Quiet Week

I'm sorry we've been so quiet over the the last week. Our happenings have sorta gotten in the way of daily blogging. I hope to get back to it this next week. I've tried my hand at baking a bit recently, and that's filling a lot of my time. This week I've managed to make 3 loaves of sandwich bread, gingerbread, biscuits, and a giant batch of fantastic chocolate chip cookies.

Eliza is getting bigger and has gotten so mobile that we're going shopping for a cage today. Not like a doggie kennel, but one of those octagonal baby gates that will allow her to be mobile, but keep her from tearing all the newspapers out from under the coffee table. Our living room will constantly look like we're hosting an Oompa Loompa wrestling competition.

Since Eliza now sits up at will, she takes that opportunity not to nap. As soon as I put her down, I can hear her shuffling around over the baby monitor. I go in her room and sure enough, she's sitting up playing with her glow worm. Even if she's only half awake, she's still sitting up doing something instead of napping. It's only a matter of time before she'll figure out how to pull herself to a standing position. Then we'll be in trouble.

We haven't really taken many pictures lately, so I thought I'd add a picture I really love that was taken the same night we took the bath splashing video. I want to get a video soon of her new bath routine. She likes to rub the side of the tub until it makes a squeaking noise. Then she laughs until her Daddy laughs and then she does it again. This will go on for 5 minutes or so until we finally have to take her out of the tub. It's adorable. Maybe next bath I'll try to get it on video. I love that she already has desire to make people laugh. She's mommy's girl.

Ice Storms and Typing Lessons

We finally got in touch with family in Western Kentucky this morning. Brian talked to all of his parents and everyone is safe. We've heard estimates of up to a month for power to be restored in Mayfield. I really hope that's an exaggeration. We'd really prefer that everyone get out of there, but they seem determined to stick it out. Of particular concern is Brian's great aunt who is 87 and currently without power. She lives just a few feet away from his mother, but it's still really worrying. We're hoping they'll pack up and come up this way until power is back.

Our house is of concern, as well. Our sump pump won't work without power, so our basement is probably entirely flooded. We also heard tales of the demise of our fence. We were planning a trip down next month. If things don't improve, I'm not sure that'll happen.

As for what we've been up to, we've been hanging out indoors and keeping warm. There was no power at Brian's office for a couple of days, so he worked from home. We finally ventured out last night and the sites were unbelievable. Everyone else lived through the 2003 ice storm. I wasn't living here at the time, so I've never seen anything like this. We have more ice than Zales. Here's a view from our back door.





Eliza's been learning to type lately. If she's in someone's lap and they're near a keyboard, she'll go out of her way to reach for it and attempt to type.



She's also really loving her baths lately. She's learned how much fun splashing around in water can be. The other night, we dressed her up in this little ducky after bath outfit/towel thing. So very cute.

I wish these were in better focus.





Eliza's also loving Yo Gabba Gabba. I swear, that show will save my sanity. It's a show entertaining enough to keep her attention and make her coo and smile for 20 minutes without making me entirely insane. She's also been playing with her toy fish bowl a lot. We practice putting the fish in the bowl to trigger the music. Hopefully she'll be doing that on her own soon. I almost forgot, I think Eliza's going to have great eyes 'cause she seems to love carrots. I think we're going to start making baby food part of her regular feeding routine.

So that's the update. Hope everyone out there is safe and warm.

Bubble Bubble

Tonight Eliza got her first bath. She certainly didn't enjoy the experience, but we did get to dress her up in her cute bath towel. Of course, her robe is gigantic on her, but hopefully she'll grow into it soon!

Baby crying her eyes out in the tub:


Eliza trying on her gigantic bath robe. This picture makes her look like she needs some satin shorts, a trainer and a promoter:


Eliza all dressed in her pooh gear and giving us the "I hate you for dressing me." face: