Chillin'

Lauren, just chillin' while waiting on breakfast

9 Months!!

Our Lauren is already nine months old.  Time continues to march by, but sometimes I think the "march" is more like a brisk run!  Lauren is becoming more expressive with each passing day.  She's learning to wave, she loves to splash in the bathtub, she smiles and shows a mouthful of teeth (well, 4 of them anyways), says mama and dada and there are times that I swear she's saying "Hannah" -- she loves to smile at Hannah.  She is one of the fastest crawlers that I've seen.  When she wants something, she is headed there in no time flat.  She is into everything -- especially the things she shouldn't be into....like dog food, the pantry, folded laundry, etc.  When you tell her no she looks back at you and laughs!  We could be in trouble with this one!  

Lauren has been enjoying her summer home with Daddy, although she has him convinced that she needs rocked for her nap every day.  Well, in some ways, Jon needs to rock her so there will be a nap everyday. She is so curious that she doesn't want to sleep!  She wants to see what Hannah is doing, she wants to see what Abby is doing.  Poor Jon has had a tough time this summer getting her on a good sleep schedule where she can just be "tossed" in the crib and you walk away.  She is also not exactly enamored with the bottle.  We think that her view of the bottle is that she'll tolerate if it is required for her to survive, but if not, she'd prefer to just gorge herself when I'm around.  Fortunately, she is eating more and more "people food" which at least makes us feel like she's getting enough to eat.

Of course, just look at her and you can tell she's getting enough to eat!  Lauren really isn't that big, but compared to the peanut of a baby we had before, she just seems huge.  At her 9 month check-up (which didn't occur until 8/22) Lauren weighed 20 pounds & 3 oz and was 27.5 inches long.  She's in the 75th percentile for weight and in the 50th for length.  Her length is exactly the same as Hannah at 9 months, but her weight...well, Hannah was almost 18 months old before she hit 20 pounds!  It is so weird to see a "baby" wearing some of the clothes that Hannah was wearing at 18 months when she was walking around and talking.

Speaking of walking.....we don't think Lauren will be waiting until 15 months to walk like her big sis because Lauren is already pulling herself up....cruising won't be far off.  It is just amazing to watch her grow up. It seems like she learns something new every day.

Here are some pictures I took of Lauren at 9 months! 

All smiles, crawling after Mommy

And she's off!

(Look at how determined she looks)

Weekend in WV

We had our annual weekend gathering at Mom & Dad's house the first weekend in August.  It's so nice that we can count on the cousins getting to hang out at least once a year....even if it would be nice to happen more frequently.  Here are some (okay, a lot) of the pictures I took while we were all together.  Enjoy!

 Liam managed to eat all of the red tomatoes off of Dad's tomato plant.

 Peyton smiling

(which only occurred because she was with her Mommy!)

 Liam & Hannah LOVE playing together.

It is so much fun to watch them interact with each other.

 Grandma took the little girls for a walk together.

 Proof that our mom is nuts.

We didn't have a sprinkler for the kids to play, so we used the hose.

 Daniel and Lauren chillin' in the shade.

(Note: I don't typically dress my child in a bikini, but I couldn't find her one piece suit (the bikini was $1 on sale, so I couldn't pass it up) before leaving the house.....when I mentioned it (again) in the car, Jon tells me "oh, that was in my bag, I tossed it on the floor by our bed."  Well, that certainly was one place I wasn't looking for it!)

 Correction. Both of my parents are nuts.

 Liam loved being the one with the power to squirt....but didn't like getting squirted nearly as much.

 Peyton & Karen

 Hannah...putting on her goggles.

 That's my girl!!!

(This is one of my FAVORITE pictures of her -- a must for the wedding slide show someday!)

 Liam goes after Grandma!

 Karen & Peyton

(I must have gotten too close.....Peyton had eyes only for Mommy this weekend. If Karen left the room or anyone got too close when Peyton didn't want us close, she let us know she was NOT happy.)

 Liam & Hannah

 Sharing a cupcake before bed.

I'm pretty sure Aunt Karen would have said no, but for a special treat I let them indulge.  I think they ate more icing than cupcake : )

 Playing in the creek.....or at least throwing rocks in the creek....a favorite pastime.

 Kids & dogs are drawn to water.

 Uncle Jon helps Liam reel in his first fish!

Liam didn't want to touch the fish....meanwhile Hannah was prancing around waiting for Jon to get it off the hook so she could touch it and hold it! 

 Karen & Liam fishing together.

Liam had stored his fishing pole in the car the entire week before leaving for WV so they wouldn't forget it because he wanted to fish with Hannah.  He got his wish.  I think Jon said they caught 3 or 4 fish!

 Jon & Karen fishing with Liam

 Hannah -- running to me!

 A girl & her dog

 Grandma & Grandpap with all 4 grandkids

(I have no idea how photographers get pictures with all of the kids smiling and looking at the camera. Kudos to them! This is the best I could do.)

 Hannah & Liam

 Cousins!!

 Peyton

I'm not entirely sure Peyton is enjoying this hug from big brother!

We had a great visit in West Virginia.  It's always nice to hang out with Daniel and Karen, but it is a little bittersweet when it is time to leave since we all live so far away from each other.....We actually left Hannah behind for her week at Grandma's, so it was weird coming home with just one kid.  I thought I'd get to ride up front with Jon on the way home because Lauren would sleep, but that wasn't the case for the entire trip....I did some back and forth to the back seat between the carseats.  Thank goodness my rear end fits!  It would be a long ride otherwise!

Retirement Party

My mom retired from teaching after 25 years in the classroom.  Some of the years were before I was born, but most of them were from the past 20 years, once Daniel got to be 10 years old (or so).  Her last "official" day was June 30th, even though her last day at school was at the beginning of June.  We'd thought about what we could do for her, but it is so hard to get our act together when all of us kids live so far away and it's hard to visit multiple times with all of our kids in tow.  So, we decided to have a surprise retirement party for her as part of the weekend when we all head home to WV.  I had a few co-conspirators from WV, but the rest of the planning was done by my Aunt Patty, Karen and me -- all from afar.  Daniel only wanted to know what time he needed to be where : )  Fortunately, I managed to learn mom's email password, so I was able to "hack" into her account and get addresses from her address book so I could send the invitation over "evite."  Dad helped with snail mail addresses for the rest, and making sure our list was complete.  I was expecting 20-30 people to come.....in the end we had over 50 RSVP that they were coming with multiple maybe's and some people who just showed up.  It was amazing.

As the party grew, I managed to enlist the help of some of my friends here in Ohio for the food prep.  Two of my most wonderful friends actually made a lot of the food for the party and then I transported it in coolers to WV.  On our way home we made a pit-stop in Sistersville to drop off the food and show Merritt what we had so she could pick it up on Saturday morning and take it to the church for the party.  It was amazing to me how many people helped pitch in and do stuff for the party.  It ended up being so nice (although people who attended didn't eat NEARLY enough food -- so much for the http://www.ellenskitchen.com/ website for party planning!).

Our biggest challenge was getting mom out of the house.  We'd talked about a brunch, but Mom was very anti doing anything for her retirement.  We finally convinced her that a nice family brunch wasn't too much and it would be low-key and nice.  When we got into Sistersville, Liam asked Karen why we were stopping at this one place (since Mom & Dad rode in her van) and Karen responded "We've been lying to Grandma. This is where we're eating."  Mom knew something was up for sure when Daniel's old wrestling coach, who lives out in the other end of the county, got out of a nearby car.  We were there early, and I hadn't exactly planned a "surprise" welcome with all of the guests already there, but a few had managed to get there early.

When Mom walked in the church, her biggest surprise was seeing her best friend from college Jo Casey, and her husband John.  Jo and John made the trip from New Jersey, just to see her.  Another huge surprise, was Mom's friend, Kim Spurgeon, that she grew up with going to YMCA camps together.  Kim came from St. Louis, Missouri.  It was amazing that those ladies made the effort to come.  After the party they came back to the house and visited for a while too, which was a lot of fun to hear some stories about mom!

Here are a few pictures from the party.

Yes, Witschey's does make cupcake cakes.

I was nervous when placing the order because it didn't sound like the lady knew what I was talking about, but it turned out great!

Uncle Daniel with a sleeping Lauren

Quite the spread of food

finger sandwiches, fruit, scones, cookies, lemon tarts & cupcakes

I asked guests to bring memories of Mom and how she impacted them or someone they knew.  A few people brought stories that I put into a scrapbook. Some people didn't listen and brought gifts.  It ended up being a nice memento, even if I didn't get as many stories as I'd hoped.

Larry Ritchie, Patty Frayte, Sarah Smith, Peg Koerber, Gwen Davies

Somehow I didn't get pictures of guests like I'd planned....I guess it was because I was chasing kids around.  There are also some pictures that I know my sister got that I didn't (like the one of our whole family), but my selection will just have to do for now!



Mom & her friend, Debbie Wilson

Emmaus Walk Ladies

Mom's very first principal (from the '70's) - Earl Lucas (and his lovely wife, Joan)

(Joan and Earl are credited with getting mom back to church by telling her that if she wasn't going to church her children would grow up to be heathens.  Thanks Lucas'!)

Dad and Uncle Ford

They are the only siblings left on the Folger side. 

Would you believe my dad is 70 and my uncle is almost 80?  They look good (and alike)!

Mom with her friend, Kim Spurgeon

Mom's first principal when she went back to teaching after spending more than 10 years at home with us kids -- Lynn Caseman.  He's a riot.  He still calls me piranha, because I'm a lawyer, but it started when I was in high school just saying that I wanted to be a lawyer.....He actually yelled "hey Piranha" when he walked through the door of the party.  He also told a great story about the day my mom was late for work and he searched our house looking for her (likely a lesson in why you should lock your doors!).

Summer Camp - Week 3

Hannah had a blast at her last week of camp this summer.  The theme was "Around the World."  They made African Masks (hers is on the left) and some type of windcatcher (right).  She brought home some paintings and a Japanese flag.  One of her pictures was of an airplane, with a note from the teacher on it saying "I'm going to fly on an airplane to my friend's house" was what she told them when they asked what it was.  This camp was a great experience for her and we're definitely going to enroll her for a few weeks next summer!