Babbles by Brook

Natural girl

2012-01-02T17:58:00.001-05:00

I am beginning to think our girl might have been born in the wrong country. I think she may have been more comfortable in an area where less clothing is the norm, Zambia, Papua New Guinea or some such place. This kid LOVES to be naked. You would think with the weather finally turning cold and a drafty house, she might prefer to be a little more covered. Nope. It is all we can do to get her dressed to bring her out in public.

On Christmas night, we were at my parents house, quietly eating dinner. Lily stood up on her chair and loudly said "Is everybody done eating? I wanna DANCE!". The then proceeded to tell everyone that she wanted to "dance naked".

Too soon there will come a time when she can't go around naked, but being a 2 year old, she can still get away with it. Who am I to stop her? I say, "be free, my sweet pea".

Not wearing clothes can have it's advantages. Like while painting for example.

It makes cleanup much simpler.

I swear, I think she is the cutest thing ever.

Handmade gifts

2012-01-01T15:53:00.001-05:00

I love giving handmade gifts whenever I can. Each year I try to make at least a few handmade things. This year I made a lot of them. I got such a kick out of the way Lily squealed "Knitting!!!" as she opened each of her gifts. If you are interested in the patterns I used for these items, the links in the text below will take you to my Ravelry project pages.

I think I'm most proud of these socks for my favorite girl and guy. If you look closely, you can see a little blue paint on Lily's knees, evidence of one of her other Christmas gifts, an art kit for her easel.

Next up is the hat I made for Lily. It was a quick knit, but I it turned out cute. I've had this yarn forever. It was knit up into another hat that I never liked, so I ripped it out and made this out if it. I ran out of the Malabrigo, so I added some of my handspun yarn to accent the blue.

The thing I've made the most of, are these felted slippers. I won't show pictures of all of them. I made 11 pairs for Christmas and birthday gifts over the last few months.

I like to dress the kid ones up. I had made a Cookie Monster pair for my nephew and Lily loved them so much that I decided to make her an Elmo pair. Of course, now that she has her own, she doesn't like to wear them. That is the way it always goes!

I made 2 of these Market bags for the sister-in-laws in the gift exchange.

I made this hat for my mom.

A few of these wash cloths were made.

This technically this isn't a gift, it's for me. But it is something I've been working on for quite awhile, and finished just in time to wear on Christmas.

I also sewed pair of pajama pants for Lily, they have bananas all over them. I don't have any pictures of that at the moment.

Now, on to the next project!

Sweater sleeve dog coat

2011-12-22T20:52:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post this little tutorial for some time. Over the years, I've made quite a few dog sweaters out of sweatshirts and felted sweaters. It all started on a camping trip when the weather turned cold and my poor dog Chloe was shivering her little tail off. In a pinch, I fashioned a sweater for her out of the sleeve of an old shirt the hubby had brought along. It worked so well, I kept making them. It works best for a small to medium sized dog. Sleeves (especially sweatshirt ones) stretch more than you might think.

Here is how it's done.

If you use a sweater, find an old 100% wool one and run it through the hot wash and dryer. You want it to be good and felted so that it will be less likely to unravel. You can also use and old sweatshirt arm.

Depending on the size of your dog, you might be able to leave the sleeve cuff on. In this case, I cut a little off the cuff off to make the opening a little wider.

Next, cut armpit side of the sleeve to make it the length that you'd like for your dog.

I use a zig-zag stitch to sew around the raw edges. This gives the openings a little stretch.

Next, I cut holes on either side to accommodate the dog's front legs. it is best to measure the distance between the dog's front legs and make the holes that far apart.

Zig-zag around these holes.

That's it. Try it on and let your pooch show off a little.

Evolution of a Christmas photo

2011-12-22T20:13:00.001-05:00

Last year I neglected to get my holiday cards sent out, so this year I was determined to get it done. Following the time honored Pagac family tradition, I tried to get a photo with Lily and the dogs. At first, it looked like it might work...

Chip was doing fairly well, but Tater was another story.

After a few minutes, Corey noticed the chickens high-tailing it across the yard to Lily. It boggles my mind, but the chickens LOVE her. They follow her like puppy dogs in the yard and let her carry them around without resistance. They became this tame from her spending so much time playing in the coop this summer. I've never seen anything like it and my family has had chickens nearly all my life.

Lily sees the chickens coming to her...

Pretty soon, the dogs were forgotten.

Every good chicken deserves a kiss, right? Bird flu, shmird flu.

And the one that made it on the card...

Thanks to my friend Aimee for the hand-me-down handmade dress she's wearing in the pics :)

Shassypire is history!

2011-11-04T12:17:00.000-04:00

We've been battling the pacifier (shassypire, as Lily calls it) for what seems like forever. Lily had her first dentist appointment last month and the dentist confirmed that we definitely needed to get rid of it. She recommended the "cold turkey" method. I was not thrilled about that because we had tried that a few months back when we had misplaced all of the pacifiers one evening. It was time for bed and we decided that would be the night she would go without. Lets just say after hours of crying, Corey and I were on our hands and knees scrambling around the house at 4 am, looking for a damn pacifier.

This time we decided to try a tactic that my friend Kim suggested. Cut the end of the pacifier a little every day until it is just too short to stay in her mouth. This worked like a charm. She just slowly quit asking for it. It's been 3 days without a pacifier now. Whoo hoo!

There are no pictures with this post but I did put some new pics of Lily and Corey up on the work blog. You can check it out here.

Girl time

2011-11-01T21:07:00.000-04:00

Lily and I had a fun "girls only" evening tonight. We made broccoli quiche with the most AMAZING crust thanks to tips from our friend Shannon. I made my typical recipe only used frozen butter which I grated on a cheese grater and kept in the freezer until the very last second (per Shannon's instructions). I was skeptical because after I rolled it out, it looked pretty much like it always does. After it baked, though, it puffed up into tender, flakey perfection.

Afterward, we indulged in mud masks. lily wasn't so sure about having the mud on her own face, but loved applying it to mine.

Sorry the pictures aren't the best, they were taken with my phone. You might be able to see the mark on Lily's temple. It was a Trick Or Treating injury from last night.

Who needs TV when you have this kind of entertainment?

2011-10-10T20:42:00.001-04:00

Here are a few videos to share from today.

In the last week or so, Lily has really been interested in the chickens. It seems a little funny to me, since we have had them her entire life. Chickens are nothing new around here. All of the sudden she wants to "pet 'em" all the time. She likes naming the different parts of the chicken and getting in the coop with them. For the most part, the chickens are quite tolerant of her catching them and carrying them around. If they tire of her, they will escape to the enclosed top of the coop and she will patiently sit and wait below. Before long, they come right back down to her. I think they really like her. She was inside the coop when I took the following video.

The next video was taken this evening as the sun was setting and Corey called in some Barred Owls for Lily. I have to say, Corey can do a pretty mean bird call. It is part of what attracted me to him in the first place. No joke! One of our first dates was driving to a reservoir to go bird watching. We watched birds all afternoon and then his hunk of junk car broke down on the way back to campus and I had to call Laura to pick us up. But I digress.... In this video you can hear Corey call 2 owls in. They flew right up to the yard where we could see them. Unfortunately, they were too small to show up on the iPhone video. All you could see were trees, so I didn't include that. Turn up the sound and you should be able to hear Corey calling and the owls calling back.

On an unrelated note, I wanted to share a recipe. I may have shared this one before, but it is worth mentioning again since it is one of my all-time favorites this time of year. They are called Belgian Spice Cookies and you can find the recipe here. I make them extremely thin and crunchy. Almost like a cracker. They have just the right amount of spice and are completely addicting. I alter the recipe a bit by rolling them very thin using lots of flour to prevent sticking to the cutting board. I also do not refrigerate the dough, as I have found that it is much easier to roll when it is not cold.

On my needles

2011-09-29T22:40:00.001-04:00

Today I was inspired by Soule Moma's "On the Needles" post. I love seeing other people's projects, particularly the things that are still being worked on. I love seeing the creative process midstream, and not just the end result. So, I decided to do my own little "On the Needles" post.

In the past, I have been a fairly monogamous knitter, finishing one item before starting the next. Recently, though, I have have been working on more and more projects at once. I do this because I try to match my knitting to what I am doing. For example:

This lace scarf requires quite a bit of concentration. I have to work on it only when there are minimal distractions, like when Lily is asleep. The pattern is a little too intricate for me to remember, so I have to read a chart as I make the stitches. Does this yarn look familiar? I spun it from Stew. It is ~~his~~ her first and only baby coat. The softest yarn ever.

If I need something a little simpler, I can work on Lily's second sock. Here is the first one I completed earlier this week. I started knitting these for her because, as I was knitting a pair for myself, she kept wanting to try them on. She'd try the huge sock on her foot over and over as I knit it up. How can I deny knitting her a pair of her own since she so obviously appreciates hand knits?

When I need something easier still, I grab a washcloth. I have the Ballband washcloth pattern memorized and since it is knit out of thicker yarn, I can knit it more easily without looking. Washcloths are my playground or "chasing Lily around the yard" knitting. I can throw my yarn in a bag and walk around knitting. Today the lady at the park gate commented how funny it is to see me walking around while knitting.

I knit while Lily talks to airplanes...

or gets into other forms of trouble.

In the last month I have done a lot of baby knitting for photo props and gifts since I had a couple newborn shoots. I made 2 newborn stocking caps, 3 newborn nest/pods, a cute little knit frog toy and finished up a pair of booties that had been sitting for 2 years. I started those booties for my niece, Grace and finally finished them in time for her little sister's arrival. More pics of the pods and my cute new niece on my Business blog. There are also some new pictures of Lily on there, unrelated to knitting.

The frog being blocked

The booties

One of the hats

And finally, another non-knitting related picture of Lil.

For the knitters out there, patterns and additional project information can be found on my Ravelry projects page. Look for me there as SpringPeeper. If you are a fellow Raveler, please friend me!

Lily-isms

2011-09-16T17:08:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to post about the cute little things lily says at 2 and a half. She's starting pronounce them better, so I need to hurry up and document the Lily-isms so we don't forget.

Here are a few of my favorites:

She calls a pacifier "Shassy-pire" or just "shaspire", for short.

In Twinkle Twinkle Little Star she sings "Like a vitamin in the sky."

In Row Row Row Your Boat, she sings "Merray, Murray, Murray, Murray, Life is but a dream". (Murray is my mom's donkey).

In the ABC Song, she sings "Now I know my ABCs, nuck nuck, nuck nuck, nuck nuck nuck".

The Sesame Street song where they sing "Sunny Days" she sings "Doe doe day".

I took the photo above with my cell phone at the Library. She absolutle loves the big stone bears. She kept, hugging, kissing and talking to the mama and baby bear. She was explaining to the mama bear what was going by on the street and even gave her some high-fives and fist bumps. I had trouble getting her to leave them when it was time to go.

Buddies

2011-09-13T21:26:00.000-04:00

I've known Chloe's mom, Lex, since I was 14, I think. Now we are lucky enough to have girls who are just a month apart in age. It is so fun to watch Chloe and Lily hanging out and having fun when Lex and I get together. I'm not sure who has more fun together, us or them. I only wish we lived closer and were able to see each other more often.

Here they are this afternoon, sharing a snack while watching "Shaun the Sheep".

Wheeeew!

2011-09-10T16:38:00.000-04:00

I am finally ready to sit down and catch up on my summer blogging. I can't believe it has been a month and a half since I posted anything. There has been so much going on this summer and, unfortunately, blogging fell pretty far down on the "to do" list.

Lets see. Back in June, we were busy packing and getting ready for the big move to Monroe Reservoir. It is really unbelievable how much stuff we have accumulated over the years. Packing it all up makes you realize just how much useless crap you actually have. I donated and threw out what seemed like a ton of stuff, but we still pretty much filled up the moving trailer. We packed all of the boxes into the trailer in late June. We then locked it all up and headed out for a long planned vacation with Corey's family to Dale Hollow, in Tennessee. We stayed in a cozy cabin where Corey got to do quite a bit of fishing and I enjoyed some extra knitting and spinning time. Directly from Tennessee, we headed to our yearly family reunion with my mom's side of the family in Kentucky. As always, we had a lot of fun hanging out, swimming, setting off fireworks, etc. Lily especially loved petting and talking to my aunt's horses. She is getting to be quite the horse lover.

It was in Kentucky that the trajectory of our summer started to get a bit off kilter. Corey was playing basketball with my cousins and BAM! He tore his ACL. Mind you, we were planning to drive home from KY and move the very next day. In the end, my mom agreed to come home with us and help out so that I wouldn't have to move all by myself with a 2 year old. We were able to get everything packed up and cleaned and pushed the move date back by a day. Then, the week after our move, Corey went in for surgery. And just for good measure, someone backed into my car. Because, you know, I needed one more thing to juggle (car repair). In the end, we survived. Corey healed. Lily was taken care of. I didn't go bonkers (okay, maybe just a little). We are pretty much settled in at this point. Which I am very, very happy about.

We are really enjoying the new house. We have made it our own and it is quite cozy and bright. It is set back from the road, which gives Lily plenty of room to play without being close to the road. We have taken full advantage of the beach, spending many a happy day splashing in the water and eating sandy PB&Js.

I thought I'd share a few photos of the house.

Notice Stew in the playpen out front in the photo below. She likes hopping around in there, eating leaves. Yes. I said "She". I took "him" in to get neutered and they spayed "her" instead.

We have a pretty driveway...

Between the house and garage is a large raised bed area that we are using for a garden.

Now that I'm semi caught up, maybe it won't take me so long to post again. I hope.

Too much

2011-07-22T23:27:00.000-04:00

There is so much I need to post, I don't even know where to begin. Instead, I'll just post some cute recent pics of the girlie.

I'm alive!

2011-07-14T15:24:00.000-04:00

To those of you who check my blog regularly only to see the same old, tired post, I am sorry. We have been so busy with packing for our move and then vacationing with 2 different sides of the family, and then actually moving, life has been pretty insane. We officially made the move to the new house last Wednesday. In the midst of everything, Corey tore the ACL in his knee, resulting in even more insanity. Luckily, we were able to convince my amazing mother to come home with us from vacation and she pulled Corey's weight for the move. We would never have been able to do it without her help. At this point, most of the boxes are unpacked, but there is much organizing, curtain hanging, and decorating to be done. I promise pictures in the near future. Thanks for hanging in there with me :)

Helping make beer

2011-06-07T18:54:00.002-04:00

My mom and Lily helped Corey with part of the beer making process.

New wheel design

2011-06-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to wood burning my spinning wheel. I found cute sheep and fence clip art for inspiration and based my design around that. I really like the way it turned out. An added bonus of the design is that I can easily remember which direction to spin my singles because it is the direction which makes the sheep move forward. Now I want to wood burn everything in sight. So fun! Next up, my lazy kate (something that holds bobbins for plying when spinning). I"m hoping to put an angora rabbit design on the lazy kate.

The hoarder

2011-06-06T10:09:00.001-04:00

Hopefully this is a cute phase an not a budding psychological disorder ;)

In recent weeks Lily has decided that before she can nap, she needs to put every possible object she can fit into her crib. The top of the list is Jake, then her balls, next are her bear and monkey, other random toys, books and an article of clothing or two. There is barely enough room for her but that is the way she likes it. Whatever it takes for her to get a good nap, I'm all for it!

Garage sale season

2011-05-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

I'm so happy garage sale season is back in full swing. This past week, my friend Shannon and I took our girls on a garage sale-ing trip. It reminded me of when I was little and my mom and her friend Jean would pile my brother and I along with 2 of Jean's kids into an old woody station wagon (with the "way back" seat) and we would head out to the sales. I remember those days quite fondly, although now I see what hard work it is to keep up with kids at a garage sale. Sheesh!

Anyhoo, last week I scored a bunch of summer clothes for Lily, a big wooden bowl (which I will use for spinning fiber), snow boots for Lily, a practically brand new Cuisinart toaster oven, a free set of funky old luggage for photography, a chinese paper parasol (also for photography), a illustrated print of McCormick's Creek done by a local artist and I'm sure there are other things that I forgot to mention. Oh yeah, brand new Teva flip flops for me! Just in time as mine were wearing out.

Possibly my favorite score was this funky 70s needlepoint of an owl. It obviously needs a new frame, but I am in love with it. Old crafty stuff gets me every time.

A little glamour whilst checking for eggs

2011-05-22T16:10:00.001-04:00

Cute

2011-05-21T16:09:00.000-04:00

Yep. She has him wrapped around her finger.

Illinois

2011-05-20T21:09:00.000-04:00

I wanted to share a few pictures from when we visited my parents a few weeks ago. The evenings were some of the prettiest in recent memory. The temperature was perfect. It was too early for bugs. The grass was lush and green. Just lovely.

Did you notice the gun in Corey's hand? He was trying to shoot pigeons that keep roosting in my parents barn and wreaking all kinds of havoc. Even my super animal loving mother says it is time for them to go. He didn't actually shoot any of them though. They are sneaky little buggers.

Lily had fun playing with grandpa and the big ball my mom uses to train her horse.

We found these pretty little eggs in a tree in their yard.

Good times.

Too soon

2011-05-20T21:08:00.000-04:00

As I followed Lily into the bathroom today, she turned around and gently pushed me back out the door and shut it in my face. That hurt but not as bad as the next thing that came out of her mouth. "Go away mommy". Go. Away. Mommy. I have to say, I teared up a little bit. She doesn't want my help. Boo hoo. Sad day for this mommy.

Wally wool

2011-05-04T15:03:00.000-04:00

Ever since I started spinning, my dad has joked that I should spin yarn from his dog, Wally. Last time I went to their house they had a particularly large amount of hair in a pile after a good brushing. Never one to turn down a challenge, I took it home and went to work.

Here it is on my wheel.

The finished and washed yarn.

The beginnings of a sweater.

The finished product and Wally himself.

It is actually amazingly soft. It reminds me of angora, actually.

Easter 2011

2011-05-03T16:09:00.000-04:00

We spent a nice Easter with Corey's side of the family this year. We went over to Corey's aunt's house where Lily got to ride a pony that was just her size. She loved it.

She was trying to play it cool and hold back her smile. Despite her best efforts, it kept peeking through.

Cousin Lexi is getting really good at riding on her own. So proud of her!

They tucked Josie's dress into her pants for the ride, which cracked me up.

Meanwhile, Tatum and Gracie found other ways to amuse themselves.

After the ride, Lil made straight for the barn to check out all of the other ponies and horses.

She especially liked this one.

And decided he needed a kiss.

After the ride, there was an egg hunt in the yard. Despite the soggy weather, the kids had a blast.

The sweetest moment happened when Lily wasn't looking and cousin Lexi snuck some of her own eggs into Lily's basket to help her out.

Going well

2011-05-02T16:00:00.002-04:00

Things have been going great on the "potty" front. Lil has been spending most of the day diaperless for the last 2 weeks. Most of the time she tells me she has to go and holds it until we get into the bathroom and situated on the toilet. She does not care for the little potty. She prefers the real one with the little donut ring on top. I prefer that too, since it means I don't have to clean out the little plastic pot. Yuck!

It all started one day when she told me she had to go while in the bath tub. I took her out and believe it or not, she went. After that, she went on the potty more than 10 more times that day. I had planned on using some kind of treat to incentivize potty use, but since she was doing it so well, I decided not to. We then encountered a different problem. She wants to go sit on the potty constantly to "try" to go. This gets old very quickly. So then I decided to give her a sticker whenever she actually "goes" and washes her hands afterwards. As you can see, it is working quite well. For some reason, she always puts the stickers on her feet. She is such a little goofy girl. I love it.

The big number 2!

2011-05-01T17:38:00.003-04:00

Lily turned 2 last week, so on Saturday, we had a party at the park to celebrate. We decided to make it a "Bubble Birthday" since Lily loves bubbles so much. I made 5 gallons of homemade gigantic bubble solution and bought another half gallon of Gazillions of Bubbles liquid (which is the very best, in my humble opinion). We had lots of bubble wands and the kids went wild. By the end, most of the kids were covered from head to toe in bubble solution. Lily even dipped her pig tails in it.

I made these garlands, which looked cool spinning in the breeze.

Corey made homemade Rocky Road and strawberry ice cream and his mom made bubble cupcakes and

Lily seemed to like them quite a bit.

I am afraid I lost track of how many she ate until I looked at the photos. Yikes!

We also set up a Self Service Lemon Shake Up Station which went over pretty well. Here are some shakers caught in the act.

We could not have ordered a nicer day. It was in the 70s with a slight breeze. Just perfect.

Thanks to my mom, dad, and friend Lex for letting me borrow some of their pictures to post here. I was having far too much fun bubbling to take many pictures!

Here are a few videos from the day. The first is the candle blowing. At first she kept blowing out of the corners of her mouth but then she finally got it.

I almost forgot to mention one funny factoid. Part way through the party, Lily ditched her diaper and spent much of the rest of the time going "commando" under her skirt. Love that redneck baby!

Moving on

2011-05-01T16:07:00.001-04:00

It is time for us to say goodbye to our current home and move on with another family adventure.

We have spent 4 happy years living at McCormicks Creek. We love it here. The house is nice and the location couldn't get much better, with the beautiful meadow and seldom patronized trails, literally in our back yard. This is the house where we brought home our baby girl and where we have made memories far too numerous to count. That being said, we always knew this would only be a temporary landing pad for our family. With the position Corey has, moving comes with the job. If you want to move up, you end up moving from one park to another to gain experience and get to be where you want to be. Rental houses on the properties are a perk but also a requirement of the job. Managers are required to live on property so as to be able to quickly respond to keep an eye on things and quickly respond to emergencies. I think since the houses are not "ours", in the back of our minds we always see our current home as temporary. Just a pitstop on our life adventure, and we are okay with that. When this opportunity came about, a chance to work on a reservoir property in an area we love, we decided to take it.

We have been quite lucky in the 2 houses we have lived in so far. At Potato Creek, we practically lived in the woods FAR away from any other homes and enjoyed the visiting wildlife. The house we live in now suits our needs quite well and the big yard and meadow provide lots of room for Lily to play and explore.

As it turns out, our move won't be a far one. We are moving to Monroe Reservoir, which is just on the other side of Bloomington, only about 40 minutes from here. We love Bloomington and are glad to be staying close to the friends we have made down here in southern Indiana.

Our new home is on a peninsula of Lake Monroe with only woods between the house and the water. When the leaves are off the trees, there is a beautiful overlook view of the lake from the living and bedrooms. The house has a nice big rec-room style basement and a highly coveted woodstove, something we really missed when we moved out of our Potato house. The lake beach is just a short walk down the road, which I predict is something Lily is just going to LOVE. I predict seeing much less of both Corey and his bass boat in the near future.

Our official move date is sometime around the middle of June. One thing I am NOT looking forward to is all that packing. Oy!

The baby of the house

2011-04-17T23:44:00.000-04:00

I hesitated posting this, because I don't want people to get the wrong idea. I don't believe in buying "Easter bunnies". Each year, thousands of ill prepared people bring bunnies and chicks home as Easter "toys" for children. All too often these animals suffer and die because the new owners had not realized what ownership of such an animal would entail.

I do not take decisions like this lightly. I have actually been planning to get an English Angora rabbit for the past 3 years. The time finally seemed right to get one, as I had done my research on the ins and outs of Angora care and the Greencastle Fiber Event was coming up. I knew that some of the vendors would be selling them at the event. In the end, I contacted one of the vendors and picked up my rabbit early, so I would have a better selection to choose from and not have to worry about the bunny while shopping at the event.

I present to you, "Stew"

Hopefully in the years ahead, Stew will be a trusty companion as well as a good fiber producer for my spinning. He is a very sweet boy, only 7 weeks old when I got him. So far, his coat is quite short, it will grow much longer as he gets older and will also turn more grey, rather than black. English Angora fur is very prone to tangling and matting, so he will need consistent brushing and de-tangling to keep him healthy and happy. We are up for it :)

Runner!

2011-04-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

I just finished week 5 of the Couch to 5 K program. I use an iPhone app which tells me when to walk and when to run. Technically, I should be finishing week 6, but last week I only got one run in so I repeated the week. Up until this week, the longest continuous run was 5 minutes at a time. Today, I did 20 continuous minutes of running! In my wildest dreams I never thought I could do this. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am NOT a athletic person. I'm not even gonna lie, I'm dang PROUD of myself!

Thanks to Virginia for inspiring me!

It's almost midnight...

2011-04-07T23:48:00.000-04:00

... and I'm laying in bed trying to go to sleep but I can't stop thinking of my cute little chica slumbering in the next room. She is doing the funniest stuff right now and I'm just so worried I'm going to forget, so I wanted to document them while I was thinking about it.

Corey made the most delicious Rocky Road Ice Cream the other day. Lily came over to my bowl to inspect it. She said "Poop?". I assured her it was not poop, it was chocolate ice cream. I gave her a bite. She looked at me again, quizzically, and said "poopy!". Let's hope she doesn't get them confused the other way around!

Another random tidbit: she loves nail polish. I find this funny because I never paint my fingernails so she didn't learn it from me. She begs for me to paint hers and then she loves showing them to everyone she comes in contact with. Like random old guys at Aldi who walk by our shopping cart.

First ice cream cone

2011-04-04T13:00:00.000-04:00

Corey took this with his iPhone. I just love it.

Monkey Business

2011-03-30T16:32:00.000-04:00

I recently introduced Lily to some of my childhood stuffed animals. I have always loved monkeys and have a particularly cute mother and baby monkey that I thought Lily would like. The baby wears a diaper and uses a pacifier (so maybe it isn't very realistic). Anyway, I thought this would be a good way to bring up the whole "pacifier=baby", "big girls don't need pacifiers" thing. To my surprise, she doesn't care much for the tiny baby. She likes the mother monkey who happens to be almost as big as she is. For the last few days she has been carrying her around, rocking her in the rocking chair and giving her sips from her sippy cup. Today as we were rushing around getting ready to head to the gym, we had to take a little extra time for the monkey to have a turn in the highchair. Lily fed her oatmeal, quite messily, I might add. I brought out Lily's coat but she insisted that the monkey needed to wear it. Luckily we've been handed down quite a few coats, so I had another for Lily. She even wanted the monkey to ride in the car seat instead of her. I had to draw the line with that one, of course.

This afternoon Lily was telling Corey "Potty! Potty!". We figured she needed to go because she has been getting better at telling us when she feels the urge and now and then she actually goes on the toilet. As it turned out, this time the monkey was the one who wanted to go. It was so cute watching Lily mimic the way I talk to her on the potty. She brought over the little stool and sat on it right in front of the pot, just the way I do with her. Then she softly spoke to the monkey asking "is anything coming out?" which is what I say to her.

Here is a picture I took of the scene. I just love that girlie.

In conclusion, Jakey is still her #1 favorite stuffed toy, but monkey is quickly becoming #2.

P.S. You may notice my handsome hubby sporting a dapper "stache" in the background. He's doing a "Mustache March" with a few friends. They are each required to grow and wear a sweet mustache for the month of March in return for donations to the Testicular Cancer Foundation.

Crafty

2011-03-24T08:21:00.004-04:00

I have been in a crafty mood lately. I finally washed a bunch of raw wool that has been sitting in bags since before we got Lily. Right before we got her, I had signed up for a fleece study where they send you a bunch of samples of different kinds of fleece that you wash, prepare and spin to learn the different unique characteristics of the wool from different sheep breeds. I got the first 6 samples washed back then, but the last dozen or so have been sitting in a dresser drawer smelling rather "sheepy" ever since. Now that I have some freshly washed wool, I have been combing and starting to spin again after a long hiatus. I've also been doing lots of knitting.

I just finished these cute knitted and felted slippers

If you are not familiar with how felting works, you knit something really large out of wool and purposely agitate it in really hot water which intentionally shrinks and felts it. Here are my cute little slippers before and after felting:

Knitted:

And felted:

For the buttons, I had Corey cut tiny wafers out of a tree limb. I then removed the bark, sanded, drilled and oiled them. I used the same technique to make the buttons on the sweater I knitted for my mom for her birthday. I can't remember if I've shown that on here yet. If not, here it is.

It is the same owl pattern which I used to knit one for myself a few years ago. See, the cable pattern at the top makes a row of cute little owls. Hooooot!

I also made a hat for my mom and a matching one for myself. I've pretty much worn this hat every day since. I LOVE it. It is the perfect thing to keep me warm but not too hot.

Today I made Lily these easy little felt barrettes. Her hair is getting so long and thick, her baby barrettes won't hold it back anymore. She is getting better about leaving them in, so I decided it was time to make her a few more.

I also never shared this painting I made for my friend Lex. She is always making me cute stuff, so I wanted to return the favor. To make this I used watercolors and masking fluid.

I stole a photo off her blog, used photoshop to turn it black and white and increased the contrast until it was all black and white (no gray). Then I used a make-shift light table and placed watercolor paper over the photo. I then painted the areas I wanted to remain white with masking fluid. After it dried, I painted on the watercolor paint. When that was dry, I peeled off the fluid and viola!

If any knitters out there are interested in the patterns I used, they can be found here:

Sweater

Hat

Slippers

The bath

2011-03-23T11:01:00.000-04:00

For Lily, bath time is more about playing than it is about washing up and getting clean. She still really loves bubbles and asks for them every time. She likes putting them in my hand and then giving me "five" and sending tiny bubbles everywhere. She also likes putting bubbles on the tip of my nose or on Stinky's back, as he likes to be in the bathroom while we are in there. She calls him over and then gently places a pile of bubbles on his fur. He doesn't seem to mind.

Almost always, water ends up all over me and the bathroom floor...

I love my little mermaid.

Eggcellent

2011-03-22T07:50:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Lily was being a little grouchy. To keep her occupied while Corey and I worked in the kitchen, I asked her to "make me an egg" at her play kitchen. She has a little plastic frying pan with a fake egg in it, and I expected her to pull that out and put it on her stove. Instead, she walked over to the (real) refrigerator and motioned for me to open it. When I did, she went right in and grabbed one of our fresh eggs off the shelf. She walked over to her stove and started tapping the egg on the bottom of one of her little metal pans.

At this point, Corey got quite concerned, thinking that she was going to make a big mess. I told him it was worth the mess to see what she would do. So we let her go. She kept tapping until a little chunk of shell cracked away. She proceeded to put her finger in the hole and crack the shell apart. She then handed me the shell, grabbed her wooden spoon and proceeded to "cook" my egg on the burner. She even added salt and pepper! Luckily my camera was close and I was able to take some pictures while she cooked.

I am so proud of this little girl. But in all honesty, I got a little teary watching her cook. She looked like such a big girl. I'm not ready for her to grow up just yet.

Catching up

2011-03-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm behind on blogging, which means there will probably be a few rapid fire posts to try to get caught up.

First off, we are ALL DONE making maple syrup. In a previous post I had talked about us tapping the trees and collecting sap. For about 3 weeks in February, our free time was dominated with collecting buckets and buckets of sap, stoking the fire and boiling down sap into syrup.

As I mentioned before, this process is not new to me. Here is a picture of me from 30 years ago.

And one taken last month:

We boil each batch over the fire for hours upon hours, when the sap has boiled down enough and is close to becoming syrup, we bring it in the house to finish it off on the stove. Our usual routine this year was to start the outside fire in the afternoon, after Corey would get home from work. Then we would stoke/boil/add buckets of sap until close to midnight. We would then put the pot of "almost syrup" on the stove on low all night. In the morning I would turn it up and finish it off while Corey was at work. This would usually take about 3 more hours on the stove. This part is very tricky because you are waiting for it to get to EXACTLY 219.6 degrees. If it goes over by much, you end up with maple sugar and all that work is wasted.

You can see how this process can take a lot out of a person. By the end of it, we were pretty exhausted and ready for it to be over. In fact, the trees were still running when we stopped. There just comes a point when you are ready to smell like something other than woodsmoke.

When you start looking like this, then you know it is time to stop.

All in all, it was a good year for maple syrup. We ended up with about 7 gallons.

yiPEE

2011-03-04T12:46:00.000-05:00

It's ~~party~~ potty time! For quite a few months now, Lily has been asking to use the potty. We go through this big production, setting her on the pot and talking about it lots. She loves being up there and playing with the toilet paper. We listen very close. She does a lot of wiping, but do date she has never actually "gone" on there.

Today though, was quite different. We heard tinkling! I just about peed my own pants at the sound of it. There were high fives and she gave me a fist bump (which she is very fond of these days). She laughed and laughed knowing exactly what she'd done. We listened again and guess what? More tinkling! She's got the on-off switch on the plumbing figured out. I am SO proud of my big girl right now, I can hardly stand it.

Chip, Chip and more Chip

2011-03-02T21:08:00.000-05:00

Looking back, I realized that none of the photos I've put up of Chip have showed his relative size. Here are a few from today. It was so nice and warm in the sun. The Spring Peepers where peeping. It's finally starting to feel like spring is on the way :)

In other news, Chip was neutered on Monday. He is doing great and is basically back to his old self today. Spaying/neutering is ESSENTIAL to helping get the pet overpopulation problem under control. Did you know that 3-4 million dogs and cats are euthanized in animal shelters each year? It is just as important to neuter as it is to spay. If you are a pet owner, please be responsible!

"Attention Wal-Mart shoppers"

2011-03-01T13:55:00.000-05:00

For the most part, Corey and I avoid Wal-Mart like the plague. There are lots of reasons we dislike the place, so I don't need to list them all here. Well, apparently Chip does not share in our distain for the place.

There are times when we need this or that and against our better judgement, we find ourselves in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Such was the case a few days ago when we stopped by to get labels to print for our maple syrup jars. This particular Wal-Mart happened to be in Champaign, on our drive home from my parent's house. The parking lot was packed, so we parked in the back. When Corey jumped out, Chip squeezed out the door and took off. He had been quite scared while driving and I think he just freaked. Corey chased after him but there was no way to keep up. Chip was weaving around and under all of the parked cars. He was running around like a maniac. I had to stay by the car as Lily was still strapped inside, but Corey was running among the parked cars, trying to locate him. At one point Corey came around the corner with his hands in the air, he couldn't find him and had practically given up. Just then a guy across the way yelled "That dog went into Wal-Mart!". Sure enough, he'd gone inside. Maybe he had MilkBones on his mind, or a T-bone steak. We weren't sure. Corey found him at the check-out counter where the cashier was reading his tag. She let go when she realized Corey was looking for him, only to have Chip dash away again. Great! Corey did finally catch up with him. Good grief. Luckily it all ended well and he made it safely back to the car. It is actually lucky that he did run inside as I don't think we would have ever caught up with him if he'd kept running.

Tater's Chip

2011-02-24T18:04:00.000-05:00

We knew when we lost Chloe that it wouldn't be long and we'd be ready to rescue another. We thought we'd wait a month or so. At first we couldn't tell if Tater was missing Chloe, but after a few days, she seemed depressed. She just hung out in the bedroom, away from us. She used to always sit on the couch, by Chloe. The weather has been unseasonably warm, so we've spent quite a bit of time in the yard over the past week. When Lily and I would be outside, Tater wanted us to chase her, they way Chloe used to. We tried, but we couldn't keep up with her quick little legs. It made me sad to see her without a friend.

I started keeping an eye on Petfinder.com, watching for small, short haired, playful yet cuddly dogs. I wanted a dog similar to Chloe only smaller, making it easier for our entire family to fit in the car. Nearly every weekend we are on the road to somewhere and we are usually packed pretty tight. As for the short hair, I just prefer short haired dogs for some reason. So sue me.

We went and checked out a few dogs but none really stood out as THE dog.

My friend Lex actually found Chip at the Hendrick's County Animal Shelter. She had visited the shelter looking for a dog that might fit the bill for us. She called saying that there were 3 that might work, but she was pretty sure the one that I would like best was a little Jack Russell that had been found as a stray.

Lily and I jumped in the car and headed up there to check the dogs out. The first 2 we saw were quite cute, but one look at the last little guy and I was pretty sure he was THE ONE. He had been in the shelter for a week and they said he looked young, but over 1 year old.

We took him into the "Visitation Room", which made us feel a little like we were visiting a convict. He was playful and sweet. That was it!

We brought him home Tuesday night. in the first 24 hours, he had a few accidents. He lifted his leg on the trash can, the toy box and once by the door. I caught him in the act each time and was able to give him a stern "NO!". Scared the poor little guy to death. It must have gotten through to him because we have now had an accident free 24 hours. I'm not delusional enough to think we've got him completely potty trained already, but it is quite a start!

He was not leash trained at all either, but he is learning that quickly, too. He seems very smart and observant.

Tater is warming up to him. Today they were playing and jumping around for awhile, which was quite sweet. Tater is definitely still trying to show him that she is Alpha Dog. He seems to be okay with that. The cats don't even seem to realize he is a dog, probably because he is so darned small (he weighs 12.5 lbs right now, but could definitely use to gain a few). Ed is usually scared of new dogs in the house but he even slept on top of Chip's wire crate.

So far, he seems like a great addition to the family. Lily calls him "poppy" (puppy). She also calls him Chip. Unfortunately, her pronunciation of his name sounds very similar to a four letter swear word beginning with the letter "S". Oops!

Speak softly and carry a big stick...

2011-02-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

Lily has the stick carrying part down. The speaking softly part? Not so much.

She really likes to hike on the trails behind our house. She doesn't want to be carried while walking, she likes to take her own sweet time and find big sticks to whack things with. She stops every few seconds to whack something or other.

When she was all done hiking, she laid down in the middle of the trail and gave up.

Markers

2011-02-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

Luckily they are washable.

Because everyone loves to hear their own voice on video, right?

2011-02-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

After a sad post yesterday, I thought it might be nice to do something a little different and show off my brand new yarn swift, which I constructed completely from Tinkertoys. Super exciting subject matter here, I KNOW!

A few things to note after re-watching the video:

#1. To clarify, you measure your skein by first measuring the number of inches of one complete wrap around the niddy noddy (in my case, my niddy noddy makes an 84" loop). Then you wrap all of your yarn around the niddy noddy, count the number of wraps and multiply it by the number of inches in one round on the niddy noddy (in my case, that would be X no of wraps multiplied by 84"). Then you divide by 36 to get your total yardage. Hope that makes sense. I think I just made it a whole lot more confusing than it really is!

#2. I constructed my swift after seeing several different Tinkertoy swift versions on the internet. Here is the tutorial I used to build mine. My pieces are different colors because I used knock off Tinkertoys.

#3. You would typically not pull your ball of yarn off the winder until the swift emptied. I just didn't think people would want to watch the entire process.

Goodbye, sweet girl

2011-02-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

Today I had to do one of the most difficult things I've done in my life. I had to say goodbye to my most loyal friend and companion, Chloe.

She had been doing much better with keeping food down after we started feeding her in her special chair, but unfortunately, in the last few weeks, her legs were getting much weaker and she was having trouble making it up and down the stairs. I was having to carry her up the stairs and up and down from the couch. She was limping and having trouble getting traction on the wood floor due to her unsteadiness on her feet. She was also having digestion problems. Due to her MegaEsophagus, if she would eat one tiny little thing off the floor, even one kernel of corn, she would get violently sick, sometimes for hours.

Awhile ago I was reading something about how to know when it is time to make the decision to say goodbye to a loved pet. It is such a hard thing to do, you just never want to let go. This thing I read said to think about the things your pet has always loved to do. When he or she can no longer do the majority of those things, it is time. For Chloe, her favorite things in life were:

#1. Food and treats
#2. Running free in the yard, chasing scents other animals had left behind

Due to her MegaEsophagus problem, she could no longer have treats of any kind. She couldn't have any solid food at all. This was very sad for all of us because she just lived for her Beggin' Strip treat every evening and a few Milkbones sprinkled throughout the day.

She could also no longer be allowed to run free (without supervision) for fear that she would find and eat something she found and get sick. Due to her limp, even just a quick outing to go to the bathroom would cause her quite a bit of pain.

Once the decision was made, I just could not bring myself to bring her to the vet clinic to be euthanized. Our vet is very nice and has helped Chloe tremendously over the last few years, but the vet's office was a place of fear for her, and I could not stand the thought of her last moments being fearful. Not to mention the condition Corey and I would be in having to wait in the waiting room.

In the end, Corey found a large animal vet who was willing to make a house call and put her to sleep here. I didn't think to ask who it would be until this morning, but it turned out that the vet was someone I knew, a client of mine back when I was working. This brought me more comfort because I knew he was a kind and gentle person. The vet came by a little after 10am laid Chloe to rest right in her favorite spot, in the corner of the couch.

We wrapped her in a pretty pink blanket and buried her on one of the grassy hills in the field behind our house. That hill was the place she would always run to when she realized that the underground fence was not working. When I would go looking for her, she would undoubtedly be there, sniffing away at the trail of some rabbit or coyote. Now she is at peace among the hills and trees and rabbits and deer. It is where she would want to be, I'm sure of it.

We keep reminding ourselves that she had a wonderful life. She was the best dog a person could ask for, and a great friend to Tater. She did a wonderful job teaching Lily about kindness to animals, too. She will be very greatly missed.

Here are a few of my favorite photos of Chloe. They are not the best pictures, but they show the real "Chloe" that I want to always remember.

The next 2 pictures are from the day that I got her. A co-worker of mind had discovered her and her brother out in the country rummaging through trash. When she asked a neighbor about them, he said they'd been begging for food for weeks, starving after apparently being dumped. He said he said he would kick them whenever he saw them to try to get them to leave (nice!). Chloe's brother had a bit of meat on his bones, but chloe was extremely thin. From the moment I got her, she has been the most ravenous eater I have ever seen. She would jump in the air like a pogo stick as I would bring her her food. She lived for food.

Here she is attempting to eat a waffle whole.

Chloe's brother was a very sweet dog and I wanted to keep him, too, but knew I could not keep both dogs as I was just starting my career and getting ready to move into a small apartment on my own at the time. I decided that Chloe would be the one I would keep because she was more timid and less likely to be adopted. People have always said Chloe was an ugly dog, with her small head and muscular body, but in my eyes, she was always the prettiest dog in the world.

We were never sure of how old Chloe was, since she was a stray, but I had her for over 8 years. Over time, Corey grew to love her too. He even managed to use her as a way to tell me he loved me for the first time. It happened when I was telling him about Chloe having to sleep right next to me in bed or she would whine all night on the floor. I said "I just don't understand why she has to be with me every single second" and he replied "She does it because she loves you, and I do too".

Here is my favorite family portrait with the dogs.

Goodbye my girl. I will hold you in my heart forever.

Starting the process

2011-02-13T21:11:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. We tapped a few trees today and Corey had done the others on Friday. Those had been drilled while everything was still frozen up. I was not sure that tapping frozen trees was okay, but Corey called the forestry office and they said it was fine. The ones we tapped today sure were flowing. The sap was pouring in a steady stream for a bit out of one of the taps (see below). Typically, your doing well to get a slow and steady drip, drip, drip. Sap runs best when the temperatures are below freezing at night and well above freezing during the day. Today it was nice and warm, and the forecast looks promising for sap production in the coming week.

Here I am drilling the hole.

Pounding in the tap.

We ran out of last year's batch of maple syrup in December, so we're ready!

Doing this brings back such great memories of using these same buckets and taps on my parent's trees growing up. I know at the time I probably complained a lot about the hauling of heavy buckets, but I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. So glad Lily will have the same experience to remember.

Brushing teeth

2011-02-09T22:58:00.001-05:00

Daddy gets to brush her teeth, so she decided to return the favor.

Dancing and moisturizing

2011-01-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

It has been awhile since I've posted videos, so I thought I'd go ahead and post some of my recent favorites.

The first one features Lily perfecting her moves while dancing along to the Michael Jackson game on the Wii...

Lily is still really obsessed with moisturizer. Luckily, with the cold winter and lack of moisture in the house, we can all use it right now. Lily loves being chief applicator.

If you were wondering why Chloe is wearing what looks like one of those silly neck pillows you wear on an airplane, it is a special pillow attached to her collar that helps with her Megaesophagus. It really does seem to be helping and she does not mind it.

Mamaw and Papaw come for a visit

2011-01-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, Corey's parents came for a visit. We took them to the WonderLab where Lily had fun showing them some of her favorite exhibits like the fossil excavation area:

and the mist bubbles

We had fun making a family portrait with one of those plastic pin things. That is TC on top, then Mark (love the glasses), then Corey and finally Lily.

At home Lily enjoyed getting doted on by Mamaw and Papaw.

While they were here, we returned some Wii games and bought Michael Jackson Experience for the Wii. It is a dance game where you get to dance just like Michael. It is hilarious and fun and a major workout. TC, Corey and I danced our hearts out for HOURS. LOVE IT!

Times they are a changin'

2011-01-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately I have no cute picture for today, just observations.

Lily is growing up. For the most part, her words are pretty clear but there are a few that have always stumped her. Ever since the first time she requested it, she has called milk "dolf". I have no idea why. It doesn't sound anything like "milk". We tell her "milk" and she corrects us, "dolf!". Last night we were driving and really needed to get some milk. I got back into the car, gallon of milk in hand, and she said "milk!". Corey and I had been waiting for this moment, but at the same time, it made us sad. She used to call birds (and butterflies) "dee-aye" (Corey insists that she is saying "kee-aye", but whatever). Just recently she started using correct words for those, too. We are happy that she is moving on from baby-dom, but sad about it, too. Our pickle is growing up and it is a little too much for her parents to take.

Chloe issues, etc.

2011-01-07T15:20:00.000-05:00

It seems like when it rains, it pours when it comes to illness.

From Thanksgiving through Christmas, Chloe was in and out of the vet. She has been vomiting all the time and we could just not figure out what was wrong. She seemed healthy otherwise, but just could not keep her food down. The vet kept doing test after test but just couldn't figure out what the problem was. Finally, after a barium test, Chloe was diagnosed with Mega Esophagus. Basically her esophagus is enlarged to many times the size it should be. Food does not travel along as it is supposed to anymore. There is no real cure for this. I did a bunch of research online and found a group of others with dogs who had this problem. In many cases, it is possible to control the symptoms by having the dogs eat in a special chair called a "Bailey Chair", named after the first dog who used one. The chair keeps the dog upright while they eat and they have to sit in it for 20 minutes afterword while the food travels down the pipes with gravity, since the muscles that normally do the work are not longer functioning. You have to make their food very liquidy with a food processor and lots of water, to make it easier for it to travel down to their stomach. At first, we were discouraged because even using the chair Chloe was throwing up some. I had been soaking her normal dry food in water and then whirring it through the food processor. Then I decided to switch to canned food (also whirred in the food processor with water). That seemed to do the trick. She seems to be improving quite a bit. Here is a cell phone picture of her in the Bailey Chair Corey built for her.

At first Chloe squirmed a lot and tried to get out of the chair. Now she is much more relaxed in there. It is very cute because Lily tries to entertain her. Here is a video.

Yesterday, I found Chloe putting Jake in the chair. Maybe he has Mega Esophagus, too?

Then just when we thought we were all feeling better, Ed the cat came down with bladder issues. The vet through he needed surgery, but in the end it turned out to be treatable with medication. Thank goodness!

Here is a random photo that I love.

and another...

These days Lily has 4, count them, 4, blankies. She is very attached to each of them and each morning she gathers them all up and carries them around the house. Throughout the day, they are deposited randomly around the living quarters and at night they must be tucked in with her and Jake. Yesterday she wet the bed during her nap and I had to put them into the washer. She cried and cried and hugged the washing machine. I had to drag her away from it with tears running down her cheeks. Poor girl.

Another funny thing happened the other day. I was on the computer in my room and she walks in and plops a wet diaper smack on top of my keyboard. I was in complete shock trying to figure out how she got into the diaper pail. Then I look down to see her nakkie hiney. Point taken, little one! Love that girlie.

Oh, and I've started another 365 Project. I guess I'm just crazy. If you want to see it, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spring_peeper/sets/72157625738907890/

Christmas 2011

2011-01-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

The week before Christmas, we had family Christmas with the Rieman side. It had been quite a long time since I'd seen everyone because unfortunately I could not make it to Thanksgiving over there (Corey and Lily had to go without me), so it was nice getting to spend time with everyone.

In the previous picture you can see Lily playing with the toy that was the biggest hit with her, a little track that small cars roll down. Her aunt Tam and Uncle Nathan got it for her and she LOVES it. Her mamaw handmade an adorable doll complete with a soft carrying case and outfit changes for her. It is adorable! I need to take a pic and post it.

We got home from the Keys just in time for Christmas morning at home. Lily woke up early, which was fine by me because I was super excited for her to open her gifts. She caught Corey carrying in the play kitchen that he made for her (with the help of our friend Doug). She wanted to play with it right away.

My parents were able to spend Christmas day with us, which was nice. Here are a few more pictures of Lily playing with her new toys.

We had such a fun holiday, even if it was a bit of a whirlwind!

The Keys

2010-12-26T20:29:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, my parents decided to surprise my brother's family and us with a last minute vacation to the Florida Keys. Of course we were thrilled to leave the cold snowy weather we'd been experiencing and head to warmer climates, and we flew down last Sunday.

As it turned out, the Keys were experiencing record low temperatures just prior to our visit. Luckily the temperature did rise throughout our stay and we were able to enjoy t-shirt and shorts weather most of the time.

The guys spent one "unforgettable" day fishing in a rented boat on the ocean. While they did catch Yellowtail Snapper, Grey Snapper, Puffer Fish and Grouper, my brother also caught a case of seasickness. Fishing in the sea turned out to be quite a bit more grueling than anyone had anticipated, so they decided to forgo additional days of fishing for more family time, which was just fine by the rest of us.

Unfortunately, my brother was not the only one under the weather for some of the trip. My poor little niece Lexi had a stomach bug which seemed to hit most at night. Lily, Corey and my mom also experienced some sickly moments, but fortunately, they were all still able to thoroughly enjoy the trip.

We spent two beautiful days at the beach. One day we went to the beach at Bahia Honda State Park. The sand at this beach was awesome! It was almost like clay, it was so fine and stuck together wonderfully for building sand castles and such. There was a neat little sand bar just off the beach that we could wade to get to. The other beach we visited was Sombrero Beach on Marathon Key (the same Key our rental house was on). This was another picturesque beach with lots of nice sand only it was a little coarser with more tiny shells. Lily loved the beach, venturing into the water even though it was quite chilly. She also really liked feeding the seagulls and playing at the playground next to Sombrero Beach.

My photos in this post are a mix of cell phone shots and a few taken with my nice camera. I didn't take my DSLR on the beach for fear of sand particles making there way into my camera. Luckily my iPhone does a pretty good job.

While Lil didn't have the dogs to feed while on vacation, she was able to find other animals willing to share her snacks.

At the aquarium in Key West, checking out the "Touch Pool".

At the butterfly conservatory

Finding a creative way to keep Lil's head propped up while she napped.

and at the National Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key

Thanks Mom and Dad, for a great vacation!

P.S. This was not the first time Lily had visited the ocean. She got her first glimpse at the ripe old age of one week.

This was in San Francisco, of course. That is "The Rock" behind us.

*edit to add. I just realized that I am wearing the same white sweater in the last two photos. It was really cold in SF that day, so I had it layered under my sweat shirt. You can see it peeking out of my hood. I wear it a lot, obviously!

A little out of order

2010-12-26T19:20:00.000-05:00

I have lots of pictures to post about the surprise trip to the Florida Keys that we just took, but I didn't want to forget about these photos I intended to post awhile back.

Lily really enjoyed helping decorate the tree this year.

Here she is helping daddy hang the lights.

When it was done, she thoroughly inspected his work.

She loved taking each ornament out of the box and inspecting it before handing it to me to hang on the tree.

Sometimes the ornament inspection required a taste test. Or then again, maybe she was trying to blow into it. It was a fake horn, after all.

The best little helper a mommy could ask for.

Last but not least, the star. We hadn't even told her it went on top yet, but she decided it made a good "Lily topper".

Quick little video

2010-12-25T00:34:00.000-05:00

I have much more to post about our vacation in the Keys. Here is a quick video to prepare you for the cuteness that is Lily in a swimsuit...

Right now

2010-12-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

Once in awhile I find it fun to post the random tidbits that make up our life right now, in this moment. So here goes:

Lily is OBSESSED with moisturizer. She wants to put in on 24-7. Mostly her legs, sometimes her stomach and often the dogs. She cries big fat tears if we take it away. You know, if she's eating it or something.

We recently bought a membership to the WonderLab, a science center in Bloomington. They have a really neat water table with squirties and whirlpools and such. Best of all (for Lily, at least) there are lots and lots of brightly colored balls. She LOVES the water part. Each time we have gone, I have to drag a screaming drenched child away from the table when it is time to leave. I have learned to bring a complete change of clothes.

Lily loves to watch herself on video. We take tons of home movies and she really enjoys watching the ones of herself. Her absolute favorites are the videos she calls "Balls!!!" which are videos of her at the WonderLab. Go figure. They crack her up every single time. Other than that, she doesn't watch TV. We're choosing to wait until she is a bit older for various reasons. She hasn't showed any interest in TV whatsoever, which is probably because Corey and I don't watch it much ourselves.

Right now, if you were to ask Lily for a kiss, you'd get one of two things. Either she would nod and "allow" you to kiss the top of her head only, or she would give you what my dad refers to as a "Carp kiss". A carp kiss is a big sloppy kiss with smooshed out lips, like a fish. She randomly assigns people their own kind of kiss. Goofy girl.

Since I need a picture to go with this post, I'll post this random, badly cropped selfie, taken at my friend Lex's house. She has the most ridiculous blanket with feathers on it. How impractical is that? She says it's all about the style, not practicality.

Well, thats all for now. I'm going to bed.

Lucky cat

2010-12-07T16:24:00.000-05:00

Lily just spontaneously told Stinky "Love you". She's never told me that.

Tree Time

2010-12-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

Last night, we made our yearly trip to the U-Cut Christmas tree farm. Corey always wants to get a tree fairly early, while the tradition at my house growing up was to wait until about the middle of December. I don't mind going early though, as it it just that much warmer. It loses some of the fun if you are racing from tree to tree whilst trying not to loose appendages to frostbite. The weather was quite nice yesterday, so it was a good day to do it.

You know it is a bad sign when as you drive up to the tree farm, the employee tells you the standing trees "are looking pretty bad this year" and points you toward a barn full of shipped-in trees. Corey immediately shot back with a "NOPE!". "We'll cut our own, thank you!". Our feeling is, the whole point of dressing up the tree is to make it look pretty. What fun is a tree that is perfect to begin with? I want a tree with character, darn it! So yes, the trees were quite yellow and sparse but that didn't deter us a bit in our quest for the Rieman family tree.

Seeing how my parents U-Cut farm put me through college, you know I had to represent. Indiana Fresh Christmas Tree Growers in the hiz-ouse!

You know what's funny? I used to wear this same coat back when I was the one measuring, shaking, hauling and baling the trees.

Lily had a permagrin as we walked among the trees, discussing the positives and negatives of each. It didn't take long for us to find one that was just the right size for our living room.

Lily even got to straighten the bottom with daddy's help.

Picking out a Christmas tree with our own little girl is just a dream come true. Every aspect of our life is so much more fun these days.

It's official...

2010-12-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

She spends too much time with the dogs.

I promise, we did not teach her that.

In this one, she is saying "See ya, bye" to Chloe, but seems to be thinking the opposite. I love how she looks at the mess on the floor and seems to be thinking "I wonder who did that?". Yeah, I wonder!

Earlier this month

2010-11-26T17:15:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago a followed Lily around for a fun little photo shoot behind our house. They say your own kids tend to be the hardest to photograph, and I would tend to agree with that. When I do sessions with other children, I'm someone new and interesting, but with my own kid, I'm just "mom". She thinks "She's predictable. I can look at her any old day". I took tons of pictures and handed the camera off for Corey to take a few of me, too. I'm trying to do that more.

and one more of the little rockstar. I don't think she is getting a big head, or anything.

Helpful

2010-11-23T20:22:00.001-05:00

Lily is always right there to help out the animals.

Unforgettable post

2010-11-16T14:43:00.000-05:00

If you have not checked out my friend Jennifer's blog, please do. Her post today about how her little girl came to be is truly incredible.

http://littlblogbigwoods.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-my-baby-girl-came-to-be.html

ABCs

2010-11-16T11:47:00.000-05:00

I missed the "A B C D" part, but the rest is there. She loves how she can see herself in the camera.

Tucked away safe, not forgotten

2010-11-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

Lily carries her special guy Jake around wherever she goes. Yesterday, I found him smooshed into the storage compartment of her car. At first glance, it might look like she forgot about him. Then you'd realize that, because she loves him so much, she tucked him away in a special place where she could carry him with her wherever she goes.

Just because you don't always see something, doesn't mean that it doesn't hold a special place in your heart. I've been thinking a lot lately about Lily's brithmother and the unbelievable gift she has given us. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her and the loving choice she made for her dear, sweet baby girl. I want her to know that Lily is growing, and striving, and funny, and affectionate. She is strong willed, and at the same time, sweet natured. She loves life, and animals, and funny faces, and water. She fills our lives with constant laughter and love. We simply cannot imagine life without her in it. Without J, none of this would be possible.

J, we want you to know that we carry you in our hearts always. You are in Lily's heart, too. The 3 of us love you and care about you very much.

Happy girl Lily:

Dogs can be so ungrateful

2010-11-02T14:54:00.000-04:00

Lily likes it when I put oyster crackers in a cup. Most of the time, she doesn't eat them herself, she wants to feed them to Chloe. Not sure why, but Tater isn't often involved. Today, she found a spoon and proceeded to feed Chloe her crackers on a spoon. I thought it was the most adorable thing when I heard her tell Chloe "Pweeeez" prior to giving her a bite. That's my girl, trying to teach a dog to use her manners and say "please". If she succeeds, I think we might be millionaires!

Of course, I had to take a video. You can hear her tell Chloe "bite" and "pweeeeez".

Fall-o-ween 2010

2010-10-30T23:28:00.000-04:00

Each year, the park has Fall-o-ween festivities. In the campground, there is trick-or-treating with almost every campsite participating. People go all out with decorating their site. One year Corey and I were judges of the campsites, which was fun. This year turned out to be even more fun, as we took Lily trick-or-treating for the very first time.

See the trepidation? Yes, this was, in fact, her first time at the rodeo.

It didn't take long and she figured it out. Grab a handful and say "tank cheeeew".

Pretty soon, we where having to hold her back from helping herself to seconds.

Here are just a few decorated campsites:

Here is the girl, chillin' like a villain on the way back to the nature center.

We had to cut our trick or treating short so we could get daddy to the Haunted Trail where he was wanted...

Did you take a close look at that bat on the poster? The theme this year was "Dracula" and Corey was the title character.

Lily and I toured the trail during the friendly, daylight time. She wasn't scared in the least. It didn't hurt that she already knew all of the actors. We toured the trail with a nice family from the campground who had an especially cute mutt with a curly tail. Wish I'd gotten a photo of him.

Last few days

2010-10-30T10:42:00.000-04:00

We went over and visited Gramma for a few days this week. Grampa was out of town, so we had her all to ourselves. Lily follows her around like a little puppy dog. Instead of calling her Gramma, like I've tried to teach her, she just calls her "Mom" with a little extra emphasis on the last "m". I assume she calls her this because that is what I call her, after all. This is alright with me. She usually calls me "Mommy" so Gramma can be "Mom" if Lily prefers. One bit of excitement came when Lily let herself out the front door and tried to take a little walk. I had ran to the bathroom for a second and hadn't even asked mom to keep an eye on her since there isn't that much for her to get into over there and we had safeguarded the staircase. Little did we know that Lily had mastered the door handles at their house! Yikes! Luckily mom discovered her just as she made a break for it.

Lily is going through a little vocabulary explosion these days, which makes it especially fun to take her places and see what she'll say. She was able to point out "Wally" (my parent's dog), "Donkey", "egg", and lots of other things that I've already forgotten. She also learned to flush the toilet while there, which I am afraid will not be as great for us, as she's going to be wasting a lot of water if we don't watch out.

On Friday, we went to a nearby orchard to get some apples and check out the animals. They had goats, which Lily seemed to like.

She and Gramma got to rock in a gigantic rocking chair, too.

Here she is, chillin' in the back seat on the way home to Indiana.

Hello

2010-10-26T22:47:00.001-04:00

If I were trick-or-treating and someone had this pumpkin on their porch, I'd kiss them then and there.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/10/lionel_richie_halloween_pumpki.html

Getting down

2010-10-20T15:27:00.000-04:00

Check out these moves. She loves this creepy skeleton dude from the Halloween stuff we pull out each year.

I hate the pacifier. We are trying to ween her from it, but she is pretty attached right now.

Jake-ey

2010-10-18T21:53:00.000-04:00

I believe Jake was the very first toy we bought for Lily when we brought her home to Indiana. He caught my eye at Target because he has a music box inside and plays a little tinkly lullaby when you wind him up. As the music plays, his head moves in a very slow circle which sort of nuzzles into you if you are sleeping next to him. The music tapers off very slowly, which is a really nice way to go to sleep. Corey named him "Jake the giraffe" for whatever reason. Over the past year and a half, Lily has grown ever more attached to him. When she is getting sleepy, she'll start calling for him and roaming around the house looking for him. "Jake-ey, Jake-eeeeey" she'll say over and over. When she finds him, she immediately pinches one of his ears or horns in between her thumb and forefinger and rubs his soft fur under her nose, holding him close with her other arm. She rubs like this until she eventually falls asleep. Even while sleeping, she usually has quite a grip on poor little Jake. When she wakes up, before she even sits up, she hands me Jake. Then she reaches out her arms for me. She won't leave the crib without him.

Here she is with Jake at 3 months old. Boy, does time fly.

As if she needed it!

2010-10-10T18:40:00.000-04:00

On Friday, Lily ran from the living room to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. I went in after her and in the 20 seconds it took me to get to the door, she had reached into my makeup cabinet (the baby lock is broken), pulled out an old powder container and "powdered" her face. She then carried it over to Chloe the dog and attempted to powder her face, too. Here is what I found in the bathroom:

How can I be upset when she's that cute?

We recently noticed another funny thing she must have picked up from us. When she has something she likes and wants to save, she tucks it under her chin to hold it. The first time she did it, she had a little sucker from the grocery store and she was happily sucking on it in the back seat of the car. When I went to get her out, she quickly tucked it under her chin and held it in place while I removed her arms from the seat belts. While we were camping, she did the same thing with a half eaten marshmallow and later with a particularly nice looking plastic fishing lure (without hooks, of course).

Vintage cute

2010-10-07T15:57:00.000-04:00

If we are friends on Facebook, you may have already seen this photo of Lily in the antique baby buggy, but if not, you can see a post on my business blog about it here.

She has been being so funny lately. Like one day when she pointed to my underwear and asked inquisitively, "diaper?". Or anytime the toilet flushes she has to run in there, wave and say "see ya!" to whatever is going down the pipes. The other day, she kept pulling her pants down, running over to her little potty, sitting on it, grunting (as if she was straining to go) then jumping off. She did this over and over and over.

When she really wants something now, she draws the corners of her lips way back and says "peeeeeeeese" (please). How can you refuse that? She still says "Nanu nanu" and points, but it is usually followed by "peeeeeese".

Grandma's house

2010-09-29T20:38:00.000-04:00

I took these photos a few weekends ago when we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa on our way up to Wisconsin for a visit. I think the horse and donkeys are just as curious about Lily as she is of them.

Funny stuff

2010-09-24T15:32:00.000-04:00

In the last few days, Lily has really increased her vocabulary. For one thing, she started saying "Oh man!". If she can't quite reach something, or something unexpected happens, she's all "Oh man!". It is so funny. I guess I she hears me say it a lot.

She's also started saying "diaper". And getting much more interested in what all of this changing is all about. I'm hoping that awareness quickly transitions into potty training.

This morning I was applying lotion to my legs straight out of the shower. She was watching me very intently and when I was done, she pointed to the lotion bottle saying "nanoo nanoo" meaning "I want it". I put some lotion on my hands, and some on hers, and we rubbed it onto her legs. When I was done, she came very close and put her arms around me and her head on my shoulder and gently patted my back to say "thank you". It doesn't get any better than that.

Update on #6

2010-09-21T15:29:00.000-04:00

Last night we were a little concerned about #6. After hatching in the late afternoon, it was having trouble getting going. Typically the mother sits on all of the hatchlings until they are done hatching and are all fluffed out. In this case, the little suprise egg was so much later than the rest, I think she had given up on it hatching. She peeked into the nest every so often to look at it, but she was busy taking care of the other 5 and couldn't go in and sit on him/her. Corey gingerly took the new little one outside and set it by the others so he/she could warm up and dry off in the afternoon sun. When Corey set the chick down, the mom pecked Corey hard on the hand. Corey warned me to turn around, just in case the mom attacked and killed the chick, seeing it as an intruder. Instead she inspected it closely and then seemed to understand that it was one of hers. While it's nest mates were running about, this little one was having a hard time figuring out how to get around. It's legs didn't seem to be working right. No doubt it was still very tired from making it's way out of the shell. In this video taken yesterday evening, you can see, it is having a bit of trouble.

When the hen and the other chicks went in to the nest for the night, the late bloomer was stuck outside, still unable to walk. Corey tucked him into the box with the others and momma bird gently coaxed it under her belly. After a good night's sleep, you could hardly tell this one from the rest. So glad it is doing well. Here they are this morning.

Yesterday as we were watching the surprise chick hatch, Corey and I were talking about the mom chicken and what a good job she was doing. Corey was quiet for awhile, and then he said "Can you imagine how she felt when she heard the first peep after all those months waiting?". See why I love that guy?

Gone broody

2010-09-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

This summer, one of our hens started going "broody". She sat dutifully on her and her sister's eggs, waiting for them to hatch. She would sit there all day, every day on the nest, never wavering. She only came off for a short while to eat, and then back to the nest she went. Each day, I would reach under her warm belly and extract the eggs. Sometimes she would give me a gentle peck, her way of asking me not to take them. There was nothing I could do, the eggs, of course, were never going to hatch. We have no rooster to fertilize them. It was very sad. We hoped she would just come out of this on her own, getting back to her usual days of scratching in the grass and taking dust baths like her sisters. No such luck. We felt worse and worse as she pulled out all of her belly feathers preparing to warm her little chicks that were never to be. She got very skinny from not eating enough, I could feel her breast bones when I would gather the eggs. She sat in that sweltering chicken house all day every day this whole long HOT summer. It made me want to cry. I knew exactly how she felt.

I too, spent a very long time waiting for a baby that was never to come. Like her, I prepared, I sat, I hoped, I waited. Those were the darkest days of my life.

Something had to be done. Given the chance, I knew this chicken would make a wonderful mother. After about 3 months watching her with a heavy heart, I "hatched" a plan. I decided we needed a "rent a cock". I would find a rooster to borrow for a week or so. He could fertilize our chicken's eggs, and then this poor girl could finally be a mom. It seemed like the perfect plan.

I talked to a friend and he said he would be happy to loan us a rooster. When it came down to it though, the logistics of transporting a mean old rooster started to seem a little daunting. One day I was explaining my plan to Corey's aunt Edna, a woman I would consider an authority on chickens. She told me she had a better plan, she would just give me some eggs from her own flock (which contained roosters). We could swap the fertilized eggs out for our girl's eggs. This seemed like the perfect plan! Our little chicken could be an adoptive mother, just like me!

The night we got home with the eggs, Corey built the little brooder her very own little cage with a special nest box with a removable lid. This way, the other chickens would not bother her. We put the eggs inside the box on a fresh bed of straw, and just as we thought, she knew exactly what to do. She sat, and sat, and sat and sat, for 21 days. There was much talk between Corey and I of what might happen. Was there any chance they weren't fertilized? Was she turning them properly? Was this going to be all for nothing?

Then today, Corey gave me a call at my parents house where I was visiting. He said he went outside and there she was, digging in the dirt with 5 fluffy little chicks in tow! He told me she was being a very good mother, just as we'd hoped. Lily and I rushed home and what a sight it was to see the 6 of them. Everywhere she would peck, the 5 little chicks would peck. She showed them how to drink and what to eat. If you got too close, she would give you a loud warning "cluck" to stand back! I shed a few happy tears for the new little flock.

There was one more surprise in store for us. In the afternoon Corey opened the lid to inspect the eggs that had not hatched. One was moving! See for yourself what happened next.

We have kept this whole operation on the down low because we were not sure of what would happen and didn't want to get everyone's hopes up for nothing. Of course, since it is such a happy ending, I am happy to let the world know :)

Fun with Nanny and the gym

2010-09-15T21:57:00.000-04:00

It was a little hard for Nanny to fess up about the sucker Lily enjoyed during their afternoon adventure.

Christina, Tiger and Joni left yesterday :( We had a really great time with them and just wish we lived closer so we could get together more often. I know I have said it time and time again, but we feel so fortunate to have these sweet ties to Lily's birth family. It is just the most amazing thing. So much love we all share for one special little girlie.

After they left, it seemed pretty quiet around here. Lily and I decided to head to the gym to meet Henry and Lisa for some tumble time. It was our first time there and boy, it was fun! Lily mainly just felt the place out. Henry did his best to show her the ropes. There were lots of balls to play with, so she immediately honed in on these. We also explored the foam block pit and the trampoline. I know as she gets more comfortable there, she will have lots more fun. Looking forward to going again next week.

Family Ties

2010-09-12T23:02:00.000-04:00

We have some special guests visiting us at the moment. Lily's Nanny, cousin Tiger and Aunt Joni are spending a few days with us. As you may know, these are some of the members of Lily's birth family.

We always have such a great time when we are together. Christina and Joni are just some of those fun loving people who makes friends wherever they go. Wouldn't you know it, they wound up hugging a perfect stranger they met while dancing at BBQ and Blues! I love it.

Looking forward to a few more days together before they head back to California.

Banana Muffins

2010-09-07T20:58:00.000-04:00

We try and get as many whole grains in our diet as we can. We only buy whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, whole wheat crackers, etc.

I've never been too fond of wheat muffins, though. Most of the ones I've tried have been quite dense and dry. I tried this recipe (actually a combination of 2 different recipes) in hopes of creating a low sugar, healthy snack. They turned out quite good. I'm ashamed to admit how many I consumed before they even cooled. Lets just say LOTS. I think the oats in them help keep them quite moist and the bananas provide a bit more sweetness. They are much lighter than other multigrain muffins I've tried.

Here is the recipe:

Multigrain Banana Muffins

1 large egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour milk (I make sour milk by adding a tbsp of cider vinegar to a cup of milk and letting it sit for a minute or two)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats, quick cooking or regular (I used regular)
2 ripe bananas, mashed
----
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
----
1 cup walnuts, optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease muffin tins (my batch made 14 muffins). Do not use muffin cups, I made that mistake and the batter sticks to them too much. Mix first 5 ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the flours, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Mix the wet with the dry until just combined. Add nuts if desired.

Bake for 18 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Enjoy!

16 Months

2010-09-06T22:36:00.000-04:00

This is the view I get of Lily most of the time these days. She is always on the go, running here or there. She is a very busy little bee.

Things to note about her right now:

She is really into shoes. She wants to wear them all of the time. She gets plain giddy when we even mention the word "shoes". She rushes to her shoe basket, pulls some out (usually not a matched pair, I might add) and plops down into our lap for the fitting, giggling the entire time. She gets REALLY angry if she tries one on and can't quite get it on her foot. She stomps and screams and throws herself on the floor over it.

When you hold her, she pats or rubs your back. This might seem like a little thing, but it is so sweet, I can't stand it.

Each day when Corey comes home from work, she runs to the window and hides below sill. When her daddy gets close, she pops up and laughs. Then Corey does it. They play this game over and over.

She loves to give kisses.

Life with her gets sweeter by the day.

Bio Page

2010-08-30T21:43:00.000-04:00

I finally added a Bio page to my photography blog. I didn't have any recent pictures of myself that I wanted to use, so I'd been procrastinating.

Then today my friend Lex wanted some photoshop training and I needed a bio photo, so we did a little trade-o-roo. We decided that I probably needed to be up in a tree, because, you know, it's just more "me" if I'm up in a tree.

Check it out here: http://www.brookrieman.com/blog/about-brook/

Almost forgot!

2010-08-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

The most used new word of all. "Nanoo". Apparently "Nanoo" means "give me that". It almost always comes in twos, as in "Nanoo, Nanoo" ala Mork and Mindy. She says this whenever she wants something, usually accompanied by pointing at the object in question. Someone suggested maybe she is saying "thank you, thank you" that could be. Time will tell. For now, we are loving our little martian, words or no words.

Growing by leaps and bounds

2010-08-27T00:20:00.000-04:00

It's been too long since I've posted about the cute little things that Lily is up to.

She is at the age where she is copying everything we do. When she's in the bathroom, she wants to go straight to the drawer and pull out the deodorant. For some reason, she always wants to put it on her leg, though. That must be how Corey does it ;) She grabs my face powder, carefully takes out the puff and powders her nose. Today, she found the toenail clipper and proceeded to show me exactly how to use it. It is just so amazing to me that she picks up on all of these things. She still loves the phone, and any kind of ball (still by far her #1 favorite toy). In fact, I went to the local mom's group recently to meet other moms and Lily proceeded to find the only dad at the playground to hang out with. He and his daughter had a pink soccer ball and all Lily wanted to do was throw the ball to this dad. So much for me getting to meet the other moms!

Just in the last few days, her vocabulary has started growing. Up until now, she has been slow to talk. She babbles constantly, but with very few recognizable words (at least to us). Just in the last day or so, she has started saying "Chlo" (what I call Chloe, the dog), fishy, and a few other things.

We keep telling her that her Nanny from California is coming to visit and today, she surprised us with this one:

I know one day we will have to fight with her to take a bath, but for now, she still loves them.

Life with her just gets more fun by the day. Love her to pieces.

Things

2010-08-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

Things I need to do:

Edit pictures from 2 photo sessions.
Pick up the house, especially upstairs. It's starting to look like an episode of "Hoarders" up there.
Get thing in order for a yet-to-be-scheduled garage sale.
Finish painting the inside of the camper.
Scoop cat litter.
Water plants.
Pack for the kid's concert Lily and I are going to in half an hour.

What I'm doing instead:

Surfing the web.
Blogging random things that nobody really cares about.
Watching Lily push herself around the room on her stomach like a crab.

Butterflies!

2010-08-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

This year we have been noticing an excessive amount of butterflies, especially tiger swallowtails. We were walking the trails behind our house this evening and it was better than any butterfly sanctuary I've ever paid to visit. There were thousands upon thousands of them!

Lily thought the butterflies were okay, but was even more interested in a walnut that her daddy found and gave her. She was intrigued by the smell of it. She kept sniffing it, and making me sniff it.

She carried it the entire way, throwing it every so often. Then we would have to search for it.

I tried to take some videos to capture the sheer volume of butterflies. They don't show up real well, but if you look close, you can see them flitting around.

Lily walked almost the entire way and her little red cheeks prove it. I was so proud of her.

This photo is blurry, but I love it anyway. Thanks for capturing it for me, Corey.

Come on down!

2010-08-18T19:52:00.000-04:00

Music + Meat (or a veggie side of your choice)

The 2nd annual BBQ and Blues event is scheduled for September 11th from 2-8pm at McCormick's Creek State Park. We are anticipating an even bigger turnout this year, after last year's tremendous success. You can read my post detailing last year's event here and watch my niece getting down to the beat here.

If you are looking for some fun and good food that weekend, we'd love to see you there! Some of Lily's birthfamily (Nanny, Tiger and an auntie) will be visiting from California, making it extra special. We'd love to have our friends from near and far join us and meet the California wing of our family.

The event is free but food is extra. Admission to the park is $5 per car (in state), $7 per car (out of state). Bring a lawn chair or blanket but you probably won't need it because we expect you to spend all of your time getting down and dancing like nobody is watching. We can't wait!

Thoughts on being alone

2010-08-15T11:47:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed this and thought some of you might, as well.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

2010-08-11T23:50:00.000-04:00

If you are the owner of a dog, PUT A TAG ON IT for crissake. It is irresponsible to let your dog roam around without identification. What if your dog runs off and ends up injured or worse? Don't you want the person trying to help it to be able to locate you? Don't forget to put your cell phone number on the tag, as well.

You may be wondering what triggered this rant. This morning, a sweet black dog was running loose in our yard. She was wearing a huge underground fence collar with NO identification. She ran through our wet deck stain over and over and almost got hit by a car right in front of my eyeballs. Lily and I knocked on 6 doors before locating someone who believed the dog lived on the next street over. Poor Lily hadn't even had breakfast and was screaming her head off, but the owner had to be found or this dog was going to be roadkill in a matter of minutes. I went to the house, still in my pajamas, mind you, where I was told the owners lived. I knocked on the door and heard people talking but no one would answer the door. I kept knocking and then left a note telling them that their dog was running loose, and where. I came home to find that she ran through the stain again. I corralled her into the kennel and put a sign out front. The owners showed up minutes later. They picked her up. No "thanks for letting us know" no, "sorry she ruined your deck stain" or "we appreciate you saving our dog's life". C'mon people. Common courtesy, here.

If this dog had been wearing a tag, I would not have wasted an hour trying to locate her owner to get her back where she belonged. What if she was hit and needed immediate vet care? Seriously people. Get a clue. Tag your dog, even if it never leaves your yard. Please, do it for me. And for Lily, who really wanted her breakfast.

More weekend photos

2010-08-11T22:34:00.000-04:00

As promised, here are more photos from the weekend.

My parents pretty deck. Doesn't it just look so relaxing?

Lily loves checking out the horse and donkeys when we visit. Or would they be donkies? Who knows..

With all their pretty landscaping, my parents spend a lot of time watering. Lily enjoyed that, too.

We visited a park with farm animals while we were there. She got to pet goats for the first time. She was scared at first, but grandma helped ease her into it.

She had fun wrestling with grandpa before bedtime.

And brushing his "locks"...

Thanks grandma and grandpa, for a fun weekend!

Weekend with parents

2010-08-09T10:33:00.000-04:00

Lily and I have been visiting my mom and dad in Champaign for the last 3 days. We went to the farmer's market on Saturday. Unfortunately, we got there kind of late so we didn't have too much time to look around but we did spy this breakfast skirt, which I loved. Didn't buy it - it was out of my price range, but cute none the less! Mom took this shot of me with it.

We ate at a booth there that specialized in "Vegetarian Cowboy Cuisine". I had a BBQ sandwich, which was pretty good but really spicy.

I love spending time at mom and dad's, seeing them of course, and their home is really cozy, too. They have decorated it really cute and they have 2 sets of glass doors in the living room, filling it with pretty light in the mornings. They have a beautiful porch on the back with lots of humming birds buzzing and pretty plants in flower pots. So relaxing. I'll post some pics of the pretty porch once I get mine downloaded.

What morning looks like

2010-08-06T15:07:00.001-04:00

It has been terribly hot this whole summer but the last few days have been the worst. On Wednesday, factoring the heat index, the "feels like" temperature was 116 degrees. Miserable. Not surprisingly, we've been chilling in the air conditioning most of the time. Lily and I have been spending time outside early in the morning to beat the heat as much as possible. Yesterday I brought along the camera for documentation purposes.

Still wearing jammies, ready to head out the door...

Making her way through the yard...

Giving the chickens a passing glance.

She's got other things on her mind...

Like raspberries...

Still covered in dew, she's picking and smashing them in her mouth as fast as her little hands can work.

After she's had her fill, she's on to another adventure...

Not much going on in the driveway, so she turns to her playhouse. Sometimes when the door open's she is not so happy to see you...

Other times she is very glad to see you.

Next, it's time to swing. She loves her swing and never wants to get out once she's in it. This is the look of "one more push, please mommy?"

Love this girl and summer mornings together.

The "fixer-upper"

2010-08-03T22:55:00.000-04:00

We are the proud new owners of a shitty-ass camper! Lets just say the price was right! We've been looking for one so that we could spend some weekends at the woods we bought last year. Due to the super tight budget, we can't afford any kind of luxury. This will do. A serious cleaning, quite a bit of duct tape, and we will be golden.

There is an adorable pop-up camper in a town near us that is painted light blue with grass and flowers. I absolutely love it. My mind is now buzzing with all kinds of ideas for a cute custom paint job for this one. I thought of making it black and painting it up like a huge camera. Corey instantly shot that one down. Any ideas? Please leave them in the comments. Here are some I found while searching for inspiration on Flickr: here, here and here. As for the inside decor, maybe something fun like this?

When it rains...

2010-07-29T22:55:00.000-04:00

I was having some trouble with one of my new lenses so Canon offered for me to send in my camera and all of my lenses in for a check and calibration. I freaked a bit, at the thought of sticking all of my expensive and much loved gear in one box and shipping it off to who-knows-where, but in the end, I did it. Hopefully I'll have it back within a week and everything will be fine and dandy.

ALSO, my monitor color issues are still plaguing me. I spent a few hours on the phone with technical support for my color calibration device, and later Apple. The verdict is that there is probably something wrong with my video card. I'm bringing my computer in for service tomorrow and it will hopefully only be gone for a week or so, as well. As you would suspect, I probably won't be posting again for a bit. So, I decided I'd better get one last post up before my MacBook goes on vacation.

Important news...

My handsome hubby made a big potato haul from the garden. 68 lbs, if memory serves.

It has been terribly hot, so we have been trying to keep Lily cool.

My friend Lex surprised me with this BEAUTIFUL piece of artwork. She (or maybe her husband, I can't remember for sure) took this photo of us back when Lily was only a month or two old. It is hard to see the detail and dimension in the paper cuts with this photo, but I took another one to try and show it a little better. I love it so much!

I hope these photos look okay, I can't tell what they will look like due to the weird color casts on my MacBook. Yuck!

Adorable site

2010-07-24T12:58:00.000-04:00

My old college friend, Paully Wog shared this with me. I LOVE IT! What an awesome use of photography.

http://milasdaydreams.blogspot.com/

Berry cute

2010-07-23T19:20:00.001-04:00

For the kids and kids at heart...

2010-07-22T22:43:00.000-04:00

A recipe for homemade playdough:

1 cup water
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbs cream of tarter
food coloring
1 cup flour

heat water, oil, salt, cream of tarter, and food coloring in a saucepan on the stove. The directions said to "heat until warm" but I cooked it a bit to dissolve some of the salt. Not sure if that made a difference, but ours turned out fine. Remove from the heat and add the flour. Stir than knead until smooth. Cool slightly until safe to handle and play! Let children play with warm and cool playdough for different sensory experiences. If you keep it in an airtight container, it is supposed to last for months.

Here are some photos of Lily playing with hers.

Getting into it:

and slightly sleepier, with more hair...

Towers

2010-07-19T23:49:00.001-04:00

Let's hope she doesn't always take disappointment this badly. If she does, it's going to be a long 16+ years...

Some new posts

2010-07-17T07:14:00.000-04:00

I have some new posts up on the photography blog. If you've checked this blog out much, you've seen comments from my friend Laura. Her daughter's session photos are up on there, as well as a new post about the cost of custom portraits and how it is like hamburgers. You'd just have to read it...

P.S. Corey made this awesome burger plus a veggie version for me. It was awesome!

The little things

2010-07-16T23:06:00.000-04:00

It's hard for me to put into words how happy I am to be a stay at home mom, now. There are so many little things that I was missing and now a treasure whole-heartedly.

For one thing, getting to see Lily wake up. Before, every week day, I would leave the house before Corey and Lily woke up. An hour or so after I left, Corey would have to wake Lily up and bring her bobbing little sleepy head to the babysitters. On the weekends, I would be sad when she would wake me up because I so badly wanted to catch up on missed sleep.

Nowadays, I usually wake up to her rustling happily around her crib. We moved her into her own room recently and so I peek in the door to see her standing up, chin on her hands on the railing, crazy bed head raging, with the most gigantic grin you've ever seen. At this point, she usually starts laughing and falls over because she is not quite awake yet. The other morning, she was starting to wake up when Corey left, so he gently settled her in bed next to me so she and I could get another hour or so of sleep. When I woke up again, I heard her laughing. I look over and she is fully asleep, smiling and giggling to herself. Her eyes opened as she slowly woke, smile still on her face. Could there be any better way to wake up than laughing? I just want to bottle up her cuteness and keep it forever.

Speaking of sleeping, here is my favorite recent picture of Lily sleeping.

I am guessing that the animals are really enjoying the fact that I am staying home, too. This means all day air conditioning for the dogs. We used to keep them outside while we were gone because they can't always be trusted when home alone.

Kabob

2010-07-14T17:29:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. You can't believe what an amazing artist I am, right? You never knew I was so handy with a pen! We'll now you know.

I had no other way of illustrating the fantastically crazy thing that happened today. Lily went behind the old LazyBoy Recliner that Corey insists we keep in the living room even though it doesn't fit. So she is back there where I can't see her, and all of the sudden she starts whining. Like, an "I'm stuck" kind of whine. I know it well.

So I walk over there, and this is the scene I find. Her diaper stuck on the reclining handle, all the way through both legs. She looked like a kabob. What made matters worse (much worse) was the diaper. You guessed it, it was poopy.

Stay at home mommyhood ROCKS!

Seriously, it does :)

Phone obsession

2010-07-09T19:47:00.000-04:00

For a month or so, Lily has been pretending everything is a phone. Be it a playing card, TV remote, book, whatever. She picks it up and holds it up to her ear with a casual, "Whoa" (Lily's version of "Hello"). I have to say, it is pretty adorable. Generally, we don't let her talk on the cell phone because my mom has me worried about the radiation and its unknown effects on kiddo's brains. Today was an exception when I was talking to Corey's mom and as I said "bye", Lily said "bye bye". I had to call Mamaw right back so Lily could tell her bye bye. She never actually said it again, but she sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" with her and talked (mostly listened) for a bit. Too cute. I had to take a photo.

Mom's little helper

2010-07-08T21:13:00.000-04:00

Lily has been helping with the laundry. Seems fair since she creates quite a bit of it, with her diapers and all. Here is a video Corey shot with his cell phone showing the girl in action.

I'll throw in another shot of her wearing daddy's shoes:

And 2 more of the homemade bagels we made tonight.

Before boiling and baking:

and after:

One little note. If you decide to follow the link above and make these bagels, be prepared to eat 4, or 5 or all 10 as soon as they come out of the oven. It is incredibly hard to stop yourself. We made lots of different versions: poppy seed, onion, salt, sesame seed, everything, cinnamon/sugar. Of course I had to try them all. Next time I will at least double the recipe and freeze a bunch.