Christmas 2016

Hi, friends and family.  I didn't forget about the blog, I promise.  I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted.  Life got a little crazy. On November 22nd I accepted a new position at the U of I after working at Burge Hall for 8 years.  The subsequent few weeks were harried, as I worked to leave as much information as I could about my job responsibilities and helped to train my replacement.  More on the new job later!

We had a fun Christmas with June this year.  On Christmas Eve we went to Katie and Kirk's house for our annual celebration with the Gilpin side of the family.  It was great to see everyone who could come, and there was delicious food and wonderful company.

I completely forgot I bought Justin this shirt a couple of years ago. June looks thrilled to have her picture taken :P

When we got home that evening we worked to fill the stockings and put out all of the gifts under the tree.  We didn't bother trying to put them out sooner, figuring June would want to tear into them before Christmas Day. 

June woke up around 4:30 AM Christmas day, far too early to start opening gifts.  Thankfully I fed her and she went back to sleep until almost 8, a rare occasion and welcome present for me and Justin!  We started with stockings and then headed to the basement to open the rest of the gifts.  Opening presents was slow going at first.  June wanted to hand us each piece of gift wrap she tore from her presents.  Eventually we got her to just throw it on the ground and the pace picked up from there :)  

One of Justin's purchases for June.  "She's either going to like it or be terrified of it."

Umm...Dad...what is this thing?

Merry Christmas from the Ahlfs!

After opening gifts at home we travelled to my parents house for our annual Christmas morning brunch and gift opening.  It was a small crowd this year.  Abbey and Ben were with Ben's family and Andrew and Sarah were with with Sarah's sister's family,  Meghan and Tony are in New York and Nathan is in California. We missed those who weren't there!  June had fun playing with her new toys at Nana and Grampa's house, and also with the toys Henry got :)

After presents June took a short nap and then we drove to Muscatine, IA to have lunch with Justin's side of the family.  The ham was delicious and it was nice visiting with everyone.  We made our way back home, returning around 4:00.  June's afternoon nap was very late on Christmas Day!  We ordered Chinese food for dinner, another tradition of ours.  I hope you all had a wonderful day with your loved ones :)

Justin's gift to himself, and also for June.  Me and June both got a kick out of it!

Halloween 2016

June was not nearly as excited to celebrate Halloween this year as we were.  My first indication that she probably wasn't going to be into it was a few weeks ago when I tried to put her in an awesome cow costume that my mom made for my brother to wear 20+ years ago.  As soon as she saw it she started crying.  We left the costume on a chair in the living room, thinking she might warm up to it. Not so much.  I did get it on her one Saturday morning for a few minutes but she spent most of the time whining and trying to pull the hood off.

After that I started looking for DIY costume ideas on Pinterest. I came across an adorable chicken costume, made by gluing feathers to a long-sleeve white onesie. Perfect!  Or so I thought. As soon as the feathered onesie was complete and June saw it she was afraid of it.  We tried to put it on her but she screamed and writhed. Not wanting to scar her for life I also gave up on the chicken idea.

We ended up going for a walk around the neighborhood last night.  June wore an owl hat that I made during my days of selling hats at the Iowa City Farmer's Market. She looked damn adorable, and actually left the hat on!  She mostly enjoyed the walk.  I say mostly because there were two things that scared her.  A full-size grim reaper with glowing red eyes on someone's porch, and an inflatable dinosaur.  She got some extra cuddles with dad as we passed the scary stuff.  After about 15 minutes we decided to call it a night and headed back home.

Upon arriving at home we discovered that the neighborhood kids did not respect the "please take one" sign posted on the bowl full of candy and took all of it.  By 6:00 PM we were out of candy.  Oh, well. We went inside and made sure our porch light was turned off.

June was hungry so into her high chair she went.  Unfortunately, some kids must not know that no porch light means don't come to our house.  A kid wearing a gorilla costume rang the bell and June could see his fuzzy black head through the front door.  She screamed in terror and tried to climb out of her high chair.  After that Justin posted a sign on our door telling people not to knock or ring the bell.

We ended the night on a high note, though.  I had purchased a couple of light up toys for Halloween so we went out to our new back porch and let June run around with the toys.  Justin also kept her entertained by running around the back yard, waving a glow stick and the other flashing toy.  I was glad she was able to laugh and be happy after her evening of Halloween trauma.

Mad at Mama for having Daddy pick her up for a picture.  "Dowwwnn!" she kept yelling. 

Daddy protecting June from the scary dinosaur.

Happy Camper playing with the mailboxes

Exploding Vocabulary

June is learning to say new words every day. It's amazing, sometimes funny, and really cool to see her experiment with trying to say words, and then make the transition from just parroting what we say to actually putting the word to use.  Today I sat down and started to make a list of the words June can use.  There are more that she will imitate, but these are the words she uses on her own.

People Words	Food/Drink Words	Object Words	Other Words
Mama	milk	ball	more
Dada	coffee	block	please
Nana	cracker	clock	all done
Grampa	pasta	rock	bye bye
Baby	nana	sock	hi
Garfunkel		shoes	ouch
Bert		bubbles	hot
		brush	yum yum
		bird	up
		bees	down
		book	no
			diaper

She knows the animals sounds for dog, cat, pig, duck, sheep, snake, chicken, cow and monkey.  

She can point to her eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, hair, eyebrows, belly, belly-button, hands, fingernails, knees, feet, and toes.  

She can sign: mama, dada, more, milk, all done, drink, eat, please

I of course don't want to rush through her toddler years but I am excited for her to use more complex language.  Based on her demeanor I feel like she will be a pretty funny kid.  I will definitely be keeping track of the funny, wacky, smarty-pants things she says :)

Big Shoes to Fill

June, like most toddlers, is obsessed with footwear.  Sandals, slippers, tennis shoes, and work boots all catch her eye.  Justin brings his work boots to the living room and sits in the same chair to put them on each morning before work.  June likes to touch each boot and then says "booo!"  With smaller, lighter shoes she tries to put them on her own feet but she can't quite accomplish that on her own with his boots, so Justin has taken to lifting her into them each morning.

Looking at this picture of my husband and our daughter brought the phrase "big shoes to fill" to mind. Of course as June grows I want her develop her own personality and feel comfortable being herself.  But there are also things I hope June will learn from her daddy, things that I respect and that have made me love him.

Justin is an incredibly hard worker.  He has had to work to support himself from a young age and he doesn't quit.  He has held many jobs over the years, some I'm sure he didn't enjoy, because he knew it was up to him to pay his bills and put food in his mouth.  There wasn't anyone else that was going to do that for him.  He worked for five years to become a Journeyman Electrician and is a respected and dedicated employee at his company.  Justin has one speed--turbo.  He works hard and fast and doesn't stop until the job is done.  That is true at work and at home when there are projects to be done.  And so I hope June learns the value of hard work and dedication to a job well done.

Justin is really funny.  He makes me laugh daily and manages to find the humor in most situations in life, even during times when laughter can be hard to muster.  Now I get to watch him make June laugh, too. I love watching them play together. I hope June learns to approach life with a sense of humor and ability to not take herself too seriously.

Justin is dedicated to the people he cares about.  I consider myself lucky to be one of those people. Now June is on the short-list, too.  Pretty much everything Justin does illustrates his dedication to his family.  I cherish our family time each evening after work.  Most nights we eat dinner at home and both use our best tactics to try to get June to eat (she's becoming a picky toddler.)  Then we usually go out to play in the yard.  When we come back inside we read books. Well, I usually read the books as June is very particular about that, but Justin sits with us anyway while I read to her.  Then it's diaper change time. Justin reads June books while she gets her diaper changed so that she will stay still.  At bedtime Justin reads her bedtime story and carries her to bed after I've given her kisses.  I appreciate so much the consistency and his presence.  I hope June learns to be a consistent presence in the lives of people she cares about.

This is by no means an all-inclusive list, but it's a start. I'm thankful daily for my little family and my partner in parenting.

Family Pictures

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Look at those eyes!  Blue/grey/green with a yellowish ring around the pupil, very similar to Justin's.  

Open-mouth kisses for Rosco. Yech!

Peanut Butter Hair

June gets snacks in the car to help keep her occupied during the commute to daycare.  Today's choice of Ritz peanut butter snack crackers was not a wise one on my part.  I should have known there would be peanut butter everywhere as June currently likes to put food in and take food out of her mouth repeatedly, and prefers licking/sucking on food to just chewing it.

I don't think she actually ate any of the three crackers I handed to her.  Instead she smeared peanut butter in her hair and in doing so pulled out a few of her hairs, which she noticed immediately and then whined about having hair stuck to her hands.  Rubbing the peanut butter in her hair did a surprisingly good job of cleaning off her fingers, haha!  When we got to daycare I used a baby wipe to de-crust her hair.  Thank goodness for Costco and their affordable, industrial-sized boxes of baby wipes.

We will stick to less sticky snack options in the car from now on :)

Staycation

This turned into a long post!  Pictures at the end :)

My parents went to Glacier National Park recently and since my mom cares for June during the week I took 7 days off work while they were away.  We had a really nice time together.  We went to lunch with friends a couple days, spent time with Abbey and cousin Henry a couple times, went to a splash pad, went on morning walks with Rosco, and played in the yard.

June is a happy girl. She loves exploring and pointing at everything she sees and gets really excited about what you and I would consider trivial.  It's really neat to see that; it makes me stop and appreciate the simple things that before her were usually just a part of the background of everyday life.  On our walks she would laugh at Rosco walking beside her, babble and point at lots of things, and squeal and say "birr!" every time she saw a bird.  When we went to the grocery store she said "nana" as soon as she saw the pile of bananas in the produce aisle so I gave her one to carry as I wheeled her through the store.

Her communication skills have really taken off in the past few weeks.  She can now sign the following:
-eat
-milk
-all done
-please
-more
-book
I'm sure she would sign more things if we taught them to her.

She can say (some words are more clear than others but we know what she's saying):
-daddy
-bird (birrr)
-book (buhh)
-all done (dah-dah)
-pasta (kahpkah)
-cheese (not even gonna try to use phonetics here)
-nana (for Nana, my mom and for the fruit)

She knows where her hair, eyes, nose, ears, hands, feet, belly and tongue are.  If you ask her where her tongue is she sticks it out as far as she can, which is pretty far.  Me and Justin can both touch our tongues to our noses so June has inherited a long tongue.

I keep June in a onesie pretty much all the time so her belly doesn't stick out of her clothes and also so she can't mess with her diaper.  At night, when we are getting her ready for bed and she's stripped down to her diaper she loves to run around.  She loves the freedom from clothes and immediately rubs her belly, which got us started saying "Get in my belly!" which is a quote from an Austin Powers movie.  Now when we say it she rubs her hands all over her belly with a huge smile on her face.  It cracks us up!

Next week is the Johnson County Fair and we plan to take June one evening right after work.  I think she will like to see all of the animals.  Hopefully the weather will be a little less stifling next week. It's going to be awful here for the next few days.  I'll leave you with some pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Checking out animals at a petting zoo.  

It looks like she's waving but really she's about to aggressively pet Rosco. You can tell he's bracing for it.  

She loves bananas!

A quick picture before having lunch with Aunt Abbey

"Helping" mommy put groceries in the pantry.  

Outdoor Fun

We've been in our new house for a couple weeks now and June loves being out in the yard. At our old house the backyard grass was sparse, riddled with acorns and there were lots of gnats.  We didn't spend much time out there. The new yard is sunny, the grass plush, there's an awesome swing set, and virtually no bugs.  It's pretty awesome.  June now wants to spend a lot of time outside.  Last night as soon as we got home from work she went and got her shoes, brought them to me, and started banging on the sliding door that leads to the four seasons porch.

Once outside some of her favorite things to do are shout at Rosco, point at birds and say "birr", pick up leaves and tear them into tiny bits (handing us each piece) , and toddle her way through the grass. I'm glad she enjoys the outdoors so much. This weekend we set up her kiddie pool.  She cried when we first put her in it and was very unsure but quickly got over her fear and had fun splashing and playing.  As she grows older I know she will have lots of fun on the big swing set.

Busy, busy!

It has been a very busy time at our house.  We move to our new home in North Liberty this coming Monday so our evenings and weekends have been spent purging, organizing, packing, and planning.  It seemed like the move was so far away when we made the offer on March 25, and here we are.  It's going to be miserably hot this weekend with highs in the mid to upper 90s.  Our hope is to have most everything loaded into the moving truck on Sunday morning before the heat of the day really hits. Thankfully we have great family support!

Even though we've been busy we make time for fun.  June is walking more and more confidently each day.  Her tantrums have gotten better for the most part.  She is banging her head into the floor and walls less frequently now which makes me very happy. She's in a phase where she wants to be picked up frequently.  She will stand in front of us, arms outstretched, waving her hands back and forth.  When she is picked up she usually tries to squirm out of our arms a few seconds later.  Then, when her feet touch the floor she whines to be picked back up.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks:

Working on getting June to stand/walk in the grass.  She did NOT want to do either at first. 

She actually left this on her head for several minutes.  We were both amazed.  

June likes to look out the picture window while daddy mows the lawn and as he leaves for work in the morning.  She waves "bye-bye" to him. Melts my heart.  

She doesn't want to leave things on her head but she will put them around her neck and leave them there :)

June devoured some mac'n'cheese from Mosley's.  Removing the caked on cheese from her face was an interesting endeavor.

Birth to 5 Months Photo Dump

I really need to clear pictures off my iPhone! I was just looking through some oldies today, reminiscing about how much June has changed.  Here are some random pictures we took during her first five months of life. Enjoy :)

My first time getting to hold June about an hour after she was born. Girl came out with her mouth open, ready to eat!

Proud Papa <3

One month old.  I love her dimples in this one! 

We laughed til we cried taking these pictures. Wearing mama's hair.  

Having fun with Great Gramma Hotie at the Hotle Reunion on August

Breakfast at Midtown Restaurant.  It was so much easier when we could plunk her on the table in the Bumbo :P

June's 1st Tailgate.  Go Hawks!