Art Thief

This post is dedicated to our good friends, Sarah and Adam Gilmore...who have a chalkboard painted wall in their home.

Justin has been working on sheetrocking our master bed room recently. During a break he was unloading the dishwasher. For some reason he left his tool belt on. I was in the bathroom doing my hair, when all of a sudden I hear the pitter patter of little feet followed by a mischievous little laugh.


Turns out a little thief stole a carpenters pencil and a regular #2 pencil out of her daddy's tool belt with out him even noticing.

Check out our little Picasso's work:



All I can say is thank goodness it wasn't a sharpie.

Monkey Business

One of Justin's parents favorite stories to tell about his childhood is about the time they came into the kitchen to find a toddler-sized Justin (maybe about 3 or 4) up on top of the refrigerator. Justin also tells stories of how he climbed light poles in high school. Now he runs the ladder as a firefighter. I was warned often to look out when we got around to having children.

Turns out, the monkey gene runs in the family.
We are in sooo much trouble.

Yup, this last one was not staged at all. I looked over and she had conveniently pulled the drawers out like stairs and proceeded to climb up them. And like any good mother, I took a few pictures before I took her down.

At one year old, we are definitely in for a long journey of monkey business to come.

What a Summer

The end of this summer has been crazy. Well, what little of summer we had. Definately the rainiest, coldest, lack of sunshiniest summer ever. (You like that last word?) But such a summer of milestones. Previously I may have mentioned that Hailey began crawling at 6 1/2 months while we were visiting family in Oregon. Within 3 weeks she started pulling herself up on furniture. By 8 months she was full on cruising around holding onto stuff. She is days away from standing on her own and will be walking in no time.

REEEAACH!

August was such a busy month. We went to Justin's good friends' (and now mine too) wedding in Wasilla the weekend before my birthday. It was to be a great time; we had been looking forward to it for months. Well, needless to say, the day of the wedding Hailey came down with a fever. She was totally ill, not wanting to mingle, and would not let me get near the dancefloor of the live band. I was soooo bummed out. So we sat in our room right off the lawn of the outdoor wedding, listening to all the fun everyone was having, patiently waiting until 3 in the morning when Dad came in for the night. The party was a blast from what I heard, but I couldn't help being disappointed that I couldn't join in the festivities. Ah, the responsibilities of parenthood.

The groom John, Hailey, and groomsman Justin

Hailey's illness lasted the whole following week. By my birthday she was starting to feel better, and we had a lovely get together with some of our closer friends. Unfortunately by the next week, the worst of it got to my poor baby. She came down with her first ear infection. I was dreading this since I was so prone to them as a child. She was absolutely miserable. Thankfully she never fought with me to take her antibiotics and she pulled through like a trooper.

September rolled around and not 10 days after she finished her medicine, we had just got to Anchorage for Justin's follow-up appointment and low and behold, she screamed through the night our first night into town. So as Justin did his bloodwork and scans, we went up to the pediatricians office, and sure enough, ear infection #2. They gave her some stonger meds and she seems to be doing good now. Justin's appointment went great. The docs are pleased with his results and so far he is completely in the clear - thank God!

During this time, our darling daughter has continued to amaze us in her developmental progression. Within 3 weeks time, she has learned to wave hi and bye-bye on cue, clap her hands, click her tongue, sign "more", and dunk her face in the water when we go swimming.

Well, that should get us through for the time being. There is a couple of other fun events that probably deserve their own posts, so I'll save them for later. I'll try and do better at keeping up, there just hasn't been a whole lot of down time. So stay tuned.

The best bed head ever!

Snowflakes

March 3rd brought gigantic snowflakes, the kind that make a Christmas Eve perfect. Daddy though it would be a wonderful introduction of snow to Hailey. She didn't know what to think of the huge cold things falling from the sky.

He tried to get her to stick out her tongue, which she does so well.

...but he missed.

The cold flake took up half of her face, but she didn't seem to mind to much. She did fuss a bit when it wouldn't go away. It was quite funny to watch her reaction. Hopefully she'll grow up to love the snow as much as us so we can have fun enjoying the longest season we have together outside. 

Not Very Nice

I fell asleep...

...and Daddy made fun of me.

Lovin' Daddy

Nap Time

Work Time

Who Needs a Sugar Baby When You Can Have a Pumpkin Baby?

Justin thought it would be a good idea to make a baby pumkin for Halloween since we don't have our little one to dress up yet.

Tommy has been very protective of the baby, both the pumpkin one and the one in my belly. He is always following me around and making sure everything is ok. He even tries to sleep on my belly at night (until I get too hot and roll him off of me).

Finally after 8 weeks and a bunch of phone calls our crib mattress made it here. It fit perfectly in the crib. Justin thought it would be a good idea to make sure the "baby" would be comfortable...so here it is. :)

Practicing for our family photo.

The Handyman Can

The day before Justin left for his 2 week training in Louisiana, we spent an entire day putting together a majority of the furniture for the baby's room.

Baby's proud Daddy was hoping for something a bit more solid, but we take what we can get up here in the isolated AK.

2 Stroke was eager to help out. He spent the whole day with us...supervising from the rocking chair, making sure we didn't forget anything in the boxes (primarily by playing in them), and of course the most helpful-drinking Dad's water.

Tommy wasn't quite as concerned. He came in after all was done to do the final appraisal. He gave his mark of approval by walking over the changing table, leaving a trace of foot prints and kitty litter.
The crib came in while Justin was still away at training. Hopefully we'll get that put together sometime this week.