Memoirs of a wanderer...

what to say...

2012-01-12T21:36:00.004-05:00

... after months of neglecting this blog? I could write a book - a very long, boring book. But I won't. I'll just say that life has been crazy! The end of November we went up to Red Lake and spent some time with my family and friends. It was a swell trip, aside from the hours on the road. Then pretty soon it was Chrsitmas already. How did that happen. We were able to spend a good chunk of time with Dave's family in Iowa on Christmas day and through New Years. If we can make it through January, February is shaping up to be a really fun month - get togethers with friends, more family, etc. But first we need to survive the next few weeks. Through a long chain of events, it has happened that we are (once again) moving the beginning of Feb. I've discussed at length our never ending issues with mice and bad water at this place. Well, ad to that a scare that there might be bacteria in the water (turns out there almost for sure isn't) and our landlord said he'd change our lease to a 6 month and we could leave the beginning of Feb. Despite my utter loathing of packing, loading, moving, and unpacking, the joy of departing our little rat den slightly overshadows that at this point. Of course I haven't really started packing yet. ha. Thankfully a lot of out stuff is still in boxes from our last move. We found a place we really like and are working on moving forward with that. Hopefully it all works out and we'll be there soon. I have lots of pics I could post, but for now I'll leave you with this one - some day we'll teach her to sit like a lady.

my fall project...

2012-01-12T21:21:00.007-05:00

I wanted to do these letters for our new neice and it ended up taking way longer than I thought it would. Some aspects of it were really fun, others not so much. = ) But it was fun be creative again. I got some help with the finishing touches from my sis and friend up in Red Lake. So here you go - if I was smart I'd have step by step photos, but I don't. = ( But it's pretty simple - start with wooden letters, cut out scrapbook paper of your choice for each letter. Modge podge it on there, and then the really unfun part - sanding it down to the get edges to look nice. I was very perfectionistic, but the paint kept coming off and all that. Then my sis convinced me that it's supposed to look like that - a distressed look. So I tried to stop stressing about it. Oh, I forgot that step - paint the sides of the letters. With paint. I used yellow. Oh, and you modge podge the top of the paper too once it's stuck on there, to give it a nice shiny, finished look - likely my favorite part. Then put on any cutsey embelishments your heart desires and spend hours on each letter deciding what looks best with what. Then yer done!

oops - little ribbon placement problem at the bottom of the R. didn't notice that till I looked at the pictures.

(I'm secrectly in love with the "A.")
the end.

Don't know where to start

2011-11-04T16:37:00.003-04:00

wow, I've written a katrillion blog posts in my head the last few weeks, too bad none of them actually made it to the computer. It's been a busy few weeks. I mentioned my wonderful friend Sue coming to paint for us. I realize I still haven't posted a single picture of this place. Trust me, you aren't missing much, although you are missing just a smidgen more since she painted. I keep meaning to take pictures once all the rooms are clean at the same time. That actually happened Wednesday of this week because we hosted our small group so um, it was do or die (ok, I suppose I wouldn't have actually died... ). Then I think... wait, I need to put stuff on the walls before I take pictures. Then in the meantime, everything gets messy again ... round and round we go. Anyway, I do have a pile of pictures I want to post sometime.

I'm working on a fun little craft project. Can't post pictures or say much about it right now because it's a gift, but soon. Anyway, I haven't been in touch with my crafty side for so long, it's a lot of fun. I've been thinking, hey, maybe I should try to sell these puppies, then I look closely and wonder how that might work.

The weekend after Sue came to paint, was my friend and former roommate's wedding. It so happened that Dave had Thurs. and Fri. off that week for fall break. Thursday we went to a (very small) zoo close to here. Aleah was impressed with the bears and anything that was big and moved a lot. She also really liked the birds. The rest was sort of boring (in her opinion). Anyway, Friday we made our way to Kokomo where wedding preparations were underway. I've never been in a wedding since having a hubs and small child. I have to say it um... complicates things. I wanted to help, but it was also hard to be much help. Anyway, at one point Bethany gave me some plastic table skirts that were all wrinkly and wondered if I could take them to the groom's parent's house and stick them in the dryer to fluff them up a little. Hey, I'm here to serve. So off I go to stick plastic in the dryer. The idea was low heat, just a couple minutes. That should do it. So I started drying while chatting with the groom. Then we checked said table skirts. Absolutely nothing was happening, & they were still cold and wrinkly. So I changed the heat to medium, and changed the timer so it was more in the middle instead of just at the end of the cycle (not sure if that makes sense at all, or if it changed anything but...), and started chatting again... a bit later we checked the lovely skirts and ohhhhhhhhhhhhh dear - they were shall we say, very, very, very, very, indeedly MELTED. As in, "wow, someone sprayed shaving cream in the dryer, but it's hard to get off shaving cream" melted. oh deeeeeeeeear! So as the groom removed the pieces of table skirts from the dyer with a knife, I thought about other ways I might be able to lend my indispensable services. Dave and I then drove to the bed and breakfast where everyone was staying (well, all the important people), and g0t settled in, and I then drove around town looking for the party store to buy more table skirts. I finally found the place and bought 2 more, drove back to the church ages after I left on the 10 minute errand to dry the table skirts, and delivered them. WOW! I'm not sure what they would have done without me! Anyway, the wedding was beautiful, all candle light. It was great to see friends I had hadn't seen in awhile. Aleah was a basket case by the end of the wedding day, but we all survived. We drove back after all the festivities Saturday night.

The weekend after that, another wonderful friend Bethany came to visit. I don't have a single picture to document that she was here, but she was and it was so good to hang out with her. Dave was at a conference all day Saturday, where he gave a spiffy math talk that was quite impressive I hear! = ) So it was nice to have company. We ate good food and sat around and watched "Sabrina" - both the old and much older versions.

The following weekend was last weekend and we had nothing planned for the first time in awhile. I really don't remember what we did. I could if I thought about it long enough, but I don't want to waste time doing that instead of telling you about... well, I mentioned we ate good food in the above paragraph. I don't usually post about food on here because really, there's not usually much exciting to share from around here. But let me just say 2 things. I came across this recipe from a fellow blogger awhile back (thanks Sabrina) and have made it several times since then. I would suggest you do the same. Its very very tasty and quick and cheap too, other than the chicken. Ok, that's one. And now for 2, I had asked Bethany if there was anything she wanted to eat while she was here. She remembered some type of chicken sandwich she ate up in Red Lake that she thought Heather G. made. So anyway, after a little research and some tweaking, can I just tell you what I made? I feel I have to because it's one of my favorite things ever that I've made, even though it was nothing fancy (this is probably sooooooooo very boring - sorry). So I stuck some chicken breasts in the crock put with some tasty BBQ sauce and let that cook away. Then fried up onions and a pepper. Also fried up some bacon (in this case, turkey bacon). Then took sour dough bread, put some cheese on it (in this case, muenster), then a nice little pile of BBQ chicken from the crock pot, then a pile of onions/peppers, then bacon, then a bit more cheese, then the bread. Then fry it up like an amazingly glorified grilled cheese. The first one spilled all over the frying pan, then I remembered I have a George Foreman grill, so I did the rest in there. They were tasting soooooooo tasty (for Rhonda, ha) indeed. oh so very tasty. Ok, that's the end of my story. done talking about food. Except to say that Dave and I and small human are going to Chick Fil A tonight, which I'm more than a little excited about. I've been going through withdrawal these last few months. There's a new one in a neighboring town that we wanted to go to anyway to kick of some Christmas shopping, so when they wake up, that's what we'll do. = )

I guess since I'm writing about all our exciting weekends, that brings me up to this one. We had wanted to make it to Iowa to meet our new niece (Dave's brother and wife's baby) and be there for her baptism. But sadly, Dave has way too much work to do to go anywhere for the weekend, so we're sticking around here and hopefully having a productive couple days. We're looking forward to heading up north in a couple weeks to see my family, most of whom I haven't seen since last Christmas - way too long! I can't wait. Also get to meet my new great-niece. So many new little girls in our family right now. Fun stuff. And no, I'm not even close to old enough to have "great" anythings but I do because I have siblings who are way way WAY older than me... anyway, I digress.

Aleah seems to be growing like crazy. When I look at her she doesn't seem that tall to me, but according to how things are fitting, she's grown at least a couple inches in the last couple months. Also brings up an interesting dilemma. Ok, so you know how they used to say that babies have to face backwards in their car seats until they're both 20 lbs and one year? Well, when Aleah went for her one year check up, her doc told us that they've changed the recommendation and you're not supposed to turn the car seat around until they're at least 2! What?? Well anyway, at that time she was fine facing backwards and other than not being able to see out very well and having the sun blinding her eyes a lot of the time, no biggie. So we've never switched her. The "law" is still one year so we could switch whenever, and I know probably none of my readers are militant about such things, but man oh man, you should read some of the babycenter boards about such things. Those who turn around their child's car seat before they're 3 are hideous child abusers - maybe your child's cramped leg will snap in an accident, but at least they'll LIVE. eesh. Which is my next point - with all the growth lately, she really doesn't look very comfortable that way anymore - her legs are quite cramped. So it seems only nice to do the big switcheroo before the big long trip coming up. But the angry voices of the babycenter moms I hear in my head. And I think about the icy scary Canadian roads and freak out a bit. Anyway, which is the worse - traveling with your toddler unable to see out the windows, gnawing on her knees, sun shining in her eyes, or sacrificing all comfort for the most possible safety?

Ok, I'm pretty sure I've blathered on long enough. have a great weekend!!

Long ago in a far away land...

2011-10-10T18:56:00.012-04:00

And now, before this next batch of pics, that possibly filled my heart with joy and made me wish for a better camera and mad skills to use it, a little anecdote. Long, long (long long long long long long) ago when I was a teenager, full of winsome vigor and zest for life, I was out shopping with my mom and aunt in Michigan. I don't remember what store we were in, but I came across this line of kid's clothes called "Rachel's Kids." It was even spelled right, with no "a" added. So I thought, in all my youthful, winsome, vigor, how sweet would it be to buy something and save it for the day that I might have my own small fry that could wear it? Then her tag would say "Rachel's Kids" and it would be true, except there would only be one and not 2. But I digress. So, reaching back into the farthest recesses of my memory, I recall picking out something I thought was cute, bought it, bagged it, and stashed it away in my hope chest. I'm sure you can tell where this is going, so without further ado - today's photo shoot.

We went back to the aforementioned park. Wait, latter mentioned park. It's be gorgeous here for over a week - very warm and sunny every day with beautiful fall leaves. Natural light is SO wonderful! Way better than trying to take pics inside where they're either too dark, or glowing white from the flash. And you don't have to use red eye reduction and all that. And being outside with more distractions was nice because she didn't just pound on her chest the whole time meaning she wants the camera.

Her hat stood up in funny ways and looked like misplaced rabbit ears or something. but hey, you'd be a little bent out of shape too if you spent the last 20 years in storage

I was surprised she left her hat on a lot of the time.

The larger, not resized pics look better, but oh well. I was pretty happy to get some good outdoor shots. And after not seeing fall leaves for years, wow, this place is just gorgeous right now! I'm just loving it.

Middle post

2011-10-10T18:20:00.015-04:00

I always get annoyed with blogger because of the wierd order in which they post posts. I know, I should just switch to Wordpress. I'm thinkin about it. Feeling guilty about thinking about it, etc. So here's some random recent pics. nothing too exciting. My friend Sue came this past weekend and did a pile of painting for us. Bless her soul!!! It really improved the look of the bedrooms and hallway. Still have the stairway walls to paint. All the painting makes me really want my own house! Would be so nice to fix things up like you want them. But anyway, if we could just get rid of the rodents once and for all and stop ruining laundry with the nasty water here, it'd be a fine, temporary place to live. Sigh. I have had days of wanting to scream my head off not knowing what to do about those 2 things. Cleaning all the mouse terds off the counter shouldn't be a part of anyone's daily moring routine. shudder. Anyway, on to cheery things - We've had lots of weekend busyness - weddings, company, etc. This weekend my former roomie when I lived in IN (prior to this time of living in IN) is getting married. The weekend after that another friend comes to visit! Fun times! = ) So anyway, pics -

One of the very pretty park/gardens in town - we went on a wet/sloppy day and Aleah had fun running around.
There's even a little fish pond.
Love this pic.
great place to run!
And now for a little fashion show cuz Jenni wanted one. = ) This is why it's so hard to take her pic these days - this is her saying "Please" because she wants to play with the camera and push the buttons. ARG!

This pic cracks me up - she's not really posing as you might think - she was just playing with toys and stood up and that's what happened. She's now officially way more stylin than me - check out her boots. They were from a free craigslist gig.

look ma - no hand! eesh.
She's soooo helpful, like when I'm trying to clean out the fridge, for instance. like a lil puppy, always underfoot. = )
On Friday I went with a couple friends to an apple orchard close to here. I forgot my camera. = ( But anyway, it's a really fun little place with a petting zoo, farm toys for the kiddies to play with, and amazing food. They are known for their pumpkin and apple cinn. donuts (2 different kinds, lest there be any confusion). I now know why - SO good. Anyway, I tend to not give Aleah much sugar. Friday I plunked her in her high chair, and gave her an entire donut to demolish. She probably doesn't know what hit her.
Boy, we really are slipping around here - more sugar. Aleah's first beater. = ) Actually, it was whipping cream so not the worst thing in the world. Ok, this concludes the middle post. Stay tuned for the 3rd post. Or the 1st, depending on how it works out. Also, I have a ton of painting pictures but I think those will have to wait for another day.

New York Trip

2011-10-10T17:41:00.017-04:00

I've started several blogs many times in my head, but they've never made it to the screen. So now I have a ton of posts to post. So I'll just get started. Probably won't get them all done today. A few weekends ago Dave and I took a trip to New York (the state, not the city) for his cousin's wedding. His parents and one brother were there as well. So, here's some pics from that -

reading stories with Grandpa
Downtown Sherman, New York, where Dave's mom grew up and where Dave has many memories of spending time with Grandparents (side note - the place makes me feel like I grew up in a pretty big city - we did have ONE stoplight, after all.)
nah, I'm sure they're not related

4 generations outside the town diner
Sitting around waiting to leave for the wedding. Great uncle Dan providing toddler entertainment

Wow uncle Alex, you have a very fancy tie!
Fist bumping with the bride. = )
cousins, the bride and groom, and grandpa
4 generations again
so precious
Aleah in the apple tree in Dave's grandpa's yard - the grandsons climbed this tree many many times, so I hear.

We left for New York after Dave got off work, and of course it took longer to get on the road and get there than we planned. So we arrived at 2 our time, 3 in the morning their time. yikes. Aleah who had been zonkered in the car for hours, woke up and thought that would be a good time to start the day. She was awake till 6, when she finally slept on and off for awhile longer. Fun times. We enjoyed spending time with family and introducing Aleah to her Great Grandpa and his wife and her two great uncles on Dave's mom's side of the family (that sounded like a very clunky sentence - hopefully you can figure it out). We drove home Sunday in the day light and made a little bit better time.

Things bumping around in my head...

2011-09-16T01:30:00.002-04:00

... but I can't remember most of them. shoot. So a little story from one day last week. A rather traumatic day for some (why am I updating my blog at 12:30 am? I have no idea!). Anyway, last Thursday Aleah and I went to MOPS. I had never gone before and it was good to get out and do something like that and hang out with actual um, humans, humans who are tall - taller than my kneecaps. Anyway, this was the start of short human's no good very bad day. She loves going new places and hanging out with new people, but also isn't a fan of loudness. She's always loved going to the nursery at church. So anyway, she was happy to go and play with the kids and all, but toward the end, several kids had had enough and wanted their mommies, which resulted in somewhat of a chain reaction - when I went to get her, there were probably 5 kids bawling their little hearts out and she was one of them. Well, we got calmed down and headed out for a fun walmart shopping trip (snort). It was chilly and rainy. Got our stuff, got out to the car, and as I was putting getting her in her seat, I let her play with the keys. Usually I unlock the doors and then toss the keys on my seat while I get her in. So anyway, I got her in, tossed the keys on my seat, shut her door, went to open mine and... wait... nooooooooo.... she had played with the buttons and I guess pushing the lock button doesn't make any sound, but once you shut the doors after that, they'll all lock. So she was in and I was out. In the rain. Thank God we weren't in Baton Rouge in the 98 degree weather. Then I really would have freaked out. I tried to call Dave. We were really close to school and I knew it was a time when he would have been able to come over. No answer (his cell phone was missing - still is). Well, I've locked myself out of my car a bagillion times, enough to know that some cops will come to help you and some won't, but they always will when there's a child locked inside. So, standing in the rain, feeling like a total idiot, I called 911. "What is the location of your emergency?" "Well, it's not really an emergency, I'm just a moron..." Anyway, the lady was nice and said she'd send someone over. She asked if my baby was ok. Well, she was more upset over having dropped her precious blankie and was crying about that and staring at me like what is your problem, just get it for me already! Peekaboo helped for awhile. A nice lady pulled up and asked if she could help me. Me? Oh, I don't need help, I'm just standing by my car in the rain for fun. ha. She said I could wait in her vehicle. Well, I sorta need to stand here and watch my kid cry cuz she doesn't have her blanket, but thanks. Then the cop arrived, had me sign something, got me unlocked pretty quick which set off the car alarm. Which I couldn't turn off no matter what I pushed. which finally shut up when I started the car. Ah, that was fun. From there, we went to Menards because dumb walmart didn't have the mouse traps we needed. If we were true pioneers like my brother in law, and probably my brother too, we would have just rigged something up with a bucket and peanut butter. But I can't stand seeing dead mice. Or live for that matter (did I mention we had mice?). So we get the nice ones where you don't even have to see the dead thing in there. So, after recovering from baby scream camp and baby being locked in car, we get into the store and I'm looking at mouse traps and she's running around right beside me, when I see what looks like her putting something in her mouth. I walk over and there's bags of ant poison and one of them is open with lots of little powdery goodness for chubby little paws to get their hands on. Are you kidding me? I'm calling poison control 15 minutes after calling 911? And she's not even a boy! Well anyway, as it turned out, I just watched her and she seemed fine, so I'm guessing if she did get any, it was a very small amount. The same thing I choose to believe about the poop she may or may not have eaten this evening.

(the next day we didn't leave the house, if memory serves me correctly)

In other, happier news, Aleah also has a cold. oh, that's not the happy part. This is just sort of random and funny. You know how garlic is a natural antibiotic and good for colds and whatever might ail you? Well, I had given her some before but it was a few months ago and I wasn't sure if she'd still eat the stuff - like pure garlic oil in capsule form. So a couple days ago, I gave her some and she snarfed them down faster than nobody's business, and wanted more. Until I wouldn't give her more and then she bawled. What in the world? Garlic? She eats it with greater joy and enthusiasm than ice cream. She says YUM and smiles really big and bangs on her chest for more please. So some kids get chocolate for potty training treats? I'm thinking we might just stick with garlic pills.

In other unrelated news, I'm looking forward to seeing some Indiana friends this weekend at a shower and just hanging out. Then next weekend Dave and I go to New York for his cousin's wedding, and then in October the weekends are almost all full - so much going on and that's fun - company, another wedding to go to, things of that nature. allrighty, so that's it for now.

Creative and original Title

2011-09-06T13:43:00.012-04:00

I have pictures of the last few weeks that I'd like to post, but I also wanted to post some from last night. Cuz she was actually wearing clothes and stuff (that was for you Jenni). So here they are.

Come back here! - rather hard to get good pics these days, but I guess this way you can see the totally tubular hood on this rad sweater. ha.

Dance Dance!

peekaboo of course
Running up and down the hallway. Okay, I'm trying to write under the last picture but blogger won't let me. Almost it exasperateth me enough to switch to wordpress. ARG! Anyway, I tried to get some videos but it didn't pan out because the memory card needs to be dealt with. Hopefully soon...

Pretending to be a crafty mom...

2011-09-05T19:44:00.011-04:00

(sputter sputter sputter choke cough....) So anyway, before I left Baton Rouge, one of my friends had the coolest ever crayons for toddlers. They have a big fat end and then a big point so their chubby lil paws can hold on to the end. And they're really short. Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to get something like that but couldn't find any. I've also randomly seen things online about making your own crayons by melting your old ones. So anyway, that's cheap, I thought I'd give that a whirl. I couldn't find many crayons around here so I bought some. brand new ones. Which seemed scandalous since I was going to rip them all up. But they were 40 cents so I got over it. or maybe 80. And THEN, I got it home and found this....

ha - they were all broken. T'would be heart-breaking if you actually wanted to use them as purchased, but in my particular case, a cause for celebration.
I did not anticipate how long it would take to unwrap all those suckers. I had some here that I added as well. Probably around 48 or so of them. At the end I discovered a handy little trick - rip into them in the middle and tear it apart all the way around. Then slide the 2 ends off. viola! I wish I had captured that on film, but I did not.

I wanted to find something pointy to use to bake but found nothing. or nothing cheap. But at the store I found these crazy adorable animal shapes baking pans that would have made really cute crayons (I feel 2 year old party favors coming over me...). But again, not cheap. So I just used the mini muffin tins I had.
Baked them at around 230 for around 15 minutes. They came out looking like this. They hardened. I tried to get them out and paniced that I had ruined my pan. They weren't budging. I then stuck them in the freezer and tried to focus on other things. Soon, Dave got them out of the freezer and popped them out with nary a care in the world. Cuz he's handy like that. And.... drum roll please....
aren't they pretty. The shape isn't the most practical thing in the whole world and they color better from the bottom than the top. but oh well. They are a little easier to hold for small lil paws.
... and in the end... it doesn't really matter what you do to them, because they still taste exactly the same.

the end. I feel like the Pioneer Woman now, with my little list and step by step pictures. wowee! fun stuff right thar!

15 Months

2011-08-25T10:03:00.005-04:00

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!

Bullets

2011-08-20T23:21:00.003-04:00

- 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.

Words

2011-08-14T20:05:00.002-04:00

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

2011-08-14T18:27:00.027-04:00

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. = )

July post

2011-07-25T06:48:00.003-04:00

I guess it's been awhile since I've been on here and should say something before I go a whole MONTH (gasp!) without a blog post. My rabid fans might go beserk. So without further ado -

It's early in the morning. For some reason I'm once again fighting a string of insomnious nights. HATE that. It comes and goes. The last 4 nights I've been awake a lot. Too tired to get up and do anything useful and to awake to sleep. boo.
Two years ago today we moved into our current apartment. It's once again filling up with boxes. I've never really done a cross country move with this much stuff and furniture and what not. When I moved down here, I didn't bring hardly any furniture with me. We wanted to get a moving company and that would be more convenient, but also more $. So unless something amazing comes along in the next week or so, we'll use a "we pack and load, they drive" type of dealy. The other thing about moving companies that I wasn't expecting is that they can take forever to deliver your stuff. One place even told me they don't guarantee anything less than 21 days. Ummmmm, a little odd, no? Where are you going to have my bed for 21 days exactly?
I'm happy to report that to date, the grand total cockroach sightings has been 2 in the last 2 years (knock on wood) - both last summer, once when I came out into the living room in the middle of the night to feed my newborn and something scurried across the floor. The man killed it and I never again sat in the living room alone feeding in the middle of the night. Too many freaky mental images.
That is considerably less cockroach sightings than our former abode.
Moving is always such a weird, in-limbo, displaced, "is this really happening?" feeling.
Last night our church had a farewell for us during the usual once a month get together thingy. There were so many kids and you could barely hear yourself think. It sort of reminded me of my family Christmas get togethers. I wanted to make Dave a nice congratulatory cake, but alas, time got away from me and he got a tacky cake from Target instead (FYI - the Target bakery makes a killer cake. who knew. Well, I did, cause I had some once before)
We're not sure yet when we're packing all our stuff up. We were going to do it Tuesday but now we might try to get it done Saturday since it would be easier to get some help with loading on a weekend. Saturday? gasp. They will come haul all our stuff away and we'll camp out in an empty apartment till after graduation and head out for good probably on Sunday (2 weeks from yesterday). I'm sort of looking forward to an empty apartment - the STUFF sitting around is a little overwhelming right now.
Not sure what happened to all Dave's time off and all the fun and relaxation we were going to have before getting busy with packing. ha. How do things like that just evaporate?
How to you teach toddlers to be civilized little humans that are joyous to live with? This is the question.
Mom or Dad: "What does the duck say? Aleah: "quack quack" (or some approximation thereof). M or D: "What does the sheep say?" A: "BAAAA" (very distinctly). M or D: "What does the cow say?" "BAAAAAA!!" No moooo! BAAAAAA! no MOOOOO! BAA (giggle giggle) BAA! (giggle) Ok, whatever.
How in the world are we quacking and baaing? Didn't that gross thing on your belly button just fall of? whaaaa...
Mom to A: "Soon we are going to move far far away and we're going to have a different house, and we won't come back here anymore... etc." A: "Oh WOW!!"
Well, that might be all. I think the time has come to go back to bed.
Remembered one more thing to add - yesterday Aleah pulled a new trick - no nap at all, all day. We're really hoping this was a fluke and not some new trend. What in the world. She usually likes going down for a nap and is asleep within minutes. Don't know what in the world was up with that.

Well, that was a little nuts!

2011-06-29T12:19:00.003-04:00

Where to start? I'll try not to write a book here, but felt I should yammer on awhile about the totally insane trip from which Aleah and I just returned home. Ai yie yie. If I just start telling you all about it, all the things that went wrong will stand out in my mind and that's what I'll talk about. So first of all, the highlights: 1) I got to see my wonderful friend Patti get married. And see the wonderful folks at my former church in IN. It was a lovely wedding, she was a beautiful bride, etc. etc. 2) Got to spend some time catching up with my former roommate and other friends in Indiana and it was great to see them. 3) Got to see Valparaiso, our future home for a year and I really really liked it! It seemed like a really nice little town and the residential area where we'll most likely rent something is really quiet, sidewalks and families everywhere, everyone seemed really nice. Yeah, I really liked it. 4) I got to spend some time with my mom's siblings - saw lots of aunts and uncles that I hadn't seen in a long long time. That was really special. Also an aunt that lives over 5 hours away was able to make it to the get together since they were going to be relatively close by for a wedding the next day. Ok, so for the run down of the trip - Aleah came down with a cold the day before we were supposed to fly to IN. Great. She was up the night before so miserable and congested and I was so nervous about flying with her. We got up bright and early last Wednesday morning and headed to the airport. First oops of the trip - we missed our flight to Atlanta. That's right. missed it. Dave always likes to get to the airport so early. I always hate sitting around little airports forever waiting to leave, and the lines are never long so I said let's just get there a good hour or so early. Well, when you shoot for that, and then don't quite make that.... but still, we should have been fine. We got in line and it wasn't too long, but both parties were going on international flights. And it took FOREVER. Oh. my. goodness! We finally got through, went through security, and when I got to the gate, it said the flight was "now 10:50." I breathed a huge sigh of relief. My flight was supposed to leave at 10:17 so it appeared it was a little delayed. So I went and bought some things at the shop and hung out. It seemed odd that it was getting later and later and they weren't calling for boarding or anything. Well, I decided to look into it and when I showed a guy my boarding pass he said wait, that's not even the same number. uh oh. I called a number he gave me and talked with a really obnoxious woman who lectured me on the merits of arriving with time to spare, etc. etc. She assured me that this wasn't even my flight and mine was long gone. She also said there's no way I could get on this other flight and that she can only search for a flight for the same day with the same origin and destination city. ok. The only thing she could do with put me on stand by for a flight leaving at 4 from Baton Rouge and I would get into South Bend at 11 that night. oh joy. I called Dave. I was flipping out. I didn't want to spend the next 5 hours in that airport with Aleah. I decided to just stand in line for this other Atlanta flight and see what happened. Seemed like there was all sorts of hullabloo surrounding that flight but I didn't have a clue why or what was going on. Anyway, it was boarding and there were lots of people in line ahead of me so I had very little hope that I could get on it. Soon everyone just sort of cleared out of the line and boarded and there I was. An older guy who barely looked up at me asked a question and looking back, I don't think he was even talking to me. I started yammering away about missing my flight and being scheduled for another one by a cranky phone lady but is there any way I could get on this one and he grabs my boarding pass and rips it and says go find an empty seat! ummm... sir? That's the wrong boarding pass. I'll need that on in Atlanta. Oh, he grabs the right one and gives me ripped one and I got on the plane and found a seat. What in the world. I sat down in the first row behind 1st class where there's more room and the lady beside asked if I knew what was going on with the plane. I said no and she explained that this flight was supposed to leave at 6 this morning. It was now 11:40. People had spent what sounded like hours in the plane that morning while they tried to fix the pesky little engine that was acting up. Eventually they deplaned and waited and waited, which would explain all the disgruntled travelers that had now missed their connections, etc. GREAT! My tardiness is finally gonna get me killed. Flying makes me a little nervous at the best of times, but in an old shaky airplane with engine problems? EESH! That was one of the longest 1.25 hours of my life, but thankfully, we landed, Aleah did very well, and since I had originally had a long lay over in Atlanta, I was still able to make my next flight. WHEW! We got on the next plane and Aleah was beyond tired and of course pooped right after we got on the plane. We then waited a long long time to take off. Everything was delayed because of storms. When we finally got to take off, we could see all the people lined up behind us waiting to take off. They told us during the flight that we were the last plane they let go. After us they grounded all flights out of Atlanta because of the storms. So close calls on both flights, but we did in fact make it to South Bend. I think the planes had shrunk quite a bit since I last flew. Oh. my. With a kid on your lap and someone in the seat next to you (who is not child's father so you're totally on your own), it's a little insane. I had a bag packed full of junk with which to entertain her, but it was so tight I couldn't even manage to get into the bag much. ugh. Thankfully, on all flights I was sitting with very nice, understanding people. So we finally made it there and had a friend to pick us up and drive us to Warsaw. whew! One thing about this trip was that in my mind, it was going to be really relaxing and fun and we were going to spend time hanging out with friends and going to the beach and strolling the trails, etc. etc. YEAH RIGHT! Instead, it seemed that every single day was spend rushing around trying to meet deadlines and get to the next place on time. Aleah had a cold the whole time and didn't sleep well a lot of the nights. I was having crazy insomnia and just couldn't sleep well at all until I started drugging myself. So yes, it was a rather challenging trip. Thursday I left Aleah with a friend and Bethany (my former RM and I) went to look at Bridesmaids dresses (because she's getting married) and did other shopping. The next day I was going to go see my mom's family that I haven't seen in a long time. I thought We'd just get up Friday morning, pack a little bag, and be off. Nothing is ever that simple. Aleah was a grouch, it was hard to take care of her and pack both, and it seemed like I was just running around in circles and could NOT get out the door! ARG! I was borrowing Bethany's brother's car to get up to Michigan. Well, the car was a little on the old and rusty side and had it's share of quirks, but it ran, so that was good. It leaks transmission fluid so Bethany's fiance was taking care of that and then I finally got out the door. I drove to the gas station and couldn't for the life of me find where to put gas in the thing. Ha! So eventually, they came back to help me out. By this time, Aleah had waken up from her half hour nap. arg. We found the place, I got out my cash card, swiped it, then set it on top of the car while I got gas (at least I'm pretty sure that's what happened). I never claimed to be bright. FINALLY made it to my aunt and uncles and had a great time with all the aunts and uncles. That night I couldn't sleep till about 3 and then Aleah woke up at 5. She conked back out at 7 and slept till after 10:30, but of course, I did not. It was then that I decided drugs would be in my immediate future. Made it back to Warsaw the next day and realized I no longer have my cash card. shoot. But I was dashing around getting ready for the wedding so I didn't have time to think much about it. Took Aleah to the church and someone watched her there during the ceremony. It was a lovely wedding. The reception had a live string quartet. So pretty. Aleah joined us for the reception. She did pretty well, but towards the end she'd burst into loud gales of sobbing over the slightest bit of excitement, such as signing in the tent or cake smearing of the couple. sheesh kid, time to lighten up a bit! Ok, so Aleah and I drove back to the house in the same Cadillac that we had taken to Michigan, but by this time there was some serious muffler dragging on pavement issues going on. I pulled up to the house and realized that I didn't have the house key that Bethany gave me. DRAT! It was getting late, Aleah was grouching about life in the backseat. I called everyone I knew who had a key and got no answers. Funny side note. I knew the restaurant where Bethany and Boy were out to eat. I also knew that he might be proposing that night. No can you just imagine my joy at the prospect of showing up at the proposal with my snotty one year old asking for a house key. Just the proposal story you want to tell for the rest of you life. So I drove to the restaurant and as soon as I got inside, I could see them in there. I bravely peeked around the corner and saw him reach into his pocket. Panic gripped and and I quickly hid myself and then asked the ladies at the front of the restaurant to look at that couple and tell me if he's proposing. It's true! She looked and thought it was clear. So I made an appearance. They were a little surprised to see me. ha. So I got a key, set it on top of the car while I got Aleah buckled in, and made a mental note to myself to not leave it there (I have GOT to stop doing that!!). We drove home um... very slowly one might say, because the muffler was not dragging almost the whole time. I pulled in again and was met with a very VERY sinking feeling. I don't have the key. It's not in my purse or pocket. I haven't touched it since I put it on top of the car. NOOOOOOO!!!!! Now all 3 of us are locked out! Just as I was ready to burst into a million tears, I got out of the car, and would you believe it if I told you THE KEY WAS STILL THERE! Right on top of the car, right where I left it. It stayed there the whole ride home and I went up one steep hill and various turns and bumps. Could. not. believe. it! Praised the Lord and entered the house. Took drugs and slept 8 hours. yahoo! Monday Bethany and I went to Valparaiso to look for apartments/houses/duplexes/condos/etc. that might be for rent. That was a rather stressful day. I had found some ads online that seemed really promising. But quickly found that people's opinions/descriptions of what they have for rent are often different than my impressions of them. haha. Also rental units are in pretty high demand there and none of the big complexes that we went to or that I had called previously had anything available (more than a 1 br). We saw some things that people were renting privately and nothing was that great. Some could have worked, but nothing grabbed me, and they were all a bit (or a lot) disappointing. So at the end we were just walking and driving around looking for "for rent" signs and making phone calls. One place we called got back to me and said he was away so he couldn't show the place but we were free to go look in the windows. = ) So we did and whaaaaaaa!!!! It was SO nice inside! Just looks average outside. And he was asking considerably less than a lot of the junkier ones. It's a cozy little place, on the small side, but has a basement too. The kitchen was great. The only downside was that I was really hoping to find something with 3 bedrooms so when all our family and friends come to visit, we could easily accommodate them. = P But for the price and how nice everything else is, I think we're both leaning in the direction of taking it if it's still available. Maybe we can work something out with the unfinished basement. So the day ended on a pretty good note and I left more hopeful. The most traumatic event of the day was when I was going to get some information from one of the apartment complexes. I was walking up the cement steps and next thing I know - SPLAT - I was on the ground with various scrapes and bruises. It was ouchie but nothing major. Sort of fit with the theme of the trip. We made it back to Warsaw and yesterday we journeyed home, which I'm happy to report, was uneventful. Well, as uneventful ever is flying with a small child. My first flight I sat with a nice little Mennonite boy from Shipshe. The last flight we finally managed to get 2 seats to ourselves which was very nice. Aleah was so done with sitting and traveling and most of the day felt like good cardio workout. She finally gave up and was falling asleep in my arms after we landed and were taxiing to our gate. good timing. It's SO good to be home and I'm ready to not do anything like that for a very long time. Next time, Dave can go along. Or better yet, maybe HE can take Aleah on a trip. haha. Also, as I was flying home, Dave was defending his dissertation and I was thinking about that non-stop and wondering how it was going. I finally got to talk to him right before we got on the plane for Baton Rouge and he said it went well and he's now a dr. whew!! Good to hear! I'm SO SO SO glad it's over and he did it! He put in so much work and I think we're both ready for a bit more of a "normal" life, whatever that might look like. Alrighty, if you're still reading this you're either really bored, a true friend, or obligated family member. I suppose it would be possible to be all 3... hmmm... I digress. catcha later. Oh, and I never found my cash card and gave up and deleted it.

around the house...

2011-06-09T22:21:00.014-04:00

Just a few pics. nothing too exciting to report since I last blogged. These were taken maybe a week ago - with a roomful of toys, she'd of course rather play with...

tea bags
plastic containers
the fly swatter (don't worry, I washed it)... etc.

Today - a sorta rough day. she got a fever last night and had one this afternoon and evening as well. wasn't a super happy camper. We're hoping it's teeth or a little bug, and not the dreaded ear infection coming back to visit. ugh.

Did manage to get a few smiles
Mealtimes are so crazy right now. She freaks out if she can't hold things and play with them, in addition to the food of course. She also really likes to try to eat with something and not just use her hands. She obviously hasn't perfected the skill. But she sees us eating and hey, we're not shoveling it in with our hands, so why should she (we're also not randomly throwing our food and utensils on the floor, but she hasn't made that connection yet)?

Trying to use her fork.

Ha - didn't think her face would show through the bowl. cracks me up.

Going for a quick stroll before bed. That's all, good night.

real quick

2011-06-01T23:03:00.002-04:00

I should be in bed right now but I'm stalling I guess. It's so nice and quiet right now. Hard to pull myself away. I always have these posts that sound so great in my head, but when I go to actually post them - disappointing. Here's a few things going on around here -

- Dave is finishing up his dissertation and should have a mostly don't copy submitted on Friday. This makes me happier than many many things.

- Friday Dave and I are going to his advisor's house for dinner. These things always make me a little quivery inside, but it should be fun. I remember his wife being nice to chat with. At least a couple years ago that was the case.

- I've been babysitting very little lately due to some member in one of the 2 households being sick. Between little girls having fevers and ear infections (thankfully Aleah has been healthy for awhile now), Dave and I both getting sick, etc etc. Anyway, all this time "off" I'm sure should mean the place is spotless and I have 11 years worth of prepared meals in the freezer, and 21 boxes packed for our impending move. It of course means none of that. I don't know where all the time goes!

- I've been in a cooking slump for awhile. Like ever since we got married. haha. maybe not quite. anyway, tonight I was determined to cook something good and we were going to all eat together. Mission accomplished, be it ever so late. Aleah ate an entire can of mandarin oranges while waiting for supper to come out of the oven. And not one of those little cans either. haha.

- Yes she seems to have a good appetite these days. Making up for a month ago when she was sick for a long time maybe? Man she can put away the food. Sunday she came home from church quite hungry apparently. She ate a pile of sweet potatoes, a bunch of blueberries, some cheerioes I think, and washed it down with 4 organic perogies. haha. I add organic in there so whoever wants to can freely roll their eyes. She is looking a little chunkier than she did in April.

- One more thing about food before moving on - we used to find small lil turkeys for our crock pot. They were so yummy and easy and I could go on. Anyway, the only ones I can find now are turkeys that contain "15% solution to enhance flavors." But I don't LIKE that kind! I just want a good ol plain turkey! They taste too salty and nasty with 15 % of it being a non-turkey substance. I have no point to this story, only to say that I miss my lil turkeys! snif.

- I'm very close to taking the plunge into cloth diaperdom. I've sort of been meaning to ever since she was a few months old but there's always been good reasons not too. Anyway, I'm just tired of diaper rashes and buying diapers, etc. etc. I suppose washing diapers will be less joyful than buying them. Anyway, if there are any experts out there that want to offer tips, I'm all ears. I had a kind that I wanted to get and then someone was selling that kind on Craigslist so I might get some to try.

- In 3 weeks I'm going to Indiana to a friend's wedding and also to hopefully scope out housing options. I'm greatly looking forward to the trip and praying that flying with Aleah is much more akin to her 7 month experience and does not at all resemble her 3 month experience. shudder.

- A little Aleah update mostly for my records but you can read if you feel like it. I've been meaning to write some things down and haven't gotten around to it. Not surprisingly, her favorite word right now is YUM YUM (or num num)! Sometime in the last week or so we were in our room (no where close to food or the kitchen) and I asked her if she was hungry and right away she said YUM YUM! I didn't know she knew what hungry meant, but apparently she does. She's finally learned how to sign please and decided to be resourceful and use the same sign for thank you. She can now often be found desperately smoting her chest in hopes of getting what she wants. Such a sad lesson to learn that please can't ALWAYS work. She'll look at you desperately with those huge blue eyes, beating on her chest as if to say, I'm doing everything you asked!! Why can't I have that? It is rather sad at times. But anyway, the signing part is really cute. Dave taught her to dance to music by holding up her little index fingers and bouncing to the music. She takes this pretty seriously and usually if she hears music she'll stick her fingers up, even if she's not dancing. She's also done the "How big is Aleah?" thing for a long time, but now if she hears the words "so big" in conversation or on the TV or anywhere, her arms shoot straight up. And sometimes it's with a totally straight face, nothing fun about it - this is serious business. It's quite funny to watch. She seems to have a pretty strong sense of duty and is often pretty serious, but is usually a pretty content kid. She's also very determined when she wants something. Ok, that's all about her. Well, I should hand off the computer. I guess that's all of my ramblings for now.

A little reminiscing...

2011-05-18T11:48:00.017-04:00

So, we had the big first birthday at our house on Saturday. I had of course been thinking about Aleah turning 1 a lot the last while (bad sentence... sorry to my in-laws who also happen to be English majors!). Anyway, I love babies, no doubt about it. I've always been a baby person more than a terrible 2 person. haha. So my natural tendency is to be sad at how fast time flies, how she's not much of a baby anymore, etc. But I guess awhile ago I just decided that I know too many truly sad stories and your baby turning one is not one of them. So this is not going to be sad for me! I'm going to remember with great joy (and fatigue), the adorable, tiny, cuddly baby stage, but gracious, she makes a pretty swell one year old too and we're just going to think about all the fun times ahead and um, find a way to keep her from totally destroying the place. But it is really fun to look back and remember when she was born. Especially being further removed from all the emotion and um, ouch, of it all. What a day that was. wowee. Here's a few pictures - I think some of them were floating around FB awhile back and drum roll please.... some of them never before released to the general public.

I don't know if you can see it as well on the resized pic, but it was a long time later that I noticed her little foot sticking up on this picture. So crazy.
She wasn't born how I wanted her to be (as in delivery method, not her personally - she was perfect), but wow, there was nothing in the world like this moment - I got to watch it all in the mirror - the photo has been nicely edited. There are things on that pic that I think went back inside me. At least I hope they did! ha. and shudder.

Getting a first close up look at her.

Now I need to preface this next pic - you know when you see pictures of these beautiful women who have just given birth but they don't even look like it at all? And you wonder, how could that person really have just had a baby?? Well, I'm proud to say, I'm not one of them! My sister told me I could just delete this photo -what? I'm proud of how hideous I look and how crazy much work it took to get her birthed! Delete it? no way? I'm about to share it with the world. Cause I'm a dork. Anyway, I have family members like the aforementioned ladies, and really, I'm happy for you. = )

eesh
That first night I was so exhausted but also really drugged up so I couldn't sleep much. I just held her most of the night and drifted in and out of sleep. I hoped it made up for the hours I wasn't able to be with her right after she was born. She seemed totally perfect and I couldn't believe she was ours!

"Tell me a story mom."

SO tiny in that big car seat.
And wow - a mere 6 months later and her thighs have swelled to 100 times their original size. I think this was the height of her chunkiness.

And now she's one - her thighs aren't that huge anymore but she's still pretty squishable. And she's got some hair which is fun. (and not as heavy to haul around as the thighs)

Little party at the park - So, I tired to do everything ladybugs, but looking at the pics, it just looks red and black. Oh well. There was a nice big ladybug balloon that flew away before the party started and only shortly before we lost all of these. = ( A friend took a bunch of pics so I'll try to post more when I have them. I didn't get tons of great ones.

She did really like the cake.
Hanging out, opening some presents with her pal. So there ya have it. One year old. My friend Sue was supposed to come over the weekend, but her flight was canceled so she's planning on coming this coming weekend instead. So I'm really really really looking forward to hanging out with her. The birthday festivities on Saturday were followed by the nastiest case of stomach flu befalling me - I don't think I've had it that bad since I was a teenager. And thankfully, no one else here has gotten it. I'm praying it stays that way. I felt like I was going to die, but thankfully, it didn't last long. whew! the End.

Double Trouble

2011-05-13T19:20:00.008-04:00

Just thought I'd stop by and say hey. Life is crazy right now. Dave is working day and night on getting assignments done. I'm trying to do a birthday party and getting ready for company. I'm so tired I'm ready to drop, but there's still lots to do so I guess I won't. Can't believe our little squirt is going to be 1 tomorrow. I read someone's blog who commented that she always found her kids a ton of work around age 0ne - able to get into everything and still very needy. Today I've been reminiscing a lot about the glory days when she would just sit on the floor and play for hours and I could run around doing whatever I wanted. Not anymore. She is way way more work than she was at 8 months or so. Doesn't sleep as much and is of course into everything, making it really hard to get anything done (this morning I really wanted a babysitter so I could efficiently get things. That didn't work out, so I decided to pretend that I have 10 kids and 9 of them were at the sitter's - might have helped a little). Anyway, it's also a really fun age because her little personality is budding (I guess that isn't always so great - haha) and she's learning new things and all that fun stuff. We went to the doctor this morning for her ear check and and 12 month check up. FINALLY, the ear infection is gone. I was so happy I almost cried. No more nasty drugs and the resulting intestinal joys. She weighs 21 and a halfish - actually less than she weighed at 9 months. So she's gone from the 95th percentile to the 50th in weight. Ok, I should keep working. Have a great weekend.

some words

2011-05-09T22:27:00.002-04:00

I realized it's been ages since I've actually written anything on here. So real quick because I'm sure Dave will need the computer at any moment now...

Most of you probably heard, but Dave accepted a one year teaching position at Valpo University in Indiana. So we'll be moving shorty after August 5th. It's crazy to think about being that close to where I moved from almost 3 years ago.
I don't know what in the world is going on - the other day I opened the flour and there was a bug in it. gross. And it wasn't nearly old enough to have bugs. Yesterday we were eating lunch and I looked down at a big ol piece of lettuce there was a big slimy dead bug on it. again, GROSS! And a smaller slimy dead bug for good measure. THEN, this morning I was eating some cereal of all things, looked down, and there was a live bug floating around in it! Identical to the one that was in the flour. A cousin or brother in law perhaps. WHAT is going on???? I do clean the kitchen occasionally! I was so thoroughly grossed out.
I'm very tired and thought I had more to say but maybe I don't. Aleah has been feeling ok ear infection wise, as far as I know, from what she's told me anyway. But I think her teeth are making her mad lately. Today was one of those days. We ended up in the pool though and that (and maybe the Orajel) made things a lot better. It was so smoking hot outside and the pool was nice and cool - a perfect combination.
Ok I thought I had more but I don't and Dave needs the computer to finish up that little paper he's working on so he can graduate. yahoo! The end is in sight. The whole world is welcome to come party with us in a month or so.

Just cuz...

2011-05-04T23:00:00.012-04:00

a couple days ago I was snapping some shots. Grandma C had gotten her this cute lil ensemble and we actually had a cool day so I had to of course, take some snaps.
But mom, I don't want to do this now! I'm tired!

One smile for dad

After some sleep. That's all. Have a good night/day!

2011-04-28T14:25:00.007-04:00

One of her new favorite things to do - "How Big is Aleah?"

Just hangin out, all squeaky. with a cool hairdo.

Easter Sunday - We had a potluck lunch with some friends and it was a nice time. She didn't sleep and it was next to impossible to get any good pictures of cranky, sleep deprived child. But here's a few anyway - finding her one and only egg, which she developed a fierce passion for.

Um, yeah, she really did fall in love with that purple plastic.

Hanging out with her friend and fighting over the one egg. I think it was confiscated for a bit for this picture. funny kids. Ok, that's all for now.

more and more pics, 24 pics

2011-04-14T21:55:00.011-04:00

Ok, not really, just thinking of Dr. Suess. Aleah is 11 months today. 11 months... nooooooooo... the countdown is on to 1 year I guess. It seems like sweet little baby is going away forever and leaving a more toddlerish looking little person in her place. Anyway, she's had a big week - grandparents were here and just left today, she learned where her nose is, and what to do when we say obnoxious things like, "How big is Aleah?" (that one is really cute!). Then today a few hours after her grandparents left, she pulled up onto the couch a couple times. finally. So anyway, here's a pile of almost exactly the same looking Aleah sitting on the couch to pose for her monthy picture pictures.

Dave's dad got some great pics while they were here, but I just had to post a few of the ones we had. Love this pic of the 3 of them. All of these look really grainy on here and I couldn't totally fix all the shadows but I still like these 3 a lot. This was at a plantation.

K, that's all. night all.

Just for fun

2011-04-11T00:20:00.006-04:00

I wonder if I can form a coherent thought. For some reason I'm updating my blog instead of going to bed. Last night I was trying to capture Aleah's little hair curly things - when it's wet it curls over her ears (or maybe I should say ear cause one side is way longer than the other) but then it goes away by morning after she sleeps on it. Anyway, here's some random fun with the camera I thought I'd share.

She didn't like my plan of a photo shoot. She's getting a little too fast. oh well.

Found the books - she loves looking at books and being read to. She looks at her books way more than she plays with toys.

The end. good night.

Funzies

2011-04-07T20:53:00.014-04:00

Well well well... Just wanted to stop by and say hi and bless you with a few pics. These are not in order, but I had to do the best first. This picture just cracks me up to high heaven. oh my. So, my bosom pal Bethany came to visit from Sat. - Tues. of this week. It was so crazy fun having her here and taking her around to see some of the sights of Baton Rouge and all. And having more than an hour to talk. Friends are such wonderful things. Anyhoo... these pictures are from the capital building tower. I'm sure I've posted similar scenery pics to these but it was a long time ago so here are some more. Oh, and I should mention that it was crazy windy when we were up there. fun times.

How totally cool is this pic? Oh my, I love it!

This one tends to crack me up too for some reason.

These pics are Sunday night, sitting outside at a restaurant, gorgeous weather, a pretty fountain in the background, palm trees all over, great food and company... ummm hmmmm...

How did she weasel her way into every picture, anyway?

Ok, I guess that's all the pics of Bethany's visit. It really was a super fun time and went way too fast. Ok, jumping back in time - here's a random pic from a few weeks ago. I guess it's on FB so nothing new for all but 1 of you. haha.

10 months (and now almost 11, oh dear... )

The St. Patricks Day parade. Aleah mostly liked it until she got hit in the head with a plastic cup. Then she was fine again until things just got a little too loud and crazy. Then we moved back so she could chew on the beads in peace and she was happy again.

She's becoming such a little charmer. gracious. Whenever someone talks to her she grins from ear to ear and tilts her head to one side. Of course then they freak out over her even more, and then she carries on more, and then... it's impossible to get much shopping done. She'll look at people grinning trying to get their attention. She's finally crawling all over and really well, although tends to stick close to of us and not go exploring too much on her own. She's said "Hi Dad" a few times - if not intentional, she fooled us. She loves to eat and loves to feed herself and make a big mess. Can't believe she's almost 11 months. Time it does fly. Ok, I think that's it for now. Next installment, a visit from some grandparents! = )

I forgot to mention...

2011-03-30T23:59:00.002-04:00

... the other morning when the maintenance man was here (for a long long time), he investigated the dryer vent and found, not rodents, but a bird's nest. with 5 eggs. They must have been nice and toasty. Apparently bird chirping sounds a lot like mouse squeaking. He moved the nest and covered the vent so no more scurrying around sounds. That's all.

teeny tiny post

2011-03-29T12:18:00.004-04:00

Aleah has been sick since Wednesday. I think overall she's starting to feel better but still is snotty and grumpy. very grumpy. And it's hard to know what's sickness and what's teeth these days. fun. And Dave and I are both flirting with the idea of getting sick too, but so far haven't taken the all out plunge. May it henceforth remain so.
Sunday was quite the day - in the morning, Aleah was playing in our room getting books out of a crate. Suddenly she was attacked in the face by a falling (rather heavy) journal with sharp corners. Screaming commenced. About 2 minutes later she was playing with a little folding purse mirror (to distract her from the pain in her face) and was looking shocked and distressed. Here she was pinching her little fleshy finger flab between the 2 parts of the mirror - hard. There was a nice pinch mark. More screaming commenced. Later, Dave dumped a bowl of soup on the living room carpet floor (I cleaned it up). Even later, I dropped a jar of jam on the kitchen floor, which promptly shattered (he cleaned it up). Whew! But somewhere in there I got to talk to a friend for a long long time on the phone which was really nice and also in the evening we stopped by the annual church crawfish boil and it was nice to get out of the house.
It is so crazy easy to steal stuff from Walmart! Twice now I've done it without trying. Yesterday I ran to Walmart to grab some things we needed and picked up some kitchen gadgets. One was a pastry brush. When I got to my car, that thing had slipped between my purse and the cart seat back thing. ARG! I dutifully went back and paid for it. That's twice now. Think if I actually tried to shoplift. oh the money making potential.
I get to see Bethany G. tomorrow! For a bit, then she comes to visit over the weekend! Hopefully all the illness will be gone from this place by then. Can't wait to hang out with her!! I think that's all for now.

party on dudes...

2011-03-20T22:53:00.005-04:00

Some good little Mennonite families have ice cream and popcorn with their kiddies on Sunday evenings. Others.... get stoned.

(no babies were harmed in the making of this picture)

Another country heard from...

2011-03-10T19:05:00.022-05:00

So, where to start. I know it's been shamefully long since I've been on here. What can I say ? Life has been pretty hum drum and every time I've wanted to write, I've felt totally uninspired to do so. So I put some pics on Facebook awhile ago and that's about it. But anyway, here I am, still not very inspired but I can always bore you with 20 thousand pics of little missy. Anyway, I can ramble a bit about the total excitement known as life around here. I know present a random, boring assortment of useless facts that will not enrich your life at all, consider yourself warned. ummmmmmm... the other day I was very nearly rear ended right in from of our apartment - heard the screeching breaks, looked in the mirror, and the guy had stopped about an inch from my bumper (I was stopped and turning left to go home, he didn't see me stopped apparently). Again, this would be a truly interesting story if I actually had been rear ended, setting my air bag off, giving me a broken wrist and a huge black eye. But none of that happened and I'm grateful. The other night when we came home after dark, there were a couple of, oh wow, I don't have words to describe them, not nice, bloggy ones anyway, guys in cars and they were completely and utterly drag racing, or would you call it street racing up and down the road right in front of our house. It was loud and weird - and so close to home. And so incredibly idiotic. Thankfully, I didn't read about or hear any fatal car accidents. Dave and I used to be the stereotypical couple when it came to climate control. I was always freezing and he was always hot. Awhile ago that started to change, maybe when I was preggo, I dunno, but it has never gone back. I seem to be always roasting and he has been known to say things like, "It feels like we're trying to store meat in here!" I'm stumped at how this happened. We just came through mardi gras season here in the good ol south. Dave and I had gone to one parade here in town 2 years ago and it was fun and relatively benign, as far as mardi gras goes (ha). So we thought it would be fun to take Aleah to her first parade and all last friday night. oh dear. we got there and it started pouring. That was nice. Then the parade started and it was so insanely loud, everything was really scary, and we wondered what in the world we were doing there with our baby. So we stayed about 15 minutes and then left. I won't be too sad to not go to any more mardi gras parades. I believe we have rats outdoors that like to run around our dryer vent (In honor of the season, I'm striving to write with utmost precision, being careful to follow all paragraph rules very precisely). It's the oddest thing. The washer and dryer are in our walk in closet and on a regular basis, there's this ominous noise that sounds very much like little rodents scurrying around (trust me, sadly I know the sound very well). We have looked and looked and there's NOTHING to be found. Which leads us to believe that it's something outside. The vent goes to the outside, so one day will I find a family of fluffy, dried rats in the drier? SHUDDER. I'm so excited about the company that will be gracing us with their presence the next couple months. My friend Bethany is coming in about 3 weeks, then Dave's parents are coming about a week after that, and then my friend Sue is coming in May. Hoooray for all of that! Can't wait. Maybe we'll do exciting things and I'll have something to blog about other than freezing meat and rats in the dryer. I'm on a mission to get this place organized and spotless from top to bottom! So far it's mostly a mental mission, but I'm hoping actual activity will soon follow. I suppose I have started a little, but there's so much to do and get rid of. I'd really like to have a yard/garage sale. But how do you do that when you don't have a yard or a garage? hmmmmmm.... I did talk to a friend about having one and hopefully that works out at some point. Oh, I should blather on a bit about little poopsie. What a crazy little kid she is becoming. She has been changing SO much the last few weeks that sometimes I feel like I barely recognize this new little person hanging out here. She's still not crawling, but scoots, rolls, and "swims" to get where she needs to go. She's able to get into a sitting position now all by herself which is most handy. Awhile ago I was sitting on the floor with her and she had this doll and I was saying bla bla bla baby this, baby that, and then it was all quiet and she said clear as day "Baby!" Dave was right there too and our jaws just hit the floor. So that goes down as her first word, even though it might have been a fluke. Right around that time, she started consistently saying mama and dada to the right person. Tonight she yelled at Dave and it was hilarious. She was sitting in her highchair getting all squirley and Dave started playing peek a boo with her, which she thought was great fun. Then he walked off. She started crying and in a tone that expressed much irritation, yelled "DADDADDAD!!!!" I suppose it won't be nearly so funny in about 14 years, but it was too cute. Her sleeping habits are very different as well. She used to often fall asleep eating right before bed, but if she didn't, I could put her in bed and she'd be out in about 5 minutes. Now it seems it doesn't matter how tired she is, she can flop around in her bed for way too long. Takes awhile to shut all systems down I guess. She's getting quite a personality and quite a few opinions about how things should be done around here. But she's a hoot and we have a lot of fun too. She thinks it's hilarious to watch me brush my teeth or sweep the kitchen floor - why, I have no idea. She loves to eat and will eat yogurt until it stops being offered. She would rather chew on shoes or metal buttons than any of her toys. We're thinking about giving her old shoes for her birthday. Ok, consider that a 10 month update, since she will be on Monday. gulp. Ok, now for some pics -

Just having a bit of fun with the camera - a couple weeks ago.

She has done this for a long time, doesn't do it as often anymore, but when she's looking at something or listening intently to someone/thing, she'll lean her head to one side.

Dress from Madagascar
It's never too early to start practicing good oral hygiene.

The fun begins. = )

She's saving the zucchini for supper

notice the zucchini shifting to make way for yogurt. and notice all the teeth.

We checked out a new park today.

hey! where'd everybody go?

Okay, that's all folks. If that took the better part of an afternoon to read and you burned your supper or forgot your kids at school, I'm very sorry. It won't happen again.

More pictures since I don't have anything interesting to say

2011-02-02T11:33:00.019-05:00

Well folks, it's a little chilly out there. Only 29 degrees right now and only supposed to warm up to 36 tomorrow. And maybe some freezing rain on the side. I know, it's not really that cold, but for these parts, it feels pretty arctic. Anyway, nothing is new, so here's some pictures, or maybe more accurately, an Aleah fashion show -

Just being cute - 2 Sundays ago.

Discovering the joy of her snazzy new mesh feeder thing - one of those things that's probably totally unnecessary but does seem to help with sore gums. She likes chomping on frozen fruit and such.

During the morning school hours, we have been working on the art of banging 2 blocks together. Here she demonstrates just how far intensity and hard work will get you in life.

Last Sunday - "okay, I'll tolerate these pictures for a little bit."
"On second thought, NO I WON'T! Feed me already! I'm stinkin hungry!!"

"Thank you, that's much better."
pinned ya! (these were taken 2 days ago)

Aleah gets stuck in some awkward positions these days. If it's too much work to get out of them, she just lays there awhile.

Not as smiley as last photo shoot and one's way more mobile.

Still got a couple good ones though.

Awwwwww... a sweet moment. = ) Turns out 8.5 months olds can be rather vicious, but kissing can be pretty fun too.

Why I don't Blog (Rhonda Style)

2011-01-29T09:30:00.005-05:00

(that would be my sister in law for those who don't know. I would link to her, but I can't remember how since it's been so long since I blogged. But not as long as some other people whose names I won't mention but it sounds kinda like Benni)

- Aleah slept an hour

- Aleah slept a half hour (I was annoyed)

- Aleah slept 3 hours all evening

- The house got smaller as I sat in it for hours and hours.

- I still don't have our mail sorted from when we were gone in December. It's all in a box. ugh.

- I made a ginormous pot of vegetables soup. We ate it for days and days and there's still some in the freezer. Every time it had the same effect on me - I could barely finish one bowl I'd get so full. So Dave would finish. An hour later I'd be hungry. weird, no?

- Aleah's top teeth that have been trying to come in for months still have not. Why? Will they ever come in? Will she just be a grouch till she's 12?

- She likes lots of food now.

- We've gotten very little snow this winter.

- I'm scared I own 400 diapers that all give small child skin issues. I hope it's not that.

- I scratched my head.

- "WARNING! Do not use heat when drying this product!" (Shoot, shoulda read that BEFORE I took our mattress cover out of the dryer. It's all funny now.)

- Yesterday I had changed 3 poopie diapers before 9:30 a.m. Yesterday was a LONG day. Thankfully none of them were my husbands. That would have made it a much longer and poopier day.

8 Months

2011-01-15T17:28:00.010-05:00

Aleah was 8 months yesterday so here's a little update. I wanted to do a bunch of little pictures together but Blogger has huge issues and won't let me. So I have no clue what this will look like when I'm done. Anyway, let's see. She weighed in at 21 pounds and 26.5 inches. Her weight would indicate that she's finally slowing down and gaining less than half what was normal from months 2 - 6 or so. She only gained a pound and a half in 2 months. Should I be concerned? haha. I don't buy her height measurement. According to that, she's only gained a half inch in the last 2 months. Pah. one of them is off, because stuff is clearly a lot shorter than it was 2 months ago. As far as her new tricks, let's see... she still HATES being on her tummy - at 8 months? really? I find it odd. Needless to say, she's not even close to crawling. Her very favorite thing is just to sit on the floor surrounded by toys and play, and not move too far. She also frequently face plants while trying to get something out of reach and then yells for one of us to sit her up again. She's a stark contrast to the little girl her age I babysit. That girl doesn't really play with toys - she MOVES, and gets into things, and climbs things and people. She likes to climb all over Aleah and treat her as a life size doll. It's so funny to see how totally different they are. She had banana for the first time today and was a huge fan. She's made attempts at waving, but it's not consistent. She also LOVES the TV when she gets to see it. Like now because her dad is watching football. She's glad to be home and doesn't need too much action to be happy with life. She also really likes driving and looking out the window. She's FINALLY getting some hair and it appears to be quite straight. It tends to stick straight up when provoked. I'm sure there's more but I can't remember at the moment. I figure if I write these things here, in 20 years when I'm working on her scrapbook or whatnot, I can look back at the info.

I should also mention...

2011-01-12T23:30:00.002-05:00

... I didn't really say much about our time in Red Lake. And I forgot my camera for many things that I wanted to document. We saw so many old friends which was fabulous. Then in Indiana I didn't take any pictures either. arg! So all my pics are family and not friends but it was great seeing so many friends too. Ok, that's all. I'm going to try to sleep now, most likely unsuccessfully because how do you sleep and cough at the same time? ugh, I hate coughing. who doesn't I spose.

A ridiculous number of pictures

2011-01-12T17:29:00.045-05:00

Okay, where to begin. I guess it's been awhile since I posted and these pictures seem sort of old. And sort of not since we just got back from our crazy long trip. So anyway, yes, we got back Sunday night after being gone 4 weeks. We ended up in Indiana. Dave drive back Thursday to go to a conference and Aleah and I flew back on Sunday. I was SO nervous about flying alone with her and just knew she would scream for hours on end and the entire plane would rise up and unite in their hatred of me. Well, my friend and former roommate drove me to the Indy airport and when we got there we realized the plane was delayed - ended up leaving almost 2 hours later than scheduled. She was nice enough to hang out in the air port with us. So it was after 8 by the time our plane left. She ate really well on the first flight and seemed interested in everything, enjoyed looking out the window, didn't cry at all. I don't think the pressure bothered her at all. We also had 3 seats to ourselves which was pretty crazy nice. The first flight was just to Chicago and it was only a half hour or so so she didn't go to sleep. By the time she was good and tired, we were landing and the bright lights were on, people getting on and off the plane, etc. We didn't have to get off the plane - it was going right on to New Orleans. So she just laid there during all the commotion. Oh, and when we landed in Chicago, she was laying down and thought it was really funny and started laughing - all the jolting around and such. When the Chicago flight was boarding, it became apparent that we would not be so lucky as to have 3 seats to ourselves again (we flew Southwest and they don't assign seats - nice if you have a baby because no one in their right mind will sit beside you unless they have to). I kept watching piles of people come on the plane and thought great - so I eventually scooted her over so we were taking up all 3 seats. First a guy flying alone came along and asked if anyone was sitting there. I said no. He started getting ready to take up residence, but then must have spotted another empty seat and made great haste to that one. Then a youngish girl came along and asked if anyone was sitting there. I said no and she took the seat right next to me and pretty soon a guy joined her. They sat there all of about 2 minutes and then both got up and she (a very sweet young thing) said "He doesn't want to sit next to a baby." ha. So they found somewhere else to sit. In the end, a young girl flying alone sat with us and all was well. I held Aleah after that and she fussed a bit while we were ascending. I think it had more to do with being tired than her ears though. Soon she fell fast asleep and slept until right before we landed. At which point she looked out the window at all the fun lights and didn't utter a peep of disapproval. WHEW! Thanks for letting me bore you with that uneventful story. Aleah picked up a cold from her Red Lake cousins and was sick most of the time in Indiana. = ( We still had fun and got to see a lot of people. She is now feeling much better and has left her parents feeling rather gross. Anyway, we landed late Sunday night and I wasn't sure if I could walk unaided to meet Dave. I was so fried. I don't remember much or our ride home, and think I slept a lot of it. Aleah has been in crash mode and taking really long naps and such. no complaints here. Before Indiana, we were in Red Lake and then my family got together in International Falls New Years weekend. So, here's the pile of pics. That first one Jenni took and I doctored it up and I really like it. = )
Christmas Eve - our family that was in Red Lake got together before the church service. Here is my niece Erica with Aleah.
After the church service. She was a good sport about taking pictures even though she was rather fatigued.

Fun with iphoto. I think it looked cooler before it was resized and all.
We gave Aleah and my niece Hannah matching PJs. Aleah loved the paper.

Christmas Day. Keith and Jenni's boys opening gifts.
I really like this pic.
haha - scary. = P
"Aleah" opening a present

pokadot overload
After Christmas - working on cutting out blocks for a t-shirt quilt. I wanted to get it all done but only got it cut out.
Jenni took these of Aleah and Hannah. There were just too many good ones.

Weekend in International Falls - My niece Caitlyn's 10th birthday and nephew Josiah's 5th birthday.

The kids lined up to get presents from Grandpa and Grandma Dru

Dylan and Hannah
A stuffed bunny (that sings!= ) from Grandpa and Grandma Dru

A doll from Larissa
Caitlyn embroidered this for Aleah (sidenote- I had to tease her all weekend about her American swimsuit. Not sure how her dad let that one get by. haha)
Christmas dinner in Sheldon and Darla's church basement
Everyone kept saying how much she looks like her dad. hmmmmm... you can decide. = )

All the kidlets that were there - so this is the best picture I have and I finally have a kid to throw in the giant cousin pile and of course, her head isn't even visible. Check out the 3 boys on the left. How cute is that?
Not as good of picture but at least you can see Aleah's head in this one. And still not too bad, considering the sheer chaos of it all.
Now I shall proceed to bore you with pics of all my family members. Here's all the sibs.

Sheldon and Darla and kids and one in-law.
Keith and Jenni and kids
Mike and Helen - no kids there
Jeff and Wendy and kids
Matthew and Rhonda and girls
Derek and Elise and boys
yada yada
Dad and Dru
Traveling to Indiana. I should say - we subjected this child to multiple 16 - 18 hour days and she did amazingly well. Barely cried at all the whole time.

Okay, I think that's all for now. I'll be back to mourn the fact that Aleah is turing 8 months in a couple days and she shouldn't be that old yet and it's way too close to one. whaaaaaaaa...

Cheery Christmas Pictures

2010-12-19T22:38:00.012-05:00

Hey all - Just felt like saying hi and posting a few pics. So hey from Iowa. Dave and I got here late Sunday night or I guess early Monday morning. What a day that was. We had intended to leave really early, say 2 am. But things weren't getting done in time. I really don't enjoy driving but if Dave was going to stay up and help pack till it was all done, then he would need a lot of help driving. So he went to bed, and I, still being sick of stature, stayed up till 1:30 and then we got up at 4. UGH. When we finally rolled out of town, it was 6 in the morning. This was very poor timing. As we were driving out of town and the sun was rising, we realized that we had calculated it so that we would be driving for child's most possible awake hours in the day. She never really did go back to sleep in order to finish her night's sleep - just cat napped the entire day till almost 8 when she fell asleep for the night. Around 10 in the morning, she was bawling a lot and we were wondering what we were thinking. But that was the only melt down and she was mostly happy the rest of the day. It took us 18 stinkin hours to get here. Small offspring was kind enough to keep pooping her diaper and needing to eat and things like that, so nothing was fast. The best part of the trip for me was that Dave drove the entire way. See, someone mentioned the joy that is 5 hour energy (drink). Anyone use it? Dave typically doesn't do well with driving for hours on end, but with this little God-send in a bottle, he not only drove the entire way, but also simultaneously built a 5 story bird feeder and knit a lovely collection of fall sweaters. Seriously, that stuff is amazing! Kept him going and perky for hours. Anyway, that was the trip. Since getting here, we've been enjoying time with family and some friends too. Dave has still been busy a lot of the time working on job applications and I wasn't able to get everything done I wanted to before we left so we've been doing a lot of running around. But it's fun to be with family and out of Baton Rouge. We're leaving for International Falls early Tuesday morning (and this time we intend to leave early) and then to Red Lake on Wednesday. I finally be able to relax there because seriously, where can you run around to? ha. Anyway, without further ado, here's a few pics:

Before we left - admiring the quilt for her nursery that Aunt Jenni just sent. So fun. = )

"This stuff tasted better on Thanksgiving day!"

"Look at all the mischief I can get into when mom and dad aren't looking."

At Grandpa and Grandma's house - 7 months old.

Yep, 7 months, and keeps getting huger by the day - starting to wave hi and good bye. It's hard to tell always when it's intentional but there have been a few times when it definitely seemed to be. She has 2 teeth on the bottom and 2 white bumps on top that I wish would come through already! They seem to bother her at times.

One of Grandma's friends is a hard core teddy bear maker - goes to shows, sells, buys and trades, things of that nature. It's not a hobby people, it's serious business! Anyway, she made a bear for Aleah, which is a big deal, take my word for it. = ) So here she is with it.

This picture makes me smile a lot!

So does this one.
Opening presents with Grandma

Okay, that's all for now. Time for a dip in the hot tub. life is hard. real hard.

Yuletide is in the air...

2010-12-08T13:42:00.002-05:00

Just thought I'd pop in and say hello. I actually have the computer during the day which never happens, so might as well take advantage of it. One baby sleeping, another is playing merrily - it's a Christmas miracle. Actually, it sort of is, as sickness has descended upon the household. The little girl I babysit was sick last week and Aleah seemed as though she wasn't going to get it. Just when I was set to rejoice in full force, Sunday came. = ( She had a fever and slept most of the day. Monday she had no fever, just lots of snot and a cough. Yesterday was perfectly miserable. She couldn't breathe well through her nose so everything was a mess- eating, sleeping, etc. Lots of crying. Something so pathetic about a sick baby. = ( Today she is still sneezing and dripping like a faucet, but is sleeping better. She sneezes, lots of snot comes out, I wipe it off her face, she screams as though being tortured... it's a fun little game.

In other news, um, well, I guess there's not much. We're gearing up for our big annual trip to the north land. Christmas these last few years have been odd in a way. For us it has always meant being really busy the beginning of the month, not doing a lot of Christmasy things of our own, and packing up for a long trip. And the last 2 years we haven't even managed to get any decorations up, which is sort of sad, but what's the point, when they'd only be up a week and then we'd come home and have to take them all down. Anyway, this year I've been thinking a lot about what next Christmas might be like. We have no clue where we'll be living, but likely we won't be gone a month at Christmas, and hopefully it won't take days of driving to get to where we need to go. More time at home, shorter travel to see family, maybe I'll even make some party mix or something like that. Anyway, we're both really looking forward to the madness of this semester being over and being able to spend time with family and friends for awhile. We're hoping to leave Saturday - you can pray for us on the roads if you think about it. We're heading to Iowa first, then Red Lake.

What else - I can't think of much. My car is at the doctor right now, which is rather sad. The fan belt is busted. As bad as it is to not have air conditioning blowing in December in Baton Rouge, it's way worse to not have heat in Canada. So a couple nights ago we had to take the car in. We could drop it off in the evening. I just share this boring story to let you know what a dork I am. It was actually pretty chilly here that evening - down in the upper 30s I think, maybe low 40s. I hated the thought of taking a sick baby out in the cold evening air. So I bundled her all up - undershirt, fleece pjs, a coat, hat, stuck her in the car seat and tucked a big ol blanket all around her just for good measure. As though a baby with a cold had never set foot outside their house before. We dropped the car off, she fell fast asleep. When we got home and I took her out of the car seat, she was drenched, drenched, I tell you, in sweat. ha! Maybe next time I won't go so overboard. Nice to know she would have been comfortable in Red Lake.

I just uploaded a pile of pics to FB and I don't feel like repeating them here. My apologies to the couple of you who aren't on there. Well, I don't know when I'll be back here again, maybe January? If so, have a wondrous Christmas. But I suspect I'll eek out a few words before then.

Aleah Overload

2010-11-21T18:07:00.018-05:00

If you were getting a Christmas card from us, this would be on it. But yer not. sorry. = (

Like I mentioned, Derek's friend from Pensacola FL (Sam Whitt) took our pics at the lovely beach since we tagged along with Derek and Elise. He was so good. I have to say that these pics look 1000 times better not downsized. = ( Oh well, here they are anyway.

I think she looks so much like my brother Matthew's baby pics here. (top)

Possibly my favorite of the whole bunch.

"Um guys, I used to be able to do this just fine before I ummm... added that bit of holiday weight..."
Really, this isn't working!
Ahhhh, thats better! Don't make me do that again, okay?

Seriously, DON'T!

Pensacola, etc.

2010-11-17T17:41:00.018-05:00

No, this isn't Pensacola, just a pic I took a few weeks ago and hadn't posted yet. I thought why not? how sweet is that?
Oct. 31st. Yeah, this pic was simply because she looked too cute to not take a pic. (side note - I probably would have thought I was all that & a bag a chips if I had this outfit when I was about 10 or so. = ) minus the lacy socks I suppose.
Lobster costume from Grandma.

Ah, here's Pensacola - hanging out at the pool in the condo.

cousins! Scott and Gavin.

the condo
playing in the sand

Lovely view, gorgeous beach, blue sky, and oil spill clean up

One of Derek's friend's is a professional photographer and they were getting family pics taken while we were there. So we tagged along and got professional pics of Aleah and some family ones too. I can't wait to see the CD. The guy was a very good photographer and the setting was beautiful!

Random...

2010-11-16T22:36:00.001-05:00

** Rachel: "Do you want to go shopping with me on Black Friday?"

Dave: " I'd rather pluck out my chest hairs with tweezers!"

Rachel: "We could do that too!!!"

** Dave (while telling a random story): "... and she had a near body experience..."

Really? Did she have an out of death experience as well?

** We had a fun little vacation to Perdido Key beach in Pensacola FL with my brother and family and 900 of his friends. He's always been such an introvert. ha. The weather was gorgeous, the beach lovely, etc.

** On Saturday Aleah popped her first tooth. I'm sure she's working on the next one now.

** When we were swimming in the pool at the condo Elise (my sister in law) asked if I had dunked Aleah under the water yet. I said no. She told me I should and they do it in aqua tots all the time. I guess I sorta knew that but the thought freaked the bajeebers outta me. Anyway, Dave and Elise were both saying DO IT DO IT DO IT. I could barely make myself, but I did and we all lived to tell about it. When she came up she wound up for a good cry but then then stopped right away and was fine. I was a little weak and shaky after it all. So she had a big weekend - first tooth, turned 6 months old, first dunk underwater, & first time to sit and play in the sand at the beach, which was a big hit

** What in the world would possess a baby to switch from only going poo about every 5 - 6 days to suddenly going multiple times a day? And what would possess said poo to climb all the way up her back to her NECK while we are out and about running errands? I'm stumped.

** Aleah has 2 new loves - sitting up all by herself, and riding in shopping carts (the big kid way, not in a car seat). Both bring about untold glee, esp. the shopping cart thing.

** I'm trying to think of interesting tid bits about the adults in this house and I've got nuthin.

** I need to get off the computer because my husband needs it as soon as he's done tweezing... I mean... he needs it to study. and apply for jobs. So I should be a good wife and go bang around in the kitchen. addios. I'll post pics of our trip soon. maybe.

a few words

2010-11-06T09:21:00.003-04:00

- It's sleepy in here. It's my own fault of course - keep staying up way too late.

- We're planning on going to Pensacola in a week to see Derek and Elise and whoever else happens to be around. I'm looking forward to that a lot, although it looks like it might rain most of the time.

- Speaking of weather, it's 35 out this morning. Definitely the coldest we've seen so far this year. But then it always warms up a lot throughout the day. Last night we did some running around and it was sort of chilly but nothing that I would call even remotely cold. I stuck a hat on Aleah but felt sorta silly and wondered if was overkill. Then we went out and I saw a lot of kids wearing winter parkas. Cracked me up, I tell you (it was probably mid-upper 50's, which feels really cold to the natives I guess, which is understandable).

- Life feels really busy right now, although most of it is Dave's business and not mine. Not that I'm not busy, but sorting through sock drawers seems rather trivial compared to what he's busy with. Everything happens to be due or need doing this semester so it seems a little nuts. For instance, he only has to teach half time this year in order to have more time to apply for jobs. However, the way it's divided is he has to teach this semester, but not next semester. Which is odd because all the jobs need to be applied for before next semester. Hello! So he's teaching, taking a class, writing his dissertation, and applying for jobs all this semester. Next semester he should just have to finish the dissertation. Speaking of jobs, it looks like there are quite a few out there. You can pray for if you think about it, that the right one opens up and that he applies to the right places. thanks. = )

- Awhile ago I answered an ad on Craigslist for winter clothes for Aleah. The lady wasn't asking much for what she had and I asked if I could look through and take what I wanted. That way it would be even less. She said sure so we met up and I took a bunch of stuff and then looked at her as if to say, how much do you want? She said, just take it all, I don't want anything for it. I just want it taken of my hands! WHAT? Among the goods was a pair of Nike tennis shoes that people try to get 20 - 30 bucks for at times I've noticed, a great Louisiana winter coat, and a bunch of other stuff. So gracious of her. That's the second time I've gotten a bunch of stuff like that totally free off Craigslist.

- I think I mentioned awhile back that Dave and I are going through the Dave Ramsey course. Someone at church told us about the website mint.com. I'd encourage all you nerds out there to check it out. It really is amazing. It's a very legit site that plugs into your online banking and keeps track of all your spending and budget categories, and there's tons of neat stuff you can do on it. You can look up previous months and see what you've spent on each category, a possibly nauseating experience, but a great tool to have. Dave Ramsey insists that the best way to do your budget is with the envelope system, with envelopes with cash inside for each of the various categories. I totally understand why he says this is best, but given our propensity towards muggings, losing our purses, and things of that nature, there's no way in God's green earth we're walking around the city with a stack of envelopes stuffed with cash anywhere on our person. No thanks. Plus, I know this is way silly on my part, but cash sorta grosses me out. I'm not a germaphobe, I promise. But when I use my cash card, that's all I have to touch and I'm usually the only one to have to touch it. With cash, I shudder to think where all that stuff has been. gross. Anyway, all that to say that if you want to keep using your debit card instead of cash, the website will be a great help in keeping track of things.

- Another thing you might be interested in. possibly, I don't know. But check out e-meals.com. It's a little ditty where you tell them where you grocery shop, and they'll send you a grocery list, menu's, directions, and all for the week. They shop according the sales at the place you shop, so it's supposed to save you a lot of money and time. I haven't signed up yet (it's 5 bucks a month) but a friend gave me some her recipes from that site so I can try it out.

- If you feel like it, you can vote for Aleah in this little contest and help us win a video camera. = ) Gerber has a contest where you can enter a photo a month and the photo with the most votes in each category wins a video camera. So it's all based on votes and not judging until the end when they pick a winner. Anyway, here's the site. You just have to search for her and then click vote - pretty straight forward. You can even vote every day for the month of November if you want. haha. But you don't want. Anyway, if any of my friends or family put their kids on there, I'll do my best to help you win a video camera. = )

www.gerber.com/photo/#/vote/

- We finally have used up the industrial sized vat of vegetable oil that hubs bought several, oh, decades ago. This is exciting news people! One time when he went to the store, veg. oil was on the list so he came home with it. I looked at it and was aghast. and questioning. He said, hello! It was the best deal so of course he got it. I says, I know dear, but we live in a small apartment, not a warehouse! What am I supposed to do with this thing thing? Well, it has been the literal white elephant in the pantry for quite sometime. SO happy to say it's finally GONE and I left that item off any list of his and bought and nice small one recently and sometimes I just have to stare at it's beautiful petiteness.

- Speaking of the pantry, it's all organized and beautiful looking, with a place for everything and everything in it's place. Finally. Now on to our bedroom. ugh. Well, I feel as though most of this has been really boring so I'll go now. Happy weekend!

Life and such

2010-10-29T22:26:00.006-04:00

Well, where to start. Life is flying so fast and I'm surprised how long it's been since I updated. On the other hand, it hasn't been nearly as long as some other people I know. tee hee. My brain is all fuzzy right now and I don't really know what has filled up the last few weeks. Time seems to be racing by and I can't believe it's almost November. What in the world?? Well, I guess I'll tell you the story of our little trip last week. Dave had fall break and we really wanted to get out of town but where to go? We didn't want to spend much on gas and hotels. So I found this really good deal on hotwire for a ritzy hotel in Biloxi, MS, 2 hours from here. That seemed doable. So we booked it and after we booked we found out it was a casino hotel. haha. I guess if we had been more up on Biloxi, we could have assumed. Anyway, Dave had to teach Wed. afternoon and we wanted to leave right after that. Aleah wasn't taking a good nap in the afternoon so finally I says, "you don't wanna sleep? Fine! You shall not sleep." And I kept her up for the next 3 hours or so. This was the first really dumb move of the day. The second was forgetting our GPS. The third was ... I'm getting ahead of myself. So we loaded up, and headed out to wade through nasty traffic and get out of town. My thought with keeping her up was that she'd conk out in the car and sleep the whole way there. It's true, we both forgot the GPS and because we always depend on that, didn't have maps or directions along. So we leave and Aleah does conk out but only slept about a half hour and then woke up rather fussy. She tried to get back to sleep for about an hour and a half. The third really dumb thing we did was not thinking to check her diaper when she couldn't sleep, despite being very tired. DOH!! The forth really dumb thing we did was not stop to get a map. Dave thought he knew how to get there, and we did eventually get there, but it took much longer than it could have. = L That, combined with the traffic, turned a 2 hour drive into over 3.5. When we FINALLY arrived, what seemed like an eternity later, we pulled up to our mansion and when I got Aleah out of her seat, realized that she had a huge blow out with poop all over herself and her car seat. I felt SO awful and just hoped to goodness that she had done it recently, but I suspect that was why she couldn't sleep. I felt like the most rotten mom on the planet. Here we were, arriving at this den of iniquity, with our very tired, very hungry, very poopy BABY, of all things. The fifth really dumb thing that we had nothing to do with, was that when we arrived in the parking garage, a car alarm was going off so loud it was insane. It was like a soothing balm to my frayed nerves. Or not. I didn't even want to get her out of the car. It was seriously loud. So anyway, we go to check in and felt sort of weird. There were many middle age men with gold chains, and few pink fuzzy pajamas. She was some what of a star there though - all the mid life crisis folks loved chatting it up with her. Anyway, that was the worst of the little trip, but overall, it wasn't overly relaxing. I'm not sure how you're supposed to have a relaxing vacation anymore, when you pack up the source of your exhaustion and bring it along with you. But anyway... It was nice to see the coast, get away, and um... see the coast. Aleah's sleeping habits have been interesting lately (see below. I think, or maybe above). She would be really tired in the morning so I'd out her to bed for a morning nap and she'd sleep for a half hour or so and then wake up. Then by the time we were ready to go out and about and explore, she'd be tired and cranky and wanting to sleep. arg. I'm figuring out that no matter how tired she is, if she's not awake at least 2 hours in the morning, she won't take a long nap. If I put her to bed 2 hours after she wakes up, she'll take a nice long one. Anyhoo, So we drug our cranky little turkey around the city seeing the sights and such. After not sleeping well again Friday morning, we were driving to a BBQ place that Dave had seen online. She had of course just fallen asleep as we approached the restaurant. So I took great care to set her car seat in the stroller every so gently and quietly. I thought she could sleep while we ate and then she wouldn't be a tired cranky mess. Well, we got inside and the cheery waitress saw the stroller and in order to make room for it, slid a table and bunch of chairs along the concrete floor creating quite a ruckus. Of course wide awake baby. The nice happy ending is that we left right after that and she slept the entire way home, as God intended babies to do on car trips. And that's the end of our trip. And I can't stay awake so that's all for now.

Trip pics

2010-10-29T20:21:00.038-04:00

These are in chronological order, but seem random because of the order in which we did things. Make sense? good. This is the view from our window. nice, eh?

Just hanging out in our room.

This was so funny. Dave had found a state park on google maps that he thought we should check out. So we drove to the wonderful state park - turned out to be a row of about 6 trees, one of which had fallen over.
Apparently after hurricane Katrina, there were obviously a lot of splintered trees everywhere. Some one (several someones?) did some amazing carving in Biloxi out of some of the trees.

Heading to the beach.

At first she gasped at the water, then she decided she liked it.

The beach wasn't overly crowded. Understatement.

The pool at the hotel - not too shabby, eh?
check it out! Big screen and everything. We didn't swim. = (
In the elevator.
An oh so common sight - Aleah sound asleep in our hotel room. or NOT. arg.

Our little gamblin kiddo. Jenni, you wanted to see her off the couch, does a casino work?

She did quite well with the slot machines. ha. These were taken about 30 seconds before we were told she had to leave. Apparently since she's not 21, she wasn't allowed on the carpeted area. I'm just glad we got the pics first. = )

Our hotel - actually, the lobby, casino, eating areas all seemed really nice and glitzy, but our actual room was just average I'd say. Nothing too fancy. The place did look pretty impressive from the outside though. = )
Hanging out at the hotel.
Aw, how sweet - before you think we go out of our way to take our infant to parks so she can swing, here is the real reason we were at this park -

that's right - we saw an icosahedron with a truncated icosahedron inside of it! One of us was pretty excited about that and needed to take pictures.

Oh, the baby/swing combo with the icosahedron/truncated icosahedron combo in the same shot! This is just too much!!
Trying to get some nice palm tree pics without the nasty garbage cans in the shot.
More hurricane Katrina trees

This was less than a week ago - it was hot. = ) It's finally cooling off a little here and hopefully it stays this time.
Hey, no garbage cans. yeay.
Oh yeah, I threw in some bonus pics. Back at home on the couch again. Sorry, I'm boring.

little chubs. I don't think she looks like the same kid as the picture above this one.
Okay, that's all for now.

Five Months

2010-10-29T20:12:00.003-04:00

I need to write this quick before she's 6 months. Always on the ball. At 5 months, she:

- weighs a little over 18 pounds. Carrying her in her car seat is becoming exceedingly unpleasant for me. She's 25.25 inches.

-- celebrated the morn of turning 5 months old by waking up before 5:00. I didn't know what to do with myself. She has not done this since she was newborn and needed to eat. I used to wake her up to eat at 7 and she'd keep sleeping till 10 or so. Those were the days. But after she grew out of that, she consistently would wake up between 7 and 8, occasionally later or a little earlier. Well, the next morning she woke up at 4:40. NOOOOOOO!!! She's not hungry and doesn't cry. Just coos or lays there. But it wakes me up and I can't sleep. And then because I'm a control freak or something, I have to know when she goes back to sleep, which isn't conducive to me sleeping. Anyway, since then she's woken up at 6:30 a lot. Right after we got back from our trip, there were a bunch of days when she slept till after 7, but now she's been waking up earlier again. I'm not a huge far of this new trend.

-- off her reflux meds! yeay!

-- still has very little use for rolling, but rolled back to front for the first time yesterday.

-- still hates being on her stomach.

-- still barfs a lot but it comes and goes.

-- Can sit up for short periods of time, but we can't leave her on her own yet.

-- is getting a lot more cuddly and that's really great. love it.

-- turns into a little savage when she eats. Only on one side - she wants very badly to claw at her face and eyeballs and ear and can leave really nasty marks. Sometimes she'll get really annoyed at me when I hold her hand back so she can't torture herself. hello.

-- is getting better at not crying when we sneeze. haha. But she still is not a fan of loud, sudden noises. At Bible study yesterday morning, she was sitting with me looking at everyone, when someone said something and everyone laughed. She waited a bit till the laughter died down of course, then burst into heartbroken sobs. Later an older kid was crying so she decided she had to as well.

-- I keep wondering if she's teething. She acts like it, but her gums don't look like it.

-- can pass toys from one hand to the other. whoo hoo, eh? I probably wouldn't even notice this but it's something we always had to check for at one of my jobs in Indiana.

-- It's fun to see her memory kicking in and see her anticipating what's coming next - like getting all excited when she sees the bathtub, or giggling before she's being tickled or what have you.

Okay, I've bored you long enough about her young life.

480,000 pictures from our afternoon

2010-10-10T21:29:00.023-04:00

So it was a beautiful day today, a little on the warm side of life, but not too bad in the shade. Aleah had slept quite a bit in the church nursery so she was in a fairly good mood. In this age of digital cameras, we naturally went way overboard with the pics. But hey, it costs nothing (until printing and scrapping time - yikes!) and was just too much fun. So then when I went to blog them I got carried away as well, but I don't think you should mind too much. If you do you have no business reading my blog. hahahahahahahaha! At least that's what my friend Soo said. I'd never be so bold to say anything like that. So anyway, without further ado, here's a pile of pics from today. A friendly passerby offered to take our picture. Scowly baby?
Arg, why am I not looking at the camera on this one? Anyway, here we are in the antique setting. = )
Trying to get her to sit up on her own on the slippery bench.
A little finger goes a long way...

It's always the one corner of the mouth that turns up. haha.
Barfy drool anyone? Or drooly barf if you prefer. She was having quite the barfy afternoon - nice you can't tell from these pics that her dress was soaked. yucky.
or a drool string?
yummy pink bow for lunch.
How silly is this - ya, I'm even posting the SAME picture 2ce, cause I just couldn't decide. But hey, I didn't have to. I try to save decisions for when they're really necessary.

Got rid of barfy dress (Thanks LaRonda = )

First swing ride - wish you could hear her. She giggled her little brains out. It was pretty cute.

Whew! That was exhausting!

Lake Pontchartrain and then some mindless babbling

2010-10-04T08:59:00.014-04:00

On Saturday we took a little side trip to a town about an hour away. Turns out there's a really nice beach there. We had no idea. We'll definitely be going back! And hopefully spending more time.

The bridge in the distance
New Orleans in the distance, if you squint and stare
My baby, not in the distance at all...

Isn't it lovely?
For Jenni - remember this? = )
I think it's so funny - it's like pavlov's dog or something - it doesn't matter how hungry, tired, or cranky she is, when we sit her on the couch and get out the camera, she smiles. What in the world? These were taken Sunday afternoon when she was very tired and very hungry, but as soon as I plopped her there, big huge grins. not complaining. = )

This morning (according to master ipod) it was 46 degrees in Red Lake and 48 degrees in Baton Rouge. Of course it will warm up to almost 80 here and this is not so in Red Lake I'm sure. But it's still kinda cool, no? maybe no.

Someone in church told me about a really good thrift store in town that I haven't been to yet - oh the things that cause excitement around here. I usually have the other little gal on Monday but not so today so maybe I'll go check it out.

When can I start packing for our Christmas trip?

When can I start planning Dave's graduation party?

When is it okay to use the heater and air conditioner in the same day?

Why are people in Louisiana such mean drivers? Where'd the luv go?

Why do I stay up too late every single night even though every night I tell myself I'm going to go to bed early?

We break from random question time to write a paragraph - Dave and I recently started doing Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University online. We had started it and were wanting to get other people from church to do it as well but there wasn't much interest so we just started on our own. Now there's another couple that wants to do it as well so we're going to go back and listen to the first couple sessions with them and then keep going from there with the buddy system. It'll be nice to have someone to talk through things with and such. The whole thing is a little overwhelming - trying to figure out what we should work on first - saving for a house, a car, emergencies, debt reduction, etc. etc. etc. Hopefully I'm getting ahead of myself and he'll explain all that. If not, will you be so kind as to come visit me at the local funny farm and bring some baskets of freshly made bread that was prepared in your bosch?

Why haven't I learned how to make bread yet?

Well, truly this is all going downhill faster than I can run after it so I'll leave you now in peace. Happy crisp fall Monday Morning!

a few random pics

2010-09-28T23:37:00.006-04:00

LSU chicky - ready for a night out on the town before the LSU home game the following day.

Not so sure about the purple elephant. haha.

a little more friendly with the elephant

I may not make pies and bread (although I'm so ready to start with the bread thing) and cinnamon buns and a host of other Mennonite goods, but I'm pretty good with a thrift store, let me tell ya! Hopefully that gets me some points somewhere along the line. Anyway, today I found this hat and it filled my soul with joy. It said 18 - 24 months and I thought with her ginormous head, that should be perfect. When I tried it on, it hit me quite funny. I'm not sure how these things are supposed to fit exactly, but I do think it's big. But terribly cute at the same time.

It has been absolutely GORGEOUS here the past 2 days. I'm dying to get my hands on a double stroller so I can get out during the day and go for walks with the little bambinos. It's been bright and sunny and no rain and upper 70s. Oh sweet glorious bliss. I know it's so boring to prattle on and on about the weather, but can I just quickly say that after 5 straights months of the 90s, this is just so glorious. And that's not an exaggeration at all. Since the beginning of May, there have been maybe 3 days or so I'm guessing (in Sept.) that haven't been in the 90s, many of them upper 90s. So this has people so excited and grabbing sweaters and heading outside. Dave has the ipod set to click on the weather here, and then you slide over one screen and can see the weather in Red Lake. oh my - there's always a little sun picture here and a little cloud picture there. = ( And obviously much much colder. Anyhoo.... moving along

I don't really have much to ramble about - was just going to post a few pics for the funzies of it. I thought of a couple things to add to the 4 month post - For whatever reason, Aleah hates when stuff has to go over her head (literally, not figuratively). I'm hoping it doesn't develop into a full blown syndrome like it did with the girl I used to babysit. shudder. Anyway, she really does freak out and almost panic sometimes, esp, when something is having trouble fitting over her head. A few things she totally loves - when I make a clicking sound with my tongue at her - she thinks it's hilarious. playing patty cake and singing songs, bouncing up and down on one's lap, and having her tummy tickled. Okay, that'll do till I get it written down on paper. This morning she smiled and smiled when her little friend came over. It was so sweet. I think they're starting to recognize each other more.

I am in a terrible habit of staying up way too late. I should go to bed. But I probably won't.

Photo of the day

2010-09-22T22:39:00.006-04:00

I couldn't believe I got the above photo today and just wanted to share it. While I was at it, thought I might as well throw in a couple bonus ones. How sweet are they?

Trying on a really cute Christmas dress I found at a thrift store awhile ago. um yeah, could barely get it on and off -- too tight. So we take a picture and file it away in the aw bummer folder.

Bonus pics

2010-09-19T16:42:00.006-04:00

Because I don't know when to stop... thought I'd post a few more pics, which like every post has been lately, amounts to mostly Aleah sitting on the couch and other random places. One of these days I'm going to post pics of something other than her, I promise!! 4 months old
Have we had a stroke, dear child?

Look at their hands - so sweet! (and I'm sure a total accident, but still cute)

When dad dresses her - he was concerned that she not look girlish enough, hence the bow. And it's a star trek shirt for all my friends who would have no clue. = )

4 Months

2010-09-19T09:10:00.009-04:00

I'm not sure if my life just shrunk drastically after having a baby, or if I had absolutely no life before and now I have a small one. At any rate, I seem to never be able to think about anything to write about these days other than her. Maybe I should join a book club or start political ranting or something of the sort. HA! I think not, at least to the latter. Anyway, for now I'll just write down a bunch of 4 month ramblings and this will be boring so feel to not read it.

At 4 months (on the 14th) Aleah:

-- weighs 17 pounds and is 24 inches long (oh, correction, as I was sitting in church this morning I remembered that the scale was in pounds/oz, so she would be 16 pounds 9 oz.) - clearly above average weight and slightly under-average height. Her head is also rather ample sized but I don't remember the exact measurement.

-- She's been a bit of a guessing game lately. At times she seems to be in a lot of pain after eating and doesn't want to lay down. I'm trying to figure out if it's her reflux, me eating dairy, when she's overtired, or a combination of more than one of these. I started eating more dairy and around that time it got worse, but she also had had less of her medication around that time. I'm giving her the meds and staying on dairy for a few days to see what she does.

-- She never ever wants to be held to go to sleep. = ( Some might think that's wonderful but it's sorta sad to me. I always liked when she'd let me rock her to sleep, but even when she was really tiny, she didn't always like it better than just being laid down. I had hoped to do both so she would remain a flexible and easy child in this area. HA! When she's tired, she wants to be in bed and that's that. It's nice when were at home, not nice when we're in places such as... oh... airplanes and such... and church, which used to be a nightmare, but now she goes to the nursery and sleeps in a pack and play.

-- We've gotten on more of a routine, but the times are still very flexible. She usually takes 3 naps a day but lately hasn't been always taking the evening one, which is okay, because then she goes to bed at about 7:30. So yeah, no complaints here. If we've been gone for the morning and she hasn't slept much, it's also not at all uncommon for her to sleep 3.5 - 4.5 hours in the afternoon. Insane, I know, and I shouldn't let her, but it never messes us her night sleep. so I do. She has slept 4 hours on quite a few occasions.

-- Speaking of sleep, I realized again this morning how my expectations regarding her sleeping habits are a bit ludicrous at times, but based on what she normally does, so I'm not a complete nut case. I will likely have to adjust them for future offspring. But then I look at her father and think, no, all our kids will probably be wonderful sleepers, if genetics has anything to do with it. = ) I find myself all up in a tizzy, for instance, if she has ONLY slept 10 hours one night. I start thinking, what in the world is her problem, she's never up this early, I need to start eliminating all food from my diet...bla bla bla. Then I think that some parents might like to stone me if they heard me uttering such things. At any rate, she usually sleeps about 11 - 12 and sometimes 13 hours at night. I feed her right before I go to bed, but she sleeps right through it. (I take no credit for it, by the way. She's always been a great night sleeper without too much intervention from me)

-- Also speaking of sleep, she seems to be a rather light sleeper. = ( I'm sure this one is my fault for not being loud enough during her formative days. She'll take long naps and all but if I try to cover her up when she's sound asleep, for instance, she'll jerk around and open her eyes as though I blew a fog horn in her ear. hello kid, it's a slight tug, get over it! And she stirs at the slightest noises. arg.

-- I'm rather intrigued by her little mannerisms and ways she puts herself to sleep and it makes me want to have a pile more kids just so I can see how they're the same/different. On second thought, maybe I'll just take a poll of YOUR kids. She always sucks her left thumb and then with her right hand she tucks the thumb back like she's holding up 4 fingers, and puts puts it up over her face/eyes, and holds the thumb-sucking fingers. It's really cute, but just make me wonder what makes them come up with the things they do? If her right hand is free when she's eating, she does the same thing - reaches up and puts that hand over her face, esp. if she's tired. But she'll never do it with the other hand

-- She still barely rolls over. She's never rolled front to back and has rolled front to back a few times, but doesn't make a habit of it. I'm sure it's not easy rolling around when you're wider than you are tall. She makes a great paper weight though - pretty good at balancing when sitting up, but doesn't sit entirely on her own for very long.

-- Has a great belly laugh

-- How in the world can size 3 diapers be tight? They're supposed to go up to what is it, 28 pounds? I guess they don't plan for all the 17 pounds to be concentrated around the middle.

-- I'm in love with this age! For the most part, she's a lot easier than when she was teeny tiny, not as much crying, and oh so sweet and lovable. And not destroying the place yet. = )

-- oh dear, I need to get ready for church!

-- now I'm back from church. oh my, we stayed for the picnic. why oh why? It's such a nice idea. They do them in the spring and fall. But yeah, fall here is like 95 degrees which is around what it was today. hot, hungry, tired baby. hot, tired, cranky wife, blissfully happy husband wondering what's wrong with us... anyway, we survived and lived to tell about it. The pain of the memory is dulled by the now peaceful afternoon sitting in the AC, child sound asleep, me curled up with the laptop... ahhhhhhhhh

-- I figured I post a few bonus pics just for the hairy of it. I'm doing them in a different post and I don't know which one will post first, so anyway, enjoy. if you want to. otherwise scowl at them.

Learning discretion

2010-09-10T23:48:00.010-04:00

HI!!
WANNA SEE MY FAT ROLL??
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I just showed you my fat roll.
snicker, snicker
ohhhh, upon further reflection, I'm having second thoughts about showing you my fat roll. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I feel all sheepish now.
whimper... I really really wish I hadn't done that. I feel all funny inside...

Nothing too exciting...

2010-09-08T22:14:00.013-04:00

... just some random shots from the last couple weeks. Playing with our cool new (Iowa garage sale) toys.
2 Sundays ago -

Some funky math pjs from Dave's mom. = )
I was trying stuff on her the other day and was sad that some really cute stuff that was supposed to fit her this winter is either too small or fits perfectly right now - like this one. It was so cute I had to at least get a picture. Too bad we're not in Red Lake right now. haha.
Aleah and the little sweetie I watch during the week. Most of the time one or both of them is sleeping but every once in awhile they're both awake (thankfully not too often = ) Of course they couldn't BOTH smile for the same picture.

Showing off her new tricks - turns out if you arrange her fat just right, she can do this - haha. Last night out of the blue I realized she was totally supporting herself so I let go and she stayed like this for quite awhile. Long enough for me to yell at Dave. Then we got some pictures. She's done it some today but not as well as she did last night.

There you have it. Not too much of interest going on around here to tell you about. We didn't go anywhere for the long weekend. I was sort of wishing we were doing something exciting, but we stuck around and made ribs in the crock pot - hard to get much more exciting than that, no? We did have a nice weekend. Now I've been stricken with cabin fever so I'm not sure what's going on in the outside world. Oh, here's a question for all you scrapers out there. I've been thinking about digital vs. traditional and was wondering if anyone has any opinions one way or the other. I'd love to hear them. Digital seems to have a lot of pros - less mess and etc. I like that you can add things other than pictures when you do the traditional way, but I think there are maybe ways of doing that with digital too now. As far as price, I have no idea which would be cheaper. Anyway, I'd love to hear some thoughts on the matter.

Aleah at 3 months (and fun with iphoto)

2010-08-26T00:39:00.012-04:00

The first pics were taken on the 14th when Aleah turned 3 months. The next ones were taken this past Sunday mostly for fun and because, well, on our trip I was browsing through all our pictures. I realized that we had approximately 973 thousand pictures of Dave with Aleah and around 2 of myself with her. HA! So I wanted a few with her. I also wanted to get some cute shots of her since I resisted the urge to get 3 month pictures taken somewhere fancy. We were trying to use natural light and not the flash, but it was getting dark so we had to be right by the window. Which explains the nasty background that I'm just kicking myself for now. = ( But anyway, we got some nice ones, although the ones without flash turned out a little (or a lot) blurry. Then I discovered all the fun stuff in iphoto to enhance and doctor up the pics and was just having fun. Alrighty, I think that's all. I hope you have enjoyed the picture fest (and will feel compelled to let me know in the space provided). Good night.

Our trip in pictures...

2010-08-25T23:34:00.038-04:00

So, this pic is totally random and unrelated to our trip. When Dave's mom was here the week before Aleah was born, we went downtown and she took some preggy, coupley pics of us. This one was on her camera and I really like it. = ) Now, some preliminary words before we get into pictures in earnest - firstly, I'm uploading my blog from the comfort of my couch. I've never done that before. Second, I just edited and resized pics using iphoto for the first time and it was sweet bliss to my soul - oh so fun and easy!!! About the pictures, I can't remember what I wrote in the previous post, but we went to Iowa first, took a weekend trip up to Blue Lake to go camping with my family, and then ended up back in Iowa. The second week in Iowa, Dave's grandparents were there. Most of our pictures amount to our family members holding Aleah. If that bores you, I apologize and you better not look any further. I spose I got some pictures of my small relatives on the camping trip. Anyway, I was trying to separate pics chronologically and was going to post Iowa, camping, Iowa again, but that got confusing, so all the camping pics are first, followed by all the Iowa pics. Again, I'm sorry if this does not suit your fancy. So without further ado - here's a whole wackapics for your perusal --
Hi, I'm Aleah. I'm on an airplane. I HATE them. That's all. Good bye.
My niece Alicia with Aleah.

The kidsies, lining up to take turns running and jumping on a board in the water. It's the simple things, so they say.
Ahhhhhh, camping in the lap of luxury. My brother Sheldon borrowed a bus/motor home for us to use and it was SO nice! Aleah slept like a crazy woman all weekend.
My sister dear and yeah, you know who.
Dad, my niece Hannah, and um... yeah.
Gavin, the little cutie
My handsome nephew Mervin - wait, I'm not old enough to have a handsome nephew! Aren't they all still supposed to just be cute?? ah well...
Yes, here's a cute one, that's better - Logan.
My niece Alabama
My nephew Caleb hanging with Aleah.
Nephew Trevor
Little cuties! Trevor, Josiah, and Scotty
Awwww, look at them! = ) Jeff and Wendy
Mervin, Dave, and Caleb playing cards. 3 math ner... brains!
more games. (no, really?)
Oh, Northwestern Ontario in the summer, how I've missed thee!!

My brudder Derek and my babsie
Whoa, family change alert! We know bring you footage of Dave's family, already in progress... Here's Aleah and her Grandpa Howard.
Lots of random, fun, family shots. It's so much easier to take family pictures with Dave's family than mine, for some funny reason. Here's the3 guys, 2 wives, and 1 baby. As if you couldn't tell that just by looking. Sorry, I'm having trouble coming up with original descriptions.
Dave's mom and sister in law Kari and I think you can figure out the rest.
Come up with a caption contest??
Lots of 4 generation fun - Aleah, her Dad, her Grandpa Howard, and her Great Grandpa Chappie
And one with Great Grandma Marybelle
And throw in the spouses just for fun
An interesting 4 generation picture of 3 women unrelated genetically who married into the family and one baby who is genetically related to all of them. Okay, maybe it isn't interesting, but sorta cool, no?
Aleah and Great Grandma - love this pic. There's something I just love about pictures of babies with the "older and wiser." I would explain it but I can't because I'm too tired and my head hurts.
Aleah and Great Grandpa - really like this one too - their expressions are priceless.
Grandma Judy
Aunt Kari
A little happy about something?
Just because
Uncle Jon
Uncle Alex

mother of all poops

2010-08-20T17:46:00.002-04:00

Why don't I get anything done? This kid's bodily fluids are a full time job. Oh the poop and barf that this day has held. So today she woke up really happy from a nap - I guess it felt really good to rid of this load, but I'm not sure how she could smile so much while still sitting in it. I picked her up and smelled something rather suspicious. Then started to see things suspicious. Poop everywhere. I took of her poopy pants (with diaper still on) and lifted her legs to assess the damages and the poop POURED (poured, I tell you) out of the back of her diaper. Oh it was so gross, so everywhere. I took her diaper off and she promptly stuck her little pink fuzzy sock in it. nice. Anyway, just felt like sharing. I had this long list of stuff to get done today and basically none of it got done. What did I do all day? Mainly clean up poop and barf. And feed small child. I guess I did a bit of laundry, investigated to make sure a bill was paid, ordered diapers online that might actually fit, chatted with Rhonda a bit, took a shower (whoo hoo), made an important phone call, and popped a few bubbles on the ipod. So I did a few things. Hardly anything that was actually on my list though. And then I took the time to tell you about it. ha. I really want to post pictures soon. Pictures from the trip and all. Esp. on the new computer as I hear rumors that I can resize more than one at a time, speeding up the process greatly. It takes FOREVER to resize pics on this computer. However, I feel I should not allow myself the joy of posting pics until all my thank you cards are written. So wish me luck. I'm off to have an actual date with the hubs tonight - first one in ages. Before child was born and all. Happy Friday night everyone. = ) Hope your day was less poopy than mine.

Words

2010-08-14T22:53:00.003-04:00

I think I stole that original title from my sis in law. I have a zillion fun photos that I could post but it would take to long and I'm too tired for such silliness tonight. I could maybe eek out a few words though.

** We just got back last evening after being gone for almost 2 weeks. We had a grand ol time of seeing bunches of people. We flew to Iowa. I shall comment later on the joys of flying with an infant. We were with Dave's family for awhile and then drove up to Blue Lake in beautiful Northwestern Ontario and surprised my family who were camping over the weekend. I couldn't believe that we actually pulled it off and no one suspected a thing. My oldest brother knew we were coming and helped make arrangements but everyone else was clueless until we stepped off the ginormous bus/motor home that Sheldon had borrowed. My sister screamed very loudly and had a tissy fit and that was very very fun. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend and we got to swim and hang out. Aleah was truly a happy camper - she did great the whole time. She wasn't terribly impressed with the bus ride from Sheldon's house to the camp ground. It was rather bouncy and not so easy to sleep. We ended up back in Iowa and spent the rest of the week there. Dave's grandparents had come to visit and his one aunt and uncle were there for one evening/night as well. I also got to see some of my friends - Karla N., Twila and LaRonda, and Glenda. Good times. It was also great to get back to our little place and our bed. Last night I slept almost 11 hours with one feeding break in there. I think it's the most I've slept in one stretch since small offspring was born.

** I thought flying with baby deserved it's own paragraph. I decided that the experience is similar to labour - so awful in the moment that you swear you will never ever do it again, but then over time the trauma fades and most people still end up going back for more. I shall try to be brief. I could go on and on, but um, anyway... Aleah does not like airplanes. Or airports. Or spending long days in both. i yie yie. The trip there was definitely the worst. We had been up til 2 the night before getting ready to go so I was exhausted. Small child was not impressed with the whole ordeal and really likes to have things a particular way (namely perfect, preferably sitting on our couch with the fan blowing and classical music playing in the background, dim lighting, etc, etc... I slightly exaggerate, but not much) if she is truly going to nurse well. She was already overtired by the time we got through security and was also hungry. However, sitting in an airport to eat did not suit her fancy (if she would for once think about things from someone else's perspective, mine in this case, she would realize that she really has the much better end of the deal so she should just eat and go to sleep). So she was overtired, wouldn't eat, and wouldn't sleep. She took a little cat nap till we got on the plane, and when she woke up, was not at all impressed to be there. She cried on and off the whole flight and I was fried just trying to take care of her and not lose my mind. Now it doesn't seem as bad, but in the moment, I was so exhausted, hungry (didn't eat most of the day - no time), thirsty (couldn't really drink and hold and wiggly, screaming baby) and yeah, felt like I might have a nervous breakdown on the spot. At one point Dave asked for a coke when the lady came by with offers of beverage. I should (or maybe shouldn't) mention that the whole experience did not contribute much toward marital bliss. I can mention it since it seems a bit funny now, but at the time, not so much. I was some sorta ticked off at him for thinking that he could somehow enjoy a lovely little coke under such circumstances. While he's trying to rearrange things, be helpful in regards to the screaming child and all, he ended up spilling coke down the front of himself. I'm not sure if I said I told you so or not, but anyway... arg. We finally got off that plane and it had gotten in a little late. We didn't have much time at all to make the next flight the way it was, but with the plane being late, we were really in a pinch. We got off and scurried for the gate. Dave took off ahead of me with the stroller and I was fuming once again. I later asked, what were you going to do, leave me behind? No, he said, I was going to tell them to wait for my wife who was coming momentarily. Oh, so that made a bit more sense. We got on the next plane and I apologized in advance to those sitting near us. They were all so nice and thought Aleah was a sweetheart, which helped. Once again, she was mad and wouldn't eat, but on this flight, she passed out, due to sheer exhaustion and slept a good long time. When she woke up she finally ate some and then was only moderately cranky as opposed to fuming mad. But she took this lovely opportunity to have the blow out of the century and had poop ALL OVER - through her clothes and blanket. And it was smelly. We were close enough to landing that we just waited and I changed her at the airport. While we were walking away I heard some people behind us talking about her and her diaper situation. WHEW! Survived that. Can't say I have the desire to fly again with her any time soon though. On the way home, she did better, but was still not impressed at all with the whole thing. At one point I was trying to give her gripe water and the syringe thingy was being a jerk and it shot a whole bunch in her mouth really suddenly. She freaked out and choked and for the next couple minutes or so, her eyes would get huge, she'd flail her arms back, and scream. Then she'd relax a bit, then do it again. It was absolutely awful and I felt terrible. She also had another major blow out but there was time to change her in the airport between flights. Okay, so that's flying with baby. I can't imagine going on a really really long trip like some (Rhonda!) have done with babies. How in the world?!? Incidentally, she likes her car seat and did great riding in the car for long periods of time. Of course we would leave crazy early so she would just sleep most of the way.

** In other news, we got a brand new mac book pro today. Dave's school is paying for him to get a new computer which is so amazingly wonderful. We still have the old clunker that one of Dave's computer friends at school loaned/gave us, so now Dave and I can chat with either other online without even leaving the apartment. How cool is that? Sadly, I'm on the old clunker right now while Dave plays with the new toy. It's okay though cause he's uploading all our pictures. I hope it's faster to resize pictures on there for blogging purposes.

Aleah is 3 months old today and almost 15 pounds. She's getting so huge. Tonight we all went to get the computer and it took longer than I was expecting. She was so tired and hungry and falling asleep in the car on the way home. But she still managed to smile for her 3 month sitting on the couch picture. good girl. She is still not on a great schedule. She always sleeps through the night, but if she hasn't taken good naps during the day, she's just started going to sleep crazy early - like 7 - 7:45, and staying asleep for the night. And then she'll often sleep till 10 in the morning. She'll eat in there, but not really wake up sometimes. Anyway, this is probably boring to most people who are not, well, me... so...

** I'm practically falling asleep at the computer so I should go. I was away for awhile while Dave showed be cool photo thingies on the new computer. I should like to post pictures soon but I don't know when I'll get around to it. Monday I start babysitting another little cutie who is 4 days younger than Aleah. I don't think I'll have time to blow my nose on those days. I'll have her 3 days a week.

** Oh, I wanted to add that it was utterly hilarious tonight to see a bunch of skinny, college age looking, male, mac salesmen, going all gaga over Aleah in the store tonight. I don't know why I added skinny, other than maybe one looked practically anorexic so it stood out in my mind. Anyway, they sure wanted to make a sale I believe. I'm sure you had to be there and actually see them and hear their tone of voice and all, but it just cracked me up. We were standing there talking to a guy for a bit and then he glanced in the stroller and said, "Ohhhh, shaaaaaaat! no way! Those EYES!" Then his buddy looked too and it was this skinny punk looking guy and he says, "Oh, come on!" They were just totally in awe of her. It was so stinkin funny. But you probably had to be there. shat? really? I guess.

** Well, I believe the time has come for me to go. If you're still reading, congrats. Hope you're all having a great weekend. And hopefully all the red lake church camp outers are surviving the torrential downpours. = )

The last couple weeks

2010-07-23T18:47:00.019-04:00

Sitting in the bumbo - I think she was 8 weeks here.
Hello! I'm 2 months old today! Aren't I charming and adorable?
Okay, so this is a more accurate representation of how I spent my 2 month birthday - cranky and refusing to sleep.
Hey! Look what I found. Notice on all the thumb sucking pics, it's always the left thumb and she pulls on her right ear.

Not the best picture, but here's us, hanging out.
This was yesterday. She was done freaking out after taking a bath and was looking pretty cute. She loves baths, just hates getting out and freezing.

Also last night - we tried out the pool for the first time. She liked it at first but was also getting hungry and tired so the fun didn't last long. We'll have to try again when she's more rested and full. But it was fun anyway.

This picture was actually taken after the next one. She was DONE. = )
Hanging out in the big red crab, courtesy of our friend miss Jan, who's boy used it last summer. She wasn't too sure what to think. It also has a big yellow "roof" to keep the sun away - too cute.
These were taken this afternoon (technology these days!) - more sucking of the thumb and pulling of the ear. Pardon all the junk in the background. I need to pay closer attention to that. oops.
She was excessively smiley for awhile. And a little cross eyed. = L

Okay, so why is it always the right eye that crosses? something else to obsess about. Is that normal?