Gemma - 15 months old?!?!

I can't believe how time is flying! My baby girl is already 15 months old (tomorrow) and every day she amazes me with something new.

Here's a quick list of her latest favorite activities:
- "Cook" with Mama aka stir a wooden spoon around an empty pot in the kitchen while I make dinner
- Play with Mama's cell phone and send random nonsensical texts to all my contacts (this is especially funny when it's someone I haven't talked to in months!)
- Dance (must. post. video. it is so adorable!)
- Eat! (apples, animal crackers, cottage cheese, pretzels, bread, pasta, pita, bagels, melon, carrots, beans, etc. and the occasional bites of Mommy's cookies and/or ice cream)
- Sit in Mommy or Daddy's lap and read books
- Chase or be chased all around the house
- Give kisses to Mommy and Daddy
- Imitate animal noises (especially doggies and lions)
- Master new signs. The ones she has down are: More, Milk, Thank You, Cracker.
Still working on: Like, Mommy, Daddy, Outside
- Master new words: Mama, Daddy, Thank You, Doggie, Yummm, Uh-Oh!, Yayyy, Hi, Bye
- Take off her own diaper (nooooot fun for Mom and Dad! haha)
- Run around naked
- Still in love with Bathtime - has been since birth!
- Build block towers and crash them down
- Give hugs and kisses to her Snuggle Bear and Baby Doll
- Explore and run around outside
- Blow kisses
- Climb (up stairs, onto chairs, onto tables, out of her high chairs, out of the shopping carts, onto bookshelves, etc. Point is, we have a little gymnast on our hands!)
- Be silly
- Smile and laugh at everything
- Wave to every person she ever sees anywhere (she's very friendly)
- Be AMAZING!!!

I just love this little girl so much!
Warning - picture overload! Also, sorry for some of the blurry shots - had to get the block tower building in action! Oh, and for the record - she was gnawing on this apple with her one and only tooth! So cute :)

Things. Have. Happened!

Helllllllloooo!! (Mrs. Doubtfire voice). 

I dunno... I just felt like saying that.

Anyway, it is so totally update time. I'm going to make this fast though because honestly, details can be boring and my attention span is short. So, first of all, my surgery went as smoothly as we could have hoped for, and I am recovering really well. So in a few weeks, this will all be a distant memory! Thank you all so, so, so, so, so much for your prayers and support during that time. I am so grateful to God for seeing me through that.

Secondly, it's official. I am now a resident of Virginia!! The move went off without a hitch. Well, actually, we did need a hitch to tow our car. But other than that one necessary hitch, it was an otherwise totally hitchless event. Our new home is absolutely gorgeous, and every morning, when I look outside, I have to remind myself that I actually LIVE here. I keep thinking I'm just visiting or on vacation or something. We live right on the river, and yes, it's time for pictures. Pardon the mess... we just moved, people! ;)

Hubby and Gem outside the house. Back of the house.

Fam room area

Dining room area. Hubs working on his brand new computer. Kitchen in the background.

Okay, so now that you can see a little sneak-peak of the kitchen back there, let me just talk about that for a minute. I am .OBSESSED. with my new kitchen. Seriously. Sometimes I just go in there to hang out. Stare at the inside of my oven. Wash my hands. Caress the counter-top. Just kidding about that last part. ...not really. But anyway, it's a brand new kitchen. Fresh new tile. All new energy-efficient appliances. New cupboards. Granite counter-tops. Gigantic stainless steel sink. Seriously, you could probably give a baby elephant a bath in there. Possibly even an adolescent elephant. 

Yes, it's raining outside, but no one can rain on my parade of kitchen joy. It's just beautiful.

And it is a really huge room... I may add an island in here at some point. Right now, I just have some extra shelving and random stuff going on over there, but hey. At least there are sombreros.

I also really need to get curtains in this kitchen asap because it's so creepy at night when you can't see out and have a ridiculous imagination like I do. I'm pretty sure I've already envisioned roughly 17 different stalker/axe murderer/lunatic clown scenarios while standing in the kitchen at night.

Okay, so I've been holding out on you. As gorgeous as the kitchen is, it doesn't even come close to the beauty that is our backyard. Our backyard is a river. The Lafayette River to be exact. This is the view from the back door of our house. (Which is the kitchen door, which means I get to look out to the river a million times a day as I hang out in my awesome kitchen.)

:

Sunset. Picnic table compliments of my FIL.

The dock! And seriously, I'm not exaggerating... this picture was taken from the threshold of our back door. 

So it's almost impossible for me to stop taking pictures out here. Especially at sunset!! What's really cool about this is that the water is brackish which makes for extremely fertile breeding ground for all different types of fishes. We hear the fishing and crabbing off this dock is top notch. So operation buy a fishing pole will very soon commence. 

Lots of geese, ducks, and cranes out on this river.

Here comes a goose to say hi to my family!

I don't even have to edit these pictures, it's just that gorgeous out here.

Me and my little Gem. She's waving hi to all of you, beautiful readers!

So the other really cool thing about where we live on the river is that directly across from us is the zoo! Which is cool for a few different reasons:

1. No one will ever build a house over there so our view will always just be all those trees, which makes it look so awesome and naturey all the time.

2. Sometimes you can hear random animal noises and you get to play the game of guess which animal made that noise!

3. Maybe they will let me babysit an adolescent elephant some time so I can really see just how big my kitchen sink really is. Ya think?

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend! I know Gemma enjoyed herself. Rocky and I were making s'mores, turned our backs on her for 5 seconds to roast our mallows, and I turned around to this glorious sight:

Of course I had to get a picture of her mischief before we hosed her sticky self off.

It was also 97 degrees out, so we justified this activity as serving a dual-purpose.

And Gemma loved every minute of it.

Once again, thank you all for your love and prayers for my family during this transition period. Praise God for bring us to this beautiful new home! We are so looking forward to our new life and ministry here.

Putting Babies Through College

Money. Yeaaaaa. A lot of people have a love of money, but if you're like me, you hate it. It always seems to create more problems than it solves, and there never seems to be enough of it! Most families operate on some sort of a budget, and although it might seem a little bit early to add "College Savings" to that budget, it really isn't. It's never to early to start saving! (Even if it's just a little bit).

As I sit here looking at my 8 month old playing with a paper towel roll, I find it hard to imagine her starting college. But she will. Sooner than I know it I'm sure.

So. Here are a few tips for saving some of that degree-winning dinero.

1. Open a savings account of some sort. Can't save without a savings account. Well... there's always the ole stash-it-under-the-mattress gig, but there may be better options for you. In fact, there are lots of options out there for different types of accounts, and some are specifically for college savings. Talk to your banker about the best option for your family.

2. Once you've got the account set up, put some away every single month. The best way to do this is to set up an automatic transfer of the amount you're putting away, that way you're not tempted to "just wait till next month to start" or worried about forgetting to do it. Work this into your monthly budget plan. Even if you're only putting in $5 a month, at least it's a start. And getting into the habit of saving is very important.

3. When your baby receives any money as gifts (Baptism, birthdays, etc.), immediately put that into her account. It's her money, and that's the best place for it. Remember, you should already have an allotted category in your budget for her day-to-day expenses, like diapers and food. And as your kids get older, talk to them about the monetary gifts they receive. This is a great time and way to start teaching financial decision making early on. As kids, they're likely to want to blow it all on the newest video game but teach them the value of saving. See if you can work out a system where half of it goes to their savings and the other half is theirs to spend.

4. Windfalls. These may not come often, but when they do, boy does it feel great. Whether it be a tax return, winning lottery ticket, inheritance checks, or a generous gift at Christmas, there's nothing quite like the thrill of unexpected money. And since it's unexpected, in reality, you don't always need it right then and there. The best thing to do with unexpected money is put half of it - that's right, HALF, into your child's savings. Put thirty percent of it into your own savings. And then blow the other twenty percent. Splurge on a nice date, or new purse, or a set of congas. Whatever you fancy. And don't feel guilty about it! That's the beauty of unexpected money. 

5. Don't touch the account, other than to put money IN. Your future self will be very grateful. Once the money's there, it's there. I'm sure it may be tempting to dip into it a little bit when the kitchen sink blows or when your health insurance didn't cover quite as much of the hospital bill from your kid's broken arm as you'd hoped. But the goal is to have an emergency savings account of your own for times like that, so your childrens' savings accounts are free to happily grow over the years, right along with your children. 

I know there are some people who are not big fans of budgeting, seeing it as a limitation on their lifestyle. But in reality, budgeting, when done right, opens up more possibilities for your life! Sure, you may need to cut back on going to the high-end sushi restaurant for every date night, but the money you save doing so can be going towards saving up for a family vacation to the beach, or a down payment for a more comfortable car. 

And in this case, the security of knowing you will be able to help your baby, even just a little, when it comes time for her to go off to college. As a mom, I know I'll be grateful to have one less thing to worry and cry about when that day comes.

Milestone: Crawling!!!

That's right folks, you read correctly: Gemma is now crawling. After about a month and a half of practicing various baby yoga poses, pushing herself backwards, and then crawling backwards quite successfully, she at last figured out how to do the official forward crawl!

Here she is, getting buff and practicing her moves:

Workin' on her guns

Downward-facing Dog

Plank

Cow Pose

Aaaaalmost crawling!

And then, at long last, she did it!

Now, it's been just two short days that she's been crawling now, and already I've had to take some much more serious baby-proofing measures around here. Despite my efforts, she still manages to find the exact things she shouldn't and swiftly gets to work on ruining those things. Or attempting to eat them. Yesterday I looked over and she was happily chewing on something, which I discovered upon retrieval was a fragment of padded envelope. Where she got it? No clue. She sure was mad when I took it away though. But then she saw some wires calling her name and away she crawled.

The weather seems like it's slowly trying to become nicer more permanently... there are even buds all over the trees outside my window right now. So hopefully we'll be able to get to some parks soon where she can crawl around to her heart's content without my having to worry about wires and bags and ribbons and paper finding their way into her mouth. Sure she may eat some dirt or worms or something but heck, I'll just chalk it up to some extra minerals and protein! Good for her, right?

Favorite of the Day: Baby Babble

Some of Gemma's favorite phrases:

Wambahammwaaam

Awah bawah

Daaaaaaabwah

Mmmmmmmwaaaaaaa

Dah dah dah dah dah dah

Waaah da

Nnnnnnnnn haa

Mwahdadaaaaaammm

It makes the day seem so much more cheerful when I can chat with my baby. Maybe none of it makes sense to us yet, but I just love to listen to her talk. And all day long it is so amusing and comforting to have her little voice fill up the whole room. One thing is for sure, this is one vocal little baby! Heaven help me when she actually starts speaking English! :)

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Favorite of the Day: Dress-Up!

"Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul."  

-Mark Twain

Dresses. Overalls. Booties. Tutus. Onsies. Bibs. Leggings. Hairbows. Tights. Skirts. 

The list goes on, my friends. 

When I was a little girl, there was no end to my doll-playing. I wanted every doll and every doll outfit there was! I could sit in my room for hours just dressing up my dolls in never-ending, ever-changing outfits. So, naturally, what could be better for someone like me, than to have my very own real-life doll to dress up every day!? Not much, folks, not much. It is so much fun having a baby girl! 

Every morning when I lay Gemma onto her changing table, I just start dreaming about the possibilities. I always ask her, "What do you want to wear today?" Now, she can't quite answer me yet, but we're practicing for the day when she can start picking out her own outfits. (And as a side note, I cannot WAIT for some of those wacko toddler creations she comes up with!) So anyway, I hold up various outfits, colors, and combinations for her to see before I finally settle on some always-adorable baby fashion for her to wear. We get all gussied up in, say, a butterfly onesie and pink tights under a purple tutu and matching bow around her head. It's all so girly and so adorable.

And then, the drool begins. Now, this girl can DROOL. She's like a leaky gushing faucet! So, since a bib didn't quite go with the butterfly outfit, before I know it, she has literally drenched her onsie down to the belly-button level. Now, I could just put a bib on her, or just change her onesie, but c'mon, where's the fun in that? Onto outfit number two!! 

Outfit number two definitely includes a bib. So I find a cute little pink and black panda outfit with matching bib for her to sport during the late morning/early afternoon phase of the day. 

And then, the megapoo occurs. No matter how perfectly the diaper has been placed on that precious little booty of hers, somehow, the megapoo will always win. Up the back, or down the legs, or out onto the belly. I'm pretty sure I'm keeping Oxyclean in business with all the stains we accumulate around here.

So, we switch gears to outfit number three of the day which Gemma will sport for the rest of the evening, and sometimes, when I'm feeling lazy and no more messes have occurred, will double as her pjs for the night. Therefore outfit number three is usually one of those super cozy button-down-the-front footie outfits. With a bib. Which will turn into three bibs by the end of the night. 

Then we have a usually have a bath and change into pjs for sleepytime. All in all, we AVERAGE four outifts a day on this little one, but it has been as many as seven outfits in a day. And I guess if you include the number of outfits I go through after all the spills, poos, and spit-ups, we're racking the numbers up to double digits every day! 

All I can say is, get me out of this apartment and into a house with my own washer and dryer!

And then there's just good ole fashioned costume dress-up!