Arden at 11 Months!

Well Happy 11 months today little girl. I'm starting to get weird looks from people when they ask "how old is she?" and I say "11 months" because I feel like most people would just say "almost a year." Not me, I'm hanging onto this last month as long as I can. I can't believe that Arden is almost a year old! It's cliche- but it's gone by way too fast! Part of me feels like we just had her, and the other part of me can't really remember what life was like without her. Dave keeps saying that "she just started to get fun" but he's also been saying that off and on for months now.

What's new with her...
She's super "talkative" now and very active, crawling everywhere and following us around. Girl can move!

She just recently learned how to drink from a cup, even holding it up so that the water actually gets into her mouth!

She pulls up and sort of cruises on furniture.

She's got 6 teeth with a 7th peeking through (2 on top, 4 on bottom- the 7th is coming in on top)

Her favorite foods are now becoming yogurt, and red kidney beans, and crackers, and still "magic" green beans.

She says "da" for dog we think and squeals when she sees the cat. She still says Dada and Mama for us 50% of the time.

She's starting playing peekaboo, especially if you're wearing a hat- which Dave taught her. She thinks it's hysterical.




Now I guess it's time to start planning a 1st birthday party!

Shakin it at Shakori Grassroots Festival

So I'm a week behind on blogs. Two weekends ago we all went to the Shakori Grassroots Festival for Arden's second music festival, but her first camping experience. It's a small bluegrass festival that's outside of Pittsboro so we figured worse case scenario, we were only 45 minutes from home if she ended up not being a good camper. I'm always asked to teach yoga at this festival, in exchange for tickets. This year I had scheduled to teach two adult classes and one kids class over the course of the weekend.

We got there Friday afternoon, just in time to set up the tent before I had to teach. I had a good turn out for my first class and Dave got the campsite set up while I taught. Arden loved the tent! It was like a giant playpen for her! We decided to camp in the "quiet family camping area" not knowing how she would do sleeping outside in a tent. Friday night we wandered around a bit and listened to some music before heading the 3 mintue hike back to our "camp" to put her down. We ended up putting her down an hour later then usual but she was fine with that. She slept great in the pack & play next to us on the air mattress! Yay! We've got a camping baby!

Saturday I taught an early class with 40 people at it! It was amazing to see that many people practicing outside at a festival, I love teaching in that environment, the energy is awesome and the people are always so receptive. Then we packed up the stroller and Arden and walked around to various stages to listen to all the assorted music, and ran into some friends. Arden was great, falling asleep in the stroller when she was tired, dancing and singing when she wasn't. Of course we have video!

Saturday evening brought some darker clouds an ominous weather forecast, but we got back to camp just in time to put Arden down and make some Smores before it really started to rain. Being in a tent nice and dry during a rain storm is one of mine and Dave's favorite things, and Arden didn't seem to mind because she slept through the whole thing. Sunday morning we woke up to a damp festival but it wasn't too muddy and the sun actually started to come out mid day a bit. We watched the Apple Chill Cloggers which Arden got a kick out of and tried to crawl out on the dance floor with. We also listened to some storytelling. Then right after my kids class, (and of course before we had packed up our tent) the sky opened up and unloaded a thunderstorm complete with lightning and hail. Thank goodness we already under a tent and it ended quickly. We stuck around until 5:30 to see Chatham County Line and then headed out. All in all it was a great weekend. We've learned that festivals are a lot different with a baby and you miss a lot of the good late night music, but it was still a lot of fun! We're looking forward to more!

How I Spent My Birthday

So my birthday was this past weekend and I took the reins on planning the activities this year. Mostly I wanted to spend time with all my friends of all my different circles. So in order to do that I planned several activities at different times in the hopes that everyone could be a part of something.

Not exactly in the plans, but obviously needing to be done as the beginning part of the weekend was buying a new car. The old Outback had been declared a total loss, and after a few stressful sleepless nights I decided I still wanted my same car. I really liked my car. So thanks to a lot of negotiating help from my dad and babysitting help from my Mom, a new (to me) 2007 Outback was purchased. Same year, different color, but fewer miles then the totaled one. And I walked away from the whole ordeal #1- alive, and #2- with some extra money in the bank. So a new car to kick off the birthday weekend.
Saturday's plans started with a mysore yoga practice with some of my yoga friends. A mysore yoga practice means that everyone gets together and does their own practice but in the same space, sharing the energetic consciousness with one and another. It was great! We all started together but then it was really nice to see everyone move on their own in their own world. Great way to start the day! Then a bunch of us headed downstairs to the coffee/sandwich shop below our studio to eat lunch. My parents brought Arden up to meet us, which she seemed to enjoy.

Then next on the agenda for the day were pedicures around the corner at Hayes Barton nails. My friends, Brittny, Becky & Julie joined me. The salon was a bit crowded and the technicians seemed a bit rushed. It wasn't the best pedicure in the world and I had some battle scars to show for it, but my toes looked better then when I had walked in so that's a plus I guess.
Then that evening family and friends met up at Sweet Tomatoes for a family friendly dinner. Arden seems to like this place and I figured my friend Ellen's daughter, Sutton, would too. Bottom line- it's loud enough normally that if two babies got fussy no one would really notice. And they have a huge salad bar selection that's very vegetarian friendly. I had ordered a Cold Stone Strawberry Passion cake for myself that I was super excited about! Yum. It was good dinner. Then that evening Brittny, Becky & I got dolled up to do out for drinks and dancing. We ended up hitting up 5 different places! I haven't done that since I was in college I don't think!? We started the evening off with martinis at Vivace, then checked out lounge bar, Mosaic, then hit up the Glenwood South Raleighite scene at Red Room & Bogart's, before finally ending the evening dancing at the one and only White Collar Crime.

Then Sunday, which was my actual birthday, I slept in (which when you have a baby means anything after 7 am). And my parents came by to say goodbye. Then Dave, Arden and I went to the Arboretum for a picnic and to hang out on a gorgeous day amongst the spring flowers. It was perfect!

Then Sunday night, my good friend, Megan came over to stay a the house after Arden went down for the night, and Dave and I went out to Azitra for dinner. My favorite Indian restaurant. It was so good! We splurged and got drinks, appetizers, entrees and everything. Yum!

It was the best birthday weekend that I've had in many years! Thanks everyone that made it so special!!!!!

Getting Rid of Some Car-ma!

Arden and I were in a car accident last friday. A pretty bad one at that. Everyone is ok, thank God. We were headed up Creedmoor Rd. to get on 540 to meet a friend for lunch when we were going through an intersection and a lady was trying to turn left the opposite direction. She was supposed to yield to the oncoming traffic, being me, but didn't see us. I hit the brakes but I'm not sure how much I slowed down before plowing into her. My left driver side corner of my car hit her right passenger side corner, spinning her car and deploying my air bag. Then my car jumped the curb and ended up in the ditch, missing a telephone pole and two trees in the process!

Arden had started screaming upon impact. Probably because of all the noise and commotion, but man that gets your adrenaline pumping! I jumped out of the car, ran to her side of the car in the back, took the car seat out (she's still in an infant car seat) and questioned if I should take her out of the car seat or not for a few seconds. She was just sitting there screaming and I was worried that taking her out if she was injured was the wrong thing to do, but my instinct told me to take her out. As soon as I picked her up and held her for a bit she stopped crying. It was a very busy intersection, especially at lunch time, so there were several witnesses and people at the scene instantly and many very helpful bystanders. Fire trucks, EMS and police were there in minutes. The other lady was ok too, but a bit more shaken up emotionally it seemed. Arden and I got checked out by EMS and she seemed fine. We were a bit stunned for awhile, but then eventually Arden started to get pretty squirmy in my arms and wanted to get down. She played on the ground in the grass and was enjoying pulling up on the firefighters and playing with their hats and walkie talkies on their shoulders. Dave arrived and the car was towed off.

Now it's all the wonderfully fun insurance administrative nightmare stuff. We got a rental car, had to get the car towed to body shop, the adjuster looked at it and determined that it's totaled. We just bought that car almost exactly a year ago! And now it looks like we'll be getting a check this week and buying a new car and a new carseat which apparently needs to replaced as soon as one is in a wreck. The whole thing is a bit of a headache. Anyone that thinks buying a car is stress-free is wrong. Both times it has literally kept me up at night.

So again, what's most important is that Arden and I are both ok, and thank God for that. I've tried not to think about the what ifs in this situation. We obviously have some car accident karma (pun intended) to burn off and hopefully have done so.

New Videos

I've been a blogger slacker and was taking a self-imposed break from the internet for a month, but wanted to post some new You Tube videos on here. It amazes me how fast Arden is changing and learning new things these days. These videos are a few weeks old already and I feel they're outdated.

The first one is of Arden mimicing noises that we make. She's gotten quite good at it. Of course you sometimes have to catch her on a good moment, or she'll clam up and make you feel like an idiot that you're making silly noises and she's not.




The second one is showing off her crawling ability but really she's gotten a lot quicker and more mobile since even this video. But she does like to follow you around the house.



Enjoy!