spoon (it's still quite a messy experience but she is doing VERY well).  She can get up on the couch by herself, stomp her feet, and she learned to oink.  She is obsessed with deer at the moment and loves a book about Bambi that we have.  I put on the Disney Bambi movie recently and now if she sees a TV she asks to watch the deer.  We don't have satellite or cable so we don't watch much TV.  She does have some videos that she really enjoys.  But asking for TV at 13 months old?  Maybe I should've waited a while longer to bring the magic of Disney into her life:)   

She has so many animals that she can identify.  She knows zebra, monkey, snake (lizards are also snakes to her), frog, owl (she can hoot well too), elephant, deer, rabbits, bear, as well as all of the regular barn yard animals.  She can make the noises of pretty much all of them too.  It reminds me of my former pre-mom self.  I've been an animal lover most of my life.  For some reason, after I had Sierra, something changed in me and my animals are not my children anymore.  I have a real child, so most of the time, our cats/dog/birds kind of bug me now.  In fact our parakeet died recently.  The pre-mom Megan would have cried, called Jesse, and waited for him to come home and bury the bird.  Yes I was that extreme.  Instead I saw the dead bird, without much feeling I went and got a plastic sack, picked it up, and threw it away.  What has happened to me?  The same day my parakeet died I also ran over a squirrel.  I wasn't sad a bit.  My first thought was one less squirrel to dig up my flower bulbs.  I guess that's what becoming a mom does to you.  All your feelings get directed towards your child, and a dead bird just doesn't bother you anymore.  That's okay right?   I tell myself that it is.

Anyway, back to Sierra:)  She has also started to sing this month.  Her new favorite song is "This Little Light of Mine.  She waves her finger around, blows on her finger ("Don't let Satan blow it out"), and yells "No" at the top of her lungs ("Hide it under a bushel, No!").  I sing to her every night before bed and she now sings along, especially to "Oh How I Love Jesus".  Jesus is a new word for her this month.  We have a book about baby Jesus, and she points to the baby and says Jesus and then rocks her hands back and forth and wants me to sing Rock-a-bye Baby.  She sure loves music.  I'm sure it stems from the fact that I started singing to her when she was in the womb.  I know her Grandpa Lee will love having someone to sing duets with. 

There's always more to say and plenty more pictures to post, but her nap time is almost over so that's all for now!

12 Months

Sierra's first fair experience.  The following were her two

favorite things -

Funnel Cakes

And the moo cows

Eye....

Nose.....

Ear.....

Our garden finally took off!

Sierra enjoying a sunflower

Why do I put this child in white?

Helping mama water

Enjoying the last bit of sunshine for the day

My happy girl

Walking, check.  Climbing, here we come!

Sierra had a cold this month.  She can blow her nose with gusto:)

Being a silly girl

This is how daddy woke up on his birthday:(  Sierra was sick and woke at 3am. 

She doesn't ever sleep with us but I thought I'd give it a try.  No luck

just a kick in the face.  Happy birthday daddy!

After a rough night it is VERY hard to wake up from your nap.

Blowing out daddy's birthday candle

Helping mama get ready

She LOVES slides

Swings are just OK

She used to look tiny in her crib, now she seems like such a big girl.

I can't believe my little munchkin is another month older.  Time is flying!  A few things she learned to do this month: give a high 5, blow her nose, nod her head yes as well as say yes (she learned to shake her head no  months ago), blow kisses, point to her ear (she has had ear and hair confused for a while but finally got it figured out this month), she learned to neigh and woof as well.  Her vocabulary has taken off.  She tries to say everything.  A few examples: eye, juice, yes, chair, dog, pillow, up, and so many more. 

Some other big news is that Sierra was weaned this month.  I had surgery on a vein in my leg a week after her birthday.  We had cut nursing down slowly and so about 2 days after her birthday we quit cold turkey.  She was AMAZING.  It was obviously the right time for both of us.  She really never protested.  It made me a little bit sad in a way, but also extremely happy that it didn't cause her any distress.  And I'm quite proud that she was nursed for a year and two days.  My goal was a year and we made it!

Sierra got her first pair of molars this month.  She now has 6 teeth on top and still only two on the bottom.  Those teeth caused some serious crankiness (for mother and child) but she actually has handled all of her teeth quite well.  She was hit with a double whammy though because she also caught her first real cold.  It was a clinger and lasted weeks.  Luckily there was no fever involved.  We discovered the value of a humidifier and used that nose suction tool that we were sent home with from the hospital (when she was born) a little more than we would have liked to.  Sierra actually handled everything like a trooper because that's exactly what she is. 

Every month I try to imagine what's in store for us in the month to come and my imagination never comes close.  She's just so bright and she learns so quickly.  It sure is a blessing to watch her grow.

Sierra's First Birthday!

Is all this really for me?

She was quite excited about her new shopping cart

Not so excited about the birthday hat

Loved Great Grandma's blueberry birthday cake but it took her a

while to really dig in

Party #2

Sierra takes a little bite of Auntie's fruit and her finger:)

Opening Aunt Helen and Uncle Kevin's gifts

So many Grandma's!  A very lucky little girl.

A special cake from Grandma Shelly

This is what happens when you eat too much cake.....

"I think there's room for a little more"

You are allowed to skinny dip on your first birthday.  It's a known fact.

Getting some love from Grandpa Buck

A little sprinkler fun with daddy

Our big girl is a year old.  It's incredible the way our lives have changed in one years time.  It is impossible to predict the way that a baby can turn your world upside down.  Every extreme feeling of love, fear, protectiveness, and pride that you have felt in the past seem like nothing once you hold your own baby in your arms.  Every emotion and feeling magnifies a hundred times.  It's scary and amazing all at the same time.  Having that much love in your heart is almost heartbreaking because you realize how much you have to lose in life but also how much you have gained.  What a gift it is to be a parent. 

I find myself talking about how tired I am and how hard it is.  And it is!  It's exhausting and trying because you want to be the perfect parent and you never will be.  None of us ever will be.  Good thing that we have the Perfect Heavenly Father to fill us with his Peace and Grace.  There are some days I need those things more than others:)  But above all of the trials, there is such joy.  Unspeakable joy.  And I am so proud and in awe of my beautiful gift from God.  Happy birthday Sierra May.  You make my heart sing.