Our Professional Crawler

Watch Dylly crawl!   (You'll have to wait through some 'dancing', and after the impressive crawling there's some rattling, antennae inspecting, and so on. Really the crawling is the highlight, but I can't help but think she's cute no matter what she's doing. :))

Dyl learned how to crawl on Sunday, July 29th, and there hasn't been a quiet moment since! ;)

A big day of firsts!

This is a picture of a BIG girl who had so many firsts today that it's hard to keep track of them all! She clapped her hands/played patty cake for the first time today. She pulled herself up to standing on a chair for the first time today (previously she's only pulled herself to standing if she's holding our hands, or to kneeling if holding on to a chair/crib/etc.) She then proceeded to pull herself up over and and over again till she was a pro at it! While she was holding on to the edge of a chair in Mom's living room, she took a step - her first step while not holding on to our hands. And she pooped in the potty for the first time ever this evening! I think that's it for firsts for the day, but my goodness what a lot of them. Also, she peed in the potty for the second time ever this morning. Such a big girl!

"Ha ha, Mommy! Now that I can crawl & scoot about, I can come over and get ahold of this thing your're always pointing at me and flashing me with!" 

"This strap is pretty cool, but my pesky bangs keep hanging in my eyes. They need to grow out fast!"

Since Dyl pretty much requires a clip for her bangs these days, I decided to start making some. I got the idea for this type of clip from one I bought in Worthington, brand name "Cutie Heads." This is my first attempt at making one myself, and I'm pretty happy with it. It was fun to make!

"Much better, Mommy. No bangs hanging in my eyes while I play with my toys!"

***WARNING**: Do NOT scroll down if you're easily grossed out, or really if you're not a mother AND not easily grossed out!

Dyl's first poop in the potty! I'm so proud! And she'll hate me so much for this picture someday, haha!

(Ok, I had to remove the picture because I decided I didn't want it to show up in the printed version - or haunt Dyl forever on the internet! So just do your best to imagine it here, or don't. ;))

Dylan's 1st Tooth!

Looks like some dogs are excited to see Daddy & Dylly getting ready for a walk!

Chadmo, sporting the cutest cargo around! Dyl wasn't so sure about the sunshade, it got in the way of playing with the brim on Daddy's hat. 

Opening the gate...

... and they're off to the races! 

Today was extra exciting because Miss Dylan's 1st tooth has arrived! It's her lower right incisor, and it's just finally broken through the gum today. I've only gotten a few, brief peeks at it - because if you try to touch her mouth or pull down her lip she says "No way!" So you have to try to sneek a look when she's jabbering or eating. But you can feel it plain as day if you're feeding her cheerio halves, or hummus off your fingers. :) Very exciting!

Mimi is down for a few days as of today, she's staying with Mom & Dad this time, but we met them all at Pizza Crossing for dinner tonight. It was quite tasty! I'm excited to have a fun start to my week, with Mimi & Mom to hang out with during the days, we're going to have to go play in the baby pool on Mom & Poppy's porch. :)

Toddlers in Tiaras, anyone?

Dyl modeling the awesome, personalized tiara that Sheri made for her. (It has to be worn unfashionably high up on her head like this, otherwise she rips it off immediately.)

My pretty, pretty princess. :) This is what passes for a smile these days - she can't quit chewing on her tongue long enough for anything else. I think she's definitely getting her two bottom incisors! She does look awfully cute in a tiara... ;)

Dyl & Daddy up on the hilltop of the Howdyshell farm - checking out the very impressive Howdyshell/Dickerson/Martin garden.

It's been a lovely, relaxing weekend so far. Last night, Grandma & Grandpoppy were kind enough to babysit while Chadmo and I went out to dinner at 'Rhapsody' in Nelsonville. I think I've mentioned it on here before, but it's a restaurant that's run by the culinary program at Hocking college - and it's truly delicious! We split an appetizer of beer pretzel bread dipped in a cheese fondue made with cheese curds from the local Snowville Creamery Dairy. For entrees, I had Ohio Proud Cornish hen with bamboo rice, and roasted carrots. Chad had Tri-tip (tasty steak?) with grilled asparagus, and sweet potato with bruleed marshmallows. My meal was delicious, but after tasting Chad's I'm pretty sure I want all of my food covered in marshmallows from now on! For dessert we split chocolate crepes with butter pecan filling, and as our complimentary after dinner treat they us each a chocolate strawberry macaroon. Not to mention we each had delicious glasses of wine to go with our meals. I had a sauvignon blanc from Washington - Horse Heaven was the name I think - it was truly tasty. The beer pretzel bread and the macaroons were so tasty that we brought orders of each home to Mom & Poppy as a little thank you for Dyl-sitting. I think they enjoyed them, now we just have to hire a babysitter so we can take them to dinner there with us sometime! Oh yes, and the restaurant also had a guitarist/singer again - last night it was mostly Neil Young /Bob Dylan/Buffalo Springfield songs, right up our alley. It really does something great for the ambiance to have live music. Thank you again, Mom & Poppy, for watching Dyl! :)

Tonight, after a lovely, relaxing, & productive day at home, we went over to Heather's parents house for dinner. The Dickerson clan is currently displaced from their home in town while they're installing hardwood floors and redoing the ceiling and lighting in the living room, and they're staying with Heather's parents. Heather made a delicious dinner of spaghetti & meatballs, salad, and bread - yum! Thank you, Heather! Dyl sat in a highchair and nibbled on her new favorite food throughout the meal - cheerios! She had them for the first time yesterday, and they're definitely the biggest hit so far in the solid food category.  After dinner, Greg with Greta in the backpack, Heather, Emrie, Henry, Chadmo with Dyl in the backpack (see above), and I went for a walk up the lane and then up the hill to check out their very impressive garden. They're growing tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, regular potatoes, corn, watermelon, pumpkins, sunflowers, green beans, cucumbers, zucchinis, and probably more things that I can't remember - it's vegetable heaven! I learned how one finds potatoes at the base of the potato plant and then following the roots, and Emrie and I played a fun game of "hide the tiny potato in the corn rows and make the other person find it". I think she could've kept it up all night! Luckily we both like to give each other hints as to the potato's location, or that could've been a seriously challenging hunt. After the garden tour we walked back to the house to have slices of the pecan pie I made (your recipe as always, Grandma McMillan!) Then Dyl was quite the sleepy girl and it was time to head home.

On our way home, Chad got pulled over for driving 59 in a 45 zone - eep! They asked for my ID too - my driver's license was in a different purse from dinner last night, but my Buck ID was accepted. :) Luckily Chadmo just got a warning, and was instructed to watch out for deer. Thank you, kind police officer!

Dyl was extra exhausted after our pulled-over detour, so she went straight to bed with no bath tonight. Here's hoping she sleeps well after a super fun evening! Thanks again for having us over, Dickersons and Howdyshells! :)

Duck, Duck, Silly Goose

"Mommy, what did you put on my head?!?" (She thought it was funny, but I couldn't capture her smiling & facing forward. A profile smile was the best I could pull off!)

I love our bathing beauty! :)

9 month check-up

The adorableness that I get to wake up to every morning - I am one lucky Mommy. :)

About 3/4 of the mornings, Dyl comes to bed with me and nurses and snoozes for a little bit before she's truly awake. We managed to sneak in a much needed extra hour of sleep this morning, thank goodness. She was up from 3:45-5:00 am last night ---> YAWN!

Grandma went with us to the pediatricians today for Dylan's 9 month check-up. Here's a picture of Dyl sharing her O-ball with Grandma in the waiting room. Dyl says: "It's fun to chew on, Grandma. Try it!" ;)

Dyl's check-up today went pretty well. She is now 30 inches long, which puts her in the 95th percentile  for height! Who would've ever dreamed I'd have a tall baby?!? She must be going to take after her Aunts Melissa & Arielle. :) She weighed in at 20 pounds 8 ounces (with diaper and little summer outfit), placing her in the 50th-75th percentile for weight. And while I didn't catch the exact number for her head size, it measured in the 60th percentile... for 3 year olds. Yes, you read that correctly, her head is the same size as that of the average 3 year old. I guess it was destined to be, with two large-headed parents, as well as large headed grandpa, aunt, uncle, and cousin! The obnoxious part about it is that though it is very likely benign familial megalencephaly, we still have to go to Children's to rule out the possibility of hydrocephalus. :( We'll take along pictures of all the big-headed babies in our family, and hopefully convince them that testing isn't necessary. But if they're not as easily convinced as they were when my sister was born and my parents went through the same thing, Dyl will have to have a head ultrasound or CT scan. Here's hoping the pictures convince them, or if not, that we can just do a quick head ultrasound since she still has an open soft spot.

Other than that, she's doing well. She isn't into textured food yet, but the doctor said that the taste for textures seems to come with the arrival of teeth, and since Dylan doesn't have any teeth yet she wasn't too surprised by her preference for pureed. It does seem like we're working on cutting a tooth though, but progress is slow and painful, literally.

Dyl, Chadmo, the dogs and I just got back from a lovely evening stroll up the oil lane. Dyl was happy as a clam in her backpack, jabbering away and telling me all about how this is what she does with Daddy while I'm walking in town with the girls (or Grandpoppy these days!) It cooled off a little bit this evening, thank goodness, so our walk was much more bearable than last nights. But we're still pretty sticky, so we're off to bath time! Rub a dub dub! :)

Tooth-brusher

Dylan multitasking by practicing brushing her 'teeth' while playing with her toys in her playpen. It's never too early to start brushing - gums need brushed too! :)

"Hmm, Mommy, I'm not sure about putting this bristley thing in my mouth. It is kind of fun to chew on though..." (She'll let me brush for her for a second or two, then she has to be in charge again, and then I sneak in a couple more seconds, etc.)

Watching 'Baby Signing Time', which she absolutely loves! I love having it as 20 minutes of guaranteed entertainment in my pocket for when I really need it during the day. It's something to be hoarded carefully, and I'm always trying to save it for just the right time when I need it most, haha. At least I feel like it's educational, since she really does use the 'all done' sign quite a bit now. Here's hoping she catches on to more of them! 

Well, we gave Dyl a dose of Tylenol last night before bed to see if it would help with teething pain and sleep. It must have, because she slept MUCH better last night. She was so happy today after sleeping well last night, and took a couple of 1 hour naps today too which was awesome. We gave her tylenol again tonight, so here's hoping it works a second night in a row. We go in for her 9 month check-up with Dr. Gibson tomorrow, so I should have some baby stats for tomorrow night's post! :)

Slacker McSlackerson

Frillers enjoying the king size bed in our hotel room in Greensboro, NC on our way home from Surf City. She votes we get a king size bed at home too, because then there's plenty of room to snuggle in between Mommy & Daddy all night long!

Making her "teething face" - no teeth yet, but I think I feel a little bump on her bottom, right gum - so maybe one soon! She's regressed to being an absolutely atrocious sleeper (up ~5 times a night) and never napping for more than 9 minutes at a time since last Wednesday. So I'm hoping we at least get a tooth out of all this sleep deprivation misery!

Sorry to be such a blog slacker! We did all sorts of fun things this past weekend: we went to Greta Dickerson's 1st birthday party, stayed the night at Grandma & Grandpa's house on Saturday, went to Greg Gallenstein's 32nd birthday pool party Sunday afternoon, and played at Kachelmacher park on Sunday evening. Pictures were taken by others at Greta's party on Friday, and I'm patiently awaiting some to show up on facebook so I can steal them and put them on here. Otherwise I was a total slacker and didn't get my camera out for the entire past week. It's sitting on my table now, to make sure that doesn't happen again!

Today Dyl & I had a fun play date at the kids' area in the mall with Kristy, Travis, Bella, & Evan Keirns. Dyl loved it - she thought 3 year old Bella was so cool, and Bella was so good with her. Evan was adorable, and it's hard to believe Dylan will be doing all the things he's doing now in just 9 more months. It was just what the doctor ordered for me, after a night of no sleep and a day of 9 minute naps. It was good to get out of the house and have some adult conversation with Kristy! Plus I don't know any other time that Dyl is content to play in a small area for 2 hours straight! We need to do that more often.

Alright, I better head to bed. Dyl's been up 3 times in the last 53 minutes, so I'm not sure what good it will do to get in bed, but I better start gathering minutes of sleep now so they might add up to an hour or two by 9 am! Hope you're all getting a lot more sleep than we are!

A perfect summer evening

Dyl enjoying her first taste of sugar - pop-ice!

Tonight, at 7 pm, Chad, Dylan, & I joined our friends Heather, Greg, Emrie, Henry, & Greta in town for a walk. I pushed Dyl in her stroller, Heather pushed Emrie & Henry, Greg carried Greta in the Kelty, and Chad got to walk child free, for a lovely 3 mile trek around the hilltop. It was a gorgeous evening, if still rather hot. Our walk ended at Greg & Heather's house where we all enjoyed the perfect treat after a hot walk - pop ice! Dyl got her first taste of refined sugar in the form of a tasty, purple pop-ice, and boy did she love it. That deliciousness was followed up by an awesome zucchini muffin that Heather's sister Beth had made - Dyl had a little bit of that and loved it too! While we were lounging and pop-icing, Emrie & Henry were playing peekaboo with Dyl. Dyl thought they were hilarious and just laughed and laughed. We offered to trade Heather & Greg 2 chihuahua puppies for Emrie & Henry, but no luck there. ;) I love summer, even if it is miserably hot and humid. There's just something wonderful about the long evenings, and the feeling that something fun is always just around the corner.

All done!

Check out a cutie-pie video of Dyl signing 'all done', waving, and a glimpse of the sign for 'milk' on youtube! :) It's just amazing how much she learns and changes every day. I swear each day is more fun than the last. We love you bunches & bunches, Dylan-roo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irbZdZha1eE

A Dylbilly Hot Tub

"Look at this awesome swimming pool Grandpa built for me! Grandma calls it my 'hillbilly hot tub."

"And he gave me this super cool toy to play with - Mommy calls it a bobber."

"My swimming pool toys consist of a noodle, diving ring, bobber, measuring cups, a sanded chunk of wood, and a bathtub squirter toy. I have eclectic taste."

"Thank you for my swimming pool, Grandpoppy! I love it!"

An aerial view: I think the full size noodle is really what makes it classy.

"The sturdy 2x4 frame is pretty awesome. I helped Grandpoppy make it by handing him nails and helping Mommy hold one end up while he was working on the other end. I can use the frame to pull myself up on..."

"Or to rest my feet on!"

The cutest little butt. :) I'm pretty sure Dyl loves naked baby swim time. Who wouldn't want to have their diaper off for at least a little while when it's literally 102 degrees outside?

"Ooooh! A noodle!"

"I can get it. I'm a big girl now and I'm getting pretty darn good at reaching, and even nearly crawling."

"Ta dah! There's a pretty awesome view from my pool too - this is the good life."

We've been loving Dyl's homemade baby pool! It's just too hot and gross outside to do anything besides sit around in water. Dylan gets bored when we stay inside all day though, and she LOVES the water, so it's been really nice to have this to entertain her. Who knew visqueen and 2x4's could make something so cool?? (Pun intended.) Hope you're all surviving the heat wave and staying cool!

The last of the beach, and one pre-land-hurricane sky

The fresh seafood market & a shrimp boat, the "Lady Kathryn", at Surf City.

The fresh seafood market's message to everyone. :) 

Can anyone make sense of this madness?

They had delicious shrimp! I think Mom & Poppy had it almost every night while we were there.

The sky, just before the land hurricane on Friday. Pretty wild.

Well, we're now without electricity - as of 11 am yesterday. Last night we stayed at Grandma Stevelt's, who has power and heavenly A/C. Now Mom & Poppy's power is back on, so we've migrated over here today. The clinic is without power, along with our house, so no work for me this afternoon. Poppy worked this morning, but that's not an easy thing to do when there's no running water or lights! So he just saw emergency cases and made phone calls, etc. Mom graciously watched Dylan while I took a long nap today - 2 nights of terrible sleep in a row was making for a grouchy me. I'm feeling much better now, with a nice nap under my belt and some A/C to lounge in. Here's hoping our electric comes back on soon - I'd make a terrible Amish person...

AHA! - A Hands-on Adventure

A picture of Dyl loving the water table at AHA in Lancaster! It's such a cool design, and she was just splashing & jabbering away like crazy. She was adorable, as always. ;) 

Land Hurricanes

A cutie-pie picture of Dyl-frill, taken by her sweet babysitter Kate, on Friday. Kate was just here for an hour and a half, so I could take a much needed nap, but which was cut short by the crazy storm that ripped through Logan on Friday. Thankfully we are all safe & sound - but our thoughts are with those who were not so fortunate. The weather has really been wild this year. Here's hoping it can settle down and get back to normal soon.

It's been a week/weekend of small children's birthday parties, baby showers, and storms. We've been in negotiations on a house in Logan for over 2 weeks now - so that's been an enormous time consumer, and I'm not sure that there will ever be a light at the end of the tunnel! (Melodramatic, I know.) House buying was much more enjoyable the first time around. We'll see if we even end up with one for all our efforts this time!