EvY at HomE

She's getting ready to crawl. She takes a few moves towards maybe crawling and then sits back up. I don't know why I want her to crawl so much. We're not baby proof ready. Not even a bit. She rolls herself up to sitting from any position. One of the most adorable and pathetic sights is walking in to her room and watching her sit with her back to one of the crib sides sometimes crying, just waiting to be picked up. She sits up for a lot longer now and can often catch herself if she starts tipping over. Sometimes she does go head first into the floor though. Poor thing. She eats food with her teeny hand. Here she is (despite the look on her face) enjoying a strawberry. She can also hang onto and nibble on apples and bread and lots of veggies. When she's doing that I just stare and stare at her. I had no idea watching a baby eat would be so exciting. She's still going through that separation anxiety thing where if we are out of sight she goes bonkers. We'...

After much consideration, Matthew and I welcomed a new member of Ikea to our family. It's a boy. His name is Kivik corner sofa which is a new version of the Kivik sofa they released either last year or the year before. We've been wanting to get a sectional for the living room and while I considered a few others, we just didn't want to spend a lot of money so Ikea it was. We also got the matching ottoman  with storage for our blankets. Here you see our current arrangement of baby paraphanelia during the day. I do mean to write an update on baby gear... When pushed up against this corner  it makes for a giant seating area where Alice can hang while we sit next to her and she happily plays with her toys and thinks about crawling. But more importantly it is a giant area where we can lay there with a blanket and snuggle while watching TV. It's pretty nice. I really like the navy blue color, breaks up all the black in there but I am thinking about the other accent ...

I'm about to get super vulnerable around here. Looking into my soul vulnerable. As you know I like to throw a party or two. And with the addition of Alice, party throwing is a little more difficult because I have to juggle her and doing my party planning and as you can imagine, 7 months old don't quite get "sit here and don't fall on your noggin while I set up". Mostly I did stuff when she was asleep and got the grocery shopping done while she was in a carrier, asleep. Well I decided to throw an Oscar party. I do them almost every year and they're very simple. Put out some cheese, pop some corn, pour out bubbly. Simple right? Well... you know me. But do the people that I invite to these parties know me? I sent out the invite via Facebook and 11 people said they were coming plus their significant others and we were looking at 15-20 people. Matt of course was nervous about fitting that many people in our house. But to me, the hostess, the more the merrier...

Two years ago we closed on Valentine's. It's been a great two years on the farm. - mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

Reading the lives of so many moms on the internet with their aspirational lives and perfectly dressed children had me making up mental mom rules of the kind of mom I was going to be. Then reality happened. I mean after you labor naturally for 30 hours and end up gutted like a tauntaun anyway, your high and mighty ideals kinda go out the window. Also: babies do what they want so deal with it. Alice is dressed about 90% of the time in adorable one of a kind clothing from: ANYTHING THAT’S FREE. No, not unique and special clothing from companies that only me and a select amount of moms who read trendy mom blogs know about, she is dressed in whatever you can buy at any retail store. Sure, she has a few unique items I ordered from the internets but mostly she wears what grandma gives her or what I find on super sale because I don’t know if you know this but babies outgrow their clothing fast and you have to keep buying things at regular intervals so it gets expensive. That’s the par...

When you're in the fog of baby life you fail to realize how big your baby has become. She was such a little snuggly thing and now she's this moving shaking small person. Look at that grin.  It wasn't until I saw the photos my sister took when we got all five grand babies together on Sunday that it hit me. All of a sudden my baby had grown four sizes and I was just trying to catch up. She reaches for everything now. Nothing around is safe, she wants to touch everything. She sits up mostly but tips over often. She rolls herself all over the floor and scoots herself backwards ending up clear across where she started. She's getting close to figuring out how to crawl. She laughs at things now. I thought she didn't even know how to laugh she is a big smiler but I hadn't made her laugh the way I do now. But she is a smiler. She's always smiling at everything and everyone. She is going through a phase where if I'm not in eyesight she gets hysterical...