Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers

Monday, September 1, 2008

Caution: Lots of pictures ahead

I have truly been blog-slacking lately. Not only have I not posted, but I haven't read anyone else's for quite awhile now. My excuses range from enjoying the beautiful weather to chasing my very active child around to competing with my Ebaying husband for computer time. Really, though, another reason is I haven't been taking as many pictures lately because we're just on the move all the time. I've tried to remedy that in the last couple weeks, though, so I'll just post them all in one long entry, and hopefully it won't be too terribly long until I post again. I'm going to get caught up all everyone's blogs in the meantime as well! ( :

With these pictures, I really wanted to be able to share Quinn's personality. It's hard to really capture it without motion or sound because those are huge components of who he is. (I now wake up every morning to Q yelling from his crib, "MAMA!!! Where ARE you?!" and the fun begins from then on! ( : ) Still, these pictures do show you a bit of our day-to-day life.

The cheesy face lives on! The next two are ones my dad caught, and I love them!

The next picture is of the latest fashion trend sweeping the nation. I hear it's the coolest thing among kids his age. I was informed, after Quinn rubbed the blueberry applesauce in his hair, that this is an applesauce hat. Duh! ( :
If you ever wake up with the bedhead Quinn had in the next picture, you might have to try an applesauce hat to tame it down.

The other day I was sorting laundry on our bed. I left the room for a minute and found this lovely bedside ornament. He was sitting there, singing a song about W's, his new favorite letter, and was very proud of himself.


Quinn's Uncle Justin showed him how to play tee ball at their house last week. We were so impressed when, on his own, Quinn improvised and made a tee ball set out of his ball popper and a bat and ball. When he plays, he insists on wearing either his fireman hat or his construction hat. I guess they look like real baseball helmets to him. ( :
Andy always says I should post pictures with me in them too, but since I take most of the pictures, there aren't too many of those! Here's a picture my dad took when we ate a picnic lunch at a nearby park.

As I've mentioned in previous entries, Quinn loves to read books. I cannot get enough of seeing him do it! The time spans when he sits and reads on his own are getting longer and longer. The other day, I was on the phone right inside the door to our backyard when Quinn came in the house, got a book, went back outside, and settled into the chair his Grandma Mary got him. I thought it was soooo cute and had to take a picture.
And today, he read the paper and had his morning milk.

Is there anything cuter than a boy and his dog?!

Quinn had sooo much fun riding in the "zoom car" with Daddy and Austin a few weeks ago.
Every year my family takes a picture in our backyard. It's so fun to see our family expand from year to year! My five-year-old niece Carys is sitting on her Aunt Carolyn's lap, and Fiona, who is six weeks younger than Quinn, is sitting on my sister Emily's lap.
We finally coordinated with the cousins to go to our favorite spray park. We had two fun hours there this week, which was followed by an even more fun (for Mommy!!) three hour nap! Yea!

P.S.: On July 20th, Andy and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. I've read several blog postings on friends' blogs about their anniversaries, and I feel badly I didn't mention ours! This picture was taken at a wedding we went to a few weeks later, but we did have a wonderful evening out to dinner our night. We cherish the time we spend together so much more now that our dates are not as frequent, but we wouldn't change a single thing about our life! I married my best friend on July 20, 2002, and I can truly say that I love him more every day. He works so hard so I can fulfill our dream of me being a stay-at-home mom, a commitment we made back we were still dating, and I am so thankful for him!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

State Fair

Today was one of my favorite days this summer. All week I've been looking forward to going to the Indiana State Fair. It's been unseasonably cool for over a week now, which means perfect fair weather, especially for this city girl who wouldn't handle dirt, smelly animals, and heat very well. ( : So today Andy took a half day, and after Quinn's nap and a few quick rain showers, we headed to the fair for the first time in a couple of years. It was so, so fun. I just loved every second of it. We got there right before the dinner crowd, saw all the fun things, and just had a blast. We kept cracking up at Quinn's expressions because he could hardly take it all in! He was so excited to see the tractors, cows, balloons, "blower" (Ferris wheel--he thinks anything that's round and rotates is a pinwheel), chickens, train, etc. etc. As I told Andy, this experience reminded me once again how (most) things are so much more fun with kids. I have never enjoyed the state fair as much as I did today. Oh, and we had free tickets thanks to the Indy Star. Even better! ( :
Checking out baby pigs
Petting a cow
Look at those adorable baby ducks!!
Walking with Daddy so Mommy could enjoy a huge plate of tater fries to herself! ( :
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Sunday, August 3, 2008

Backyard Fun

It was a gorgeous weekend, and we spent it enjoying our backyard, going to the farmers' market, having friends over, and playing at the park.
Daddy bought Quinn a matching ND hat, so I took their picture. I don't know if it shows up very well, but Quinn is very proud to match Daddy with his "Go Irish" hat, as he calls it.
Can you believe it's August and this is the first corn on the cob we've had? Quinn thought the shucking process was very interesting (above) and LOVED eating his own corn on the cob (below).
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Cousin Pics

I've been slacking on blogging lately. I think that's one of the joys of summer--everything routine eventually flies out the window, even if just for a few weeks. I haven't even been taking many pictures, but I do have some that I meant to post awhile ago.

We were so happy to have the Klawitters, Quinn's second cousins, come and stay a night with us a couple weeks ago. He had soooo much fun with them and talks about them almost every morning when he sees their picture in the kitchen.

Kamryn and Quinn above, Austin and Quinn below. I didn't catch a pic with Addie, but at the end of June I posted a really cute picture of all of them together.
And here are some pictures with Quinn and his "twin"cousin, Fiona. They are only six weeks apart, and they LOVE each other. It is so cute to see them play together more and more. Quinn calls Fiona "Mina", which is an improvement over "Wee-wee", his name for her a couple weeks ago (stemming from her nickname Fifi).
The picture above was not posed. They both found their way onto the chair to look at books.
Now, if we could only catch one with both of them looking at the camera and smiling at the same time!
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Friday, July 25, 2008

Year-and-a-half Pics








Our friend Justin, the one who took the black and white pics I posted a few days ago, came over to take more pictures the other day. I was so happy with how the pictures captured who Quinn is right now, and I can't imagine going to a studio could have ever done that. I love how we're in our own backyard too. (By the way, if anyone who lives around here is interested, Justin is up for starting to do this as a little side business. )


Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Letters, We've Got Letters . . .

If anyone asked me what Quinn likes the most, I would say music and letters. Since I just posted some musical videos, I thought I'd post some with Quinn and his letters too. The kid just loves letters, which some might say could come from his nerdy-about-English former-teacher mama. It started several months ago when he learned the letters Y, O, and B, thanks to the lids on YoBaby yogurt. Ever since then, he has picked up over half of the alphabet, in no order and without knowing the alphabet song. His favorite letter is Y, and he carries his foam Y letter around quite often. When he woke up the other morning, I heard him in his crib saying, "A Y, an' S, an' O, and B!" over and over. What's fun about it is he picks out letters in signs at the store when we're shopping, on buildings when we're driving in car, and in books when we're reading. They're always there as fun things to look for, talk about, and in those crucial moments, distract him from something else! (: I have always loved to read, and Quinn's love for letters makes me so excited about the day when he starts reading.

Sorry this video is a little long and has an odd location. It takes place in the bathtub because his foam bath letters are in there, and he loves to recite them. We tried to get most of the letters he knows on it.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Little Music Man

Quinn, like all babies, loves music and dancing, and lately he's gotten into singing more. He'll catch me by surprise by singing words from songs we're listening to on cd or the radio, meaning we listen to almost solely kids' cds or Christian music now! He has a couple favorite songs: "The Wheels on the Bus", "Jesus Loves Me", "Twinkle Twinkle", and "Snuggle Puppy" ( I finally learned the real tune to that book!). If you can forgive my singing voice, here are two little snippets of Quinn singing some of his favorites. He's a little zombie-ish because it was during lunch after church today, so he really needed his nap!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Beautiful Boy


I know I'm the mom, but these pictures take my breath away. Our friend Justin Ulrich took these without us even knowing when we were at a 4th of July cookout. We were surprised and awed when we got them this week and promptly called him to do another photo shoot for Quinn's year and a half pictures. I just can't believe how beautiful and All-American Quinn looks. : )
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Mickey Mouse

I've mentioned before how much Quinn loves Mickey Mouse. Keep in mind, we don't really watch t.v. ever, so this love comes only from seeing the "Hot Dog" song at the end of Mickey's Clubhouse one time and loving the song, and the mouse, ever since. We have discovered that you can watch the "Hot Dog" song and the theme song videos on YouTube, so Q frequently asks to do that. And I usually oblige, even though that means we'll have to watch it no fewer than 10 times. My sister was holding Quinn on her lap while they were watching the clips over and over the other day, and I just had to capture Quinn's expressions. Keep in mind, he has seen it A MILLION times, yet he is thrilled and surprised every time. That pure joy and wonder are such precious qualities of little kids!
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Hackney Visit

These last few weeks have just been a whirlwind of all kinds of fun activities. Last weekend, we had our annual Albert-Hackney Reunion. Our really good friends Chuck and Traci Hackney and their son Drew came to see us as part of our agreement to take turns hosting each other every summer. Since about 2 miles from the Hackneys is Lake Michigan and 2 miles from us is, well, WalMart, we were so grateful they were willing to come south to see us! It was of course nearly impossible to capture a 1 yr old and a 2 yr old in the same frame, but here are two pics of the boys. We loved having them visit and can't wait to see them again soon!

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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Normal Weekend, Continued

I usually post collages of pictures so I can include a lot without it being overkill. This time, though, I just can't choose between all the great pictures my mom took this weekend while we were visiting my parents! I love how these pictures really seem to capture Quinn's personality, so I hope you don't mind if I post several from our visit to the spray park. We had a great time in my hometown, and Quinn loved exploring everywhere we went!



Wearing Poppa's hat, and looking oh-so-round and still a baby. (:



Sweet boy!
There's the cheesy face again!
Walking--and swinging--between Poppa and Daddy
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Monday, July 7, 2008



Such a happy kid, all the time!!

Head down, on a mission.
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Sunday, July 6, 2008

Normal Weekend

We've been enjoying spending the weekend with my parents, and my dad caught this video of Andy and Quinn playing with an exercise ball. We just cracked up at how he immediately knew how to make noises with it.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

More party pics

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Here are a couple more pics from Sunday's party. I still don't have a very close-up pic of the "birthday boy" himself, Papa Lou, but I really like these pictures (thanks for sending them, Kamryn!). The top left picture is us with Uncle Brent, a faithful blog reader. (: Andy and I visited him in San Francisco when I was pregnant with Quinn. Sunday was the first time we've seen him since, so he was able to meet Quinn! The two pics of Q are of his new "cheesy" face. When you say "cheese", that's the face he makes. I think all kids go through that phase around this age, so I'm sure we'll have some goofy looking pictures for a little while. The last picture is of our little dancing boy breaking it down with Daddy to the music of the live band. (:
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