December

Here are a few pictures from December so far:
We had Christmas with Nana this past weekend - above is Lizzie at the party with Mimi.

Here is a closeup of Lizzie's dress - we brought this back with us from Louisiana.

Bath tub baby.

We have had our tree up for awhile - Lizzie really likes it! Lizzie and I are off to take a walk while the weather is good.

Thanksgiving, part 2

For those of you who may have forgotten, here is Lizzie at about a week old. What a change seven months makes!!
Here is another Thanksgiving picture. Grammy Susie holding Lizzie as she watches cousin Maddie's every move!

Here is Uncle Dan with the two dogs. They love it when he comes home.

Here is Aunt Kate and Lizzie having fun today.

Lizzie had some fun with Uncle Dan and Grampy John.

Thanksgiving

Here are some shots of our Thanksgiving week. We have had a wonderful holiday and are now working towards getting into the Christmas spirit! Here are Ryan and Lizzie this evening, right before we left the farm (yes, Lizzie is not wearing pants - the woodstove was really pumping out some heat! She was warmly bundled when we left the house):
Lizzie got to spend some quality time this weekend with Uncle Dan. He is home for Thanksgiving and our Birthday celebration. They seem to have fun together!

Here is Lizzie at our second Thanksgiving at Uncle Chris and Aunt Laurie's house. I think she must be watching Maddie stand and get around some (Lizzie was watching all the kids pretty intently):

Here is Lizzie with her Mimi and Grandpa Gary at our first Thanksgiving:

Lizzie also got to spend some quality time with Nana:

Thanks to everyone for their hard work on the Thanksgiving meals - what wonderful feasts!

7 months

We now have a seven month old on our hands! She is doing lots of fun things these days - today I coughed and then she coughed. Then Kate coughed and she coughed - she is a little copy cat! Very cute. She is also very quick to laugh for us and has a giggle that comes right from her belly. Here she is with Ryan in the morning - this is the first picture with my new camera (which is basically identical to my old camera, just not broken).
In other news, Lizzie's first tooth cut through on the 21st and her second tooth cut through today. She is handling it very well. I will post pics when there is more to see! I think her top teeth are next in line (all she wants for Christmas might be her two front teeth).

We are busy this week - though I am on vacation, it seems that we are trying to push as much into this week as possible! Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday

I was woken up this morning by Lizzie and Ryan and breakfast in bed (delicious and fun). Here is Lizzie with the card that she got for me:
We then took Brinkley for his daily walk (which doubles as Lizzie's time to nap in the stroller). After that, we headed to Belfast to go to Reny's, the co-op, lunch at Chase's and a few other stops along the way. We found this cute rug today for Lizzie's room. I think she likes it!

This is after Lizzie helped me open my birthday present this morning. She is really getting good at this!

pics

Here are a few pictures of our Lizzie. Here she is opening her first Christmas present (thanks Mimi and Grandpa Gary for the nice snowsuit):
Here is Lizzie in her exersaucer, obviously having fun:

Here is Lizzie (and Ryan) with our friend Feleke (he is a few years older than Lizzie, but I think they are already nice friends):

That's all from here - now to get the baby to fall asleep!

Dr update

Here is Lizzie in her new (to us) backpack. She really seems to like being in the backpack and it is definitely easier to do things with our hands then in the front pack.

I realized this morning that I hadn't posted about Lizzie's last well-baby visit. She is doing really well - 27.5 inches long and 16.5 pounds. She is right where she needs to be. As a result, she is now having cheerios and trying oatmeal. We are also trying not to feed her in the night to encourage better sleeping (the doctor suggested this - wish us luck - we still get up with her and give her water and hold her if she needs it).

We were all very excited for the election on Tuesday. Ryan and I did some volunteering for our local candidate during the day and Ryan stayed up to watch election coverage. I went to bed during the early stages of the coverage, so Ryan woke me up in time to see Obama's speech. We heard Lizzie start to stir right before the speech, so Ryan brought her downstairs to watch with us. Though I think Obama will mean many great changes for all of us, the significance of the election will be even greater for Lizzie's future. Now we just need a female president (I promise to be patient).

Nov 2, part 2

Two blog posts in one day - pretty good, I think! Here is Lizzie trying squash for the first time - I think she likes it!
Mimi and Grampa Gary came up to visit today - we tagged our Christmas trees to avoid the cold and possibly snowy-job later on.

Here are all of the proud grand parents:

Also, I put Lizzie's hair in "puffs" for the first time today. They are pretty cute - I am just learning, but I think they came out ok:

Orange

Here are some pics of our recent orange-y days. Here is Lizzie at her only trick-or-treating outing this year (thank's Aunt Laurie & Uncle Chris!):

Here are our pumpkins (Ryan carved them for us):

Here is our new woodstove (also orange-y) - thanks Dad, John and Uncle Chris for your help!

Here is another picture of our favorite pumpkin. They are about to greet some of our trick-or-treaters:

That's it for now!

pumpkin

Here is a pic of our cute pumpkin today. I will post more later!

Homecoming

Yesterday, Ryan, Lizzie & I went to UM to tailgate with friends at homecoming. Here are Ryan and Lizzie in front of the big "M".
Ryan was wearing Lizzie in the Bjorn earlier this week while he was working some outside. He came in because Lizzie fell asleep. Not long after this photo, he took her out of the front pack and put her in her crib.

Lizzie having fun in the exersaucer:

She loves her bornfree sippee!

New pics

Lizzie sleeps
Lizzie sleeps part 2 (this is what I came home to today - Lizzie asleep in the laundry basket in Ryan's lap).
In Ryan's garden last weekend.
Grammie Susie and Lizzie.

Things are going well! Off to visit Mimi and Granda Gary tomorrow!

Tuesday like a Saturday

Today was a Tuesday like a Saturday in the Parker household. Since I am working 3 days a week, I generally have Tuesdays and Fridays to be at home with Lizzie. Ryan's schedule is very flexible and since he often works on the weekend, today we had a Tuesday like a Saturday. We went to Belfast in the morning (Reny's, Chases, etc) and then went to Maine-ly Apples in Dixmont to do some apple picking. Lizzie wore her pumpkin hat for the occasion.

In other good news, thanks to tropical storm Kyle, Ryan was home and inside for most of the weekend. As a result, my closet in the master bedroom is now complete! It is beautiful! I have only moved over enough clothes for this week so that I can enjoy the spaciousness. I hope it won't be full anytime soon.
When I was picking out pictures to post here, I was struck by how little our baby girl was a few short months ago. This was taken in Louisiana in our hotel - she was less than 5 days old:

5 months

Today is the first day of fall and Lizzie's 5-month birthday! Here are some pictures from the last week or so:

Lizzie and Jonas at book club - they are exactly 1 week apart (little Nora also joined us at book club, but we missed getting her picture):
Uncle Dan came home this weekend and got some good Lizzie time - she loves her Uncle Dan!
Mimi also came up to visit and I hear that Mimi had a nice visit while I was at work:
We had a few spare minutes before we celebrated Aunt Kate's birthday, so we took the opportunity to wash Lizzie in Mom and Dad's kitchen sink - her Lizzie is in her birthday suit for the occasion:
Last night I was finally ready to give Lizzie some rice cereal. It was a big step for me (Lizzie was probably ready weeks ago) - after a few false starts she did well. This picture is from tonight, where she seems to have learned a lot from yesterdays practice:

Also, congratulations to Aunt Kate and Uncle John on their engagement!

Computer fixed!

I am happy to report that the amazing Ryan (with the help of some people from Dell over the phone) was able to fix our computer. We are both very glad to be back online from home! So here is what has been going on:

Ryan has started up his farm stand - here he is with his nice stand. Our nice neighbors let us put it on their lawn which is right on route 1a. He has been having fun with it and we have had people stop by every day.
Last week, Kate and I took a canning class from the local cooperative extension. We have canned lots of jam before, but now we know how to use a pressure canner as well. It was a late night for us, but it was nice to feel safe about canning lower acid foods. Also, Happy Birthday Kate!
Lizzie is doing very well these days - here we are reading. She has started reaching for the book when we are reading and definitely looking at the pictures. She is full of talk these days - and giggles and raspberries. She has continued to do fairly well with the sleeping - but doesn't do a lot of long napping during the day. She has been reaching for our faces and likes putting her fingers in my mouth for me to fake chew on and playing with Ryan's winter beard (which he started a little early this year, I think). She also seems to be getting bored in the car - I am hoping to find some good entertainment for her in the back seat.
The Doctor gave us the OK for a little johnny jumpup - Lizzie doesn't quite understand the jump part, but does seem to like being in it for short stints (look at those cute legs!). Another thing about Lizzie these days is that she puts her mouth on everything! Our house feels like it is covered in Lizzie spit :)
One of Lizzie's two favorite places to sleep:
Now I think we are caught up from the last few weeks :)