Little Helper

Millie is helping us pack by inspecting the boxes for us :). She was actually very skeptical of the boxes at first and wanted nothing to do with them. Scott tried to sit her in one and she pulled her little legs up like he was about to put her in a pit of snakes -- or the ocean... :)

9-month Stats

Millie had her 9-month appointment today and she did very well. She LOVED crawling all over the Dr.'s table with crinkly paper. She weighed in at 16 pounds even, measured at 27 inches even and her head circumference was 44.5 cm. Just perfect on all counts :)

Look What I Can Do!

Fun new baby skills ;). Not the best video quality, but you get the idea. Our baby is becoming little miss independent!

The Best 9 Months

Our little baby is turning into a little girl. Everyday her personality develops more and more and everyday she brings more joy into our lives. I don't know why 9 months seems like such a big milestone, but it does. Maybe it's the whole parallel with the length of the pregnancy. Maybe it's the fact that 9 months brings with it a whole new world of mobility and language. Whatever it is, we're happy to have such a wonderful cause to celebrate. Millie was a little tired for her "photo shoot" as it didn't happen until the end of the day, but she's still a pretty good little model :).

Catch Me if You Can

Millie's new favorite game is to be chased around the half-wall that separates our kitchen from the family room. She will crawl away from whomever she is playing with, stop, sit up, turn around and flash a grin. That is when you know the race has begun! Millie thinks this is great fun! Take a look:



In other news, Millie has found her groove with food and is eating very well these days. We've kinda skipped over the purees and have gone to table foods, since Millie's favorite things to eat were chunks of fruit. Now she just eats everything in chunks :). This week she has enjoyed cod, asparagus, chicken, butternut squash, summer squash, carrots, avocado, and cauliflower. Along with oatmeal, blueberries, nectarines, and peaches. Not too bad. She's been enjoying at least one meal at Stephanie's each day along with a bottle or two and then eats dinner at the table with us. She thinks that is pretty fun too! She attempts to pick some of the foods up on her own, and actually has a pretty good grasp, it's just the transfer from the hand to the mouth that is the hard part! She'll get there.

Millie is also pulling up on things a lot more and likes to walk around holding a trusted adult's hands. She works on this a lot at daycare.

Millie gave us a good laugh this morning when she woke up. She actually slept in later than both mommy and daddy so she was up on the bed by herself. Now that she is mobile we have to surround her with a LOT of pillows and keep a very close ear on the monitor so that we can get to her before she decides to crawl off the bed. So, Scott built a pretty large pillow fort around her this morning. When we heard her start to peep we headed up. I didn't realize quite how large of a fort Scott had built so when I turned the corned in the bedroom I was greeted by Millie's head (complete with classic bed-hair) peeking up behind her fortress from a sitting position. As soon as I saw her I started laughing, which prompted her to smile ear to ear and start bouncing up and down. Which made me laugh even harder. Fortunately Scott was there and got to see the hilariousness too. Words just can't do the sight justice....

Our other big news is that we have finally signed a lease on a new house. As of August 15th we will be residents of Fairfield, CT -- just a few towns up the coast from where we are now. Here is a picture of the house:It's actually quite a bit nicer than the original one we were going to rent, so things have worked out for the best in the end. We met the owners today and they were a very nice younger couple who had a lot of great things to say about the neighborhood. Sounds like there are lots of little kids around for Millie to play with and even some college students nearby who can babysit. I think it's going to be a great move, though we aren't too terribly excited about actually moving. Should be interesting getting everything packed with Millie's help :)! Fortunately, Grandma Lainey and Grandpa Ric are going to come and help. They will be here a couple of days before the move to help with last minute packing, during the move, and a couple of days after to help get the house in order. I have the week before and after the move off so the timing is great.

That's about all the news we have here. Millie and I got a chance to meet up with most of the other mommies and babies last Monday for an hour at the park. It's so much fun to see them all together and to see everything that they are doing. They are all growing so much and are losing their "baby" looks.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow Millie will be 9 months old. She's now been with us in person as long as she was with us in spirit. We are so happy to know that she is going to continue to be with us for a lifetime of happiness. Here's a recap of our month. Some of the pictures have been seen before, but some are new...

The Talented Nieces

Amy has been sending some great email updates lately, so we thought we would share some of
the news about our talented nieces!

First, Meghan is into gardening and grew some awesome looking zucchini. Wish we would could try them out! They look delicious. To quote Amy, the Reithel farming gene is alive and well! Then, Meghan apparently went to the Tuscola County Fair and won the kiddie tractor pull. Not only did she win, but she was the only girl in the competition! There she is with her ribbon and trophy. Meghan also appears to be a fan of orange shirts!






































Katelyn, also known as "The Traveler", has been a busy girl this summer. She received a competitive scholarship to play with the Pickle Band, a local community band (see more pictures at http://thepickleband.googlepages.com/about). She had some gigs with them already, including the one we saw at the Sugar Festival in June (which Millie rocked out to). You can see her below in her pickle band shirt. The Scholarship pays for her to attend the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Muskegon, MI. She is there now with her clarinet, just after returning home from EB Camp in Minnesota. Amy reports that she made the symphonic band - way to go! Check out that blue shirt - spiffy!






























We are very proud to be the Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin to these two special kids. Thanks to Amy for the updates!

Hello!! We are still here!!!















Hello there - it has been a little while since our last real post on here. We were actually pretty busy while Auntie Lolo was here - it was a really nice week and she did a great job of watching Millie. She really came through for us big time! You may recall that Shannon posted some pictures of the house we were going to rent in Fairfield. Note the use of the word "were" as that house fell through. The owners had an attorney draw up a lease and it was the most convoluted thing ever - in addition to it placing unfair and ridiculous demands on us. This after waiting to see the lease for a month. We made changes to the lease and sent it back and they kept only the minor changes, so we bailed! Our realtor also said she had some indications that they would be cheap. Just a bad scene.

So, we were pretty bummed about that. They wasted about a month and a half of our time and it was back to the drawing board. Shannon, Lolo, and Millie looked at some new houses last week and were not impressed. We were becoming pretty discouraged, but looked at a couple more last weekendin Fairfield. One was nice and big but out of our price range and we weren't crazy about the neighborhood. The other we liked quite a bit so we made an offer on it. We left twisting a bit the last few days since the owners had a few competing offers - but we won!!! Woohoo!! So now we have another house to rent that we like better than the other one. It is actually eerily reminiscent of our house in Michigan - added on to in the back with the deck, on a dead end street, etc. So now we are happy again. Although, these owners are also having an attorney draw up the lease, so no celebrations or counting chickens yet.

So all of that stuff has kind of been taking up our time and attention, in addition to work and all. Not to mention Millie - Millie is doing great and is literally all over the place. We really have to watch her! She also has decided that bed time is fun time. But she is very happy and getting bigger and making Mommy and Daddy laugh every day!

The Nanny

Millie spent her first day with Auntie LoLo today. I'll let Auntie tell the story :). Four more days to go! LoLo is going to be one tired girl by the end of the week -- she was exhausted by the time I got home today! Hopefully tomorrow she will be able to put Millie down at some point...

On the Move



Millie has finally gotten the hang of crawling on her hands and knees instead of pulling herself along with her arms. She's also decided she's big enough to stand up. Only problem is, she hasn't figured out that she needs to hold on to something to do so. She'll be sitting in the middle of the room with nothing around her and attempt to stand up. We think she's trying to imitate the talented (and slightly older) Tavi who she had so much fun watching at the cape :).

Millie and I went to the airport yesterday to pick up Auntie LoLo. They were very happy to see each other again, though Millie hid her excitement a little better than LoLo ;). They spent the evening getting re-acquainted and sharing fashion tips -- LoLo brought Millie some new hip and trendy clothes and Millie oohed and aahed (and drooled) all over LoLo's cute shoes. We had a nice dinner out in SoNo where LoLo got to see what life with a baby is like -- kinda like life with a rock star :). Millie got lots of attention from the staff at the restaurant and flashed her smile to anyone who would look at her. When we got home, LoLo learned how much more difficult it is to change a baby who squirms and wiggles and flips at every chance :). It was a fun night for everyone.

It will be a quiet day at home while we get ready for another week of work. I'm sure Millie will keep everyone entertained :). Tomorrow it will be just LoLo and Millie -- perhaps will let LoLo do a guest post to report on that one!

Steppin' Up

Oh dear...



Are you watching this LoLo? Get ready for a week of baby fun!! :D

Suburban Hiking

Our hike this weekend (Saturday) was a little different than our others. No woods, no trails. Instead we decided to walk around Fairfield (where we are hoping to move to in August), and get a feel for distances. The distance from the house to the train station -- about 1.3 miles, an easy walk for Scott; from the house to Stephanie's -- about 2.5 miles, an easy bike ride; from the house to my work -- also about 2.5 miles; and the distance from the house to the local farmer's market -- just about 3 miles. We didn't hit all of those markers on our walk, but we hit quite a few.

The plan was to park at the house and walk to the farmer's market and back. And that's what we did, we just didn't take the route we were planning on. The walk to the market was good and pretty easy -- about a 50 minute walk. Unfortunately, the market was pretty lame. Just a couple of stands, not a lot of variety. We did pick up some cherries that we quite delicious and some swiss chard (also quite yummy). We stopped at a deli to get some beverages before we headed back and being somewhat familiar with the area, I told Scott we could either go back the way we came, or we could turn and circle back around. We decided to circle back around. Not a terrible plan, but I was less familiar with the route than I thought and it was MUCH longer than I recalled. There were several times along the way when I paused and mumbled that I wasn't sure we were going the right way. But we kept trekking. The scenery was beautiful -- I guess you would call it Connecticut "countryside." Lots of trees, rolling hills, stone walls and big houses. Not a lot of traffic to worry about and not really any place to stop... Here's a map of where we went:



In my mind, we were taking the yellow road there "Hillside" -- kind of. Though I knew we would be coming out north of Brookside, I just didn't realize how FAR north... We ended up walking for over three hours (including our stop at the market/deli) and traveling almost nine miles! We thought about stopping at Stephanie's and hitching a ride back to the car (we still had about 2.5 miles to go), but by then we were just happy that we knew where we were, so we decided to keep going. Of course, then it started raining... Just a light summer shower, nothing we couldn't handle :). In the end, we had a really good, long walk, and we were able to laugh about the whole thing! Of course, Scott did insist that I treat him to dinner after all that -- someplace with BEER... So, that's what we did!

Millie thought the whole thing was great. She rode in the baby carrier for about half the ride and got in a good nap. We carried her the rest of the time. She enjoyed looking at the scenery and watching the cars go by. She wasn't even phased by the rain. She was even up for dinner at a restaurant after it all -- again, just enjoyed all the people watching. Very lucky for us that she didn't decide to get upset on our walk!

So, now we know northern Fairfield pretty well. I don't think we'll have much reason to go back there except for the scenery since there wasn't much else around! Next time we'll head to downtown and the beach -- I think I know I good way to go ;).

Happy Independence Day!!

Our trip to Philly was canceled unfortunately because Christian had some family matters to attend to. So, it is just a quiet day at home for the little family, which is okay given how busy we have been. Millie is celebrating by showing off another new skill, clapping!















And she is really starting to get up on those knees. She is also trying really hard to stand up. It is crazy, she just starting really crawling.















Our mobile baby is also busy getting into things. Here she is checking out her collection of bibs (which is pretty impressive).

It should be a relaxing and quiet rest of the holiday weekend. We hope everyone is having a happy and safe 4th!!

MMMM Baby Kisses :)