Daigle Family Reunion

Here's a slew of posts about our recent family gatherings! We've been busy the last few months seeing family--what a wonderful opportunity for Ali to get to meet everyone! (And there are a lot of "everyones" to meet!!)

Here are some pics from our recent Daigle family reunion. It was hosted at Aunt Elaine's house, and as you can see, there was plenty of room for everyone to spread out and have fun. Enjoy!

Grab Yourself Some Popcorn

...'cause it's movie time!

To lead off, let's take a look at Ali in her indoor-friendly wagon. A big thanks to G-Mommy for the ingenuity for putting this thing together! Not only does it entertain the munchkin for 10-15 minutes at a time, it gives us a good little workout in the meantime as well.


For the feature presentation, here is a series of videos we'll call "Alex and the snake." That's right. Snake. As in, there was a huge rat snake curled up on our window ledge yesterday when we got home from the family reunion (more on that in the next post!).

 While we respected the fact that it was simply snoozing on the refreshing coolness of the shaded bricks, we didn't really want it to stick around and think that it could seek the even more refreshing coolness of our indoor AC. Something had to be done, and we aren't a family that kills animals if we have any choice in the matter. So that brings us to the video saga of the snake catch-and-release. Enjoy!






'Tis true. Never a dull moment in the Chausovsky household.

Happy 4th of July!

First things first (I know why you all come here, and it ain't for me blathering on about our lives...):

Happy 4th of July from Mommy's Little Sparkler!

 

Okay! Now that we've gotten the requisite cuteness out of the way, onto the blathering part. We had a WONDERFUL 4th of July. In fact, it was exactly the blissfully perfect kind of day I imagined a year ago, when baby girl was still just kicking from the inside to the big booms of the fireworks. I imagined a fun-filled day spent filled with little baby giggles and family fun, and that's just what we had. We met up with some new friends at the lake by our house. Ali got in her fill of people watching and continued with her water-loving ways as she kicked and splashed (and attempted to eat rocks) around the lake. We have also discovered that she LOVES jumping in the water and "swimming" back and forth between me and Alex. We're so happy that she loves the water as much as we do! After she went to bed for the night, Alex and I grilled dinner on the back porch and watched the sun set, and then headed to our front porch, from the comfort of which we were able to watch the city fireworks show. It was a great show, and the best part was that Ali slept right through all the booms! Hooray! All in all a truly perfect day. What a charmed life I lead.

The other magnificent thing that happened this weekend is that Alex finally came home from his 2-week European business trip! The poor guy drove 3,000 miles in 10 days, across 5 countries. While he was driving across Europe, I was here figuring out the ins and outs of temporary single-parenthood. Luckily I picked it up pretty quickly and was soon operating with an efficiency I never knew I had in me! Even more luckily, G-Mommy and Granddaddy came in for the weekend, and G-Mommy stayed another three days, keeping Ali home from school and generally having a big ol' time. Ali was thrilled to have so much time to hang out with her grandparents . . . I even experienced the first time she turned away from me when I tried to pick her up out of their arms. Ouch. Even though that stung a bit, it warms my heart in an amazing way to know that she already has such a connection with them. 

I love this picture!

 

 Check out this big girl!

Even Uncle Eugene stopped by to visit us for a bit, getting to experience the fun of pool time and dinner time with Ali. 

These two always have fun together.

 

 

And while it was admittedly a bit nice to have some honest-to-God alone time during these last two weeks, it was even nicer to finally have Alex home!! He and Ali have been giddy with each other the last three days--those two are quite the pair.

So that's it in our little corner of the world. Our baby is awesome, loves the water, and sleeps through fireworks (even though Alex was about the call the cops on the celebrators if she had made so much as a peep). My husband is home from his trek across Europe. Our little family is happy. And that's all that matters.

I hope this Independence Day found you all with such simple smiles on your lips.

Happy 4th.

Bliss

We miss you, Daddy.

Always Playing Ketchup

When I was little, I used to think that when people said something like, "I need to catch up on my work," it involved dumping a bunch of the delicious red dipping sauce onto their papers, the ultimate Take That! to the responsibilities of the adult world. It wasn't until later I realized catch up =/= ketchup, but the humor of the mistake has stayed with me to this day, so that even now, when I think about all the things I need to catch up on (like blogging for our poor, neglected readers), for a split second I think about playing ketchup, and the kid inside me smiles.

I believe the last post was a bit of a teaser about our wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Sorry about leaving y'all hanging like that. But life doesn't slow down to wait for you to ketchup. Jobs get busier, travel comes around again, family gets visited, and somewhere in the middle of all that are the multitude of chores that crowd our days . . . and somewhere in the middle of all THAT we have to find the time to raise a baby, spend time together as a family, and reconnect in our marriage.

But now, right this moment, the laundry is done, the dishes are clean, the baby (and the husband) are napping . . . time to ketchup.

1. The lake. It was awesome. If I wasn't already excited enough about going out on a boat with our friends, when we got there I heard "tubing" mentioned and I about flipped my lid. Tubing, for those of you not raised near a lake, is where you plop yourself into a tube connected to a boat by a long rope, and then the boat pulls you around the lake at high speeds until you either give up and let go or are flung off. Awe.SOME. We don't have any pictures of that because we were all too busy laughing our brains out. But we do have a picture of this. Fresh air + the steady white noise of a boat engine = nap time for Ali.

2. Now that we have settled into the full heat of a Texas summer, we are spending every opportunity we get to stay cool in water. Thank goodness our little bear seems to really enjoy swimming! Not only have we gone to our neighborhood pool, but there's a sprinkler park close by, as well.

We even got a small pool for our own back yard!

You know when it's time to get out of the water? When you start seeing piggies turn into prunes.

3. Since we're spending so much time outside, we're working on Ali wearing her sunglasses (rather than ripping them right off her face and sticking them in her mouth like she is wont to do). It's a work in progress.

4. Now that she's mobile, baby girl is really starting to enjoy crawling into, under, over, around, and through things. We have had a great time building forts with our couch cushions and chasing each other through them.

5. That's right. I said crawling. As in, full-blown, hands and knees crawling. As in . . .

As in . . . (Yeah, it's long. But adorable. Deal.)


6. Oh how I wish there were sound with this picture. Ali only sometimes tolerates the tosses right now . . . but Dad has the best luck with them, and when we catch her at just the right time, the laughter that bursts forth is the most incredible, wonderful sound EVER.

 7. Last weekend we traveled to Dallas to celebrate G-Mommy and Granddaddy's 30th wedding anniversary!! Congratulations to them--what an incredible, wonderful milestone! It's a good thing Ali is such an easy-going baby . . . we were in Dallas literally less than 48 hours, and had nearly every waking minute packed with visiting people. Not only did we get to spend some time in G-Mommy and Granddaddy's pool (we need those pictures, Zeydie!), but on Sunday morning we had a delightful breakfast with three of Ali's greats. Here she is teaching Great-Grandma Thorn how to clap.

Here's the whole gang . . .

Just one of  the girls!

Here she is teaching them all how to clap. She's such a slave driver.

8. Ali currently has four teeth on bottom and is breaking her top two middle teeth. I know you all secretly wanted to know that.

9. On Tuesday Ali turned NINE MONTHS OLD. She has officially been an outside baby for longer than she was an inside baby. We celebrated by taking her in for her 9-month checkup, where she given a "perfect! wonderful!" bill of health. She is 28" long and 17 lbs, 11oz.--long and skinny. I keep telling her to enjoy! Here are a couple of shots of our 9-month-old (notice in the first one how her left leg is lifted? Yeah. She doesn't like how the grass feels on that leg, so she keeps it in the air. It's hilarious!)

10. And last but CERTAINLY not least, today we celebrated Alex's first Father's Day (well, first one with an outside baby)! Here are the proud papa and his baby girl. We love you, Daddy. Thanks for being such a great Dad.

Whew! So there you have it. All caught up. Just in time for the beginning of another busy, busy week. I hope this finds you all well and not having to play ketchup too much.