seven months

L started solids the day after she turned six months old. By seven months she had eaten rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, peas, and sweet potatoes. She likes all food so far, but peas are her least favorite. This was one of the kinds of baby cereal.



Here are more recent photos I took of L, on her monthday. It was a few days before her daddy arrived here on leave from the deployment (more on that later). You can see how she's moving to get what she wants. She doesn't crawl but she can get herself into that position. The guitar is her big sister's.

Christmas, the powder candy incident, and more

Here's some of what we did during December. Besides family events, I also enjoyed the adult party in our new ward, plus Relief Society Christmas dinners with this ward and the previous ward.

Shboogoo said she was showing these people how to do the puzzle.

I carried on our tradition.
When it was Shboogoo's first Christmas we had her lie under the tree and look at a red ornament, because my parents had taken a picture of ME doing that on my first Christmas. L is older (I was 3 months old, Shboogoo was 1), so she wanted to move and reach a lot.

Proof that real deer have been in our yard. On a different day I saw two run from the north side of our house toward the east side of the street (where there are no houses, just trees).

On December 22nd we exchanged gifts at my dad's house.

(This one kinda cracks me up, with the statue appearing to be on my brother-in-law's head.)

L's favorite thing was the ribbon, but here are a shirt and pajamas that she received.

Christmas Eve at my mom's; I wish we would have taken a group photo.
Inside this box was a doll as tall as Shboogoo; she danced with her.

Christmas morning at our house, just the three of us. Santa hung the stockings on the hooks downstairs because there wasn't a good place for them upstairs. He even cleaned the living room.

In her stocking she got her own pair of scissors, some colored pens, and gummy Life Savers. (We're waiting to decorate this Christmas tree with my husband.)

This Barbie and Disney princess tree was given to us by a member of our ward who said it needed a home.

I had used this pink thing as ribbon around one of L's presents.

I put the camera on a box and set the timer.

We spent the rest of the day at my father-in-laws', my stepmom's brother's, and my mother-in-law's sister's. It was very fun, but my camera battery was dead and I couldn't charge it. At the last house we watched some old home videos, and realized I was looking at my mother-in-law when she was only a year older than me!

A few days later the baby grabbed her sister's candy (a clear tube like a pixie stick). It was not closed, so before I could grab it some blue powder went in the baby's mouth and really surprised her! As you can see, it didn't end up just in her mouth.

I've been blessed with neighbors who have served me in various ways, knowing that I'm on my own for a while with these little girls. My visiting teacher and my next-door neighbor both worked (multiple times) on getting the snow and ice off of our driveway.

six months

A few days before Christmas (on the anniversary of my man proposing to me) she was already half a year old.

	Weight	Length	Head
2 weeks	7.28 lbs (16%)	20.47 in (51%)	14.2 in (45%)
2 months	10.45 lbs (39%)	22.48 in (54%)	15.4 in (56%)
4 months	12.21 lbs (19%)	24.45 in (58%)	16.1 in (51%)
6 months	13.98 lbs (13%)	25.71 in (48%)	16.9 in (66%)

By her sixth monthday she had started making a new sound, like she's holding out the consonant sound that is sort of between a hard g and c. She learned from her sister how to nod, and nods at random times.

old hat, new hat

{This post is brought to you by the letter H.}

At preschool a few weeks ago, the mom in charge taught about the letter H and read us Old Hat, New Hat.

Do you know the book? It is one of their family's favorites. I think I had read it many moons ago, so it was fun to see. He goes into a store to buy himself a new hat. After trying on lots of unique hats, he leaves with his original hat because he prefers it.

The whole time I thought of my husband, and how this is a metaphor of my dating life. He was the first boy who asked me on a date. Then during the next six years I had a date or two each with probably twenty or thirty other guys. Most of those dates were enjoyable, but there was rarely a mutual attraction. Their personalities weren't quite right for me. I learned that none of them had what I wanted because they weren't him. With him I have been myself, and I have always been comfortable talking to him about anything. We're happy if we're just in the same room. He makes me laugh every day that I'm with him. He even thinks that I'm funny. By April 2003 we knew we wanted to be a couple forever, and we knew Heavenly Father approved. After his Basic Training at the end of that year, my boyfriend and best friend became my fiance. The best thing I ever did was to marry the first boy that asked me out. Old hat.

~~~~~~~

In case you were wondering, during preschool the kids also tried on hats, hopped through hula hoops, and made gingerbread graham cracker houses. The three babies sat in the living room together and looked cute (that's what they do).

the end of november {2009}

My husband and I have parents living in four different homes, all within about 50 miles of each other. That can make it hard for us to remember where we spent certain holidays the previous year. Well, this year the girls and I ate Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's. I'm posting these pictures mostly for her. Our brother and our mom were there, plus all of her husband's immediate family. I brought a sweet potato casserole that had taken me two hours to make and was yummy, as was all of the food. We hung out and watched Up and ate some pie. Before going home I took the girls to Grandma Nene's so she could trim the 3-year-old's hair (Grandma let the 3-year-old spray her with the water bottle).




Shboogoo tried to cut her pickle with the wrong side of the knife.


L played with a boot.


Shboogoo had received Candy Land for her birthday and wanted to play it. It's not made by SimplyFun, but it's a classic!


My sister's sister-in-law had her baby girl on Veteran's Day. Their son shares L's birthday; he is four years old.



This is Mark, one of my three brothers. He loves L.





The morning of Black Friday I left my in-laws' while the kids were still sleeping. I shopped at Old Navy and was so happy to find, among other things, short pants! I definitely bought them.



It was not only Black Friday, it was also our eleven-year anniversary; we got family photos taken (which was why I wanted to buy myself new clothes); and that night we, along with D's dad and some other men from the neighborhood, moved almost all of our possessions that were at my in-laws' into our house. Yes, it was a very tiring day. Very very tiring. Probably should have scheduled the family photos for a different day . . .

Saturday morning Nene and I got the moving truck (while her roommate took care of the girls once they woke up). Some friends and family helped to load the truck at our storage unit and my mom's house and then unload everything. It was really pretty quick. L stayed asleep in the car and I kept checking on her.




Alone in the house before going back to get Shboogoo from Nene's, the only thing I could find to drink from was her snowman cup. It was so exciting to be in our first house, though, two and a half months after making the offer. I used the timer to document the moment. (It reminded me of the month that D lived in our apartment before we were married, when we shared just one plate and one fork that we had borrowed.)


In the evening we had an after-Thanksgiving dinner at my dad's; that's when all of us were available. Too bad we didn't get a picture of the whole group. After leaving, I had my dad meet me at a grocery store so he could sit in my car with the girls (one was asleep) while I bought some food.




Sunday we went to our new ward for the first time. J and K, our friends who sold us the house, attended the ward for the last time and he spoke in sacrament meeting. After church, little L played in the exersaucer, which had been in our storage unit. She liked it!



On November 30th she fell asleep like this: