No longer mine...

purse filled with wallet, lipstick, toys, and baby socks

My things are no longer my own
They belong to baby too, as I have shown.
I've understood this from the child's side;
my mom always gave whatever she had with pride.
Now, it's my turn to experience it from the other side.
The funny thing is, I don't mind.

Movin' baby

I was told I needed to share Louisa's signature crawl. This isn't the best video of it, but it's what I have for now. I've tried to get some better footage, but she always seems to notice the camera and will just sit there staring at it. By the way, in this video my baby isn't completely ignoring me like it looks like, Mike is on the other side of that wall so she's going to get him.

But yes, this is how our little girl gets around. And don't let it fool you. Just because she doesn't wiggle those legs and arms back and forth in a coordinated manner, doesn't mean she can't beeline it for the other side of the room. She's fast.

Mike and I realized we had to lower the crib, too. She is working on pulling herself up. It's still not something she can do entirely on her own, though we have caught her a few times in a semi-stand. Very much close to that next phase in baby mobility.

Grandpa Jerry and Uncle Dusty

Louisa got to hang with my brother and dad. She was having a great time with them....

grabbing faces is a blast...

standing is always pretty fun...gotta start practicing for that whole walking thing...

and, getting kisses is pretty great, too.

It was awesome to watch because up until now, Louisa has mostly been afraid of these two. She would cry if they tried to hold her! So it looks like she has warmed up to them, as long as mom and dad are close by :)

Color Week Day 5

PlUm

I'm sad that color week is over. I'm sure next week I'll go back to blogging mostly about Lou. :)

Have a lovely weekend!

Color Week: day 4

cHesnut bRown

oh wow, I am having loads of fun doing this. Who knew colors could be so inspiring? Ok, maybe all people who love photography, painting, art, and any other form of creativity would know this. Ha. But it's a new realization for me nonetheless :) Is it Thursday already? Darn, I think I could go on with this for a long while...

So, I am going to a funeral today. She is not a close relative, but she is someone I knew growing up. Mercifully, she died in her sleep and I'm told was given the Anointing of the Sick and then her last rites. She was (and is) someone who constantly cared for others, and loved her family deeply.

"May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace"

Color Week day 3

goLdenRod YeLLow

I totally have to give credit to my sis-in law for Lou's dress. Isn't it the cutest hand-made dress you've ever seen? I love it.

So here's my mystery diagnosis. Maybe you can figure out what's wrong with me. So this has happened to me about 3-4 times over the last few months. About once every three weeks I will wake up feeling really icky. Primarily it's my head, but also I have a tummy ache, I'm weak and I'm terribly tired (even if I slept well.) I know it's not morning sickness (trust me on this, I know). I feel so awful that I've had to have Mike watch Lou while I sleep for another 2-3 hours. After I get that extra rest, I have woken up feeling better. So I don't get it. It only happens sporadically, and this isn't my ordinary not feeling quite right. This is feeling so bad, so off, so gross that I can't even get out of bed. These are my theories. A. dehydration. Louisa nurses 2-3 times at night still, so am I getting dehydrated through the night? B. Caffeine withdrawals? This is actually Mike's theory, but I'm not sure it lines up with the days I don't drink coffee. I would have to observe this one more carefully. C. headache induced by sleeping strangely because of baby in bed. Has this happened to any mama's out there?

If you have any theories of your own, maybe they could help me figure this one one out? Thanks.

And I hope you enjoyed my goldenrod. The yellow might be a little on the bright side, but it was the best I could do!

Color Week day 2

BuRnt SiEnNa

(oh yes, I found a rooster in the garden ;)

I was also going to write a post about a Kayleen mystery diagnosis, but I think I will save that for tomorrow. Hope you like my burnt sienna. It was surprisingly easy to find this color in my grandma's garden.

Color Week

My first attempt at a color week. I can't bring myself to do any links, so this will just be for my tiny readership to enjoy.

bRick rEd

Furs and Bathtime

Takin' a bath in the sink, whoo-hoo!

I was going to do a picture comparison from her first bath when she was one week old to now, but I couldn't find the pictures of her first bath on my laptop. They must be on Mike's, so oh well. If you want, you can go back to my February posts and see some old pictures. She is getting to be such a big girl, I can't even believe it. I remember that first time we gave her a bath; we were so nervous! She seemed so fragile, so tiny. Not the case anymore! She is strong and not afraid of the water one bit. I am amazed that our beanie baby is almost 8 months old already.

Now this is what having girls is all about!

Okay, I'm kidding. There is much more to having girls than dressing them up, but, isn't this a gorgeous coat? It's a gift from Louisa's great-grandma. It's so soft and lovely, makes me excited for winter weather to come so Louisa can stylishly face the elements ;)

Have a great week, ya'll!

Goodbye summer?

Good thing we hit the beach last night for a bonfire, because today it started to rain! Fall, are you here? The bonfire was pretty neat, although I think Louisa was confused as to why we were outside when it was so dark. It tired her out because she slept in this morning (yay!) Oh, and we saw Stevie at the beach (some of us know what beach I'm talking about, because Stevie goes there all the time! :)

Good times. Have I mentioned before how much I love living in this state? It is so beautiful here, and I simply love the fact that we have four distinct seasons. Though I'm a little sad to see summer go, I'm looking forward to fall (as I sip a latte and nibble on a pumpkin cream cheese muffin)

Should I get used to this?

Oopsie

I wasn't paying attention and accidently turned on the wrong burner to cook the rice. The plate with the breaded chicken was waiting to be cooked. Result: broken plate and ruined dinner. I am sad because it was one of our wedding dinner plates - that I happen to love. Arg.

Lake Chelan

We decided to combine our trip to Walla Walla with a visit to a friend's cabin on Lake Chelan. We were so glad we did, Chelan is so pretty- especially in September! There is absolutely no one there at this point in the season so we had the lake largely to ourselves. Oh my goodness it is so lovely there! I told Mike that I would truly love to have a cabin somewhere. I hope it becomes a reality, someday. It doesn't necessarily have to be on Lake Chelan, but somewhere in Washington. My family had a cabin near Lake Wenatchee and we have some really special memories of it from growing up. It was a shared cabin, and nothing fancy, but we got to go skiing, snowboarding, hiking, swimming, and play around being kids.

Going out on the boat, ready to bounce around on the intertube. It was Mike's first time being on a speed boat, and intertubing - he did great! :O)
One last thing. It was so much driving! Being the silly, directionally challenged girl that I am, I thought setting out that it would be a nice little drive from Lake Chelan to Walla Walla and back home. Not so much. It was quite a long journey. I don't know how many miles we traveled in all, but I feel like we got to see a good chunk of central Washington. I'm not necessarily complaining, I love our state so I enjoyed the scenery- it was just, you know, alot of driving :)

Walla Walla wedding

Because you are God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another; forgive whatever grievances you have against one another. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. Over all these virtues put on love, which binds the rest together and makes them perfect.
1 Colossians 3:12-17

The wedding we went to in Walla Walla was such a blessed event! We enjoyed the ceremony, we enjoyed seeing two people that we love become one in Christ, we enjoyed seeing our friends from school; we enjoyed everything! (OK, maybe not the 6 hour drive, but it was a worth-while sacrifice :)

Praise be to God who gave us the sacrament of marriage!

Exploring; at home

Louisa has been cracking us up lately. Her latest thrill is crawling around the whole apartment - seemingly just to check things out. She just loves to crawl from the living room into the kitchen, where either Mike or I might be. She still has her signature crawl - more of a froggy leap than an actual coordinated crawl. She has become quite fast though, so don't let her fool you.

Here she is "helping" daddy in the kitchen

Oh man. Having an active, crawling baby is decidedly exhausting! I almost feel like it takes less energy to go somewhere with her, even though that can be quite tiring, of course. At least that way she is occupied and distracted. When it's just us at home, it is sometimes hard to keep her out of things. And yes, I know it is just beginning ;) Due to these new circumstances, I feel like I need to be getting more sleep. However, I feel bad because since Lou was born, Mike and my couple time has been after that time when Louisa goes to bed - at about 8:30-9:00, and before we go to sleep for the night. But lately, I've just been falling asleep myself while putting the beanie down. Mike has told me that he's tried to gently wake me up a few times, but usually I'm so out of it that he can't. Then it's funny, I don't even remember the next day that he came in. Hmmm, what to do but try and get a nap in during the day? Or, just get used to this feeling tired thing. And I so hoped I could avoid the inevitable ;P

Who me? I'm innocent of all charges!

So I won't be blogging for a little while after today. We are headed to Lake Chelan to visit our friend Elliot, then from there we are going down to Walla Walla for a wedding of two dear friends from college. Fun stuff ahead. Caio for now!

Seeing more of the world.

At the Point Defiance Zoo.

Loved this guy. This porcupine weighed 45lbs! Did you know that their spikes are really just hair? There was a gibbon in the cage with him who kept messing with him by hanging on the fence and pulling at his quills. :)
There was a Budgies exhibit (apparently they are Australian parakeets) You could buy sticks of bird feed and they would fly over to you. Mike did better than Lou and I, I kept getting scared. But they were cute.
We met up with some friends, Dani and Andrea, and had a fun day overall.
Oh and Mike has a few more pictures, along with a video of me getting scared of the little budgies.

Saturday Morn

Louisa made up a game. It goes like this (in case you would like to play sometime): first, empty the toy basket of all toys. second, put box of floss into basket. third, move basket back and forth so that floss makes cool noise. fourth, put floss box in mouth. (optional rule, look really cute while playing) Fun for the whole family!

So after we played Saturday morning for a while, we went to pick up this armoire for our t.v. We found it on Craig's list and ended up paying 140.00 for it. I love it! It's perfect for what we needed (cords hidden from Louisa) and it fits in nicely with our style. Another nice thing about it is having the doors able to close; the idea is to have the t.v. more out of sight (and hopefully out of mind too) My sister in law suggested it and I'm glad we chose to look for a piece of furniture like this. I am pleased with the purchase.

State fair time

yay!My mom, Louisa, and I took a ride up to Monroe for the Evergreen State fair on Tuesday. We had a lovely time looking at the animals, seeing the shows and eating fried food (though I paid for that one later with a tummy ache :P) Louisa seemed to enjoy herself, though I think it was a little overwhelming at times. She cried in the chicken house, so we think she's afraid of chickens. Hey, I really don't blame her - there were some huge roosters that probably could have eaten her (seriously, some of them did look hungry.) She seemed more fond of the little baby goats and sheep - they were much less threatening. I loved them too! Louisa got to pet a little goat. He was adorable! (side note: I am so a city girl, but there are two animals I would actually like to raise; chickens and sheep. I've been told sheep aren't that great -because they aren't too smart-but I don't care, I just love their demeanor. I don't know, I'm not an animal person either so maybe I wouldn't do so well, but I like to think of it as at least a possibility)

Even though there are times when I feel sad that Louisa is no longer a newborn, I am truly loving how she is becoming more interactive with her environment. It is incredibly fun to watch her as she experiences new things. That is one of the best things about being a mother so far. I feel so blessed that I get to be there for her as she learns about her world.