10 Months: Dance Montage

The dress I made with a LOT of help from Claudia Zimmerman.

*I am officially a stay-at-home mom!! I'm counting the days to be rid of my students. Ha! (Just for the record I do love, love, love teaching and towards the end I did start to get really sad about leaving... But then I'd look at my babe and be like, "25 stinky 4th graders or this chunky girl?" Chunky girl every time.

I just love this girl!

The month of May flew in and flew past. We were able to go and visit my mom, so lovingly called Nana these days, for her birthday which was also Mother's Day. (I always feel bad for people who share a birthday with a holiday. Maybe we should start celebrating her half-birthday or something.)

Paisley eating lunch with cousins, Logan and London.

Paisley eating lunch with twin cousins, Alex and Dylan.

Anyways, we had a great trip to Valdosta filled with ear piercings for Paisley**, tons of food, and silly photoshoots where we actually just recorded ourselves posing in the hopes there would be one brief second where we could pull a solid still shot from the madness. Paisley loved being surrounded by big kids (even when they shoved her around! - watch her shake one instance off in the video with her cousin, Kendall). She had so much fun watching her cousins and trying to keep up with them. At this point, she's taking steps but very reluctantly and only a few at a time. Her longest stride has been about 6 steps.

My first real Mother's Day and my mom's 36th!

This little stinker is growing more adventurous by the day. She has taught herself how to climb the stairs and takes every opportunity to. She huffs and puffs and stumbles often but she is a fiercely determined girl.

We are working on learning some baby signs. I cannot say enough about baby sign language and I recommend it to everyone. Right now she's not really doing the signs herself. It's more of introducing them, making her little hands do it, and her whining because I'm controlling her hands for a brief second before I give her that Gerber cheese puff she so desperately desires.

Exhausted after no naps at daycare.

She's also starting to talk more and more. When asked what a cow says she replies, "Mmmmm." She can also make sheep sounds... That's about all we've got so far. She is a sassy little thing though and loves to talk back when I tell her no. She turns, stares at me for a second as if to say, "Who do you think you are talking to?" and says something along the lines of, "Bshhhpoobushuuuu." It gets me every time. I read Bringing Up Bebe and it talks about saying no with conviction without a raised voice and how these French mothers say no one time and that's it. Baby moves on. I'm going to need a video tutorial on a "no with conviction" because those teenage years may be hopeless without one...

Playing a game of "how many books can I pull down in 5 seconds"

One of my favorite teacher friends, Rasheda

Here are the silly Nefs in Paisley's 10 month video. Also starring Kendall the babe, Moose the dog, and the back of Kendra's head. Special thanks to Aunt April for about 30 minutes of footage to sort through, as well. All of her best dance moves were in it.

Paisley 10 Months from Jeff Nef on Vimeo.

*If the world were perfect this would've been posted May 24th.
**Controversial topic, I know. I love them. They don't bother her, and if she ever wants them out she has the choice to do so. Dusts my hands off


Because I know you're so intrigued with my video making skills, here are the others in case you missed them:
9 month video
8 month video
7 month video
6 month video
5 month video
4 month video
3 month video
2 month video
1 month video