Violet has been certified to be a half-year-old baby and is on track for her milestones and size. At her doctor’s appointment last week she weighed in at 16 pounds, 4 ounces and was 26 3/4 inches long both of which chart at around the 50-60th percentile. Violet’s favorite mode of transportation these days is rolling over from one end of the room to the other and can do so with much swiftness. It occurred to me that I’ve been neglectful with the camera lately, so Vi and I did a quick photo shoot while the big girls played outside. It had to be quick because Vi got pretty fussy and wanted to feed and nap shortly after. Please note that the mustache is coming in nicely (this is what Mike refers to Vi’s strange cowlick in front).

Vi isn’t quite able to sit up on her own, but I was able to get a couple of shots of her sitting up before she toppled over. Why do all my babies roll over and almost crawl before they could sit up whereas it seems other babies sit up before they even roll over?!?

Violet loves getting put down on the floor so she can roll over and can really pull herself up high during tummy time.

This face was a first, and I’m glad I captured it. Too funny!

And had to include a smile. I don’t know if you can tell in the picture, but Vi has a way with her tongue. That baby can curl it in the strangest ways like I’ve never seen anyone do. Do I see a future talent (her daddy would be proud)?

In other news, Lucy approves of the new kitty.

And in other other news, they built a Monkey Joe’s in our town. Essentially, it’s an indoor playground that is full of bouncy houses. My cousin and his wife have one in Atlanta and take their kids there all the time. My Kenosha friends and I always thought we needed a place like that here since it’s too cold or snowy for playing at the park for 5 months out of the year. We finally got our wish and tried it out with the Johnsons last week. I don’t know how much time we’ll spend there because it seems every other family in Kenosha has thought the same thing as us, but we may stop by once in a while.

Can you imagine a person assigning a profile picture
to his/her vet for his/her phone? Imagine that this
person went through the trouble to pose not real
animals but stuffed animals to photograph purely
for the intent of this profile picture. How pathetic
this person must be. How sad this person must be.
How lonely this person must be. As if the vet’s office
is calling this heartbreaking human being regularly
enough to justify a profile picture for his/her phone.

Wait a minute, this person would be me. Yes, I did
all of the above which means I must surely be all of
the above.

Below is the picture that will be displayed should the
vet’s office ever feel compelled to call me.

In my defense, the stuffed animals were already sitting
there posed while I was making an appointment for Sadie
to get her kitten check-up when the idea sprung to mind.
It’s inexcusable though, and I hold my head in shame.

To make myself feel better, I will also post pictures of a live being. One of my favorites at that. A smiling baby can cure anything.

I know, bad title. However, that’s what we’ll have going on around here for the next few days, weeks, years…. I’m doing my best to keep my cool while Lily and Sadie get to know each other because I know that Lily has a hard time with social situations. When we brought Harvey home as a kitten years ago we tried to force the love between Harvey and Lily. Lily got so freaked out that we didn’t see her for what seemed like months, and it took even longer before Lily finally warmed up to Harvey. Even then the “adoration” between Lily and Harvey was mostly one-sided coming from Harvey’s end. Adoration in the form of belly-flopping from the top of a bookshelf onto an unsuspecting Lily who was sprawled out on her back on the floor. Or adoration in the form of a 2:00 a.m. wake-up call under our bed that caused a raucous that sounded like to 2 cats were being tortured. Or adoration in the form of little scabs all over Lily’s skin seemingly from either Harvey’s claws or teeth.

So now we’ve got a sweeter and female kitten who just wants Lily’s love in any form. It was very evident last night when Sadie perched a couple of feet away from Lily and kind of cowered to her with a few, soft mews escaping her lips. (The use of the term lips for cats is debatable because I actually don’t believe cats have lips. Mike differs in opinion. What do you think?) Lily responded with “hiss, growl, hiss, hiss, growl, hiss, long growl (lasting a minute or 2), and one final hiss”, but I think there was actual progress. Mike can’t seem to understand why Lily doesn’t just say to herself, “Oh, look! A baby kitten that’s so cute and cuddly. I’m going to love her and snuggle with her right now.” I had to explain to him about cat dynamics, and that Lily looks at Sadie as an evil foe who is impeding on her territory no matter how cute and small Sadie is. Lily also needs to establish herself as the alpha cat (if that’s possible with females). Plus, Lily isn’t like any normal cat. She’s very shy and nervous even after living with us for over 11 years.

Have a look at the progress for yourself. Sorry for the poor quality as these pictures were taken with my phone.

Last winter we had some major issues with keeping our house warm and the electric/gas bill low. The house was still new to us with numerous other projects to do, so we let the winterizing go by the wayside. Mike and I decided we would really focus on winterizing our house this winter, and I must say we’ve made quite a difference. Shrink-wrapping the windows, adding a new storm door to the front door, making sure all windows were properly shut and locked, adding more insulation to crawl spaces and around the basement, and adding light switch/outlet cover insulation have really been noticeable by our bodies and our wallets. We do still like to warm up by a wood-burning fire occasionally. As you can see, so does Lucy.

Going through pictures I realized I missed posting this picture of Violet wearing another Christmas dress she received as a gift. She wore it the same New Year’s Sunday that the girls wore their Christmas dresses. Can you tell we like to dress up around here?

Sorry about the test posts earlier (and then deleting, in case you missed them), but my sister-in-law alerted me to the fact that my blog feeds had not been updated since around Christmas (to those who have no idea what I’m talking about, then this probably doesn’t affect you…LOL). I had upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress (the blogging format I use here) around that time, and it apparently screwed something up. I was able to switch my feeds to feedburner and went through some blogs that I know link and here and saw that all is fine now. I hope I can rest easy now.

Having the kids home for a snow day was one thing. However, add illness and another day home from school and the whole weekend to the mix, and it’s just glorious. The constant chorus of coughing, sneezing, sniffling, and fussy baby would be music to anyone’s ears, huh?. The girls weren’t too disappointed though because they had this to do each day (look below). As you can see, Sadie does get a bit annoyed with the ever presence of the girls in her face, but most of the time she truly enjoys their company. Sadie is really making herself at home here with lots of hyper playtime and perchtime on the shoulder of the couch. We couldn’t have asked for a better kitten for our family.

Violet, on the other hand, hasn’t been having as great of a time. She’s been feeling pretty rotten with a constant fever requiring round the clock doses of Tylenol. Today she is finally feeling like herself again but can’t seem to figure out why the same cute voice isn’t coming from her lips anymore.