Mole

this cracks me up every time and is one of those cute memories i don't want to forget...

one of Sierra's books is a library of animals. there is no story, but each page has a different animal on it and there are a lot of them. she is quickly learning to recognize some of them and often will try to repeat the name that i say.

well, my very favorite is the mole. yes, a mole...kind of random.

when she gets to that page, before i ever say anything, she points to it and then does her sign language for "more" saying "mo, mo" at the same time. it's hilarious! she thinks that the "mole" is the same thing as the word to ask for "more". and she is very proud of herself for knowing the name of that animal :)

Fall

we don't usually get to see much of the Fall season around here, which is sad, but we have had and handfull of beautiful sunny, chilly afternoons to enjoy. these pictures are from Thanksgiving weekend, enjoying one of those gorgeous days outside ... it was so fun to have cousin Alex to keep busy with! (little Anya was sleeping away inside)

strike a pose. my sister is the one who gives Sierra all her cute trendy clothes (i.e. theis peacoat), Auntie Meli keeps her in style :)

see?!

this is the photo shoot i made them sit still for...i got some really cute shots :)

"fixing" the truck, just like Daddy/Tio was doing to Big Blue

they even got to play inside! what a fun afternoon!

oh, cravings

chips and salsa at 10am...and it may or may not have happened more than once recently

...hmm, now i 'm thinking some chocolate sounds lovely!

Corduroy

I saw this book at a garage sale recently and instantly remembered loving it when I was little. It was in perfect condition, except for the handwritten note on the first page from Aunt Laura. So far it has been the best $0.25 investment I've made.

Sierra loved it from the first minute! and you might notice why...her VERY best friend has been her little bear ("Goo", as Sierra calls him - and which she now calls every bear she sees...I have no idea where it came from), who happens to look exactly like Corduroy - minus the corduroy overalls!!



on this page Corduroy falls off the bed and bumps his head - his hands are on his head. Sierra loves this page and hits her own head and says "uhoh" when she sees this part of the story.

we have read it sooooooooooo many times! she wouldn't even let go of it when I had to change her diaper.

in the last month we have definitely entered into that obsessing stage where she likes something and wants to do/read it over and over and over...and even asks about it when she doesn't see it.

but it makes me happy that she loves Corduroy just like I did :)

Sierra Speak

sierra is communicating more and more every day!


it is a really fun stage because she is learning really quickly and it happens right in front of our eyes! she LOVES to copy sounds she hears and try to repeat words that we say.


mommy likes to play the "can you say ____?" game all day long and she's getting really good at it. she at least tries to repeat most of the words i ask her too and gets pretty close. sometimes she doesn't say anything, but you can tell that her mind is thinking, trying to figure it out


this month she has added to her Sierra Speak vocabulary:

bubble - bubbles (this was one of her very first words)
bubble - diaper (still not sure why it's the same word for both, but she's consistent)
nah - nose
eye - eye
ma - mouth
oh - open or out
nuh nuh - no no (i knew this was coming sooner or later)
tuh tuh - hot hot (usually referring to the oven)
baa - sheep
wah wah or awah - water and milk (she sounds like she's saying it in spanish "agua"!)
bye bye or byyyyye - bye bye (she always says it very emphatically, waving frantically at the same time as if she is shooing people out the door. also if she wants to go outside, she goes to the door and says "bye bye")
alala - abuela (my mom)
papa - poppa (my dad - if you ask her to say "abuela", she always says "papa" right afterwards. she knows they go together!)
gee gee - G.G. (kyle's mom)
nah nah - anya (her little cousin)
***we are practicing all of our family names and some are harder than others, but she'll get there :) ***


even when she doesn't say the word, she has mastered the point and grunt ("ahahah" or "uhuhuh") and we just guess until we figure out what she wants. it really does help make things a lot easier!


and she understands soooo much! but that also works to her disadvantage, because it's obvious when she understands that we're telling her NOT to do something, and she does it anyway...she can't fool us!

she also loves to sing along to songs or books with songs. she recognizes a lot of songs she hears and knows the hand movements that go with them.

sorry for the long post, but she is just too cute and fun right now...i don't want to forget anything!

Numero 2 !!!!!

we officially have Sierra in training...to be a Big Sister!!! yes, yes, it's true...we are pregnant and excitedly expecting baby frazier numero dos around June 5!!!!!!!!!

both sides of our families are in the season of the "baby boom" and it is going to be so fun to have siblings and cousins all so close in age!!

right now (and for awhile), Sierra has been in love with babies - real ones, pictures of real ones, drawings, dolls, etc, etc. - she definitely has a mothering sweetness and we pray that she loves her little brother/sister even more!!! she will be a great big sis!

let the countdown begin...and any predictions of whether this one is a boy or a girl!

"fall" in Texas

oh how i wish we had a real season of Fall in Texas!!! but i love and cherish the handful of beautiful fallish days that we get. on one of them last week, Sierra and i went to the park to enjoy. it was actually super windy, but still enjoyable :)

can you tell she was having a blast?!! look at that smile :)

she had her eye on this little boy (about a year older). she squealed and laughed every time he got close. she really does love the older boys! yikes!!

no fear on the slide!

she kept standing up and trying to walk back up it...that resulted in a red nose from a face plant

and of course, her favorite part of the whole park...playing in the rocks!

a collector of...all

Sierra has become quite the little collector. she loves to pick up a lot of little things and see how many she can hold in her hands. and then when she has too many and one (or all) fall, she picks them back up again!

it's really funny to watch. it can keep her entertained for quite a long time. she will just walk around with a tight grip on her "treasures", smiling, laughing and so proud of herself.

here she is with her halloween candy...little did she know it was even candy! later that day we went on a walk and she didn't let go of the choclate pieces the whole time...we got home and they were squishy from melting inside her little palms!

some of her favorite treasure to collect have been:

* her foam letters and numbers (intended for the bathtub, but even more fun at non-bath time)

i can't find the picture of her with the letters in her hands, but here she is putting them in her baby stroller to take them (yes, the foam letters) on a walk!

* rocks, stones

not sure if you can tell, but both fists are tightly closed around the treasured pebbles she collected. she just had to swing with them too!

* sticks, twigs

* leaves

oh yes, ...and mommy's credit cards, yikes!

(as a side note...i've been taking a lot of pictures on my phone because it's so convenient, but haven't uploaded any of them to my computer. so i'll have to get more pics up here soon!)

let's pray

"Sierra, let's pray" ...and this is what she does. it is precious! usually she has a big smile on her face when she puts her hands together.

while she prays with her eyes wide open, she is really good at staying quiet and still while we pray...unless the prayer is too long for her patience and then she starts to laugh and tries to open up my hands

we've tried all holding hands to pray and she does not like to be constrained so for now, this is how Sierra prays...

:)


Amen.

a big month

October has been a month full of big events...and i haven't blogged once!

2 important posts are coming:

Sierra's 1st birthday

our visit to Argentina

for now i leave you with a couple of cute pictures from the month...

12 month bear picture...she is officially bigger than the bear!

looks like a natural...i put the tutu on her and she pointed her toes! too cute. and yes, that is a UT shirt - i'm trying to make the burnt orange a little more girly :)

a chatterbox

our sweet Sierra is quite the chatterbox. she is a talker. when we get together with other babies her age is when it is even more obvious. i think she loves to hear herself!

her words over the last couple months:
"wuh wuh wuh" - woof woof, for dog (real, stuffed or in books)
"mu mu mu" - meow meow, for cat (real, stuffed or in books)
"oo ah ah ah" - oo oo ah ah, for monkey
"woo woo" - hoo hoo, for owl (stuffed or in books...hasn't seen a real one yet!)
"dada" - everytime she sees her daddy
"mama" - sometimes when she sees me, but not as consistently as dada
"buh buh" - baby, real or doll
"oh uh uh" - for uh-oh, usually when she intentionally drops something. this one is her favorite and i think she drops things just to be able to say it...i'm still trying to figure out how to teach her the difference between a real uh-oh and dropping something on purpose!
"puh puh" - for up, when we go up the stairs, to be lifted up into the highchair, and also when she wants to get down
"nah nah" - for nose and night night
"hoh hoh" - for HO HO HO in her book that plays the song Up on the Rooftop, she sings along

those are the distinguishable ones. she does a LOT of talking in her own Sierra-speak and we still haven't figured it out yet! her most unique is the sound she makes with her tongue that sounds like "deedle eedle eeedle" over and over again - if you've heard it, you know what i'm describing! she also loves to sing and use different pitches with her sounds - mostly with "ba ba ba ba...". it's so sweet.

she also does a few signs for: more, milk, eat/brush teeth (she made that one up and it's the same for both). it amazes me everyday how much she understands when i ask her something or give her instructions to do something!!!

all of this, and she is also timid and shy around strangers. funny combination. i'm curious to see how this part of her personality plays out in the future. from the safety of her stroller/our arms/shopping cart she is miss social. but beware...if you get too close and invade that personal space, she becomes clingy and shy.

i'm so looking forward to her developing personality over the months to come, she is so fun :)

...and she's off!!

Sierra really started walking last week!! We got back from Atlanta and the next morning she woke up and decided that she liked to walk! For the last month we've been able to get her to take up to 7 or 8 steps but usually only if we distracted her with snacks or toys in her hands.

As of a week ago, she does it of her own will and loves it! She always gets this big smile as she's walking - it's super cute. She still walks with both hands straight up in the air and doesn't bend her knees much, but she is good at it. She will walk laps around the house just for fun!

Here's a video I took of her this morning: (sorry for the shaky and sideways filming!)

There and Back

i have SOOO many pictures (thousands, probably) of Sierra's 1st year. of course i haven't printed ANY of them, so now i'm left with the dilemma of what to do with them? scrapbook? photobook? video?

ok, that is not the point of this post. we just got back from a wedding in Atlanta for our good friends, Duder and Baber (code names, but also their preferred way of referring to eachother). it was our first flight with the little one...and we all survived! the flight there was great, the one back home - not so great. but it was definitely delta's fault for cancelling our flight after we had been sitting on the plane for an hour...with our sleeping baby. she slept so well...it was too bad the plane just didn't go anywhere!

she was an allstar at the wedding and for the whole weekend. and thanks to babysitting/babyentertaining from court, the simons and brian/seth we didn't have to miss out on any of the pre/post wedding activities! kyle and i didn't get much sleep, but we had a blast and it was so so so fun to see so many good friends together!!!


the bride and groom...yes, they really did look JUST like that!!

dancing with her Daddy (line dancing, no less!)

family pic just before the wedding...sadly the dress came off not long after the reception started because it was SO hot outside, but she sported her cuteness either way :)

notice the common factor? yes, the snacks...whatever keeps her happy!

***random cute story: yesterday i was feeding Sierra some peas that were hot, so i was blowing on them before i put them on her tray. as she picked each one up, she blew on it too! it was super cute! she is always watching our mouths when we talk and make sounds and imitating as much as she can. we definitely have a little chatterbox!!!!***

Go Horns!

we are excited for a new season of TEXAS football!! as you can tell from the picture below, the youngest member of our family is also excited :)

showing off her 2 (yes, still only 2!) teeth...and her buddies

i went to run an errand while Sierra was napping and came home to find this! the guys had come over and were watching football and Sierra woke up from her nap, so they pulled up a chair for her and she joined them! hilarious! she was very content :)

and we got to go to the game!!!! we realized we hadn't been to a game since college (many, many years ago!) so it brought back a lot of memories. other than the fact that it was HOT HOT HOT out there, it was really fun. stu and john were there too and we give a big thanks to the smiths for passing on their tickets! it was a treat!

Hook 'em! ...let's go Gilbert, you can do it!

Cousins

*this post was drafted 2 weeks ago*

what fun to get to hang out with cousins - we had a great time this past weekend spending time with family! it is so fun to watch these little cousins get to know each other and we hope for many more moments like these...and more cousins too :)

Sierra can finally play more now, but still can't quite keep up with Alex! he has been so sweet with her since the first time he met her as a newborn - but i'm sure he will like her even more when she can run around with him! and little Anya isn't too far behind either!

check out these 2 funny videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZPo5P4nXM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SHphylfEcM

Anya (6 mos.), Alex (2.5 yrs.), Sierra (10.5 mos)

so sweet with his arms around his girls :)

Sierra is working on cutting a top tooth, as you can tell by her constant finger in mouth! ...and Alex appears to be nibbling on her shoulder...or is that a kiss??!

and just for fun, here is a picture from last Christmas (2009) - hard to believe how quickly they change!

Bella, Sierra (almost 3 months) and Alex (almost 2 yrs)

***and we are SOOOOOO excited to welcome the first cousin on my side of the family in January...a GIRL cousin, that is!!!!!!!!!!***

faces

on this Friday I give you some of Sierra's recent cute faces...she is full of expression and oh so spunky :)

a walker in training

Sierra has LOVED to walk around, holding onto our fingers, for a couple of months now. It was her preferred method of mobility until she mastered the crawl and can get around on her own. But now with the discovery of a push toy that our kind friend lent us, she is up on two feet again...and without the help of Mommy and Daddy! This girl is growing up fast and is on the move..."walking"!

she is holding the cover for The Jesus I Never Knew as she walks around - yes,

so spiritual already :)

here's a video to see her in action, but please mute your volume to avoid hearing my extremely loud and annoying baby talk voice...please...trust me, it's in your best interest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUjph11DRew

a little trip we took a couple weeks ago, right before we moved...

riding that armadillo

getting a closer look at those BIG eyes

it was hotter than hot out there!

playing with the water - splash, splash

practicing her cruising...Daddy is dangling a "carrot" (aka Eeyore and Princess wipee box) to motivate her to keep walking. it worked!

an action shot

look at those yummy little legs :)