One year old and first steps!

So like the brilliant mom that I am I forgot my camera on Mariah's birthday. I've been waiting for other people to send me the pictures that they have, and I've decided to just post the ones I have and I can post more later!


This was Mariah's first reaction to opening her presents! I think she was nervous with everyone watching her.



She's still not quite sure why we actually want her to tear this paper! (The video is a bit long but still really cute).


We let Krista help with some of the presents to try to get Mariah interested. She liked what was inside the presents, just not opening them.



I have a stylish new hat!


This was Mariah's present from Mom and Dad, and she loves it! She really liked flipping the pages on the book. Oddly enough, that is one of the few parts of the house that doesn't make noise!


After a bit all of Mariah's cousins jumped in to help her play, and she liked that! Mariah had a great birthday and is growing so fast! Today she took a couple shaky steps on her own! Right now she's in the hall saying "Hi" to the cat. It's amazing how fast she learns some of these things! She says hi, yay and no (of course). She will sometimes say mama or dada, but not very consistently yet. Such a fun little girl!

Hide and Seek

I was working on my lesson for church when I looked down and saw Mariah sitting like this. She was so cute, I love listening to her giggle!

It's coming!

This adorable little girl is nearly a year old! She just barely got her first tooth, but she won't let me get any pictures of it. :D I haven't posted in ages, but here are some of my favorite pictures of the last little while.

Such a silly baby!


Someone found a green peanut M&M on the floor! We had spilled some and scoured the floor looking for M&Ms that were hiding. We were sure we had them all, but of course Mariah found the one we missed! Luckily our baby seemed to have no reaction to the peanut, other than being angry when we pried it out of her mouth.


Standing in her toy-bin, 'cause, why not?


We call this her "Squinty Face". We hadn't seen it in a while and we were afraid that it was gone, but here it is and we finally got a picture!


Crawling and smiling!



Reading her book. She absolutely adores turning the pages in books, and doesn't much care for us trying to read to her! We are working on that one. :D


She's all over standing up to things to play with them, which means that tabletops are no longer a safe place to put things.


Here she stood up and turned towards me, and it looked like she was tying to walk but got tripped up because she had crawled her feet out of her pajamas. I'm sure she'll be walking around long before we are ready for it!

I just love watching Mariah play. She always makes me smile, and is always learning new things. I adore being a mom and I'm glad that I have such a beautiful and silly little girl!

Mobile Baby

She's actually been crawling for over a month now, it's crazy how fast time goes! Anyway, here's my sweet baby crawling, it's amazing how fast she moves. Every day we are finding new things that are not out of reach for her (like the envelopes that I just grabbed saved from drool-city). In the video it looks like she's crawling to me, but she's really chasing after the cat, LOL.


We went camping up American Fork Canyon with my parents, and the highlight for Mariah was the carrot the Grandpa gave her. :D


She also really enjoyed checking out this crack on the ground.

Mariah's cousin also came up for a few days. Right before I took this picture Mariah was sitting in Krista's lap, but she moved a bit too fast.



Last week we went to a Chinese restaurant for our friend's birthday. Mariah and her cousin loved the chopsticks!


They were even better when we took off the wrappers.


They were so much fun that Krista tried to sneak Mariah's out from under her nose! :D


I love to watch these two girls play together, it's always so much fun. They get so excited to see each other.

Our baby is already a geek...

Considering her parents, it's not really a surprise! She loves to play with computers, and she also loves her Baby Einstein music movies, so putting the two together made for one excited baby!

Here she's giving the computer a thoughtful look, maybe wondering if we are really going to let her near it.


Once she realized that she had a computer and her video she was very excited!


This week the HOA also had a new swing installed and Mariah approves. The playground is right outside our back door, it's really nice to have so close, and I'm sure Mariah will be all over it as she gets older.


I love baby giggles, they may be one of the best things in the world. It's so cute the way she kicks her legs as she swings.

Boxes, Kitties and Nummies!

I have a couple of cute videos of my babe to post, as well as some more pictures! She is very into food now (but only real people food!) and she is SO CLOSE to crawling! We want her to crawl because she is so close to doing it, but at the same time we realize that life will be even crazier when she is mobile. She's already pretty good at scooching and rolling and sliding around. :D

Mariah loves to feed herself, even though she isn't very good at it! Here she's eating some chicken and rice casserole.



Mariah is also figuring out how to pull herself up on things. I was making dinner the other day and I looked over and saw that she had pulled herself up and was playing drums. :D



Here's a cute picture of her playing with the boxes, it's much clearer than the video. I'm hoping that we can get a camera with better video between now and Christmas.



After Mariah has nursed in the mornings we let her play on the bed (and watch her very closely, she's so wiggly!). She's got some serious sleepy-face in this picture, and I think that's why her face looks so red too.



Our cat Boo is usually on the bed too, and Mariah loves to go after her! I am surprised at how patient Boo is with Mariah in the mornings. If Mariah can wiggle close enough Boo will usually put up with Mariah playing with her tail a bit. This is especially surprising if you know Boo!



Mariah still loves her baths, especially if we have bubbles in! One of the first things she does with the bubbles is try to eat them, and so we get a bubble beard.



After she realizes that bubbles are really hard to eat, she will find something else to chew on, and this hippo is one of her favorites. Nummy!

Where did June go?

I have no idea where the last month has gone. I can't believe the year is half way over already!

Napping with Daddy.

For a few days in a row Mariah fell asleep like this.

Mariah has also decided she likes food, as long as it's not pureed.
She's getting some cheerios from Dad.

Mariah and Adria playing with one of Adria's toys.
Mariah liked it so much we got her one of her own, and she loves the toys on it.

Stopping for a drink!

Over Father's Day weekend we went camping with my family, and we didn't want to come home! It was Mariah's first camping trip, and I think she's a fan so far.

Helping drive on the way down.

Shoe snack!!


Helping Grandpa open his Father's Day present.


Sitting in Grandpas lap.


Grandma and Mariah in their pj's!

Family Pictures

We finally went and had some family pictures taken this week, and also pictures of Mariah. The photographer did a great job and of course our daughter is beautiful! I have had so much fun being off track with her, it's going to be really hard to go back. If you have a minute, leave a comment, I'm curious how many people are looking at my blog. :D

About time, I know...

I'm really not quite sure where the last month has gone! It feels like we've been running and never having time to grab a breath. Luckily I'm finally off track so I can post some Easter pictures and some other fun things. Mariah seems to like the taste of different foods, but she still hasn't quite figured out how to swallow yet. She can now sit up for a while on her own, and she has to grab everything and put it in her mouth. She loves to play with her feet and anything else she can get her hands on!

This is Mariah in her Easter dress.


Everything goes in the mouth! This is her Easter egg from Grandma Young. She had the egg completely covered in slobber a minute later.


Giving us smiles in her carseat before we head home.


So this is how she looked when we got her out of her crib one morning. Not just one foot out, but two!


Taking a nap with Daddy.

This is a video of Mariah and her cousin playing this past Sunday. They both giggle and smile when they see each other.

Bouncing and Rice Cereal

Mariah got a Johnny Jump-Up this weekend and she LOVES it!

Chewing on her fist, a state of normal for this babe.

Big Smile!

Sorry about the sideways video, I didn't think about it when I turned the camera, and I don't have any video editing software handy.


She also had her first couple tries of rice cereal this weekend!

Here she's regarding the contents of the bowl inquisitively.


Now the spoon is in her mouth and she's not sure what to do with it.


She did swallow a little bit, but mostly drooled it all out!
Look at those huge cheeks!


At this point she let us know she was done!

Her second feeding she didn't like the cereal very much,
but we'll keep on trying it until we get the hang of things!