To Florida and Back

We went to Florida last week while Papa was at Steubenville. Here are a few pictures from H's first trip to the Ocean - and visiting with family (and a trip to Ikea with my friend Jennifer).

Homeowners...once again!

Well...I guess the first update is that we sold our house, in less than 1 week!! We had a total of 5 (exhausting) showings. From that we got 3 (exciting) offers! We accepted one and sold our home for our asking price. In this market, we were thrilled and elated, and never expected it to go so quick.

And, so the next update is we bought a new home! Our bid was accepted this morning!

Here are some pictures of the new house!

a non-blogging month update

:) Sorry it's been so long! I have probably lost half my readers...but we are still here! H is growing faster every passing minute. I will get to her updates in a minute, but the reason we have been neglectful bloggers: we decided to sell our house. Due to a course of events that brought this to the forefront of our minds, I got moving and have been busy analyzing finances, interviewing agents, cleaning out our house...and finally, as of today, it is on the market! Pray for a quick sale and that there is something wonderful waiting for us on the other side of this deal.

Also, today, right before our agent came over - the door bell rang. And my birthday gift arrived in a big truck with the writing "P O T T E R Y B A R N" on the side! ACK!!

THIS is the wonderfully gorgeous, magnificent bed we now own! (thanks baby, i love it!!) :)

Speaking of birthdays...it is 3 days until my 3-0. The end of my youth! :-P But the beginning of so many wonderful, fabulous things ahead. Having H in my arms to celebrate turning 30 makes all the difference in the world. I am so blessed!

AND, Happy Birthday to Paul's Busia who just turned 90. We are so sorry we couldn't be there to celebrate - HUGS AND KISSES (and H screams) from PA.










AND - now, our H update. Mobility is exhausting! For us...not for H! She is getting into EVERYthing (exhibit A)













She is crawling, now climbing steps - EEK, standing up (almost on her own). Every day it is something new and exciting. There are 4 more teeth that just arrived; but apart from the extra pain - she is her usual uberly joyful self.

I will try to be better in the month of July, but don't hold me to it! If all goes well, we may be offline for a little while....but we will keep you updated.

Lessons learned from my 9 month old

Here are a few lessons I am learning from my 9 month old:
1. Quiet does not mean sleeping
2. Babies can still make a mess while being quiet
3. When you start to figure out a pattern, it changes
4. You can never really baby proof
5. Crib = prison
6. Pathetic looks work
7. So do drama cries
8. Newspaper is best when eaten
9. Ears are made to be screamed into
10. There is NOTHING like the joy a child brings into your life!

Who sleeps like this Anyhow??

I am stealing this blog title from a friend who has a regular series on her blog. Until now, H has never slept in any noteworthy fashion. UNTIL NOW. These have all been taken over the last 48 hours. Newfound mobility has taken it's toll! Since I still have not yet figured out how to individually label each picture....here are a couple labels :
Pic 1/2 "Sitting up sleep style"
Pic 3/4 "The trouble with co-sleeping"
Pic 5 "Mommy's spot is my favorite"

Camping with Baby

We had a blast taking Hannah down to WV for her first camping trip. She did great! Here are some pictures from our adventures.

and...she's off!

H's life of mobility has begun. Well, forward mobility (she already had the backward crawl and rolling methods down). Here is a clip I took today of a slow, intentional crawl. As I sit here to type, she is next to me screaming. I have also determined that this is a vivid part of her personality. She is the most vocal baby I have ever met. Anyone that has called here recently knows this very well! We are anxious for our first family camping trip this weekend and will surely have more stories after Tuesday!

Enjoy your memorial day and don't forget to pray for fallen soldiers.

This made me chuckle. It is all so true!

5 occupations your baby would be great at:

• Dentist — scratching at your gums with her fingernails is an important part of her training!
• Professional raspberry blower — not in large demand, but surely somewhere one is required.
• Night watchman — he'd never fall asleep on the job!
• Disgruntled prison inmate — he's already got the table banging and bar rattling down pat.
• Member of a studio audience — though she might occasionally clap at inappropriate moments.

The Business of Being Born

Last night Paul and I watched the documentary called "The Business of Being Born." This project was inspired by Ricki Lake, who, after having a traumatic hospital birth experience, chose a home birth for baby #2.

Since we had such a positive birth experience with our midwives at the birth center, we were, of course, open to the film's message. Though the film comes across with an anti-hospital slant, I thought it was well done and eye opening.

The premise from their website: "Should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potentially catastrophic medical emergency?" While I know women that have had good hospital births, and know some awesome ob/gyn's, the film discusses how many hospitals - and insurance companies view birth as business. The reality is that many women don't have the freedom to choose to choose out-of-hospital births, because it is competition for this booming business.

We signed up for a free trial of Netflix and found this available to view online. You can also watch a preview on their website. I do recommend this film. In addition to the thought provoking and challenging questions, there are beautiful and moving birth scenes (with nudity for those sensitive to that fact). Before I gave birth, I spent lots of time watching the Discovery Health and TLC baby/birth shows. Most of which take place in a hospital, and many of which involve trauma (or the threat of trauma). In retrospect, they are not the most encouraging scenes to fill your mind with before giving birth. We both noticed the lack of screaming mothers in this documentary. It brought Paul and I right back to September when we were laboring our daughter into the world. Birth is a moving, emotional, empowering, wonderful thing. And for those that genuinely need hospital intervention, c-sections, etc....well, the film maker speaks from that perspective. Her breach son was delivered via c-section. Though she felt as though she missed out, she recognized that the gift of a child spans beyond their method of arrival to this world.

New Life

Oh how I love spring time! Right now, my husband is outback mowing our grass (wohooo) and with the weather getting better every minute, it is wonderful to spend time outside. Here is a picture of our back yard bird and her two little ones (nested on our swing).

H also got to work on her crawl a little bit. She currently enjoys push up position, and rolling to her destination. What a ham she is becoming! I was relaying the story to my mother about how she does not like her bibs. She rips them off every time we put them on her (with grunts of determination until she accomplishes it). I will post a picture of our garden when things start growing bigger, but for now, our seedlings are doing well. I just got an email from our CSA (community supported agriculture) that our first pick up date is coming soon!! We can't wait for all the fresh food PA has to offer!

I know who you are!

Or where you are, at least! I attached a google analytics tag on our blog, which allows us to see our visitors (and all the random statistics you could ever want to know about the visits).

Mom, Grandma T, wins the prize for most visits in the last month.

We watched a special on the Google search empire recently. It is amazing how much we reveal about ourselves online. But for our purposes, it is fun to see where our traffic comes from. :)

First Tooth

And tooth #2 has made its debut as well!

Adventures in NYC

(Disclaimer: Okay...after trying for hours...I cannot figure out how to work my text and pictures together properly. You will have to guess which text goes with which picture! I will try harder next time!)

Friday night we arrived in the Bronx to stay with Edmund and Gabie. We met PG for the first time (he is 5 days younger than Hannah). They showed us they are both hitting similar milestones in attempting forward mobility.

The next morning we got up early to go see the Pope. We had street tickets for his arrival and Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. We ran up and down many many streets trying to find out how to get to the security check point. Unfortunately, due to misdirections from several police officers, and a long wait in several lines...we did not make it into the plaza. So, we watched the jumbotron for a few minutes (and were interviewed by a newsman from Chicago and another from Czechoslovakia).

Since we couldn't see too well, we took up an invitation from Gabie's previous employer, and hiked up 20 blocks to the World Youth Alliance offices on the upper East side. They downloaded the live feed from EWTN and put it up with the projector, where we watched part of the Mass.

Fearing we would miss the next opportunity to see Pope Benedict, we grabbed lunch to go and hiked a couple blocks back to 5th Ave to await the procession.

AND....HERE IS A CLIP OF THE POPE DRIVING BY!

Since others may have missed it. :)