Two More!

I have to share these too!

Can you say Daddy's girl?!

COSI Fun

Vanessa and Celia went to COSI and enjoyed the space for small kids. Lots of fun!

We think Adam may have had the most fun with the wall of sounds in the health clinic in Kid Space.

More Easter Beauty!

Check out these girls! Most of you have heard me talk about how Vanessa has several cousins close to her in age and how cool that is. Here are the girls on the Betz side of the family. I'm sure it was absolutely hilarious to watch the photographers and entertainers while trying to take these photos. (And Adam's brother is awesome with the camera!)

First Easter Dress

Be sure to vote in the poll on the right!

Special Easter Egg

Vanessa, along with two other cousins, had a special egg made for her place at the dinner table on Sunday. Grandma and Grandpa Betz were crafty!

Update

For those of you that don’t know, Vanessa has been crawling for a few weeks now. In the last couple of days she started pulling herself up. She sometimes uses furniture and other times a person, big or small. :) With help she’ll take a couple of steps at a time. (On hardwood floors she gets better traction without clothes on.) She was eyeballing the stairs today. NO!

And I just had to show a picture of how she loves to play with her diaper. She’s better about leaving it on but is still fascinated by it, wet or dry.

Easter Egg Hunt

Vanessa hunted for Easter eggs Sunday morning. I put away all of her toys and Adam and I placed plastic eggs throughout several rooms, making a trail to her basket. She took some coercing as we tried to take pictures, but once we decided we were finished and left her alone, of course she went on a more focused hunt. (Pictures of her in her Easter dress will be posted in the next day or two.)

Caterpillar

Vanessa loves this wooden caterpillar! It twists and turns into a circle.

Happy First Birthday Celia!

Our niece Celia turned one! We had a wonderful time celebrating with her! We’ll have lots of stories to tell, including how the "Blizzard" of '08 interfered with the original celebration plans.

Big Snow of '08

Here's Vanessa enjoying her first time in the snow. We'll surely remember this one! (It's great how the snow helped her stand up.)

Daddy Fun

Daddy is fun!

Weird Spots

We're working on childproofing Vanessa's play room this weekend. As you can tell from these photos, she’s beginning to explore more. We’ve also noticed, by the way she’s looking beyond the doorways of the room, that she’s considering the idea of leaving the room on her own. So gates will also be going up this weekend so her mommy has peace of mind when leaving her alone for a moment. And you can see how tired she gets from moving all over the place – I think I’ll take a break and suck my thumb. (Yes, she put herself under her play yard. I swear I didn’t put her there! And who needs a Swiffer when your daughter is happy to do the job for you!) :)

Luke Turns One!

Our nephew Luke turned 1 a few days ago. We enjoyed celebrating his birthday with him!

7 Months!

Vanessa is seven months old! We'll be celebrating her first birthday before you know it! She's doing great. She had her first case of the sniffles a couple weeks ago. She was extra cranky one day and was sneezing but she recovered quickly. Her father and mother had full-blown colds, so we were thankful she didn’t get the worst of it. We’ve had a few restless nights where Vanessa wants to try out her new tricks, like trying to crawl. She’s doing lots of rocking back and forth on her hands and knees and will drag her legs forward, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to synchronize her hands with her feet. She’s figured out that she can use furniture and objects as leverage and support. It’s funny to watch her grab on to something to drag herself around. She’s getting into everything that’s in the room dedicated to her. She loves to go after water bottles and magazines. She seems to be trying to figure out waving bye and hi. She watches you do it and then tries but ends up turning her hand to her face to study how she can move her fingers up and down. She also likes to mimic her daddy clapping hands. She started slapping and patting the floor, or closest surface, and her legs when she’s excited and when listening to music or singing. She loves to be carried around in the BabyBjorn carrier for walks and while shopping. She sits up for longer moments. She likes to get real close to mirrors and stare at herself. For a short time she studied and compared our faces to the reflections in mirrors. She also spent some time searching behind a mirror as if she was looking to see if one continued behind it. We have a routine in the morning – before coming downstairs we look out the hallway window and talk about the outside. I separate the slats of the miniblind (or whatever you call them) to do this or sometimes I just raise the miniblind. She seems to have figured out how to separate the slats and hold them apart as we talk about the outside. She’s enjoying baby foods. So far it seems that prunes and peas are her favorites. :)

Visiting Cousins

Vanessa is very blessed to have so many cousins that love her so much! Here are a few pictures from our recent visit with my youngest brother and his family. Joel, the middle cousin in these pictures, is so sweet and very eager to always come say hi to Vanessa, pat her and give her a hug and a kiss. Rachel is looking forward to teaching Vanessa how to be a princess, since she seems to have it down perfect. And Luke, the youngest of these three and one of the cousins that is 5 months older than Vanessa, loves to play with her.