Christmas Snow 2009

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"Daddy"

First Steps

Hannah has been standing on her own and taking her first steps this week! Oh my goodness, my little lady is growing up. :) I feel like she tends to accomplish her milestones when she's in new places. She started crawling when she stayed with the grandparents in July while Daniel and I were in Michigan (so yes, that means we missed it. Oh well). Now that we've moved, she's getting brave and wanting to walk (I guess so she can explore?). She crawled all the way down the stairs backwards by herself yesterday, which is very exciting.

Speaking of moving, I should have some pictures soon. We're slowing getting things set up and put away. Now it's just a matter of motivating myself to take the pictures and then upload them to my computer. :)

Anyway, just wanted to share that Hannah is starting to walk!

Happy Birthday and Closing

So, Hannah's birthday was on the 5th of September.... I know.... a while ago, but I'm just now getting an opportunity to upload some pictures. Both sets of her grandparents came up for the day, which was awesome! And, Abigail, David, and Ava came as well to see their little niece. We also had a few friends from town come... Tim, Jim, Craig, and Kim and their new little girl Camryn. It was a lot of fun and very nice to see everyone. Hannah got some great presents that have been keeping her very busy. :) Below is her cake:

It was an icecream cake, so she didn't have much of a chance to get messy. Sorry. :)

Daniel and Ava:

Ava and Hannah playing with one of her new presents... a Little People house. She loves this thing!

The birthday girl, again in her high chair, with not much of a mess. She's trying to figure out how to feed herself with a spoon.

With regard to more Hannah updates, she now crawls over to the window whenever someone leaves, peers up over the top, and waves goodbye. Very cute. She did her best to sound out the words "monkey" and "chicken" the other day. She got the first syllable of each word out, so I think that's good enough for now. Her first lateral incisor has broken through, so I'm just waiting for the other one on the bottom to poke out. At her well baby check-up, the doctor said that he could see her molars bulging, so he figured those would be in within a month or two. Grrreeeeat. The teething never stops. Hannah is getting very good at figuring out how to get down the stairs, and she's becoming a pro at cruising. I do believe she'll be walking fairly soon, for better or for worse. :) We also got her a forward-facing car seat, which she seems to like more than the infant carrier.

Daniel and I close on our house TOMORROW!!!!! Ahhh I can't believe it. Seven months in the making, and we're finally here! Praise the Lord!

On another note, we're starting Hannah on cloth diapers very soon. I've ordered a few BumGenius diapers, and some other kind off ebay, which I am very excited about. Cloth diapers have come a looooooong way in the last 20 years. I am hoping that Hannah will potty train quickly with these bad boys, whenever it comes time for that. Plus, it just makes me sick to my stomach when I think about how many disposables we go through in a week and that it just sits in a landfill somewhere. Yuck. I shall keep you posted on how the cloth diapering goes.

That is all for now! Hopefully we'll have some pictures to post of our new house and its progress soon!

Watch Out

T-minus 6 days and counting until we make the move into the long awaited house we have been building. Everything has gone very smoothly despite a few setbacks. Calie and I were not crazy about the placement of the thermostat and doorbell on the wall in the pick below so they move them to the right ever so slightly to make them easier to get to. I start the pictures below with the things that have annoyed us the most about the new house building flaws. I guess it is safe to say that I snuck in there this afternoon and took some pics with my cell phone (sorry for the quality). The first thing is the window in the spare room; kind of close to the wall don't you think? The second picture is one the builder doesn't know I am going to complain about, but the tiles in the kitchen floor have a line that is off-color compared to the rest and it is a eye sore even though the picture does not do it justice. The rest are just some pics of the house in the final stages. Enjoy! (and yes the house next door is for sale; want to be our neighbors?)

A Few Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Labor Day. Haven't received any pictures from Hannah's first birthday party, but when I do, I'll post those with a synopsis of her big day. Enjoy these pics! (and thanks SO much to Sarah for taking them!!)

Quick Update

So, I don't have any pictures to post and I have a few videos, but not on my computer, so this will just be a quick update. Sorry. :)

Hannah turns one tomorrow. Holy cow! I can't believe it. I've really noticed over the last few weeks that she's definitely maturing and changing quickly. She's developing some great problem solving skills, walking with her little push-walker thing, imitating everything perfectly (did I mention she's a perfectionist?), starting to actually "play" with her toys, loves putting things in their proper location, and has started to be able to play by herself really well. We have a corner in our living room that's basically a stack of books and a bunch of toys, and she crawls over there and pulls out what she wants to play with and just goes to town.

We have this little farm animal puzzle that she really enjoys. Her favorite animal is the duck (one of her first words). She'll pick up the duck off of the puzzle, looks at it, babbles for a second, and then daintily places it back on the puzzle (not in the correct location, but she understands that you put the pieces back in the puzzle). And then she looks up at me with a huge, proud smile on her face, waiting for my applause. Once that ensues, she manages to applaud her self. :)

She has a very cute sense of humor. She says, "Hi", and does her pageant wave with both hands. She's a social butterfly, loves Tim and Jim, loves to play with other babies, and hates it when I pick her up from a social place. Hannah is a rather compliant child--she knows what "no" means, and only occasionally tries to push our buttons. But if we're consistent in not letting her get away with stuff and strategically stern, she responds very desirably. We've had to pop her a few times for copping at attitude and being deliberately testy. The two times I've done it have straightened her out real quick--she lets out a few crocodile tears, but is an angel once she's calmed down. It's amazing how much a change of tone really makes a difference.

I've also noticed that I can get kinda schizophrenic on her--what I mean is that I'll have the meanest tone when I'm reprimanding her for something (but I'm really not mad, just making a point), and then 2 seconds later, back to lovey mommy. Crazy. But, like I said before, she responds to it, so I guess that works?

This week, I tried going to one nap a day to see if that would help her sleep better and longer. Well, she slept longer at night, but when she would finally go down for a nap during the day, she'd only sleep an hour at a time. So, I'd try to get her to go back to sleep however I could, and eventually she'd go back to sleep. But she was so exhausted that I think we'll wait a few months to see if maybe we can make it happen. My concern was that she was only sleeping 10 - 11 hours at night with 2 naps a day, so I didn't know if she was sleeping too much during the day or what. But, she fell asleep on the way home from ACAC this morning, and has been asleep for about an hour and a half or so, so I guess she needed it!

We're looking forward to celebrating her birthday tomorrow with family coming into town. Yay! We'll have some pictures, possibly some videos to post from her celebration, I'm sure. :) 'Til then!

Laila

I also wanted to share that I just found out one of my friends from college had her baby on Saturday as well! Congrats and welcome to Ms. Laila Patrice. Can't wait to see her and get all the gory details!

Camryn

I just wanted to say that Hannah's pre-determined best friend was born this afternoon! Ms. Camryn Nicole was born at 3:57pm, 9 lbs. 10oz. (??!!!). Congratulations Craig and Kim!

Drywall, Brick, and So Much More...

Ok so here is the lowdown on the house. We are closing on September 24, 2009 and we have to be out of our apt. on Sept 26, 2009. Ouch...2 days to move. If you wanna help let us know. Here are the most recent pics; yes I did break the rules and go into the house to snag some pics. Drywall went up in a matter of days...amazing or mediocre work? We'll see...

House Progress and Farrah Update

So the house is taking shape. The latest news is shingles are on the roof ready to be put in place!





Farrah is now 8 weeks old and ready for adoption, but unfortunately we have to wait a few more weeks till the house is done :( Just a note, that is not my facial hair in the shots. I wish.

Word # 5 - and crying it out :(

So today, I caught Hannah pointing at things and saying, "Look!" Very cute :)

As for some not-so-cuteness, I'm having to let her cry it out tonight......... breaks my heart. She's been fighting going to sleep (at night and for naps). She'll find anything to keep from going to sleep. Once she figures out that she's falling asleep, she starts scrambling for something else--tonight, her decoy was finding a book to read. Welp, we looked through the book, sang through a song a few times, and I put her in her crib, kissed her goodnight, and walked out. That was about 40 minutes ago. Still going strong.

I went in after she cried--no, wailed, really--for 20 minutes and reassured her that I was still here by kissing her on her head (she's standing up in her crib) and quickly patting her back. So, if she's not asleep in another 10 minutes, I'll go do the same. It sounds like she's getting tired, though, but who knows. Hopefully it doesn't take too many nights of this to sink in.

Word # 4

Today, I caught Hannah holding a little stuffed yellow toy with an orange beak, saying, "Duck!"

First Words

Hannah has 3 words in her vocabulary so far. You ready?

1. "clock"

2. "cat"

3. "Gypsy" (our cat's name)

Talk about picking difficult words to say first!

Hannah Updates

Our little girl is getting all growed up. :)

First of all, she has let the crawling cat out of the bag. I would say in the last week she has really figured it out. So she's scooting pretty quickly around the house. She loves chasing Gypsy or having me chase her, which is super cute. She also climbed her way all the way up the stairs today! (with me spotting, of course) Along with crawling, she's pulling up on things and cruising. She gets better and better at cruising every day, which is very neat to watch.

She also gives kisses. We got video of that yesterday, and one of these days when I've got more than 3 minutes, I'll get that uploaded for you to see. Hannah likes for you to tell her what things are called. When she knows what something is called, she smiles when you say its name. She really likes when you say, "clock." She mimics your intonation when you say things... you can tell that she's really trying to say what you're saying.

She's still a peanut (imagine that). Someone asked us today if "he" was 4 - 5 months old. HAH! Try 10??? Oh well. Who cares. :)

And finally, the latest picture!

The House and Farrah Update

Well...the house is coming along as you can see below and it seems as though this takes the longest (the foundation that is). We also are continually blown away by how fast Farrah is growing. It is amazing how much she changes in one week.

[I uploaded all new pictures to their previous picasa albums (Farrah and House), so they are updated. They can be viewed here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jumpuva ]