Growing Up

Merrilee is growing up so fast! She is just so cute! I can't help but smother her with loves all day long with her long crazy hair, cute teeth and chubby cheeks!  Her daily routine consists of waking up and playing anywhere from 45 min. to 3 hours. She eats somewhere in there and then goes down for a nap (sometimes). Sometimes she skips her morning nap and plays even longer until afternoon nap time.  Sometimes she skips her afternoon nap if she's already had a morning nap.  She is basically all over the place with her nap schedule.

She loves music! (YEAH!) she loves strumming the guitar, beating drums, and most of all she loves playing the piano. If I ever try to get a few minutes of practice or pleasure playing in, Merrilee is standing right next to me plinking away on the keys.  Sometimes she'll start to cry or whine until I pick her up and let her sit on my lap to play.  When this happens, she immediately removes my hands from the keyboard if they are on it. She wants to do it all by herself.  Of course, as a former public school music teacher and current private piano teacher, this enthusiasm for music from my firstborn makes me extremely happy. :)

Merrilee's 1 year molars are all coming in at once.  She had a few days where she was very irritable. Poor thing. But she is over the worst of it I think.

We hope Merrilee will start to walk before the new baby comes.  I think she is pretty close, but she sure likes to take her time with these milestones! She is a little Speedy Gonzalas when it comes to crawling though.  She likes to chase her daddy and mommy around all day long and likes to have crawling races with her daddy. Daddy will crawl around on the floor and Merrilee laughs and laughs while trying to keep up with him. So cute.

Lately, her favorite toy (besides the musical instruments) is a little train that has lots of buttons and plays music. Her Nana Dunn got it for her for Christmas. That thing will keep her occupied for a good amount of time!

Another one of her favorite things is Bath time! If we leave the bathroom door open while not in use, she will most certainly crawl in and stand up next to the tub and giggle and talk about how much she loves baths. I don't bathe her every day, but I'm starting to be tempted to just because she loves it so much. She only has one bath toy, a pink rubber duck.  I think we will need to invest in some more bath toys! My favorite is doing awesome hair-do's to her hair after bath time, as demonstrated below...

I can't wait to have another sweet little girl to add to the cuteness in our house. Girls are so fun! About 9 more weeks to go! (give or take...still questionable on the due date)

P.S. The above photos are products of experimenting with editing photos at this free website.