Trimming the Tree!

This year the holidays are way more exciting because Corbin really understands what's going on, and she knows that when Nick Jr. starts playing the "I Only Want a Candy Cane This Year" song and segment and the Christmas episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, it's time for the holidays!

Over the weekend we put up our fake tree, but I wasn't quite ready to decorate. I had to rearrange the room quite a bit before deciding where I wanted everything to be. By the time everything was just so, it was well past Corbin's bedtime. She REALLY wanted to decorate the tree, so she had an extremely fretful fit in which she pretty much cried herself to sleep. I made her a promise that as soon as she woke up, we would decorate the tree together.

Guess who met me in my bedroom bright and early Sunday morning?

I let Corbin do all the decorating herself. It was pretty interesting.

She put most of the decorations in one big clump in the middle of the tree.

As you can see here. :)

Freedom of expression and all that. The distribution cracks me up, especially since she did put some random ornaments around the back side of the tree.


So here's our tree! I did rearrange the ornmaments just a bit so that things looked more even and dispersed, but Corbin did most of the work. My little girl is growing so fast! And so far this year, she hasn't ripped into any of her presents. ;)

Happiest Place on Earth

I think Corbin discovered her happy place on Friday at this place in the Savannah Mall called Skukuzoo. It's a giant playground/putt-putt jungle-themed play land where my sister Brittney decided to have a family gathering in honor of my nephew's birthday. Noah turned 8 on Friday, which is hard to believe, but then again, Corbin is about to be 2!!

Corbin's favorite place in the whole area was a bouncy ball pit in the toddler area, where she found herself swimming in multi-colored smiley faces! I haven't seen her so thrilled or entertained in a long time. Definitely worth the $3.21 admission! Of course you know I took TONS of pictures, and here are some of my favorites. :)

Corbin and my Pink Ranger toy from the mid-90's. I found it at my mom's a few weeks ago and she has been carrying it around ever since. She's got great taste. :)

Happy child, swimming around!


Okay, mom, I'll sit still long enough for you to take a picture! Sheesh!


Total bliss.

Yucky!


My favorite. She looks like she's trying to model, haha.

She just could not be happier!


We don't frequent the Savannah Mall very often unless I'm going to Target, but when we do, we'll definitely have to make time for Skukuzoo. :)

More birthdays coming up soon! Ryan's birthday is the 3rd of March, and Allison, my niece, will be 3 on the 8th! And before I know it, my own baby girl is going to be celebrating her big day! Time flies!!

IN OTHER NEWS...

I've decided that I need to blog more about Miss Corbi-lou, and so I'm going to be a 365 project just for her. I'm going to take at least one picture every single day for a year, and I started today! Look for some pictures coming this afternoon! :)

Holiday Woes

Christmas has come and gone (and I'm so glad it's over!), and we are finally back home in our own warm and cozy beds. It was a very trying and tiring couple of days because Corbin contracted a virus and was very sick.

We realized something was up last Tuesday when she woke up completely whiny and refusing to eat much of anything. We thought that perhaps she was teething or maybe just a bit constipated. Ryan ventured out that evening and got some apple juice, which we gave to her Wednesday morning.

I guess the juice worked?! Trying not to be too graphic, but Corbin had stomach issues from Wednesday up until this morning, and they are finally tapering off. She screamed and cried every time she went to the bathroom, she refused to touch any sort of food, and she had a fever every few hours. When I woke up on Christmas Eve with her before 8am (very unusual for her to be up that early), and she was running a fever, I called her pediatrician and took her in.

She went through five containers of Pedialyte over the last few days. She also ate a few crackers here and there, too. It wasn't until Sunday that she really started eating any sort of food, and only a little of that. She had some chicken nuggets and fries. And how many diapers did she go through? Let's just say that I packed enough to last our entire five day trip and then some and I was completely out by Friday (we left Thursday afternoon). I also had to change her pajamas almost every single time she went to the bathroom, and she didn't get to wear her Christmas dresses at all.

As for her sleeping habits, they were nonexistent while she was sick. She was up every few hours screaming and crying, almost inconsolable. Add to this that on Saturday she chewed the end off of her pacifier and refused any of the others that we tried to give her (I ordered her some Pacifiers from Pacimals the Friday before, but they didn't arrive before we left on Thursday). I ended up driving to Americus at 1am (which was over half an hour away) to find a Walmart to buy those Soothie pacifiers that look like the Pacimals one, but she still refused it. It was utterly exhausting and I am surprised by my patience in the whole matter. I guess I wanted more than anything for my baby to feel better.

The best and most relieving moments were when she finally gave in and just let herself sleep:

Corbi-lou on Christmas Eve after we got back from the doctor. She was not happy. She curled herself up in her daddy's chair while we got ready for our long drive to Macon.




Christmas morning, playing with Christmas bows:



Checking out her Olivia book (it's so cute):




And then the crying commenced! Mood swings!



After lots of hard work, I finally managed to get her down for a nap. Doesn't she look so peaceful?




Small victory! She was eating crackers! (Although I'm not sure if those are the same crackers she ended up sleeping with?)




And after a particularly rough Saturday night without her pacifier, on Sunday afternoon she finally conked out in Grandmother's arms.




So definitely not the Christmas I envisioned, full of smiling babies in overly adorable Christmas dresses, but my baby girl still had a good time. She got lots of books which she is thrilled with, and Santa was very good to her.

And yes, she's feeling much better today. She's had fish sticks, sweet peas, and macaroni and cheese, and she's been happy and singing all day long. :)

Pink Christmas & Baby Reindeer

A few weeks ago I took some pictures of Corbin for our "Pink Christmas" themed photoshoot. I never posted the end product, so I thought I'd put up some pictures finally! This is going to be a post of pictures, so enjoy!

Here are some out-takes:











And after much Photoshopping, the final two pictures:





I love my beautiful girl. :) She was fun to photograph, but she did at one point get really upset with the whole thing.

And a few days ago, I got some pictures of her being my "baby reindeer." She was wearing these antlers that I've had in my trunk since Christmas 2006 (when I was in the Christmas parade with the CCRG) and Ryan pulled out recently.





So it's officially the last few days until Christmas and we're still trying to finalize our family and travel plans. From what I've heard, Corbin's going to have a great Christmas and I'm really excited for her. Not to mention I can't wait to dress her up in her adorable Christmas dress for this year! It definitely rivals the adorableness that was last year's dress!

Merry Christmas, everyone! :)

First Haircut!

This drives me bonkers. Corbin's hair is growing very quickly and getting long, and it will NOT stay out of her face unless I force it with clips and rubber bands, which always mysteriously disappear as soon as my back is turned!

I've been toying with the idea of getting Corbin's bangs trimmed or just doing it myself, and finally today I decided I'd had enough! Her hair is always in her face and gets in the way she she's eating or doing anything else, so it had to go!

To the salon we went!

Here's my baby getting all happy and excited in the hair cutting chair. Honestly, I didn't expect her to be so cheerful!


She was also REALLY excited about the ginormous mirror, and she was all giggles! She's such a vain baby! (She tried to climb into the mirror in our bathroom today. She's really interested in that adorable baby she sees in there!)

Look at those crazy bangs! Time to snip them off!


So I told the lady I didn't want her bangs to be blunt straight across. I just don't think it's cute. I wanted the side-sweeping thing, and that's what we went for.

There was a lot of action involved, as is proven in these shots, because if there's one thing Corbin is not good at, it's holding still!


Every time she'd get her bangs in place and ready to start snipping, Corbin would toss her head to the side. Ryan was trying to hold her. I don't know how we managed, lol.


Bangs, yay!


And yeah, they look kinda wonky in the picture, but they actually look really nice. I'm very pleased. It was especially nice because after all of that, the lady didn't charge us a thing! She just gave me her card and said for me to remember her when I needed hair services! She was super sweet! And she carried Corbin away and gave her candy. And of course my baby loves her some candy. :)

Mmmm, candy!


Look at that happy baby! I'd say she's pleased to be able to see clearly for the first time in months without an annoying ponytail! :)


The first of many haircuts, I'm sure! I saved the snippings to put in her baby book. Maybe that makes me weird, but she's my baby and I want to remember all of these ridiculous little milestones someday. :)

Growing Girl

I just wanted to share some pictures of Corbin from this time last year. She was five months old. It is amazing to look back at how small and adorable she was! It's also fun to look at pictures that I completely forget I had even taken!

Enjoy!

From the tutu photoshoot in this post here. This picture was definitely an out-take (bad lighting, strange facial expression), but it's hilarious to me now!


Back when acquiring the skill of thumb-sucking was a big deal.


Big beautiful eyes she got from her daddy. :)


The purple paci! We've been through so many of these Pacimals pacis and I don't know what we'd do without them! The purple one we ended up discontinuing because one of those dogs got a hold of it and chewed some pieces loose on it. Ah well!




This was fun, so I think I'm going to make it a regular thing! I love my daughter so much. It's so fun to watch her learn and grow. Just yesterday she was sitting on the floor at my feet, "reading" a book, and I could actually make out coherent words! Her vocabulary and personality grows everyday, and I can't wait to see what more the future holds. :)

Pigtails and Tutus

Corbi-lou had a fun day of dress-up one day this week. Her hair is finally long enough for me to get into the most adorable set of pig-tails (she looks just like Boo from Monsters Inc!), and so when I can manage to get her to sit still long enough, I take advantage of it! I also put this Tinkerbell dress on her that she had inherited and I found while going through her clothes, and of course much cuteness ensued!

I'll just let you take a look for yourself. :)

First picture here was accidental. I was trying to get the camera ready and I don't usually use the flash, but it turned out cute!












Full of smiles, excitement, and innocent wonder. And a love for tiny pebbles. ;)