Violet is 1 year today

Violet Joy Fonnesbeck came into the world one year ago today!! She is an amazing little being. Who is so funny and so sweet, also she is very outgoing and loves, loves, loves to be around people. She did from when she was really teeny tiny!! SHe is loud and loves to talk to you about lots of stuff... dadadaddadadada nnnaaanaaanaa gagagagagaga yayayayayaya (notice no mamamamaama). But one thing is for sure, she looks just like her daddy. I cannot believe how much we have been blessed by a little girl. She truly a joy to joel and myself. She loves music, clapping an watching her dvds.
She came into the world with a fight...and a bit of misdirection... but from the moment she came out I have loved her more than I thought possible.
JOel and I in the hospital room... waiting for violet to arrive!!
violet first day of life!
this is moments after she was born!! so precious
at home a few days later
Violet at 1 month!
2 months old
3 months old..and right after her dedication
at 4 months
5 months old and at Grandma and Grandpa Hanson's house

6 months old

7 months old
8 months old

9 months
10 months

11 months old
two weeks ago!!

Violet the beauty!

Last week violet took her first 2 steps! its was very exciting, though I could tell she didn't know what she was doing. And she flopped down on her bum and we all clapped, so she thought we were her clapping sitting down.. oops! SHe took three more steps last night towards her favourite characters on the TV. So we are getting there.
We have had a very, very few weeks. Joel's parents were here to visit us (mostly to see Violet!) They were here for only a week, it was a short but great visit. I will post photos when I get copies from Janet.. we had a lot of fun while they were here.
A couple of days later, we had friend's stay with us for three nights. A good friend of ours Jodi was in England visiting and since she moved home she got married..so she brought her new husband as well. Graeme is a great photographer and he took a bunch of amazing photos of Violet. And here are some of them!
She is such a beautiful girl.

11 Months

On Monday Violet will be 11 months, I cannot believe it. I am so excited to plan her 1st birthday party... I will try not to go overboard!
Violet is really funny, her personality is coming out more and more each day. She tries to make us laugh with funny faces, and silly sounds, and most of the time it works!
Last night she had her first curry and she really loved it. She is a really good eater, she east most foods we give her. Though she is a bit picky in that she likes it fresh, she is not the biggest fan of left overs.... odd!
She feeds herself like a champ and doesn't like to be spoon fed as much anymore, which i am grateful for, so I can eat at the same time as her.
She is a good sleeper! Even during the day she takes two naps, and doesn't mind going down. She has her security blanket (its an elephant blanket called Elvis and a Zebra called Zero.) and she is fine.
We are so lucky to have sucha happy child! We have been skyping a lot with family and now she is used to talking to people on the computer and knows the sound of the ring tone!
She is close to walking, she 'cruises' along our furniture and pulls herself up on everything.. I think she will be walking soon.

She loves her bath time... and had a 'friend' visit her
she really loved curry night



Last night at dinner, her and daddy were making eachother laugh.. then i gave her another bite to eat... well she was obviously not hungry anymore!

Holiday in Dorset

So we were blessed to be given a holiday in Dorset (a county west of us). Our friend Dave's mum invited us on holiday with their family. It was a lovely place in the country side. We saw sheep, horses, sheep, the stars at night, and sheep. It was lovely. We stayed outside a town called Lyme Regis which is on the coast. It was different then Brighton, very quaint and quiet, and they had sand beaches... how novel!
Violet saw sheep for the first time her life. i have been wanting to take her to a petting zoo or something to see live animals (because all she sees here in Brighton are nasty pests: pigeons, squirrels, seagulls) She loved looking at the sheep and laughed at them. Our cottage was on a sheep farm, so they were everywhere. She would calm down in the car when she saw them and would just stare! It was a good distraction technique.
The drive to Dorset was about 3 or so hours, and Violet is not used to cars, and really hates car seats. She is not a fan of being confined to a small space, she never has been. Even when she was a newborn she hated being swaddled...so being strapped into a car seat for 3+ hours was not the funnest experience for anyone. We were give her food to eat and she actually would eat in angrily... chomp really hard or pull it really hard, it was kind of funny but also sad.
We had a lovely time though, it was great to be away in the country. It was so quiet and peaceful. I don't get out of Brighton much so it was a really nice change!!

Violet's new hat... its just so cute, and she has gloves to go with it, though she doesn't liek the gloves.

this is violet looking at the sheep..amazed

Its been way too long

Hello everyone,

Its been a long time since we have blogged. Life is pretty busy, but I need to blog more! We are having so much fun with Violet. She is really fun and so busy, she is into everything. Crawling and climbing up on things. I find myself constantly picking up after her... the same toys and same books. She pulls her books down from her shelf all the time, and turns the pages of them. She loves to turn the pages of books.
We had a friend give us a few highchairs to pick from to use for Violet. The best one is a travel seat that just clips to the chair, so you can bring it to restaurants and such.. well we just use it at every meal Violet loves sitting with us during dinner and eating with us. She loves to eat...and now she feeds herself cheese, banana, pieces of bread... she is a good self eater. And now that she can feed herself easily, she really loves to sit at the table and just chat during during, where as before in her highchair she didn't like being in it for long!! Such a blessing.. but now we have a few highchairs to get rid of... i think we may just toss them out.
Joel has been really busy with work, and he is loving it. The school clubs he helps run, he is enjoying getting to know the students, and the music collective he is really making progress with church leaders and our website.. which our friend Dave is building for us!!
My work is super busy at the moment and i love it. I just learned to update our website and that's one of my main jobs is cleaning it up and then keeping it current each week! That is a lot of fun!

this is how Violet plays a lot of the time.. its called parallel play or something.. where they are playing along side others but not really interacting with them. Until she is bored and then tackles you with a cuddle.
this is her new chair. she really likes it and loves being at the table with us. We now get to eat together as a family and she rally loves it.
look at her.. no her pants are not tie-dyed.. it was a bleaching error!! And for some reason her hair is super red in this photo.. its the light.
you think thats her hand on the table... NOPE its her foot, she has monkey feet and using them like it.. its really funny! She has my feet at least.

violet is crawling!!

Violet is finally crawling! She even crawlled out of the living room into the hallway!! Adventrous... before she didn't know what to do with the metal carpet thingy!! her crawling in a bit stiff, but getting better and better! Its so exciting.
Also here are some pictures of her recently! And a really funny face she makes, and we are sitll unsure about why... she does it and then blows out of her nose.. its very funny!!
The last video is of violet eating.. but when i showed her the videa she laughed really hard at the baby saying 'da da'

Violet being cute...as always

Lately the weather has been perfect, not too warm, not too cold, just right! So this weekend we spent time at the park, and at the seafront! It was lovely!!
Also last week we took a week off as its summer holidays here in Englnad and most things including church things and life in general sort of stops... so last week even though we didn't go anywhere we had a reall lovely holiday!! Great family time and really relaxing days.

clapping, scooting and other craziness of violet

Violet is almost crawling, very close to it. At the moment she is scooting or more like hopping on her butt to get to things. Its really funny because she does it fast and furiously! She crawls backward and soon I think will get the hang of crawling forwards, at the moment when she tries to go forward she falls on her face. I have a few videos of her scooting, fake coughing and other fun antics she gets up to in the day. Also she rolls around to get places, whatever it takes i guess.


And just yesterday she starting clapping...our daughter is a genius.