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Niana is 10 months

Another month has gone by. It is only 2 months until my tiny little baby is 1 year old! It is really amazing how time has flown by. I look back at this month and see what she has accomplished and how she has grown.

End of April/May 2008...

• April 20th- Niana starts taking her first steps unassisted (almost 9 months)


• April 27th- She links these steps together to walk a few steps.

• April 28th- Visits doctor and is given asthma medication (which I have given her and seems to be helping quite a bit!)


• May 6th- Celebrates Grandma Kathy's birthday at Olive Garden


• May 9th- Says good-bye to Grandma Sylvia as my mom heads off to Oregon for the summer


• May 11th- My first mother's day.... Niana woke me up with a hug and I got to spend the morning with her in the Nursery at Church. Lunch was made for us at home and then we finished off the day with a basketball game on TV.
• May 16th- visits with good friends Bob and Jolene Palmer from Oregon for the evening.
  
• May 17th- We discover that Niana can say "woo-woo" for Farley, the dog at Grandma & Grandpa's house. (She can already say Mamama & Dadada)

So far this past month has been trying to capture Niana walking on video. She will do the funniest things, then when I run to grab the camera, she will follow me and stop doing what she was doing. Some of her uncaptured moments are...

1. Juggling pacifiers... Niana will have 2 paci's and decide the one not in her mouth should be there. She then will spit out the on in her mouth and put the new one in. Well, now she sees the old one and decides that one should be in her mouth... etc, etc, etc.
2. Walking from here to there... we can never just capture it at the right time.
3. Drumming/Hammering... our little drummer girl will flip over all of her toys to make a "drum set" and use any toy she can find to bang on them. She loves hitting anything to see if it will make a sound. We think this might be the carpenter gene in her from Grandpa Ernie or the drummer gene from Grandma Sylvia.
4. Dancing.... yes, she loves to dance. One of her best dancing moments was at my school's open house. We had a Carnival with a DJ playing music. Niana loved the 70's disco music and was holding on to a chair with one hand while the other hand was in the air and she was "gettin' jiggy wit it". Everyone was loving her moves and wanted to know where she learned to dance.... Mama of course!!

Maybe some day I will be able to get video of these things to share with friends and family around the globe!

9 month doctor visit...

Scott took Niana for her 9 month well-baby visit on Monday. She is now 28" and 21 lbs! Still in the 95th percentile for her age..... grow baby!

We also were given a prescription for asthma medications. I went today to pick up the meds and really did not feel peace about giving such a young baby medications. But... ever since she took one breath of Central Valley air (24 hours after her birth) she began to have a drippy nose, a cough, and now it has turned into wheezing at times. We have been asking the doctor what to do about this, and for the last few visits (6mth, 4mth, 2mth), he has just stated that we need to use a humidifier in her room and suction out her nose. Well, now I guess her lungs have developed fully and is in need of some steriods to help open her bronchical tubes to let air (yucky air at that) flow better.

The meds she received are albuterol for wheezing attacks (to use as needed-- just like anyone else with asthma) and flovent to use every day for 1 month to help reduce inflamation of her airway. We also go the nifty little air-breather mask to help her breath it in. I know that these meds are not extrememly harmful, but still feel uncomfortable giving them to her. Does anyone have any pros or cons for using asthma medication on babies? I have been researching it and would like to feel better about it, if it is the right thing to do for my baby.

Please comment :)

(also albuterol is known to make people jittery, as noted by a few videos here.)

Niana is 9 months old. I can not believe that 40 weeks ago I had this baby. That is the same amount of time I carried her around. I just look at how much she has grown and am amazed.


This month....

*Niana was dedicated at church on April 6th. (See previous post).

* Grandma Sylvia has been to visit, babysitting and playing with Niana as much as she can (THANKS!) They have the same smile!!

*Niana learned how to spit out her food! Lots of fun! Thanks Grandma Sylvia.

*Niana learned how to "stage dive" onto the pillows. What a dare devil!

* Niana decided she looked better in Grandpa's hat than he did! But she eventually gave it back.
* Grandpa had a birthday, so Niana had her first BBQ outside with family. She isn't quite ready for the Holman family feast of meat yet, so Grandma Kathy feeds her a bottle.
*And inside, our little show off plays with Uncle Jeff on the floor. She tries to pull his teeth out here.

*Niana received a few more toys ( a walker and a ball), and loves them! She then tries to tell Evie how to use them her way, but Evie has her own ideas.

*Finally, she learns to knock down blocks with dad. What a hoot!

We also went to visit a new friend, Olivia Ruby Andrade, just a few days old in the hospital, went to our first Big Hat Days, first car show, and cut our first tooth!!! What a month--- exhaustion!

Baby Dedication

Niana was dedicated on April 6, 2008. She got to be dedicated with her good friend, Hannah Burton (Amy & Michael are her parents). We enjoyed having family join us in this wonderful time. My mom has been visiting, so we go to have her here.

"Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it," Proverbs 22:6

My Sweet Girl

I just had to share one of the most sweetest moments of my daughter's life. She has always been awesome, but tonight it was very sweet! I was laying on the carpet playing with her after bathtime and before bedtime. I then took a pillow and a blanket and laid down. I told Niana that Mama was going night-nights. She crawled around me for a bit, then came right over to my head and put her head down on mine and began to rock back and forth. I said Awwww! to her and she gave me a big sloppy kiss night-night. She then proceeded to go back to playing with her toys. Ok-- my baby is 8 months old and she gave me a kiss and rocked me to sleep! How sweet is that!

(Here is a picture of her head down-- her favorite cute pose! No one was home to
take a picture of her saying good night to me :( .)

Eight Months

Niana Grace will be 8 months on Monday, March 24, 2008. This past month has been busy with her learning all sorts of new activities. She began crawling in February. She has now moved on to cruising around the house and holding on to everything she can (even a moving refridgerator door!). She has started to stand a little bit by herself, but grabs quickly back on to the strudy object she was using for balance.

She has started to want to feed herself with her spoon. This makes the biggest mess! She then wants to share her fook with everyone, and this make an even bigger mess. Yes, we have moved into the time of peached in the hair, green beans in the ears, and I-don'-know-what under the arms!

It has been a lot of fun to see her grow and develop. Pleaes enjoy the slideshow of Niana's February /March 2008. (we were missing our camera for a few weeks, Niana pulled it off of the desk, and it was shipped off for repair).

7 months!

Niana will be 7 months tomorrow (Feb. 24th). She is crawling around like crazy, so I don't have time to even catch her on video (she's that fast!). She is able to pull up on the furniture and has a few bumps and bruises from smacking her head into the coffee table at daycare. She is giving mommy & daddy kisses and hugs, which we both love-- but she still pushes away to take in the enviornment.

Niana went to her first concert on Thursday night at Butler Church. MBMSI (the Mennonite Brethern Missions Organization) was putting on a concert and had a speaker. It truly touched the Holmans' hearts, Niana even had her AMENS to add. She did not like the loud music, so we ended up hanging out in the foyer with some HS students!

Now she is missing her daddy, who is at High School Winter Camp at Hartland. Maybe he will bring her a snowman!

Visiting friend Evie and playing with ALL her toys! Happy Birthday Evie- 2/24!

Playing at G-Ma & G-Pa's house in the wagon!

Trying to escape the crib.

Niana is Crawling

Over the past month, this little girl has decided it would be fun to try her hand (well, knees) at crawling. She couldn't quite get her knees up behind her at first and had the arm strength, so she crawled (pushed) backwards. Now she has put 2 and 2 together and has figured out how to get what she wants. She is by no means crawling around the house, but if a toy is not in reach, she will go get it. She has mastered rolling back and forth, getting up to a sitting posistion and is currently working on standing. It is quite funny to watch her move around. We can tell that she would rather just walk, but since her little legs aren't quite strong enough, she has to settle for crawling. Here is some video of her attemps at crawling over the past month. Thanks for checking in on us. (Oh and she just copied patty-cake yesterday- which she seems to be very proud of!)

Scooting Backwards on 1/15/08:

Crawling a little, then clapping- 2/10/08

SIX MONTHS OLD!

On January 24th my baby turned 6 months! She has been busy growing, developing, and trying new things. It does not seem all that long ago when she spent her days eating and sleeping. But now, she is trying to crawl, stand, and move all about. This past week, she has been rolling around to get where she wants to go, but she is so desperatly wanting to walk. She knows that if she uses her arms to pull her up, she will eventually start walking. She also knows that when she is sitting in an upward posistion, that she can rock forward and then will be on her hands and knees. Time will tell which will come first... walking or crawling. She is also into putting everything in her mouth that she comes in contact with. She is teething, so anything feels good on those gums. We just introduced finger foods to her tonight, so hopefully she will begin to learn the chewing process of eating. Please notice the drool on her little chin!

Who Does Niana Look Like?

Everyone has been asking who Niana looks like. Well, you can now judge for yourself. I uploaded a baby picture of Niana, myself, Scott, and my mom. Go ahead and take the poll to the right and choose who you think Niana most looks like.





Niana at 5 months








Susan at 3.5 months


















Scott at 5 months

(please no comments on the attire :) It's not his fault!)

















Grandma Sylvia (at 6 or 7 months?)

Christmas time is here....

Niana's first Christmas went for about a week...

It all started Saturday the 23rd. We had our own little Christmas time that morning. Susan attemped (once again) to make Christmas chocolate-chip waffles, but the waffle maker was giving her a headache. Maybe next Christmas she will have a fancy Belgium wafffle maker to make the perfect waffles. So after partaking in quick Christmas breakfast, Scott and Susan got to opening gifts. Scott got a stereo for the Tahoe, and Susan got an iPod to play in the Tahoe! Niana is getting a high chair for her first Christmas- still to come! But she did spin in circles for us after all the paper was cleaned up!

That eveing, we had a Christmas Dinner Mediterrean Style at the Gilmore's home for Coooking Club. The meal consisted of a mix of delictable appitiezers, fish soup, roast lamb, a mediterrean salad, couscous, and heavenly desserts. We rounded out the evening with a Kitchen Gadget gift exchange- Gilmore Style. It was a blast-- and I ended up with the fun fondue kit! Thanks Gilmores for hosting such a fun event! (sorry no pictures- Scott & Chris spent most of the time playing with their cameras rather than taking pictures of the event!)

On Sunday the 23rd, we went to Church and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas worship and message. We then went to Grandma & Grandpa Holman's for the Holman Christmas. We ate a late breakfast then dived right into the gift giving. First thing-- Grandma & Grandpa took Niana away and brought her back in a Radio Flyer Wagon- complete with cupholders and seatbelts! She looked dazed, but was so into opening the gifts. She loved tearing off the bows (and trying to eat them). She even loved the gifts inside-- a driving toy from Grandma & Grandpa, a fish book from Uncle Craig & Aunt Amy, and of course what girl does not love clothes from Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Craig, Aunt Amy, Uncle Jeff, and Nicole!

Then everyone else opened gifts. The girls had to open thier "special gift" from Dad. Every year he gets us one special gift, and it has become a tradition to outdo last year. This year, we received these wonderful Christmas wreaths (coming to an Ebay near you!) We finished off the day with snacking and watching basketball. Later that evening, the Griffins stopped by with Evie, and Ann Wiebe dropped in to bring Christmas cheer! Niana shared her wagon with Evie, and they both played with their Christmas presents. After a long weekend, we went home to pack for our travels to Oregon (see next post!)

Fresh Food For Niana

Niana started eating solid foods at 4 mths. We started her on Rice Cereal and as she quickly mastered the spoon, we moved on to messier and tastier foods.













Since Mama was off on Christmas break, we decided to try Avacado for her first veggie. She loved it! We ate bits and pieces here and there and always managed to get it all over the place!
As you can tell by the pictures, she knows where the camera is at all times and will pose for you, even with a mouth full of green slimy good food. (Next we add the cilantro and garlic for some tasty guacamole!)

I don't know if there is sound added to this video, but Niana was having fun on Grandma Kathy's knee bouncing up and down. She was also making lots of noise, so I had to record it with my phone. Sorry about the quality. We will have to get a real video camera soon for all her new movements!

First Thanksgiving

Droolia Bubbles Wigglesworth

Scott has deemed Niana as Droolia Bubbles Wigglesworth (the first). I don't know who the second is, but oh well! Our little bubble maker has become such a fun little girl. She no longer is in that infant stage, and not quite to the little girl stage, but still is a lot of fun.


This month incluced a lot of firsts. She is now 4 months old, but she has already learned to roll over to the left and right, took her first road trip to LA to visit some friends (Monica, Sol, and Kai Rodriguez), took her first bite of rice cereal, celebrated her first Thanksgiving, and spent the weekend with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Ernie (without Mommy and Daddy).

Rolling Over on 11/5/07 with Dad.

Eating from a spoon with Mom for the first time on 11/19/07.

Trying to get a smile out of her after an hour for photos.

(I'm a little behind) Here's our 3 month old

Back to Niana Binana! She is almost 16 weeks old! That is just around 3.5 months. She rolled over for the first time on Monday (11/5). Scott was able to witness the whole thing. He had her laying on her back in the living room while he went to make lunch. He could her her struggling a little, and then some annoyed screams came from her. He poked his head in to see what was happening, and there she was on her tummy. He said that she did it over and over again that day. I didn't get to see it since I was at work, but he took some pictures, and sent them via phone. I was so proud of my baby I showed everyone in the room (yes, even my 5 yr olds!)




She has now also found a new sound to make. She likes to gather saliva and then make this "vroom" kinda sound. Scott says she is practicing for when the toy trucks and cars come. She does it all the time now. It then makes a big mess down her chin and onto her shirt. Thank you to anyone who gave her bibs!!!

She also wants to start moving. I think in being able to turn over, she realized that she can control her body at some point. Now when she sits in my lap, she wants to roll off and onto the floor to start exploring. I know it will be a few months before she actually starts moving, but I can see the adventuresome spirit in her eyes!