It’s been a busy few weeks. Parker is great. She is saying more and more words all the time. She calls everything and everyone “dada” or “daddy.” She says “booo” for a cow and can roar like a lion. She says “bubble” and “WOW!” and “ball”– although with “ball” she somehow adds a “w” to the end of the word.
For Easter her school did an Easter bonnet parade. I went to watch it and, of course, the instant Parker saw me she started crying and needed me to walk with her. It was really cute and pretty ridiculous seeing all the kids dressed up. The infants were especially funny packed into their cribs.
Parker got extra upset when she met the Easter bunny. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was sick when we got the pictures taken. It has been so hot here that I thought she was just warm from the outside temperature. Apparently she had a fever, which explained why she was extra clingy that day. So we have another picture of Parker screaming on a character’s lap.
She enjoyed her Easter basket on Sunday morning. When she was taking her first nap the Easter bunny came back and hid a bunch of eggs around the house for her, too. She did great with the egg hunt. We got a cute video of her first realizing the eggs had pieces of candy in them. She didn’t know if she was supposed to be eating them or not so she tried to be slow and sneaky about it.
We’ve been trying to take advantage of the nice weather. It’s been abnormally warm (hot!) and Parker wants to be outside at all times. She picks up our shoes and then tries to put them on our feet then stands there pointing to the door or pulling us to it and keeps signing “please” over and over again. It’s so hot and sticky out that we don’t necessarily want to be outside all day but it is sometimes all that makes Parker happy.
Grammy and Grandpa Schwartz come tomorrow to stay for about a week and Jared will be in Michigan for the weekend to go to the Tigers’ opening day. It will be so nice to have them here!
A lot of the pictures are coming out blurry so it gets frustrating, but you can pretty much see the picture. Also, just to explain the last picture here, Parker always pulls her drumset around if she needs something to sit on. Apparently she didn’t realize at this point that she had taken the top of it off and she sat into it and got stuck. The picture is blurry, but you can get the idea. It was cute. Especially because she didn’t get upset or anything, she just sat there silently looking sad:(
I finally got a rest from school last week when I had spring break. I decided to take Parker on a roadtrip to Ohio to visit some college friends the first weekend of my break. As usual, Parker was a great traveller. We got to meet my friend’s little daughter, Lucy. Parker was completely obsessed with her and never wanted Lucy out of her sight! It was very cute, but Parker hasn’t mastered the concept of “gentle” yet so a lot of our time was spent peeling Parker from the baby. The rest of that week and the week before were pretty uneventful.
We went downtown to Charlotte this past Saturday to watch their St. Patrick’s Day parade. It lasted over an hour and a half and Parker was great through almost the entire thing! We met the Rigglemans there and watched it with them.
The next day we took Parker to a nearby park to walk around and to get out of the house. Everyone seemed to have their dogs there so Parker enjoyed pointing to all of them. When people let her get close and actually pet the dogs she always got shy and just stared at them.
Here are pictures and videos from the past couple weeks. Mostly just the same old stuff. Things are good here:)
I can’t believe Parker is so old. She’ll be 14 months tomorrow and it doesn’t seem real.
The past couple weeks have flown by as usual. This past week was a very hectic one for me so Grandma Jessop was nice enough to fly down and stay with us for the week to help. It was a huuuuuuuuge help and I know Parker liked having her here:)
Parker has started saying “uh oh” pretty well and even says “Ba” when she plays with her soccer ball. If we have something that needs to be thrown away she will take it to the garbage can for us and throw it out. She is crazy about books suddenly and loves to be read to and also loves to throw every single book she owns on the floor in a big pile.
On Saturday night we went to our friends’ house and Parker got to see all her old boyfriends again that we never see anymore. It’s funny that she is always the only girl. She reunited with Jackson and they were so cute sitting together at a little table on a date.
She has had a cough for a month now and her nose is really runny. We decided to take her to the doctor yesterday and they are worried she might be allergic to our pets. I don’t know what we will do if she is allergic to them!! Today she was a disaster all day and is drooling a lot so I’m thinking maybe she’s getting her last teeth. I hope that’s it. I hope she feels better tomorrow because it was horrible seeing her so miserable today. Plus, Jared has a busy week at work and really can’t stay home with her – and Pat isn’t here to help anymore!
Here are some cute videos and pictures from the past couple weeks.
Things here are going well. Parker is doing great in school. We keep getting more and more beautiful artwork sent home from her school. We got a really cute painted frame with a picture of her in it for Valentine’s Day. She had a Valentine’s party and had her first Valentine exchange.
Parker is still doing more and more things every day. She is an expert at signing when she wants food, she is starting to say “uh oh” whenever something falls, if she can’t find something she always looks at us and shrugs her shoulders with her elbows bent and palms up, she is now able to stack her colored rings on the post, she stacks blocks, she has gotten the hang of having a tea party and actually pretends to pour tea and drink it from her cup (although she wasn’t quite doing it yet at the point when I took the video), and she follows directions really well. She’s also been playing the piano a lot, lately, too. She really seems to be into music and instruments, she loves kicking a soccer ball, and her teachers say she’s really into art and looks like she’s going to be an artist. It’s fun watching her come home with new skills all the time.
Our neighbor has kids who have all grown out of a lot of their toys and so he gave us their old slide. We finally cleaned it off and brought it inside today (we’ll probably keep it outside once it gets warmer) and Parker LOVED it. She was so funny squealing while she played. I got a couple videos of her first reactions to it.
Here are some pictures from the last 2 weeks. We had some friends over a couple weeks ago and Parker had fun playing with Brody and Jackson again since she doesn’t get to see them much anymore. That’s what the first pictures are from. The rest are just different cute points during the weeks.
I thought I’d better update this before I get too far behind. The past couple weeks have been rough. Jared and Parker were both sick last weekend. Parker had to stay home from school at the end of the week, so Jared had to stay with her. Then he got sick and they were both pretty miserable all weekend. I’ve had a lot of reading and studying to do so it’s been stressful around here. But now everyone is healthy and happy again:) We got a big snow the other night and in Charlotte that means the whole city shuts down. Schools are already closed for tomorrow even though it hasn’t snowed since yesterday and most of it melted today. The roads are awful since they aren’t prepared to clear them down here. It’s fun watching the cars try to get up the hill in front of our house…
The pictures on here are starting from 2 weeks ago. The scratches she has on her nose are from her tripping while running down our driveway and falling face-first into the road. (As always, she was fine, and it looked worse than it was). There is a good one in the beginning of her crying where you can really see her lonely molar she has–although I did feel 2 more poking through her gums tonight so it won’t be lonely for long.
There are some pictures of her in her adorable dress from Uncle Matt. Unfortunately she doesn’t have cute shoes to wear with it yet so she has only worn it around the house. It’s too cold for dresses right now anyway.
There are a few of her in a ridiculous outfit she had to wear when we ran out of clothes that weren’t covered in some sort of bodily fluid when she was really sick. I thought she looked cute:) Until she puked all over that shirt, too…
She really likes sitting on my lap and typing on her keyboard so I got a couple pictures of her doing that.
We finally got to bring some of her artwork from school home and I took pictures of a couple pieces. She’s so talented! ha
We put her out in the snow yesterday to play a little and took some pictures. There wasn’t much to do and we really don’t have the right clothes for her to wear in it so she didn’t really appreciate being taken out of the warm house full of all her toys to be thrown in the cold snow with nothing to do. But at least she got to experience it.
Then we were going stir crazy so we headed to the mall just to get out of the house. She had fun playing in the kids area. She even made a friend who liked to hug her and follow her everywhere she went. Parker got sick of her real quick but the girl just wouldn’t leave her alone.
Today we got Parker some new shoes and they look so HUGE compared to her little legs. She wasn’t wearing pants after spilling milk all over them at lunch and already looked ridiculous so Jared had the idea to take it a step further and add the shoes. She looked hilarious. Then she kept “writing” notes on a piece of paper all evening. When she kept losing the original sheet was using and getting upset, Jared wrote out a new one full of made up numbers for her to use. She kept carrying it around, stopping and writing something, carrying it to a different spot, then writing more. It was cute. It was like she thought she had written the letters and numbers. It kept her busy for a long time!
So things are great here. Parker is getting bigger and bigger every day and doing so many “kid” things and not “baby” things it’s crazy. She has a best friend at school and, according to her teachers, they hug eachother so much sometimes that they fall on the floor. She’s doing more sign language now, and easily follows any directions we give her. She has really found a love for books, playing the piano and her little drumset full of instruments, and even kicking a soccer ball around upstairs. Apparently she’s an artist, too, judging by the work we’ve seen!
Besides me starting classes, it was a pretty uneventful week. Parker is doing great at daycare and loves her little friends. School is going great for me. It is going to be a rough couple years but I really like it and like the people I’ve met.
On Friday afternoon I took Parker to Jackson’s for a playgroup. It was great to be able to see people again since we usually aren’t able to go to playgroups anymore. It was a really nice day out so we let the kids play outside for a little bit.
Parker has been learning lots of sign language. She’s been signing “all done” after she’s finished eating and now she’s added “more” to her skills. Sometimes she gets confused and starts doing them both at once and we just don’t know what she needs. She’s gotten really good at following directions and is able to put things away where we tell her to. Also, yesterday we were talking to the Jessops on Skype and Parker suddenly decided she was going to finally “blow kisses” when we tell her to. Then she wouldn’t stop doing it the rest of the night. Even when Jared was sitting with her upstairs settling her down to fall asleep he said she was just laying there blowing kisses to nobody. It’s very cute. It’s as if she’s really proud of herself and wants to keep doing it.
Well I think that’s about it for the week. We are enjoying our 3 day weekend!
Here are some cute pictures and videos from the week (nothing special this week, but I think the last video is pretty cute):
I am going to make this quick because I am trying to finish this while getting everything ready for my first day of class tomorrow and I have a LOT of reading to do.
Parker had a great birthday. The Jessops were here to celebrate with us and we had a big party with all of Parker’s friends. We got to celebrate another Christmas with the Jessops, too. Parker did great at her birthday party and loved every single one of her gifts. We have had 2 more birthday parties to go to since hers. All the babies are turning 1!
Last Monday Parker had her first day of daycare. She cried the first day but by the end of the week she was doing great. We get notes everyday of her daily activities and apparently her teachers have caught onto the ways to make her happy–like putting on music so she can dance. They said that she has dance-off with one of the other girls there. They first discovered it when they were sitting in a circle singing and when the music came on Parker got up and started clapping and bouncing. On Friday they sent her home with a “Happy Gram” which they give to the kids when they do something especially nice. It said Parker’s friend was crying that day and she went over and hugged her to make her feel better:)
On Thursday she had her 1 year check up at the doctor. Everything is great! She is 30.5 inches and 21.1 lbs.
New things she did this week were learning more sign language (has started signing “more” at school), shaking her head up and down for “yes” (which her teachers have fun with because she loves doing it so much that you can ask her any question in the world and the answer will always be “yes”), and she finally started drinking real whole milk.
There are a LOT of pictures and videos from the past 2 weeks and I also am posting the ones from the Jessops’ camera. They had pictures from all of December when the dogs were staying with them.
I don’t know how often I will be able to update this while I am taking classes, but I will keep it updated as often as I can!
Here are our videos plus 2 at the end from the Jessops (don’t forget to click on “Read the rest of this entry” after the first video to see the rest of them):
I can’t believe it was a year ago that we were just bringing Parker home from the hospital, getting ready for our first night home with her. It doesn’t seem possible that a year has passed. As we all know, I get a little camera-happy and take a LOT of pictures all the time. Well, I take a lot on my phone, too, especially while Jared is at work so I can send random Parker pictures to him during the day. So, in reflection of the past year that has flown by I decided to post all of our pictures from our phones for the past year. It’s crazy to watch her grow. Happy New Year to everyone! Hope it’s a happy and healthy one!
The first set of pictures are from my phone, the second are from Jared’s. In each set they are in the order in which they happened, but a few at the end are out of order.
By the way…I have sooo many pictures and videos from this past week that I just don’t have time to put them on here tonight. I have orientation for school all day tomorrow and need to get ready for that and am getting Parker’s things ready for her first day of daycare tomorrow *tear:-(* so I will just have to post all of them later in the week!! I actually had this blog ready to post on New Year’s Eve but I just couldn’t get my phone pictures to upload. With Parker’s birthday and party and family here I had to put it on hold and wait to try again tonight. It finally worked!!!!
Well I can’t believe our Arizona trip is over. It was a great week but it really flew by.
Parker did great on our flight to Houston, but then was sick of flying when we had to get on another plane to fly to Phoenix. She wasn’t too bad, though, and bothered us more than the other passengers.
We got out to my parents’ house late on Saturday night. Parker slept great through the night. On Sunday they had friends over and we got to see some we’d met and some new ones we hadn’t. There was a baby that came and Parker loooved to hug her:)
She had lots of fun in Sedona. She jumped right back into the swing of things and couldn’t get enough of Grammy. Jared kept sharing his candy canes with her and she LOVED that.
At one point she found a little bag of my mom’s and started carrying it around like a purse. She was cracking us up. Such a little girly-girl.
Jared and I were happy to be able to go to a breakfast restaurant that we’ve been looking forward to going back to since we were there in July. We got to go once on our own and then again with the whole family. Delicious!
On Tuesday we threw a little birthday party for Parker since none of my family will be in NC for her party next weekend. She got to blow out a candle and eat a little cake ball. She really enjoyed opening her presents. It was nice to be able to celebrate it a little bit with my family.
That night we went to “Red Rock Fantasy” where a bunch of yards are decorated for the holidays with all different themes. It was really cool to see and Parker looked extra cute bundled up in her stroller. While we were there it actually started snowing. It was more of a “real” snow than the one we had gotten here in NC. Ours was more icy than actual good packing snow. The next morning when we woke up the view was BEAUTIFUL. The snow on the mountains was such a nice sight to wake up to. We went to the Grand Canyon that day and saw even more snow. I’m not sure Parker cared at all that we were there but it was fun to take her for her first experience (and Jared’s).
On Thursday night we went to the Christmas Eve church service. Parker actually did great. At one point she crawled under our seats and up into the lap of a lady sitting behind us. She is just a little social butterfly. Jared ended up in the “crying room” with her at the back and she fell asleep.
On Christmas morning we were all so excited for Parker to open all of her presents. But, of course, she couldn’t care less about any of it. She wanted her oranges and then wanted to play with her toys from home. Eventually all of her gifts were opened and was able to enjoy her new stuff.
We came home yesterday and she did great again on the flights. She made little friends on each of our flights home (one to Memphis, then one to Charlotte). She kept everyone smiling on the plane with her funny faces and big grins. She waved to everyone she saw.
Today we went to the Melting Pot to celebrate a friend’s birthday. It was delicious!! Parker had fun running around with Jackson and Eddie.
Once home we opened a couple more gifts from my parents. There are some pictures and videos of Parker trying to open them.
It was a great week and now this week it’s time to work on Parker’s party and get ready for the Jessops to come! We’ll miss Grammy, Grandpa, and Uncle Matt and can’t wait to see them all again!
For some reason a lot of the thumbnails for the pictures won’t load correctly. I’ve tried a few times to fix it, but nothing is working and instead of taking so much time trying to fix that I’m just giving up and working on getting this page up. You should be able to click on the pictures to see the large view even though the thumbnails don’t work.
I thought I would put some pictures up today from this week since I won’t be able to do more until we get back from Arizona a week from tomorrow. I tried to take a picture of the picture of Parker with Santa…didn’t come out perfect, but without a scanner it’s as good as it’s gonna get. Then she was being cute one day so I took some pictures of her walking around.
We got her a new snack cup that is supposed to be spill-proof but Parker figured out how to stick her hand in to widen the opening so she can pour her cheerios all over the floor. Then she realized that if you step on the cheerios they crunch. So that was a really fun mess to clean up. I got some pictures of her trying to eat them off the floor before the crunching started.
I watched Griffin Riggleman yesterday and once Parker got over the shock of waking up from her nap and seeing a baby in the house, she got along with him great. She kept trying to share all of her toys with him, but then always wanted what he was already holding in return. He kept reaching for her and she would go over and squeeze him (gently). She is very good with other babies!
Our neighbor is fostering 4 puppies for the weekend so Parker and I went over to play with them. They wanted to follow her around everywhere. They were adorable. Parker just wanted to play with all of their toys.
Then today it actually snowed! It was more like ice, but it made everything white! I took some pictures when it started then took some of Parker “playing” in it. She really didn’t have any interest in it. She just stood there for a while then reached for me to pick her up. It was pretty cold so I think she just wasn’t interested in being outside in general. We don’t get cold weather so we don’t have many warm clothes! I just hope this clears up and melts away by the time our plane leaves tomorrow. We can’t wait to get to Arizona!
Everyone have a happy holiday!
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