It's sold!

We are officially homeless because we closed on our place today! We haven't found a place that we want to buy yet...so Marcus' parents generously offered for us to stay at their place while we continue to look. I'm hoping something will come on the market real soon!! We did the move in segments...basically every weekend this month we took a truck load or two over to Marcus' parents house. Thankfully they have a big garage that can store all of our stuff in. We did the final move over Memorial Day Weekend...I know kinda lame 'cause we didn't get to have a relaxing 3 day weekend. But, we are all moved in...Jaelyn is such a trooper. She still acts a little confused in the morning when she wakes up in a different room...but all in all she is doing great! Say a prayer that we find a house soon!!

Flowers & more....

Now that we are living with Marcus' parents, Jaelyn gets the added benefit of running around & playing outside in their backyard. She loves it! She lets me know when she wants to play outside 'cause she'll go up to the door that leads to the deck and reach for the handle to open it...while saying, "peese, peese!". She thinks all the flowers Opa planted are gorgeous and even tries to smell them (see above pic!).

Jaelyn loves to follow Opa around when he's outside. Here she's gazing at the garden he planted.

The netting is supposed to keep the critters out of the corn he planted...but it didn't keep Jaelyn out!! Oops...sorry Opa!

Hmmmm....a dandelion!

One of the fun things Opa taught Jaelyn was how to say "bee"! There are tons of bees flying around because a lot of the flowers are in bloom right now...so when she's feeling up to it, she'll go around pointing at all the flowers and say bee. (And normally there are bees going in/out of them!). We still can't get her to say mommy, yet!! One of these days she 'll melt my heart with that word!! I can't wait. :)

Here is a fun picture I pulled up for comparison. Jaelyn is about 5 wks old in this picture....posing in front of the same rhododendron bush! Wow....so much has changed since then!! :)

13 Month Update (couple days late!)

Some of her new tricks:

• she "jumps": she crouches real low and "jumps" but her feet stay on the ground...she's tries so hard!! She thinks she's pretty hot stuff.
• she's a climber...even into drawers! She will pull out any drawer she can, empty out the contents and stand in it (see below!).
  

Some of her words:

• Dada...Mama is still hard to come by. I joke with Marcus that I'm not going to talk about him anymore while he's at work. It's all about getting her to say Mommy!!
  
• peese...peese (please). Usually she's pointing at something she wants badly or has her arms out to pick her up! Who can say no to a kid who says "peese"? :)
  
• "dog-dog". She absolutely LOVES dogs~I'm not sure where this came from b/c we don't own a dog...but it doesn't matter if they are tiny-tiny like Choco (her friend Sophie's dog) or huge like cousin Lexi's 200+ lb English mastiff...she wants to be up close to them. And if they slobber all over her? All the better!! :) I make it a point on our walks to go by our dog park in our neighborhood so that she can watch the doggies. It looks like we will have to be dog owners at some point.
  

Bubbles!

Jaelyn got "Mr Boubly" (a hippo bubble making machine) from our good friends, Erik & Kathy, at her birthday party. She thinks the bubbles are so much fun! I'm sure we'll have endless fun with bubbles this summer. Jaelyn is such an outdoorsie person~if we would let her, she would stay outside the entire day! She doesn't ever want to come inside (unless of course it's time for food!)

A funny side note: see that water mark on the deck? Well, thanks to a bird...it decided to leave it's mark so to speak. Jaelyn decided to investigate what it was while Mommy was inside getting the bubbles....hmmm...she didn't think it tasted that good! Can I say GROSS?!? :) Dad came to the rescue and cleaned it up while I cleaned Jaelyn up!

Thanks Uncle Dan & Aunt Kim!

Check out my new shoes...keens! Aren't they awesome? :) Thanks to my Uncle Dan & Aunt Kim for spoiling me with these fabulous shoes! They are going to work out great for the summer!!

I think I'm pretty hot stuff in my new shoes!

"I can't wait until I'm a little bigger so that I can go on that playground set!"

Jaelyn absolutely LOVES the park. She has so much fun just running around and saying hello (waving) at all the kids. She could do without the swing at this point...doesn't like it yet. She likes the slide when I or Marcus go down with her. But, she would rather just run in the open space!

All 3 cousins together!

What an adventure!! We had a little photo session of the 3 girls last weekend. Jaelyn (12 months), Alexis (9 months), & Elisabeth (6 months). Aren't they adorable?! We didn't know what to expect...trying to figure out the best time for the session posed a problem because we were juggling 3 different nap schedules! Plus, how were we going to get all 3 girls to look at the camera at the same time?! Jaelyn was on the go....she did not want to stay seated!! The other girls aren't so mobile yet so it was a bit easier for their mommies! Thankfully we got a couple good shots of the crew....enjoy! :)

Mmmmm dinner!

This is what Jaelyn looks like after devouring her dinner. We had take-out from Chipotle tonight & she had a chicken quesadilla with a side of black beans. She sure does love her black beans...enough to wear it all over her face & hair!! What a riot. I decided to throw her in the bath tub after she was done eating.

Doesn't she have a look on her face...kinda like.."this was fun getting really dirty!"

Another fun thing that happened today was when we were playing together and I asked her to go get her soccer ball. The soccer ball was in the kitchen & we were in the tv room. I had no idea what to expect. Typically she gets something other than what I ask for. Anyway, it took her a matter of seconds and she was off to the kitchen and when she came back she had her soccer ball in her hands! I couldn't believe it!! She has a lot of different balls that she plays with so this was neat to see that she understood what I wanted!! My baby girl is growing up too fast!!