Thursday, February 28, 2008


hannah LOVES playing with the cell phone. no matter how many toys i provide, she'd rather have the phone, or the remote, or something. patrick actually lets her do it. i must admit, when we finally get to go out to eat, i'm willing to do pretty much anything to keep her happy too.

wait a second daddy, i want my toy back. but i'm keeping your phone, too.


so we went to birmingham for the day on saturday. it's about 2 hrs away. a drive i would gladly make anytime, however, it's my new favourite place. i got to see some old friends from africa, carrie (cutrer) west, my roommate, and maggie mcintire, daughter of my supervisors and fellow lebou team member. good times!
birmingham has all the regular generic shopping mall stuff, and also cute little places. we went to this mediterranean/middle eastern restaurant that i will be going back to every single time, i hope. and as usual, i totally took advantage of my cheat day. (pumpkin scone from starbucks, the most amazing spanakopita you've ever had, so different from the frozen stuff at sams, and a caramel macchiato. with whip! not sure what that was about??? but let me tell you, it was good)
anywhoo, it was a super fun, unhealthy day for our little family. patrick had to work while we were there, that's what the plane picture is. that is one of the planes his company sells.


i call her tumbleweed, because she still tumbles all over the place. she barely sits down anymore. actually, she skipped the sitting up stage, went straight to the standing.

mommy, can i help with the laundry? i figure since i generate so much, i should contribute!


she loves looking at her reflection. i've tried to get it on video, but i can't. she keeps turning around when i'm there. but she'll smush her face right up on the fridge, dishwasher, tv, whatever. it's so funny.



this is downtown opelika. pretty traditional southern town.

So we've been here a month now, but it feels like longer for some reason. Does that mean I feel settled? we both really enjoyed the church we visited on sunday. it's southern baptist, but people are still expressive in worship. some people wear suits and others jeans. it's very multiracial, which i think is pretty impressive for alabama. they have a huge choir with teenagers through senior adults, and an orchestra. hannah made it through the entire service without us. and best of all, they are extremely missions minded. not just IMB (southern baptist) missionaries, but Campus Crusade, Africa Inland Mission, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, and others. We haven't decided yet, but I'm excited.



we joined the auburn mommies to meet some people, and went to our first thing this week. It was fun, but i think hannah's kind of young for babygym, or music classes or all the things people offer. why stress myself out over getting to all these things when it's a chore just to get groceries? i'm pretty sure she'll develop fine. after all, what did babies do before these kinds of things? we like staying at home. she's almost seven months, and just recently do i feel more on top of things. my chores are actually getting done. doing things out of the house is a nother matter entirely, however. every week i say, wouldn't it be nice to go to the bookstore and read, or something. hannah could just play on the floor. which she would, for a little. but around the eating and the trying to get to sleep then finally the sleeping then the eating again, it just doesn't happen.


i submitted my application to volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center, which i'm excited about. again, hannah would come with me, and i could help sort donations and wash clothes and stuff. i really want to do something where i can take her with me, so i hope this works out.

i promise our life isn't as boring as i make it seem. the high point of our day is when patrick walks in the door, to be sure. which hasn't been all that often recently! i'm going to keep track of his hours just for fun, one week. he isn't gone overnight much, but he does have to leave by six quite often, to get to surrounding states. we did have a date last weekend, though! that was fun.
next weekend there's a fly-in at the auburn airport, so we'll have lots of pictures of that. and our trip up north, of course. hope everyone has a good and special leap year day tomorrow. how does one celebrate that, anyway?

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

over under through and into everything



everybody was right when they said the easiest time was when she was really little. honestly, you can't turn your back on this little monster. she's pulling herself up on everything. she hurts herself alot, always got a bump on her head, because she can't sit down, she can only stand up. backwards, i know. so she'll let go and just fall down. anyways, that, combined with eating now, is making significantly more work for me! (would you believe i already want another one though? i love babies). i thought she generated alot of laundry before, it's nothing compared to now. i think more food still goes out than goes in. so far we've had bananas, cereal, sweet potatoe and peas. moving on, because i'm sure this is boring the vast majority of you. what can i say, my world is small right now.


this is my world. and i am more than ok with it. (most days! :-)




most of our house looks like the before picture on an hgtv project. we haven't done much decorating. but here's the kitchen. One of my favourite things is how it's open to the family room.


eating area, going out to the backyard.


and living room. then there's our bedroom, hannah's room, and a little study/spare bedroom. another of my favourite things is how our room is not right beside hannah's. so nice! we also have a laundry room. no more going out in the garage! speaking of the garage, today we (hannah and I) took 3 wks worth of trash to the dump. we hadn't had a trash pickup since moving in because it comes super early (around 6.30), and we've missed it. but our garage was filling up (because we had empty boxes and stuff), so i decided to do it myself. hannah didn't even help me unload! then again, at least she didn't complain that she was literally surrounded by garbage on all sides of her carseat. . .




thankfully, so far patrick's always been home in time to give hannah her bath and play with her for a minute before she goes to bed. they roughhouse already, at 6 months. she seems to like it though.


probably the best part of her day.


napping is not going so well these days. actually, it's terrible. now that she can stand, every time i put her down, even if she's almost asleep, she just pops back up. apparently it's more fun than sleeping. and whoever said it only takes 3 days to establish a new habit has never met my child. i think she has mine and patrick's stubborness combined. but isn't she cute? (since this picture, we've moved the crib down yet another level. )


believe it or not, hannah is not the big news this time. i am ridiculously proud of my husband for his recent lifestyle change. he has been SO consistent. (i'm guessing not all of you can say that about your new years resolutions!) he's a new man. he was at the gym at 7 am this morning. and he suggested we go to the state park last weekend. yes, him! he's eating so good, he's even helping me when i want to cheat. (which we did with marble slab, by the way, and it was so good!)


me and my granola baby. (just for the record, that thing is HEAVY).



so, patrick's been traveling, but only during the day. they have alot of demos this week, so hopefully that will go well.

i'm going to vermont with my family in a few weeks, but i doubt i'll get to ski alot. (something about a mini me that's never very far away. . . ) but there will be other ski trips, and i'll still get to be with my family. i actually read that attachment anxiety increases around 6 months. great. i didnt' know it could increase. oh, big milestone: she made it through the entire church service and my pager didn't go off. wow!



Ok, i just had to go rescue hannah from herself, again. the bulletin board hasnt been put up yet, so it's on the floor. she loves paper, so she pulled some off and put it in her mouth. thankfully it was the paper and not the thumbtack!

anyways, got to run. talk to you soon.

Monday, February 11, 2008


hannah is doing better playing on the floor some now. we have a little basket in the kitchen with her toys, that she can find on her own and dump out.

she can pull herself up to standing, even in the bath. she can crawl in my lap, too.

she ate food yesterday, for the first time. it was a hit. but then i tried again today and she just blew into the spoon so it made a mess and got cereal all over me. oh well.

so here we are, in opelika. (oh puh lie kuh). i'll have inside pictures later, we aren't exactly completely settled. or clean :-) we have a nice fenced in backyard with a few trees.



we had a good time in charlotte while patrick was in florida. hannah got to play with her cousins.

we went to the park, too.


normally she's in an infant swing, but they didn't have one here. but i think she liked this one too.

our first meal in the new house. (catered from kroger)
that was a few weeks ago, i guess. we've made many meals since. patrick and i are both very committed this time to eating healthy and losing weight. i think we're doing pretty good. we had our cheat meal yesterday at cheeburger cheeburger in downtown auburn. barbque bacon cheeseburger with french fries and a chocolate milk shake. i think we'll be dreaming about it all week until our next cheat meal. or maybe pizza?
so we've looked at parks, gyms, churches, grocery stores, restaurants, library, the mall, all kinds of places now. patrick's been in birmingham, atlanta, and i think he's going to nashville soon. it's definitely different than last semester. i don't see him for 11 hrs at a time. i guess that's real life. we are doing really well, though, getting settled in our new life. thanks for checking on us!

Thursday, February 07, 2008

finally here

and we finally have internet! (first of all, for those of you who watch the weather, we were unaffected by yesterday's storms. they forecasted very severe weather and winds and whatnot but all we got was a little rain.) we have been in our house 10 days now. at least i have, patrick's been gone for most of it. and i guess you could say we're settled. moving was an adventure, as always, and we couldn't have done it without the crisps. really.
patrick had his first day at the office yesterday. (so far he's been at sales meetings and flight training in florida and texas). he is super excited, and in love with the company.
this is just to let everybody know we are doing well, and i will come later with pictures.
our adress is 1915 Arbor Ln., Opelika Alabama, 36804.
patrick:334-363-9070. jana:334-363-9071.
ps: hannah is crawling up a storm! she started on sunday.