Grins and Giggles

Paisley laughed for the first time when we were
in Utah, for her aunt Shirleen. Charles and I
have desperately worked since then to make
her laugh again, without much luck. Yesterday
as I was putting her into her carseat, I sneezed,
and she starting belly laughing. Later that night,
I did some pretend sneezes, which she just found
highly entertaining, and she just laughed and
laughed and laughed. Charles tried, and she found
him equally amusing.














We did not do this to her (well, I did put the
"brain squeezer" on her), she pulled it over her
eyes herself.














Not liking the sunglasses too much.

Simone

I don't know why the pictures duplicated themselves on this blog, as I can't find them anywhere in the posts...oh well.

We'd like to welcome Paisley's new second cousin, Simone.

Ok, so maybe we are crazy cat people

Caesar

Now that Paisley can grab things, she loves her
little gym.

Atticus looking for some attention.

Just chillin'

Point #3

Definitely not the same nose.

Thank you

As some of you may know, my mother passed away on September 17, 2004, after battling leukemia/lymphoma for 8 years. She fought the disease for as long as she could, and we're extremely proud of her determination and will. Unfortunately she wasn't able to attend my wedding, nor see her 1st grandson or 2nd granddaughter. She touched a lot of lives, as she was an amazing woman, smart, extremely artistic, witty, etc. Since her death, two women have competed in marathons, and dedicated their runs in honor of my mother. My best friend, Ginny, just recently told me that she is going to run a marathon with an organization called Team in Training, which raises money to research blood cancers. I am touched, honored and brought to tears when I think of what she is doing for my family, myself, and most importantly, my mother. If you have the means, please donate here.

Point #2

Both of us at about 3.5 months.

Congrats Sarah!!!

Congrats on your last round of chemo Sarah! We're so happy for you, and proud of how amazing you've been throughout these last few months. We love you!

Proving a point-#1

When we were in Utah, Charles' mom kept trying
to tell me that Paisley has my nose. Nope. Not happening.
Which is fortunate for her. See example #1 below.














This is me at about 10 days. I was NOT a cute
baby. While I was pregnant, I got these pics
out and showed Charles, and I think he was
secretly crossing his fingers that Paisley wouldn't
be as alienish as I was. He got lucky this time.
But back to the point, look how upturned my
nose is...














and now look how NOT upturned Paisley's nose
is. There really is no resemblance. I'm not writing
this post to secretly get compliments, so please
don't comment and say, "oh, but you WERE a
cute baby." I don't want to hear that, since it's not
true.

Kate-could you scan and send me some pics of Charles
as a babe?

Photo Shoot

This is what she does every time we change her
diaper. Hold on for dear life!

Charles' idea of a good picture.

I wanted some cute pics of Paisley in this dress
that her Aunt Julianne made for her. I'm not
really sure what's going on with her hair...

















Speaking of hair, did anyone see SNL last night,
and the skit on baby toupees? Totally Paisley.

My brother, Alex, and boy is he weird

My brother Alex is four and a half years older than me. Growing up, that was just enough distance for us to not be very close, but yet drive each other crazy. I have always been told that I was a brat, but I think the below pictures show that I was indeed not the brat, but a sweet, loving little sister. He obviously was the mean one. By the way, the title of this post refers to an essay he wrote when he was about 13, "My mom, and boy is she weird."

Sweet, loving...


This is the response I got.

Frankenstein Hair

It's hard to really see the depth of her hair here.
It just keeps getting bigger...and bigger...

Picture of the day

January 17th

This is how Paisley works on pushing herself
up. She doesn't.





I don't think Petunia will be this friendly when
Paisley learns to pull hair and tails.

Cousin Pics

While we were in Utah, Grandma insisted that we get all of her grandkids together and get pictures taken. They turned out really well, but I have to say my favorite is the fairy picture.

Leif, William, Sarah, Paisley and Anders.

Anders combing his hair. He's a
year old, but Paisley is almost as
big as he is.


Charles thinks this is kind of cheesy, and my
dad says she'll hate me for it in about 10 years,
but I still think it's adorable. What other way can
you take a picture of a naked baby without it
seeming pornographic?

Sleeping

Paisley slept from 9:30 -7 last night! I was able to sleep for 7.5 hours straight, which I haven't done for about a year (pregnancy makes you pee during the night). So nice!

Back from Utah

We're back from Utah and almost back to normal. We had a great time and loved seeing all of our family and friends, although 7 days was just not long enough. There were so many people I wish we could have spent more time with, and people that we still didn't get to see. Paisley was an absolute angel, of course. The flight home with her was great as well, not a peep from her. When we landed, the guy in front of us stood up and saw her, and was very surprised to see that he had been in front of a baby for 2.5 hours. Good girl! That's about when our luck ran out though. We waited for our luggage, and waited, and waited...turns out that since the weather was not very good in KC, they opted to take some bags off of the plane, ours being some of them. That meant no baby items, no clothes, no meds, no toothbrushes, etc. So we go to my dad's house and sleep in dirty clothes, and I wake up in the middle of the night with really bad stomach pains, and spend the next 24 hours with food poisoning. To top it off, our bags weren't delivered the next day as promised, so Charles called Delta (yes, I will say it, so everyone can boycott them) and chewed out the sales girl, but that still didn't get us anywhere. Our luggage was being sent UPS, and they still wouldn't give us anything for our troubles. Arghh. All in all, it was a good trip. Lots and lots of pictures, of course.

Paisley with Riley, a sweet girl we used to babysit.
She liked to paint Charles' fingernails.

Zoe, Emma and Shawn. These 2 were our flower
girls in our wedding.

Her hat and mittens.

Beca happened to be in town from NC at the same
time as us, which was great because I had never
met her younger daughter Kate.

Amelia the doll. Just look at those eyes!

Amelia's mom, Nolene.



Sad girl. We put her hair in pig tails and she
got really upset. I think it hurts while it's getting
done, but she's fine as soon as we stop messing with
her hair. She better grow out of that, because I
want to do fun things with her hair when she
gets older.

Nolene and Paisley

Kim and Paisley

Napping on Grandma. She's definitely spoiled
in Utah.

Mmm, chocolate cake.

Jenny and Paisley. I think I've known Jen longer
than I have any other friend.

Aunt Shirleen and cousin William. Shirleen was
the one who got Paisley to giggle and grab at things.
Damn you!

So cute!

Grandma and cousin Leif

Playing with a rattle

Great Grandma Lee

Great Grandma Bartholomew