A little wet

Jason and I both take turns giving Hannah baths, but we both do it a little bit differently. He typically undresses her, diaper and all, upstairs in her bedroom and runs her downstairs to get in the tub. When I give her a bath, I get her undressed in the bathroom as the tub fills up. Tonight, he gave her a bath. A minute after they got downstairs I heard him yell something to me. I couldn't hear exactly what it was, so I went downstairs to see what was up. As I got in the bathroom, I see Hannah smiling up at me while sitting in an empty tub, and Jason standing next to the tub in wet track pants. Apparently, his strip and run strategy backfired on him tonight, and Hannah wet on him! I think he may be rethinking his approach the next time around.

Teeth

Hannah recently got her 4th tooth - another one on the top. With a full set in the front now, we thought we'd start getting in the habit of brushing her teeth. This is proving to be quite a challenge with a 10 month old. I'm not sure how much we're actually brushing her teeth and how much she's really just sucking the toothpaste off of the toothbrush (what little there is), but hopefully we're at least setting a good example for the future.

Last weekend's show

In keeping with our latest winter hobby, we visited yet another show last weekend. Jason's gotten quite a green thumb lately, and orchids seem to be his latest obsession. That being the case, we took in the beautiful orchid show at Frederik Meijer Gardens. Thinking that we would have to pay admission to get into the show, we purchased a membership to the Gardens at home online before we went, only to get there and see that it was free. Go figure! We've actually been talking about getting a membership for quite awhile, so it wasn't in vain. We're really looking forward to getting there more often.


Some of the stunning orchids at the Gardens.


This is how Hannah stayed busy while Daddy looked at orchids.


Hannah's latest trick - the splits!


Having fun exploring the show.

Just beauitful!

Bye bye

Hannah's latest trick is waving bye bye. She's been waving for a little while now but she's finally putting the wave together with the meaning. Now when we say "hi" or "bye bye" we get a wave. Such a smart girl!



She's also taken a big liking to water. I picked Hannah up from her babysitter's house on Wednesday to find her in a different outfit than I'd sent her in. Apparently, while they were at play group earlier in the day, Hannah found the dog's water bowl and went for a swim. She was literally soaked from head to toe! I think swimming lessons will be in our near future.

The show circuit

After being sick last week, we took advantage of the sunny day on Sunday and once again headed down to DeVos Hall to check out another hobbyist show. Last time it was the AutoRama. This time it was the Camper and RV Show.

People are serious about their RV's. There were some monsters on wheels, that's for sure. I think some of them had more square feet than our house (they definitely cost more than our house)! After some meandering, we finally stumbled upon the ittty, bitty restored campers. Were people smaller 50 years ago?? They were very cute, but not very roomy.


Jason sizing up the inside of a vintage Airstream

Yup, my dad's a nerd!

I'm pretty sure touring around the country in an RV is not in our future. See you at the hotel!

10 Months Old

This is a little late in getting posted due to illnesses that have hit our house over the past week. Hannah has quite a cold and cough, and I was lucky enough to get the stomach flu. We're praying that we're over the worst of it and that we don't share our illnesses with each other. So far, Jason has been spared. We hope that he avoids it all together.

At any rate, back to blogging. Hannah turned 10 months old last week (1/14). I can hardly believe my baby is in the double digits! There is never a dull moment these days. She is one little girl on the move. Over the last month, she:

• Took off full-throttle crawling. It's amazing how quickly she can get across a room. Jason just installed a baby gate tonight.
• Turned into a little monkey, pulling herself up on anything that will hold her - furniture, play table, toy box, her crib. She's even gotten brave and let go a few times. Yikes! We now occassionally find her standing up in her crib after her naps. Lowering the crib yet again is next on our list.
• Has really taken a liking to "real" food. She particularly likes spaghetti, blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, peas, bananas and strawberries. However, there really hasn't been anything that she won't eat. She's starting to get the hang of sippy cups as well. She loves apple juice!
• Loves being sung to. Her favorites seem to be Itsy Bitsy Spider and Jesus Loves Me.
• Jibber jabbers all the time, some of which is starting to become understandable - "uh oh", "ma ma", "da da", and "ba ba" (not quite sure what that one means but she says it quite often) are all a part of her regular vocabulary.
• Likes the game of dump out and clean up - she dumps her blocks out of their box and then puts them back in. Of course, she gets highly praised for clean-up!

We are so blessed to have such a happy-go-lucky baby. We went out to breakfast after church last Sunday to one of our favorite restaurants, and 5 different people came up to us to tell us what a cute, good baby we have. Of course, we think so, but it's always so nice when other people agree! We really do feel so blessed to have Hannah in our lives. She brings us more joy than we have ever known. I pray that God would continue to guide us as we raise her, that ultimately she would bring glory to Him through her life. Now that would be the ultimate gift!

This is what Hannah's normally up to these days (although not normally on the couch!)...

Cars and weddings

We actually had a whole day without plans today, so we took advantage of it and headed downtown to check out the AutoRama at DeVos Hall. Normally, this is something that we're really not all that into, but we thought it would be a fun way to get out of the house on yet another snowy Michigan day. The cars, trucks, motorcycles, and even bicycles were really quite impressive. These people really put a lot of work into their vehicles.


Jason enjoying the great variety of cars.


Such beautiful cars!

Of course, Jason was particularly drawn to the 1930's, 40's, and 50's "vintage" cars.

Even Hannah had fun checking everything, and everybody, out.

It just so happened that in the hall next door was the GR Bridal Show. Although we're obviously not in the market, I thought it would be fun to check out. Apparently the show only ran through the early afternoon, and by the time we were leaving the car show they were no longer charging admission to the bridal show. Perfect! The three of us headed in and cleaned up on all of the free samples that were available at the booths! You'd think that people would figure that with a baby and wedding bands on both of our hands that we weren't shopping for ourselves, and yet I was amazed (and amused) by how many vendors assumed that we must have been an engaged couple with a baby getting ready for a wedding. After several vendors asked us if we'd like more information, we finally started answering that we already had whatever service they were offering taken care of! I will say that if you're looking for a place to have a wedding, GR would be a great place. There are a ton of vendors with beautiful pictures, great food, and delicious cake (we know first-hand now!).