Monday, December 28, 2009

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.

First tooth

You go girl!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

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!

Gift opening

Snuggly

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

Corey's homemade cherry cordials

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

Toy

Lil and the blue monster

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.



My fam

Dad and our little gift

Baby Hunter got to cuddle with Stinky.

Hunter and Stinky

and after everyone left, Lily was pretty tired.

8 Months

Dear Lily,

Peekaboo

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

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

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!

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Xmas on Corey's side

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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... ;)

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and her hair rocks my world...

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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.

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

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

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Saturday, December 19, 2009

Buddies

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

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The cute hats were courtesy of Lex.

Random photos from the last two weeks

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

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.

Monday, December 7, 2009

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" :)