Out as long as she was in

Pepper reached the nine month out as long as she was in milestone. To celebrate she decided to sleep through the night! Four nights in a row and counting...! I think I can speak for us both when I say that feels pretty amazing. What else? She's pretty much hitting all the nine month old classics:

Pulling things from cabinets

Mastering a speedy three legged crawl

Laughing loud and hard

Sooooo Big!

Messy babyfood smily face

Sprouting a fringe of culry tendrils

Smiling to reveal 2 of her 4 big teeth

hearts n' such

Hearts. So last month. I guess I am just not that charmed by shamrocks, so why not keep February alive with more heart images?

I did Scarlett's hair in these adorable heart pony tails. You can learn how to do it too. All you need is a willing little girl with long hair and this here tutorial.

This was such a cute and relatively easy hair-do, and it held up really well all day. I wondered why not do it more often? So we tried this braided variation too.

 More hearts around the house:

Instagramaniac

You may or may not have noticed that my blog posts have been fewer and farther between over the past 6 months since I have gone from being a Stay At Home Mom to a Working Outside the Home Mom (WOHM-P WOHM-P). I want you to know that I have been writing and reflecting just as much if not more than ever before. Mama's still tellin' her stories! It is just that it all churns around in my head now instead of spewing forth onto the virtual pages in blogland. I miss regular blogging, I really do, but I just have not figured out how to work it back in to my life yet. For now I just need to be satisfied with the little bits and pieces that I do put together.

What really bothers me about not blogging as much is the feeling that I am missing out on chronicalling this stage in our family journey. This blog has always been a way for me to keep a virtual scrapbook of these years raising young children, and I fear I am missing out by not reporting more often. My solution? The daily Instagram. For those who don't know and love Instagram already it is an iphone app that allows you to take your mediocre iphone photos and make them look more interesting. It's also a social netwok where people follow one another, make comments, socialmediayadayadayada...Since the new year I have been taking at least one instagram per day and I am loving the way they string together to tell a story. At first I just started out taking random photos of whatever caught my eye, but it became clear that methodology was goign to result in nothing but cute photos of my kids, and cute as they are, they are only part of the story. Then I became aware through other bloggers, instagramers, etc, that there was a more orgaized photo a day group gathering and taking photos according to an assigned structure. I love structure! So I started playing along. You can learn more about the whole "program" here. Basically participants follow a daily prompt, "dinner" for example, then go where inspiration takes them. 

I got off to a bit of a late start, so I only have 26 photos for February, but here they are.

 I had fun doing it in February, so I figure I'll keep it up. Here is the deal for March courtesy of Fat Mum Slim:

Here's how to play:

♥ Starting on March 1st take a photo each day with inspiration from the prompt. For example prompt 1 is 'up', so take a photo looking up. Or of the word 'up'. Or something that lifts your mood 'up'. It it totally up to you how you want to interpret it.

♥ Once you've taken your photo you can share it on Instagram, Facebook {on your own profile or business page}, Twitter, Flickr, your blog, Pinterest, Tumblr or even just keep them in a folder on your desktop. If you're sharing on Twitter or Instagram add the hashtag #Marchphotoaday so others can find your photos too.

Valentines (Making) Day

Though I'm still scraping glue off the table, and I imagine I will be finding little scraps of paper around the kitchen for days to come, I can proudly say that we finished this year's Valentine project with a couple of days to spare. With Rudy fully involved this year it was much more of a craft-splosion than in years past, but all in all a fun way to spend a chilly February afternoon.

Scarlett wanted to follow last year's photo project, with another photo project because, well, she is the queen of consistency. After scouring the internet for some inspiration, I decided to keep it simple and put together the makings of some little bobble headed Scarlett heart people. And they are SO CUTE, if I do say so myself. 

To start I found a goofy smiley photo of Scarlett, cropped it down, and printed it in color from our laser printer on regular paper. I was able to get 12 to a sheet. I had Scarett cut out her head, while I cut out the heart bodies.

Rudy wanted in on the action so I gave him a pile of construction paper, some heart shapes, and pair of scissors and just let him go to town.

 

Which he did. For what seemed like hours. He cut the living tar out of every last bit of paper he could get his sticky little hands on. Scissors are officially his new favorite toy.

Scarlett, meanwhile, having cut out all 25 little heads, got on with the glueing. 

The she drew on the legs and arms.

This is how they turned out. Scarlett could not have been more pleased.

Of course there has to be candy...

As for Rudy... Left to his own devices this whole time...

...made all these.

Happy Valentine's Day! XOXO

That ship has sailed

With the realization that Pepper is now firmly in the later half of her infant year, I am more inspired than ever to be after her with the camera with Paparazzi-like zeal. You know how yougest children often lament the relative dearth of photos taken of them compared to the hyer-documented first child? Pepper will not be able to hold that one against me. Part of my desire to capture her each and every milestone on film is that she seems to be hurtling through her infancy at a speed not approached by her older siblings. I can only assume that she is aiming to catch up with them as fast as possible. They are where it is at. Where Scarlett marianated and then slow simmered in her babyhood, Pepper flash fries. She rolled at 2 months, sat at barely 6 months, and has now scooted herself off the bed more times than I care to admit. I am realizing that if I don't take photos of her doing something as soon as she starts doing it, she will be passed it and on to the next thing. Allow me to illustrate my point.

Today, I thought I would take some photos of Pepper demonstarting one of the baby moves so classic and universal they named a yoga pose after it. The Happy Baby.

I got a few good ones, but then she kept flipping over on to her belly. She has been rolling from tummy to back since 2 months, but this was the first I have seen her master the back to belly flip. Apparently the Happy Baby days are over.

Then I thought it would be fun to capture an image of her sitting with her back to the camera. I was hoping to get a cute little dimpled butt shot. There is, after all, precious little time in life in which one's butt being dimpled is considered cute. I was going for something like this, only not overexposed, blurry, and poorly composed.

The thing is, the stage where Pepper can be relied upon to just sit there while I get my camera focussed is over. That ship has sailed and she is on to the next thing.