NOW...Second Cousins!

Chanel plays with Susannah while Sophalicious, who has a deep love for all critters live AND stuffed, plays with Grammy's way-cool pink gorilla

Also in early January, my cousin Chanel (a sophomore at Rutgers) came down from her NJ home to spend the weekend at Jenna's and Matt's home in Richmond. Susannah and I drove down to Colonial Heights to stay with Grammy and Pop so that we could all spend time together. Chanel had not seen Susannah since she was a mere 7 weeks old. Now, at 7 MONTHS, she was a wee bit bigger and busier!

Chanel with Susannah, and Grammy with Sophie and Fuzzy Way-Cool Pink Gorilla in the nursery at Grammy's and Pop's home

Mama's tired-because-she-doesn't-sleep-well-anywhere-but-her-own-big-girl-crib-so-whose-fault-is-that baby girl

Grammy and her grandbabies!

Grammy and sweet Susannah Joy

Mama and her dollbaby

Sisters and their babies

Aunt Jenna and Sophie Grace

Cousin Chanel and Susannah

Chanel played on the living room floor with her baby second-cousins. Seems like just yesterday that Jenna and I were playing on the living floor with baby Chanel, who is ten years my junior.

Chanel fed sweet potatoes to our hungry Strawberry!

After both babies' tummies were sufficiently full, they sat in Grammy's two high chairs (these are just two of the many beautiful baby things Grammy and Pop own for their grandbabies' frequent visits!) and played with toys. Actually, Sophie ate Rice Krispies off of her tray. She touches with her pointer and then eats the "jumpy" little things one at a time, and will go, go, go until they're gone, making this a perfect time-buying activity while dinner is being prepared for the grown-ups!

The babies watch each other while they play in their high chairs! Grammy LOVES, LOVES, LOVES when both babies are in her midst! She just can't resist sparkly eyes, sweet cheeks, squishy bodies, and all the fun things these girls can do. They both recognize their Grammy and Pop and enjoy their visits.

What fun it is to have baby cousins and second cousins together!

Baby Cousins

Baby cousin playtime!

(Sophalicious, left; Susannah, right)

What a joy it is when Aunt Jenna and cousin Sophie visit us at our Staunton home! They have made several day trips since Susannah was born, and each visit is full of delights of all sorts as the babies grow and interact more with one another. This particular trip, which they made in early January, was full of movement, as Sophie (then 10 1/2 months) was CRAWLING, CRAWLING EVERYWHERE! Susannah (then 7 months) was not quite yet sitting without support, so she got trampled by her moving cousin every time she was horizontal. Sophie loved exploring her new environment, and had a special affinity for every piece of lint on our living room area rug. She even choked on a teeny piece of Rylie's Nylabone that she somehow managed to find and sneak into her ever-open mouth without either mama seeing! UGH! The girls napped on a similar schedule this day (a rare treat indeed!), so lots of playtime was had. In addition, we made time to go downtown to Pufferbellies Toys and Books, the most wonderful toystore in the galaxy! Jenna used her Christmas gift certificate from Grammy and Pop to select some really great "grow-with-me" toys for Sophie.

Both babies chew on anything and everything in sight, and are quite fascinated by one another. Here, Sophie is showing Susannah how, whenever Susannah gets teeth, she can both mouth and make skin-crawling "music" by rubbing her chompers on the plastic ring. Susannah put down her favorite new ring with little balls dancing inside to watch and absorb all that she can from her very wise and grown up cousin.

Sophie: "What's that you have Susannah? MINE NOW!" (sinister laughter ensues)

We brought out Susannah's new wooden blocks that contain varying sounds (rattle, jingle, shake), textures (corduroy, velvet, burlap), and sights (mirror, prism, transparent) for the girls to explore. A suck-fest yet again! Here, Sophie pays no heed to her cousin as she pursues the block of her dreams.

Both girls use all of their senses to experience these new objects. So fun to watch how they experiment by looking, tasting, shaking and listening, dropping and picking up, and touching!

More tasting and looking...

A glimpse into Susannah's details-oriented personality and focused style of play: Exploring every minute element of the red block...

...until her quicker, more able-bodied cousin swoops in and takes it!






Tasting the mirror block






Sweet crawling baby!







(Jenna and I laughed hard at the fact that, after about five minutes of crawling on our hardwood floors, Sophie's pale pink tights were GRAY in the knees! I am too sleep-deprived to be embarrassed about the fact that I haven't mopped in I don't know how long!


Note to self: Thoroughly clean all hardwood floors in the coming weeks, as Susannah will soon be on the move!)

Flashback Time: Our Strawberry's First Christmas!

I am FINALLY posting pictures from our first Christmas with Susannah! Now that basketball season is over, I am finding myself with a wee bit more time to do fun things such as blogging, organizing pictures (OK...this is totally not "fun," but is indeed worth it, so I make it a discipline), and sending out our Christmas letter (better late than never, eh?!). The benefit of going through these pictures and captioning them more than two months after the fact is that I get to see how much our dollbaby has grown and changed in such a short period of time. In addition, I get to relive precious memories of time with our beloved family celebrating Jesus's birth!

I hope you will find that these pictures were worth the wait!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we headed out to Middle River Tree Farm in nearby Verona to select our Christmas tree. The owners of the tree farm know us by now, as we have made it a priority to support this local business since moving to Staunton five years ago. We love wandering through their acreage in pursuit of the perfect fat and fluffy white pine! The chill in the air, the scent of evergreen, and the delightful homemade pumpkin bread and apple cider served in the main cabin make our tree farm experience incredibly memorable. Perhaps the only family member who savors this experience more is Rylie, who goes off-leashing and spends the entire visit sniffing and frolicking her fuzzy little heart out! An overly-zealous chorus of "I LOVE Christmas Tree Farm Day" emanated from her every pitter-patter in the grass...

What joy it gave us to have Susannah along this year! Trees are her favorite outdoor creations, and Christmas trees were no exception to this fascination. Snuggled up close to Daddy in her Baby Bjorn, our little Strawberry studied the beautiful surroundings.

Such prickly needles that tree has, Daddy!

(I must note that the tree always looks soooooo much smaller in the expansive field than it does in our modest living room, yet we still go for the big one! I like to say that, annually, our eyes are bigger than our square footage...)

Susannah was very intrigued by our stuffed Nativity set. We talked to her about all of those present around the time of Jesus's birth, and laughed as she sucked on Baby Jesus and tried to rip him out of his fabric manger!

Daddy showed Susannah the slightly-less-chewable Nativity that adorned our mantle. She watched with her usual intensity and attention to detail as he told her the story of the first Christmas over 2000 years ago. We could tell by the twinkle in her eye that she could relate quite well to the infant state of the baby Jesus...especially the swaddling clothes part. :) If she had words, she would've asked the little figurine if His "mama's milkies" were as good as her own "mama's milkies."

Having a big tree in her very own home was a THRILL to Susannah Joy! She spent much time looking at it, especially when the lights were turned on. Oh, the endless moments of delight that can be found in each pointy green needle, each colorful ornament, each glistening strand of tinsel, each shimmering bulb...

As a child, I adored laying under the tree in the evenings leading up to Christmas morning. Perhaps this is one of my fondest memories of my family's living room decorations! We want Susannah to have this same experience for her first Christmas and many more, so we were sure to soak in ample moments of magic beneath our hearty tree.

Daddy showed Susannah the pieces of tinsel that dangled near her face. She seemed quite perplexed by the fact that she could see the silvery drizzle, but when she reached for it, sensation eluded her.

Wake Up, Little Susie...It's Christmas Morning!

Granny and G (Harry's parents) and their dog Lil arrived on the 23rd to spend Christmas at our home. We are thankful they drove all that way, as the thought of putting a six-month-old (not to mention her hoards of baby gear) into a car for twelve hours seemed incredibly daunting to Harry and me!

Susannah wore special striped "Baby's First Christmas" jammies to bed on Christmas Eve after our church service, and man did she ever look CUTE, CUTE, CUTE!!! (Thank you, Cheryll, for handing down such GORGEOUS clothes from your twinnies to our girl!) Harry and took a lot of time to select a couple of special presents from our outrageously wonderful local toy store, Pufferbellies, to give to Susannah for her first Christmas. These included colorful textured and sound-filled wooden blocks and a three-in-one musical, moving, stacking, rattling snail toy (waaaayyyyy cool). We also got her a "Frog Pond Popper," a simple cause-and-effect toy. We wanted to give her things that would grow with her over the next year, and that would capture her eye for detail and her love for "experimenting" with objects. What a blessing it was to beautifully wrap and store under our beloved Christmas tree our darling's three presents! Giving gifts to our child is such a source of happiness for us, and makes us think of the good gifts that our Heavenly Father loves to lavish on us, His children!

Present opening required much assistance, of course, but was great nonetheless. Susannah spent an inordinate amount of time chewing everything she could get her little hands and gums on, including wrapping paper, boxes, bows, and tissue paper. You will notice a pattern in the pictures...

Granny and G gave us a beautiful "Baby's First Christmas" ornament with Susannah's picture inside. Sure tasted good to Susannah!

Chewing on the tissue paper that concealed her "Frog Pond Popper"

Chewing on the top ring of her "Rock and Stack" from Granny and G

After a generous supply of gifts were exchanged and opened, we spent the remainder of the day alternating between resting and cooking. Susannah joined Granny and G for the reading of a highly-entertaining political expose. She is such a bright little child with a hunger for current events and political affairs. (Oh, I cannot tell a lie...she just wanted to gum the book, too!)

A cherished tradition in Harry's family involves standing in a circle and passing a special heirloom glass filled with champagne (or, in this year's case, sparkling cider...breathe easy, Strawberry Patch fans!) as each person shares something for which they are grateful, a reflection from the year, and a hope for the future. Susannah got to be a part of the tradition this year and, because she LOVES cups of all shapes and sizes, wanted to participate to the fullest! Up until this point in her life, she thought only water came in cups. Boy, were her eyes awakened to the possibility of other sweeter, bubblier beverages! (Notice how tightly she gripped the cup, as she does all cups that are within her strong little grasp!)

Note the imprints the rim of the glass made upon her voluptuous cheeks as she pulled it to her mouth with all her might!

Whoops! Perhaps that cider was just a little too sparkly for our milk-and-water-only drinker!

Before ending the day, we took a few pictures in front of the Christmas tree. Granny and G sure did have fun smothering their sweet granddaughter in hugs, kisses, and attention while they were here!

Our growing family

(Just for the record: We DO have a similar family picture with me holding Rylie, the fuzzy firstborn-turned-second-fiddle in our family, but she sort of "lunged" awkwardly at the camera the moment it flashed, so it was not blog-worthy. Many of you have expressed concern on multiple occasions that she has not appeared in family photos, so I wanted to clear the air on this one lest you all think she is totally neglected!)

Susannah looked adorable in her cream velour Christmas outfit sent by Aunt Beth in Nevada (Lacey's dad's younger sister). After having it hang in her closet for months since we received it, she finally got to wear it several times throughout the holiday season!

Christmas Celebration in Colonial Heights

On Saturday, December 27, we drove down to Colonial Heights in order to spend a few days with my side of the family at Grammy and Pop's house. Getting the baby cousins together for their first Christmas was sheer delight!

Like Susannah, Sophie (age 10 months here) simply adores Rylie, the baby-friendliest canine in the galaxy! Not only does she want to grab and climb upon her, she also loves a chance to taste Rylie's cold, wet nose. Rylie is ever happy to oblige. Mmmmmm...

Grammy and Sophie Grace, the Wild Thing!

Sophie looked sooooooo pretty in her scarlet-red velvet monogrammed Christmas dress and matching shoes. The care that her Mama (my sister Jenna) took to dress her beautifully was missed by this little one as she climbed on and over everything in her path, hardly sitting still for more than the two seconds it would have taken to get a posed picture! Good thing the candid ones capture the true essence of the baby :).

Speaking of the candid ones and the true essence of the baby...

"We meet again, oh Christmas wrap! My longing gums are thrilled that Grammy also has you at her house!"

Getting a picture of these sweet babies together was a challenge, to say the least! Not only were they both tired by the time we attempted to photograph them, Sophie would not stay in one place for more than a millisecond, and when she did, it was only to chew on one of Susannah's innocently available body parts. Problem is, Sophie has two bottom teeth, so our daughter could have easily lost a finger had the adults not watched and intervened vigilantly! We laughed hysterically at the many vainly-spent-yet-valiant efforts made by--count 'em--four adults to get one decent shot of these two! Not bad, eh?! I soooooo wish we could have captured the true hilarity of these few minutes of trying to get the "Velvet Wearing Couch Scaler" (that would be Sophie) to sit next to the stationary-but-prone-to-tip-at-any-moment Susannah. I believe Grammy actually wet her pants from laughing so hard at these two babies!

Opening presents, and looking adorable and festive while doing it!

You guessed it...the bow in her hands is on the way to her mouth!

More attempts at "The Perfect First Christmas Picture of the Baby Cousins"

Close enough!

Happy New Year!!!

We had the blessing of bringing in 2009 with our dear friends the Morris family. Molly (above) enjoyed playing with Susannah, as did her mom Jamie, her sister Jennifer, and their friend Allison. We had such a great time eating delicious finger foods and playing Taboo until about 10 o'clock, when we felt tuckered and they headed on home.

Jamie enjoys a plateful of delicious eats!

The three very hip, very chatty, and very giggly girls who celebrated New Year's Eve with us!

Welcome, 2009!!!

Our almost-seven-month-old dollbaby

(Who wants to nibble those cheeks with me?!)

I include this picture simply because it makes me chuckle. Every time Susannah wears this sweet lime-sherbet-colored bib she cannot focus on eating, because she only wants to chew on the soft fabric froggy that adorns it! New plan? She gets to wear it only while I am preparing her meal so as to keep her entertained. Then we switch to a new bib when it's actually time to eat!

The perfect ending to our relaxing New Year's Day...