Gratuitous Glimpses: A LOT OF CHANGES

It was Kierstin's 1st birthday party, and my nephew Josh told me that he quit looking at my blog page, because nothing has changed in the past 6 months. I laughed and thought to myself - "it hasn't been that long!" but then I realized yes indeed it has. His superstar mom leaves a lot to live up to. She can do everything - she home schools, keeps up with the house, cooks the meals, plans fun events for Josh, works at the hospital some, and even still makes time to blog regularly. I've decided to let myself off the hook, and realize I will never be that productive, but I will do better at blogging. In my defense, we have been very busy the last few months. Being a new mom isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It's certainly more fun than I could have ever dreamed, but what a handful! I say she takes after her daddy with her stubborn ways, but for those of you who know me, you might beg to differ. We're still not sleeping through the night. But the new approach of not going in at all - even when she's been crying for over an hour - seems to be working. Out of the last 3 nights, we've only had one long session, the others have been relatively short and she seems to be amazingly adept at being able to put herself back to sleep.

Not only has the last 6 months been full of the normal baby things: teething, toddling, tooting and tantruming; it has also been full of travels. (Which is why I believe we're still struggling with the sleeping) Here are a few of our travels, and first moments:

In February, we went to Florida to see David's grandparents and for some business. It was so
much fun! We played shuffleboard and went to a manatee park and Kierstin took her first dip
in the pool. We also stayed at Disney Land/World I still get confused about which is which, but
Kierstin got to meet Cinderella and Mickey and Minnie. She also took a sweet nap cuddling with
Lambert, her little lamb.

Then came March and Kierstin celebrated her very first St Patty's Day - no beer, but she is Irish, so we had to get her an outfit that let everyone know:

April brought a trip to Arizona. Again, business, with a little bit of pleasure. We went to Tucson and David's distant cousin, Mary Ann, that we got to know with the passing of his grandfather, lives in Phoenix, and so she drove up to spend the week with us. We had so much fun together. She and Kierstin got to be great friends, and when it came time for mommy and daddy to have some much needed alone time, Mary Anne was there to save the day:

Then came Kierstin's 1st Easter. It was a rainy day, but we still managed to have a great time celebrating Christ's resurrection and the two new lives that had been added to our family that past year. Kierstin truly loves her two and a half month older cousin, Olivia and her 7 year older cousin Josh. We are so blessed to have such a loving family!

June brought Kierstin's 1st camping trip. Every year my mom's family - most of her 10 brothers and sisters and my 26 first cousins, and their children, friends etc, some 60 people go camping way out in the middle of no where on Spring Creek in Leach, OK. The name alone should tell you a little bit about our camping experience. Now this isn't your typical camp site. This is a partially cleared field on the creek. There is no running water (except for the creek) and no electricity. This is a family tradition for over 50 years. Crazy you might say - and yes, maybe a little. But so much fun. Every year, I try to come up with some new and innovative way to bring the modern comforts to my campsite. Every year, my tent becomes the coming attraction, and it gets a little bit better every year. As you can see, I have a tent that's just dedicated to bathing and dressing. Please notice that the outside of the tent has solar lights so that at night, I can see my way in the pitch black darkness.

Kierstin really enjoyed playing with her second cousin, Kate who was born only one week before her. She didn't know quite what to think about the cold water at first, but soon grew to love it.

July brought yet another trip to Milwaukee and to Chicago. We went to the Milwaukee Zoo, which was Kierstin's 1st trip to the zoo. In Chicago, Kierstin got her 1st opportunity to play with a dog named Diezel. He was a great sport and Kierstin fell in love.