A Warm Welcome!

This morning we welcomed our first "nephew" into this world. Phil and Keeley are now the proud parents of Jack Cecil Pierre. Born at 4:15, this guy was not so little! He was 8lbs 11oz and 21.5 inches long. He is healthy and gorgeous and Dave and I are thrilled to have met him. More pictures to come at the end of the blog!

And, yes, we have a "crawler." Don't know if I mentioned this already, but she doesn't use her legs. She pulls herself around. I don't know if she will ever figure out what those legs are for. Needless, nothing is safe anymore. Below you will find her retrieving something contraband. And yesterday she was wearing this outfit. I just thought it was too stinkin' cute:
And here are more Jack pictures! Uncle Dave with his little nephew:

And the whole proud and happy family:

Cool Pictures

These are pictures that Chris took of us on Sunday with his new, super cool, camera. Just thought I would share.

Father's Day

We hope everyone had a great Father's Day. We certainly did. It was a long, but wonderful day. We started by having lunch with Uncle Chris as a belated birthday celebration for me and then we headed for my folks'. This is Opa with Sylvia: Then we went to visit my grandpa. Great-Grandpa had a great time seeing Sylvia. He was pretty smitten with her:

Friday night the Holland area saw some massive storms that did horrendous damage. We drove past 24th street and found this:

Then we were back at my folks' for brats and hotdogs and fruit salad. Followed by a rousing game of Apples to Apples. By the end of the day Sylvia was tired and ready to go home:

This morning I have been watching Sylvia almost crawl all over the living room. She is a baby on the move now! She is also a baby with teeth. Her first tooth is poking through on the bottom. AND last night we saw her attempt to pull herself up at my parent's house. My baby is almost not a baby anymore! I cannot believe how fast she is growing!

Birthday Week

My birthday was Monday of this week. We had a great day. Dave, Sylvia and I met my mom at the zoo in the early afternoon. Sylvia was very interested in the penguins, and she kept trying to reach out and touch them. Based on this picture it almost seems like they wanted her to pet them! She also liked the gorillas. I loved being able to take my daughter to the zoo and can't wait until she's older and can appreciate even more.
This was just a really ugly eel. I think he was called a Peacock Wolfeel.
Tuesday we had Heather and her daughter, Alexis, come for a visit. Sylvia and Alexis really seemed to enjoy one another this time and it was fun to watch them interact; although, a lot of their interacting was fighting over a teething giraffe toy!

The only bad thing of the week is that Dave lost the car key to the Elantra. We simply can't find it anywhere and yesterday I went to the dealership to have a new one cut. They cut a "standard issue" and said it would work. It doesn't. Tomorrow we have to go back to the dealership and hope they can cut a different key that will work.

Today my middle sister, Stephanie, came for a visit. We had a great time with her and while the Pumpkin was napping Stephanie and I went for a little walk around our property. We saw a lot of pretty wildflowers and even saw two frogs in the front pond. This coming January we will get a little niece or nephew thanks to Stepher and Joe. We are very excited to meet Sylvia's first cousin!

Sitting Up

Before she's even very stable sitting on her own, she has managed to figure out how to pull herself into a sitting position from lying down! We have found her sitting in her crib a couple of times and thought it odd, but perhaps with the bars she had enough "assistance" to be able to manage it. This afternoon, however, I saw her maneuver her frame into a sitting upright position all by herself. Hard for me to explain how she does this but she starts with her butt in the air, and her legs underneath her and then begins a rocking motion to throw herself backward. The unfortunate aspect of doing it this way is that she often throws herself back too far and lands on her backside!

Friday

Today was a good day. Sylvia was in a very good mood. During the morning we just played at home, but later in the day we met with her friend, Alexis, and Alexis' mommy, Heather.

Where's Sylvia?

Sylvia has a couple of new tricks. The first is in her "Where's Sylvia?" game. This is a variation on "Peek-a-Boo" where Sylvia is covered up and then asked, "Where's Sylvia?" When she is uncovered the player announces, "There she is!" Well, Sylvia has learned how to manipulate this game all by herself. She can put the blanket over herself and wait for you to say, "Where's Sylvia?" Then she rips it off and giggles as you say "There she is!" She will do this nonstop until finally you are the one to say the game is over.

Her other trick is that she is almost to the crawling stage. She is starting to get up on all fours and she already has figured out how to move her body so that she can reach various things across the living room. Exciting times are ahead!

The Graduation

Last night was my brother-in-law's high school graduation. The ceremony was lovely (and short!). The Pumpkin had a great time, so much so that she was zonked by the end of it!