Thursday, August 25, 2011

15 Months

This is just for me really. If you want to read it you can but I'm mainly writing it because I have a few things in my head that I don't want to forget and I need a place to write them down. But until I have that place, I'm sure whatever I write on will just get lost in all the chaos right now. So I guess this is my place to write for now. I just noticed that they actually make a second year calendar for babies. I kept track of a lot in that first year calendar thingy, but now it's out of date and year 2 would sure be swell to have. Anyhow, at 15 months, Aleah

- is finally walking more than crawling. She took 10 steps a couple different times on our moving day the beginning of Aug. and has since then, continued to take a lot of steps, but this past Sunday is when I'd call her walking nearly everywhere instead of taking 5 steps and then falling and crawling the rest of the way. Those teetering steps when they have to concentrate so much to stay upright are so stinkin cute - arms out and waving all over.

- learned how to "fist bump" this past weekend as well.

- When we were back in Baton Rouge (first couple weeks in Aug.) she started saying "I see you!" back to me when I'd say it to her. Apparently she has to be really hot to say that because she hasn't said it much in Indiana.

- Some of her words that she'll say sometimes - bath, thank you, love you (the last 2 she also said more in BR than here), oh WOW, tickle tickle, Helloooo (her all time favorite that she said all the time when she sees someone, when Dave or I answer the phone, or when she's playing with anything that she can hold up to her ear), night night, yum yum, nana (banana), up, down (her new favorites), bow wow for dog. She signs please, thank you, more and her version of all done, which also means please get me out of here, pick me up, etc.

- She makes a blowing sound for "hot" - food or otherwise. I was rather warm the other day and said "Mommie's HOT!" and she started blowing. It was really cute but I'm sure you had to be there.

- Is still on her rather late, adult like schedule - stays up late, will often sleep in late, and takes a later afternoon nap. There's pros and cons to this way of doing things - it's nice to not have to rush home at 8 and put her to bed, or be able to be out and about till 2 in the afternoon before she's melting down. The only drawback is that it doesn't give Dave and I much time to actually converse and have a quite evening. Conversely, it can give me a nice, quiet morning, when she sleeps till 9 or 10. = )

- loves reading books. loves going out and about and meeting new people and going new places. gets rather bored if there's not enough going on.

- The cow still says baaaa about 98% of the time. ONE TIME she said moo and we nearly had a heart attack. But it's back to baaaing again.

- She's at this funny stage where when you tell her to repeat something, she wants to, but can't quite yet, so she'll just rattle something off that has about the same number of syllables but sounds nothing like the word. a fun little game.

- This is confusing to me - she seems to be cutting eye teeth (it looks like the bottom ones are coming) and yet she's happy as a clam and not her usual teething self. I've heard those are the worst and she's never been a great teether, so who knows. But anyway, she has been in a great mood for days on end lately.

- giggles at the oddest times like when she's sitting on your lap and you start putting her pjs on her feet - she thinks that's hilarious. why? I have no idea. Whenever she goes down for her nap, when I'm walking out of the room and saying night night... love you... she stands up and giggles her head off. And usually says night night.

- often doesn't eat that much for breakfast, but can put the food away for lunch and supper.

Well gracious, I didn't think I had that much to say about her. Dave and I went to the President's house for dinner last night. President of the university, that is. We took Aleah to a family's house that we had met at church. Always seems to me she should sort of freak out in these types of situations - people she doesn't know, a place she's never been - but she loved it. Waved good bye and just wanted to play and had a great evening there. We enjoyed amazing catered and served food at a big amazing house and felt too hoity toity for our own good. It's always difficult (VERY difficult, for us introverts at least) exchanging pleasantries for that long with a big group of people. But the food almost made up for that. Honestly, I was sort of dreading the whole thing, but it wasn't too bad.

Well, we have more company coming this weekend and there's always a ton to do. Because I never get it done. So maybe I should work on that. Happy Thursday!


Saturday, August 20, 2011

Bullets

- Enjoying visiting with Dave's parents. So nice having them here!
- Dave and I had a date tonight, thanks to wonderful grandparents who wanted to babysit
- getting used to this (odd!) place - a few oddities
1) BUGS - they are EVERYWHERE and they drive me bonkers. Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom within an inch of it's life. This morning I counted 17 (mostly dead and mostly really little, thanks goodness) bugs on the bathroom counter. what in the world?? We're sort of in the woods here - I guess that's why.
2) well water. Oh. my. goodness. when we arrived, the tub was basically white. A week later the tub was orange. The bathwater was ORANGE. Not yellow, orange. It was so gross. After hours and hours of work, a new filter and more salt in the softener, things are looking up. After a load of white clothes that's also now orange. boo.
3) Odd shower faucet - it goes something like this - turn on water, it's boiling hot. move it slightly toward cold. still hot. move a fraction of an inch. again, and again, and again... still hot. move it another one katillionth of an inch - OH, freezing cold, back up a little, boiling hot, forward a little - freezing cold... you get the idea.
4) One more odd bathtub thing - At our apartment in Baton Rouge, we used to start the water running to fill the bathtub, dash quickly to grab a towel and washcloth, return to find the tub nearly overflowing and have to let out the water. That thing was a veritable waterfall. Now - start up the tub, fix supper, go out and buy your groceries for the week, and stop by to get your nails done. Come home and you should be good. Ok, enough about how odd this house is.
- We continue to be amazed at how close together everything is. I guess we got used to Baton Rouge where you had to drive 15 - 30 min. to get anywhere it seemed. Here it's 7 minutes to campus, maybe 3 - 5 min. to church depending where you go, we drive about 4 minutes from our house to get to everything - shopping, food, etc. We got used to all these different sections of town and tonight as we were driving around, I was amazed how everything is just right together - just town, no sections. It's sort of nice for a change of pace.
- Ok, I think that's all. Thanks for reading this ridiculously exciting post about our bugs and bathroom. I'm sure your life will never be the same.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Words

So wow, I guess I should say something but I have no clue what. Each day has felt like at least a week lately. We had a wonderful graduation weekend with Dave's family (see pictures below). Wait, I should back up. Dave and I muddled along for days trying to get packed up. Seemed like it was taking FOREVER! We stayed up till about 3 Friday night, and then the next day, a group of church people came over to help us load everything up. In 3 hours they had everything done! We had 3 crates that they packed up. Also some women packed up the kitchen and I didn't even touch a thing in there. That was so nice. The following Tuesday morning the company came and picked up the crates. In our minds, we thought since we'd have everything packed up, the rest of the week would be fun and relaxing. HA! When they took everything away, we still had a pile of all the last minute stuff to deal with. And cleaning/organizing/sorting, etc. etc. Anyway, we were never wondering what to do with our time during that week. Thursday evening Dave's family arrived and it was great having them there. Friday morning was the ceremony. yahoo!! so glad to be there and SO glad when it was over. = ) They stayed till Sunday and that was also when we were doing the final packing up/cleaning of our place. I'm pretty sure it was the most unsabbathy sabbath I've ever had. Dave's grandparents helped us till the very end since their flight didn't leave till the next day. It was so nice having them there! We FINALLY pulled out at 8:30, dropped off the vacuum cleaner we had borrowed, grabbed a bite to eat with Dave's grandparents, and left Baton Rouge at 9:30, that would be pm. Aleah did amazingly well on the trip here. We pulled in to the new place at 1:00 on Monday. My dad was here to help us unload. There are many things I could say, but I'll just say the place was not exactly what I was expecting in the cleanliness or upkeep departments. I was rather disappointed when I got here. Later in the week we looked into other options of places to live, but ended up staying here. We were SO thankful to have my handy-man dad here who did a lot to make the place more livable. Just when we thought we couldn't stand the thought of staying here, we discovered someone had left some Nascar jello molds in a cupboard. Whew. That made everything feel so different. So here we are - drowning in a pile of boxes. I fear by the time we finally get all unpacked and settled, it'll be time to pack em all up again. sigh. Dave starts work tomorrow but classes don't start till next Monday. Dave's parents are going to be here next weekend which we're really looking forward to. We went to a church this morning that we both really enjoyed and the people were friendly. I think that's all from this neck of the woods. see ya.

Pictures

This top one is out of order - one of my recent favorites taken the beginning of the month when she loved hanging out on our air mattress once all the furniture was out of the apartment.
The beginning of July - passionately eating some watermelon.

I was sorting clothes and found some cute pink boots we had to try on.

July 23 - Picture taken shamelessly because her diaper matched her curtains and nursery decor

I fear the permanent damage we have done to our child's developing brain cells during our sorting/packing/loading/moving/unloading/unpacking phase of life lately. She spent entirely too many minutes (hours?) watching the Wiggles on youtube. Hopefully she can still go far in life.
Packing and having an empty apartment really wasn't so bad. In addition to all the Wiggles joy, she got to hang out in suitcases...
and under cupboards. such fun.
Saturday, the 6th, a group from church helped us load up all our stuff in these 3 crates. Tuesday morning they were picked up and driven to IN.
Another thing Aleah liked was once all the furniture was out, she could look out the windows - "Where are you taking my bed??"

Saying good bye to her little buddy Payton
Dave's graduation weekend - it was great to have Dave's brother and sister-in-law and grandparents there to celebrate! Aleah grew rather weary of restaurants. Here she plays peek a boo with Dave's brother.
Dave and Jon eating fried gator

Aleah loves sucking on lemons. She doesn't even make a face at them. crazy kid.
Aleah and great-grandpa, hanging out.
Love this picture of Aleah with her great-gradma!

Graduation! These are rather self-explanitory. = )



Why am I the only one that looks thrilled? Actually, Aleah wasn't impressed with any of the graduation hoopla and it was a rather stressful morning. She obviously didn't want to sit still for the 3+ hours we were at the ceremony, and she'd periodically burst into loud, wailing sobs if the cheers or music were too loud. good times.

Dave, his advisor, and a fellow grad-student who has the same advisor (or in layman's terms, Papa Math, and his little math offspring. Papa math wears his neck tie in a unique fashion.)
yeay Daddy!
Sunday morning, our last in Baton Rouge, I woke up early and couldn't sleep, so I got up and tried to be productive. There was a pretty sunrise, which this picture does not adequately capture, and I was feeling nostalgic so I snapped this from our patio door. I always liked those big tall trees out our window.

It seemed we would NEVER get out the door. All the last minute packing up and cleaning seemed to take forever. Dave's grandparents were there with us till the end, helping to clean up, pack, do laundry, etc. Bless their hearts for all their help! And Aleah of course, was happy to watch the Wiggles so we could get out the door. I love this picture, taken right before we walked out the door for the last time. FINALLY, a totally empty, clean apartment, except for this. I wonder how long it would have taken her to notice we were gone. = )