With Grace

Lately, this is what I've woken up to: Baby inchworm bumping her head in the corner. Last night she slept until 6:00 am!

My last post made me realize that since I've had this baby, I've been a lot more graceful. For example, when I go for a walk, I walk with Grace. When I go to the store, I shop with Grace. And as in my last post, I can even sleep with Grace! How lucky am I?

This face is irresistible.

p.s. Happy National Cheesecake Day! (tempting, isn't it?)

7:34 am

Fed the Babe

Ran 3 miles

Showered

Washed Face

Fixed hair

Ate breakfast

Read scriptures

Sitting down to start work

all before 8:00 am

Awesome!

UPDATE: 9:05 am

Fell asleep on couch with Grace

ROFH (or, "Rolling On The Floor, Hammering")

This Old House has original hardwood floors. We can see evidences of the floor in our closet and under the kitchen sink, but it has been covered with carpet and linoleum. Since our kitchen floor was a mostly-white, old, dirty linoleum which wouldn't shine after a mopping, Britta and I decided to pull up the floor to see what we could do to recover the craftsman feel of the kitchen.

I am convinced the demo part of just about any construction job is the most fun. Tearing through and ripping up old vinyl flooring did not disappoint in that regard. The worst part of the prep work was the adhesive which readily stuck to the bottom of my shoes, but apparently not to the bottom of the linoleum.After pulling up the ugly linoleum, we saw what we feared: the hardwood floors where not just covered in vinyl, but they had laid out another subfloor layer of plywood on top of the hardwood and attached it with wood screws every 6". That pretty-well scared me from continuing with the idea of refinishing the original wood, and switching to plan "B".

The floor went in very quickly, and it was done in one day. Of course, it helps that we only had 127 sq feet to cover and all the cuts were square, but hey! I'm not complaining. One of my home teaching families let me borrow their Milwaukee 18V cordless circular saw (a great future present for a father's day, birthday, or Christmas; shameless, I know). Anyhow, we both love our new floor and we think I really helps to add a new dimension to the kitchen and makes it feel larger and warmer.

Happy Baby

It is fun to find those few things which entertain an 11-week old. This chair is one of them. Grace can sit here of long stretches of time (relatively, but 10-15 minutes for a baby is a L-o-o-o-n-g time) and smile at her reflection in the mirror or bat at the hanging toys. I especially love it because it is also a quiet toy (no repeating electrical tones) and it fits next to me on the table while I am working, typing, or goofing off. Really, I just love to see her smile!

For all you sentimental Ericksons out there

Grace meets Lindstrom.

My grandpa built this swing set and these tire swings for his own children when they were young. They are legendary in my family. It's only appropriate that our daughter is initiated into the family by swinging.

Happy 4th of July! aka The real McCoy

Fourth of July, Missouri style. You can get fireworks here that actually shoot into the air! Even the little cheap-o fireworks can fly! So no "shower of sparks" for us, this year. No, sir. Sorry fountains and ground flowers, you just won't cut it. We went for the fireworks with flying power.

Our army of little flying bee fireworks.

These ladybugs were totally awesome. They're not kidding when they say "up in the air." I think this shot over 40 feet high.

Roman candles anyone? Rockets, too? You heard me, I said rockets.

AAaaaa yeah.

We lit all these fireworks with some friends a couple nights ago. One of Scott's friends even bought reloadable aerial shells and a launching tube. It was totally awesome, and totally legal. Since we have been in Missouri for a year now, we thought we'd pay homage to our new home state with our finale:

This was a "cake" firework with a combination of roman candles and small aerial shells.

That's right, "Shoots flaming balls." It did not disappoint.

All about Grace

Disclaimer: This is a shameless post detailing how we dote upon our daughter. I am a new mother, so I'm allowed.

First bandaids from first series of shots. Four hours later, first inconsolable hour of crying.

2 month stats:

Weight: 10 lbs 2 oz (just over the 50 percentile)

*That's right--double the birthweight*

Length: 21 1/2 inches (25 percentile)

Head: um... I don't remember, I'll update when I find the little paper (25 percentile)

Grace is starting to grow out of the newborn stage, so for posterity's sake, I want to dwell on a few points we love about her before I forget and she grows out of them.

• Grace laughs in her sleep. It's a much more mature laugh than she's capable of when she's awake. I love it! It always makes Scott and me laugh ourselves.
• Grace is one noisy baby girl. She has different noises for different activities. When she eats, with every breath it's "*squeak*-sigh-*squeak*-sigh." Sometimes even when she's done eating and she's contentedly full she keeps the squeak-sigh breathing for a few minutes. When I'm sleeping with her sleeping on my chest, I'm woken up occasionally because she sighs with each exhale. It's utterly precious. During her waking hours, she is constantly grunting and humming. She's growing out of the grunting, but now it's being replaced with cooing! Oh, being a new parent is so fun.
• In the past two weeks, Grace has become a very wiggly girl. Already she's started migrating to the corner of her crib when she's sleeping. When we set her on a flat surface while she's awake, she'll happily kick and punch the air for 15 or more minutes. For such a little body it must be exhausting!
• Grace will contentedly sit or lay by herself for up to a half hour!
• Grace loves her daddy's game of touching different parts of her face and repeating their names in a high falsetto voice. She almost always smiles at him.
• Bath time has become an anticipated event. Grace will regularly calm down from fussiness if she hears the water running. When she gets excited she breathes quicker with intermittent squeaks and sticks her lips out like a little duck. It's much cuter than it sounds, I promise.
• Every day Scott and I have moments of awe and wonder at such a beautiful little girl. It takes our breath away. We are so lucky.

Grace is Two (months old)!

I've said this word a lot lately...

...but how can I resist!

So CUTE!

Thanks Kari!

This little one is two months old today. Hurray!