8 months.

lookie who decided to edit a picture?  

it was fun, but took quite a bit of time 

and that's not something i have a lot of these days.

plus, both ben & i are fans of the un-edited.

but i might do it every now and then, 

it sure makes life look a bit prettier, doesn't it?

so here we are, just keeping up with tradition, and posting this a month late.

there have been hundreds of moments this last month where i find that i'm squeezing my eyes shut hard, trying to make a permanent memory about june.  the way she smells, the feeling of her little arms gripped tightly around me, her soft and chubby legs, the feeling of her fuzzy, baby-fine hair against my chin.  

time is moving too quickly for me with this little one.

junearama began moving her little body around at just under 8 months, doing this hilariously strange go-into-a-pushup-position, then move her little toes up a couple of steps, then would put her knees down like she was going to crawl, but nope!  

down into a plank position as she pushed herself forward.

during the 8th month, she got fully into crawling and you can tell how excited she is at her own mobility because she squeals and laughs as she goes. until she pulls herself up to standing while holding something and falls.  but she now standing and is cruising along furniture and i am honestly considering buying a helmet for her little noggin because most of our home has tile floors. 
we're finding out quickly that her head and the floor are not friends..  

she loves to dance and sing along with us and clap for herself all of the time.  she wave's bye-bye, can say "hi" back to us when we say it, and is actually doing word association now.  she babbles a lot but can now say 3 or 4 words and knows what she's saying.  da-da {anytime ben comes into the room}, ba {for bath}, ba-ba {for bottle} and says mama when she is really sad, hurt or tired.

she gives the best hugs.  she's so so snuggly, more so than my other two ever were,
and wraps her arms around me tightly 

and holds on while laying her head on my shoulder.    

her laugh still sounds like a machine-gun popping off, and she is extremely ticklish. she is also finding her temper, and is vocal in letting us know when she's angry about having a certain "toy" taken from her chubby grasp.  luckily, she gets over it quickly.

she is healthy.  she's had a couple of colds in her life but
has never had to go do the doctor for a sick visit, 

and for that i am extremely grateful.

she has light blonde hair and hazel-ish eyes, and the rounder her cheeks become the deeper the dimple on her right cheek becomes.  no teeth yet, but there have been times when we were sure they were coming, so we keep her amber teething necklaces on to help with the symptoms.

she is so fun, this is pretty much my favorite time with a baby.

i'll be honest though, her night sleeping has been challenging.  some nights are great, and others are not so great.  and i mean rough.  so we've changed things up; at one point sleeping in her car seat in our rocking chair for a few weeks, then in a pack 'n' play in our room, and now she's in the pack 'n' play in our walk-in closet.  we just set up her crib a week ago, but she and caleb are going to share a room and i want to get her sleeping back to being consistent before we move her in. 

the other challenge we've had is eating.  she started out like a champ, but like her sleeping, some days are better than others.  so we're just taking it slow, not worrying about it, and being flexible. 

and now, here's just a whole bunch of pictures.

until she caught up with me, and came in for the attack.

kind of reminds me of her older sister, at 6 months:

same double chin.

even though i love my kids in all of their stages,

8 months needs to go down in the record books

as one of my favorites with june.

our lives just got messier.

somebody decided she likes solid foods.

a lot.

welcome to the big leagues, june bug.

connect the dots,

la-la-la-la.

does anyone else know this song? it's one of those i know from my childhood, but i can't remember where it's from.
for some reason, i hear elmo's voice singing along with the song.
weird?

anyway.

it's what continuously goes through my head when she's wearing these jammies.




and giving me this lovely view.

side air bags.

who knew knees could have 'em?

for the record, at almost 11 months she...

• walks about 10-12 steps at a time, but usually prefers about 4-5 before she busts down to her speedy crawl.
• waves bye-bye.
• can clap! clap! clap!
• says mama, dada, duh (for duck), ba ba (for bottle), ni-ni (for her blankie) and baaaaah! (for BATH!). does the sign for milk and almost has "all done" down.
  
• is still obsessed with the bath.
• dances. this lady can shake it like a polaroid picture.
• sings in a lovely, high-pitched voice.
• loves licking any metal object.
• has conversations with the baby einstein puppets on the TV screen.
• loves reading books.
• cracksup her brother with her headbanging skills. which is awesome since they share a room and she keeps him up alllllllll night. (anyone have any suggestions for this?)
  
• irritates her brother by destroying pretty much anything he builds, wants to play with, or that gets in her way.
• loves to get into the dishwasher, and open up the tupperware cupboard to throw every lid and bowl out.
• has two bottom teeth.
  
• also loves our bookshelf, she takes the books down in masses, then sits in the pile and looks through them individually as she jabbers away in her baby language.
• has pushed my creative geniuses to the edge trying to keep her away from the computer, the computer charger, the DVD player and the cable box. don't even get me started on the box fan.

• still is our little sweet pie, our fabulously sassy ray of sunshine. she has adopted so many nicknames (lee lee, chunk a lunk, miss pee pee pants (given to her by her brother) and sugar booger are a few) that i have to make a conscious effort to call her by her real name so that she recognizes it.

and we all adore her.

sun, sun sun here it comes...

doesn't this little picture make your day?


it sure makes mine.

happy friday everyone!

she's a maniac.

well, i wrote about them... the baby thigh high, kneecap protectors.
now check them out in pictures.


i said, "give me your crusty old lady face!" and this is what happened. i blame myself.

now she's crawling up because she felt the magnetic pull of the flash.
blast you, anti-red eye.
and watch out, there's a close up of her infamous double chin.

don't get too close, the chin might attack you,
channeling jabba the hut a la "return of the jedi."
no one feels like wearing a gold bikini & being chained to that monstrosity do they?
didn't think so.

here i am trying to push her away from grabbing the camera. what a mean mom.
do you see the determined look on her face? well maybe you don't. but i do.

finally after another 5 minutes of this silent arguing,
she went back to minding her own business.

the end. literally.

who needs ben & jerry's?

our own delicious chunky monkey.

(isn't that expression hilarious? she was blowing me a raspberry.)

this morning.

this morning i woke up to the smell of the lovely scent of "kitchen spice" wafting through the air. bath and body works knows how to do fall scents, don't they? have you tried "leaves?" yumalicious.

this morning i overheard caleb singing, "if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it! woah a oh, oh a oh oh oh!" in his defense (and mine) this is a song i solely sing to leah when i'm feeding her peas and she's refusing to open her mouth. it makes her smile and plop! in go the peas.

this morning ben came in to the room with a confused look on his face. walking kind of funny. turns out he'd put on a pair of my jeans by mistake. i was grateful that not only were they my "too big" pair, but they were snug on him.

this morning i insulted ben by saying i was grateful they were snug on him, because we were "quite a few pounds different." (i know that saying isn't really worded correctly but you get the idea.) so then he thought i was calling him fat. which is not at all true, i was trying to not call myself fat. and defended my grammatically un-correct statement by reminding him that i am about a foot shorter than him, and therefore should weigh "quite a few pounds different" from him.

this morning i insulted ben again because i also informed him that those jeans of mine were petite in length and that they didn't necessarily look like capris on him. that the length was quite fitting.

this morning i attempted to make up for my slew of insults by letting him know that the gap lived up to their claim. that those jeans of mine did, in fact, make him look longer and leaner. "oh wow, thanks." was his sarcastic reply. hey, i tried didn't i?

this morning leah didn't yet fit into the pants i had bought for her, so instead she crawled around in her baby thigh-high leg warmers. there's something unsettling about the word thigh-highs when discussing my now 8 month old lassie, but she sure looks cute in them. they squeeze the chunk of her legs so that when when you get to her diaper there's about an inch of muffin top chub spilling out over the sides. plus we like to make her dance to "she's a maniac" when she wears them and put it on the video camera. so funny.

and as for me?

this morning i am enduring a hangover from fair food. to specify, that is food from the fair, which we went to yesterday. check out these fries! and it was my first real attempt at eating fried treats. i wasn't sure how the deep fried twinkies would be but to my amazement they were absolutely spectacular. but due to the calorie overload yesterday i will be re-thinking my malibu barbie halloween costume. i think i'll go as her frumpy mother instead.




this morning i am loving the fact that the high is only 70 degrees today and that we're busting out the long sleeved shirts and pants. blessed be cooler weather!

half a year with leah layne

one week ago marked miss leah's 6 month birthday.

i'd like to say that the entire 6 months of her life she has been pure joy. but i try my best not to blie. (which is a word i just made up. blog + lie= blie.) i have loved every minute with her, even the difficult ones, and i do have to say that pretty much the last 3 months with her has been pure joy. the first 3 were kinda rough.

she is a happy, content, wild, curious, snuggly and independent little lady. you're wondering how i can combine content + wild and snuggly + independent? well obviously you haven't met her.

she loves to hang out on the floor with her toys and burst into spontaneous little songs. she likes to lick things. and i mean ALL things. the carpet, my nose, on sunday it was the metal legs on the chairs at church. and in case you missed my facebook status, has already shocked herself by licking our computer charger. oops.

she has an obsession with her toes. i think she is very proud of them. i don't blame her for this, and must say i feel the same way about my own toes. and hers as a matter of fact.

she is my yoga instructor. right now she is in downward facing dog position as i'm typing this, and every now and then pops her head up to smile at me. i'm amazed that at such a young age she has already found her inner chi.

she just officially started crawling yesterday, though she has been scooching around for over a month now. but i consider the real day yesterday, when she started coming a few feet toward me at a time.

several people have said to me, "ohhhhh, she's going to keep you on your toes. watch out, once she starts moving, she's going to be a handful!"

and they are right.

but some have said this in a negative way and i must kindly disagree. yes caleb was easier to maintain in one spot while he played with a circle of toys surrounding him, but i would have traded that in a second to have a baby who was mobile, who didn't have to have over a year of physical therapy and braces, who could walk before they were two.

in a second!

so i guess this is the trade off. i got what i asked for.

and am soooooo completely happy about it.

i'm looking forward to having to baby proof everything early, to having to save her life from the latest common household item that she has turned into a weapon, to kissing her bumps and bruises that occur from crashing through every room like a bull in a china shop.

maybe when she's two i might rethink this posting. but for now, ben and i just adore watching her mind work, her wanting to touch everything we touch and grab everything in sight.

though you might be tired of the endless picture of our little brown-eyed girl that is just too bad for you. since we are cheap and personally, i like candid shots a whole lot better than the professional ones (i can pick when they are in a good mood, fresh diaper, and in our own environment), i decided to catch the lady in action.

this is what she looks like 90% of the day...





5% of the day... (staring intently at something on the ground, or her toes)




and the last 5% of the day...





she was really good for me until she remembered that she now knows how to get from one place to the other and was more excited to achieve the goal of attacking the camera head on.



mission accomplished.