A Quick Glance...

...at a few of the photos you'll find in those online photo albums from the last post...

Good times with Grampa...

Fun with Uncle Vince!

Aww... Papa Love...

Our little Munchkin... hard to believe she once hated being on her tummy...

Love those fingers "drumming" like she's bored or just waiting for something...

One of her most favorite things right now...

Check out those teeth!

Our happy lil' camper!

Playin' on the tundra...

Enjoying a nap on the hike in...

Still a happy camper!

Two sleepy girls...

First family picture with all four of us... : )

Hunkered down out of the weather... and chewing on Mama's platypus hose...

Learning how to drink from a sippy cup!

Her favorite toy right now - my kitchen spatula!

Yeah for pictures!

For all you "fam" out there, and anyone else who's enjoying watching our Little "P"ea grow, here are a few more online photo albums...

Paisley is 6 1/2 months old, loves her fruits and veggies, is learning that you have to suck to get water out of a sippy cup, is still wearing mostly 3 month clothes, is tall and skinny for her age, is up on all fours rocking back and forth in attempts to crawl, loves sitting in her Bumbo seat playing with toys (her favorite of which is a spatula!) in the kitchen while Mama is cooking or cleaning, loves rolling all over the living room floor, has two most-adorable little teeth on the bottom front, still has the best smile I've ever seen, and loves her a good bike ride, hike, or jog! ...And her Papa and Mama are still just as smitten - if not more so! - with her as the first time they laid eyes on her... Ah, what a life....

Uncle Vince's Visit and Summer Fun

6 Month Photos and Misc.

Oh, the many faces of Paisley!

July Sheep Scouting/P' First Backpacking Trip


Enjoy!

Wait a second...

Aren't these things supposed to be in trees or roof corners?

Yes, that's a bird's nest, and yes, it's on the ground! Right in the middle of some of our garden plants, we stumbled across this little guy. Kinda neat.

But kinda sad too - he got trampled a few days later. : ( I have a feeling Tucker wasn't as careful to walk around the little egg as we were. Not sure he even knew it was there. Hopefully Mama decides to build a little higher next time...

Guess what turned up?...

This!

Yeppers. That's our little Pun'kin who's maybe an hour old there. Auntie Tami dug this photo up while over for supper the other night. It's the photo Scott took with his phone to send to everyone in our "announcement" text that she'd arrived. This picture cracks me up because there was no doubt that she was a girl, and yet she somehow ended up with a sporty hat and blue blanket. I told Scott to make sure he told everyone she was a girl!

Oh my goodness, Baby Girl... How you have changed our lives, you will never fully know! Every day is better knowing that we get to do life with you, see you smile, hug you, hear you talk, know that you're napping peacefully in your crib, watch you grown and learn, experience things again through your eyes... You have filled our life with more love than we knew it could hold!...

And it's only been 6 months!

Salvaged Photo Shoot...

Some of you may have already heard, but our 6-month photos didn't quite go as planned... What Mama had thought was a perfectly timed session (nap, check!, bottle, check!, diaper change, check!) was not quite so perfect according to our little one... Call it teething, camera shyness, or whatever, Paisley was not her usual cheery, smiley self. But, considering what she had to work with, our photo gal managed to get some neat shots... I'm bummed that we didn't get to capture her great, big smile that she graces us with multiple times a day, but... what do you do? Go back for another session and hope for a better turn out? I don't know...

Anyways! Here are our favorites:

The Big Bedroom Reveal!...

Well, this is LONG overdue, but I finially finished putting some things up on the walls to mostly finish our Lil' Pea's bedroom. There are still projects to be done, as you will see, but for now, this is how it will remain until I suddenly find myself with extraordinary amounts of time on my hands. (And we all know that won't be any time soon!) Maybe come winter?...So... this is what you see when you're looking into her room from the hall. Yes, that's a diaper cake from my baby shower, and yes, the diapers still fit Paisley! They'll be getting some use over these next weekends as we head for some backpacking in the mountains with the Pea. The green baskets you see beneath the table are full of toys our little Munchkin has already collected - some hand-me-downs and some newbies. This picture is darker due to the light outside; sorry! We have yet to decide on some darker curtains to go behind the white ones, so that will be coming... hopefully sooner than later! She definitely sleeps better when it's darker... (Don't we all?) The basket next to the crib is full of stuffed animals. They don't see much play time yet, but I have a feeling they will in the not-so-distant future!
And the crib... that someday will sport a skirt that matches some of the fabric in P's quilt from her Auntie Tami (see picture below), to hide miscellaneous items. Another winter project?...
This in no way does justice to the quilt (more pictures coming someday!), but this is P's crib - her noise-making lamb, Twilight Turtle, and oh-so-needed breathable bumper (let's just say a foot got caught a time or two while Mom was tidying up around the room and thought Baby was nice and safe in her crib...).
Classic... So, I thought we would do without a mobile (since I hung the "lanterns" above her crib), but this was given to us as a gift, and has proved to be a handy "sitter" when P's getting her naked time to air out for a minute, as well and just a pile of fun! I'll hold Paisley up to it, she'll grab ahold of one of the characters, shake it, and light up like no other when she realizes that the more she moves her hand, the more they all shake around. And if the whole shaking process causes a chime to let loose from the song-playing-part... oh my goodness... she gets so excited she starts dancing. She just can't stand still, and no way on earth could you wipe that smile off her face or keep her from letting out that shrill of excitement. That one moment every morning just makes my day!

This is the newest addition and one of the finishing touches to the room - the frames and flowers on the wall. How is it that it took me 8 months to get those up there?! Anyways... it's my new favorite part about her room... I had wanted to find more similar frames, but with no luck, I just put up what I had. And Paisley must like the look too, because it catches her eye every time we walk into her room now...
My favorite piece of furniture... Found this beauty at an antique mall here in town before it closed down. It's just her size, and cute as could be!
In the frames are cards we received when the Pea was born, some wrapping paper that says, "It's a girl!" all over it, a fun doodle of Paisley's name, one of her footprints, a picture of Scott and I before we were "officially" dating, and card fronts that have little peas or peapods on them... I figure these things will change over time, which is part of the fun of this idea - it's decor that can be re-vamped any time we get the itch to do so...
And this... this is a BIG to-do project. As you can tell, that curtain does not do it's job - to hide all the stuff behind it. Some day in the deep, dark of winter, this closet will get a complete makeover, half the items in there will end up at the Salvation Army, and I will finally find/make? curtains that will hang from the rod I so anxiously put up already. (It was my incentive to get the job done sooner, but so far it's not working...)
And that's where we first entered this favorite room in the whole house... Next to the wooden chest is where her laundry basket goes, but guess where it is? Yep, laundry room. So... we went with a kind of antique-y, stuff-we-had-when-we-were-growing-up, old-things-in-general theme for P's room... Here we have some old books, horse shoe from Great Grampa's barn, old toys... that kind of thing.
It's kind of difficult to read, but the lacey thing on the wooden chest (which was "salvaged" from an old, abandoned house somewhere in Cananda... ...don't ask... actually, don't tell!) is a hand-made pillowcase for a tiny pillow that says, "Baby" on it, and was given to me when I was born.
Every girl has to have her own coat rack for her many jackets... We have fun ones, cute ones, a snowsuit, a scarf, an apron, a camo coat that she's anxiously waiting to grow in to, and a bathrobe. Below is a basket with shoes and hats and the like, and next to it is an old, wooden nail bucket that we're using as a trash can.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the little Pun'kin's most favorite place in the whole house. She can be crying, and no sooner do you lay her down on her little changing pad, and she starts smiling, talking up a storm, and trying to eat her toes. I'm so thankful that diaper changes are happy moments around here...

More stuff! But fun stuff... not like the "stuff" behind the curtain a few pictures above. Here we've got an old ice cream maker, toys from when we were kids, flowers from our wedding, an old Italian painting, an old cookie jar, old books, old baby shoes, old jars and cans and cookie tins, an old dish from a great gramma, an old milk bottle... It's... well, just a bunch of old stuff!

And that is our sweet little Pea's bedroom. It's our favorite room in the whole house. Filled with lots of love; lots of sweet memories. It's bright and cheery (to ward off the dreary dark of winter); it's colors match the sweet quilt Auntie Tami made. I like to think that it's P's favorite place too because she can sense how much love went in to making it just for her. Everything from the prayers that were said while walls were painted, the love that was stitched into every part of the quilt that covers her while she naps, the sweet memories we have from all the fun objects adorning her walls... all with her in mind.

So... here's to hoping that it doesn't take me 8 more months to finish those few projects I have left to officially "finish" the room!...