My Girl

It is still hard to believe that Addie has been here for less time than it took to keep her safe in my belly. But, just one more month to go and she'll beat that. She was eight months old on Thursday, something that still blows my mind. Everyone said and says, "The time goes by so fast," and it is so true. I don't know where the time goes, and I know, of course, that she is growing because I see it happening right before my eyes, but it is still hard to believe.

It is wild to see her sit at the table and feed herself a cracker. Just the other day I saw her sitting up, but realized when I'd looked at her just seconds before, she was lying down. It was then that I realized she was able to get into the sitting position from her back all on her own. She catches a glimpse of her hand and turns it around and around, moving her fingers, analyzing them and their movement. She babbles and babbles and babbles...loudly. She turns when we call her name, whether we call Addie or Adelaide. She stands up in our laps, and she is getting oh so close to crawling. Even without the crawling she makes her way around. She emphatically shakes her head no, even if she wants whatever it is you have.

Sometimes she still gets up at night. Sometimes she lays her head on our chests. Sometimes she doesn't want to take a nap, or at least doesn't want to be put down awake. Sometimes she needs to be rocked. Sometimes she likes to bite when she is eating (ouch). Sometimes she bites down on the spoon and won't let go or sticks out her tongue and blows, spraying baby food all over. Sometimes she looks deep into my eyes, locking her gaze on mine, before she is soon distracted by a shadow, a bird, or the beep of the oven timer.

It is always fun to watch her, even though some days it is tiring. When she wakes during the night it can be frustrating, not knowing why she does it when I know she can sleep the night through. There are times when we have to talk over her in the car, when she's feeling particularly chatty. There are days when after she is in bed, my back aches and there is still laundry to be folded and dishes to be done.

I am always willing to rock her, even if some say it means I'm spoiling her, because I know this time is short. I kiss her cheeks until they are pink, because I know one day she won't let me. We throw her into the air or flip her upside down, because those are two things that generate the biggest laughs.

I will always be grateful for these times and I will always, always be thankful for my girl.

Mountainfilm Fun

Last weekend we had a dose of home via a visit from my sister and brother-in-law. They were actually staying about an hour from us in WaterColor, which is a beach community that is primarily populated by tourists but there are some full-time residents in the area, too. The community itself is pretty cool and we had the good fortune of being able to stay with them overnight on Friday and spend most of the day Saturday there.

The big event for the weekend was Mountainfilm, a film festival that finds its home in Telluride, CO but travels to the gulf coast once a year as well. My sister usually makes it down here for the festival and this year we were joining them. It runs for two nights but we just attended Friday night. Films are shown outdoor on a huge, inflatable screen against a backdrop of awesomely lit trees (see photo above. I think that photo is circa 2002-03). They even offer fire pits and you can make s'mores for free! The program runs for about three hours each night and features short films or excerpts of films exploring a variety of topics.

It was a chilly night! We came prepared with sweatshirts, jackets, and blankets and created a cozy cocoon for Addie, who fell asleep during the second half of the evening. We enjoyed spending time with some of my sister's friends and met some new people as well.

Here is Addie, ready to greet the chilly night:


Saturday was a lazy, beautiful day. We started at the Farmer's Market in WaterColor and then ended up with lunch before we headed back to Wewa and a busy Sunday. It was good to hang out with Les and Dan and to see what Mountainfilm is all about.

If you're interested, this was one of our favorites from the night. It is just under five minutes and worth the viewing, I think.

I am thankful that we had some time with my sister and Dan and that Addie did well during the festival. We'd love to make it to Telluride one year...we'll see!

Happy Halloween in November

So, I'm late on posting about Halloween. I quickly took pictures of Addie as we rushed out the door to our church's Fall Festival on the 31st, but thought we'd end up staging Halloween later and take some other photos with Addie's first pumpkin. It didn't happen. We did have the pumpkin but never got the chance to carve it and we just never dressed her up again to take new photos. I really wanted her to have a cute first pumpkin - maybe next year.

Originally Addie was going to be a cute monkey, with mom and dad as bananas. When I learned it was going to be 80 degrees on Halloween I quickly nixed that idea. How could I put my sweet girl in a heavy, stuffy costume in that heat? Instead, I found a cute idea in an magazine that seemed easy enough so I forged ahead with my noncrafty self and set about to get it together. Easier said than done. Oh, and that 80 degrees? Seems a cold front came through and it ended up being very chilly that night. It was wonderful, but not what I'd anticipated.

It may not seem like it by the pictures, but pulling her costume together was a lot easier said than done. Note to others - if you are looking for long johns or sleep sets in any solid color for babies, you're out of luck. Well, unless you do some preplanning or you're more resourceful than I am. Same goes for solid color party hats. Yes, that's right. You'd think those would be easy to find, but think again. If you're looking for Dora the Explorer, Transformers, or any other character, you're in.

After running around to more stores than I wanted, and after rinsing, re-rinsing, bleaching, and rinsing (again) my washer to make sure all of the red dye was gone, this is what we had:






The cutest red crayon I've ever seen. I'm a little proud of how she turned out. We ended up having to cover her up when it got chilly, but I think Addie's first stab at dressing up was a success. I'm just looking forward to when she gets older and I can raid her Halloween candy stash.

Nice to Meet You, Ida

I celebrate a year blogging anniversary and then apparently decided to take a break. A few things to catch up on. First, Ida.

As of yesterday afternoon all of the schools in our county and some in neighboring counties had already decided to call off classes for today. This is something I'm still getting used to - snow day, anyone? I hadn't been watching the news so I didn't really know what was coming our way, so when I heard this I was a little surprised. It was dreary all day yesterday and started raining during the early evening, but I hadn't thought much of it.

We went ahead and ventured out to get some groceries and by the time we returned home it was raining steadily. We got the groceries put away, put Addie down for the night, and settled in to catch up on some TV. Around 11 Sabian and I started a rousing game of Tetris and weren't playing too long before the power went out. We brought out the candles and the flashlights, stayed up just a little bit longer, and went to bed as the rain and wind pounded us. The wind was seriously howling.

All in all this is the first we've really seen of any tropical weather since we moved here, and even at that it wasn't bad. I mean, Lake Chaney didn't even appear! In the last year there were two other hurricanes/tropical storms that were "supposed" to make their marks but ended up making more of an appearance in the Midwest than here. Our only casualty was this:
We don't have a garage so we've been using a tent as a carport for our car. It is a large tent you might set up a picnic table under, or some such thing. My dad had it and gave it to us when we moved down here, but for some reason we didn't get around to putting it up until a year later. It was great for keeping the car protected from the sun during the summer and nice when it was raining and I was getting Addie in and out of the car. Even with all of the warning and time we had to prepare we didn't even think about taking it down and as a result, we've lost it. I really can't pinpoint why we didn't think about it. In the end it just stinks that we have to trash it, but that's our lesson learned. I even remember saying, when we put it up, something about making sure we took it down when we knew storms were on the horizon. Oops.

In the midst of it all Addie snoozed through the howling and raining. We didn't hear a peep from her until about 9 this morning.

Today I am thankful for God's protection during the storm and while we headed out to get our groceries last night. Oh, and that the power wasn't out for too long so that we didn't lose said groceries!

P.S. - More posts to catch up on - I'll try today and the rest of the week.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

One year ago today I started this blog. I was pregnant and not quite six months into our adventure of living in Wewa. I was still feeling the heavy weight of starting over somewhere new and I was figuring out what my place was, all the while in the midst of a very happy time - Addie was on the way.

It is a year later and we have our silly, happy, funny girl here. I'm still figuring out my place and at times that weight of being somewhere new is still heavy, even over a year later. But, some days it's not as heavy and I have new friends to share new things with, and family and old friends to share new and old things with, and I can look back over this year since I have started blogging about Wewa and our family and see God's protection and provision in our lives.

It all started with a dog and a bunny and has moved on to other subjects, some of which I hope you find interesting. Even if it's not interesting or the day-to-day of our lives is a little bland, I still appreciate that you visit and read and accommodate me as I do this. ;)

I am thankful for each of you who visit this blog. I know many of you keep us in your prayers and many of you keep in touch on a regular basis - we are so thankful and blessed!