Lankford Love

Look who's sitting up all by herself! (Though usually a Boppy is there ...just in case.) This is a toy that I got Lil at a garage sale today. $5! Score! And look at her eating solids and (sorta) drinking from a sippy cup! She loves her sippy cup!

I love being a stay at home mom! I feel so blessed that I get to stay at home with sweet Lilleigh. I've been asked many times by friends what Lilleigh and I do all day. I think many people get the impression that being a stay at home moms means I am either sitting at home drinking mojitos each day or standing in my kitchen twiddling my thumbs. Let me assure you that neither are true. While I am incredibly thankful to be able to stay home, being a stay at home mom is neither a walk in the park or a bore. It's a busy job! We have fun things scheduled during the week, and during Lilleigh's naps, I try to keep up with cooking, laundry, and cleaning, which to be honest isn't always possible. But my husband doesn't complain! Oh and I blog too! :) When Lilleigh is awake, we play, sing songs, read books, change diapers, eat, go on walks (when it's not too hot), and just have fun! I love her active time! I think many of the people who picture a stay at home mom havi...

I have to brag on my husband here. Brendon is an AMAZING piano player. He can play pretty much anything you put in front of him. In the winter, he'll play Christmas music. Lately he's taken to playing hymns. But what I love the most is when he plays by ear and makes up tunes as he goes. And because he's also an awesome daddy, he often puts Lilleigh on his lap and plays the piano with her. Lilleigh loves it and even tries to play the piano herself. This one great quality that I hope she gets from her daddy!

I've held off on introductions long enough. Without further ado... This is "Tail Feathers" aka the still nameless hen. She needs a name desperately. I just haven't had a name that's popped out at me. Any ideas? A little about "Tail Feathers"... She's been termed this temporary (I hope) nickname because she was the only Rhode Island Red that we got who still had all of her tail feathers. This is probably because she can fend for herself. She isn't fiesty, like Queeny who we'll get to later, but there is no doubt that she's second in command (behind Queeny, of course). She's also pretty daring. This hen used to walk up to Sammy and peck her in the nose. Then Sammy showed her she isn't one to be messed with. This is Henrietta. She got this name because there's a children's book I love called Henry the Dog with No Tail . Well, this is Henrietta, the hen with no tail feathers. When we got her, her tail feathers had a...

Just another evening hanging out in the backyard with the chickens! The chickens were becoming interested in my dinner, so I gave them a few spaghetti noodles. And guess what. They like them. A lot. Sooo I gave them more. So it's spaghetti noodles that they are pecking off the ground. Queeny was getting kinda territorial over the noodles though. She nipped Henrietta, the hen without tails feathers, in the butt, as you'll see on this video.

And I just realized that I never posted a picture of the coop complete. Shame on me! Bad, blogger! Here it is... The finished coop. Brendon, his dad, and Lilleigh in front of their finished creation. The chicken coop! Isn't it gorgeous? When they said they were building a chicken coop, I wasn't expecting it to look like this! My hubby and father-in-law did an awesome job! They are fighting it now, but they will be building sweet Lil a play house in the future! Once she can look at them with those big blue eyes and ask herself, they won't be able to say no! ;) And some chicken photos... Queeny... This was before the other three - "the girls" - came along. And here are "the girls."

This past weekend Brendon's mom (Val) came into town. She was so excited to come up to see Lil and also to celebrate Brendon's birthday, which was last weekend. Val watched Lil for us while we saw Harry Potter! Uh-mazing. I'm sad that it's over. While Harry Potter is in no way a direct correlation to the Gospel, I do think J.K. Rowling was intentional about the ending. I've heard she's a Christian, and judging by the end of the series, I don't doubt it. (The books are even better though - read them! Or at least get the audio books to listen to!) It's going to be hard to top this series. When we got home from the movie, Lilleigh was actually sorta drinking from a bottle! She wasn't sucking on it, but she was kinda gnawing on it and drinking from it - more like you would with a sippy cup. Val was walking around with her, singing to her... distracting her, anything to make it seem less like a feeding and more like something fun. Ha. But Lil drank ...

Image from Keeper of the Home This question has been one I've been asking since before we had kids. I first began thinking about this when I picked up the book A Shot in the Dark , which discusses the possible link between the "P" (Pertussis) in the DPT vaccine and SIDS as well as other neurological issues. Thankfully, the P component has been altered, and now the vaccine is DTaP. (So, moms, breathe a sigh of relief.) Still, this has been an issue heavy on my heart. There's no easy solution to it. So I'll just tell you right now that I'm not going to give you a solution. My husband and I have come up with a solution that we think works for our family at this point in life, but I'm not going to share that with you. I'm sorry. I was anxious during pregnancy about vaccines and unsure what we would do for Lilleigh. After reading that book, I was sure I would not vaccinate. But then I talked to my uncle, who was a pediatrician, about all this, and...

Another update for ya! Today is Brendon's 27th birthday!  Happy birthday babe! From the inside Brendon trapped me. Haha! Until it's finished, this is the last update!

Here's some of their progress. It should be finished today, and hopefully chickens will be inhabiting it later this week! Larry and Brendon nailing on the roof. Progress as of last night. And as I type this, the door is actually on the coop, see on the left hand side where there is a tall narrow space. And they are also putting up the cedar siding. So I guess I need to get to taking more photos... And did I mention that it's Brendon's 27th birthday?? Well it is! We had pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast. The pancakes had a candle in them of course! Photo of that is also to come.

Brendon and his dad, Larry, have started progress on the chicken coop! Hopefully it will be finished this weekend and ready for chickens! Sorta a "before" shot Measuring Cutting chicken wire Talking about next steps Taking a break Lil and I supervising Progress as of yesterday evening

Lil turned 5 months earlier this week! Lil at 5 months... She's been rolling a lot more, but avoids the tummy. The other day I laid her on her tummy to play with her toys on her activity mat. I turned around to send an email, and when I turned back, she was on her back! I missed it! Her first unassisted roll! More hair! Yea, Lil! She loves pulling her feet to her mouth and chewing on them. She enjoys playing in her exersaucer and sitting in her Bumbo seat. Drooling A LOT! I'm beginning to wonder if those teeth of hers will ever come in.  She now chews on Sophie the Giraffe and her Wubbanubs! I'm hopefully about the bottle, but still no luck. We swim! And she's in swimming lessons! More on that later. We took her to her 5 month well-baby check-up today. We have a new pediatrician that we went to today and liked! He's much more on our same page ...whereas the other one was just okay. So that's a good thing! She's now 26" and 15lbs 11oz... 83rd ...

If you missed it, see the story of how we met here . As it turns out Brendon had just transferred to my high school from a private school. He was good friends with a lot of the people I hung out with already. So we began hanging out a lot in group settings and quickly became good friends. Here we are at Young Life camp (Windy Gap). It was western night, which sorta explains the drawn on goatee. Throughout the next two and half years of high school, he pursued me. And of course, I was always dating someone else. Senior year he asked me to both homecoming and prom, and since my boyfriend at the time was in college, I gladly accepted! I thought it would be fun to go to prom with a good friend. Now I think it's fun that I went with my future husband! But not to jump ahead. Prom! Check out Brendon's shaggy hair and my chubby cheeks! And don't mind the fact that I took a picture of these pictures in order to share them with you... finding the DVD they're on and...