colorado celebrations

Life is wonderful. Hard, challenging, real, but wonderful. 

We've had the chance to spend some time with family, and here are some fun pictures of the past week.

 So sweet to watch a big brother in action.

Fun cousins to play with (and getting along very well might I add). 

 Lots of smiles and sweet faces from lady LE.

 Nonnie kisses. 

 Delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

 Christmas celebrations a little early while we're all together.

Hours of playing games together. 

Lots of time to play on the floor together.

And my little boy jumping on my back asking for me to take pictures of him instead of the trains we were playing with. Can't refuse that! Gotta love him. 

In all of life's whirlwinds, our families give us the greatest joys. I am grateful for the trials we face that make us stronger, the lessons we learn that make us wiser, and the fun we have that makes us happier.

Life is wonderful!

talk about a comb-over

After doing the final rinse I sat her up and just had to capture the moment on camera. Oh man this girl has some crazy hair. 

4 months

Wow time is flying. Four months old and totally lovin' life! 

New Stats:

13 lbs. 8 oz. (48%)

24.5 in. (61%)

A few favorites:

-Drools and blows raspberries all day long

-Gets to a point when she's tired but trying to fight it, and she starts talking like crazy making all sorts of noises. It's adorable.

-Sitting in the bumbo now and loves to watch us

-Weening herself from the swing - she really doesn't care for it anymore.

-Refuses a bottle with vengeance. 

-hair is finally laying down a little bit. No more electrocuted baby hair! Now she just has thinning issues.

-Technically happened the day after she turned four months, but she found her feet and it's an automatic reflex now to grab her toes and hold on tight. I can't wait till she learns how to pull them in the eat them - so cute! 

-Even with her average weight, she still has some good squeezable thighs with rolls in them. My favorite.

-Loves to smile for new people, and is giggling a lot. I've even gotten lucky enough to hear a belly laugh a couple times.

-the cutest penguin for trick-or-treating and the prettiest tinkerbell for our ward halloween party, even without her wings

-did not appreciate all the chocolate in mommy's diet right after halloween

-experienced quite the reaction from her 4-month shots. Honestly was a completely different baby for two days straight. Screaming, not eating, not sleeping, just miserable. She's back to her sweet, quiet, darling self and I couldn't be happier.

-absolutely loves bath time

-and of course, fully supports the Buckeyes. 

{She's wearing this onesie at age four months. Her older brother outgrew it by two months. What a big difference between them!}

Lady LE is such a sweet baby. We are blessed beyond measure by her calm personality and demeanor. She typically sleeps well at night, usually around 11-12 hours total at night waking up twice to eat. She takes naps super easily swaddled up, and still sleeps on the go if we're running around doing stuff. And I love how little she still is. I love her cuddling into me, and I love her pushing away from me to try and explore a little. It is so fun to watch her grow and develop, especially since I know more of what to expect. The anticipation is often just as exciting! We love our darling little girl. 

sunday fun

We took some fun photos of lady LE a couple weeks ago and even though I'm incredibly behind in blogging, I looked at these again this morning and just had to share them! I really have a hard time deciding which one I like best, I think she is perfect in all of them!

 {I love how you can see the slightest bit of a dimple. Yup - she got that from me.}

I think this last one might win for me. Drool spot on her dress and all.

penguin(s) in training

Though there is a one-month age difference between them in the photographs, I'd say they look quite a bit alike. What do you think?

Can you tell who's who?

And while I'm here (since I'm not online very often these days), I wanted to post a little preview of our Halloween fun this year. It's all about the details:

Happy Halloween!! 

Nutty Putty Cyclers

Raising funds for a great cause

3 months

{A little late. And yes, I'm back-dating it. Don't judge.}

New Stats:

No doctor's visit this month, so I'm guessing somewhere around 12 lbs maybe? 

Few favorites:

-Loves to bat at her toys while sitting in the bouncer

-Giggles here and there, mostly in the mornings. I was lucky enough to catch her first giggle on video thanks to Daddy. Priceless!

-Leaving the curl-up stage and wanting to stretch as much as possible for her little body. Makes me sad!

-She is honestly such a content baby

-Starting to smile more at people besides Mom and Dad

-Getting stronger with her head control, but is taking her time

-Needing to be swaddled more during the daytime

-Survived her first camping trip with the family - barely. It was freezing and at one point she would not stop screaming unless I was nursing her ... which I did ... for a long time until she fell back asleep. What a trooper.
-turned three months old in New Jersey visiting cousins - was an angel the whole trip.

Lady LE's fan club (dutifully stolen from my brother's family blog).

She melts my heart completely.

a good series

Lady LE loves to smile these days and it's fun to watch it happen, so I tried to snap a few pictures to help far-away family enjoy it too.

A sweet grin to humor me ...

Most common smile we see these days ...

A funny smirk we get when she's super happy ...

And a definite "I'm done" face.
Love her to bits. 

camping

Last weekend we went to our ward camp-out and had a great time! The evening was a blast hanging out with everyone eating good food. L loved running around wild and staying up late.

This only fueled his obsession with flashlights. 

How amazing it is to wake up to this view! WOW. The kids had a rough night, so we were up early. R crawled down to the water from our campsite and got a couple really great pictures of the lake. It was absolutely beautiful! I love the quietness of the morning when camping ... except when an infant is screaming. But once the screaming stopped it was nice and quiet again. :)

Right after we were all packed up ready to go home we walked down the main path to the water's edge. So fun to throw rocks in the water - love these kids!! (and once again, the serious-play-face of L)

Can you believe it?! A family picture with L smiling too!! Yay! 

play days

We enjoyed a fun play date last week with some friends from church. It nice to have so many other young kids for L to play with! And it was even better because R had a night shift, so he kept little lady LE at home with him so I could just focus and play with L at the park. It was SO fun!!

First stop at the park was feeding the ducks! Sad to say, this is L's first experience with that (I know, what a lame mother I am!) A good friend supplied lots of bread for us to use, and the ducks grooved on it for a while. L definitely wants to go back and do it again. 

The lily pads and flowers were HUGE. I snapped this one really quick on the way back to the playground to join the other kids. Isn't it funny how the flowers look like they have shower heads in 'em? 

I've noticed that L looks very serious in all of his "play time" pictures. This kid is hard at work playing! Maybe he'll take after me in his college studies and major in recreation! HA! I hope not ... he'll have a family to support!
Nonetheless, he does take play very seriously and is good at it! He loves being outside and I love watching him. Perfect combo. 

apples

Three years ago, we met up with Dave & Tiff in Michigan and went to a nearby apple orchard. We tasted the glorious honeycrisp apple variety there for the first time, and have since only dreamed of such flavors because they are so stinkin' expensive! This year we found out that Lynd Fruit Farm had U-pick honeycrisp apples the weekend of my birthday. Perfect timing to justify a splurge! :)

So we went and the weather was perfect - compared to our last year's trip there! 

L helped a little with the picking, but he was honestly way too preoccupied with eating them.
How do you like them apples? I like 'em a lot!

To be honest, I wasn't much help with the picking either. I was too preoccupied with the camera and baby.

While it was a splurge, we were still modest in our spending - we got the smaller of the two bags. Although this only means that we have to go back again for the golden delicious/jonagold varieties so that we can start making some yummy apple-filled-goodness treats for ourselves and save the honeycrisp for munching.

I missed our ward's midweek activity to go apple picking. But I still have some time ... Fall is just starting.

{proof of L's preoccupation with eating. He handed this to me in the car saying he was all done, which basically means there's no more room for him to hold onto it anymore}

lightening

L has had this obsession for quite some time, as I'm sure a lot of toddler boys do.
On our Michigan trip, R picked up two new cars for L's collection (Chick Hicks and Mr. The King) and these four cars in particular went EVERYWHERE with us. They were his best friends and he honestly was so well behaved the entire time! His recent thing is to flip them upside-down and say, "lightening sad," flip them back over and say, "lightening happy!" So cute.

It reached a new high yesterday when after falling on one of our kitchen chairs and mildly scraping his shin he cried for his lightening bandaids saying that lightening would help it feel better. After we got the bandaid, he lined up all his cars and said they wanted to watch the Cars movie. I couldn't really refuse his cute face, so we watched it again. For the umpteenth time. And afterwards he wanted to keep singing along to the music video ...

He wasn't quite so animated as he normally is, but you get the idea.
Thank you Pixar. What would we do without you! 

two months old

I honestly feel like she's been here longer, but it's only been two months since LE joined our family!

At the doctor's office yesterday she got her first round of shots, and I have never seen her face get that purple! I thought that we had heard the ability of those lungs of hers, but I got the full force yesterday and boy can she be loud! Besides a low-grade fever she seems to be great though, and the grumpiness is already starting to subside. She is such an angel!

New statistics:
10 lbs. 14 oz. (53%)
22 in. (37%)

A few favorites:
~LE loves to coo and talk and is doing it more every day
~Hair is still completely out of control and I love it! It's the fluffiest right after bath time and only stands straight up. She doesn't seem to be loosing it either which makes me happy!
~A couple weeks ago she smiled at big brother and it rocked my world.
~Not on any specific kind of schedule, other than eating on demand and sleeping when needed. We both seem to work really well with this groove and the flexibility it offers us.
~She typically sleeps really well at night and is definitely a swaddle-baby. And she's still little enough to use those flannel receiving blankets! Crazy, because big brother outgrew those within the first couple of weeks.
~Growing at half the rate that big brother grew. It seems fitting that she's so little - although the Dr. yesterday felt it necessary to correct me when I said how little she was and reaffirmed that she's average and growing well {which of course, I know, but in comparison to L she's little!}
~Gaining more control over arms and legs
~Often simply talking to her in a sweet voice calms her down when she gets fussy as if she just needed to know that we were still there.
~If all else fails, Daddy bouncing her always works and is a great work out for his arms!
~Loves to be held, which works out perfectly because I love to hold her! Daddy and I often argue in the evening which one of us gets to hold her (that is, when the alternative is making dinner or doing the dishes!)   

I LOVE her eyes! LE you are my little angel!