Delayed in Houston

We are on our way to Indiana to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends. We've now been sitting in the Houston airport for 3 hours...our layover was supposed to be 75 minutes. Fortunately, Evelyn has been content (we brought a blanket, so we spread that out on the floor and let her play in between walks).


However the fun began on our last walk. We went to go change Evelyn and used one of the family restrooms to do it. while we were in there, we found a phone.


Being the good, upstanding citizens that we are, we went to turn it in at security. Here's what followed:

Dan: "We found this phone in the bathroom."

Security Man: "Sir, that phone could be a bomb."

Dan: "This phone's not a bomb."

Security Man: (on his walkie talkie) "I'm gonna need backup at station B-23." (to Dan) "Sir, I need you to come with me."

Dan: "Why? It's not my phone!"

Security Man: "You said 'bomb' in an airport, you can't say 'bomb' in an airport."

Stacey: (who packed her breast pump thinking it'd be perfect timing and she wouldn't need to pump until we got to Indy...Evelyn still won't nurse during the day) "Can we speed this up, my boobs are about to explode!"

Dan: "Why can't I say bomb in an airport?! What if I was a bombardier in the war? Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb ba dier!"

So they took all three of us back to the secret room....now you're probably thinking there's no way that happened. And you are probably right. We're delirious from the airport air, and still waiting on a plane. But making up this story helped pass some time, and make us laugh a little. And we really did find a phone in the bathroom and take it to security. They wouldn't take it because apparently the security area is the property of the federal government...and the restrooms are the property of the city of Houston...and they apparently do not play well with one another.

6 months

Our sweet baby girl, you bring such happiness to our lives!  I can not believe that you are already 6 months old.  Your personality continues to show itself every day.  You are a very happy baby, unless you want or need something, then you quickly let us know!  Now that you have perfected sitting on your own, you have started playing independently.  You love playing in your exersaucer in the evenings while I make dinner and we wait for Daddy to get home.  Your biggest milestone this month was starting solid foods!  You did pretty well the first night, but weren't such a fan of rice cereal the next couple of days.  Things turned around again once we added sweet potatoes to your repertoire.  You now eat rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and green beans (though they aren't your favorite).  I usually have to hide your green beans in your sweet potatoes to get you to eat them!  You still love to play with your feet, and are starting to curl yourself up as if you want to sit up when you can't see something that you want to.  You are also days away from rolling over back to front.  If you put a toy or your pluggie off to the side, you will try your hardest to get to it.  This is exciting, but sad for me.  It means you aren't so little anymore and I want to stop this clock that is racing by.  But it means that you are getting bigger, and more independent, and I love the sweet, happy girl that you are turning into.  You still do not sleep through the night (you can start that anytime, my precious girl!), no matter what method we try, you aren't having it.  I suppose I will look back on these few sleepless months and yearn for them at some time.  You are just starting to get some stranger anxiety, especially if you can't see Mommy or Daddy (or Amber) when you are around someone you don't know.  You still scream bloody murder when you are adjusted by Dr. Walker.  You still love being outside, and we got a jogging stroller this month, so now you love going on runs with Mommy and Daddy.  You continue to make our days so much brighter.  We are entering into the Christmas season now, and I can't wait to watch you take it all in!  We love you so much sweet girl!

(a sneak peek of her 6 months pictures...more to come!)

Busy Baking Day

Evelyn and I had a busy day of baking today. Our Life Group is celebrating Thanksgiving together on Sunday, and we are in charge of the turkey (more on that to come later, I'm sure!) and dessert. I couldn't decide between pumpkin-something and apple pie, so I decided to do both! Here is our day in pictures:

My little helper for the day! She just moved into 6-9 months clothes...her legs still need to do some growing though!

Getting the apples ready!

We got sick of the exersaucer and bumbo, so the moby came to the rescue!

Apple pies ready for the oven! (is anyone else drooling?!)

Pumpkin cheesecake ready to cool!

I'm not gonna lie, I kinda want to dig into both of these now! It's going to take some serious self-control to let these sit in my house until Sunday without "testing" them to make sure they taste OK! :-)

It's (Way Past) Time

Six months seems to be marking the time period my body needed to really get back into working out.  I tried to jog/swim/walk a number of times since Evelyn was born and would last about 2-3 days before being exhausted, sore, and not feeling rejuvenated from a work out.  I pretty much dreaded working out and would talk myself out of it most days (which isn't normal for me - I usually enjoy it and look forward to it).  A couple of weeks back I started to WANT to work out - and run again in particular.  Dan and I had decided that we were going to buy our jogging stroller for each other for our anniversary and Christmas.  Since we are entering into the "nice" part of the year weather-wise down here (I still want cold and snow!!!), we decided to go ahead and buy it now.  (And...if you use this link to shop at Amazon, you can help my friends bring home their little girl from India!!)

Here's the beautifulness that is our new jogging stroller!

I've been trying to run every night (boy am I out of shape!), and started bringing along some resistance bands.  There is a "park" about a mile from our house with some benches, so I run the mile out - do about 10 minutes (for now) of resistance band workouts - then run the mile back.  I'm itching to get up to some higher mileage and longer workouts, but am trying to stay safe and listen to my body.

Evelyn seems to enjoy it.  

She was cracking up watching me do side lunges...maybe I need to check myself out in a mirror since I'm doing this in public!

Mmmmm Sweet Potatoes

Well the liking of rice cereal lasted about 2 days.  I can't blame the poor girl, it tastes about as good as cardboard.  We got through the 3-5 day wait for a reaction to rice cereal phase then introduced sweet potatoes.

We think she likes them:

The sigh at the end actually turned into a squeal of delight...but my videoing while feeding skills didn't catch it.  Dan is in the background explaining who Purdue's rivals are...in case anyone is interested!

Funny Frog

When we were in Colorado, Dan and I were rolling on about 3 hours of sleep (and Evelyn was needing a little herself) so we decided a family nap time was in order.  She slept for about 10 minutes, then woke up, so it was Daddy's job to entertain her.  This is what followed:

She was playing with a toy frog that apparently was hilarious, or at least Daddy was!

Needless to say, none of us got much sleep.

Cereal!!

We started solids this week! Last night, we tried thinned down rice cereal, but I think I made it too thin. She still ate it and seemed to like it, but it was a big 'ol mess...so I thickened it up tonight.

She was a little tentative at first.

She started liking it more with some practice.

And by the end wanted to do it herself.

Happy Harvest!!

Yes, I'm one of "those people" who hates Halloween...but I do enjoy dressing my kid up to look cute! Here's our little chick!



It's hard to keep your balance when you're a chick!

The Most Annoying Sound in the World

Last night while feeding Evelyn (nope...still not sleeping through the night!), I heard a chirping sound. After a minute, I realized it was one of our smoke detectors. Ev was having a hard time getting back to sleep, so I stood in her doorway trying to figure out which one it was. It sounded muffled, so I figured it was the one in our attic. Instead of crawling up there at 1am, I texted Dan so that we would remember to change it in the morning.

I woke up this morning to this sight...


Apparently it woke Dan up (I was easily back to sleep), so he had gotten up to figure it out. He stood beneath every smoke detector waiting for the chirp...nothing. So he took them all down and changed all of their batteries, but could still hear the chirping...muffled...and not coming from any of these. After searching the garage, the attic, and considering crawling into the air ducts Jack Bauer style...he figured out it was in the utility room cabinet. Sorry honey, I put that in there when we changed the one in Ev's room to the voice kind...and apparently forgot to remove the battery. Maybe I'll get you your weapons drawer for Christmas for being such a good sport!

5 Years Ago Today...

I said yes!

Dan had coordinated everything with my sisters - making shirts for my nephews to wear while we were taking family pictures - and then he popped the question.  Here's the little pudgies with their shirts on...

Ben (Will), Gage (You), Grant (Marry), and Gavin (Dan)

2006

They've all gotten so big...and we've added a few!

Gavin (holding Evelyn), Heidi, Katie, and Grant

Gunnar, Ben, and Gage

I love you, Dan...thank you for making that day so special and perfect for me!