Marie's First Christmas

We spent Christmas up in Wasilla since Caitlin was getting married the next day. Caitlin's wedding was the main reason we were going. Christmas was just in the middle of it all. Marie didn't mind.

She didn't quite get the concept of opening presents, and needed some help. Every now and then she did grab hold of the wrapping paper.

Bill thought she was the best present of all, and put a bow on her.

Of course, she spent lots of quality with her Uncle Pete and Aunt Tammie.

Bulk Blogging

Okay, so I never thought I would be one of those bulk bloggers, but here I go!


Yoda is doing so much better. We stopped his pain medicine last week and he seems to be doing fine after that. We're weaning down his steroids to everyother day for the next 2 or 3 weeks. His follow-up appointment with the vet was good. The vet was glad that his mobility is better, and that he wants to see him in 6 months. Bill made this fancy box to put Yoda's food and water dishes on, that way Yoda doesn't have to bend down so much to eat and drink. We had to have one with a lip on it or the cat would knock over his water and get water all over the floor. We learned that the hard way several mornings! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for Yoda.

New uses for old things. I got my moby out after it had been packed and folded for a couple of months. This is much more comfortable on my back than the more popular front/back baby packs that you usually see. And Marie is not going anywhere in this. She is so snug up to me. I trusted it so much that I tucked her arms in and got stuff in and out of the oven with her hanging right over the open oven door!

An old co-worker of mine, Gina, made this dress for Marie. It's made out of the terry towel material and it is sooooooooooooo soft! I thought Marie looked pretty cute in it too.

Marie caught her dad under the mistletoe one night and made him kiss her. Actually, she loves the bell at the bottom. Since Bill is the more vertically adept one of us, he puts Marie up there a lot to play.

This santa hat goes with a dress that Marie has, but I thought it would look wierd with a dress. Me and Bill have hats too, so now we can be a little family of Daddy Santa, Mamma elf, and baby Santa.

Thanksgiving

The church here in Juneau all get together for a big Thanksgiving dinner. I signed up to bring 2 things, and chose to make things that I had never made before. It was a little risky, I know. But thanks to Paula Dean and her culinary wonders, the sweet potato biscuits turned out wonderful. And the dressing wasn't too shabby. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our camera to the actual dinner. All we have are the preparations leading up to it.

Poor Yoda

Yesterday morning, Yoda was outside doing, well, you know and on his way inside began yelping for what seemed like no reason. After watching him on and off throughout the day and night, he seemed to be suffering from pain in his back, so I took him to the vet today. we found out that he has a herniated disk in his back and the vet suggested two courses of action. 1. steroids and pain meds then wait it out to see if he gets better. 2. get surgery, but juneau doesn't have any pet surgeons, so we would have to send him off for at least a week. we went with the first just to see if the medication will help him. i know it may sound silly, but would you pray with us for yoda, he is a part of our family. he is such a good dog and has brought a lot of joy to us. not to mention he is the only one who experienced the ride to alaska with me. well, i gotta go now, but we will keep you posted.
bill

6 Months Old

This was just the beginning.

Marie turned 6 months old yesterday. It seems like everything about her has changed in that time. But she is still the sweetest baby ever. God has blessed us with a beautiful baby.

We enjoy all the smiles she gives us.

And we also enjoy the perceptiveness and curiousness she has too.

WE LOVE THIS LITTLE BABY!!!

It's Cold Outside!

Bill took Marie with him when he did some things over in the church building and when he went to visit Geoffrey at the school down the street. Bill didn't want to take the stroller, so he put Marie in the carrier around him and then buttoned his coat around them both. It had just snowed a couple of inches, and I wanted to make sure Marie stayed warm. Bill assured me that she stayed nice and toasty.

2 Babies!!!

This past Friday night we had the opportunity to babysit Elijah while his parents went to a movie. Eli is about 6 weeks younger than Marie. We had so much fun! They were both really good and played well with each other.


I think Bill could definitely handle twins if we ever had any - he's a natural!

Making Friends

In the past couple of weeks, Marie has really started to notice our cat, Pippin. And Pippin has started paying more attention to Marie. Pippin has even let Marie pet him. She will hold out her hand, Pippin will sniff her fingers, and then he will rub his face across her hand. She absolutely loves it and squeals with delight! She is going to be a cat lover for sure!

New Clothes

Last Sunday, I decided it was time to get out the next size up in clothes for Marie. She was getting too long in the legs for most of her outfits/pants. It was like shopping from home! Here are some of her new clothes she wore last week.

This is the outfit she wore last Sunday.


The overalls have a pretty jacket that matches them.


I wasn't sure about this outfit at first. Too many strawberries almost looked like a strawberry explosion. But once it was on her, it became one of my favorites.

Pictures from Out the Road blog

The sun was about to set here. This is absolutely beautiful!


These are creepy hangy things from the trees. The picture is not as scary as it actually was.


Notice the mountains in the distance. They are all covered with snow.



This is officially the end of the road. 40 miles and we were done!

Out the Road

In Juneau, there is not a lot of road. Which is a good thing - we use drastically less gas than we used to. We went to the end of the road several days ago. The people here call it going "out the road". We've been told that you can sometimes see whales there in November before Thanksgiving. So we embarked on our journey on a "Sun-day". We've been looking forward to seeing some animals since we've been here, but we did not see any whales or bears or deer. We did see a bunch of sea lions though. The drive was beautiful. The sun was just about to go down, so the light seemed a little orange. I've tried several times to upload some pictures, but something isn't working. I'll try again later.
-Amanda

Halloween, Football, and Voting

On Halloween there was a harvest festival at the church annex. The harvest festival Bill and I had gone to up in Wasilla had been without costumes. But we found out shortly before the one here that most people, children and adults, dress up in non-scary costumes. We scrambled to find costumes and finally came up with some from our own clothes. Bill is a cowboy, of course. And the best thing I could come up with was getting my old nursing uniforms out and dressing up as a nurse (I have actually been missing my job a lot lately so this was a treat for me!).

Last year when the Finley's thought we were having a boy, they bought this pirate costume for our baby. It has been in my gift box since then. So when Marie needed a costume for the harvest festival, I knew just where to go. I know that traditionally girls are not pirates. But I must say that, for a girl, Marie makes a very good pirate.

Saturday rolled around, and there's no guess as to what we were doing in the Williams house - watching Georgia Football!!! Unfortunately, Georgia was doing so badly that it really wasn't much of a game. Marie thought so too. She got tired of watching them make mistake after mistake, so she just went to sleep.

Voting day was a family experience. Marie did fall asleep on the way there, but we went on anyway.

Even though Marie was asleep, I cast her ballot for her. She had told me previously who she wanted to vote for. I was sure to get her an 'I voted Today!' sticker for her to show everybody.

It's a Sun-day

When someone says 'Sunday' in Juneau, it does not necessarily mean the first day of the week. Often it means that it is sunny outside: Sun-day. And I understand that Sun-days do not come around much at this point of the year. So today we took the opportunity to spend the afternoon outside. We went to the Mendenhall glacier in hopes of possibly seeing a bear. But we were out of luck. We did have a nice walk around the grounds though.


This is Bill preparing to go. He's wearing his cowboy hat, flannel jacket (it was so warm he almost went in short-sleeves but I convinced him otherwise and it was a good thing because the temperature dropped about 10 degrees while we were out), and the rain boots in case we got into some muddy places.

This is a view of the glacier from one of the upper trails. Notice the little icebergs in the lake.

Marie stayed in her stroller the whole time. She was constantly looking around at all the trees and sky.

We met a family on the trail and the husband graciously took our picture. Notice the sky - there is not a cloud in it!!!

We had a wonderful Sun-day.

-Amanda

Future Gymnist

While discussing the future for our little girl, Amanda and I have noticed a theme in some of Marie's curious behaviors. In this picture, we see that she is practicing her acceptance of gold medals, while closing her eyes in prayer of thanks.
Here we have Marie developing her balance skills and core muscles for the balance beam. She will be jazzercising that baby chub right off with these great leg lifts. It seems that she can hold this pose for hours:)

And finally, we have Marie stretching for floor routines, you never know when you might pull a hamstring doing cartwheels, round-offs, flips and such.

It will only take 15 years or so before olympic gold will be coming her way. Yep, no doubt about it. Our baby will be world class material in the gymnist arena.

Bill and Amanda

Snow and Sleep

When I went outside late Friday night to take Yoda out, I opened the door to this! I knew the snow was coming but I did not know it would be here this soon. It was pretty, but thankfully, it has already melted.
Amanda


And when we went in to get Marie up this Monday morning, we walked in to see this! Marie sleeping on her stomach. I have been waiting to see how long it would take her to turn over in the bed by herself. Well, looks like a little over five months. Our baby is getting to be a big girl. Hopefully, she won't grow up too fast. It already seems like so much has changed.
Bill

5 months and swimming

This is my (Amanda) first blog. It's taken awhile, but now that I've sorta figured this thing out I will try to post semi-frequently.
The biggest thing in our life right now is Marie - new things she does, cute moments, etc . . . Bill and I are on a quest to find potential future boyfriends. Watch out Paden boys! Right now she's been hanging out with boys her own age. Her favorite is Elijah. In fact, they went on their first 'date' last Thursday. Of course, it was chaperoned by both sets of parents. They took a swim at the Juneau public pool. Elijah played hard-to-get while Marie stared at the kite-looking things on the ceiling. They enjoyed their first date so much that they repeated it last night.


Marie turned 5 months old this week. When we first moved to Juneau, she had somewhat of a hard time adjusting. But now she's back to her old self.

Marie made a new friend at her 5 month photo shoot this week. This is Marie with Bernard the bear. Jake and Kristina picked out Bernard while I was still pregnant with Marie. But they knew he would be a great friend.

One in a million

Well, we finally got a blog. I am writing this first one while amanda feeds marie. i am sure this is going to be an interesting venture. i guess these blogs are for just letting everyone know what is going on in life and how we are doing. we just moved down to juneau last month, and it has been a handfull getting settled and i think we still have a long way to go, but we are up for it and God has seen us through this far and i don't think He is going anywhere. I will let amanda do some introducing on her part for the next blog. hope you enjoy joining us for the journey which is our life.

Bill