She's 9 months!

It seems like Elizabeth is just growing leaps and bounds. She turned 9 months just a few weeks ago and of course, I had to get some pictures taken! It's not enough that I take a bizzillion at home. I went to Portrait Innovations and got some of the greatest shots! I had every intention of buying just their $9.99 deal, but when they did the diaper shots (tub and boa) how could I not just buy them up?

I was hoping to get some pictures that I have taken added, but the computer is not reading the USB thing. Brian has the laptop with him and I KNOW how to add pictures on that, but I don't like our other computer. Anyway, I got a great shot of her standing on her own and one of her sleeping still holding onto her bottle. It feels like any day now she's going to be walking on her own! I'm not ready for that yet! We're still adjusting to her spiderman crawl and baby proofing the house. Which by the way, I have given up on keeping the living room tidy. It seems a "Mission Impossible". She pulls out all the DVD's - thankfully she doesn't know how to open the cases yet. Plus, she thinks when I say "NO" that I'm being a comedian. That girl just laughs at me when she is supposed to be getting into trouble. Smacking her hand just makes her laugh harder. She's not even a year old and I've got attitude already!! :) It's mainly keeping her out of the trash in the kitchen and away from the TV/VCR/DVD player. We have an open floor plan so we can't gate out the kitchen. We've got locks on some of the cabinet doors (still haven't figured out why Brian didn't do them all). I will say, plastic wear is a cheap toy!

Her and I have done well on our own these last couple of weeks. We just have to finish this week out and then I join Brian in India / Zurich / Rome for a week while Elizabeth gets to be spoiled rotten by my parents for that week. I know Brian can't wait to get back home and see his little girl. She loves to listen to him on the phone. She gets excited when she hears his voice! I know its been hard on him to be gone from her this long. I'm looking forward to the trip, but I'm not looking forward to being away from my angel for a week. Especially since it's just been her and I for 3 weeks. I'm sure we'll all be fine. I know Gramma & Papaw are really looking forward to the visit. He's been to the Taj Mahal (could you tell by the picture) and few other places. We're going to the Taj Mahal when I get there. I'm so EXCITED! Rome is what I'm looking forward to the most, while Brian's pretty excited about Zurich. I am going to take so many pictures, it will drive Brian crazy. This is a once in a life time opportunity! Brian's work is paying for my ticket there. I do have a slight hiccup. India requires a Tourist VISA. I have sent everything off (including passport & birth certificate) and I haven't gotten it back yet. I'm staying positive that I will get it by Thursday. It is showing that the VISA is still being approved. Brian got his back in 4 days and it's been about 3 weeks for me so far. Like I said, I'm staying positive. I've started to pack my bag - actually, I'm pretty much done.

Well, I think that catches me up. I can't believe I updated in less than a month! I'll have so much to write about when we get back from our trip. Since we'll have our lap top, I'm hoping I might even be able to blog and download pics while we're on the trip.

Take care everyone and pray for us all a safe journey!

Past due Update!

I can't believe it's been well over a month since my last blog. I really didn't mean to go that long. I bet you guys have quit checking it out! Well, Elizabeth is no longer crawling w/ one knee and one foot, it is now no knees and both feet. It's like spiderman crawling across a building. And man can she move. She gets to going so fast she falls down sometimes. I tried really hard to get some good pictures of her "spiderman" crawl, but this is the best I got..Not the best angle, but you get the idea.

I've got a few pictures of her taking a bath too. She loves the water. She loves getting a shower. Usually Brian takes a shower with her and I give her a bath. She loves to suck on the wash cloths. Actually, at this stage, she loves to suck on anything! :) Pretty much anything and everything goes in that mouth of her!

Now that she's moving so much, she's torturing the cats, at least they think so. She loves to grab the cats and climb on the cats and eat their tails. They have a pillow in the floor and it BELONGS to the cat. He will meow and swat (no front claws) at her but refuse to budge. I tell him if just moves away, she'll leave him alone, but he doesn't listen. The black cat is Spaz and the orange cat is Kelly. Spaz is the one that refuses to leave his pillow where as Kelly will run away and soon as he senses her presence!

I can't believe she is about to be 9 months old! Wow, time sure does fly by! She has her 9 mo. check up on the 31st. I'll be sure to let everyone know her measurements. I think she's got a big old noggin so I'm curious where she falls in the percentile for head size. Here are just some misc. pictures of her. The first pic is her eating a "biter biscuit". Gees, those things are SUPER messy! The 2nd one is just her playing in a box. And the 3rd, I tried to get 8 month pictures, but now that she's mobile, it's really hard to get her to sit still long enough for a picture.

The last picture of Elizabeth is her first feeding in her brand new high chair. Yes, we waited until she was like 6 months old to get a high chair, but we finally did. Love it too! Makes feeding time so much easier - imagine that!

Finally...I've gotten some scrapbooking done. It's been about 2 weeks since I've done anything, but before that, I got quite a few done, so here you go...I did a couple of one page layouts which is not like me at all. I'm a 2 page layout kind of gal, but I was really struggling when I only had 2 or 3 pictures that went together. I just threw what I normally out of the window and got some great layouts done. This one, she's just laughing and smiling. The vellum says "Simply Beautiful" & I wrote it all around the coral on the green paper. The 2nd layout, she's only a few days old and she found her thumb.

These are of Brian & at Christmas - Elizabeth slept most of the day....

The 3rd set are just misc. Christmas pictures.

I got some great shots of Elizabeth playing with her "Binky".

The one on the left is just her sleeping in her swing. She was just so darned precious. "Cherish" is the word stamped. The other is when she was around 5 months (I need to go back and date these on the scrapbook pages).

The last set is just her playing with her "play arch" and spitting at 6 months.

I hope the formatting stays okay. I think it will show up on the blog one way, but it will be completely different when I actually post it.

Well, as usual, I have a long blog b/c I don't keep up on it. I hope all is doing well. I can't promise that I'll keep on it any better, but I'll try!

Crawling update

Ways to crawl according to Elizabeth....

-1. Start enjoying being on your stomach. This is a key to start the whole crawling process. Once you are comfortable with this you can move on to......
-2. The Military crawl. Use your arms to pull yourself forward. This is great for beginning crawlers. I wish I had pictures of her demonstrating this particular crawl, but unfortunately I don't. Just pictures Marines crawling under ropes through mud. Take away the mud and ropes and you've got Elizabeth's Military crawl!! :)

-3. After you master the military crawl, the next move is the Spider crawl. Be on one knee, bring your other foot around, then crawl on one knee and one foot. The picture at the top demonstrates how this is to be done. It's an interesting way to get around, but it seems to get her where she wants to go.

It's been so much fun watching her move this past month. Everything seems to be happening so fast. One minute she hates being on her stomach and the next, she's rolling from her back to stomach, getting up on her knees and moving around. I can not believe she will be 8 months old this month! I can't get over how quickly time seems to be going by. I'm trying to soak it all in and remember every milestone!

After crawling, what comes next except pulling yourself up...This is something Elizabeth has just conquered in the last couple of days. She loves the coffee table in the living room. Actually, she pretty much likes anything that she can pull herself up on. She's had a few bumps with all this pulling up and moving around. I think her favorite thing to do is pull herself up. She likes to stand. I swear, it feels like any minute she's going to start trying to walk.

I've had a chance to do a little bit of scrapbooking. I finally got to use my Cricut, which I absolutely love!! I used to help on my Valentine's Day layout along with some stamping. If you've never used Versa Mark, you need to give it a try. I stamped the word LOVE in 4 different fonts with the versa mark and it really made a great back ground. Just a note with the Cricut, When I cut out the smaller LOVE, I kept the negative space and used it. It was an after thought, but I really liked how it came out.

In addition to Valentine's I got some of the Christmas pictures done. I like the big present I did that matches the presents on the background of the paper. I made it as one present and then when I was done, I cut it in half. Every now and then, I get inspired. It pretty much seems like I can get 2 layouts done and then my creativity leaves me!

We had a pretty low key 4th of July. Just a couple of friends came over for a bbq and then we went to Leawood, KS for fireworks. We just hung out in the parking lot though and did not go to the actual park where all the activity was. We brought chairs and sparklers and brownies and hung out for 2 hours waiting for the fireworks to start up. Elizabeth really enjoyed them. She just smiled and watched. It was so cute. Here are some of the pictures I took that night.

Well, that does it for tonight. As usual, my blog is long b/c I can't ever seem to keep up on it!!!

Much Updating!! - so its VERY long!!

I can't believe its been over a month since my last blog. I have so many pictures of Elizabeth to share. She is almost 7 months old. Gosh how time flies!! She is sitting up like an old pro. She is very close to getting on her knees. She'll lean over so far going after something and then realize that she's not on her butt anymore and go back to a sitting position. She has started to pull herself up. We have to watch her now when we have the rail down to her crib. She started an actual daycare about 3 weeks ago. She seems to be doing well with it. Her first day was definitely harder for me then it was for her! I think there is only 1 or 2 other little girls there so she is completely doted upon! We recently went to Alabama to visit my family and got some really great shots at Portrait Innovations. It was my niece's 1st birthday. I can't believe she is a year old. The only way you can tell that these 2 are related is by their nose. They are identical. Definitely a Curry nose! Elizabeth just did so well for all her pictures. It was soooo hard narrowing them down to just 5 poses!!!

In other news, today is my 31st birthday and I got a scrapbooker's dream gift......A Cricut!! I've only had a chance to play with it for just a little bit. But here's a picture of the beautiful thing! :) The other great thing I got was a $50 gift card to Hobby Lobby and I bought this great paper pack from Die Cut With a View. I used some of the paper to make these 2 pages. It's going to be a fun paper pack and I can't wait to use more of it! These are the only 2 pages I've gotten done in the past month. Man, I just don't always have the energy to do much of anything after Elizabeth goes to bed at night. There are times where it just doesn't feel like there are enough hours in the day.

Back to our trip to Alabama. I've got some more pictures of I want to share. Elizabeth loves the water. My folks have a pool so we went swimming Friday and Saturday (and I went swimming early Sunday morning by myself and it was COLD!) Anyway, here are some pics of us in the pool. My girlfriend from high school, Leah, and her daughter, Natalie (who's about 6 weeks older than Elizabeth) came over to go swimming. My sister, Kaci, and her daughter, Emma, were there as well. I also got some really cute pictures of Natalie and Elizabeth playing together. They were so cute. I don't think they really knew what to make of each other.

By the way, Natalie is not hitting Elizabeth in the back of her head. Just looks like it!

And FINALLY, it was my niece's 1st birthday! She was just a little princess! Here are some pics of the birthday party. Also, she was in a Little Miss Alabama beauty pageant (I think that was the name of it). Anyway, she won three awards - People Choice, Best Sports Wear and Best Personality. She was such a darling! It was an interesting experience being there. Not really my kind of thing. Actually, we kind of laughed at some of the older girls and the prancing they did. It was hard not to.

Well, I guess I'm done!! I guess it was more pictures than anything else. And actually, I probably have about a gazillion more pictures that I'll add at another time. I've been keeping up with the rest of you though!

One last thing - update on Sonya who I requested a prayer request on. She past away about a month ago. She was in a coma for 2 weeks and then finally lost the fight. Although she is gone, her family still needs your prayers to see them through holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and just the everyday things.