Squeaky Clean, or Christmas 2011, Part Two

 Photo Credit, Elise Lara

 12-24-11

I didn't take my camera, but Eric's Grandma Lara has a Christmas Eve tradition of a Mexican Potluck and Family Home Evening lesson, followed by new jammies for all the grandkids. Grandma Julie didn't want Valette to be left out of the pajama festivities, so she brought Valette her own Christmas Eve Jammies to open along with the older kids.

 Tried a baby mohawk, apparently her hair is too long now. ...or at the time it was too wet...?

 All soaped up.

 Please admire the loveliness that is the 50mm 1.4 lens that Eric got me for my birthday. Notice how the toys in the water are blurry-ish? My other lens can't do the selective focus like that.

Admiring the all clean girlie in the mirror. Valette LOVES to look at her reflection. 

 Tender. Holding Daddy's hand.

Christmas jammies. 

 Eric loves to be a daddy. Loves. It.

 I love child-in-front-of-the-tree pictures. Next year I hope to get one of her standing, facing the tree. Precious.

She loves her Grandpa Greg. I tell you what.

Christmas 2011, Part One

Valette's Frist Christmas

spread out over 5 days

Two of my brothers spent Christmas Day out of town, so we got together Thursday night with everyone. 

 12-22-11

 Adria was giving Ben great loves, but not when asked to do it for the camera.

 Madilyn is great with Grandma and Grandpa

 Ashton, looking like a Cindy-Clone as usual.

 Adria telling Valette that this dog is only hers. Sharing is still a pretty hard concept for Adria.

 Madilyn was happy as long as no one stole her binky. (I know this because I tried to steal it for a better picture of her face. No can do, she said.)

 Reese got a baby doll and Adria thought the box it came in made a great chair.

 Grandma trying to cheer up Ember (the boys were teasing her because her present was a gift card).

 Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids.

 I love mom and dad's expressions in this photo. Someone must have said something funny.

Left to right:

Back row: Ben, Bryant, Brenden, Lauryn, Ember, Ethan, Dylan, Aubrey. Ashton, Madilyn

Middle:  Grace, Adria, Grandpa, Valette, Grandma

Bottom:  Kerra, Reese, Elise, Chase 

 funny faces

 I thought Ember was faking it at first, but she is totally asleep here.

Josh took this photo of Austin which he thought was very telling. This is a gesture that he makes quite frequently while talking. I like that his eyes are so big and expressive. hahaha.

That bag did not have Valette's present in it, she just found it and was very interested.

I love this girl. I love to take her picture.

Do you like her 80s exercise hair?

Under the Tree

12-18-11

We had a white elephant exchange with some of Eric's family, and we invited Adam and Laurie. They have no family in Mesa, so they come to some of our Sunday dinners and such.  The babies were fascinated by the wrapping paper. (Of course.) Grandpa put Valette in this box so I pushed her over to the tree and took cute pictures.

Showing off her standing-with-no-hands skillz.

Valette wore pig tails for the first time. With bows. It was so amazingly cute. By this time of night one rubberband had disappeared long ago and I took her bows out to protect them from getting lost. So she has crazy, lop-sided hair. But a super cute smile nonetheless. =)

Can you tell that I am sick?  She gave me what she had. Saturday night and Sunday morning were the worst. We didn't go to church. I woke up unable to breathe (typical) and my left eyelid was swollen like I had been punched. I looked like the big guy in the Goonies. ("Hey, you gu-uys.") Luckily it had gone almost completely down by dinner time. And on Monday I had no swelling, which was good because I had told Valette that if she made me look all lopsided like that on my birthday she was going to be in BIG trouble.

Tender

Look at this beautiful child.

10-20-11

FYI: I think Valette knows that she is a firstborn. She does not have time to snuggle with us. The closest she comes is burying her face in my shoulder when she decides to be shy to the person talking to her.

Okay, story time:

When Valette was tiny and still feeding in the night I got lazy and started going to get her and bringing her back to our bed to nurse, rather than doing it in the rocking chair and then putting her down in her bed.

She would nurse and fall back to sleep very easily, and Eric liked to be able to snuggle her anyway.  Eventually she grew too big for this. When she was done eating, she would alternate between dozing and kicking me the rest of the night.  I was not getting good sleep anymore. I started only bringing her to our bed in the morning after Eric had already gotten up for work (he gets out of bed by 5:15, so this wasn't hard) because if she was on his side of the bed where she couldn't touch me she went back to sleep just fine.

Then she got to the point that she sleeps through the night. Yay! Now she wakes up most mornings between 8 and 8:30 and then we both get up for the day.  But on the weekends when Eric is home, he  still wants to snuggle so when she cries he will get up and bring her to our bed. She is fine with this, but she has no interest in sleeping.  She smiles at us and plays and climbs all over me.  She slaps my face and pulls my hair and puts all her weight on my wind pipe. (How she ALWAYS manages to find just the right spot to cut off my air supply, I do not know.) All the while she completely ignores Eric who wants her loves so desperately and tries to get her to crawl on his face instead. Poor husband.

She has not been feeling too great the last few weeks. We have had a few out of character nights and mornings. Today was one such morning. Eric was getting ready for work, so it might have been 5:30, and she woke up crying and coughing.  He picked her up and gave her loves and then brought her to me in bed. She laid with me and I held her hand (to prevent face-hitting) and she squirmed a little, but not too much, she was honestly still tired.  Eric made her a bottle and she gladly drank the whole thing. Valette crawled around the bed a little bit and then she started to get relaxed again.  She would lay on her tummy and rest, then realize she was falling asleep and move again. She did this at least 8 times and eventually brought herself to me. She laid belly-down across my neck with my chin in the gap between her ear and shoulder which was not comfy for me at all. Thankfully it wasn't good enough for her either.  She wiggled more until she ended up with her head resting just below my shoulder and the rest of her out from me.  I pulled the blanket up over her and pet her head and just enjoyed the snuggle time.

She slept like that for almost an hour. It was tender. I texted Eric and he was so jealous. See? Poor husband.

When she woke up I found out why she is suddenly snuggly today. She squirmed and changed position and fussed for a few minutes. I sang to her to calm her down, which seemed to be working. Until she threw up the entire bottle. Sad. But I will accept all the loves she deems me worthy to receive in her sick state. For now, we are headed to the doctor.


*Updated* Valette has a serious cold which brought on a double ear infection. She got two prescriptions. I haven't seen her pull on her ear at all, so maybe we won't have too much trouble from the ear infections.

Girls' Weekend

 I had been wanting to take my new camera up to the cabin to shoot all summer.

 I LOVE this image. The swing is just perfect. (Well, it could use a child, but there were no big enough kids around.)

 peaches

 Who knew that succulents could be so interesting?

Second Annual Lawlor Girls Weekend 

 Valette looks like such a chunk with that huge smile. She loves her Grandma.

 10-15-11

10-16-11 

 I looked over my camera for at least 45 minutes and could not remember how to find the self timer. I guess there is something to be said for looking at the manual.

Unfortunately Shelley couldn't make it.