Baby's new friend

Well, she is definitely her father's daughter. At the age of nine months, Annika is showing an affinity for computers that rivals anything her mother ever felt before college and therein the necessity of getting along with computers. She's always loved the keyboard with its black and white buttons that move, but now that she can see the blinking lights on the tower, she's hooked. She's even found out where the power switch is and turned the computer off while Mommy was blogging.

I know the pictures are a little blurry, but see if you can follow me here:

"Well, ma'am, what you seem to have here is a pretty basic computer problem. I see it all the time. I'll have it fixed in no time."

"Let's see, I'll just need to reattach a couple of cords and make sure everything is hooked up properly. You wouldn't believe how many people have their speakers hooked up to their subwoofer." (Yes, she's unplugged my speakers too.)

"Hmm, that didn't work. I'm going to have to turn the tower off, take off a panel and get right at the hard drive." (No, she's never actually done that!)

"There you go, ma'am. Good as new. Not bad for a first time, huh?"

Still growing.

And she's off, and nothing's going to get in her way! No, she's not actually crawling yet, but she is digging in drawers and climbing furniture and helping me wrap Christmas presents and pulling herself up in her crib. I'm beginning to think that she's going to forego crawling altogether and go straight from scooting to walking.

Our table has iron bars on the under side. I cringe every time she gets near one because she already has two bruises on her forehead from running into them, but she thinks they're great fun. This is Annika on her way down. She was halfway over the bar when I grabbed the camera.
She loves the drawers on the bottom of the china cabinet. She crawls out of her room in the morning and goes straight to the drawers and pulls them open and jiggles the handles and pulls all the stuff out.

'Tis the season of rustling paper, tape, and scissors. What baby doesn't love paper, tape, and scissors?

We've started some new foods too now that she's older. I thought we were supposed to avoid dairy products until one year, but the authorities ( Drs Sears, family doctor, my mother, and my mother-in-law) agree that babies of nine months can handle yogurt. Of course, feeding baby yogurt and letting baby feed herself yogurt are two different things. I was a little tired last night, so I just let her have the whole yogurt cup. Doesn't she look like an abstract painting? I'll call it arte enfant (would that be correct? I don't speak French.). What do you think?

Baby's first Thanksgiving

Hi, y'all. Happy Post-Thanksgiving. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

Niki and I spent the weekend with Seth's folks down in Oregon, where Niki was, of course, the star of the show, but she had a pretty good supporting cast. It was wonderful to see everyone down there and to watch Niki actually interact with people. She does a lot more of that lately.

The actual Thanksgiving meal was held at Pake and Beppe's (grandpa and grandma's). Beppe cooked us a mountain of food and was very concerned when we didn't eat more than half of it while we were at the table. Niki with Beppe, whose namesake she is. You can see the box of leftovers in the background. That shows you how much food there was.

This is my father-in-law. He is a man who believes in good food, good spirits, and good company. In short, Thanksgiving is his holiday.

Niki playing with my mother-in-law. Niki was so much more social and playful this time around. She played with everybody, which really surprised me because lately she's been in a "mommy-or-nobody" mood.

The high chair was at least thirty years old, and had no crotch bar to hold Niki up, so she kept slipping down throughout the meal. I don't think she was very enchanted at the prospect. However, she did like the little bit of turkey and carrots that she got.

Shy of the camera no more, she positively seeks out the opportunity to get her picture taken.

Niki exploring her Christmas present from Beppe.

Niki playing patt-i-foot with Auntie Alice. I call that her hobgoblin grin. Doesn't she look self-satisfied?

Posted too late.

I was hoping to get these pictures posted a little earlier, but it's been one of those days. I think Niki has teeth coming in again. There are moments when nothing makes her happy, but Seth called me from Guam yesterday, which made Me happy, so that's something. If I had gotten these pictures up earlier, he would have been able to see them today, but now he'll have to wait until his next stop. Sigh. I guess he'll just have to be content with the memory of my voice.

I know I say this with every post lately, but Niki is almost crawling. She can get up on her hands and knees now. She just hasn't connected that idea with the idea of forward motion. She is also getting the notion of grabbing on to things above her, though I think it will be a long time before she begins to pull herself up.

My parents came over for the weekend to attend a cousin's wedding shower and of course to see their grandbaby. My father was delighted that Niki is big enough to begin playing some of his favorite games. This one is called "Trap the kiddo between my legs and don't let her go." Niki was pretty impressed with herself and the general standing position. I was pretty impressed too. She's practically standing by herself right there. On the way over to the shower, we stopped at McDonald's, and Niki had her first french fry. I think she likes apples better, especially if she gets to hold the whole thing and chew on it at her own pace. She's also doing things like waving bye-bye at unexpected moments, saying "pa-ta-ca" when she claps her hands, saying "Oh-ooooo" when the dog howls, and just generally making me wish that I had a video camera attached to my hand so I could capture firsts instead of fifteenths. Good-night, everybody. God bless you.

BIg Praise!

CHINA -UPDATE – Prominent House Church Leaders Released by Police – China Aid AssociationOn Oct. 27, China’s Public Security Bureau released Pastor Zhang “Bike” Mingxuan, his wife and sister-in-law from detention, China Aid Association reported. Pastor Zhang’s sons Jian and Chuang, who were severely beaten by police officers on Oct. 16, have been forced to vacate their Beijing apartments, and are currently residing in Nanyang City, Henan province. Praise God for this family’s release. Continue to pray for healing for Pastor Bike’s sons. Ask God to continue His watch over this courageous family that continues to stand unashamed for Christ.Psalm 91:1-7