Spring MEGA-Post!

Who can believe that our beautiful Heidi Grace is now 2 years old? Her Mom and Dad certainly cant! She is such an amazing, sweet, smart, loving and funny little girl! We had a low-key birthday celebration and went to Chuck-E-Cheese! This was Heidi's first time, so she was totally loving it!

Here she is with her adorable "Birthday Princess" hat on eating her own mega-huge piece of birthday cake (which Mommy made!)

Here she is saying "hi!" to Uncle Scott through the plexi-glass of the jungle gym.

Here she is lovin' her friends the Weissmann girls

I had to inclue the obligatory blowing out the candles pic too, of course!

(Isn't it sooo cute how Daddy's is holding her up to blow out the candles!?!)

And now for a little perspective, let's look at how much our little princess has changed in just one year! Ahhh, how much difference a year can make!

(My goodness, she was unhappy about eating her birthday cake at her first birthday party!)

(She was MUCH happier at her second birthday!)

And then we celebrated Easter! The family got up early and went to church and then we came back home to have a lovely brunch with our great friends' the Masseys and Heidi had the most fun hunting for eggs!

Heidi loved crawling on Daddy's back!

Look at that face!

Heidi loves baby Emmy!

and in closing, doesn't Heidi look sooo cute with her bunny ears on!?!

"That's my Momma!"

Heidi is really growing up! {Tear} Its so amazing to see how every day she is less of a baby and more of a little girl. Although Dad and I are fighting it by still referring to her as "the baby." Its so funny to me how, as parents, our number one objective is to guide these precious little monkeys to grow up and be the best they can be - what ever that may be - yet, are in a way fighting it along the way. I find myself thinking, Ah, this is the PERFECT age, I wish I could freeze time and just soak this up a little longer! Well, I'm doing it again, because Heidi is starting to form short sentences... and it is melting my heart! She is talking and babbling virtually all of the time now, but unfortunately I don't understand 90% of what she is saying. Last week I was pretty sure she said "I want my Papa" while we where up in Montana. Ahhhh, so sweet. Then a couple of nights ago Brian, Heidi and I were at the mall. Brian and Heidi were letting me have a little alone time at the Clinique counter (its bonus time!) when all of the sudden Heidi came running up to me and the sales girl and exclaimed, as clear as a bell, "That's my Momma!!!" Every one within earshot collectively sighed, "ahhhhh" and once again my heart had melted! As Heidi is becoming more of a toddler/diva I often become nostalgic for those times when she was an infant, but am realizing more and more that the best is yet to come, and it is such a wonderful ride!

Heidi Got a New Friend Today!

What an exciting day we all had! Our dear friends The Massey's welcomed their daughter, Emerson, into the world today! Heidi has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of her new friend for 9 months now, and she was sooooo excited to finally meet her today! Okay, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating her understanding today's momentous events, but I have to say she was really, really excited! Emerson is more gorgeous than we had even expected, and her mom and dad did an amazing job bringing her into the world. We all lover her already. Yay for new babies!

It is so hard to believe it, but Miss Heidi Grace is now 18 months old! To celebrate her half-birthday, the family went to the park to play on the juggle gym. Heidi had soooo much fun climbing up the jungle gym all by herself and sliding down the slide. Weeeeee! Here are some adorable pictures :-)

Isn't this just too cute!?!

The Family's First 5K!

We all had such a great weekend! We all participated in the charity run benefiting the Norma Livingston Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation. It was the first 5K for all of us! Mom ran alone, but Dad was a total rock star and pushed Heidi in the jogging stroller! This would have been a very impressive accomplishment on its own, but considering that the coarse was pretty darn hilly (is that a word?) Dad got rock star status for the entire weekend ;-) And Heidi, what a trooper! She loved it! There was so much excitement in the air as all the runners gathered to start the race (we think there were a little over 550 runners in the race) and Heidi loved every minute of her super fast ride in the stroller!

Not only did Heidi, Mom and Dad run, but Uncle Scott and Aunt Tasha did as well as Mom's friend Adrienne and her boyfriend Ven.

Aunt Tasha finished first with a time of 30:30, Mom came in just behind her at 30:53, with Heidi and Dad just following behind at 31:15 (we all know that Dad would have smoked us all if he weren't pushing the jogging stroller!), and Uncle Scott was just behind that, finishing a whole 6 minutes faster than he did in his last 5K. We all had so much fun that we are looking into more runs to participate in ;-)

Blink Lady photos

 

We had Heidi's one year portrait...and family portrait done recently by The Blink Lady.   She is such an amazing photographer!  This one is my favorite of Heidi...just looks so angelic.  

Not always happy, but always beautiful!

Mom and I met LaTara and her son Greyson at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens again for a mini photo shoot.  LaTara is a burgeoning photographer and loves to take beautiful pictures of beautiful babies.  So with all of the best intentions, we all met up to take some pics.  Well, little did they know....I was so not in the mood to have my picture taken!  Despite the fact that I was sooo not in the mood, LaTara still got this shot.  Look at those beautiful blue eyes!  Gorgeous!  Mom thinks it is good though...we will need to remember that although I am a beauty...I'm not always laughs, giggles and smiles.  ;-)

Just Plain Cute

Flirty Face

I am such a flirt these days.  Mom just loves it when she catches my flirty face on camera.  Here's one of her recent ones.  I'm flirting with Uncle Brad at The Mont in this one ;-)

This picture is from Mothers' Day.  We went to 5 Points for breakfast, and Mom got the chance to snap a few pics of moi wearing the outfit she made for me.

Swiiiiing!

The whole family went to Reeves' Park last weekend.  Even though I was tired, I loved swinging on the baby swing!  Look at that smile!

I am so ready for Summer!

and I LOVE wearing my cute, cute, cute sunglasses!

Pretty, Pretty Princess

 

Dad thought I needed some pretty princess dress up time today...I think he was right!

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Heidi is one today! This has been the most exciting, heart-warming and wonderful year! Heidi has brought more to our lives than I could have ever imagined. She has taught me the true meaning of unconditional love and the unique love of a parent to a child. Heidi is an amazing, loving and intelligent little girl. She loves her Mom and her Dad and her doggie sisters Roxy and Coco. When she was a newborn she wanted to be swaddled and held at all times! Today she still loves to cuddle, but she's definitely on the move now! She has grown so much over the past year, and we can't wait to see how much she will grow and develop over the next!

I'm Walking!

I'm a walking girl now! I took my first steps to Mommy on Thursday, March 26 right before Mom and Dad left the house to go pick up Gigi Redda from the airport (she came into town for my birthday party). Mom and Dad have know that I was close to walking for weeks now, and were so super-excited to see me take my first steps! I'm not that steady on my feet yet, but every day I take a few more steps and get a little more steady.
Here is a video from last night...I'm so proud of myself after I successfully make it to Mommy!

I just love this magazine!

I finally like my sippy cup!

Mom has been trying to give me water in a sippy cup for months and I have inevitably pushed it away every time...until tonight. I finally like it. Yay!

Heidi - Photo shoot with LaTara

Mom's new friend from work, LaTara Johnson, is an amateur photographer. She is working on her portfolio, so she offered to take pictures of Moi (said like Miss Piggy) at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Here they are! Feel free to let me know which one you like best.
If anyone wants LaTara to take their picture - ask Mom and she will give you her contact info...she's looking for more babies pictures to add to her portfolio.

Mom's 30!

I can't believe that I turned 30 this week!  What a milestone birthday.  Surprisingly, I am quite happy about it.  Don't misunderstand, there is a part of me that feels nostalgic for my twenties...I mean what an eventful decade!  When I think back on my 20 year old self, I am amazed at how much I've grown and matured.  
Although I didn't realize it then, I certainly had a lot to learn and experience.  This "learning" and "experiencing" was not always easy, but wow was it worth it!  When I reflect on my twenties I can't help but associate those years with many wonderful moments, but also a lot of hard work and growing pains.  In my twenties I worked 40+ hours a week waitressing while going to college full-time... and I paid for every bit of it myself.  This is when I really learned the value of a dollar and the value of hard work.  I remember how I could almost never bring myself to go shopping for anything superfluous because I would always calculate how many tables I would have to wait on to earn enough money to buy it...I almost always concluded that it wasn't worth it!  I felt an enormous sense of pride when I graduated from college knowing I had truly earned that diploma.  Then I moved on to law school.  Wow, what a change of pace!  I traded in my waitress' apron for a suit and schlepped my way through full-time law school and clerking at a law firm.  It began to occur to me that this wasn't going to be as glamorous as I had imagined all those years before.  
I "re-met" my husband and had the greatest time as we courted one another, and it was in no time before I knew he was "the one!"  I got married to my wonderful husband.  I began learning what it is to be a wife (and I know this will be something that I will continue to do - learn - for the rest of my life!).  I relocated to a new state with my husband and faced many challenges stepping out of my proverbial comfort-zone to make this new town a home, and I couldn't be happier with how well we were able to do that.  I began my career as an attorney - again I began to realize that this wasn't quite what I had always expected it to be. And finally, the most amazing and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and will ever happen, is that I became a mom to my wonderful, gorgeous daughter.  She is my greatest joy and I could never adequately express my love for her ... but I will spend my life trying!  
My twenties were a wonderful time, and I am so happy with the many blessings I received in those years.  It is for this reason that I feel that I can truly embrace being 30, and I look forward to the many events and joys I have yet to experience.

~Missy

Baby's got Bed-Head

As you know, I am not one of those babies who has a lot of hair.  What I have is beautiful, but there isn't much there...yet.  It is growing though!  I now have enough hair that when I wake up from a nap its all crazy!  Here's a pic Mom and Dad snapped when they came to get me up from my nap recently.  I know its too cute!