Catching UP

Hello everyone! Poor Deandra. She's grown up so much over the past seven months or so, and hasn't a blog post to show for it!


Here are some of her first big smiles. Once she figured it out, this grin became an almost permanent fixture on her face!

Found her toes!

Pretty six months smile!

Celebrating D's half birthday on October 4.

Cabbage Patch cheerleader for Halloween!

Playing in the leaves in the front yard.

Love the rollllls!!!!

Happiest baby EVER!

This brings us to present day. Deandra is so pleasant (though santa wasn't her favorite). She is practically crawling and enjoying real food very much! What a joy she has been. Sorry we haven't shared her with you more.

Heavier AND Lighter

Deandra's hair looked lighter today, and she is still packing on the pounds! For those of you who don't remember Enola getting chubby like Deandra is, yes she did:Enola - 6 weeks


We're ready for summer. Are you?

Like Mother, Like Daughter

In life jackets at Lutheran Lake

Four Weeks Old!

Deandra is doing well! As you can see, her cheeks are filling out nicely. She grunts and squeaks a lot, and likes to be held and walked around the house. Deandra is still slightly confused about day and night. She takes lovely, long, peaceful naps during the day, and seems to be either awake or grunting really loud at night. Hence, the cradle is now in the kitchen (where we can hear her when she really wakes up, but don't have to listen to her baby noises all night long)

Here are some other happenings in April:Enola enjoyed an Easter egg hunt at Bunk and Bap's house. Thankfully it stopped raining long enough to fill the basket!We got to spend lots of time with the cousins over the past couple of weekends. Here are Cole, Bode, Enola, and Deandra...the four GREAT grandkids!Enola keeps growing! She makes me laugh so many times a day. She has been singing along with the radio, "sneaking up" on me (she hunches her shoulders and bends her knees and walks up to people with this goofy smirk on her face), she's been "sharing" with Deandra (laying bows, books, socks, etc. on her belly) and giving lots and lots of kisses to her baby sister. Here she is watering the weeds in the driveway and tring on Daddy's church shoes. Thanks to those of you who came to visit and for all your well-wishes and prayers. We are slightly sleep deprived, but doing GREAT! a few hours of sleep is a small price to pay for so much love and joy in our house!

Deandra Lee Vandercar

Our new bundle of joy.

born at 9:40 am on 4/4/11

6 lbs 10 ounces

19.5 inches

BOILER UP!

We are so excited that shel and Eliza are home to visit for a while! Nana got the girls some snazzy Pudue outfits and we went to the Student Union for a photo shoot. As Shel said, "Pigtails AND bows AND hand holding AND smiling is asking a lot!" But the girls did great and made our day! READY? OK!

Also check out Emily's blog today for some cute pics!

Goggles, Teeth, Hair...

...the funniest things about this picture - not necessarily in that order!

Holidays

The Vanderkids came down to visit a few weeks before Christmas with Nana and Papa and helped me make cookies! Levi cut out a lot of trains!The house looked so festive with our beautiful tree from the tree farm. Enola did a good job leaving the ornaments on. She liked playing with her nativity, but lost Baby Jesus almost a week before Christmas. I found him just the other day under the oven.

Here we are (all three of us) in our special dresses ready to go to our Christmas Eve services. Enola is sporting a new outfit from Grandma and some cute pigtails. She is rockin' to her new MP3 player and sitting infront of the awesome toy box her daddy made for her for Christmas. Because Enola and Mommy are BFFs, we're predicting somewhat of a trying adjustment period come April and new baby. BUT Enola is showing many indications of being a great big sister. She loves Baby Peter, Cole, and Ellie, and, as you can see, takes care of her dolls so nicely. It will be a great adventure!

Let It Snow...She's Ready!

Enola got a new snow suit, boots, hat and mittens from her Nana and Papa. We got bundled up to go see the Living Nativity in Waymansville on Friday night. She was happier once we got there and saw the animals and had some cookies.

We woke up Saturday morning to a snow-covered forest. It's beautiful out here!

Her Own Thing

Side note: WHAT? Two posts in one day? A Saturday afternoon to myself is a rare thing!
On with the cute pictures....

Now that Enola has become entirely independent in her mobility, she is also developing independence in her activities. She enjoys helping me with chores and carrying things around the house. Today, she took the contents of the bread drawer into her bedroom and put them in the washing machine. Luckily, I found the bagels and honey wheat before I ran a load of laundry. Her toy camera, on the other hand, was not so lucky:

A few days ago I showed Enola how to cover her Bitty Baby with a blanket and feed her a bottle. After a few minutes of suspicious silence I went to her room to see what mischief she was up to this time. There sat my perfect angel:

Enola has a wonderful library, mostly thanks to you! However, lately she's been bringing me books from the big shelf in the dining room:

Today she also found my old US Synchronized Swimming Rules guide. She was trying out some of the moves! (I promise, I did no posing here...it is all her!)

Her pike:

Her ballet leg:

Yes, the extension needs some work, but if I recall correctly, that was always the criticism I got, too!

Up North

We went north last week to see Grandma Elser and got to visit with lots of family! First we stopped in Lafayette where Nana and Papa were online with Eliza, James and Shel. These bffs miss eachother! Then, it was up to Steph and Elden's where we got to spend time with lots of family! Enola is sometimes shy (with Elden, and men in general) but she attached right to Grandma....All weekend E would walk right up to her for a quick snuggle, and follow her around. :)

The girls in their snuggly pjs. This is one big pile of cute!

We had an ultrasound on Monday. Everything looked really good with no concerns. The below image is a 4-D Realtime picture. The baby was really moving around a lot and never was in a very good position for pictures.

This picture is of the baby's foot.

Check out the link below for a movie of Enola's first experience with processing a deer. She was surprisingly helpful according to her mother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck59c3gW0aw

Mums and Punkins

My Punkin with mums

Here are some fun fall shots from a few weeks ago. Enola got a new Bears shirt in time for football season. You can kind of see our nice new landscaping in this picture. It was taken BEFORE the deer started eating my mums.

A "Mum's" Punkin

Dave's design (my execution)...a portrait of Littlest Baby...did not win us any prizes or titles at this year's pumkin carving party. It was pretty close to being size-accurate! Cute or creepy? You pick.

Strawbaby

Enola was a strawberry for Halloween this year. She wore the hat for maybe three minutes at a time. She looked oh-so-cute, but by the time the Harvest Party at church actually started, she was pretty worn out, and this was the closest to a smile we could get. Sadly, I cannot take credit for making this costume.

Give me a hand...

Isn't this amazing and wonderful? Littlest Baby is now 14 weeks along (just finishing up the 1st trimester)...I can't wait to hold those little hands!

(not our baby's hands....this is an image from the Internet)

Miss Enola is growing fast, too! She's walking independently much more often now, and loves to "help" me unload the dishwasher. She gets to visit with little friends at the babysitters, and we read lots of books together at home. She is "talking" more than ever; mostly random babble, but she attemps words here and there. This week she's saying "baby," "bye-bye," and she tried "amen" tonight at dinner (she wanted to pray multiple times throughout the meal...kept folding her hands and expecting me to do the same).

Little Fuzzball

To announce my pregnancy to my students, I did our daily devotional reading from Psalms about being fearfully and wonderfully made, and formed carefully in our mothers' wombs. I also handed each kid a craft fuzz ball (you know the colored ones you glue to stuff?) because they were just the right size - about 1 cm in diameter. We held them in our hands, imagined being so small once, and marveled at the fact that God knew us and cared for us even then....even before then. Then I exaplined to the students that my newest baby was just that size. :)

Well, we went to the doctor a couple weeks ago Thursday, and being about 9 weeks along, our little Fuzzball was about 2 cm big and due on April 6. Everything looks great! We're now at 11 weeks and everything is still going well.

Catching Up

In the next few posts, I'll try to recap our summer. We had some good times! We spent lots of time with family, and we enjoyed the lake almost daily! Enola just kept on growing and was bigger everytime I turned around.

Our summer began with a couple busy weeks at home. We had a fun Youth outing and VBS. After that, Enola and I headed to PA to see my mom through her last few days of school. Enola got to bond with the PA fam:
The Adamses gave her an early birthday gift of a baby doll. Enola knew what to do right away; she immediately hugged, kissed and patted her baby (sure there was some prompting, but it didn't take much). I believe in intuition! E also learned to climb a step at Gma and Gpa's house because we don't have ANY at home. It is now one of her favorite pasttimes.

This brings us to July. More on that later.