Life lately...

February was a really fun month for us.  Lisa got engaged and made plans to take her fiance, Clint home to meet my family (in Idaho).  Naturally, I didn't want to be left out of such an event, so Genni threw a fit until Brandon agreed that we should go (it was very important to Genni that we get to know Lisa's fiance).  I decided to make it a surprise and was it ever!  My dad picked us up and on our way to Millie's house, I texted her a picture of me trying on bridesmaid's dresses that I had taken the day before (I'm so sneaky).  We walked in and Gracie started screaming Genni's name.  Millie walked in with the intention of setting things straight for Grace, but then realized that my dad was in fact, holding Genni.  She said "what?" a few times, each time getting louder until she finally screamed, "WHAT?!" and saw me standing behind my dad and Genni.  We hugged several times, it was awesome.

We kept my being there a secret for a couple of days and when Lisa arrived on Friday night with Clint, we surprised her as well.  When they got to my mom's house, Millie insisted on showing Lisa a bridesmaid dress she liked and when she walked out, I walked out behind her and said "but this one is my favorite".  Once again, there was a lot of screaming and hugging...and it was also awesome.  So that was a lot of fun.  The weekend was spent doing A LOT of wedding stuff.  We tasted wedding cakes (this may come as a shock to many, but this is my personal favorite part of wedding planning), picked out bridesmaid's dresses, jewelry, shoes, announcements...it was busy, and I was so glad to be part of  it.  We love Clint and are so happy that he will be part of our family.  AND...it snowed while we were there!!!  Genni was a little confused by the snow at first, but she ended up having a lot of fun in it.  Warning: there a lot of pictures of this event.  But in my defense, she was SO cute in her little snow outfit.

The day after getting back from Idaho was Fat Tuesday!  After fighting major traffic, we finally made it to the parade.  And despite major exhaustion from travelling the day before, we had a great time.

I feel like Genevieve changes pretty much every day at this point.  This morning Brandon and I were watching her play and were both pointing out new developments she has made.  It's so exciting.  She is pretty much sitting up on her own now.  She tips over sometimes, but she just gets up on her hands and knees or rolls around until she's in a new position to play.  For the past couple of weeks, she has been getting on her hands and knees and rocking, like she's trying to take off.  She'll make an attempt once in awhile to move forward, but as soon as she picks up one of her hands, she crashes...until this morning.  For the first time, she moved her hand and knee forward and stayed up!  The really exciting thing was that Brandon was here to see it.  She isn't crawling yet, but she's getting closer every day.  We've made a couple of attempts at solid foods, but she's not totally interested in them yet and to be honest, neither am I.  It gets so messy and the diapers get smelly...so we're not in a huge hurry to bring that into our lives.

Whether he's talking or singing, she loves listening to her dad.

This was an especially rough day of teething.  She spent most of the day in the Bjorn, chewing on frozen pacifiers and teething toys.

The other day I left Genni playing on the floor in her room for about 2-3 minutes and I heard her screaming protests (she does this as a warning that crying is moments away).  This is how I found her...she's really excited about the new found freedom of rolling and scooting.

I've been trying to get her to attach to a "lovey" to help her put herself to sleep, but have been totally unsuccessful.  I didn't even realize the teddy bear was in her crib from earlier.  A few minutes after putting her down for her nap this morning, I went in to check on her and this is how I found her.

So sweet!