Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has a happy New Year! Don't forget to eat your black-eyed peas. We will be traveling back to Coeur d'Alene in the morning, so pray for safe roads for us (I doubt anyone reads this before we head out, but God isn't confined by time, so it is probably ok to pray after the fact, right?). Here is a little video of Lily telling you all about her favorite uncle. (Sorry Clay and Dave, she seems to have a thing for Bob Bob Bob Bob.... you'll see.)

Thanks Bob and Holly!

For Christmas, Lily's aunt and uncle, Bob and Holly, sent a Target gift card for Lily so that we could get what she wanted and save on shipping, since baby toys are often large and heavy and expensive to ship. So we went out yesterday and bought an awesome train toy. It has all sorts of activities on the side, including a full set of blocks. A baby can ride on the car or walk behind the front of the train. It's a pretty awesome toy. I think Lily will be walking in no time if she works with this thing! The question is; who enjoyed the toy the most? (Watch the videos and judge for yourself.)

I love my new train toy!

Was it Lily?


Or was it Geezer?


It could have been Lily...

Lily's Ambiguous First Steps

Did Lily take her first steps? Possibly... once again I am a horrible mother who doesn't really know what qualifies as "first steps". Here's what has been happening. We'll stand Lily on her feet and she's been standing for up to 10 seconds or so by herself. A couple of times she's taken a couple of steps on her own before either falling forward or on her behind. Once she even took two or three steps and didn't fall because she walked to a table and was able to support herself. Are those her first steps? Or do first steps only count when she's holding onto something, lets go, and then walks? Maybe I'll record this in her baby book as "first steps" and then add to it when she actually starts walking, but I think she's several weeks away from actually walking. Other mothers out there, what did you count as your baby's first steps?

Lily has been wanting to "walk" everywhere lately, so here are Lily and Jim walking down the hall.


Walking is so much fun! I can't wait to do it on my own!

Having a yummy bottle, all sprawled out.

Standing on her own

Watching Geezer pump iron. By the looks of it, she's going to go for the "beefcake" guys...


We didn't record any of her good steps, but here are a few attempts. She's pretty proud of herself because she's clapping for herself at the end.

Ski Day!

I spent my first whole day apart from my little Lilypie. But it was ok because she stayed with her Gramby, AND I got to go skiing! In middle school and high school I skied a lot, but since going to college in Oklahoma, I've had limited opportunity for skiing. Two years ago, Jim and I skied, but last year I was pregnant, so that kinda put a halt to all flying-down-a-slick-hill activities. But this year, I SKIED! YAY!! We had a great day skiing and the conditions were perfect. I mainly stuck to the blues and greens, but got a few moguls (is that how you spell it?) in, which was pretty fun. Even Jim, who has only skied twice before, attempted moguls and did very well. He's a quick learner. Lily got to play with Gramby all day and besides setting a world record for the poopiest diaper ever, they had a great time! I didn't bring my camera, but Shyla did so I got a few shots of the action. I'm under strict instruction, however, not to post any pictures of anyone but Jim and I, since she has her own blog and wants to post her pictures on it. So here's Jim and I having FUN!

Waiting in line for the first run of the day.
On the lift up for our first run. With my orange pants and purple jacket combo, I was easy to spot.
It really doesn't matter what they feed you when you're skiing; it always tastes great!

It's Lily's First Christmas!!

We arrived safely in Billings and proceeded to immediately have fun! Lily got to meet her aunt Shyla and uncle Clay, who she loved right away. She also loved seeing her Gramby and Geezer again. On Christmas Eve, we had to open Lily's Christmas pajamas and the book "Twas The Night Before Christmas" (so that we could read the book and sleep in the jammies). Christmas morning was pretty exciting for Lily. She liked opening presents and playing with the toys and the bows and the paper. She had to take a time-out, however, midway through opening gifts. But when she woke up from her nap she was refreshed and ready to open the last of her gifts. She got a Hello Kitty tent, a sleeping bag, Little People's Noah's Ark, a telephone, clothes, books, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. She's spent the morning exploring all of her new toys... and everyone else's as well.

Lily's first meeting with aunt Shyla goes well...
I think it's going to be my Christmas Eve jammies!
Yay! A new book!
...and to all a good night.
Aunt Shyla was the main present opening helper

Jim opening his stocking.
Clay opening his stocking. Peanut is Clay's friend.
Dad got a ship in a bottle
Mom likes her digital photo frame.
Lily likes her Hello Kitty cup.

Geezer tries to give Lily her first coffee. I think he's a bad influence. Lily especially liked this gift since she could pull up on it AND it had a bow!
Lily likes her Hello Kitty tent!
Uncle Clay in his element; taking pictures.
I like to play with all of my toys at once!

Now we need TWO baby gates!

Lily decided last night that she wanted to learn how to go up the stairs. She does pretty well going up, but doesn't know not to stand up or turn around when she's on the stairs. I'm trying to teach her how to go down stairs as well. Anyway, now we need two baby gates if we're going to be on the middle level because she can go right up the stairs if she so desires.




A couple of still shots of Lily on the stairs.

Pulling off Eyeballs

There comes a point in everyone's life when they accidentally pull off their lizard's eyeball. Oh that's just me? Oops. We have two lizards; Small Fry and Mexi Fry (both named after delicious fast food side dishes) who we have had for over four years now. They are the joy of our lives, and we love them very much. The other day, I noticed that Small Fry still had some skin stuck to his head from the last time he shed, which was about a week ago, so I figured that I should help him out a bit. I successfully pulled the excess skin off of one side of his face, but when I pulled the skin off the other side, I noticed that in the middle of the skin I had pulled off, there was a gooey black thing. It turns out that gooey black thing was Small Fry's eyeball. I looked at my sweet little lizard's eye socket and it was all milky white. Poor Small Fry. Now it's just shriveled up and looks permanently closed, and not quite so gross. I feel bad for poor little Small Fry since we rarely feed him anyway (actually they're both girl lizards, but we like to call them "him's"). Anyway, that's the story of the time I pulled off Small Fry's eyeball. Feel free to share any of your own eyeball-pulling-off stories.

This is Small Fry before The Accident.
Dramatic lizard pose.
Small Fry and Mexi Fry (Mexi Fry rarely leaves their cave, so this is a rare treat for you!)
Small Fry is on the rock and Mexi Fry is on the ground. How do we tell them apart? A mother knows...

To offset the eyeball stories, I have also posted some cute pictures of Lily fogging up our sliding glass door. Adorable.




P.S. Jim and I went to Sonic yesterday and they served us FRY SAUCE! Crazy! So what I need to know from all you southerners is if they serve fry sauce down there, or if it's just in their northern stores. I would also like to know when and why Sonic introduced fry sauce, but unless you have it in tight with some Sonic bigwigs, I may not get that info.

Stockings

I'm posting this video, mainly so that Steve and Linda can share in our Christmas in real time. I'll come back and edit it and add to it later.

Since Jim and I trade years to have Christmas at his family's house and mine, we sort of get two Christmases when we open the gifts from the opposite family. Tonight is Klein Christmas. We opened our stockings and now we're going to eat pizza and then we'll do the gifts, but so that Steve and Linda can share in our enjoyment, here is a video of Lily enjoying the opening of the stockings.... :)



Alright, here's the rest of Klein Christmas.... but I have to admit that Lily laughing at the poppers may have been my favorite part :)

Lily's favorite gift was actually a gift for me....she just liked playing with the ribbon...
...and biting the ribbon...
...and eating the ribbon...
...and sucking on the ribbon...
...the ribbon was more like a pacifier while she opened her other gifts.
Playing with the loot.
Go Red Sox!
Sorry Rachel O... they actually make a toy that is entirely tags! Lily loves it!
And I suppose we can have a couple gratuitous pictures of the parents with their gifts :) Here is Alyson with her stocking stuff
Jim with his beef jerky....mmmmmmmm

Dig Us Out!

Alright, here's the story. When Jim got home yesterday from work, he ate dinner and then used the neighbor's snow blower to "shovel" our driveway and sidewalk as well as our neighbor's. (He's a nice guy like that.) When I woke up this morning, of course I immediately looked out the window to see how much snow we got, and guess what? I couldn't even tell where Jim had plowed. The only way I could tell was that he put out our trash can (today is trash day) when he was finished. So our big green trash can marked where the road started.

Here is our poor buried Paddy O'Furniture.
I thought this was funny: The snow drifted against the door and you can see the imprint of the pattern of the front door. He he he.
Looking out our front door. What you should be seeing is a little porch with three steps down to the ground. The snow is up even with the top step.
This is 12.5 inches measured in the driveway... the driveway that Jim plowed last night. So let's add that 12.5 to the 10 inches I measured before Jim plowed the driveway. 22.5 inches so far and IT'S STILL SNOWING!
Jim in our yard, up to his knees this morning.
Here is Jim's first plow down the driveway this morning, with a little perspective.
Jim plowing this morning.

And this was last night. When it's time for bed, Peanut will do ANYTHING to be included in our bed (it's warmer) even lay like a baby. Awe, sweet Peanut!

8:02 Ok, here are the stats: The record 24 hour snow fall for Spokane is 13 inches, and yesterday it snowed 12.5 there, so they were .5 inches away from an all-time EVER record of snowfall in 24 hours. Also, the record for snowfall on December 17 in Spokane was 5 inches, so with 12.5 inches they beat the socks off of that! The hospitals have canceled all elective surgeries today. The Idaho DOT is telling people that if you are not an emergency vehicle, you are not to leave your house today. Jim, however, left before they issued that warning, so he is at work :) How did he get his low-to-the-ground-Oldsmobile-Hoopdie out, you ask? Well, he got stuck for quite a while, then a guy with a 4WD Durango came by and helped push him and then drove in front of him to make tracks. Jim got high-centered several times, and I ended up driving most of the time while Jim and Helper Man pushed. But once Jim got out of our subdivision, the main roads were well-plowed and Jim had no trouble making it to work.

The drifts on our porch this morning.
That is a huge drift in our flower garden. It's not a pile from Jim plowing, it's an actual drift... probably around 4 or 5 feet deep.
The wintry view from out our garage. Looks like someone dug out the mail boxes
Here is our house from the front. Notice my mad picture editing skills in removing our address numbers from our house!

9:31. 4.5 or so more inches since Jim plowed this morning. It's getting more difficult to get accurate measurement since the wind has picked up.

9:35-Here is our Paddy O'Furniture again. Pretty soon it will be gone.
9:35-This is our back sliding glass door. It's a little deceiving because there is an extra inch or two of snow drifted against the window, BUT the snow level is actually above where the top step would be, and that big mound is the snow piled on the top step. Notice the snow against the back fence. It isn't drifted up against the fence, it's actually approaching the second rung of the fence. And oh yeah... still snowing.


11:17-Record update! Ok, Spokane has now received 19.5 inches in a 24 hour period, which breaks their old all-time record of 12.5 inches. So this is the most snow ever recorded to have fallen in Spokane in a day. BUT they're saying that Coeur d'Alene has 25 inches to Spokane's 19.5. HA! We beat Spokane ha ha ha! And it's still snowing. :)

11:50. It just started snowing even harder! They gave Jim leave to come home early, so he's here now, which is good. I think we'll watch some sort of trilogy like Indiana Jones or Lord of The Rings or X-Men or Spiderman. Something. And here is our backyard update!

11:50

1:29-Still snowing. Hasn't let up one little bit. The pictures look prettymuch the same, though.

3:10- You guessed it; still snowing.


6:08-One last update for the night. It stopped snowing a couple of hours ago (finally). So Jim is out there plowing our driveway and sidewalks, as well as half the neighbor's driveways and sidewalks (because he's a nice guy like that). We get Friday and Saturday off, and then another storm is supposed to arrive Sunday!