Merry Birthday Happy Christmas!

This Christmas our little angel Rebekah turned one year old. It was a great day for her--she had blueberry pancakes for her birthday dinner (she hasn't tried cake yet) and she got a bunch of new toys and clothes from grandparents and some books from her parents. Here is her new bear:

Here is her trying on her new hat from Uncle Jim and Aunt Jessica:

Here is her chasing her 75ft bouncy ball from Grandma and Grandpa Blood:

Here is her opening her gingerbread man:

Here is her on a mountain of her presents:

Here is her with her new music table from Grandma and Grandpa Bear:

Here is Rebekah with her new ball popper from Grandma and Grandpa King:

Imagine-On!

We went to a childrens library called Imagine-on the other day and had a good time reading and playing. Rebekah really like interacting with people and loved seeing what everyone else was doing. She even tried to talk with one of the other kids there...it was very cute. We love our little princess!

Family Pictures

Halloween is upon us!

We decided to dress Rebekah up as a bunny by default. I know we weren't very creative, but what else are you going to do with a bunny costume you get at a baby shower? On any other day, we would never allow Rebekah to suffer the humiliation of being in a bunny costume....cept maybe on easter...maybe...She still makes it looks cute :o).

Yeah, its been a while...

When everything "seems" same ol' same ol', we sometimes feel like there's nothing to write about. By popular demand, we've decided to post some newer pictures of Rebekah. She's decided to start standing now, so I know it's only a matter of time before she starts walking. During playtime, her favorite toy by far are her balls. She never gets tired of throwing, rolling, spinning, bouncing, and smashing them together to make sounds. She loves loves loves them.
On our walks, Rebekah loves to look at and stare down street signs. She seems to love words, even if they're not in books. When we walk around the pond, she also loves stopping at every other tree and bush and grabbing it. It's so much fun watching her learn and grow. She's also like her daddy in that she loves to feel the sunshine! Whenever we go outside and we get in the sun for just a moment, she just lights up and gives the biggest smile.
We love our little (getting bigger) Rebekah.

Fun Times

We don't really have anything to new to report. Rebekah is still growing and exploring the house. She is enjoying her walks a lot more now as she recognizes her surroundings and always looks forward to get to the pond where she can see the fountain. We realized that we haven't put up a video of Rebekah laughing, so we decided to make a post of it. Rebekah was being a little whiny so I decided to make her smile by tickling her to death. I wasn't sure if it was teeth coming in or something else that was making her uncomfortable, but laughter makes you forget just about anything, so hope you enjoy!

Movin'

Rebekah has been "army" crawling for a few weeks now and I thought I would add a video clip to show you all her progress. We're so proud of her! Yes, I understand that this leads to bigger and more complicated things, but it's still exciting seeing her progress and her ability to learn and grow!

Something finally worked....

So for a while now we've been working with Rebekah's torticollis. Torticollis is when some of the muscles in the neck tighten forcing the head to tilt. There are many people with much more severe cases than Rebekah, but we still felt that we needed to address it. We started by going to the PT. Most the the techniques she taught us we were doing already, so we didn't really feel like going to the PT was helping the cause. We continued to stretch her and give her lots of opportunity to play on her tummy. We saw progress, but eventually the progress flattened out. She was able to turn her head completely one way or the other, but she still had a tilt in the head. We finally decided to take her to a chiropractor. It was a wonderful experience. He was very helpful and made sure we understood what he was doing and why he was doing it. After just 2 sessions, we were able to see a dramatic difference. Here are some more recent pictures of Rebekah after the sessions. We love our princess so much!

A nice visit

This past weekend we were visited by Mary's brother and family. Seth was a joy for Rebekah, and she loved observing and learning from him. We played a lot of games and traveled around Charlotte for a little sightseeing. The dinners were fun for Scott and he was able to experiment a little with a few of the dishes.
Seth taught Rebekah how to eat. After we had been trying to get her to eat solid foods for weeks with little luck, Rebekah finally started opening her mouth to eat after she saw Seth eating his solid food. It was amazing to see how much of a size difference there was between the two, even though they are only 6 months apart. Rebekah also loved listening to her Uncle Jonny read books with silly voices.

Peas...thankfully not up the nose...yet

Today was our second attempt to feed Rebekah peas. She did a lot better than she did the first time. Its an entertaining video nonetheless. Enjoy!

Up'n At'em!!

It wasn't the most exciting thing for Mary (due to the fact that it means she's growing up way too fast) but Rebekah has been sitting up to play lately. She still loves her books and things that make noise, but she's moved on to putting things in holes, pushing buttons and pulling levers. She loves the toys from Grandpa and Grandma. Even now and then, Scott switches up the placement of the caterpillar to confuse the little one, but she still goes for the multi-lingual talking lady first. Scott has decided that with all of these videos, he is going to have to get an external hard drive to store them all. Hello Amazon! (unless there's somewhere cheaper...)

Wonderful Memories

So this will be our first entry I think where we don't just talk about Rebekah the whole time :o). Scott was able to go out to California this weekend to participate in the memorial for his late grandmother. Fortunately, there were a lot of good feelings and smiles and laughs during the weekend that made thinking of dear sweet Virginia all the more sweet.

After the memorial and reception, the family decided to spend the rest of the day at Jimmy's beach house in Santa Cruz. We were able to look through numerous photos of grandma, grandpa and the rest of the family when they were a lot younger. We also had some brotherly competition. I mean, come on, when don't we? So you guessed it, the ol' hit the can of soda off the arm of the chair with lemons game. I'm sure you've all heard of it :o). Jim was crowned champion of the match knocking it down 3 times while Scott only knocked it down twice and Kyle once. We also went down to the beach and had s'mores and did other 'beach' stuff. All in all it was a wonderful visit and a great time visiting family that Scott hadn't seen for quite a while.

On Friday we were able to go out on their first date of the year. Well, temple trips I guess are dates, too, but we're not out nearly as late on temple dates. We were able to go and see Phantom of the Opera. It was a wonderful night with magical music and performances. Scott enjoyed the Phantom singing the best. Hopefully we'll be able to see more soon. Maybe if Les Miserables comes to town.

This weekend we were also able to go to a block party for the 4th of July. It was a blast! Lots of food, fireworks and a 40 foot slide! Rebekah loved going down the slide with daddy. She had a good time watching all the other kids as well. She's definitely a watcher. We enjoyed the time together as a family but babykins was too tired to stay up for the fireworks so daddy took mom and baby home then went back for the rest. Hopefully next year she'll be able to last a little longer and watch some spectaculars.

I might eat it, but it doesn't mean I like it

It has been a fun few days with Rebekah this past week. While Scott was feeding her yesterday, Rebekah discovered something new. She learned how to gargle. She wanted to talk more than eat during the feeding and while she was doing so, she had some milk in her mouth. As she began to "sing", she made a gargling noise and loved it. She would pull the bottle to her mouth again, take a few sucks, then push it away and gargle with what was in her mouth again and then get a really big smile on her face. It was hilarious. She must have done it like 6 or 7 times having a blast with it. Unfortunately, Mary wasn't in a position to record it.
We also tried feeding her solids this weekend. The whole time, she looked at us like we were trying to poison her. She eventually started crying. She will, however, eat it. Scott will feed her some at which point she'll make the ugliest (cute) face and then swallow it down. When he would bring more food to her mouth, she would open wide again with a grimacing face, take the bite, eat it, and then make her ugly (cute) face again. It was as if she was willing to eat it just because we wanted her to. It was cute.
Rebekah seems to be on track for crawling soon, too. Right now she is doing some crawling--not the hands and knees type crawl but more of the scooting around. However, she can only crawl backwards, kind of like the baby moonwalk. She'll start rocking her legs and kicking them like crazy, then push herself way up while on her tummy that inevitably moves her backwards as she mimics a rocking ship or something.
The physical therapist says that she has been progressing well with her neck stretches and sitting up. Her reflexes are supposedly on the 9 month mark which is comforting.
Rebekah is an angelprincess, for sure :o).

Psh...I never cry...unless

I had an experience this week that was indirectly connected to Rebekah. And since this is a blog for her exclusively, I thought it would be appropriate to share. We haven't watched many movies as of late. Most weekends we just can't find the time between finally putting Rebekah to bed and getting ready for bed ourselves. Well, this past weekend we decided to watch "The curious case of Benjamin Button". We watched it in parts, partly because its almost a 3 hour movie, and partly because those were the windows of time that we have to watch it (during Rebekah's naps). Well, if you haven't seen the movie, don't continue reading. So Benjamin has a child and realizes that he can be a proper father figure to his daughter while he continues to grow younger. Benjamin decides he must leave his daughter before she has any memories of him and allow his wife to find someone to raise their daughter. During this entire scene, I could not stop crying. I have not cried during a movie in a LONG time, but this scene just hit me so hard. I can only assume that being a daddy has just a little to do with it. I guess it was further confirmation of how much we truely love our angelprincess Rebekah.

Peek-a-giggle

As we have started playing peek-a-boo with Rebekah, she has a great time just waiting for the "peek-a-boo" and then laughing. Her laugh almost sounds like a cry, but believe me, she's laughing. Unfortunately I'm having trouble uploading the video. I don't think it should take 12 hours to upload a 1 min video. Am I wrong? Am I doing something wrong? Please, blog world! Help me!
Today we were able to play some more piano with Rekebah. Mommy had her undivided attention the whole time she was playing. I wonder how early we can get her singing lessons. She seems to be absolutely fascinated with singing. I'm going to try and introduce her to some more art in the near future. Finger paints I think will be our next adventure. Wish us luck!

It matches her eyes...

Just a few Sunday pictures...we think lavender is her best color.

Nothing is for sure....

So we had our first play date with Caroline. She's a baby just a few doors down that's 2 months older than Rebekah. Caroline was actually born on Halloween, so they're both "holiday" babies. The extent of the visit was pretty much a staring contest at each other while the parents had a yummy dinner. Grilled pork chops with Scott's own dry rub, scalloped potatoes and green beans sauteed with mushrooms and almonds. And for dessert, cherry cheesecake. It was quite tasty, and Scott made sure to make more than enough so we'd have leftovers for Sunday :o).
We tried to post a video showing off Rebekah's humor, but for some reason I wasn't able to post it. Maybe it was a sign. I had asked Rebekah to smile to mommy one last time before turning off the recorder and she decided at that very moment to spit up. My explanation obviously doesn't do it justice, and although it was amusing, maybe it is better to leave it unposted.
More photos and videos to come! We plan on really focusing on teaching Rebekah to sit up this week. We'll see how that goes.

Sometimes, you just need a day off...

When we're not working Rebekah hard on her tummy, you can either find her in her bouncy ripping off the turtle from the Velcro or pulling down the handle to hear her "favorite" (well, it only has one toon) toon. She also enjoys lounging around on her big pink dog, Penelope. Lately, Rebekah has taken up break dancing. If she's on her tummy or her back, she likes spinning around-I assume to look at everything from a different angle. I'm sure she'll be sitting up and crawling soon....uh oh. We had better start making our home a little more baby-safe I think.

A lesson on sharing

So Rebekah and I had a conversation on sharing today. She has a pink doggie (thanks, Tedi!) that she loves to play with. She doesn't really like to share it, though. She's always holding onto it very tightly whenever anyone comes close. I'm sure we have lots more conversations about sharing, but this is the first of them :o).

To introduce

So for our first entry to this "blogging" thing, we decided to post a few videos of our lovely angelprincess, Rebekah. Tummy time was not on her top 10 list of fun things to do for the first few months we tried it with her, but she has since taken a liking to it. She loves looking at the books on the bookshelf, mostly for the colors, we think. She likes to roll over only when Mommy isn't looking (yes, she's a tease like her dad), and then laugh hysterically. I'm sure as the days go by, we'll have plenty of material to put on this blog and keep everyone up to date. Enjoy!

Tummy Time w/ Rebekah

Rebekah exploring her vocal range. I think she'll be a soprano.

More "singing" with Rebekah