Stairs!

So even though Grandma was totally unimpressed, I could hardly believe my eyes when Jane was going up the stairs on her own last night at Todd & Jen's house. She just shimmied right on up, so proud of herself the entire time. But, she couldn't control herself 100% of the time, so it was good that Doug was right behind her or else she would have taken a tumble!

Busy little bee

Jane is certainly a busy little bee these days. She crawls VERY FAST and stands and walks along things. She take a step or two toward you and then fall forward and wait to be caught, silly thing. She already finds her way into other rooms and digs around in whatever she can find. She is adept at pulling all the toilet paper off the roll and eating cruddies wherever she can find them. She likes pulling laundry out of baskets and silverware out of the dishwasher. We have outlet covers in and kitchen cabinets locked. She loves to squirm when I change her diaper or try to read a book to her. I think when she does start walking that I will be worn out quickly!

Round Little Face

Does everyone still think that Jane looks like Doug? Here and there I am starting to hear that she looks like me more and more. Such a sweet little round face regardless.

New Blog

I have a new little blog that I've started - www.memoirsofmotherhood.wordpress.com. It's where I talk about the journey of motherhood and things that relate to it and to me. It only has like 2 readers at the moment, but if you have a hankerin' for more than cute pictures of Jane and snippets of our lives, head on over there sometimes.

Christmas in Cali part 3

Christmas morning was such a fun event. Maybe not the getting up at 6:30 in the morning thing. But after I reconciled myself to being up, it was a great time! Christmas certainly is more exciting when there are a lot of younger people around. I'm sure Jane didn't really know what was going on - but she did like all the excitement and her gifts!

Sacked out after all the commotion, with a little hold on Becca's elephant car.
Uncle Neil's warm little hat. Very good for winter!

Ooooooo....pretty ribbons.....

Christmas in Cali part 2

One of the great things we did while we were in California was take a day trip out to Monterrey. Oh, lovely ocean! It was great. I was brave enough to do cross some water to get out to a small island. At least I did NOT fall into the water, and Doug and his sure-footed siblings (Russell, Amy, Neil, and Hannah) carried Jane on the adventure.

See? Look at that craziness. It was COLD, too.
It is so beautiful. I guess we were actually in Pacific Grove, a place I would love to live. Can you imagine walking out your front door and seeing this? Temperatures between 40 and 70 all YEAR? I think of it as heaven on earth. It's just a little expensive though. And it's in California (no offense, but that's not a smart choice right now).


Jane with Amy and Hannah (it was bright; Amy doesn't just make strange faces).
Jane with Hannah.
Jane pulling Russell's hair.

And Neil with his starfish. It was crazy to see that as a living creature. I think I touched it but didn't hold it; I was too scared it would suck onto me or something.

Christmas in Cali part 1

It occurs to me that I've never blogged about our Christmas in California! Shame on me! So, here are the highlights of our fun trip:

First of all, it was Jane's first trip on an airplane. She did a great job except for some necessary mid-flight diaper changes. She did a lot of sleeping and a lot of charming. We also flew on a little puddle-jumper between San Francisco (which is definitely the best airport to have a layover in because of all the great places to eat) and Modesto. Thank goodness for NO long drive to Turlock!

Pretty girl

You might notice a little scratch on her face above. Stupid Cosmo. Our Great Dane jumped ont he bed when he was not supposed to. :( It is truly sad when they get little ouchies, but I am so grateful that nothing worse happened than a big scare and a scratch on the face!

Not going to be able to keep the windows open when she is around!

We found one thing that Jane will always chase down - my mom. We were at my parents' house this last weekend, and whenever my mom got up to go into the kitchen, Jane was soon crawling after her. It was so sweet!

That beautiful little blue outfit above is a size 18-months! Most of her normal clothes are 12-months now. At her six-month check-up, she weighed 21.3 lbs. and was 29 in. long - above the 95th percentile in both height and weight! She is a big, healthy girl, and we are so grateful.

Some fairly recent pictures

I know, it's been a long time. But, here is an update on Jane with some recent pictures! My most recent crop, a nice bunch of like 60 pictures, got deleted from my camera card during a computer crash! Grrrrrrr! But, Jane being the only child and all, we have LOTS more to choose from. :) (C'mon, you know you did it too.)

So here is the scoop on Jane - as of Sunday she is now eight months old. Crazy! Time has really flown. She is now crawling everywhere and getting into everything, including not always sitting still for pictures (as you can see above)! This last weekend she also began to pull herself to standing, and now she does that all the time. I just hope she doesn't start walking soon! She is growing up too fast for me.

She has some lovely ashy blond hair now, not long enough to do much with so we stick with headbands and bows for accessories. However, no teeth have decided to show themselves yet.

She has discovered all the fun things she can do with her mouth and she makes wonderful little funny faces.

See, it's not because she didn't like her peas. She is eating baby food now, all kinds of fruits and vegetables with some rice cereal and oatmeal mixed in.

Goofy Dougy

Some goofy shots

We also have a lot of fun during the photo shoots with Chad. Unlike other photographers that force you into uncomfortable or cheesy poses, he's really easy to work with.

I was picturing seahorses and stuff...

Heisman winner?

Okay, so Jane doesn't *try* to be goofy, but it comes across that way sometimes.

A white backdrop is pretty cool

We actually took the pictures in a church against a white backdrop - pretty cool, huh?

(Hello, we're in Texas...)