shenanigans with sam, libby & karis...

now that the kid is older and plays a lot more, we thought a video might better explain what we live with these days... you'll notice that our only appearance in the whole 2 minutes and 38 seconds of this is the barking from sam...

in other news, duke beat carolina last week. if you don't live in north carolina, you might not understand the immense importance of this. our family is rather divided when it comes to acc basketball: meg's mom went to & taught at carolina; brett went to both carolina & duke; meg's brother, treat went to state... and meg went to appalachian, but they suck at basketball...and it's really cold there, so we don't really care about that. but we digress.

to acknowledge the rivalry, karis decided to sport her daddy's duke hat, even though it should go for the record that neither we nor meg & brett encourage her cheering for duke.


meanwhile, karis is going to bsf with meg on thursdays (aka just another reason to leave us alone at home). this week, karis got dressed up for bsf (meg just went in a tshirt and jeans) and so meg decided to do a photo shoot when we got home. it was actually pretty cute:

...and we were even allowed to have a cameo in it...

welp... that's about all... off to play with karis and hope that she spits up on these toys and drops them so we can eat them up...

{p.s. happy day-after valentine's day! may you know the "never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love of God!" (as the Jesus Storybook Bible says... :))}

too much cuteness.

okay, she steals all our attention, but seriously. how AH-DORABLE is this little gal?

well anyway, it's been a heck of a past few weeks. karis is up to all sorts of new and exciting things that constantly take meg & brett's attention away from us.... one of which is sitting in this new fangled thing called a "bumbo seat," which i just had to check out:

{karis likes it just a teeeeeeny little bit}

the best part of the bumbo seat is that karis spits up all over it and it's easy to lick up on there. man i love me some good ol' fashioned baby spit up. mmm mmm good.

last thursday, they locked us up in the house the whole day while meg took the kid to BSF and then afterward, they went to hannah & piper's house for karis' first "official" play date with canaan and piper, her new BSF buddies. she enjoyed a head scratch from canaan and piper rolling over on her during the photo shoot so much!

{canaan 2 months; karis 4 months; piper 6 months}

and then there was the day when we got out our favorite new quilt from jess (whose sister, jill, took the great pictures of karis when she was itty biiiiitty...as in 2.5 weeks old...}, while wearing leg warmers from jenny {who also made karis the best onesies ever when she was a little tyke}, and enjoying the SUNSHINE from the front door... something we haven't seen much this winter!

these two pictures describe the three of us kids well... i like to bug karis by sniffing her and licking her and laying beside her...

....and sam could care less. he's missing out on a fascinating little human! {and let's be honest, adorable, too.}

snow & ice & everything nice

sigh... this is my life.

the kid's books & toys & even the boppy have officially stolen my spot on the couch.
but i won't be defeated so easily. i am houdini. i can fit into even the smallest spaces in order to maintain my position of keeper of the couch in this household.

and at least i had more success than libby did...she tried to hold down her spot, but eventually she had to come out for air:

okay. enough grumbling. {because in reality we actually kind of think the kid is cute and like having someone else around to lick and sniff and stare at...} onto the purpose of today's post--an update on the life of our family.

we had a whole week of snow & ice last week. being as brett is a teacher, he got three days off of school and two days of two hour delays. {who do you think gets more excited about snow days? teachers or students? TEACHERS.}

so here are the top 5 highlights of our week o' ice & snow:

1. a little tiny bit of sleep. libby & i have not allowed the kid to alter our sleep schedules. but meg & brett don't get quite as much as they used to. so now they pass out anytime they have a minute to rest. brett wins the award for most uncomfortable nap:

2. the kid is sitting up at longer and longer increments of time on her own. {okay, i can barely handle it--break in my hardened front--SHE IS ADORABLE.}

3. smiling. we did a lot of that. and laughing.
{it really is the gift that the kid brings to the house--joy in the very smallest things. like singing "skinnermerinkidinkydink skinnamereenkydoo i love you" over and over again. like "eating up" karis' feet. like pushing her nose and saying "boop!" like doing "the superman" while doing tummy time. and diaper changes, which are truly the times full of the most joy around here these days.}

4. something karis can do that libby & i can't: suck her fingers. she wins on that one.
but it seems little miss thang is going to march to her own drum and has rejected the thumb and gone for the pointer finger. you go girl.

5. pictured in the background of the above picture: NOT FOLDING LAUNDRY.
why use your time off to do something as lame as laundry? ...especially when it makes such a great background to pictures.

Gingerbread Girl

we tried to eat her up because she looked so tasty but meg & brett wouldn't let us...

(plus we found out that those were buttons, not lifesaver candies, on the gingerbread man and even though we like your unconventional types of snacks--like ketchup packets and Chick Fil A sandwhich bags and milk cartons--we still don't prefer buttons over candy)

playtime.

FINALLY. they have welcomed me into playing with their things... karis' toys and boxes christmas presents are coming in. maybe, just maybe, they do still love me.

merry christmas from SOME of the lybrands...

you might notice who is missing from this "family" picture.

i would say that we are devastated, but we are getting used to it. kind of.

we'll forgive them if we get more christmas presents than the kid. we shall see...

nativity, snow & carolina basketball usher us into december!

last week meg pulled out some christmas decorations to start celebrating karis' first christmas {sidenote: they never celebrated either libby's or my first christmas. just sayin'.}

anyway, at some point, this happened to the precious moments nativity scene:
{which libby and i may or may not have had something to do with...}

at first, we were a little nervous about our big mess up. but then meg came home from her college life small group after reading through luke 2 and she got all excited about what we'd done with the nativity scene {FINALLY, we did something right!}

the circumstances of Jesus' birth were pure chaos: a scandalous pregnancy, the first ever census called by caesar, camels breaking down as folks headed to their hometowns, booked hotels, angels singing, magi fighting the traffic to get to Jesus... and we think christmas is busy for US? but this is what Jesus was born into. His birth was one of the greatest things to happen to the world, and yet it came silently, tucked away in an indescript barn in bethlehem. such humble beginnings...that came in the midst of chaos.

anyway...meg got real excited about that and we're just thankful we're not in trouble!

we also celebrated two other firsts this past saturday:
1. karis' first ever SNOW! {again, they never celebrated this for us. but we didn't care much because we had so much fun playing in it!}
2. karis' first ever unc basketball game that she watched. which they WON!

here we all are {above}... brett & karis watching the game, libby looking at the snow, and i'm just excited to get some daggum attention.

{karis bundled up to brave the snowy cold weather}

oh...i forgot. the OTHER thing they're all excited about with karis {can you sense my jealousy?} is that she is smiling! now, i would remind you that they never celebrated that with me or libby, but alas, we dogs can't smile. oh well. she's got us beat on that one.

...and just in case you need proof that they love karis more than me, here it is:

{meg's choice for cuddling in 2010}

{meg's choice for cuddling circa 2008}