Back to Normal

Our windows are finally finished and the guys are done working in our house.  It was a ridiculous ordeal with three windows needing to be replaced, still... one window needing to be reinstalled, and a general feeling of chaos.  Not to mention that after they tore open the whole wall to install a window, we had to paint it.  Thankfully my mom came to help out, so instead of pulling out all my hair and actually going insane, I only felt like pulling out my hair and going insane.  In reality, now that it's finished I am proud to sport a full head of hair, am relatively sane and am very glad for our awesome new windows.

During "Window-Hell-Week" I did not have time, energy or even the ability to post anything as all our furniture had to be moved away from the walls resulting in an inefficient and unusable furniture maze.

BUT, I did manage to get some cute pictures amidst the chaos!

Here are a few playing inside:

Most of the photo opportunities were outside because it was loud, dirty and kind of awkward to hang out in the house...

Naptime

Today is the second day we've had workers in our house.  I'm not a huge fan.  It's sort of awkward, because you never know where they're going to pop up, and my whole house is disheveled as they replace all our windows.  Don't get me wrong, I'm SUPER excited for new windows and more light in my house, BUT I wish they could just magically appear there one day...

Since they're working in Stretchy's room today, she's napping in our bed.  I don't know how she's napping as the noise of hammering and sawing is about to drive me insane, but I guess after our Friday swim lesson, she's pretty tired.

This is what I saw when I came to check in on her.

I often post that photos are "the cutest thing ever" but come on... this has to be top 10...

Mother's Day Weekend... and Other Stuff

After a long day of "fencing" on Saturday, I was excited for an awesomely relaxing Mother's Day.

We had it all planned.  Wake up, hang out with the baby, have lunch at Denny's (I have an ever-present craving for pancakes) and just relax all day...

Well, my day started much too early thanks to one sleepless baby... though who can be sad to wake up to this?

so I was just a bit tired and cranky.  We managed a very nice walk at the Saratoga State Park, but were almost brain-damaged by a couple who was so bad at golf that their balls were raining down on our heads. Then Stretchy, fell asleep ON THE WALK... which always makes me a bit sad because I cherish my nap times... when else would I get anything done?  Around noon we arrived at Denny's (I was so psyched!) only to find a ridiculously long wait... and Stretchy had already cried during the entire 25 minute drive there, so we had to resort to plan B: Friendly's.  Of course, breakfast at Friendly's ended at noon and we ordered at 12:15 so guess what I couldn't eat for Mother's Day Brunch?  Pancakes.  I was pretty upset... it kind of ruined my meal... who wants a sandwich when you could have had pancakes?

BUT, fortunately, we took advantage of the nice weather and headed to a park downtown where Stretchy was excited to play in the grass and we got to feed a duck.  At least that made things a little better.

Stretchy also got to ride the Carousel for the very first time, which was pretty much the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

I was kind of hoping for her to crawl for me as a Mother's Day present... which didn't happen.... BUT
she is babbling now, which is super cute.  AND she can play peek-a-boo by herself.  Also pretty awesome.  So I'll wait on the crawling.

News from Wednesday: TOOTH #2!!

Teeth!

This past week I had a very cranky baby on my hands.  BUT, congratulations to my baby- she has her first tooth (with another just waiting to poke through)!!

I've been doing my best to keep her occupied during the day, by dancing, singing and acting absolutely ridiculous, but unfortunately, we've had a few nights of very little sleep:

see, even the baby is tired... and she's NEVER tired...

while we wait for the second tooth to finally push through.  Its RIGHT THERE.  I can SEE it.  But its still under the gums and seems to just be hanging out enjoying torturing Stretchy and me.

Today was gorgeous, so thankfully we were able to keep Stretchy occupied outside while we put up a new fence.  She looked pretty cute today.  Here's evidence:

Being the foreman

Not too happy with our progress

Definitely not happy with the hat...

Stop everything.  Where are the cats?

Really?  You want to put that THERE?

See, I wanted to PLAY with the hat!

Our First Swimming Lesson

Our first Mommy & Me Swimming Lesson was Friday.  We've been looking forward to it since before Stretchy was even born.  She had to be 6 months to take them, and we finally made the cut off!

Not to be "that" mom, but she was a natural. Actually, it probably was just the fact that she LOVES water and has already been to the pool to swim a bunch of times.  

To be honest, it wasn't really a swim class... it was more a bunch of self-conscious, post-baby body moms with super adorable infants in super adorable bathing suits braving the not-so-warm pool water.  And singing silly songs (as comes with any mommy and me class) and Friday, learning to hold onto the wall.  Still, it was fun to go swimming and see lots of other babies.

A Busy Week

Once Stretchy and I were both feeling better, we ended up having a pretty busy week.  I think it was really good for us because we'd been stuck in the house like we were quarantined for almost two weeks and cabin fever was starting to drive me a little nuts (and I certainly cannot afford to be more crazy than I already am).

Wednesday my sister arrived to spend part of her vacation with us.  Its always nice to see her and we haven't been home in a while, so it had been too long since we'd seen her last.  Unfortunately, it took Stretchy a while to warm up to her, but soon she had a new favorite play-mate (and I got to take some breaks to finish recovering!)  My mom came too since she's always looking for excuses to come see her favorite person... and her daughter...

We did some shopping and ran some errands.

Are we getting in the car already?

We headed up to Lake George (which was kind of a bust since most things were still closed for the season) and strolled around downtown Saratoga.  And we played with the baby...

It was really nice to see my sister and have company for a while.

They left Friday after Stretchy's first swimming lesson and we had a quiet evening.

Saturday we went up to Lake George again- this time to the Recreation Center where we took a hike in the woods, had a picnic with some friends we met in Germany and their kids.  Bob and the other dad took their bikes out on the trails there while the other mom and I watched the kids on the playground.  Unfortunately, a six-month old can't really play on the playground, but she seemed to have a good time sitting on the picnic table and watching.

Family photo... no, it's not a skirt, the baby's legs were cold- it's a blanket!

Sunday we went to a baby shower and had a BBQ with one of our friends who just moved back from Belgium and will be starting work with Bob soon.

Hanging out with the big kids...

I have to say, after more than a week of doing nothing, we definitely made up for it with everything we did last week!  Today we'll take it easy and enjoy the nice weather!

Here's some cute pictures of Stretchy hanging out on the couch this morning:

Standing and reaching

After falling over

Almost in the crawling position!

An Explosion of New Things

After Stretchy recovered from being sick, it seemed like she was feeling so much better that she was bored with all the things she could already do and decided to learn a bunch of new things.

She can flop onto her stomach from sitting and roll to her back.  Now she does it all the time... if only she could figure out the sit-up, she'd be good to go!

She can mimic a really cute smacking sound and now that's how we chat. 

And she can turn the pages when we read... All by herself!

The latest new thing?  She can wave.  She's been waving for a while, but I think it's been unintentional- more like a flapping when she gets excited.  But now when someone waves at her she can intentionally wave back.  SO CUTE!  I have yet to get it on video... hopefully soon!