So Much To Be Thankful For

God's grace and the salvation He freely gives; my husband; our girls; our families; our new house; our health; our church; and the list could go on indefinitely.

I'm particularly thankful for this new face at the Thanksgiving table this year!

God is good and I am grateful! Happy Thanksgiving!

SIX Months Old!

Oh my baby, how can you possibly be six months old already?

I must admit, I like you much better now than I did three months ago. Oh, not that I didn't love you then. I certainly did. But I don't love the new-baby stage.

Now that you are sleeping better and more mobile you are so much happier and in turn so are all the grown-ups in your life.

I love to squish your chubby thighs.

I love to kiss you all over your face.

I love to bury my face in your neck and blow raspberries and make you chuckle.

I love to rub your fuzzy head.

I love to tickle your back and make you squirm.

I love listening to you growl and shriek and squeal.

I love how you search for your sister when you hear her voice, and how your face lights up when you see her.

I love your grin!

Happy 6-month birthday, baby girl.

Must ... Blog ...

The longer I wait to write, the more I have to write about and the more overwhelmed I feel about it. Blogging is supposed to be fun! Blogging is not a chore.

I haven't been writing about all the funny things the Boogie says.

Yesterday she asked me a question and I answered it. "Honey!" she exclaimed, "you're a genie-yus!"
I was surprised. I didn't know she even knew that word and to use it correctly? (I will not argue about being a genius.) Impressive.
"Do you know what a genie-yus means?" she went on.
Ohhhh, okay. She doesn't know what it means.
"What does genie-yus mean?" I replied.
"Genie-yus means you're bery, bery FUNNY!"
Well, okay, if I'm not exceptionally smart I can at least be exceptionally funny to my 3.5 year old.

When the Phebis wakes up in the morning or from a nap the Boogie looks at her in the crib (which I supposed does look kind of like a cage) and says, "Look, a baby _____!" So far she has been:
-a baby hippo
-a baby seal
-a baby fish
-a baby giraffe
-a baby zebra
-a baby jaguar
and those are just the ones I can remember. It's something different every time.

We do call the baby Phebis and the Boogie calls her that too. But she also has her own names for her: Feeboo and Foobee and my own personal favorite, Fahbis. Phahbis? Phabis? It's hard to spell nonsense words.

She had a 24-hour tummy bug last week. She complained all Wednesday morning that her tummy hurt. She says that all the time and we are mostly immune to it. It is just something she likes to say, the same as "I hurt my leg and I needa go to the hospital with Diego." I kept telling her that her tummy wouldn't hurt if she would eat something. Then she threw up. My bad. Thankfully it was pretty short-lived and almost exactly 24 hours later she starting perking up and pleading for food.

I got the animated Disney version of Peter Pan from the library for her while she was sick. She loves it and watches it almost every day. She gets very excited when Peter Pan shows up at the Darlings' house. She is surprisingly unafraid of the crocodile but doesn't like the Indian chief, Tiger Lily's father.

She is actually kind of wimpy. I was the exact same way when I was little. She is scared to death of people in costume or over-sized versions of something familiar. She is afraid to try something new. On October 30 we had a family fun day at church. There were activities for the kids to do and sheep and goats to feed and play with and a parachute to play games with. She loved the parachute games so much that at one point she was giggling so hysterically that one mom thought she was going to hyperventilate.

There was also an inflatable bounce house. I thought she would be anxious to jump in it but she didn't ask and after a while I realized she hadn't gone in it yet. I went to find her.
"Come on, it's time to go in the bouncy house! Do you want to?"
"No," she said, alarmed," I don't want to."
"Why not? It will be fun! Come on, let's go!"
"No!" she started to cry. "I don't want to! I'm scared!"
"What are you scared of? Look at all the kids in there. It will be fun! You'll have so much fun!"
"Noooooo, I doooon't waaaaaant tooooooo!"
So I did what any responsible parent should do and took off her shoes and shoved her through the little opening into the bouncy house. She sat by the mesh-covered window and wept and pleaded to get out while I stood right outside the window and coaxed her to jump just five times, promising that if she did I would let her come out AND would get her a cookie. After about ten minutes of that she finally noticed that the other kids were actually having a good time and when we got one of her little friends to come hold her hand she decided that she could give it a try.

 After she got going she stayed in there until it was time to take the house down. She jumped for probably about an hour. We put her to bed an hour earlier than normal and she fell asleep almost instantly!

The next morning I told her to put on her jacket so we could leave for church.
"I don't know how," she whined.
"Well, at least just try," I told her. So she did.

She got points for trying! We let her wear it that way to church, along with the shoes she put on the wrong feet. That's my girl.

The Little White House: Color and Carpet and Cabinets

I promised these several days ago and my dad called me this morning to remind me to post them! It's so hard to get a true idea of colors so I'm going to write the brand and name of each paint with the website so you can look it up if you so desire. (I tried to copy the colors from the websites but can't figure out how to do that.)

We used Glidden paint in the bedrooms.

Our room is Soothing Green Tea.

The girls' room is Buttercup. It turned out a lot more yellow than I had anticipated! A couple of people have told me that yellows are hard to pick. It is very cheery in there. I was concerned that the light carpet might just reflect the yellow but I think it actually tones it down a little.

The other small bedroom which will be the playroom/office is painted in Celery Stick. No carpet in there yet -- they ran out on Saturday and had to order another piece, so that is supposed to be installed this afternoon. Also since these were taken the closet has been painted.

The kitchen, living room, and hallway are painted with Valspar paint. The kitchen is Copper Hide and is by far my favorite color in the whole house. The cabinet color is Cake Batter and originally I planned to paint all the trim in house that color. However, once I saw it going on the cabinets it was just too pinky/peachy for trim color so I bought Muslin Wrap for that.

 FIL did a fantastic job on the floor! It looks really pretty.

 And he and BIL2 installed the base cabinets the other day! I'm excited about that. Progress!

My Man bought the countertop so will work on installing that and the sink and the dishwasher probably this weekend.

Here is the living room in Ginger Bite. To be honest, it turned out quite a bit more orange-y than I thought. I do like it but it takes some getting used to for a living room color. It is very warm and bright and I think once we get window treatments up and furniture in there it will look fine.

When we went to the house right after the carpet was installed My Man and the Boogie just laid on the floor for a while. I'm sure it is the first time of many -- we love to sit and lay and play on the floor. 

We're getting closer and closer to being able to move in. The bedrooms are pretty much finished, except for window trim and baseboards in the biggest one, so I might start getting some toys and things unpacked in the playroom this weekend. That way I can go over and work on other rooms while the girls play. That's my theory, anyway!

Words From The Small One

Hi! I'm the Phebis.

I am smallish and cute.

I have two ears that stick out a little, and two blue eyes, and two teeth.

I like to growl and shriek and squeal.

I say "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" and "mum-mum-mum."

When those tall people put me in the walker I can go all over the place. My favorite things are the dishwasher and the trash can. I can't reach the dishes yet but my arms are growing. I like to shake the trash bag and try to get things out of it. I have to be quick, though, because those tall people take it away. Meanies.

Sometimes the tall people give me something small and purple that they call a binkie. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it but it feels good to chew on. It squeaks.

I love my pink soft blankie with the silky edges. My mama doesn't want me to get attached to it but I think I might anyway. It feels good against my face and I like to hold it while I suck my thumb and go to sleep. My mama tries to give me burpies but they don't feel as good. Maybe if they had soft silky edges ...

Sometimes those tall people put me in the jumperoo and I jump and jump and jump until I'm all worn out! Sometimes my sister stands in front of me and jumps too, and that's even more fun.

Speaking of my sister, here she is. She likes to hold me. I pretend to let her.

She's a pretty good big sister. She gives me the toys I drop off the walker and pushes me around in it and rolls around on the bed with me. She makes me laugh and I make her laugh too!

We're not allowed to play together today because she is sick. But when she gets better I will touch her face and grab a handful of her hair and put it in my mouth. That's what I like to do.

I like to eat puffs. I also like to eat applesauce. Those tall people keep trying to make me eat rice cereal but I'm wise to them. I think they are going to try sweet potatoes but we'll see about that.

I can sit up by myself for a few minutes at a time. I can get up on my hands and knees and rock and rock and rock and lunge. I roll a lot too.

Watch out, world! I'm Phebis and I'm learning and growing more every day!