ho, ho, oh no!

2008

2009

Libby loves the stuffed Santa ornament on our Christmas tree. She's learned to say "ho, ho, ho," whenever she sees Santa (actually, she says "oh, oh, oh"—so cute). And the girl hardly ever meets a stranger; she's such an outgoing, easygoing kid. So we were optimistic that she might actually like sitting on Santa's lap this year, unlike all her 1-year-old peers. We were wrong.

As soon as Kevin handed her to Santa, she started wailing. She settled down pretty quickly, as you can see from the photos, but she never really warmed up to Santa. Last year, at 4 months, she was oblivious, just chillin' in Santa's lap. And I'm sure she'll be Santa's biggest fan next year. I guess this year's tears are just a rite of passage!

hats

Libby has been really into hats lately, which is great since it's so cold here! Her favorite is the straw hat Dad and Candy gave her for Easter. It was a little big then, but it fits perfectly now. She also likes to put the cardboard wrap from Kevin's yogurt drink 4-packs on her head. And she's fond of the winter hat Katie bought for both her and Morgan. Here's a little montage.

happy holidays from the whitman family elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

digging in

Here, Libby demonstrates the proper way to eat Thanksgiving dinner (standing on a chair with someone else's spoon in hand, eating off yet another person's plate).

greats

Gran, Libby and Morgan

Grandma Marie and Libby

Libby got to see two of her four great-grandmothers this weekend. Her great Gran came to our house for Thanksgiving yesterday, and we went to Uncle Bob's today to see great Grandma Marie. She lives in Florida, so Libby met her for the first time today! We'll see Daddy's grandmas at Christmas when we go to Edgerton. Miss Libby is very lucky to have these four great ladies in her life!

thanks, grandma!

Libby just wanted to thank Grandma Whitman for staying with her this week while Aunt Katie had her tonsillectomy. Mommy and Daddy will be home on vacation next week while Aunt Katie continues to recover. We're very thankful for our family!

pigtails

Not the best light for photos, but Daddy did a bang-up job with Libby's first pigtails!

halloween 2009

Gimme a break!

We're ready to roll!

This is pretty fun, don't ya think, Gus?

Suckers are waaay better than pacifiers!

Libby spent Halloween trick or treating with her buddy Gus, and we hung out with Gus' mom and dad, Doug and Sue. They live on a much quieter, much flatter, much more kid-populated street than ours, so we trick or treated at their house in Madeira. Gus wore his grumpy Pooh face while it was light enough to take pictures, but he really was having a good time and became his usual smiley self a little later. Libby was Miss Congeniality, as usual. She and Gus kept swapping unwrapped candy so they could chew on it, and Libby kept chucking her trick or treat bag out of the wagon. My favorite moment was when she received a sucker from the firefighters and carefully set her pacifier down in the middle of the street so she could eat the candy. We spent nearly 2 hours strolling the neighborhood, and our little girl was tired. But she couldn't have asked for a nicer first beggar's night.

signs and sounds

Libby's signing vocabulary continues to grow, so we added a list of the signs she knows on the right-hand side of the blog. We also have a list of the words she's saying. The latest is that she can both sign and say "bird." So cute!

P.S. We promise to post Halloween photos this weekend!

baby signing time

Libby is obsessed with her "Baby Signing Time" DVDs, which feature a lady singing songs and demonstrating sign language with babies following along. Every morning--and all day long--she makes the sign for "baby" to indicate that she wants to watch one of the two videos in the series that we own. We've been working with her on some signs, but she's picked up a few more that we've never demonstrated, directly from the DVDs. She now can sign eat, more, drink, water, milk, cracker, sleepy, hat and book. It's really great that she can communicate with us in this way since she's not really speaking yet (a girl can't get by on "cat" and "more" alone). And it's keeping Aunt Katie on her toes! Libby can also identify her mouth, ears, teeth, belly and nose. I don't have any photos of her signing, but here's a shot of her and Gilmore watching the DVD together. Gilmore has not picked up on any sign language yet, unless you count tapping people with his paw and staring at them intensely.

fall fun weekends

Sarah, Libby and I have been busy these past two weekends. Fall is our favorite time of the year and my work travel has slowed down so we took advantage of the great weather these past two weekends to get out and take it in. Last weekend we went to Neltner's Farm in Camp Springs, KY with the Whites and this weekend we went to HallZOOween with the Hoods.We also managed to sprinkle in some walks with Gilmore, brunch with our dear friend (and new Cincinnati resident *YAY*) Liz Truitt, and an impromptu dinner party with some of my oldest friends Jason, Michael, Liz, & Tyana.
Below are pictures from our trips to the farm and the zoo. As always, several more are available in our Gallery. I've also added a couple of videos at the bottom showing just how excited Libby & Maddox were to be playing together at our house last night. Maddox was maybe a little too excited to give Libby a kiss goodnight, but I've got my eye on that boy...

So as the leaves are just beginning to turn down here, we're looking forward to several more beautiful weekends together over the coming weeks.
Happy Fall to All!

Libby & her goat friends

Giggly Gus

I'll just take this tiny one

Our Family on the Farm

Two cuties checking out the animals

Two Silly Monkeys

Daddies and monkeys

Mommies and a monkey

Hanging out with Big Boy

Picking the perfect pumpkin

birthday video

I know. It's been a month in the making, but here it is -- our video from Libby's First Birthday Party! She may have seemed a little overwhelmed by all the love and attention she got, but she had a great time! Trust me.

thirteen months

Just wanted to point out Libby's 13-month chair photo. We'll be updating this feature monthly instead of weekly now, so look for it each month around the 27th.

It's crazy how quickly Libby has gone from baby to toddler in the past few months, but we're enjoying every minute of it. She's exploding with personality and activity.

She has 4 teeth now, and is getting 2 more. She's walking really well and hardly crawls anymore, although she is an expert at walking on her knees, which she still resorts to occasionally. She says a second word now — "more" — but it comes out more like "mo." Katie thinks she's trying to say "bird" too. And she now does the signs for milk, water, more and eat.

Oh, and one more milestone: We spent our first night away from Libby for our 5-year anniversary last weekend, while Grandma and Grandpa Whitman stayed at our house. We really enjoyed the time away, and Libby did just fine. Thanks Keith and Kathy!

five years

Believe it or not, Sarah and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary this weekend!
Look at these two kids. So young and in love, if they only knew what life had in store...
Five years is one of those things that seems like forever and five minutes at the same time. I think we're both just so excited to see what the next five years holds for us, and the rest of our lives for that matter.
But here's to my beautiful bride, I love her more every day.

dress up

As you saw in a previous post, Libby loves putting underwear on her head and wearing them around her neck. She has expanded her wardrobe to include a grilling apron, which she wears as a cape, a pink scarf, and a bracelet from her Fisher Price Pretty Learning Purse. It's soooo cute to watch her take her little bracelet out of her purse and put it on! She's just fabulous.

chowhound

Although you couldn't tell from looking at her, Libby loves to eat. She's eating finger foods almost exclusively, except for the yogurt we feed her for breakfast and the baby food we use to round out some meals. Luckily, she likes a wide variety of food and she hasn't shown any sensitivities or allergies. We introduced peanut butter last weekend, the final food on the "highly allergenic" list, and she loved it. Her favorite foods include cheese, berries, bananas, grapes, veggie dogs and crackers. She's also drinking milk out of a sippy cup really well now. I feel quite lucky that it's not a struggle to get her to eat, especially since she's kinda teeny tiny. She can really pack it in!

this little piggy

Libby has learned how to insert the plastic coins into her Fisher Price piggy bank, and as her mother, I'm just amazed. She went from fumbling with one last night and pushing with all her might while holding it a little crooked, to putting every single one in with ease tonight. We're just so proud of our little banker. Thanks, Art & Pam, for this great Christmas gift!

weaning

I wasn't aware of it then, but I think Libby nursed for the last time this week. But let me start at the beginning of the end.

My goal was always to nurse Libby for a year. As the year mark approached, I decided that I would keep nursing her when she woke up and at bedtime, but wean her from her two mid-day feedings, which were also my two workday pumping times. I was so tired of pumping and wouldn't have the time to do so in the middle of the day during the HOW conference I was scheduled to host in Washington, DC two weeks after her first birthday. And I wanted to make sure she would take cow's milk from a bottle. Otherwise, I was actually going to have to ramp up the pumping in order to have enough breastmilk for her while I was gone (she'd always had breastmilk exclusively, so I didn't want to introduce formula at this point). So two weeks before her first birthday, we introduced cow's milk twice a day with no problem.

With that worry behind me, I phased out the pumping but was determined to nurse her in the morning and at bedtime until she was ready to wean. I figured breastfeeding was still healthier, easier and cheaper, and I genuinely still enjoyed nursing her. About a week after her first birthday, she started getting her upper two teeth and, consequently, biting me while she nursed. I tried to reprimand her without making her cry, but I wasn't having much luck in getting her to actually nurse, especially at bedtime. A few days later, I left for the HOW conference with my pump in tow. Kevin had frozen breastmilk to give Libby in the morning and at bedtime, and cow's milk to send to Katie's house. The morning feedings went OK, but she wouldn't take the bottle at bedtime. Since she eats dinner fairly close to bedtime, we decided to give her a cup of milk during dinner and to cut out the nighttime bottle. Meanwhile, I pumped at the conference to keep my waning supply up, hoping she'd be over the biting and would nurse willingly after not seeing me for 4 days.

She was already in bed when I got home from my trip Saturday night. When she woke up Sunday morning, she was so excited when I went into her room to get her up. She nursed eagerly without biting. I was sleepy, but I was more focused on her than usual since I had been away and missed her so much. I talked to her a little, studied her little face and hands, stroked her arm. It was a lovely experience that both of us seemed very "present" for, the way it should be, the way it all began.

And that was the last time she nursed. I've given her the opportunity to nurse the last two mornings, but she's started to suckle then burst into tears, and I've had to make her a bottle. So I have a bottle ready for tomorrow morning.

I really thought that "the last time she nursed" would be a big, emotional to-do, that I would really put my heart into it because I knew it would be the end of perhaps the most important and intimate time we'll ever share. I thought I'd concentrate hard on it, trying to soak it all in. I thought I would cry. I'm so grateful that I didn't have to force all of that, that it came so naturally, that I unwittingly paused to savor what had become so routine one last time. I think nursing may be the most important gift I ever give my daughter. And I think giving me that one last sweet, relaxing moment early Sunday morning was a gift from her.

my day at the zoo

Mommy and I went to the zoo today with Amanda, Maddox, Katie and Morgan. It was such a pretty day, and there was hardly anyone else there. Lots of animals were out and about. I got to see almost all the cats, including the baby Bengal tigers and lynxes, so I got to use my favorite word (cat!) a lot. The baby gorilla was playing with his dad, and the Sumatran rhino was taking a bath. A peacock even strolled right by us and took a rest a few feet away while we at our lunch at LaRosa's. But I was more interested in the wrens who gathered by my stroller to catch the Goldfish crackers I dropped. I liked the fish at Manatee Springs, too. And I even got to feed a giraffe a cracker, although I didn't really want to let go of it, so Mommy helped me. It was a very fun day. Thank you Aunt Katie for organizing it!

happy grandparents day

I love all of my grandparents so much! I am such a lucky girl.
I hope you have a great day!!!
~Love, Libby

Make a Smilebox slideshow

libby's birthday pics

I'm still working on the video, but we thought we should get a few pics on here from Libby's birthday and her party. There are lots more in Our Gallery, so check them out too. I hope to get the video up by the end of this week -- I hope I'm not building too much suspense, it's not all that thrilling...