Parents' Weekend/Man Olympics

This past weekend we all headed to Brad's parents' cottage for a weekend away WITHOUT kids!!! The girls had a good time relaxing and the boys had Winter Man Olympic Games. We all got there Friday night, except Jamie and Curt--they drove up Saturday morning.

One of the games that the guys participated in was a Mad Gab competition.
Another game was blindfolded beer tasting. They had to guess which beer they were tasting. A couple of us girls decided to play too (just for fun of course--we weren't allowed to participate) and I'm happy to say that I tied with Joe--4/6 correct.

Another game was a Wii sports challenge. They played a variety of sports and at the end it told them their age based on their fitness/athletic ability. Joe came in last with an age of 64:-(.

They also played lawn darts and shot pallet guns. Joe won both of those games which made up for not doing so well in the other games. In the end it was a 3-way tie between Joe, Brad and Darrell. The girls then decided on a tie breaker game of "Newlyweds". Joe and Darrell both got all the questions correct but then Joe ended up winning after a couple more bonus questions. Guess he does know me pretty well! :-)

This wasn't a game, just the boys playing on the ice. Boys will be boys:-). Joe said it was really thick, but I think he may have just said that to make me feel better:-).

We ate lunch in Saturday and went out Saturday morning and night. We ate at some local greasy spoons. Breakfast was good, however dinner was, well, there was just a lot of fried food! Let's just say that I don't know why Jamie and I felt the need to "get ready" to go out.

Group guy pic (Curt, Jim, Darrell, Brad, Joe)...

Closing ceremonies--yes that's their "trophy" Joe is holding (unfortunately Jim and Julie had left already so Jim missed this final pic).

Jill and me...

Jill and Jamie

The girls had quite a bit of time to relax and watch movies. It was great! That was exactly what we wanted to do! One of the movies we watched was "The Jane Austin Book Club". We decided that since we don't have time to read books that we should just start a Movie/T.V. Club. Pretty much half of our conversation is about t.v. and movies anyway (when we aren't talking about lactating and blow out diapers:-D).

This girl pic was from Friday night so Jamie and Curt weren't there yet. (me, Jill, Julie and Lindsey). My head is tilted up weird...I swear Joe took another one, but apparently not.


And one more group photo, unfortunately missing Julie this time!

Gavin Update

Since Gavin's mommy never updates his blog, I thought I would. He got his hair cut pretty short a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't his first hair cut, but it definitely was shorter than he's ever gone. I think Em was afraid to go too short before, but it grows so fast and Gavin doesn't exactly love getting his hair cut, so she decided to go pretty much as short as possible!

Here's his hair at Christmas. Not a great pic, but you get the point. This might be before any cuts...I'm not really sure as I don't remember when his first one was.
\
After...

It's not even long enough to spike...

Gavin's been doing well. Him and Layla have fun playing together. He loves helping her by giving her her pipe when she cries and handing her toys...and of course sometimes stealing her toys and hitting her on the head with them. He also loves saying, 'Hi Lala' and is teaching her to wave (he's the only one she waves at). It's pretty cute:-).

9 Month Stats

Layla had her 9 month appointment today and her doctor said she's doing well. She needs to work on learning to crawl and pull herself up on things, but that will come with time I'm sure. She's not meeting many of the 9 month milestones, but they do take into consideration that her adjusted age is 7 months. Over time, as she approaches age 2 she should catch up more with a full term baby her age.

Here are her stats (based on a full term 9 month old):
Height: 27" (25%)
Weight: 14 lbs 13 oz (less than 3%--really close to being on the charts)
Head Circ: 44.1 cm (50%)

Since I compared my 6 month stats with her 8 month, I'll do it again:-). They're pretty close again. At 7 months I was 14 lbs 7 oz and 26.25".

Found

I had thought that I had lost one of Layla's bottles in Michigan City a few weeks ago. Well, Em found it in her lawn this weekend...after it had apparently gone through the snow blower:-(.

9 Months Old!

Our little lovie was 9 months old yesterday!! I can't believe that in only 3 months she'll be a year!! She has been a bit impatient lately as she wants everything that's not within reach and things that are within reach she throws away from her so that she can no longer reach them. Then she gets mad that she can't grab them. She tries to pull herself towards things when she's on her belly but can't do it so she gets tired and mad. Of course she is happy some of the time though:-). Some of her favorite things to do are "dance" (sitting of course) to music, bang on things using her little plastic stacker cups, open and close her "oven" door and take toys out of it, and watch her brother Elvis and any other kids. She loves standing against things, but doesn't do it very well on her own. She took a big face plant boom the other day when Joe turned his head for just a second. She was not so happy about that! She also still loves her paci and anything else she can put in her mouth. She hasn't gotten any teethers yet. Just recently she started bouncing back and forth in her high chair so that the whole thing shakes--she thinks it's a pretty fun game, but it can make getting food into her mouth challenging! She loves seeing her daddy when he comes home at night (even though he's only home about an hour or less before her bedtime) and loves to give him big hugs! She really is a good little girl and such a blessing! It is has been so fun watching her grow and develop over the past 9 months! 1 month 3 months 6 months

9 months

I was thinking today how she is about growing out of the jeans she is wearing today...

it's about time!!! Here she is wearing them on Labor Day!! Lucky for her she has these cute little Walmart jeans in the next 2 sizes too...so at this rate she could be wearing these same jeans for the next year! :-) At least we'll get our money's worth!

I was looking at my baby book today and saw that at 6 months I was 13 lbs 12 oz and 25.75"--last month (Layla's adjusted age of 6 months) she was 13 lbs 11 oz and 25.25". Uh-oh, she's shorter than I was! Hope she doesn't end up being any shorter than me! :-) We go in for her 9 month appointment next week so I'll get her current stats then.

Belly roll (and fluffy post bath hair)!!

Double chin!!

I still sometimes like my fingers...

Turning 9 months is hard work...yawn...

She LOVES finger foods. I break up her food for her but she grabs it and shoves it in her mouth so fast that breaking it into little pieces probably doesn't do a lot of good!

If I scratch the back of my high chair with my nails is makes a funny sound!! So fun!!

Update on Elv

The doctor called this morning and Elv's blood work came back good!! The blood work checked for liver or kidney problems or low blood glucose. All his levels were normal. So we now will just monitor his seizures and go from there. Hopefully he doesn't have another one for a very long time!!

Not Starting Off So Great

So far this week seems to be incurring a lot of expenses! It started Saturday night when I chipped my tooth (a tooth that already has some issues and prior to this happening they said I might need a crown) and since I'm now under Joe's insurance there aren't any dentists in Holland or Zeeland "in network". Then Sunday morning when we were trying to leave for church my car (the Endeavor) wouldn't start. That night Elvis had a seizure--which he's never had before and isn't common for dogs that young to have. I was going to try to go to the dentist today, but then once Elvis had the seizure I wanted to go to the vet instead--my tooth can wait! Well, I was going to drive the truck and Joe was going to take his car like normal, but before Joe left this morning I asked him to take the truck instead (I don't like driving it). Good thing I did b/c the truck's battery was dead this morning! It first wouldn't start up when Joe was trying to jump it, but then Joe realized that it was because one of the jumper cables was broken! Thankfully we had another one he could use. So Joe's morning didn't start off real great and he said it didn't get any better at work.

The vet checked Elv and says he seems fine and Elv does seem to be acting fine now. Seizures can be hard to determine a cause. They drew some blood and we'll get the results back from that tomorrow. So hopefully he's okay!! I know he's just a dog, but he is my first born:-). And our car should be fixed by tonight. It was something with the fuel pump or something (real specific, I know:-0). So it's been a pretty expensive week this week--guess Layla just won't get any new clothes for a little bit:-).

And I'll leave you with some pics taken after church yesterday.