before Christmas 2009

Danielle's first big-girl bath (she didn't like it):

Daddy wanted to take this photo of Mama getting christened during Danielle's last sink tub bath:

Danielle trying to figure out the tree:


Danielle trying to figure out her Christmas pjs from Grandpa Ray:


Danielle having fun with Santa (even though he was grumpy):

Grandpa Ray's visit

Grandpa Ray came to visit the first weekend in December. Here are some photos of him and Danielle, and one of her playing with Mama and Daddy's new present, a video baby monitor. Well, one of her playing with the box anyways.:)

Danielle eats finger foods

Here's Danielle's first try at finger foods :)

Danielle opens her present!

Here's Danielle's second try at opening a present. The first time all she did was eat the paper :) I think she's got the hang of it now! Thank you MamaLinda for the gift!!

Standing Up!

Sitting Up

Danielle has decided to sit up finally! She has been propping herself up for the past few weeks on one arm, but hasn't wanted to make the effort to sit up all the way until now.  She also got her two bottom teeth in the weekend before Thanksgiving.  She waited for a few weeks after she started crawling to really get moving around, but now she is everywhere and starting to get into things.  I bought a kiddie corral so that she can crawl around and play and not get hurt.  It looks a little like a mini plastic prison in the pictures, but she seems to like it, as she can play and still see me.  Here are some pictures from the past week or three.

 

Before/after of the house

I painted the upstairs guest bath yesterday, and finally got the curtains altered to finish up the nursery. My sewing room got finished the day before that, the only thing that's left is to get glass for my America cross-stitch from my Grandmother, and to accessorize my little display shelf a little better. So we have 4 rooms completely done now, and I love how they turned out. Maybe a little of my sister's decorating ability is rubbing off on me! Here are some before/after pics.

It's Official!

Danielle is officially crawling! This was actually her third trek to get the cat toy under the end table, so she needed a little break at the beginning :)

Grass

I took Danielle out to the front yard and had her play on the grass for the first time a couple weeks ago. She seemed to think it was weird, but tried to eat it of course :)

Ad Job?

Do you think we could sell these and have Danielle be the new face of Mountain Dew?

Longer videos

Here are some longer videos of Danielle. I haven't taken as many pictures or videos lately because we're kind of in between milestones lately. She is getting much better at sitting on her own, and she recently started pushing herself up on one side, as if she wants to go from laying down to sitting up. Mostly she's just scooting around, half rolling, half throwing herself to get somewhere, exploring everything she can get her hands on. Today I finally let her play with the phone, in the hopes that I can have a conversation at some point without having to play "keep away" with her. she also especially likes bottles and grabs at whatever drink I have in my hands.

Grammy and Grampy videos

Here are some long overdue videos from our trip to visit Ryan's Grammy and Grampy:

Halloween

Danielle was a bumblebee, I was a flower, and Ryan was a samurai. We went two doors down to visit with our neighbors (Marian makes awesome chili!) and we spend the evening handing out goodies with them. They have two little girls who are likely to be Danielle's babysitter when they get older :) We carved pumpkins this year, but didn't make it to a hayride...maybe next year!

Grammy and GrampyRoad Trip

We had a great visit up north to see my father and Sonja in Ohio, and Ryan's grandparents and his mom in Illinois.

We only stayed a day in Ohio, but we had a really great time and Sonja made us two delicious breakfasts! (She even got up at 4 am to do so, which was ridiculously nice!). We got to meet lots of Sonja's (extended) family, and, most importantly, Danielle got to meet her Grandpa Mac. We drove through the night to get to Ohio, and Danielle did great in the car (she slept the whole time :)

The trip to Illinois got cut a little short, as we headed out midmorning last Thursday to beat a huge storm blowing in. Danielle did really well riding in the car, even though she was awake for half the trip. We only had to stop every 3 or 4 hours, and she didn't get very fussy at all.

While we were in Illinois we got to spend time with Ryan's grandparents (Grammy and Grampy) and his mom (Mimi). It was so nice to meet them, and very touching to have 4 generations together. I got to see Grammy's embroidery machine and we made up some bib pockets for Danielle. We also went to Hobby Lobby, and I brought home even more crafts to do! I better go work on Danielle's Halloween costume...here are some pics from the trip.