Zzzap!

Jeff and I wanted to share one of our new favorite videos of Cosette. We've had fun watching it over and over.  We especially like the cute noise she makes in the last few seconds of the video, when she clasps her hands together.

Oh, and just so you know - no, she was not eating that Ranch dressing for dinner.  She just had fun playing with the bottle.

Pictures from the past few weeks

I've never been great at taking a lot of pictures. But now that Jeff and I both have iPods that have cameras in them, we've been getting a lot more cute pictures of Cosette. Sorry that the picture quality isn't as good as those taken with our camera.
We're really glad that the weather is getting warmer (for the most part) and we're able to get out and enjoy it as a family. Cosette LOVES being outside. She's completely happy and content just sitting in the grass, picking up leaves, sticks, and rocks (and she rarely tries to eat them, but I still watch her closely). The picture below is from a windy day at the park. Jeff and I were throwing a Frisbee around, and Cosette was having a grand old time watching us. She looks angry in this picture, but she's actually quite happy.
Cosette LOVES music. I give her time at the piano at least once a day. It's fun having a nice digital piano that has songs and sound effects programmed in, as well as a touch screen. Cosette sure enjoys it! She also likes to sit and dance or wave her arm when music is playing, which we think is really cute.
Some days at the table can get pretty messy. Cosette didn't make this mohawk herself - I was trying to get food out of her hair with a wet washcloth (we didn't have time for a bath before bed that night).
Our tired little girl. Yep - definitely time for bed!
I try to sort through the mail at least once a week, but it piled up on me a few weeks ago. Here's Cosette "helping" me sort the mail.
Cosette LOVES to read. Lately we've let her take books with her to bed, and it's been a hit! In fact, I often don't hear her when she wakes up from a nap. When I go in to check on her, I find her sitting up and looking through her book, completely entertained. She'll acknowledge my presence and then go right back to reading, happy as a clam.
Cosette enjoys playing with my iPod when I let her. She especially likes it when I have it on the picture or video setting where she can see herself when she's holding it. I have several pictures like this, as well as videos of her talking to herself.
Jeff and I replaced all of the windows in our condo a few weeks ago, including our sliding glass door. I was especially excited about having a screen door, which we didn't have before. It motivated me to try to clean the carpet on our porch (Jeff and I have never used it much). So I vacuumed it a few times and got it to the point where I would let Cosette crawl around out there (although she still gets pretty dirty - I think I'll have to shampoo it or something). She's really enjoyed spending time on the porch, as you can see by the big smile on her face.
Here's a picture of Cosette reading books with her Grandma. This was taken yesterday, when my family got together for an Easter dinner (we did it the day before because our church doesn't end until 4 and that makes family get-togethers on Sunday more difficult).
Cosette really loves fruit, and she also enjoys eating like a big girl. Little by little, I've been trying to let her practice eating food without breaking it into bites for her first. She has a lot of fun with bananas and strawberries. Tonight we gave her a few huge strawberries, the kind that look like 2 or 3 grew together. I love how this one is almost as big as her face.
And here's a picture of Cosette in her cute Easter dress (thanks Grandma!). This is on the lawn in front of our church building. I like to let Cosette sit in the grass for a few minutes as a reward for being good in church (and she is SO good).

Dueling Pianos

Cosette and I both love our pianos. Christine captured this cute video of us playing back and forth. It is really cute how she watches me play and then she plays a few notes and looks back at me.
There is also an interesting story behind the scenes of this video. We were getting ready to upload this video to our computer and with a couple wrong buttons deleted all our videos on the camcorder (almost 2 months worth). We were very sad, to say the least. I did some research on the internet and found a program that can retrieve deleted files on SD cards. So we were able to recover all the files. However, they lost their quality a little. You can see some glitches in the video. We are pleased that we were able to get back the lost videos even if the quality was lost a bit. The recovery software saved videos in 13 seconds segments so I stitched a few together to get this one.

Month pictures

For the first year of Cosette's life, I have taken her picture on the first of every month. I plan on doing this for all of my kids while they live at home (people tell me it isn't going to happen, that I'll stop doing it eventually, but I'm sure going to try!). I think it will be fun to look back and see how they grow and change little by little.
So here are the month pictures I took of Cosette this first year. Some are better than others, of course. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as Jeff and I do!

Day 1

1 Month

2 Months
3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

12 Months

Our little girl turned 1!

Yesterday, March 1st, Cosette turned one! It was her golden birthday (when your age is the same as your birthday).
We gave her a xylophone piano, some bells, and two sets of plastic bead necklaces with matching bracelets. My parents gave her two books for church (one of them is an AWESOME cloth quiet book that will provide hours of enjoyment for both us and Cosette).
I baked cupcakes in the morning, and we gave Cosette one to do with what she wanted. Here are some pictures:
At first she was hesitant, not seeming to know what to do with this mysterious object on her tray.
I loved her crumb beard.
This was the only smile I caught on camera, although she was full of smiles.
She actually wasn't as messy as I was expecting her to be. She didn't get any in her hair, but I love the bit on the end of her nose.
Happy birthday, Cosette!

Crawling!

Cosette has reached another milestone. For the past few weeks, she has been scootching backwards. Yesterday she started crawling forwards.
It was fun watching her in church today. She was crawling around during Sacrament Meeting and was really proud of herself. She has cute little rug burns on her knees to show for it.
I anticipate that she will be getting in to everything before we know it.

Love Month Day 16

I wanted to have a special blog post for Jeff this month, as one of my love month gifts to him.
I am so grateful to be married to Jeff. I know we've only been married for a few years, but it's hard to remember what my life was like before he was a part of it.
Jeff is so kind, thoughtful, and supportive. He is patient, loving, and forgiving. Not only is he a wonderful husband, but he's also an amazing father. Cosette sure loves her daddy. Her happiest times of day are when Jeff is home and playing with her. He gets the best smiles and laughs out of her.
Tonight, Jeff had to miss bedtime because he was doing visits for his church calling. As I was putting Cosette down, she kept squirming in my arms and looking at the door, wondering where her daddy was. And when I left her in her crib, she was calling out for Da-da.
We love you, Jeff!