it's that season.

It's volleyball season. 
In no time at all, it is volleyball season again around here.
While Todd coaches volleyball both fall and spring, the fall is definitely his busiest time of year. 
But he loves coaching.  And I'm grateful that he coaches a sport I love.  And that it is a sport with constant movement and points scored to keep Quinn entertained. :)

Last night was the first home game of the season and we were ready to go and cheer daddy and the girls on.

Each volleyball season (fall and spring) Quinn is at a very different stage.  She is at a good one right now.  She was great and entertained the entire game AND mommy was actually able to watch. :)

Go Lady Knights!

When she wasn't cheering,  she was reading books.

A little mommy and quinn time. :)

Quinn cheered for everyone.
A little video clip for you.

Seriously, how cute is this little girl? :)

She smiles for the camera now!  YEA!!!

 

 

The girls won!  They played great, looked awesome on the court...with much thanks to their amazing coach.  Of course I didn't get to capture a picture of Quinn and her Daddy.  Sorry Daddy.  Next time. :)  Many more games to come for us.

on the move.

It's clearly no secret now that my mission lately has been to make our home videos into videos we will love, enjoy and treasure (and watch more) for years and years to come.

Here is a little evolution of our little Quinny on the move.
Turn up the volume.  Enjoy.

 



little hoosier.

It's the everyday moments that are the ones to remember.

Just a typical evening at our home.
Our little Hoosier is so proud of herself. 
My favorite -when she claps for herself.  love.



This little video is dedicated to Quinny's Grandpa D. :)

Make sure to check out her squeals and giggles in our "Ordinary Day" video.
Happy Weekend!

ordinary day.

We love our new yard.  We are outside A LOT more.
Turn up the volume and be prepared to smile at this cutie.
Just an ordinary day.

 



eighteen months.

 

Yes, one and a half already.  She has even more so officially fulfilled the run everywhere, climb everything mantra of a little toddler.  As she so greatly demonstrates below.

The slide is a favorite at the park for sure. 

Quinn LOVES being around other kids, her friends.  I love that she is starting to develop little friendships.  It is so fun to watch her interact with others.  From the time she was tiny I could tell that our girl was a good listener, and I think this (and hope this) will always being one of her strongest qualities.  It will make you such a good friend one day, my sweet girl.  This makes me so proud of you already.  Friendship is so important.  Listening is so important (I hope you can teach me to be a better listener.)

She is very much still, what I consider to be, a very patient girl.  The only time she seems impatient is in regards to something fun (who can blame her :))  As she so delicately demonstrates here...

I am so experiencing the understanding of the "other side" of how children act differently for their parents.  I say this from my teaching experience, and now I see how Quinn's impatience is really shown mostly and only for me. (not really for daddy)  Lovely.  But I'm glad for that too.

She is always a talker, a babbler, but more real words make their way out each day.  She is starting to repeat more and more of what we say, attempting to.  Her favorite animal sounds to make are a kitty and a snake.  She identifies 10 parts of her body consistently.  Ears were the first she learned.  She will do all of the motions for itsy bitsy spider, although it looks like she is a monkey when the spider climbs the water spout and it is adorable. :)

She is rather picky on the songs I sing her these days.  My choices are limited or she will give me her furrowed brow scowl.  Itsy bitsy spider, Katy Perry's Firework, Adele's Rumour Has It, and every once in a while I can squeeze in a Someone like You or even a Wheels on the bus.  If I get a night like last night (that doesn't come to often, but I cherish it) of rocking her to sleep after she startles in the middle of the night, she lets me sing some Cyndi Lauper -time after time and a little Journey.

Without a clip, her hair moves into her face and she pushes it away, but I can't bear to cut it at all.

She has always been a cautious and self-motivated little girl.  How do we know this?  Well she does everything when she KNOWS she can do it - Not when I try to get her to, or try to practice with her, she has none of it.  Then one day she will just do it on her own.  I love this about her, and it makes me take a deep sigh of relief that hopefully this instilled in her will travel with her through her teenage years and she remains strong to make her own choices rather than follow.  She was never a teetering walker, she just hopped up and started confidently walking, same with going down the stairs backwards, climbing safely off the furniture.  I quite honestly say, she chose when it was right to do these things and only does them when she know she can 100%.  (a plus to all of this - she has never really had any tumbles to the ground or bumps to the head)

Quinn is definitely starting to imitate behaviors.  If you know me well, well then you know I am not a spend lots of time on the phone type of person.  It doesn't take much though, and she has started picking up gestures, pitches in talking, pacing around, tilting her head, and she is imitating my behavior.

She does this when she gets to pretend to play on the computer or writing on a notepad as well.  It's funny.

Sleep: 7:45/8pm to 8am - and she is in the middle of transitioning from two naps to one, it's a transition for both of us for sure.  Some days it's one, some days its two.

Eat: She is a pretty good eater, yet goes through some picky phases. Favorites: still zucchini, watermelon (the only thing I really craved when I was pregnant), cheese, applesauce, yogurt, potatoes. Dislikes: carrots, sweet potatoes (never liked either of these).

Size: 21.5 pounds - 32 inches. Still wears mostly 12 month clothes. Thank goodness we can pull off more styles for a girl, her pants/leggings are too short but look cute as capris :) The waist is too big on the next size up. She is starting to wear some 18 month outfits. More 18 month tops and jammies, but 12 month skirts/shorts/pants because of her little waist.

Finally, she is loving our new home!  Her room was the first big task on our to-do list.  I still have a few things to hang on the wall and then we will have our first official room reveal posted.  It turned out so perfect, I am quite in love with the nursery.

One and a half years gone by.
So excited for all the new things in store ahead.
I watched this morning as a few neighborhood kids boarded the bus this morning on the corner at 7:50am headed off for their first day of school.  I'm glad some new things aren't quite here yet.  But we will be excited when we get there.
I am grateful as ever that I have this time with her at home and all the things we get to do together - we are already signed up for a music & movement class starting next week (it's free!!) thanks to the recommendation of Kristin. :)

our dream home.

Moving to a brand new home is fun.
The task of moving is not so much fun.
But we tried along the way to make sure some fun was had, even in between the continuous tiresome work. :)  Because moving to a brand new home is a big event and we definitely want it to be memorable.

Here is a little taste of our new dream home.
A very rough floorplan (not to scale) just to give you a little idea.
The first floor:

The second floor:

One of the many things I have fallen in love with about our new home... our view, the peaceful setting, the feeling of being in the country but also having the benefit of neighbors nearby.  I really would dream about a "grow up on the farm" kind of life for Quinn, well we aren't farmers, but this gives us at least a little taste.  We will have to work on a garden.  Unfortunately, we can not fit a couple horses :)
Not having backyard neighbors was not something on our "must-have" list, but now that we have it, it is one of the things we are really enjoying, and this gorgeous countryside that goes on and on.

This view is from the back of our house.

love.

Checking out the neighborhood...

...and having a little fun too :)

slowing down. settling in.

Quinn is helping out around the new house. :) No worries, we really don't have our little Cinderelly working hard over here. Let's examine... jammies still on, a tutu, a drink in hand... who wouldn't want to clean up this way?

I love this picture for so many reasons. This jump between 17 and 18 months has been huge. Her personality keeps shining. I feel like she does at least 5 new things every day. More on this and her turn to a 1 1/2 year old to come later.

Progress is being made. The chaos is starting to subside. We are forcing ourselves to take it slow and make sure we don't get lost in the house projects and forget our cherished family time. As we settle into our new home, we need to venture out and get settled into our new town and community as well. Thankfully we have several good friends all within a few miles who can help us out. We are grateful for that. We have met some of our neighbors already who have been so gracious and kind. Each time we leave, Quinn and I stalk the neighborhood on the way out to find young families and little toddlers outside playing who may make for great little playmates (and school mates one day). I think some strategic walks will be happening soon so we can bump into and meet some more of our neighbors. I'm not gentle about this am I? :)

Each day we fall more in love with our new home.

home sweet home.

It has been an unbelievably busy two weeks! We moved twice basically. The process of moving out of our townhouse was...tiring, crazy, stressful. But once that part was over it was a huge relief. It was the only part that had a real deadline, as our wonderful tenants were moving in August 1st. We moved out of our home the end of July and moved our things all into a great climate-controlled storage and the rest at Grandma Ginny's. We had way more stuff than either of us had thought, so more than we planned ended up at Grandma Ginny's. ;) We also stayed at Grandma Ginny's for 8 days in the in-between stage.

We closed on the new house on August 2nd, started getting a few things cleaned up and done around here and then moved in on the 5th. And boy was that move a million times better. I have a problem asking for help sometimes (especially since we often rely on our friends more than typical with much of our family out of town) but I'm learning to get over that. We lined up a big group of amazing people for our 2nd move and it was phenomenal - one trip, one and half hours to load, one hour to unload, moving on and off the trucks was done by noon - amazing!

Also, a big difference in the moving factor...a toddler. I feel like I can only get done about 1/4 of the things I could have before in a day (now that we have our little run all over the house, giggling, climbing, silly little toddler :). So we had to change our mindsets a little bit and our expectations of what we can get done at the new house. It will be a very gradual process. I totally intended on having Quinn's room complete and all of our window treatments up before we moved in - nope. Todd and I are both "like to get things done and settled people" but we are becoming much more easygoing about taking our time.
So we are in our new home!! We love it, we are so glad to be in our forever home. We can't believe we are here. It is a beautiful house, and we are so excited to turn it into a home. Be ready for tons of posts as I will be doing room transformations and projects. Quinn will serve as your tour guide.

Our Thank Yous are huge and never-ending as we have been blessed with so much help. Between lining up people to help move and many days of needing someone to watch Quinn, we were overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of our great family and friends.

Many, Many thanks for helping to pack and move - my mom and dad, Steve, Jeremy, Jill, John, Ron B., the entire Hoerner family, and Ryan.

Many thanks for all the cleaning and prep of the new house - Genny, Derek, and Laurie.

Many thanks for collecting lots of boxes for us - Ron, and my mom and dad.

A big thank you to those who let us borrow trucks and trailers - Uncle Tim, the Scholl family, Ron B., the Hoerner family.

To those who cuddled and played with our Quinn :) - Great Grandma Ginny, Emily, Chuck and Susan, Meghan.

And a HUGE thank you to Grandma Ginny for taking us in to stay with her for a while (and lots of our stuff too - AND watching Quinn many many times.). We had such a great time staying with you!

The biggest thank you of all goes to my husband.  He has tackled and moved and done more in the last 10 days than should be possible - all on top of starting the volleyball season this week.  He is truly remarkable and he has made our family dream come true from ALL of his hard work.  Quinn and I are so grateful for him every second of every day. 

Alright, many more posts to come... but Quinn is napping and I need to take advantage and tackle something on the mile long to-do list. :) It's all good fun stuff.