Tinkles on the Papa!

With Caterpillar being on shut down the week between Christmas and New Year's, I have been fortunate enough to have Jeremy home with Mila and me!!  We have LOVED having Papa home to play (and I have been able to get a few things done a little faster with an extra set of eyes during the day)  Yesterday I was getting her bath ready and Jeremy was helpful enough to get her clothes and diaper off and bring her into the bathroom.  Of course it takes forever to fill the bath tub and apparently Mila got a chill.  I was turned away and I heard Jeremy let out a shriek and bust out laughing...I turned around to see this...

Good thing Papa was in an old shirt!

We love bath time!!

Christmas celebration with the Vogel family

On the 29th we celebrated Christmas with the Vogel family at our house.  I had so much fun cooking a large meal for everyone.  I hope someday soon we live closer so we can have everyone over more often!  It is so great to have a house full of family.  Mila had plenty of previous practice opening gifts and knew exactly what to do yesterday!

Full house!

Grandma Theresa and Mila

Great Grandpa enjoying his "Gone fishing, be back for deer season" sign

Mila pondering what present to open first

Grandpa Rick and Aunt Danielle

Christmas afternoon with the Ericsson family

Christmas lunch was spent with my family in Brimfield.  It was a very special for Mila because she got to meet her Uncle Michael and Aunt Serenedy for the first time!  They were able to fly in from Seattle, WA for a few days and celebrate Christmas with the family!  Unfortunatly, Mila was a little crabby (okay, A LOT) by this point.  She had missed her naps and refused to go to anyone else but Jeremy or me.  She was able to enjoy opening presents and gave everyone smiles from our arms.

Climbing on top of the presents...and eating tissue paper!

Forget the new toys...I'll play with these old ones!

A few days later we went back to my parent and Mila was in a much better mood...

but I still couldn't catch a smile!

Christmas Morning with the Lohnes Family

One of our FAVORITE Christmas traditions is Christmas breakfast with Jeremy's mom and (step) dad's family.  We all get up super early to make it to Mason City for a FULL spread of bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits & gravy, cinnamon rolls, and waffles and family chatter!  This year we had an extra TWO grandbabies (brining the total to a whopping 7) AND a very special FIRST birthday to celebrate for Lydia!  We enjoyed watching everyone open presents, the snow fall, and Luke pulling his tooth!  Too bad he won't be getting his gold tooth...

All dressed up and ready to go celebrate!

Lydia and her new chair...Lizzy sporting her new vest...Luke checking out his new tractor

Mila giving Luke kisses...Luke's missing tooth...Mila's new Little Miss Matched goodies

Aunt Ali and Kelsi

All the grandbabies!

Lydia was born last year Christmas day!  After we were finished with all the gifts we sang her Happy Birthday and opened birthday presents!

Not so sure about this cupcake! 

Sooo Cute!!!

Christmas Eve eve and Eve...

Our Christmas celebrations extended across three families, a close friend, and several days. 

On Wednesday Mila received her first gift from "Uncle" Rudy, a close friend of ours.  He recognized Mila's love for electronics and got her a little laptop!  She loves it!!!  We also took Mila to pick out a few toys to donate.  Our mission for Christmas is that she understands it is more about giving and helping others than the number of gifts she receives.

Jeremy and I celebrated Christmas with Mila on Thursday evening.  She had so much fun dressing up in her Christmas PJs and ripping off the paper.  She loves her new jammies, electronic book, sippy cup, and FIRST dolly!

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all have a safe and blessed Christmas!

This is going to be fun!

This evening I was wrapping a few birthday presents for this weekend. Mila was helping me and decided to get into all the paper. She gave me a GREAT preview of what Christmas is going to be like and it's going to FUN! A day full of ripping and eating paper!

Turning Pages

Mila has figured out how to turn pages in her animal book. She loves to look at this book and talk to the animals! Jeremy and I both think she is already building a great love for animals, which will make a certain grandma VERY happy! I hope she likes horses!!!

Ericsson Christmas Cookies

We had a great weekend! Friday our friends Austin and Erika came over for dinner and a visit! Mila was so excited to have someone new to play with and she really enjoyed their company! Saturday was a lounge day and it was also Grandma Camille's birthday! Sunday Mila and I went to Aunt Tina and Uncle Deken's house to bake Christmas cookies! Mila had so much fun with Isaac and Evan and even let Aunt Tina hold her while mommy worked on some cookies and ate lunch! I am hoping that she is becoming more tolerant of other people holding her before the holidays!

Mila and Aunt Tina!

This is the only picture I was able to get before the batteries died...

Peek-a-boo!

Mila has started playing peek-a-boo and she thinks it's hysterical!  This morning after feeding her breakfast and wiping off her face she kept putting the wash cloth over her head.  When I said peek-a-boo she would take it off and have a HUGE smile on her face and laugh!  Of course the camera was in a different room and I didn't get to capture the face but here is a picture of her playing peek-a-boo with me on Friday while I was stuffing her diapers....they are clean, don't worry! 

And here are a few more miscellaneous pics from this past week...

(yes...it's 9:30am and we are still in our jammies...we are allowed to have lazy days!)

Dinner, Pooh, and a Serious Shoe Fetish

What an interesting night it has been.  We met Al and Camille in Lincoln tonight for dinner so she could give me a second memory quilt top to quilt for Dillon and Drake.  While we were eating, Mila was grunting up a storm!  We're talking, face turing bright red she was grunting soooo hard!  I didn't think too much of it because she has had several hard poopies lately.  (yeah, I know...just what you want to hear about...poop!)  We stopped to pick up some prunes to help her out a little and she was fine all the way home.  Once we got home I took her to her room to change her diaper and OUCH!!!!  The poor thing had a poopy STUCK!  I wasn't really sure what to do so I had her nurse for a little bit to help her relax and hopefully get it out!  At this point she was really in pain and crying.  Nursing didn't help so I had Jeremy call the pediatrician.  Once he got on the phone the crying stopped, I checked her diaper, and success....poop that even a grown man could be proud of!  Now all I need to do is discover what is clogging her up so bad!

Once I put Mila to bed and went into our room to wash my face and put on my PJs I found this....

Those of you who frequent our house know that your shoes will disappear so he can "cuddle" with them but come on....this is a worse shoe fetish than a woman!  I found both our slippers, one of my shoes and one of Jeremy's shoes!  I guess there are worse things he could be bringing to bed!

Eight Months Old!

WOW! Mila is eight months old today! Where has the time gone?! She continues to grow like crazy. I weighed her yesterday on the baby scale and she is up to 17.5 lbs! Must be all the yummy food! This month she was introduced to peaches, pears, sweet taters, aspargus, blueberry applesauce, raspberry pear sauce, and carrots! She has really enjoyed everything except for the carrots. We are lucky to have a baby that enjoys her food so much! While feeding her she says "MMmmmmm!" after every bite! It's quite comical really! Mila has also started to army crawl, she will get up on her knees on the carpet and rock back and forth but we think it's just easier for her to use her arms. She has also started to blow raspberries, wave, and giggle! Her personality is starting to come out as well. I think she is going to be very sensitive...when ever you say her name in that "tone" she cries. It breaks my heart but do I really want her playing with electrical outlets and chewing on cords? Mila also continues to really struggle with teething. I can almost hear her singing..."All I want for Christmas are my TWO FRONT TEETH....and this pain to STOP!!" I always have to laugh with some of teh other parents with babies close in age to Mila that say..."He just woke up with two teeth this morning, I had no idea!" If only it were that easy!! Enjoy the new pics!

Mommy's little girl!

This is the face she makes when "sniffling!" 

Makes me laugh!!

She has figured out how to get under her exersaucer...

and as you can see she really likes to hang out here!

Belly full of laughs!

Last night I was being goofy with Mila while she was playing in her exersaucer. I put my hood up on my sweatshirt and started blowing bubbles in my water. She thought it was hilarious and giggled louder than we have ever heard before! This really is the greatest sound any parent can ask for and I hope we get to hear a lot more in the future! Sorry the video quality is less than stellar...the room was apparently too dark and don't mind me laughing too in the background!

Holiday Card Attempts

So last night I started thinking about what we are going to do for our Chirstmas cards this year.  This is about as time consuming as the Halloween costume!  I attempted to take a few pictures when she was in a really good mood but as you can see, she was not very cooperative!  Hopefully I will have better luck next time!

Get this thing OFF my head!

Sorry mommy...my toes are WAY more interesting!

Think she's had enough?

Mila's Busy Week

Mila is on the move more and more every day.  She is almost up on her knees but knows she can get places faster just using her upper body.  It is amazing all the new things she is discovering throughout the house and rather comical all the things she finds interest in investigating.  Her new favorite toys include floor registers, cords/outlets of any type (just like papa), the Kirby (just like mommy), the doggy dish (just like Ozo), the remote controls, and strangely enough...door stops.  This week she has really been brave moving to areas by herself, usually going after the dog or cat!

I love to rub my fingers across the registers...

and grab the door stops!

Sasha...are you in there?

You caught me!

Gotcha!

Ohhhh...the sweeper!

The doggy's toenails...not really sure why?!?

I love my puppy kisses....

mommy does not!