We're slowly catching up... here's October!

For what it's worth, I wrote this in the actual month of October.  I am a slacker.

Spoiler Alert!!!  ;)
October was such a fun month for us!  First and foremost, our baby girl turned one year old!  Does that make her a toddler?  I dearly hope not.  I want to prolong having my “baby” as long as possible J  We also went to some great soccer games, had a fantastic Halloween, made some little changes to our house, attended a Western festival in Wellsville and discovered Aleah’s sweet tooth.  And that’s it in a nutshell.  

Slow-mo version:

My little, 5 pound baby is now a one year old.  How on earth did this happen?  I swear it was just a few days ago that we brought her home from the hospital and put her in her newborn-sized fleece sleeper only to find that she could get totally lost in it while we laughed and cried over trying to figure out how we ever managed to survive without her.  Weird.

Her birthday was just so dang fun!  I’ve compiled pictures from various wonderful guests who attended since as this blog proves, I’m terrible at taking them. 

Aleah has always gone crazy with excitement every time I have made chocolate frosting in the past; so naturally I smeared it all over her cake.  However, she was so weirded  out by eating cake while surrounded by people gawking at her, that she totally lost interest in the frosting.  Thankfully she did end up eating it, but not nearly with the zeal I was expecting.  We kept the party low key with family only and for record-keeping purposes, here’s who attended: both grandmas and grandpas, Uncle Jake and Aunt Kristin, Aunt Kinli and Kelsi, JoAnna and Greg, Merlynn, Great Grandma and Grandpa Thompson, Great Grandma Grange, Aunt Stacie and Uncle Kelly, Kirtlyn, Deacon, and Great Aunt Patty.  The rest of the party will be easier to explain with pictures so I’ll leave it to captions to tell the rest.  It really was tons of fun though and such an exciting time for our family.

 Aleah’s 12 month check up went very well.  I’ve been looking forward to this for the past few months because I love seeing how much she has grown each time.  Dr. Watts told us that Aleah has advanced motor skills and is growing very well.  She weighed 21 pounds, 4.5 ounces.  She was in the 50^th percentile for her height and the 55^th for her weight.  This was weird for me to hear since she was so incredibly low on the charts when she was born, then beefed up from all that creamy milk and quickly rose to the top of the charts.  Now that she is in the middle, I can say that in the past year, she has spent time in each zone of the size charts J

Aleah is getting better and better with her soccer playing skills.  She also conquered her shape ball for the first time all by herself, has started doing “quick feet” with daddy, can pick out red, blue, yellow, and green, has fallen in love with purses, and is sleeping much better (most nights anyway).  Big strides this month!

Aleah also got to dress up for her first time this Halloween.  I had the most awesome peacock costume all planned out to make.  Then we saw those soft, warm Carter’s Halloween costumes at Costco that were considerably less than we were going to spend on the peacock costume.  I couldn’t justify spending more on the peacock so we ended up with this cute pumpkin costume that Aleah loved.  She got so excited whenever we got it out to put on.  She always ran up and tried to put her arms through the leg holes.  We chose not to take her trick or treating this year since we didn’t want her eating all that sugar and she would have no clue what was going on anyway.  We did however take her to a fun ward party and out to see family and she ate it right up.

We’re still finishing up some projects that have been in the works since we moved in.  Here they are:

It has just occurred to me that this entire post is about Aleah.  Haha!  I remember being mildly annoyed by other people who only wrote about their children in the past.  Then I became a mom.  Guess what?  This little girl is my life!  Her joys are my joys, her bad days become my bad days, etc…  So yes, this entire thing will probably be about her.  But I’m so totally okay with that.  Anyone who is not, can stick it. Haha!

In mid-October, we attend the Western Festival with Tyler’s family in Wellsville.  Here we made a doll out of corn stock that looked eerily voodooish, rode on a train, petted an obese horse, looked at goats and chickens, watched a cowboy skit, listened to cowboy music, and slid down a big slide.  It was a lot of fun. 

For my next comment about the festival, I’m going to give some background.  For those who don’t know, I’ve been learning a little bit about babywearing.  I love it!  I think it’s crazy that women all over the world wear their babies except here.  It seems like the large majority of our culture here thinks that babies ought to be transported by carrying car seats and pushing strollers.  I like babywearing much more for many reasons.  Some of those reasons include spinal and hip development, ease/convenience, baby/mama bond, prevention of over-stimulation on baby’s part, and pure enjoyment.  In the process of learning about some of these things, I bought a Boba 3G carrier.  It has girly print and Tyler has wanted very little to do with it.  However, he voluntarily wore it at the Western Festival for the first time and I think I’ve converted him now too.  It was so cool to watch him give it a try and to feel all the benefits that I’ve been telling him about it for the past few months.

The remainder of the month was filled with yard sales, soccer games, and fun with friends and family.  Speaking of which, Rachel and I saw “The Drowsy Chaperone” together at a theatre I’ve been dying to visit for years now.  It was tons of fun!  Did we take pictures?  No.  I’m terrible.  I rest my case.

The holiday season is approaching now and we are anticipating lots of fun family and friendly gatherings in upcoming months.  Yay!  In the meantime, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed spending October together this month and are loving being a little family in our new home.  TTFN!

Halloween Night

Aleah playing with her cousins and Grandpa on her birthday

Wake Me Up When September Ends...

Funny… I actually wrote the post for September a few weeks ago.  When I opened the file just now to add the final touches, I realized I hated it.  Sometimes it’s hard to write when the time to do so is shoved in between short nap times and errands that need to be run on my days off.  Unfortunately, my writing definitely shows this.  Sorry y’all!  I hope it’s not too terrible.  Anyway I’m starting anew with this one so hopefully it goes better this time around.

September was a big month for us!  It’s the first month that we actually spent living in our new home!  I feel like I’m constantly writing about house stuff what with the selling, buying, fixing up, etc…  Hopefully I can tone that down after this month’s post.  But honestly, I can’t not talk about our first month here! 

We love our new home!  Sometimes when I walk through the door, I still get that girly, excited feeling where something inside me jumps and says, “this beautiful home is yours… like… for real!”  Haha!  Don’t let me give you the wrong idea; it’s not huge or fancy by any means.  Our house may not be Parade of Homes material but to me, it is perfect.  It’s not big, but its space is used wisely and the tall ceilings make it feel bigger and more open.  I’ll stop there before I start gushing over all the details that no one wants to read about.  Basically, it suits us.  It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted and what I pictured for my family and I am so thankful to have it.  Plus, it’s the first time I’ve had my own central air and I am thrilled about that!  Wonderful!

Our new ward here is great!  We were surprised to walk into the chapel and find that it was the tiniest ward either of us had ever seen.  It didn’t take long for us to fall in love when we learned that it was made up of a tight-knit group of young families like us and that members had prayed and fasted us there.  Our Sunday school class was a marriage class that catered to young couples.  It was a blast to gather together and learn from a hilarious, slightly more seasoned couple in the ward.  One of the couples even hosted a big neighborhood party with giant blow up toys and a rock wall and stuff! 

After only 2 weeks however, the announcement was made that they were changing our ward boundaries.  That tight-knit group of young families has now been disbursed into other wards.  While this makes us very sad, we’re looking toward the future and are excited to get to know even more people now.  This Sunday will only be our second week in the new ward so we haven’t gotten cozy just yet.

Aleah has developed all sorts of new skills this month.  While I’m sure I can’t name them all, they include large amounts of language and communication.  She understands so much of what we’re saying now!  It’s so cool!  I frequently voiced instructions to her throughout the month just to see how much she understood and I was totally blown away with the results!  She may not be able to say all the words back to us yet, but she knows and understands many of them already.

She has also started eating more solid foods now.  From what I can tell so far, her favorite foods are chocolate frosting and Pasta Roni.  She won’t be breaking any healthy records with that though, so we’ll keep working on her.

I can’t remember if I wrote about this last month or not but guess what?  Aleah is turning into quite the little soccer girl!  She loves kicking the ball back and forth with daddy and what’s more?  She is amazing at it!  I can’t believe how much fun it is to watch her run around and kick the ball (even the tiny tennis ball size)! Tyler is of course ecstatic about this new development.  So far she is left-footed, which apparently is a very sought-after soccer trait or something like that.

Also new this month, this mommy is a newly converted yard sale addict.  What have I been missing all these years?  The Grange girls took me out in September and I had a blast!  Not only was it tons of fun, but we got some killer deals too!  I’m hoping to get as many Christmas and birthday presents for Aleah as I can at yard sales now!  So far we’ve been able to get her several books, toys, and clothes for next to nothing.  Additionally, we got a cute table for our living room, a few decorations, and even clothes for me ($1 for darling shirts?  Don’t mind I do). I am officially addicted.

Tyler is performing most awesomely in all of his classes and enjoys playing soccer regularly on base for his paid exercise time.  Also, he has totally mastered the art of cookie-making.  Allow me to explain: when I found out I wasn’t supposed to eat cookie dough while I was pregnant with Aleah, I vowed never to make cookies until that changed.  I always, always eat the dough and refraining from doing so is simply unrealistic.  So ever since then Tyler has been the cookie baker at our house.  Tyler’s cookies blew my mind this month.  Whatever the secret to baking killer chocolate chip cookies is, he has found it and the convect bake on our new oven cooks them perfectly.  I confess, I’m a little jealous that he can outbake me now.  But there’s no turning back at this point, I’m officially passing the trophy on to him.  So next time you see me and notice that my butt no longer fits in my pants, you can thank Tyler because I cannot stop eating those delicious things and he can’t stop baking them. 

And with that, here are the pictures we’ve saved from September:

Cabinet Before

Here is Ty's work in progress on our cabinet detail

Unfortunately this is the most recent picture we have of the after on his cabinet.  You can still tell it's cool though, right?

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After (fridge hadn't been delivered yet... sorry)

Aleah's Room Before

Aleah's Room After

Play Room Before

Play Room After

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

Tyler added this super cool trim to all of our pillars.  Now you can tell they're separate pieces from the wall

Aleah's first haircut with Mommy!

Here is a view of the new lights and fan we added



               

Here's a pic of my latest project.  I wanted a bright red chandelier so I bought one, sanded it down,  painted it, glossed  it, bejeweled it, and used and abused Tyler's skills all along the way.  It was a lot of fun and I love having a splash of color hanging from the ceiling!

Another cool new light fixture we added.  I found this one bargain-hunting on one of our yard sale adventures.  Sweet deal!

Oh the messes she can make!  Aleah dumped out our entire box of Q-Tips (her very favorite), one-by-one.  She was so thrilled with herself, that we didn't have the heart to stop her.  Here is a pic of her getting started.

We recently learned that Aleah eats solids much better when she is eating at the table with us.  She totally devoured this corn on the cob and relished every single second of it :) 

Here is an action shot of our monkey baby!  She kept climbing up the ladder while I was decorating our shelf so finally we quit trying to stop her, and let Tyler help her do it the safe way.

This is Aleah's favorite hiding spot... behind the ottoman.  Sorry for the mess, I was pulling out our Halloween decor.  Every day when it's time to get her dressed, she runs and hides.  This baby just loves being in her birthday suit!

July/August  Farewell Summer

Summer  has come and passed and the Grange family is still ticking.  Whew!  Here’s my best effort at summing up the past couple of months.

MOVING
First and foremost, moving has been a huge part of our family’s life.  First we had buyers, then we didn’t, then we did, but they wanted us to do all kinds of silly things to the house for them, then they had to extend the contract a couple of times because they couldn’t close by the deadline, etc.., etc…  What a crazy learning experience this has all been!  One of my favorite “fixes” that ate up our time during the selling process was this fireplace.  We had to cap off the fireplace after one of the inspections because the log insert is like a bazillion years old and not very efficient.  It works fine, but doesn’t operate as well as modern gas fireplaces.  Essentially, it’s the difference between driving a corolla hybrid and a hummer.  Our buyers knew this and agreed to replace the insert later on down the road so it could be turned on again.  However, they felt that the fireplace was unsafe and wanted us to install a protective screen around it.  Those are hard to come by since ours is such a unique fireplace.  Tyler had a brilliant idea of using garden fencing and here’s the final product of a garden fence to protect people from a non-operating fireplace:

Between showings, walk-throughs, appraisals, assessments, inspections, and various other shenanigans, the whole thing became exhausting and we are so glad to finally be in only one house again.  We moved in at the end of August and recorded on the WT house 2 weeks later.  I’ll save the updates on the new house/area for next month’s post, since we weren’t really settled until September.  Thank you to all the wonderful people who helped us move!  You are all angels.  We’ll never forget how wonderful people have been to us through this whole process.

OUR BABY
Oh how we love our sweet baby!  July and August were fun months because Aleah learned how to get around… and I mean really get around.  She is always moving, always getting into something, always learning, and always making us laugh.  Throughout the entire month of July, she amazed us with her crawling skills.  Then, once August hit, she floored us even more by walking.  WALKING!  Our baby is walking, running, jumping (well, trying to jump), face-planting, dancing, you name it.  She has been a little trooper too.  I have fallen even more in love with her little personality as she has progressed through all this.  She is not afraid to try anything!  I love the fact that when she falls, she doesn’t even think about getting discouraged; she gets right back up and tries again.  She is such a happy, determined little thing.

We finally got to take Aleah camping and I am telling you, that girl thought she was in heaven.  She had such a blast getting dirty, chasing uncle Jake’s ducks, hiking, riding on the bikes/ATV, and sleeping in the tent.  I knew she would enjoy herself but I had no idea that it would be that big of a hit.  Hooray!  I have an outdoorsy girl!  I cannot even tell you how pleased as punch I was about that!  I only wish we could have taken her more.  This summer has been filled to the brim with house stuff so we’ve had very few opportunities to take her out.  After our camping trip to Wyoming, I’m more determined than ever to camp often as a family.

                                                

OUR ANNIVERSARY
Tyler and I celebrated our 5^th anniversary this August.  We had several kind people offer to babysit Aleah and give us a night out but we didn’t want to give up an evening with her.  We honestly love being together as a family as much as we can so instead we ordered Chinese, bought a red box DVD, and spent the night enjoying one another’s company.  It really was the perfect way to celebrate an imperfect marriage between imperfect people, that has worked out perfectly for five whole years.  J I know that’s a lot of perfects for one sentence, but I thought it conveyed the idea well.  If I had to sum up what this past year of marriage has taught me with one word, it would be this: humility.  I’ve learned that no one is perfect; we all have quirks, flaws, weaknesses, etc…  But we also have gifts and strengths.  One of the greatest discoveries I’ve made of late is that I know nothing.  I’m a total rookie in regards to so many different aspects of life.  But I’m learning that when I team up with my rookie husband and we honestly work at working together, amazing things can happen.

Just like every other month this year, June came and went faster than we could say shaz-am!  Here are some of the notable happenings we were able to experience this past month:

Happy Birthday Tyler!
Tyler turned 27 this month and did not appreciate any of my reminders that he is now officially in his late twenties (in contrast to last year when are points of view were completely opposite- go figure).  I guess denial is the first sign that it has become a reality. 

This year’s birthday seemed a little down-played since his present was actually purchased several months ago.  Tyler got season tickets to the RSL games this year for his birthday and while he has enjoyed them, it’s a little weird not presenting some sort of a wrapped gift on the big day.  Making things seem further unbirthdayish, we spent the day at his friend Ty’s wedding and did not get home until late in the evening, just in time for Tyler’s soccer game.  Ugh.  We decided to compromise by making Tyler a birthday cake to eat after the game.  It was a very tasty cake, and thankfully, once combined with the birthday dinners on both sides of our family, and a delicious Chilli’s dinner for the two of us, it ended up making for a very yummy 27^th bday celebration. 

Daddy’s Day
We were able to celebrate Tyler’s first Father’s Day!  Aleah gave daddy some awesome Ed Hardy jeans, new socks, and this hilarious tie that comes equipped with a squeaky toy and a rattle sewn inside.  Haha!  Love it!

Aleah and I are so thankful for Tyler and all that he does for us!  Tyler loves being a Daddy and Aleah has him wrapped around her little finger!  He is so sweet with her.  In fact, a darling lady in our ward told me that she loves watching Tyler hold Aleah because,  “you can just tell,” she says, “he just loves her.”  Aw.  Best of all, not only does he love being a daddy, he is good at it.  Ty is so patient and gentle with Aleah and is always such a big help.  We love him so much!

Additionally, Tyler and I are so thankful for the dads in our lives.  Both of our fathers help and support us every single day.  We can’t even put into words how grateful we are for all that they do for us.  We are so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives!

The Grange Homefront

I’m afraid to say that I used the wrong terminology in last month’s post.  Instead of saying “we sold our house” I should have noted that our house was “under contract” which is in fact a huge difference.  I work in the housing industry and am well aware of the different definitions so I can offer no explanation (aka excuse) for my slip of the tongue other than the fact that I am in a huge hurry when I write these and am extremely sleep-deprived J

That being said, we did not sell our house.  Furthermore, it is no longer under contract.  I’ll spare you all the wonderful details, and leave it with this: the buyers are silly and ended up cancelling the contract.  Boo!  This means that we’re officially homeowners to the second power and have just recently put our house back on the market.  We are so happy that we saved precious funds for this scenario and that everything will be okay.  However, it’s still disheartening to make double mortgage payments so feel free to pray that we will find some awesome buyers to move into this great home.  I want so badly for a cute, young family or newlywed couple to move in and to be a part of this incredible ward.  We just need to find them!  Aaaah!  So stressful!  Remind me to never move again, okay?  Okay.

Miss Aleah

Aleah took her first ride on a motorcycle and a bicycle this month.  It was so much fun and she completely loved it!  Tyler and I are looking forward to the day that we can take her hiking and camping once all this house madness dies down.  I’m absolutely convinced that she would love it just as much as Tyler and I would.

This little girl’s development has been through the roof this month!  It seems like she learned to crawl and then the floodgates opened.  She literally learns something new every day!  After she learned how to crawl, she also learned how to work her toys (which buttons to push, etc…), started dancing, babbling, climbing, clapping, waving, and understanding words.  She now says da-da and mama along with all sorts of similar sounds (la la, na na, and so forth).  She knows what “no” and “hi” and “come here” means.  This has been the BEST part of the month for Tyler and I by far.  It is so much fun to watch her take everything in and learn every day.

I’ve been doing some learning of my own this month; particularly in the genre of house-cleaning.  It seems like keeping the house clean gets harder as Aleah gets older.  Taking things apart and emptying drawers, boxes, and cupboards are some of her favorite pastimes.  What usually ends up happening is while I’m cleaning a mess, she is making a new one.   Oftentimes, it’s so fun to watch her delight in making messes, that I just soak in the moment and watch her.  Then I have two messes to clean instead of one.  But it is just so worth it.  She is amused by everything and is such a happy baby!

Aleah loves to stay active and always wants to be a part of what everyone is doing.  What a sweetheart!

And with that, I’ll sign off until next month.  Talk to y’all again soon!