Pippa

Pippa is 10 months old now. She is getting so big but yet she is so small. I pretty much want to gobble her up in the picture below.

This is her preferred method of crawling. One knee on the floor, one foot on the floor.



She has just enough hair to pull back in tiny clips. I'm kind of obsessed with those tiny clips.



She babbles, has three teeth on the bottom, and four coming in on the top. She started sleeping through the night at eight months (shoot me). She poops all the time, and loves to eat. In fact, she will eat everything you give her and she never seems to be full. She is pretty quite. She is content in her bouncer or crawling around the house putting various objects in her mouth. She lights up when she sees Luke walk through the door. She takes two, sometimes one nap a day. I've had a hard time getting her to drink liquids from a bottle. I have been nursing her this entire time (go me) and I fear she won't be ready for a bottle at 12 months. I put a small amount of cow milk (don't freak out people) in a bottle and added a small amount of caramel syrup and she did drink that. That may have to be my way of weening her in a couple of months. We all love Pippa.

Missing Florida

I have been feeling a little homesick for Florida. I miss being outside with Story. I miss her platinum blonde hair, our bike rides around the neighborhood, our pool dates, beach dates, and her rosy cheeks coupled with her chocolate-sprinkled freckles. 

 I miss this treehouse at 'secret beach.'

I miss wearing sunglasses and having a reason to buy sunglasses for a little girl.

I miss the vegetation.

This isn't supposed to sound like a debby-downer post. Just saying that I miss this stuff. Such happy place even amid the stress of the first years of medical school.

I need to post more pictures of Pippa. We spend most of our days indoors, so I feel like I never have a reason to take out my camera. That must change. Pippa is 8 months old now. I love jammied babies. Best thing ever. She is getting bigger, although she is still a small-fry. She weighed in at a whopping 15 lbs at her 8 month check-up. She is a skinny mini. She loves to click her tongue, and enjoys Story. Story makes her laugh and laugh. Even if Story is being abusive to Pippa, for some reason Pippa loves it. She army crawls, pulls herself up on furniture and just recently started to babble. Her specialty is a high pitch squeal.

The two pictures above are from the Sunday before Christmas. Story did her best to hold Pipps in the top picture and is dancing and being funny in the second picture. Thanks to the wonderful families both Luke and I have, our kids had a fabulous Christmas. Luke, on the other hand, did not enjoy his refurbished iphone 4S (my gift to him). Of course not. Not when it is used, not when the iphone 5 is out, and certainly not when the Samsung Galaxy s3 is out. But heck, it was cheap. The refurbished iphone 4s will be the running joke for years to come. I'm sure of it.



Air swimmer. For Christmas, a nice family from our ward invited us over for dinner. It was a lot of fun. We played ping pong, talked gluten-free talk, and flew an air swimmer. It was then that we fell in love with the remote-controlled inflatable fish. We purchased one on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond. Ever since then, I have had had a blue shark floating around my house. It is such a treat to turn the corner and have a shark hit you in the face. Honestly though, we have tall ceilings in our house and a lot of space so it doesn't bug me nearly as much as it would in some other houses.

Story is as funny as ever. She is rambunctious but yet very girly at the same time. She loves her makeup that Santa brought her. She uses the dryer as a mirror and applies her make-up, brushes her teeth and combs her hair there. She doesn't wear diapers at night anymore. I finally stopped buying diapers and told her no more peeing while she was asleep. It totally worked. She wakes up on her own to go pee, and we sometimes carry her to the bathroom before we go to sleep. She has an accident ever once in awhile but for the most part she does really well. As parents who wet the bed until we were like 20, we couldn't be more proud. ;)

Story and I were both excited to have her start gymnastics in January. She freaking loves it. Honestly, I love watching her listen to her "coach" and run around with all the other little kids.  My favorite is her walking on the balance beam and then jumping off and shouting, "ta-da!" She makes sure to say it loud. I just asked her what her favorite thing about gymnastics was and she said, "saying, ta-da!" So there ya go.

Luke has been continuing on with his medical rotations here in Elmira. He has enjoyed it here. From the sounds of other students experiences at other rotation sites, Luke has been able to get more hands-on experience. He has delivered several babies, froze off a bajillion moles, perfected his stitching, and learned to cut women's hair. Yes, women's hair, I needed a hair cut so bad and we didn't have the money to blow at a hair salon so I totally let him cut my hair! And you know what? He did a fabulous job. He is so artistic and meticulous that I had no problem trusting him with a pair of scissors. If I ever have surgery that involves being sewn up, someone please tell Luke I would like him to sew me up.

I have been SO busy here in Elmira. Kidding. I totally came here with an open mind. I'm always up for an adventure and trying out new places but Elmira and me just don't mesh. For the most part I am content hanging out with kids at home but after awhile, I just want to go outside and run around. But alas, it is too cold. And, I fear I might get shot. Just the other night I woke up to gun shots being fired right outside my bedroom window! The neighbors house got shot up. Oh the life of living in the ghetto. I think Florida spoiled me in so many ways. I will never regret living in Florida. I don't know if I can say I will regret Elmira. Elmira has taught me that if I had the choice, I would rather live some place warmer year round, and take a vacation to a cold climate for a couple weeks during the Christmas season. Anyway, we are planning our escape. Beware, we may be showing up in your neck of the woods in the coming months.

Last night, Story was tugging on me and tugging on me until she pulled me so hard that I stumbled back and fell into the Christmas tree and then onto the floor. I was holding Pippa but was able to protect Pippa by keeping her on my front side as I let my back hit the floor. On an ordinary evening, I would have gotten frustrated with Story. But I just looked over at her (she was also on the floor at this point) shocked, but then began laughing. How could I be mad at my child when so many lost their littles in such a senseless way? Nothing makes you want to hug and love on your children more than a day like yesterday. Our hearts and prayers are with all the families in Connecticut. May they find comfort, peace, and understanding.

Christmas Tree

So we broke down and got a real Christmas tree. It would be a crime to live in this part of the land and not go cut down your very own a tree. So we did.

It was the cutest little tree farm, complete with its own gift shop on site, and a raging fire in the fire place. It was so incredibly cozy, I didn't want to leave.



We decided on a Canaan. Some may call its branches sparse. But I believe the space between the branches allows for an ornament to hang ever so perfectly.


Story wanted to pull the tree carrier. She did. She is a strong girl. Pippa is in the car seat, as always. Those two are going to be so different in their body types. Pippa is so mini compared to Story at the same age.


Captured this truck hauling trees right next to the farm. I thought it was a cool shot.

Life

It's the holiday season, with the whoop-de-do and hickory dock...

The girls and I have been hanging around the house most days. It's weird but I have actually enjoyed it.  It's nice to clean house, play with them, feed them and be so busy doing it that when I finally have time to glance at the clock I am amazed it is already 4pm. On Wednesdays we go to the local baptist church for gym time. They have a large gym filled with all kinds of toys for the kids to pay with. It gives us moms some time to have some adult conversation and the kids a space to let out their energy.

As I mentioned, it's the holiday season and the mustache is back to join in on the festivities.



Oh gosh.



We drove to DC for Thanksgiving. I have family there and it was nice to see them all. Heck, even Kyle was there! (Space Needle T-shirt). My cousin and his family was nice to take us around town. Story and her second cousin...cousin once removed...however it goes... loved playing together. They were so cute.






Pippa in Story's sweater. We hit up the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It was a good visit minus my minor (or not so minor) freak out when Pippa started whaling because she was hungry. Luke says that as a situation becomes stressful I go from calm to nuts in a matter of seconds. haha and it is SO true!

Crisp, Autumn Walk

I have a lot of catching up to do. The trees here are nuts. Miles and miles of mountains, or hillsides, not sure what to call them, are covered with deciduous trees. Which means, miles and miles of colors in the fall and miles and miles of bare, ugly trees in the winter. Although, maybe once they have snow on them they will look pretty again. Only time will tell.

Without over-editing the picture, this is as close as I could come to what the colors of the trees look like in person.


And then there are hillsides full of them. They got more colorful than this. This picture was taken on General Conference Sunday.

This picture is funny to me because Story was wiggling on top of Luke's shoulders because she was trying to hold her pee. Classic. Lucky for Luke, there was no accident.




Story always gives me flowers. I always overreact with gratitude and joy and she always beams with pride.