9 months old

Hard to believe Maisie turned 9 months old last week. Today she had her 9 month check up and everything is going according to plan....The stats:
Height: 29 inches (95th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs 7 oz (50-75the percentile)
Head circumference: 17 inches (50-75th percentile)

We are also enjoying having our happy little girl back after the triple-whammy of the holiday ear infection, the first two teeth right after new years and then 3-4 days of virus.

Here she is hanging in the exersaucer watching dad pull weeds. Got to love "winter" in Houston:


And if you didn't believe she was daddy's little girl before, this ought to convince you:


Our posting has certainly slowed down now that we're back at work after the holidays, but here are some pictures to tide you over (the whole set from the holidays). Enjoy!

December 2008

Date night!

The last couple of weeks have been....well...challenging. Maisie got sick again, most likely with a virus of some kind, and sleep has come at a premium for all of us.

So when we got a chance to get out of the house and go to a Rockets game, we found a babysitter as fast as we could. Even better, we were in a suite with free food and beer (YAY BEER!!) and we got to sit courtside for a quarter.

Here are a few shots from the game:









And for those of you who only come to this blog to see pics of Maisie (you know who you are), here's a shot of her learning how to clap with her Nanna. :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Maisie may be only 9 months old, but she already knows how to party.

Happy New Year to you all!
Love, Michele, Brian and Maisie

Get a move on

In addition to all of the holiday festivities this month, Maisie has been a busy girl. She's learning new skills every day. Maisie has quickly moved from the army crawl you saw on video a week or two back to full on hands and knees crawling. Here's our mover and shaker:

And from there has progressed to learning how to navigate the two stairs between our den and kitchen. She's gotten pretty good going up, but hasn't quite figured out going down (and still gives mom and dad a heart attack when she decides to stop mid way and sit up!)

Her new-found mobility has required some changes on our part as well. Getting ready for work in the morning used to be easy...just put Maisie in the middle of our bed with a couple of toys and you were good to go. No longer - she'd be off the bed in no time. But, we've found a solution. Check out our upstairs "playpen":

Finally, Maisie has perfected the art of standing up in her crib. If she doesn't want to go to sleep, you put her down and before you can even get out of the room shes up at the rail crying. Luckily this doesn't happen too often. A nice perk of this development is that its really fun to be greeted by her smiling face in the mornings.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

I know what you're thinking, it will snow in Houston when pigs fly....well OINK OINK!

Of course, since this a once every 3-4 years event, we had to get out and document it (particularly, since it was Maisie's first snow) I know all our friends in the cold, cold north will laugh at the few flakes you see in our hair and on our coats. But for Houston this was big news - it actually accumulated on roofs and lawns!

For this special occasion, we had to pull out the "heavy" clothes for Maisie. Yay fleece! (and thanks to Meredith for the awesome skullcap!)

Now that we're all bundled up, here we are out in snow...

Naughty or nice?

Judging by the number of presents, it's fair to say that Santa (or I should say ALL of Maisie's grandparents, aunts and uncles) think she has been a very good girl this year! We feel very lucky to have had such a wonderful first Christmas with her.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Once she was on the mend from the ear infection, we celebrated at Grandma Lois' house. Maisie had a blast with all of her new toys. Here she is in her new hat. :)

In particular she's a big fan of her "big girl" Disney princess chair...and can't wait bring it to watch Dad at some lacrosse games next season.
Then we went out to Conroe to celebrate with PaPa and Grammy.

Maisie seems to have her priorities in order - who needs to open presents when you can climb on them??

But when she finally started opening presents, she obviously enjoyed it...in fact, she wanted to savor every bit of them, and seemed especially fond of eating the wrapping paper. Here she is just before a two-fisted bite.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Under the weather

Its bound to happen to every baby at some point, but we were hoping to put it off as long as possible. I guess eight months is a pretty good run before getting sick for the first time.

We knew something was wrong on Tuesday night when she cried and cried and didn't want to go to sleep. On Wednesday Maisie woke up with a fever and you could just tell she didn't feel well. We got her into the doctor's office who promptly confirmed our guess that she had an ear infection. And right in time for Christmas eve, poor thing.

We've got her on antibiotics and Tylenol and now, 2 days later, she's almost back to her normal happy self. As you can see from the pictures below, she just felt awful.

Daddy is pouting on Maisie's behalf

All wrapped up with mom and watching daddy grill (not exactly your typical Christmas eve dinner, but you make do)


Up next - the Christmas post!