In an effort to advance Lily's diet, I made her zucchini with a bit more texture. I'm not too sure she appreciated it....her father on the other hand, was having a blast.

Week 42: Cheer the O's!

(What a pincer grasp!)

Cheer the O's that's all we have to say around this household, this week. Unfortunately Lily was born to parents that are slow on the uptake, sometimes, this time being one of them. This past week we discovered the power of the Cheerio.

I believe the picture tells it all. It's almost like she's saying "Isn't this thing wonderful!"

I have to give thanks to the ladies in the church nursery a couple weeks ago (during the whole "cutting the top teeth" saga) who in an effort to calm her down, tried to give her Cheerios........well, I was ashamed to tell them that it didn't surprise me that it didn't work, considering she had never had them before!!!! Not so now!!!! Church ladies, bring them on, because this baby is a fan!

I decided to take her picture in the nursery again, because as stated in the previous post, there is no stopping this baby and her explorations. She's hit not a growth spurt, but an activity spurt and it's all we can do to keep up! Her favorite place is the corner in her nursery, pictured in the previous post. So many things to crawl and climb on......higher, higher, you can see that's what her little brain is scheming and her little feet are attempting.

Here's the next installment of the crazy haired pictures.


Here's the side view.











P.S. If there is anything else we are blatantly not exposing our child to that appears to be a 'given' for her age.......we would truly appreciate any suggestions.

Week 41: Crawling and Teething, oh how it's begun...

So, I'm late on this week's picture and without a good excuse. Therefore you can call this compensation or over-compensation....whichever.

Lily has been slitering around now for some time, but just in the last two weeks or so, she decided to really get movin' with the crawling.....and climbing.....and of course the walking (with hand-held assistance).

These are some examples of Lily's adventures in her nursery...that is,

when left to her own devices (with very close supervision, I might add).

This is Lily discovering the blind cord................................

This is Lily eating the blind cord......(what a look!)

And this is Lily attempting to climb up the boxes while losing her pajama pants......

It appears we lowered her mattress just in time. We all have or have heard of the 'crawling out of the crib' stories. Believe me, if this little tyke could find a way, we would have one too.

Trying to put her to bed one evening, we took this first picture, when she thought we were coming to rescue her from her unfair confinement..........

This second is when she figured out, that was not the case.

And finally the teething. Last week was really rough for Lily as two of her top incisors were coming down. They finally broke through two days ago, but the last picture is the result of a slumber party Lily decided she wanted to have at 1 or 2 in the morning. Because I am a sucker, I complied and we all slept soundly...sort of....

Stay tuned for the first pic of the "fangs".

The Big Dig

The back corner of the house has plagued us for 3 years. The problem is due to the grading of our backyard. Essentially, a lot of water (including the proceeds of a major downspout on the house next door) is directed straight at the back corner of our house. With nowhere else to go, it has contributed to a mud pit in several places, and also some minor leaking in the basement. So in an attempt to fix all of those issues, we decided to tear out all the grass, dig a drainage ditch to carry water away from the house, regrade the yard so it actually slopes away from the house, and cover it all with a mulch bed.


This of course is the "Before" picture. Notice the dirt path worn out next to the house and the mud pit next to the deck. As a result of this exposed dirt, every time it rained and the boys went outside they came in leaving a trail of muddy paw prints in their wake.







As our work proceeded, we had plenty of help. Here is Gator keeping tabs on his tennis ball, always a very important job.


Thatcher and the snuggle puppy (Valerie and Damon's brand new puppy!) are in charge of making sure that enough sniffing is done on the day.

And of course, there is the boss of the whole project checking out the snuggle puppy to make sure that she is up to the task of all that sniffing!























With all of this quality help, you know that we ended up doing a great job and in just one day! Here are some shots of the work in progress:

Some interesting facts:
It took 12 bags of gravel to fill the ditch around the drainage pipe.
The pile of grass and dirt to the right was the only soil removed, the rest we shifted up next to the house so that the surface slopes away from the house and to the ditch.
I officially have no comment regarding the destination of the soil that we did remove.

And finally, a finished picture that shows the new slope (and also Thatcher's tail end):

The Death Star

For those of you who have visited the house (and especially for those of you who have owned this piece of furniture in the past) you may have noticed the entertainment cabinet in the living room. It was an oak shade of faux wood with a glass door on the front. My parents originally purchased this back in the early 1990's, and were kind enough to pass it down to us. I have always found it very functional as there are few options for component storage with an older model projection TV. However, Emily was always bothered that the wood on the cabinet did not match the rest of the wood in the living room. She thought that if it were black it would at least match the TV and speakers. So this past weekend I reluctantly set about refinishing the cabinet....and to my surprise, it actually turned out very nice. Due to the dark, sleek finish; and in honor of Spike TV's recent broadcast of all six Star Wars movies, I have elected to call it....the death star.

Keek 40

So, you'd think that having two parents as doctors (or soon to be doctors) they would be able to spell your week number right....well, in a word, wrong. So, instead of a Week 40 post we have a Keek 40 post. In any event, it features some of the wonderful facial expressions of Lily. Above, the sheer enthusiasm of a 9-month old is elicited from an empty water bottle. In the bottom left, pure distraction. In the bottom right, you can see her best imitation of Thatcher when he catches sight of Bandit (the cat next door).

Notice that in the bench and brick scenes, the name Harkey pops up a lot on the scenery... the pictures were taken at Milligan after all!




















Emily Addendum: In the week picture the brick adjacent to the blocks reads Donna Harkey Olmstead (aka Gran!) (mom for your benefit I left off the exactly which Class you were in, hope you don't mind!)
p.s. Grandparents, check out the '2nd' website when you get a chance..

Week 39: Nine Months and counting

We celebrated Lily's nine month birthday with (of course) a run around the VA....it was such a gorgeous early Spring day, what better way to enjoy it? Lily at nine months is a virtual sound machine, she cracks herself and us up. She's constantly experimenting with noises (and volume of noises) and is starting to repeat certain sounds for food and me, but I still think I'm synonymous with food. She's not walking yet, but she sure loves to 'cruise', so who knows when she'll attempt it by herself.

This past weekend we had the pleasure of going to Knoxville for my friend Erin's son's (Chase) 2nd birthday. Lily loved being around all those other little people and thanks to Chase's totally cool playground/fort she experienced her first swing!

Chase was the very excited recipient of his very own John Deer tractor, with which he showed off his driving skills to everyone. All the party participants got to take a ride along with the star of the show and Chase was eager to oblige......until that baby decided to get in the passenger seat.....babies are no fun, especially when you are not allowed to drive them around in your John Deer tractor. I love this picture below, his face says it all!

An Unusual Request

For some time now I've been reading a blog of a friend of the Parisi's ("Not that you asked" accessed through the Parisi's site listed on the side of our blog). For any young moms out there, I recommend giving it a read when you have a chance, the author is very talented and witty and fun for a chuckle. Her most recent post, however, moved me to tears and I felt compelled to not only contribute to the cause, but also share the story here. I will leave the details to the blog, (http://captainhambone.typepad.com/ )but there is a young family with a 16 month old daughter (Emily) who is fighting brain cancer.

I don't know how I would have reacted to this story before Lily, sad of course, but probably not this deep resonating sadness for this family I don't even know. You go through all the worries and excitement of just trying to bring a healthy baby into this world, and then realize once you do, that's only the beginning.

Please take a moment to read their story and support them if you feel you are able.