Prune Beard

Here is Mary Kate with her awesome prune beard. Oh, how I love this baby! And since I've been horrible about doing any blog updates about her, here ya go:

Mary Kate is 9 months old! She's such a sweet, happy little baby. At her 9 month appointment it was confirmed that she is teeny tiny! She weighed 15 lbs....her little dot isn't even on the growth chart! But, she's as healthy as can be and growing at a steady pace. She's been a crawling girl for a while now, and she loves it! I love it too! It's so fun to watch her explore the world. She loves to clap and if you are super special, she will wave to you :o) She calls me by name now, "mama". She also says "ba" (ball). In the picture above, you can see that she has 2 cute little bottom teeth. She LOVES dogs and gets very excited when she sees them. She also looooves baby dolls. She likes to chase Hannah around the living room. If she's fussy and I ask her, "Do you want to take a bath?" she instantly grins from ear to ear, looks towards the bathroom, and starts kicking her little legs excitedly. Needless to say, I don't get such a happy response when it's time to get out of the bath :o) She loves it when her Daddy sings to her. She especially likes the Mario Bros theme song...it mesmerizes her! We love our little Mary Kate!!!

Shaker Dance

Here's how we like to spend a Saturday afternoon at the Liechty house....

Family Fun at the Pool

exciting news, and a little somethin' to make you laugh

Two very exciting things have happened!

First of all, Mary Kate took her first crawling "steps" today! She has been on the verge for a while, but today she reaaally wanted one of Hannah's toys and decided that it was worth about 3 crawling "steps" to get it. Unfortunately, when I tried to get her to do it again, she did not approve of me putting the toy she wanted so far out of her reach :o)

Secondly, after I put Mary Kate in her crib for her afternoon nap, she decided that she'd rather play than sleep. Eventually she got bored and started fussing. I had every intention of letting her fuss a little until she fell asleep on her own, until I heard this: "ma-ma! ma-ma! ma-ma!" This was her first time to say mama - how could I not rush in there and tell her what a good baby she is?! So I did, and I rocked my sweet baby to sleep with the biggest smile on my face :o)

Whew! What an exciting day!

And now for something funny....

Hannah has a really great memory and has memorized many of her favorite books so she can "read" them word for word. At the end of one of her Berenstain Bears books, it says: "As the sky grew darker, they looked up and saw a tiny point of light in the western sky...."

Here is how Hannah reads it to Mary Kate: "As the sky grew darker, they looked up and saw a tiny point of light in the restroom sky...."

haha :o)

We're Alive!

Hello!

Did you think we had disappeared??

Well, we are back in the blogging world and SO happy to be living in Austin!

Here's a little recap of the last few months for ya:

- We moved in with my parents in June.
- Hannah turned THREE!
- We hunted for houses like crazy.
- We found a house that we love!
- Lorne went back to Atlanta for a month to work on research :o(
- Lorne came back and we officially bought our first home!
- Lorne went up to the house every night after work to paint the girls' new rooms.
- Lorne's parents came to help with painting and moving our stuff in. (Thank you!)
- The Cooks came last weekend to help put up some finishing touches (Thank you!)
- On Monday we officially moved in to our new house!

We love our new house, we love our new neighborhood, we love being in Texas! We feel so incredibly blessed.

Our next door neighbors just moved in a week before we did, and they have 2 little girls just about the same ages as Hannah and Mary Kate! We are so excited! We went over to their house to play yesterday and Ava and Hannah dressed up like princesses and danced around Ava's room. It was so precious!

I'm not going to promise pictures of the house anytime soon b/c there are still many boxes to be unpacked, but eventually I'll post some :o)

Two nights ago Mary Kate woke up in the night crying, and when I looked at the video monitor I saw our sweet baby sitting up all by herself! I was so surprised and so proud! She has also been getting up on all fours a lot lately - I'm just waiting for her to take off crawling!

That's all for now :o)

A little ramble for today

Hannah LOVES to run. Today we were outside for 45 minutes and she never stopped running. She'd get ahead of me and then look back and say, "Run like me, Mommy!" Wow, I haven't run in such a long time! So I'd run for a bit to humor her and then go back to walking when she wasn't looking :o) While she was running she'd pump her arms in the air and repeat over and over again, "We're not going to get sick!" In her mind running=healthy=not sick, haha

On that note, I have an amazing fact for you....Hannah has not been sick since February of 2008. I mean not even the slightest runny nose in over a year! That's one strong immune system!

New Pics

Finally posted some long overdue pics!

http://theliechtyfam.shutterfly.com/

Mother's Day!

This post was written by Lorne

Hey everyone! I wanted to give Maryanne a blog post as a present for Mother's Day this year.

Maryanne is an indescribably wonderful mom. Despite this, I'm going to put forth an attempt at description. Here goes:

1. She is perfectly obsessed with the health of our family. I was just telling her the other day that I never would have dreamed that my children would eat so well. Hannah eats a very well balanced diet, and if given a cookie will often stop half-way through and say, "That's enough sugar for now". Ummm... have you ever heard of a 2 year old not finishing a cookie?
2. She is self-sacrificing. Maryanne will give up sleep, food, water, comfort, and any other personal desire to make sure that everyone else is getting their needs met.
3. She is patient. Even when I'm at the end of my rope dealing with crazy, whining babies, Maryanne is able to speak in an even tone and encourage Hannah to "use her words".
4. She is perfectly strict. You can't let kids get away with everything... and while I will sometimes not let them get away with anything, Maryanne strikes a perfect balance on discipline. She's very good at recognizing which are the battles worth fighting and when somebody just needs a minute to pout instead of a time-out.
5. She helps me. I've got a lot of work to do and usually very little time to do it. In those situations Maryanne always helps me make time for my job, while still bringing the kids by for kisses and hugs so that Daddy doesn't go crazy. At the same time, I've sometimes got a lot to do and unlimited time to do it (*cough* PhD *cough*). In those times, Maryanne helps me stay focused and moving forward.
6. She's one hot momma! After *almost* four years of marriage and two kids I'm still very much in love with Maryanne. I love spending time with her and talking about anything.
7. She loves Jesus. Maryanne and I both want our family to love and serve Jesus more than anything else. We help each other in this path and I'm so glad for it. There's nothing more important in life.

I hope you enjoyed the post. Feel free to give Maryanne some mom-props in the comments.

-lorne

Random Stuff

I have had no motivation to blog lately, but here is a random mix of things:

We're moving back to Texas June 13th!

We are going to be house hunting for our first house - yeay!

From now on I'll be busy packing, packing, packing!

Mary Kate can roll over!

Grammy (my mom) is coming to visit tomorrow!

Hannah and Mary Kate LOVE each other and it's the cutest thing ever!

The weather is finally HOT and I love it!

That's all for now :o)

2 Months!

Mary Kate turned 2 months old on Wednesday!

She had her check up yesterday and she is doing great! She's a petite little thing, but she finally reached double digits, weighing in at 10 lbs even!

She loves to smile and make all kinds of sweet sounds.

We love our little baby!

New March pics on our shutterfly site: theliechtyfam.shutterfly.com

Silly Names

We rarely go by our real names in the Liechty home. For a while now, Hannah has been assigning us new names each day. I think it started with different animals, then Winnie the Pooh characters, and on and on from there.

The funny thing is, if I slip and call her Hannah or sweetie or any other nickname, she'll politely remind me, "Actually, I'm (whatever name she has that day)"

The popular cast lately has been Clifford characters. Hannah is Clifford, daddy is T-Bone, Mary Kate is Cleo, and mommy is Emily Elizabeth.

Well the other day she decided that she was "punch punch", Daddy was "tennis", Mary Kate was "little punch punch" and I was "big punch punch".

You're probably wondering where in the world those names came from, right? Well, whenever I take Mary Kate to the doctor for her well-baby check-ups, Hannah gets to stay home and play Wii with Daddy! Her favorite games? Tennis and "Punch Punch" (boxing). So yesterday we were named after her favorite Wii games, which I thought was hilarious. It's so funny to hear things like, "Mommy, where is Tennis?" and "Aw, Little Punch Punch is hungry!"

Her stuffed kitty also gets different names. Lately she has been called "Little Bitty Elmo" haha

And the one that cracks me up the most....Hannah was in her room "napping" the other day, and Lorne and I were listening to her on the monitor. She kept saying, "I love you, Markle." We were so confused - who is Markle?! Well, when I went to get her up from her nap later, she informed me that her blanket (formerly called "stripe blanket") was now named Markle. I was like, "You mean, Sparkle?" and she replied "No mommy, Markle". I have no idea where that came from, but I think it's adorable!

Fun Weekend

We had a great time with Grandpa and Mimi this weekend!

Pictures here:

http://theliechtyfam.shutterfly.com/

Valentine Pics

Added some new pics of our little Valentines!

http://theliechtyfam.shutterfly.com

Updated Photo Site

I finally updated our photo site, and will try to do a better job of keeping up with it!

Enjoy!

theliechtyfam.shutterfly.com

Pics of Our Cutie!

It's Friday Night Movie Night!

Our little fam has a tradition (stolen from Jon & Kate plus 8) of having Friday Night Movie Night. This is something that Hannah really looks forward to all week. I make homemade pizza (which I learned from my friend Stephanie) and steamed broccoli (gotta throw something healthy in there!). Then Hannah gets to pick out whatever movie she wants to watch and we all sit on the couch together eating our pizza and watching the chosen movie. I must admit, Hannah's movies aren't that exciting for Lorne and me, but we really enjoy having this family time together! At the end of the night Hannah always says, "We'll do it again next Friday!" and then proceeds to talk about it throughout the week until the next Friday finally comes. I guess she'll have to take turns choosing the movie once Mary Kate gets old enough to care! :o)

Happy Friday!

Just like Mommy...

Hannah has been my little copy cat lately - it's so funny!

Example #1:

Hannah gets in her Little Tikes car.
Mommy: "Where are you going, Hannah?"
Hannah: "To get me belly checked!" (her interpretation of my prenatal appointments)
Daddy: "Is there a baby in there?"
Hannah: "Yes!"
Daddy: "What's her name?"
Hannah: "Mary Kate!"
Hannah gets out of her car and lays down in a chair. She finds a toy and puts it up to her belly to check the baby. Then she gets back in the car and returns home.
Mommy:"How was your belly check?"
Hannah:"It looked great!"


Example #2:
Hannah gets on the couch, puts on my nursing pillow, lifts up her shirt, and nurses her kitty.

Example #3:
Hannah "pumps" haha


She basically does everything with her kitty that mommy does with Mary Kate: swaddles her, rocks her, gives her a pacifier, changes her diaper, puts her in the car seat, etc etc etc



Hannah is such a good mommy - it's precious!

2 weeks!

Mary Kate is 2 weeks old today! I can't believe how fast time is flying by.

We have been blessed with such a happy little baby! She's so laid back and content. We love having her around! Lorne and I are so spoiled right now b/c she's such a good sleeper!

She had her first tub bath today - it was a success! She liked being in the water, but cried when we took her out b/c she was cold. She took a good long nap afterward.