Extreme Makeover: Closet Edition.






Worth his weight in gold. Thanks honey. =)
We now have use of all closets in the house, which means the last of the boxes are finally unpacked! I am still hemming and hawing about where to hang the clock, put the pictures though. It will be done soon. And then you can have pictures, Mom.
Anna is doing great! Good news- we kicked the pacifier this weekend. Cold turkey. A tough road to hoe, but not as bad as we thought we were in for. Thursday was borderline miserable, Friday was markedly better, and Saturday on was like she never had one. Whew! Boy was I dreading it, but it's done and she still likes us.
Another tooth popped up! I guess she's trying to make good all our excuses for her teething. She's still constantly chewing on her fingers and rubber ducks so I think a couple more are waiting in the wings.
And Anna has fully mastered the ability to unpack. She empties out her bottom two drawers, oh at least ten times a day. (Why do I bother putting the contents back in?) Today she pulled a couple pairs of shorts out of Chris' dresser and emptied the laundry hamper as far as she could reach in. It's funny to watch her methodically take something out, look at it, throw it down and reach for the next.
Okay, a couple pictures of Anna. I haven't taken too many lately, but I'll work on that.
Anna and her surrogate big sister Dem.









They are all eating graham crackers.


Going away bbq for Lairs; Anna helping herself:















Thanks for my swing, Grandmom!

Here's a short video of Anna's tiger growl. Also, this african violet was given to us when Anna was born. It has shockingly survived for 10 months and now is flowering again. Woohoo! And also, Amanda S, do you recognize that little pink bucket? It's from your bridal shower. I remember taking it home, loving the color and hoping that I would have a little girl so I could put it in her room.

To the guys who gave us our grill...Thanks!! We are loving it. Here's the grill-master on the inaugural evening.



We've been able to grill for Jonny so far- we're looking forward to barbequing for the rest of you guys. Thanks again!

Random pictures of Anna from this past month.


Moving day for the good-looking Jones boys.













Anna's sleeping positions.











When Mom is away: "No shoes, no shirt, no problem."




Swinging in the sunshine.






Mulching it with Demaree.





Crawling through the tube with Judah.






Mirror, mirror on the wall.





Miss Mary, our former neighbor.





Climbing up Mom.








Loving the yard.







In the pool with Maddie.

Pictures from Ohio. We went to OH for Memorial Day weekend to see Chris' brother and sister-in-law. Here they are with Anna in front of their new beautiful house.


Anna with Uncle Roo.







Aunt Manda carting the niece.






Here's Anna on the hippo Grandmom bought.

Here we are!! It's been awhile, I know. We found a place towards the end of May, put in the app, went to Ohio for a weekend, came back, packed up, moved and have been cleaning up the new place ever since. The place: we are renting a house that has an apartment on the second floor where another family lives. It is a darling house with vintage charm- deep window sills, pretty trimwork, brass old-fashioned doorknobs with keyholes, a little archway between the kitchen and mudroom. There are two bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, mudroom/entryway and then what we call the bonus room- a 7.5'x25' room that used to be a front porch but was closed in- we've divided it into an office and a family room. I'm not sure when the house was built but it's probably 60-70 years old and I think was last cleaned sometime before I was born. We were told it would be "immaculate" when we moved in, but the definition of immaculate apparently varies, widely. The previous tenant also had a cat and smoked. It was just disgusting. So, we have been scrubbing away here for the last two weeks. We are running low on elbow grease and 409 is running in my veins, but there is no place in the house not touched with a scotch-brite. We have been blessed with so much help though. Dear friends helped out with cleaning, painting, watching Anna and moving all our stuff over. Chris' parents have been up twice helping us out. We are very thankful to be taken care of by folks around here.
Chris' work has been helpful too- lots of free stuff! It has been providential. One home's basement flooded (big headache for Chris and the company) but we received all the undamaged carpet- enough for both bedrooms! The company switched paint brands so we could have the old brand of paint. Free trim and a co-worker's miter saw to do the bonus room. Extra light fixtures now brighten our home. Plus Chris' experience building homes makes for one dandy jack-of-all-things-house-related. I've fallen more in love with Chris and also with the shop-vac. I never knew how awesome shop-vacs are. I use it more than the vacuum now.
Because every surace had to be scoured, unpacking has been slow. We were pretty close to being settled last week, but painting has set us back a bit. As soon as we take up the drop cloths and put things back in order, I'll take some pictures.
Okay- the real reason you read. Anna. She is almost 10 months now. The picture above was the day she turned 9 months. She's been a blessing to us, spending hours contentedly looking at books in her room while we work on the house. She's been my little helper too:
Here she is helping me unpack.




And when I was scrubbing cabinets on night, she crawled into our bedroom, pulled Chris' sock out of the laundry hamper, crawled back into the kitchen and started scrubbing too.


She's been growing up too. She says "uh-oh" and when you ask her what a tiger says, she'll say "Grrr!" She still eats Gerber oatmeal cereal, but everything else is grown up food. AND, at long last, she sprouted a tooth! On Father's Day, we saw that first pearly white. See? She was teething.

Anna is feeling much better. Thank you for praying for her. This afternoon, she was cracking up at everything. I caught a little on video.
These pictures re from yesterday- getting a little time outside.

Here's what's going on:
Apartment, didn't work out. The realtor indeed was misleading us. =( We were disappointed but we have a few leads on some other places and we'll see how those pan out.

Much more importantly, we have Anna's fever down, a diagnosis for it, and she's doing better. She had woke up with this fever Thursday morning- 103.8 which seemed really high at the time. The Dr's office said to keep her on tylenol and come in Saturday if she still had it. She was pretty much herself through the day. Friday she started acting sick, then in the evening her fever went up to 104.5, and that seemed high, at the time. We talked to the doc and he said to switch to motrin and come in the next morning. She was up a lot last night, just feeling uncomfortable, and when she woke up at 5AM, she was burning up. Her temp was 105.3. So, we went into the ER immediately, and they determined she has the coxsackie virus plus an ear infection that may or may not be related to the virus. Anna has little ulcers in the back of her throat from the virus, poor baby girl. They gave her tylenol and amoxicillin and had us wait an hour until her fever came down some before discharging her. So, we're doing both motrin and tylenol to keep her fever at bay. If the ear infx is from a bug, the amox should help. There's only supportive treatment for the virus- so it's just going to run its course and hopefully clear up in this next week. We've just got to stay on top of that fever.
Anna's been spending most the day asleep on one of us. It's tough getting her to eat because her throat is so sore. =( She's supposedly contagious to other kids for the next few days so we've cancelled all activities and will be holing up around here. We did take her for a short walk today to get a little fresh air as she's been cooped up since Thursday, and she chirped up a bit being outside.
So, that's that.

Last night, Chris and I were at the dinner table and Anna was playing on the floor with toys. I looked over and she was clapping her hands! I'll have to get a picture up soon, but she is napping right now. Anyhow, this morning, she was playing on the floor again and I looked over and she was putting the rings back on the stacking toy- she always takes them off, and throws them over her shoulder, but this was the first time she ever put them back on. So, she's learning new things.
She is super mobile now. She used to just follow me around the apt, but now even when I'm in the same room as her, she'll take off. See ya, Mom.
Other news- apartment search...
Okay, we found a place that we really like. It has everything that we were looking for, all new...a dishwasher without blue eyes...one and a half baths...baby room with lots of Pottery Barn Kids potential...closets galore...a patio and picnic table for our virgin grill...central air...I really want this cute place. So, our application is in, it is first in line and we are currently hounding the real estate office to monitor the process. I already have the whole place furnished and decorated in my mind...Okay, stop, reality check- we don't have it yet. Settle yourself writer. There may be some problems with the landlord-realtor comm lines and we may have been given some incorrect information which would throw a wrench in the whole deal. So, for the time being, I'm going to get a grip and keep calling around until it's a signed lease. We'll keep you posted...

This has been a big week for our little girl. Sunday night, she started waving. Tuesday morning, started crawling. Thursday morning, started pulling herself to standing in her crib.











Sitting back down, gracefully, is a challenge.

We went up to the park this afternoon and Anna went on the big slide, with dad.

The weather's been fantastic of late and we've been enjoying it. Here's Anna and Grandpa having blueberry muffins yesterday morning before we headed outdoors.


We went to Chestnut Hill and strollered down the old sidewalks looking at the shops and lovely stone buildings. We walked all the way down to Chestnut Hill College to see its beautiful campus and then turned around to retrace our steps and find one missing pink sock. Anna enjoyed her view from the stroller and Grandpa's arms. We saw some geese and called them ducks to see if Anna would say duck, but nope. Partway back to the car we stopped at a produce market and Anna had her first taste of blackberries. Mom's white shirt commemorates that fact. Anna fell asleep on Grandpa on the rest of the walk back. Here's the tuckered out girl.

















Then today, Anna and I ran a few errands and then stopped at the park here before coming home. She loved it.

Houston, we have lift off! She can crawl forward! This morning, she figured it out- just put one knee in front of the other...and soon you'll be crawling 'cross the floor. Here's a short video of one of her first crawl passes.
She looks so cute trying to coordinate it all; it's been a fun day watching her practice constantly. And Grandpa is here from Georgia to visit so she's getting plenty of applause from the three of us.