Oh black and white, how I love thee

True

Last night, speaking of Lily, I said "Can you believe something as cute as this is ours?". Corey said "Brook, I don't think she's ours, I think we're hers".

I think he got that right.

Speaking of husbands, have you seen this blog? Too funny.

Also, the big news around here is that Lily finally has a tooth coming in! It has been working it's way up for the last few days. Today, it finally broke ground. Here is the best close-up I could get.



You go girl!

Christmas at home

In all the years of my life, I've never spent Christmas at my own house. When I was young, we always traveled up to Illinois and Wisconsin to visit family. When I was older and lived away from home, I'd go home to visit mom and dad and spend time with Corey's parents. A long time ago, I decided when I had a child of my own, I wanted them to have Christmas morning at home. A lazy day to eat good food, play with new stuff and cuddle with family. That is exactly what we did this year and it was everything I could have hoped for. We all spent the entire day in our jammies and it was fabulous!





Corey made homemade cherry cordials and I made peppermint-chocolate ice cream and lavender-lemon ice cream.



We didn't go crazy on gifts for Lily, I don't believe in that. I did make her a few things including this blue, hairy creature with interchangeable facial features





On Christmas Day evening, my mom and dad came over and on Saturday my brother's family joined us at our house. We had fun together playing games (Guesstures, Pictionary), making homemade personal pizzas and being entertained by my niece Lexi.







Baby Hunter got to cuddle with Stinky.



and after everyone left, Lily was pretty tired.

8 Months

Dear Lily,



Yesterday, you turned 8 months old. You are still quite big for your age, wearing 12 month clothes, but you have slowed down a bit with the weight gain in the last month or so. That also correlates with the time you started crawling, so I think you are working through the calories faster than you used to.

You've had your first real cold for the past week. You have been coughing, having trouble sleeping, and not eating as well.

Even with the cold, you have been quite happy and silly, at times even downright giddy. Especially if you are really, really tired. You smile so much, I'm surprised your cheeks don't get tired. You have become a great crawler, following us from room to room. When you are in the livingroom with daddy and I am in the kitchen cooking, you always crawl in to me and pull yourself up on my legs so that you are standing there hugging them. You do this until I pick you up and cuddle you close. Speaking of that, you love being squeezed. You used to often squirm away when we'd hold you tight but you seem to want more closeness now. You want to be held a lot more recently, which is funny since now you have more independence with crawling.

You have graduated out of the co-sleeper since you can pull yourself up and possibly fall out of it during the night, so today we moved the crib into our room so you can still sleep next to mommy and daddy. Your favorite bedtime activity is when I lay your down. You start laughing and crawl as quickly as you can across your co-sleeper and pull yourself up. You then stand there and wait for me to tickle your armpits and grab you and lay you back down. This sends you into fits of giggles and you start the game all over again.

Things I want to remember about this age:

You are starting to give pretty good kisses.
You hug your stuffed animals.
You can crawl and pull yourself up on things with ease.
You have not quite figured out how to "cruise".
You want us to hold your hands and let you walk around the house constantly. To the point where our backs are aching. You love to walk to see every nook and cranny of the house. You especially like to check out the toilet.
You are getting really excited about the mural on your wall. You love to look at the pictures when mommy makes the animal noises.
You are terrified of the vacuum cleaner.

Every day we love you more than the last.

Love mommy

Little sickies

Lil and I have been sick for the last few days. I took Monday and Tuesday off and we chilled in our robes all day, coughing and wheezing and generally comiserating. Still not feeling great, but lack of sick leave pushed me back to the office today. Bleh!

Xmas on Corey's side

Last weekend we had Christmas for Corey's side of the family. It was great getting to see everyone and we were amazed at how much our nieces and nephew have changed in time since we'd last visited.

My newest niece, Gracie, is kind of cute... ;)



and her hair rocks my world...



I promise, it was not fluffed for the photo. That is the way it is!

Corey's mom sewed special dresses and jackets for each of the granddaughters and Tate got a vest. We tried to take photos but the lighting wasn't the best and the kids weren't super cooperative.



I think I like some of the out-takes even better:



And just for kicks, one other cute shot of Lil with her uncle Nathan. I think they were up to something.

Buddies

Recently, Lily and her friend Chloe enjoyed some play time while their mom's worked on Christmas gifts for them.


Lily didn't know where to start with all those toys!

But then, Chloe wanted to get up close and personal and Lily wasn't as sure about that...



The cute hats were courtesy of Lex.

Random photos from the last two weeks

Ahhhhh...

I made this Stovetop Potpourri this evening and it is warming in a tiny crockpot I snagged at Goodwill. Smell fabulous in our house right now.

As promised

I'm so behind!

No, we have not fallen off the face of the planet.

Things have been mighty hectic around here. It seems like every other day we have some kind of get-together or meeting to attend. That is the holidays for you. Lily has been doing new stuff like learning how to go from crawling to setting herself upright in a sitting position. Yesterday was the first time I realized she could do that. Then today, she crawled for real. Like moving her knees and everything. Tears came to my eyes. This girl is growing up way too fast. She is so funny. I have cute videos of her "mowing" as Corey calls it, and getting a good tickling, but right now, I'm too tired to do anything but say "goodnight" :)

Grandpa

My grandpa passed away. We are very sad, but also thankful for the very long and happy life he lived. He was 93 years old. and up until a few months ago, he was still living on his own.

This past spring, Corey and I stayed with grandpa when we went to Wisconsin to meet with a potential birthmother. In the past few years when we visited, we stayed with my cousins and my parents spent the night as his place. I wasn't sure how it would be staying with him without my parents because sometimes grandpa could be kind of quiet, not knowing what to talk about. This night though, grandpa stayed up late with us, recounting stories from his childhood. One thing that amazed Corey and me, was how grandpa could remember the names of people and places from way back then, just like it was yesterday.

I asked him to tell us the story of how his parents emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States. He told us how his father came first, working long hours to make enough money to send for his wife, my great-grandmother. She was staying with his parents. Just when he thought he had sent enough money for her ticket, he found out that his parents had taken the money and bought a team of horses instead! In the end, my great-grandmother made it here and that is how my family came to live in the US. Grandpa was born here.

Grandpa had all kinds of other great stories, including the one about how he lost the little finger on his right hand after falling asleep while working a second shift at the factory, filling in for his brother. I'll leave out the gory details, but I will just say that it is a story that all the grandkids liked to hear, if only for the shock factor.

Grandpa was a kind and gentle man, with big strong hands and a tight hug. He had a witty sense of humor and he loved telling jokes. He was fiercely proud of his family and his great-grandkids were the light of his life. Right up until the end, he kept up with their sports and other activities. He was so happy when Lily came into our lives. I will be forever grateful that she was able to meet him.

It was hard to see him go, but everyone has their time and this was his. He was ready,

The night before the funeral, 9 year old RJ, penned a letter to his great-grandpa. He wouldn't let anyone read what he wrote. It was between him and grandpa. At the funeral, he walked up to the casket and took out the folded piece of paper. He reached over and tucked it into grandpa's pocket.

Grandpa touched each of our lives in so many different ways. He will be greatly missed.

7 months

Lily, 2 days ago, you turned 7 months old. Wow. I have a kid who is more than half a year old. Crazy!

The biggest thing that happened over the last month is that you became mobile. You are scooting all over the joint. It is hard to keep your little hands out of places they are not supposed to be.

You are in a "mommy phase" right now. You love spending time with daddy but when you don't feel good or are really upset, you want mommy to cuddle you close. Daddy still makes you light up like a Christmas tree. When you hear the door click when he gets home, you immediately start looking toward the kitchen. Daddy usually sneaks in as quietly as he can and then pokes just his head around the corner with a big, silly grin on his face. This makes you smile back with a huge grin of your own and then the deep "heh heh heh" laughs start. You continue like that until daddy sweeps you up into his arms and gives you a big kiss. After that, you usually end up on his shoulders as he walks around the house.

You are paying more attention to books, reacting to the words and reaching for the pictures. You also really like to suck on board books. They don't seem like they'd be very tasty, but you seem to love them.

Other things about this age that I want to remember:

You love fresh mangoes.
You are starting to mimic us when we eat. It is so funny, we'll look over and there you are, chewing up pretend food with pretend little teeth (in reality, you are still all gums). Here is a video of you doing this:

You walk all over if we hold both of your hands. You are still rather unsteady but love to do it anyway.
You pull yourself up on things like you co-sleeper, and mommy and daddy.
You are making more and different sounds. Your current fave is "agooo gooo goo!".

We love you sweet pea.

Forward motion

I hesitate to call this crawling, but we definitely have forward motion now!



As for pushing her toy like this, she's been doing it for a few weeks but I never got it on video until now. She is only 6 months old, I can't believe she can do this. Crazy!



We are so proud of this push toy find. We'd been looking for one of these and then Corey spied this one at a yard sale in the "free section". After a good scrubbing, it was good as new! She loves it, as you can see. She looks so proud when she pushes it all by herself. Corey is excited too, as he thinks this is the first step to having someone else mow the lawn ;)

The 'stache

It doesn't take much to amuse us. We bought this out of one of those bubble gum machines outside of Walmart. Of course, we all had to try it on.

New nephew

This little guy is Hunter and he is the son of my very favorite (and only) brother Zack. The little man was born last Monday and is doing well. He is amazing my brother with what we will call "urination acrobatics". Older sister Lexi is adjusting well to siblinghood.

This makes cousin #3 born within a year of Lily. How much fun she will have!

Stirring up trouble

Almost forgot

My Selfie Saturday photo:



I also neglected to mention two other big events. One is that Lily has left the pumpkin seat in the dust and moved on to big-girl car seats. She was pushing the weight limit, so it was definitely time. For some reason I haven't taken a photo of her in it yet. She actually got two, one for mommy's car and one for daddy's truck (too much of a pain to move in and out each day).

Also, she rode in the grocery cart for the first time today. It made me all teary because it means she is getting big and I want her to stay a baby forever. Okay, so maybe not really, but she is growing up WAY too fast.

Cell phone shot:

Things I love

The other day I was getting ready to vacuum so Corey decided to take Lily outside to avoid the noise. They looked so cute as they left, I secretly snapped these shots through the windows as they made their way to the mailbox, to check the chickens, and to walk out into the field. I love their sweet relationship.

She's my little, little scoot

So far she can only scoot in one direction: backwards. That doesn't seem to slow her down much, though.

A much needed makeover

The nature center at the park has had a complete overhaul. The grand opening was last Friday and of course, Lily and I had to attend. There is now a simulated cave,

A turtle run:


A guess by feel station:


Lily found the snakeskin inside. She liked the sound it made when she squished it:


She also got to see what she would have looked like as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps:


She got to be one of the first kids to slobber on the puppets:


And she tried being a Naturalist:


There are many more cool exhibits. We can't wait to bring our family and friends when they visit.