I became that thrifty mom who buys used gifts for Christmas. I figure it's okay for now since Q has no idea and she'll love her gifts regardless (or just the box...let's be honest).
Jeremy and I set aside a certain amount of money for Quinn's Christmas gift and I knew I wanted to get a plastic climber/slide as part of it. I looked around and found that they aren't cheap. The one I wanted was over $300 and I just couldn't justify a purchase like that. She'll only use it for a couple of years and we have an awesome park right down the street.
So, I took to Craigslist and found the jewel of all Craigslist posts! A climber/slide PLUS a precious little schoolhouse for only $150! The family who had it only used it a year and then they wanted to get rid of it because they were re-doing their back yard. Score! Yes, please.
We set it up and Craigslist Christmas is a success! Of course, Ella loves it too!
We've been having a fun and busy pre-holiday season. My hope is that Quinn will learn the true meaning of Christmas while still having fun during a festive season. It's probably my favorite and now that we have a toddler, it has been soooo much fun! The joy in her eyes during this season has been contagious and I love it!
Breakfast with Santa at Quinn's School
We had fun eating pancakes, visiting w/ Q's favorite teachers and seeing Santa in real life. She's seen him on Christmas decor and she can say Ho, Ho, Ho, but this was her first real-life experience. As you can tell from the photos, she wasn't impressed.
Quinn was not impressed w/ Santa
Looking at Santa from afar.
Christmas Outfits (don't worry, she also has a smocked dress and velvet dress).
I'm not ashamed to say I get a lot of Q's clothes from consignment stores. This dress was $4.
Visitor from London
David gets to come visit us from London about once a year. The last time Quinn saw him, she was only a week old! He brought a Peter Pan pop-up book (say that 10x fast) and she loved it.
Baby it's Cold Outside
It finally got kind of cold outside so she got to bust out her winter clothes including this precious track suit.
Christmas Stuff
Christmas shopping (for us and our adopted families in need) and Christmas decor with a toddler have been fun.
We went to get Christmas lights and Quinn found a little bicycle. It felt like her eyes were saying "Please tell Santa I want this."
So helpful w/ the decor on the "Quinn tree" upstairs.
All done! Quinn's tree is sparkly and perfect for her!
I got to reminisce at my sister's Christmas at Baylor concert. I can't believe it's been over 10 years since I was a freshman there!
I was kicking butt at the tables at the Volusion Christmas party. Too bad it wasn't real money!
Christmas pre-party photo...Quinn wanted to be in it too.
I've decided to keep doing monthly updates on Quinn (when I have time), but I'm thinking they will be a little shorter than the ones from her first year of life. I'm finding I have less and less time to do stuff with working full-time, keeping up with a toddler, leading our community group, serving at Mother's Milk Bank and trying to be a good wife. So here we go...13-month update:
Sweet Toddler Quinn,
You are doing so many fun things right now! Daddy and I get so much joy from you and we love you so much! You make us laugh daily and you also keep us on our toes w/ your little mood swings. You have started to pick up on things SO FAST and you are learning so much right now. It's amazing! Here are some fun things you are doing now.
Walking
You are all over the place. You hold your little arms up and take off w/ your feet still turned slightly outward. It's so dang cute!! You are so proud of yourself and when you turn, it's almost like a pivot. Baby steps are so, so sweet. Ella better watch out now!
Toys
Books. That's pretty much it. You will play w/ other stuff for a bit, but you always go back to the books. Smart girl! You also like to just get into things that you aren't supposed to. Oh dear...so it begins.
New Class
You are officially in your new class at school and you love it! Your new teacher Miss Emily loves having you in there and you are taking a nap on your cot, going outside twice a day and you have even had two physical incident reports (you just fell down a couple of times). For some reason, that made me feel like you are so much older!
Talking/Sign Language
You are talking a lot more and imitating us more. You've also been signing more and sometimes Daddy and I have to Google baby signs to figure out what you are saying. The most recent is "butterfly" but you also like to do "hat", "hot", "school" and of course "more" and "please." You do it close to your lap so it looks a little different but that's definitely what you are doing. They teach you so well at school! Talking: You like to say "ready Freddy". The first time you did it, Daddy and I died laughing. You also say "Ho, Ho, Ho", "ball", Etta (Ella), PawPaw, you make all sorts of animal noises (the funniest being the pig snort), you call one of your books "Cocka" because it has a rooster and that's your favorite page and you are always saying "ohhhh" in a loving tone when you see dogs, stuffed animals or baby dolls. You also like to sing songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Eating
You tend to be a little piggy when you eat. You stuff your face and always ask for more with your sign language. The doctor said you might start eating less and I am seeing that a bit at dinner, but for the most part you love to eat. Your faves are: blueberries, PB sandwich (cut up in little bites), beans of any kind, chicken, cheese, broccoli, carrots, peas, banana, pasta w/ sauce and of course plain Cheerios. I haven't given you Goldfish a lot because I want you to like real food more, but I have a feeling you will start getting them more as you get older. Sometimes all you need is Goldfish to stop a diva fit!
Mood Swings
Speaking of diva fits, you are one moody girl. You can be peachy and happy one minute and then the next minute the world is ending and you are on the floor crying. My goodness. This mostly happens when you are tired, hungry or in the car. You still hate the car and sometimes Mama and Daddy almost lose their minds on longer drives when you scream the whole way. We are going to have to figure that out. We mostly try to drive when you will sleep.
You were throwing a fit in the car and you took your shoe off...you were trying to get it back on.
Happy Happy Girl
Despite the mood swings, you are such a happy baby. You wake up happy and you love seeing Mama and Daddy in the morning. You also love coming home or going downstairs to see Ella. You are giddy when you are walking around getting into things and you're so proud of yourself.
Christmas Season
This season is so amazing and special to share with a child. You love the Christmas tree (which you amazingly don't try to tear up) and lights, the stockings, Santa Claus and all the lights on the houses in the neighborhood. This might become my favorite holiday because of the joy it brings to you.
The best word to describe you right now is J-O-Y! Pure joy.
We love you so much and we absolutely can't wait to spend Christmas with you!
I'm so proud of my husband! He ran his first (possibly only) marathon this past weekend in Dallas and Quinn and I got to be a part of the action!
First, I have to say this is a huge accomplishment for Jeremy. What started out as a New Year's resolution to run 500 miles over the course of the year, turned into full marathon training. PLUS, he did all this in the first year of our baby's life. There were nights when Quinn would be up a lot and Jeremy would get up w/ her at 3am, get her back to sleep and then just stay up to run before going to work. CRAZY! I don't know how he did it, but I'm so proud and I hope Quinn has the discipline, perseverance and determination that Jeremy does. What an awesome example to set for our daughter!
We headed to Dallas Saturday morning and stopped in Waco to eat lunch with Auntie Em. Quinn hates riding in the car right now. She just learned to walk so she just wants to be down on the ground getting into things or held by mama. Luckily she slept on the way to Waco and then somehow entertained herself w/ a book from Waco to Dallas.
In Dallas we went straight to the registration and expo to get Jeremy's bib, t-shirt and whatnot. He was part of Team VW because he had responded to a Tweet they sent out early on, so he got a sweet free shirt, gym bag and some other swag.
After the expo, we headed to the hotel (The Adolphus) to check in. This is a great hotel except for our valet experience (which I'll cover later). It reminded me of the Driskill in Austin.
The Christmas tree at the Adolphus.
Since it was about 3pm and Quinn was getting antsy, we decided to head to the galleria to walk around and keep Q busy for a few hours. I honestly haven't been in a mall of any type in a long time, so this was kind of fun. There is a beautiful, huge Christmas tree in the middle of the ice skating rink and lots of festive decor everywhere. Quinn loved the tree, but she enjoyed the kids play area more. I never thought I would be okay with Quinn climbing all over those nasty, germy foam animals, but at some point I decided it's better to get over it and let her have fun. She was in heaven. She loved looking at all the crazy older kids and climbing all over the animals.
I feel like Quinn is looking at her hands thinking "I don't even want to know how many germs I'm touching."
After about 20 minutes of play time, we had to sort of drag Quinn away so we could eat and get back to the hotel for bed time. She was so tired and ended up having a meltdown at dinner. We scarfed our food down and boxed up what we thought we could eat later. We became those parents with the screaming child. Luckily, we have enough sense to get out of the situation rather than just sit there with our screaming child. Yes, I am passing judgment on those people. :)
I think we created a monster because Quinn goes to sleep very well in her dark, quiet room, but being in the same hotel room with us was a problem. She would not go to sleep. She kept popping up and looking over the edge of the pack-n-play and it was hard not to laugh at her. Sweet, funny girl. We finally turned all the lights off at about 8:30pm and she eventually went to sleep while we laid in bed playing on our phones in the dark. That night was rough. Quinn woke up a lot whining and Jeremy and I tossed and turned.
Little Miss Priss not sleeping.
Somehow we all woke up at around 6:30a.m. on Sunday morning and got going. Jeremy headed down to the starting line and Q and I got dressed to meet up w/ my friend Anne who was our Dallas chauffeur for the day. I honestly do not know what I would have done w/out Anne. Tons of roads were closed off and I would have been completely lost!
Quinn and Jeremy were way to happy to be up at 6:30a.m.
Since our hotel was in the middle of the course, I had to drag Quinn, her stroller, diaper bag and car seat in downtown Dallas to get to a road where Anne could drive. Needless to say, I felt like a supermom. On the way to meet Anne, I stopped at the starting line to hear the gun go off and see the runners start. I knew there was no way we would see Jeremy in the crowd of 25,000 people with loud music and confetti everywhere. I always get emotional at the beginning of races and I was getting emotional wishing we could see him. I actually said a little prayer that God would just send him our way and OH MY GOSH right after that, Jeremy appeared right by the fence where we were. I started jumping up and down like a little girl and Quinn was so excited to see him. Of course I cried! I was so excited to see him right before he started just to let him know his girls were there to cheer him on!
I can't believe we saw J out of the 25,000 runners!
Anne picked us up and we headed to the neighborhood close to White Rock Lake. We ate some breakfast tacos, stopped by Albertson's for poster board and markers and went to the course to see if we could find Jeremy. We got there just in time to see him run by right before mile 12. He looked great and he was excited to see his girls.
Then, we headed back downtown to get a good place at the finish line. Luckily, Little Miss Priss fell asleep on the way back downtown so we let her sleep in the car for about an hour before we braved the crowds at the Dallas Convention Center. It was actually nice to spend some time catching up with Anne in a quiet car.
The Convention Center finish line area was CRAZY! They had all sorts of walkways blocked off, streets closed, etc. We spent quite a while trying to figure out how to cross the street and finally made it across to the marathon finisher's side. We waited for about 30 minutes and finally saw Jeremy coming around the corner. He looked so tired, but he was actually still running and I was so proud!! Later he told me he almost lost it when he saw his girls at the end.
(I must say, traipsing around Dallas w/ an active, tired 1-yr. old might be just as exhausting as running a marathon. Quinn was killing me! :) J/K. I would much rather deal w/ her than run for four hours straight! But, I think she will be staying w/ Nannie Mae next time we do something like that.)
We met up w/ Jeremy in the Convention Center after the race and got out of the crowd pretty quickly so we could get food for our marathoner. We got back to the hotel, packed up and were on our way out when the valet pulled our car up with a HUGE ding in the side. I couldn't believe it. After a long morning, we had to wait around for another 30 minutes w/ a hungry tired baby and a starving runner so they could write an official report. We have yet to hear back from them, but I'm hoping they do the right thing and pay for our car repairs, $26/day valet service and our room.
Quinn got to wear Daddy's medal!
We had a great weekend! Jeremy checked something huge off his bucket list and Quinn and I got to be his #1 fans. Way to go Jeremy...we love you so much!
I live in Austin with my wonderful husband Jeremy, my beautiful baby girls, Quinn and Noelle, and my sweet (spastic) puggle,Ella. I'm a marketing and PR consultant and WAHM. We love our family, friends, church (Riverbend Church) and our life here in the ATX!
