Six months already!

Can you believe it??!? Sadie Rose is six months old today. I can't believe it. Really, I can't. Where in the world did the time go? My baby girl is halfway through her first year! Sigh...

Anyway, she is doing great and is adorable as always. She's eating all kinds of fruits and vegetables now and is STILL NURSING! I can't believe I made it this far with breastfeeding. Only six more months to go, ha ha!

So here we go with this month's pictures-

This is Sadie's best "Mommy" impression

She's not particularly fond of peas

I thought this was adorable- I went into the kitchen to get something, and when I came back to the dining room Sadie had turned around to look at herself in the mirror. I would too if I was as cute as she is!

I love my brother!

There's a strawberry on this shirt; what do you mean I can't eat it?!

Man, I'm cute

Look at me! I can sit up for a few seconds by myself!!

HI!!!

Oh, and she's not sleeping through the night yet. Oy...

Fondly remembered, dearly missed

Paul's grandfather passed away on Saturday night. He was in his 80's and had been in and out of the hospital for several months, but it was still very sad news. He was humble, more prone to listening than to talking, but willing to give you his opinion nonetheless. He was known in his ward for bestowing bowties on all the young men- to give the girls an excuse to come over and straighten it for them (and he wore them exclusively himself as well). He was the patriarch of his stake, officiated at our ring ceremony, and baptized Paul back in January, 1988. He was a convert to the Church, joining after Paul's dad was baptized as a teenager. He was a faithful member and great example to his family- four children, 18 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. The chapel will no doubt be overflowing at his memorial on Saturday.

He will be sorely missed.

Summer 92 - Crystal's Wedding

Just for laughs

If you haven't seen this yet, you need to watch it. Tina Fey rules.

Sadie speaks (sort of)

Sadie has started to babble a lot recently, and the funniest is when she babbles while simultaneously crying. It is painfully cute. Sad, but cute. A few nights ago, during one of her many nighttime awakenings, I laid her down on the changing table to change her diaper and she was NOT having any of that. She started screaming (and even woke her brother up!) and while crying babbled "ya ya ya ya ya" over and over again. While I was annoyed to be up at 3am with a screaming infant, I still couldn't help but laugh because she is just so adorable.

So a few days later, I took this little video of her. Of course she always stops doing whatever it is I'm trying to record the minute I turn on the camera, so this isn't the best example of her cry-babble. But it's still a video of the World's Cutest Baby (that's right, it's official- Sadie is the cutest baby in the world. Sorry, other babies- the position's been filled). My favorite part is how she looks like she's smacking an invisible piece of gum the whole time. Crazy girl. Man she's cute.

Did I mention she's cute?

Out and about the Big Green

We took a little stroll around campus on Saturday and of course had to take pictures to share on the blog. 'Cuz that's how we roll. So here we go:

This is an observation tower over by the observatory on the northeast side of campus. It's closed except to members of the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club. Because every school has its own mountaineering club.

Ethan gets cozy with Robert Frost
This is the amphitheatre that was built for the first Dartmouth commencement, waaaaay back in the day
This is the outside of the football stadium. I can see why it's called the Ivy LeagueThe basketball court inside the gym facilities
The pool
The cardio room

This is Main Street, right across from The Green, the big grassy area in the middle of campus. Main Street is lined with quaint little shops and cafes, this being one of them. Lou's is a *super* popular bakery with all kinds of yummy delectables.
See what I mean? Mmmmmm.....Another shop on Main Street- Dartmouth everything!

And here is Paul's little slice of campus- the Tuck "complex"
Courtyard outside Whittemore Hall

All the buildings are filled with these portraits of old, rich guys
One of the classrooms
Whittemore Hall
A study room in Whittemore Hall, with Paul hard at work

It IS a small world, after all

Perhaps those obnoxious little singing gnomes are right about one thing- the world isn't so big after all. As we were driving back from a friend's wedding in Massachusetts last weekend, we stopped in Keene, NH to go to a Target (we'd been experiencing withdrawals). On our way out of the parking lot, we noticed an Oklahoma license plate on a car parked just a few spaces down from us. We then noticed that the first letter on the plate was W, which in Oklahoma signifies the county in which it is registered, and W stands for Washington County- the county where we went to high school. Pondering on this strange coincidence, we then noticed that the car itself had the dealer's decal emblazoned on the back, and it said "Mark Roberts, Bartlesville" (which is the town where we lived and where my parents still reside). Whoa.

Yesterday, I had to make a run to Wal-Mart. So I piled the two kids in the car and off we went. As we stopped at a stoplight just about 1/4 mile from our house, I casually glanced at the license plate in front of me- New Hampshire, nothing unusual about that. But the license plate holder said "Northside Auto" on the top, which I thought was interesting simply because there was a dealer by that name not too far from our house in Manassas. So I proceeded to look at the bottom of the license plate holder and lo and behold, it said "Manassas, VA." Double whoa.

This morning we had a playdate with a few other Tuck moms at a woman's house off-campus. She has two boys, Blake and Graham- which is another coincidence since our good friend Melanie has boys named Blake and Grant who were both friends of Ethan.

So thank you, annoying little robotic trolls, for reminding us that we are all connected. And for singing that awesome song that I bet you all have stuck in your heads now. Mwuhahahahahahahahaha!!!

A berry good time

We all went to a local farm this past Friday to pick berries- namely, blueberries and raspberries (and some apples, too). It was so fun! Ethan had fun running up and down the rows of berry bushes and Sadie was zonked in the stroller. Unfortunately it was HOT and sunny, so we were all red as beets and sweating buckets by the time we were done. In fact, about two minutes after we started picking raspberries Ethan said "I'm hot. Can we go home now?" But we got a great haul anyway! We felt like true New Englanders plucking blueberries off the bushes!

Look at those beautiful sunflowers!
Ethan: not a fan of the blueberry



Poor Sadie was such a little sweatball at the end...

The fruits of our labors
And today I made blueberry jam- I hope it turns out! Next up is raspberry jam and applesauce!

And now for today's total randomness

A sneak preview of Halloween 2008:

Sweet little SadieBug eyes!!!

The Long-Awaited Tour

I finally got around to taking pictures of the house last night, only because we had people over for dinner so I had to clean, ha ha! Anyway, here we go:

The front entryway:

The living room:
The living room again:
The tv on its awesome new stand:
The dining room:
The office: The downstairs bathroom:
The kitchen:
The kitchen, take two:
Our room:



Sadie's room (notice the little peanut rolling around inside her crib):

Ethan's room:

The bedrooms are a little sparse as far as wall decorations go, simply because we've never had three bedrooms before! Poor Sadie's room is the most bare, but I doubt she cares or even notices.

We're still waiting for all those people who said they were coming to visit...