Simone's Nine Month Favorites

Tomorrow Simone will be TEN months old.  How are we already in the double digit months?!  That seems all out crazy to me.  And, everyone was right.  The first year is FLYING by.  Since she's hitting the big 1-0 tomorrow I figured I better post her nine month favorites.  Of course, it's all about the toys right now, or the things she WANTS to be toys.  Here are her top dogs.

 

Leap Frog Music Table - Chatter Telephone - Mega Blocks Wagon

 

I will say the blocks top everything.  While we were on vacation in late July Grandma in Michigan had this set & Simone would carry a block everywhere she went.  That meant when I got home, I was on the hunt for the same wagon & blocks.  Luckily, I found it quickly and now we have our very own set up here.

 

Simone's crawling has turned from cute little army crawls around a small area, into a little speed demon tearing ass across our house.  She is wicked fast (said in a Boston accent) & I can usually be found just trying to keep up.  She's also in full on "pull up and walk around the couches, end tables, coffee tables, cabinets, whatever she can grab" phase, too.  I'm not sure exactly what this is called... but I call it "give Mom a heart attack every five minutes or so". 

 

I've had to remove all of my cute decorations from end & coffee tables.  She will literally throw anything she gets her sweet little mittens onto across the house.  It was turning into a shit show of me picking it all up and trying to teach her "no".  Clearly, she doesn't get it yet... or doesn't want to.  Either way we've packed away most of the decorative items for a later date.

 

We recently started Simone in gym classes & swim lessons.  I'm going to dedicate posts to both and where we've decided to join soon.  She is absolutely LOVING being around other kids and I'm LOVING her getting out some of her endless energy. 

 

More soon.  I'm off to get a facial at a spa right now.  Wait, WHAT?!  No, seriously... this Mom needs some "ME" time in the worst way today.  Make sure you're taking some for yourself, too!

 

xo

Mother's Day Goodies for Grandma

Now that my sweet Mother in law has her Mother's Day Gift in hand I wanted to share what Simone & I did for her this year. 

Grandma & Simone

She is such a special Mom, with a caring heart who is constantly doing for others.  She teaches first grade and works tirelessly teaching her kids with love and care.  Her hours are long and the thanks are far too short (by my measure anyways...).  She deserves more than we can afford to give her, that's for sure!

I swear having a baby makes it so much more fun on holidays like this!  I had an idea of what I wanted to do, and was off and running to Michael's.  

I got some Martha Stewart fabric multi-purpose paint and some fabric pens to do the hand prints, foot prints, and the writing.  We picked up a set of hand towels and a little makeup bag to decorate.  Simone was such a sport.  She handled the paint pretty well, although she really just wanted to squeeze her hand tight when the paint was on it.  Hence why one of her hand prints looks like a tiny bear cubs claw!  I figured that kind of thing adds personality to the gift, right!?

I decided to do the little captions "Helping Hands & Little Feet".  Now, 90% of my crafty ideas come from Pintrest, but that was an "Amy Original" as we say in my house.  I debated on writing the year, but figured it was an important piece of information to add.  For inside the makeup bag I decided to include a small pedicure kit.  I got this great idea from the Pin-Pal exchange I did when I received the beauty in a jar gift.  Since we are far away and can't take Mom for a pedi, we mailed her one! :)

I wrapped it all up with this really cute string that I grabbed in the dollar section of Target (score!) and stamped out some Fleur-De-Lis (a little nod to our family symbol and Simone's very French name...Oui Oui!) confetti with purple paper. 

And, the response from Grandma?  She loved it!  She has plans to hang up the towels in her guest bathroom and good timing on the pedi kit... her nail lady is out of town for a few weeks! 

I think we enjoyed putting it together as much as she liked receiving it!

Happy Mother's Day to a wonderful lady!