Holiday Festival of Lights

We took Iris to the Holiday Festival of Lights at the James Island County Park on Sunday to see the holiday lights. Iris had her first roasted marshmallow...

then she posed with daddy in front of some christmas lights...

and then we went on a train ride to see more lights. Iris had a great time and loved looking at all the lights.

16 Months

Iris is such a big girl. As you can see, she can now sit down and hold her sign without eating it. That's a HUGE accomplishment. She's babbling constantly and still into everything. She has become incredibly picky about her food. She will not eat any meat and mainly just eats cheese, yogurt and fruit. The only vegetables I can get in her are peas and corn. Everything else she just stares at and throws off her tray or hands back to you. She is certainly developing a mind of her own.

School Days

Here's Iris getting ready to leave for school in the morning. She likes to carry her bookbag herself. She is doing MUCH better. When I took her the other day she did not even cry when I dropped her off--YEAH!!!!

Accessories!

Iris LOVE shoes and hats. She wears this straw hat around the house EVERY day. She also loves shoes and will often drag a pair out of my closet and bring them to me to put on her. This morning she chose my boots. As soon as she gets them on she says 'pretty." Poor thing couldn't even bend her knees to walk but it was super cute.

Birthday Bash at the Farm

My cousin's son, Cameron, celebrated his 2nd birthday last weekend. He had an animal themed birthday party complete with a petting zoo and hay rides. Iris had a blast! However, she did not like the llama... but she seemed to like the rest of the animals.

After petting the animals she ventured off on her own to play with the "big boys"...

Then she stole a ballon centerpiece off of one of the tables and ventured back to the petting zoo...

She petted the rabbit...

and then she took her very first horse ride. She LOVED the horse ans smiled and laughed the whole ride ( which lasted all of 2 minutes because it made me nervous so we opted for the short version).

Then we finished up the afternoon with a good old hay ride!

Kindermusik Graduation

Iris completed her second semester of Kindermusik on Tuesday. Up until the last three classes she would not get off of my lap and stuck to me like glue. Then one day she finally let go and started walking around and talking to everyone. Here's a prime example--the teacher is trying to pass out streamers to everyone and Iris makes her way up front and just grabs her own. I wish it would have lasted a little longer because she REALLY enjoyed it towards the end.

I tried to get a picture with her "diploma" but this was the best I could do.

Cooking With Iris

Iris likes to go through my cabinets while I cook. I often just let her because it's easier than dealing with her crying and hanging onto my leg while I try to cook. This is about what our kitchen looks like at dinner time. Thank goodness Santa's coming soon, I hear he may have a kitchen playset for Iris!

Childrens Museum

Kindermusik class was cancelled Tuesday morning and it was a rainy day so we decided to meet Courtney and her son Julian (blue shirt and khaki pants) at the Children's Museum. They were teaching a Toddler Time class so we decided to check it out. They sang songs, played with toys and musical instruments and then they did some parachute play... After that it was fingerpainting! Iris tasted a little bit of each color and got paint all over her jeans and shirt but her masterpiece was beautiful!

After class I took her to the grocery store room. I could not get her to put one pice of food into her cart but she took every magazine out of the magazine rack, loaded up her cart...

and away she went...

After a bit of magazine shopping it was time to go. I put her magazines and cart up and this is a small glimpse of the temper tantrum she threw. After this I tried to pick her up and she threw herself onto the floor. I was totally embarrassed but what could I do so we put on our coats, grabbed our bag and I carried a screaming thrashing child through the museum and out the door. I don't think we'll do the grocery shopping thing again until she completely understands the meaning of the word "no," not just the general idea of it's meaning.

Coastal Carolina Fair

Brad had off Friday afternoon so we took Iris to the fair. There was only one game in the whole fair that she could play. For $2.00 she could go up to this little swimming pool and pick up a ducky. That's all she had to do--pick it up. You would think that would be easy but she would just touch them and then laugh and stand back up. She would never actually pick one up. Finally, after much cheering by mommy and daddy, she picked one up and won her prize...

a small stuffed fish that is smaller than the duckies. Oh well, it was worth the $2.00 for the memory and pictures.

15 Months

Iris turned 15 months on Oct. 25th. Of course I forgot to take her picture again. This one was taken a week later but I haven't been able to post anything because our computer memory was full. All that has been fixed now. Her monthly pictures should be taken in a cute dress or outfit but she went and put this hat on one morning when she was only wearing a diaper and I couldn't resist. At her 15 month appt. on Oct. 30th her stats were as follows:

Weight: 22.4 lbs., 37th percentile Height: 32in., 87th percentile Head: 19 in., 95th percentile

Her biggest accomplishment is that she is off the bottle--YEAH!!! I had it down to two a day and then one and then we finally got rid of them all together. Thank goodness for Yogurt smoothies! She is so excited to get one of those in the morning that she has stopped following me around crying "ba-ba." Some of her favorite things to do are: --dance --brush her teeth --loves books--FINALLY! --loves TV, especially the sprout channel and wheel of fortune She can say lots of words now. A list of her most common are: --Yummy --Puppy --Codie --bye --goo-ja " good job" ( said while clapping after putting s puzzle piece in or some other great accomplishment) --daddy --bye -da (she can say daddy but when saying bye to him she only says "da") --papa --NO (always said while shaking her head) --hi --pretty --ball --shoe She loves shoes and hats and puts them on whenever she finds one and says "pretty." As her teacher at school would say she has "turned the corner." She still cries when I leave her but it's only for a minute and often there are no tears involved. When I picked her up the other day she turned to her teacher, waved and said "bye." It was very cute and my signal that she was ready to get out of there. After her 15 month picture I left her in her diaper while she finsihed eating her breakfast. No need to take a chance with dirtying an outfit before we even leave the house to meet our friends for our playdate. BIG MISTAKE!! I was sitting at our counter on my laptop and Iris was playing right behind my chair on the floor. I smelled something and said "let's get you dressed and get your diaper changed before leave." When I turned around this is all a saw...

A diaper with no Iris! Then I turn my head and saw Iris running into her tent.... NAKED!! I won't go into the details of what I had to clean up but let's just say I had to get the mop out and then give her another bath. I decided not to post the pictures of the "drawing" she made on my floor. I'll just save those to torture her with later.

We made it to our playdate though (30+ minutes late) but we didn't miss out on snacktime so everyone was happy.

Halloween

I realize this is a ridiculous amount of pictures of Iris but I could never get a really great shot of her ladybug costume. On Halloween we went to a Halloween party at the Country Club. They had face painting, bag decorating, food etc. Brad was on call and could not make it to the party. Iris ran all over the place and it was impossible to keep up with her. She kept trying to pull down her tutu and pull the black pom poms off of it. Here are the best shots I could get...

Clara and Lenna...

as well as Fireman Jules.....

and Thomas the Train (Hugh).

It was a fun time but I was exhausted chasing Iris everywhere so I decided we would go to my sisters house for the rest of the evening and see what they were up to---See Halloween Part II.

Halloween, Part II

Things at Mary's house were just as chaotic. With everyone running around I did not get a picture of Logan or Avery but I was able to get one of Captain America (Ashton). He's a little string bean these days! After having some food we all went Trick or Treating. All the kids ran down the street and Iris ran down the street but in the opposite direction. I was able to get her going again in the right direction. She was more interested in just "running" than trick or treating. Mary's friend carried her up to one door so she did get a piece of candy out of the evening.

Here she is back at Mary's trying to eat her miniature snickers. Of course it's still in the wrapper...

These are some of my fairy costumes I made. This is Jaylyn and Terren...

and my friend Nancy's daughter, Ellison. They all looked adorable!