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