The Fruit of Our Labors

We're finally finished!! For the past couple of weeks we have been working on refinishing our kitchen table sanding, varnishing, more varnishing, sanding, applying protective coating, and more sanding!! Its been a fun project to work on together. We'd put Liz to bed and then head out to the garage to work on it each night. And its finally complete!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

11 Months Old!!

The cold weather is here! I pulled out her adorable furry coat the second the temp dropped!

My little baby Lizzie is now 11 months old! Her biggest change in the past month is that she is now WALKING! This is sad to me because I suppose that make her more of a "toddler" than a baby. She insists on growing despite my pleas otherwise. She is so funny to watch as she toddles around the house making her "rounds," visiting her toys, the vent on the wall, the kitchen, up and down the hallway, then back to her toys.




Little Liz is learning to communicate better every day! She can wave hello, say "mama" and "dadda," do sign language for "all done!," pants when asked what a dog says, and responds to commands and questions with her actions and pointing.
Ever since I figured out that she can point to objects when asked "where is ____?" she has learned a ton of new words and objects! More than I can list but here are a few of my favorites: Lenny the Lion, toothbrush, caterpillar, banana, octopus, keys, shoes, elephant, belly button, and mouth.




She is such a sweet little girl! I am so lucky to have her!

A Seattle Friend

It was so nice to see a friend from Seattle! Gretchen drove down to visit us at our new place and show us around her hometown and our new town: Tumwater! She toured us around to all her favorite parks in the area complete with tips on good places to launch our kayaks and hiking trails that lead to a beautiful waterfall.

Lizzie and Michael played together nicely and had fun going down the slides and playing with the wood chips.

Her new little baby was so sweet too! He didn't appreciate the slide as much as the older kids!

Lisa's Visit

We love it when family comes to visit! Lisa was no exception. We started the visit out with a little trip to Dave's dental office. No better way to welcome family then to pull a couple teeth when they arrive....just kidding. We didn't really pull her teeth, but Dave and I did work together as a team for the first time!

After having fun at the dental office we headed over to the Puyallup Fair. There were many amazing sights such as..

...lots of animals!

...hundreds of pounds of produce!
...and crafts galore!

One of the best parts was seeing the two little girls interact. They were so cute together! It was just too bad we ran out of time because it was such a short visit. We never got around to taking more pics of the matching cousins!

It was so great to have you over Lisa!

Big Blue Eyes

The first thing people say when they see Lizzie is "What beautiful blue eyes and such looong eye lashes!!"
I wish I could take credit for either one of those traits but she got her blue eyes from daddy and her long lashes from her Grandma.

Maybe I will take credit for the long lashes anyways. After all, her Grandma's genes were passed through me....

Pressures of a Dental Family

Apparently the pressure of having a dentist and dental hygienist for a mom and dad is getting to Lizzie.

She doesn't have any teeth, but she loves playing with and sucking on her toothbrush.

In fact, the toothbrush is one of her favorite toys because she sees mom and dad playing with them morning and night too!

She even knows the word "toothbrush" and can pick it out, when asked, from a lineup of different objects every time!

I'm afraid she's getting a complex about having no teeth so I had a little talk with her and told her its ok.

1. Many babies don't get their teeth til about 1 yr.

2. The longer they have no teeth the less total life time exposure to everyday wear and tear, bacteria ,etc.

3. Mom prefers no teeth til baby is FULLY weaned....very soon.

4. Mom and Dad are going to ATTACK her with toothbrushes and floss as soon as that first one erupts. (We'll see if she likes toothbrushes then...hehe)

5. She looks so dang cute without teeth.

She seems to have taken our little talk to heart.

Aaaaaaah....the first of many pressures of being the child of a dentist and dental hygienist.

P.S. When I was taking pics of her at the park she just stood up and started walking...so weird. I'm not quite used to this yet.

More Tutu Pics

I loved the pics Jamie took of Liz in the tutu so much she gave me copies of ALL the pics and I edited more of them! These are posted for you mom! Choose the ones you want copies of but dont forget the ones in the post a while back because these are slightly different. So many facial expressions to choose from!