A gorgeous day for a walk

Dylan sporting her super awesome strawberry hat on our walk today. :)

60 degrees in January? Yes, please! Dylan and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and soaked up some lovely sunshine on a walk in town with Heather, Emrie, Henry, & Greta Dickerson. It was most lovely, and made even more lovely by the fact that Dylan didn't fuss in the car on the way there or back, or during our walk - please, please let this be the start of something new & wonderful!

I had a good afternoon at work and Dylan and Grandma had a good afternoon together (they both got a nice nap in - sounds excellent to me! :)) Chadmo had to work very late today, till 9 pm, and then he had to pick up dinner for himself on the way home, so he wasn't home until 10. Poor Chadmo. :( Mom was nice enough to hang out with Dylan and me until 9, and to fix us a delicious steak dinner. It was fun to have an evening of just girls, though I know it makes for an extra long day for Mom since she has to get up at 6 am for school. Thanks for keeping us company, Mom! :)

Dylan was already in the swaddled, going to bed phase by the time Chadmo got home. She's been very scream-y about going to sleep tonight, I'm not really sure what that was all about. Let's hope she wore herself out and sleeps well so that there's some benefit from it. As predicted by yesterdays lack of naps, she slept terribly last night. This mama is wiped out & hoping for a better night's sleep tonight - good night all!

Rubber Ducky Love

"This is my Rubber Ducky. Grandma Claus got her for me for Christmas. She used to light up with all sorts of different colors, but she doesn't anymore."

"But I still love her anyway."

"Also, she is delicious. Friends let friends gnaw on one another."

Dyl and I had a good day today! She slept well last night and was a happy girl when she woke up. She took a little nap after a couple of hours, and I started assembling a crockpot dinner. When she woke up she helped me finish. (She sat in her highchair and gave me huge smiles every time I looked at her. :)) Then we went for a walk in town, and Dylan did pretty well in her stroller! Hallelujah! At the end of our walk we dropped in on the Dickerson's and visited with them for about an hour - Dylan always thinks Emrie, Henry, & Greta are the most fascinating people in the world! We got home in time for another short nap, a quick bath for me, and then Chadmo was home and it was time for dinner. Dinner was a new recipe, Maui Chicken, and it was delicious! Dyl's been a bit of a crabcake this evening due to only taking very, very short naps today. Usually when she doesn't nap well, she doesn't sleep well either. Let's hope tonight is an exception. She was happy for Chadmo during bath time, though she decided to be serious when I was taking her picture, of course!

All in all it was a good Monday, let's hope it foreshadows a good week. (P.S. Chadmo had a good Monday at work too - it was full of party food due to 2 retirement parties. Cake always makes a Monday better. :))

Weekend at Grandma & Grandpoppy's

When I was little, we would frequently request that Mom & Poppy "made us a hotdog" - which means that they would pick one of us up and wrap us in a big bear hug from either side! It was most lovely, and Chadmo & I are looking forward to carrying on this tradition with our kiddos. :) So here's an example of a Dylly hotdog with smooches on top! (We've gotta learn to put down the burp cloths during photo shoots - can you tell we have a spitty baby?)

Waking up from a long nap this afternoon - she's (almost) always such a happy girl when she wakes up!

Dylan learned a new trick from her friend Greta on Friday night - sticking out her tongue! For the past 1.5-2 weeks she's been rolling her tongue to the side and chewing on it, but we seem to be suddenly over that phase and on to sticking out our tongue, particularly when smiling. Pretty cute!

Last night Grandma & Grandpoppy watched Dylan while Chadmo & I went on a date - how decadent! We went to a restaurant called Rhapsody in Nelsonville, who would've guessed Nelsonville has a 5-star restaurant?? I had mussels, foccacia, organic chicken with curry fried couscous and brown sugar glazed carrots, and house made blueberry mango sorbet - it was delicious! Chadmo had salmon cakes, foccacia, house made crackers with boursoin cheese, house made pasta with shrimp & mussels, and a chocolate torte - he said all of his was delicious too. And they give you complimentary cinnamon-clove macaroons instead of a mint - YUM! It was lovely to both get to sit down and eat hot, delicious food at the same time. THANK YOU, Mom & Poppy, for babysitting. We've had a lovely weekend at your house, as always. :)

4 months old!

A moment of reflection, sitting in her bumbo chair in the window seat.

Reviewing the last 4 months - we both think they've gone pretty darn well. I think we'll keep each other! :)

Studying her feet - a new discovery for Dylan in the past couple of weeks! Those are interesting little critters attached to her legs. :)

We had a very fun 4-month birthday with Dylan today. She slept well last night, was a very happy girl all day today, napped well, and then we went over to the Dickersons' for a tasty dinner & dessert with their clan and Katy & Greg. Dylan was a model citizen while we were there, and had the MOST adorable bout of laughing to date. Greg G was holding her and Katy was tickling her feet, and Dylan would just laugh, and laugh, and laugh! Katy didn't even have to touch her feet, she could just get close to them and Dylan would just laugh so hard. It was the most laughing she's ever done, and true, hearty laughter - not just short giggles or chuckles! It was beyond adorable! A wonderful 4-month milestone! She really had a good time there tonight, she thinks Greta (6 months), Emrie (4 years) and Henry (2 years) are so fascinating. Emrie made her a present - a wooden frame she painted and then wrote Dylan's name on, and signed on the back - it is too cute! I'll have to get a picture in it and then post a picture of it on here. :) Heather also gave Dylan & I a joint gift of a teething necklace - Dyl already liked to hold on to it, and I know she's going to love to gnaw on it soon. :) Katy & Greg brought dessert tonight, a lemon mousse cake from a bakery in Columbus, and it was DAIRY FREE! It was so delicious, and my taste buds were extremely excited to have a heavenly dessert of a different variety pass by their way. YUM! Yay for fun nights with good food and great friends!

A Heavenly Chair

Daddy & Dyl rocking in the new chair tonight at bedtime. Dylan appears to be enjoying the padded arm rest in this picture too! ;)

Zonked out in Daddy's arms. Our Sleeping Beauty. :) (But she's a good faker, because when he laid her down 5 minutes later, she promptly woke up and requested to nurse!) Oh my, this face is so smoochable, and I just love her little profile.

I think Dylan likes the new chair a little TOO much. Last night she decided it was so comfortable that she should wake up about every 2 hours and have Mommy rock her in it - and then also to be awake for an hour in the middle of the night so we could cuddle in that comfy chair even more! At least she was happy all the time, just hungry, hungry, hungry. And then smiley, smiley, smiley after eating. My cutie pie!

New Chair Wednesday

Dylan trying out the new glider we bought for her nursery today! It is sooo comfortable, and glides silently. (Unlike the cheap, terrible, old one we had in her nursery that recently started squeaking & creaking so loudly that we couldn't rock her in it at night because it would startle her awake!) Doesn't our baby make that chair look good?? :)

A more complete picture of the chair, but a slightly less cooperative picture of Dyl. We had fun shopping with Grandma today. We went to one furniture store in Logan, and then we ended up finding this chair at Blackburn's in Nelsonville. I've decided furniture stores are the ideal places to spend your time with babies, because there are lots of comfy chairs in corners to nurse in.

I think one of my favorite things about the new glider are its' arm cushions. I'm hoping this will significantly decrease the frequency of elbow bruises on my part, though of course there's always our beloved Amish mission glider in the living room that doesn't have arm cushions. I don't know how anyone has a baby without a rocking chair - or actually several rocking chairs. I'm starting to wish we had some rocking dining room chairs too, though Dyl is getting better at sitting in her highchair...

Tasty Tuesday

Big smiles after a short evening-snooze-at-the boob (thus the crazy bed head!) There's nothing like a snack & a nap to refresh a baby for a cheerful evening! :)

Today Dyl & I managed to make roast beef, gravy, boiled redskin potatoes (no more mashed potatoes due to dairy free living), crescent rolls, and sugar snap peas and have it all on the table 5 minutes after Daddy walked in the door from work! Go team! It was most delicious, and Dylan was even a good girl and sat in her high chair with us almost through the entire dinner. At the end she wanted to be held for a bit, but Daddy was happy to oblige. :)

Other than that our day has just been a good one in general, but nothing in particular to write about. Dyl slept well again last night, but unfortunately I did not. Here's hoping we both sleep well tonight!

Family Self Portrait

At least we managed to get Dyl to look at the camera, even if we couldn't trick her into smiling for it! :)

Ruby, Tucker, & Forrest decided they wanted in on the action too!

I think Dylan did really like her new Hanna pajamas last night - she slept 9.5 hours straight!! (And in her crib! Both times she's slept through the night before, she was in her swing.) Perhaps the combination of hanging out with that magically sleeping Jett, being out and about all day in Lancaster yesterday, and wearing her new wonderful p.j.s, combined for a wondrous night of sleep! In any case - go Dylly!

Today was a lovely day, on top of our good night's sleep. Dylan was very happy for a couple hours this morning. We went out to visit Grandpoppy at work - he is crippled after a volleyball injury to his knee and is on crutches at the moment. :( (Get well soon Grandpoppy!) Then we came back in and Dylan took a 3 hour nap! (2 hours of which I napped with her, and the last hour was perfect for having lunch and doing some chores around the house.) Then at 4:00, our friends Lindsey, Drew (3), and Brooke (9 months) Perry came to visit us and hang out for a couple of hours. It was lots of fun to have some grown up, fellow Mommy conversation in my day, and Dylan & I both though Drew & Brooke were so cool & so much fun to watch. We need to get together more, Lindsey! After they left, Dyl and I went back out to the clinic to visit Grandpoppy some more. And now we've been having a lovely evening at home with Chadmo.

No work for me tomorrow. Poor Grandma has had strep throat and actually had to stay home from school today. :( So no babysitter means no work for me. We think Grandma has been sick entirely too much lately, and traveling, which has combined to mean we haven't seen her hardly at all in the last 3-4 weeks! It's terrible! Get well soon, Grandma/Mom, and then please stay well!! We miss you!

Last minute smiles

It seems like it's been days since I managed to catch Dyl in a smiley mood on camera! So here are two last-minute iPod photos from right before bedtime, as an add on to today's earlier post. She was quite smiley while getting her outfit changed. I think she likes her new Hanna Andersson p.j.s!

Her new p.j.s are a little big yet, but that's just room to grow! I can't believe our little Badger girl is in 6 month clothes already, and they are none too big. These are 9-18 month jammies!

Stroller Success (*knock on wood*)

"I scratched myself on the side of my nose today."

"It's very sad."

"But I can still play and have fun! I'm a tough baby!!" :)

"See my favorite toy over there?? I am THIS close to getting that yellow one figured out too..."

We had a fun & productive Sunday today. We met Derek, Kate, Jace, Jeslyn, & their newest addition - Jett (2.5 weeks old) Harden, Jennifer, Jeremy, Caleb, & Lauren Coakley, and Tom & Jess Steinbrink, at Panera in Lancaster for lunch. All of the many babies and kiddos were adorable as always, and it was great to get to meet Mr. Jett! He is adorable, and a clone of his big brother Jace. We hear Jett already sleeps 7 hours uninterrupted at night, so we are hoping he rubbed off on Dylan while we were all hanging out together. :) (Though I do need to give Dylan credit, she did sleep 6 hours & 45 minutes in a row last night - but not till after she was up twice between 11:45 pm - 3:15 am.) It was fun to see everyone and catch up, it's been too long since we all got together. Now that the holidays are over, hopefully we'll have more time to meet up once a month again.

After lunch, Chad, Dyl & I went mattress shopping. We were testing out Tempurpedic vs knock-off Tempurpedic vs Latex foam mattresses. I think we need to go to Columbus and try a wider variety of the Tempurpedic beds, and actually I'm a pretty big fan of the Latex foam beds too. So many options!

Then we went to Lowe's and bought insulation sleeves for our hot water heaters (you know you're old when that's part of your exciting Sunday. :)) And finally we went to the Lancaster mall and did some more strolling. Luckily Dyl seems to like the new stroller, unluckily the Lancaster mall is so boring I'm not even remotely tempted to go back and stroll there again. Maybe TJ Maxx or Target...

On a side note: I just finished the books "Oryx & Crake" and "The Year of the Flood" by Margaret Atwood, and I absolutely loved them. Now I'm reading a book called "Matched" which I like pretty well so far, but is definitely not to the standards of Atwood's novels. I'm on a real dystopian fiction kick at the moment, I love this genre!

Sleep-in Saturday

Dyl helping us make a delicious brunch of egg and turkey sausage english muffin sandwiches, fried potatoes, and oranges. She sat in her highchair the whole time we were cooking, and while we ate - what a good baby!

Trying out her new ride - it's very icy outside today, so we did some in-the-house strolling. She seemed to like it! We're excited to test it out at the mall tomorrow. :)

Well, she seemed to like it so long as it was moving. Not so much when it was sitting still for photo opps.

And I just think this picture is too cute for words! She's a very helpful baby, she does lots of chores already. In this moment she was upstairs helping Daddy shred junk mail. I wish I looked this cute doing chores around the house!

A big thank you to Chadmo for playing with Miss Dyl all morning so I could sleep in and catch up on some much needed Zzz's. We were in bed at midnight last night, I got up with her at 3:15 and fed her, then Chadmo got her back to bed. Then she slept till 8:45, and he brought her to me to nurse in bed and then took her out to the living room to play for the morning so I could go back to sleep. He brought her back for me to nurse again at 11:20 am, took her again, and I went back to sleep AGAIN! I slept in till 1:00 pm, laid about for a bit, got out of bed at 1:15, and Dyl woke up from her nap at 1:20 pm. Wow, talk about some much, much needed sleep. I even took at nap from 4:30-6 too, I have been absolutely wiped out the last couple of weeks. So thank you to Chadmo for taking care of Dylan, and thank you to Dylan for putting in some reasonably long stretches so I could actually catch up a bit!! Dylan's been a wonderfully happy girl today, and it's been a nice day at home. I love the weekends!

(This baby's outfit lies.)

SUPER DYLLY... to the rescue!! (Her outfit says "Sound Sleeper", but that's clearly not her super baby power ;), so perhaps she rescues people from bad musical notes?)

"Hee hee, I mock this outfit's sentiment, but I do look awfully cute in it!"

I just LOVE my smiley girl!

Do you see the bubble under that ornery smirk?? Dyl is an expert bubble blower these days, this is just a small example. And as of this evening, she can also blow raspberries!! (Only when she's complaining, but it's still super adorable. Now even her complaining is cute!)

It's so cute, whenever she thinks something's really fun and silly, she smiles big and crinkles forward. Almost like it's so funny she can't keep herself upright. Of course, this does make it challenging to photograph those big smiles at times!

"Look at me - standing up, all by myself!" *cough cough*

It was most adorable this evening, Chadmo was lying on the floor next to Dylan while she was playing in her play gym, and she reached over and grabbed his nose. She just kept a good hold on it for awhile, as if to say "I caught you Daddy!" :)

Our favorite time of day

Bath time! Are you tired of bath time pictures yet? It's really just one of Dyl's happiest, most fun times of the day, so I can't resist taking pictures. Plus it's our family activity most nights, we all love it so much that nobody wants to miss out. :)

Big eyes at getting head sprinkles! Also, a small peek at the ever elusive baby neck.

Dyl chews on her fingers ALL the time now. She's managing to look rather pensive in this one, thinking "Daddy, are you going to sprinkle me with that whale again?" (Note that Forrest is always lurking in the background - he also loves bath time, even when she splashes him.)

This is what Miss Dylan thinks of getting her face washed. BLECH!

"Buh?"

Dylly loves her Daddy! And I have to admit, in this picture she looks SO much like some pictures I have of Haley-Bug. My girls do have some moments of looking an awful lot alike...

So smoochable.

Looking thoughtful, she's a smart baby. :)

We slept pretty well last night, but I'm so sleepy this evening that I feel like my brain is wrapped in a wool blanket. I can't think of anything clever or interesting to write, so I think I'll just stop while I'm ahead. Good night all!

Miss Serious

Dylan is being Miss Serious this evening for her photo shoot - she's really been very smiley today, so I guess I just picked the wrong time to take her picture! She's not unhappy, just in one of her serious, absorbing-every-little-thing moods - my mom says she gets that from me. Apparently I was a serious baby too (see picture below). I guess she comes by it honestly... ;)

Naked feetie smooches - she loves them and curls her toes all up and stretches her legs out for them!

"I see you with that camera, Daddy..."

There's a little half smile!

Telling Daddy something very important. I love our little chatter box. :) Today she was trying to imitate me blowing raspberries (without any success), she kept making a "buuh" sound but without the associated lip vibrations. It was most adorable and quite funny - I love watching her learn!

Hello, my bright-eyed, floof-haired, cutie-patootie pants!

Today was productive - Dyl and I roasted a chicken & yams, set the table, made a batch of cookie dough, and did a load of laundry before Daddy got home. It probably doesn't sound like much, but for us it's progress! Go team!

Dylan's on a roll!

Dylan ROLLED OVER for the first time today! She was in her crib, after just waking up for the morning. I'd unswaddled her and I was talking to her while she was smiling. She kept rolling onto her side, facing me. So I knelt down and talked to her through the slats of the crib to encourage her to "come over" to me, and she did! I clapped and cheered and jumped about which made her have a BIG smile - and then she started fussing because she was stuck in that horrible tummy time position! It was so cute & so exciting - and I'm SO glad she did it when I was watching! Go Dylan! :) Then, for more excitement all in one day, she started grabbing her bare feet today while I was changing her - another first! Our sweet Dylly-Roo is growing up so fast!

Here she is on the play-gym at Grandma & Grandpa's house on Sunday, looking rather serious & very 80's!

Not the best picture of Dyl, but here she is playing with her new favorite toy - it has 4 'bugs' on it, and 4 different types of triggers that make them pop up. There's a lever, a knob to twist, a thing you slide side to side, and a button. She can do all of them except the knob, which I find most impressive! She really thinks it's fun too, though sometimes she gets frustrated that she can't make the knob bug (yellow bug) pop up, so I have to help her out from time to time with that one so she doesn't get too mad. I'll have to take a picture of just the toy itself later, it's an excellent baby toy - good job Santa Grandma!

It's so exciting to have Dylan reach these big milestones and it seems like she's learning something new or doing something impressive every day now! I'm so grateful that I get to be home with her 95% of the time so I can be here for all of these big moments with her - she's my sweet pea. <3

Aunt Kelly's belated birthday party

Kelly & Jesse were down this weekend for Kelly's belated birthday dinner, now that everyone is healthy (*knock on wood*). We had her birthday dinner on Sunday at lunch time, and then we had some fun Bezzerwizzering in the evening after Kelly, Jesse, & Poppy returned from volley ball.

Today was just a relaxing day hanging out at Grandma & Grandpa's house. We had lunch with Kelly, Jesse, and Poppy (Mom was off shopping in Columbus! Lucky duck!), and Dylan managed to squeeze in a few more quality snuggles with K & J before they left. :)

Dylan thinks I'm so silly - it's great to have someone who thinks I'm funny! :) Check out her awesome Baby Legs - I wish I could pull off that outfit & look so cute. Move over Katy Perry & Rihanna, Dylan's rocking the pantsless look!

Dyl, smiling at her Mommy. :D I love this little girl sooooooo much.

Smiling at Grandma behind the camera - an elusive moment! Possibly my new favorite picture of the moment! (Also, I love Chadmo's smile - even if that's all you can see of him!)

Happy 31st Birthday, Kelly!!

I think every weekend should be 3 days long and filled with family, friends, and good food! But back to the real world tomorrow, at least it's only a 4 day week!