Fall Fever

(One of my favorite entries in our annual pumpkin carving contest of years past!)

I have a personal tradition, since I was a kid, that EVERY October I get sick with the flu or a cold of some sort. This year is no different except that I have passed the tradition on to Lizzie. Mom and baby are laying low for a couple days.
We're actually at the tail end of it I think...we'll be fully recovered by tomorrow?

Daddy Daughter Dance

Its no wonder Lizzie gets so excited when Daddy gets home. Liz loves "La Grange" so they dance to it almost every night! Sometimes she'll walk over to the computer, look at it, then look at Dave and start to dance. Its her way of asking her dad for a dance!

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....