Don't blink

Before I had a child people always told me, 'don't blink or you'll miss something.' How true that is turning out to be! I don't think I've actually missed anything yet (man are my eyes dry) but I'll tell you, my little girl is changing and learning rapidly. Lately she's figured out her own style of crawling and is extremely interested in the fringe around the hem of our Christmas tree skirt. It would appear that she loves presents too, who doesn't, right? The mode of travel she decided on is to get into a monkey position (hands and feet) and then flop to the ground and repeat. So far it's been pretty successful though I don't see this lasting long since it takes a while to get anywhere. We'll see what her next modification will be.

Another point of progress Eva has made is in eating. We ran out of homemade baby food and I hadn't gotten a chance to make some more so I tried just mushing up some peas and giving her that with some other things. She did really well so we started trying more and more things. I noticed that she was showing a particular interest in trying to pick things up with her thumb and pointer too. Bring in the O's. I feel like in an instant Eva went from very smooth pureed food to picking up and eating finger food all by herself.

We had some friends in town last week and it was really nice to see them and catch up a bit. Thursday morning we had all finished breakfast (Eddie's boss was nice enough to let him come in a bit late) and Eva and I walked Eddie to the door as he was leaving for work. Normally I wave 'bye bye' to him and I say 'bye bye Daddy' by myself. This time I was not the only one waving and talking. Eva joined me with a wave and also said 'buh buh da da'. This was another one of those precious moments that I won't ever forget. Since then she waves and says 'buh buh' whenever she sees herself in the mirror.

Over the course of the past month a huge, wonderful blessing has occurred. Eva has pretty much stopped spitting up!! I'm not sure when it happened exactly but one day I realized that I didn't need to keep a bib on her all day. It's been fantastic. Thank you God.

I'm gearing up for Christmas. Things haven't been as organized as I would have liked but stuff is getting done. We decided to have Christmas at our house this year and have our folks come down here. Sadly my parents won't be able to join us as previously planned but Eddie's parents will still be making the trip unless the snow decides otherwise. We're looking forward to being home for the holidays and allowing Eva to have her first Christmas at her house.

Overdue Updates


Wow, I haven't updated in a while. Things have been so busy around here with the holidays. It seems that it has taken 3 weeks to prepare and recover from a one week trip! First you have the week of prep, getting things together and ready to go. Then you have your week away. Finally there's the unpacking and clean up resulting from being away for a week. Do you find that happens to you?

Our trip was a success. Traffic was not terrible (thanks for your prayers) and fairly uneventful aside from losing our low beams halfway through the trip up. Luckily our high beams were working and the highways were pretty well lit. We got in around 10pm Tuesday night. Wednesday was a pretty low key day of prepping for Thanksgiving and that night I was surprised, midway through cleaning my parents fridge, by my good friend Chrissy and her boyfriend Mike. We had planned on getting together but I forgot, oops. We were able to spend a couple hours together and it was great to FINALLY meet Mike who I've heard so much about. He's a keeper Chrissy!! Mom was kind enough to finish the fridge cleaning extravaganza despite being tired from a long day.


It was so nice to be able to see family and spend some time catching up on Thursday. It's been almost a year since I saw my cousins and their kids and it's amazing how much everyone changes in that amount of time. My parents were so gracious in hosting everyone for Turkey day. Eddie and I are grateful to them for their hospitality and for opening their home. Mom worked really hard to make the house beautiful for everyone and to make the bedroom we stayed in cozy and inviting. Thanks Mom! Thanks to Dad too for all your hard work and the help that you gave Mom. All in all it was a time of good food, good fellowship and lots of laughs. My brother Ben and his lovely wife Vicky joined us on Thursday night and, while we didn't get to spend as much time together as I would have liked, it was good to see the newlyweds. We got to meet my youngest brother JD's new girlfriend Amanda and she's really sweet. Ironically JD was Ben's best man and Amanda was Vicky's maid of honor! Neat.


Friday we got to have a wonderful breakfast with everyone and have an early Christmas with Grammy since we'll be spending Christ's birthday in Virginia. Thanks for all the nice gifts Grammy. Eva is really excited to try out her tricycle when Mom and Dad bring it down for Christmas! After lunch we packed up the car and headed over to New York to spend some time with Eddie's family. We were able to spend some time relaxing with Eddie's parents and Bandit that night. Saturday Mom L. was kind enough to orchestrate a lunch get-together with Uncle Bob and Aunt Gigi. It was great to see them and for them to spend some time with Eva. Grammy Sara wasn't able to join us but we had a chance to visit her later on in the day at her beautiful new home. She was happy to see Eva and we got some great pictures of the two of them together. Happily we didn't have to leave on Sunday and compete with the rest of the travelers returning from their holiday.


We had a fantastic time with everyone. I am amazed that we didn't do any shopping. It seems like every year we buy something and I was pleased to keep our wallets safely tucked away. Despite all the fun we had with family it's good to be home.


In other news we got a nice new TV on Wednesday. It's super big and shiny.

Eva update: She's super close to being a full blown crawler. She's got the hands and knees rocking down. She's got the rolling all over the place down. She's got backwards crawling down (much to her dismay) and I'm anticipating forward motion any day now. Still no teeth. I feel like these also could be here any day. Poor girl seems to chewing on everything and pouring drool from her mouth but there is still no visible evidence of pearly whites. I'm eager for her to get some teeth so we can start expanding her food selection. I'm hesitant to give her things that she has to chew for fear that she will choke but I guess I have to move her menu forward at some point. I think the arrival of teeth will help that. When did you start expanding your child's menu?