Saturday in the Park...

Or Tuesday... whichever.

Here's some pictures from tuesday at the park. I didn't get any of her sliding, though, bummer.

Playing in the sand... favorite activity at the park.

Poser

Flying the spaceship

Cheese!

Chillin in the swing... looking at the trees

Okay, this is way more fun than actually swinging! Wee!

The show must go on...

So this video was taken in May... but I just remembered it and it is just too good to pass up! Our friends Jared and Gina were over for dinner and it was about time for Mia to go get dressed for bed. We told her she could dance one more time then it was PJ time. This is the fit that resulted...

Yes, it may seem mean that we are laughing... but she's still dancing! While screaming! That's just funny, people.

And she wasn't hurt by the resulting crash into the refrigerator.

Start the Therapy Fund...

We've had Marble's first pictures for quite awhile now... but in typical second child fashion, we just haven't got around to scanning and posting them. Considering that this will more than likely be a middle child, we figure that it's just one of the things he/she will talk about in therapy later*.

But without further ado...

Introducing Marble!

The first picture was taken at around 5 weeks... and obviously was a bit too early. The second picture was taken a mere 1.5 weeks later... and look! A baby!

The small oval dark spot in the middle of the picture is the baby... or where its growing, anyway.

Tadpole baby! Picture taken at 7 weeks 3 days. Aw, what a cute little blob.

*Just joking. Kinda. We're both middle children... so we joke a lot about middle-child syndrome. We figure we will at least be able to bond with this child over it.

blah, blah, blah

I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with watching Mia learn things. It's especially fun because I learned all about childhood development in school, but now I get to see it in real life. Lately, Mia's been really interested in starting to understand imagination and that things are separate from her. She gives her rocking horse drinks from her cup, helps her "baby" swing, "talks" on the phone to Daddy (though, no one is actually on the phone!), pretends to drive both a choo-choo and a car, and many many other things that surprise us every day.

She's really been working on her words lately. Here's a list of the things she can say. As of today she'll be 20 months in 6 days.

Mama, Daddy, Nonnie, Carter, Kendall, Jax, Katie, dog, woof-woof, kitty, meow, bird, duck, quack, pee-pee, poo-poo, juice, eat, thank you, please, fish, choo-choo, on, off, up, down, night-night, yellow, blue, green, purple, pink, red, church, no, yes, book, George, Elmo, home, uh-oh, bubbles, Zee, Jack, swing, blanket, Mia, horse, bye-bye, this, pretzel, eye, nose, Brooke Bear, baby, ice...

I'm sure I'm missing some.

And she's saying sentences! Her first was, "choo-choo uh-oh!" because she saw a picture of a train derailment. She now says:

Daddy home!
Zee eat bubbles!
Daddy (Mama) bye-bye.
Daddy uh-oh!

Amazing!

Flying with Christ

Well, it's here again! Chrysalis season. The time in our lives where everyone is busy, busy, busy working or helping with Chrysalis flourneys. Mark is again the lay director of the community, so we've had lots of stuff coming our way. It's been exhausting and fun, and we can't wait to see the changes that come in the lives of the youth.

We have one (1) weekend down, three (3) to go. I worked the first one, just this past weekend in Danbury. It was awesome. The girls had a great time and grew closer to God. There was one point where I was in the chapel praying and could hear the girls singing in the conference room. Wow! Is there a better sound? To hear those girls (and women and a couple of dudes, too) lifting their voices in praise to God.... wow. It hit home for me -- that is why we do this. Why our house is a wreck, and everyone is tired, and poor Mia has to go to a babysitter three times a week for awhile. It's eternal stuff. Kingdom stuff.

And it's all gonna be worth it.

In Mia-news -- she's learning new words everyday and stringing together sentences. I have been meaning to write a list of the words she can say... hopefully this week.

In Marble-news -- we heard the heartbeat! And so, at 11 weeks (12 weeks tomorrow) things are looking good. :)

Memories...

Mia had some fun walking down memory lane recently. We had our Bumbo chair returned so we could give it to another friend. In the meantime... she enjoyed a little playtime.

We couldn't believe she could still fit either. And then she decided to have a little driving fun in the bumbo... video at the bottom.

Mia enjoying her bumbo circa April 2007 (4 months)

Enjoying her bumbo circa July 2008 (19 months)

Climbin on in...
Ahhhh, this is the life!