"Nigh Nigh"

That's just a short segment of what game Susannah wants to play with us all day long.  Pete and I could not stop laughing last night as she did this same routine over and over and over again.  I mean, the slow let-down is HILARIOUS, you have to admit.  I know I'm biased, but man, we've got some good entertainment over here.

I feel the need to clarify my garlic post from a couple weeks ago: I did get that nasty stomach bug in December right before leaving for the Bahamas, but I haven't read anything about garlic being good for stomach things...just colds and the like.  So I should have said that I survived the cold and flu season, rather than the sick-season because that stomach bug sho nuf knocked me on my hiney.

I passed my 3-hr glucose test!  I think next time around I am going to ask to just skip the 1-hr test because, as Pete put it, "Sal, there's a lot of things you're really good at in life, and the 1-hr glucose test is not one of them."  I resign to that fact now.

We're heading to Collierville for the weekend and are looking forward to seeing the whole Mike Ware clan.  Katie and Brian will be in town, AND we will get to meet Eric and Lauren's newest, Hendricks Michael!

Watching for more cars to drive by so she can wave and say, "hey!"

I did not ask for this pose; for the first time EVER, she sat there smiling and waiting for me to get my phone out!

Telling Daddy it's almost that time again...

Uh oh...

Reading snuggles with my babies

Our after-church ritual: climb the stairs over and over again.

Lastly, here's a video of what happens to a clean house over the course of a day. (I obviously don't count my laundry/recycling/catch-all room as a part of our "clean" house...yikes!)

30 Weeks!

As of today, we're 30 weeks pregnant with John Boy.  This pregnancy has absolutely flown by.  It's a good thing that he will be sleeping in a pack-n-play for his first 4-ish months because we sure as heck don't have anything in his nursery ready!  Second child syndrome is already draped over this child, poor guy.  There is a bump picture below; I didn't want to put it too closely to the top because I have no makeup on (we took it like 2 minutes ago for the sake of this paragraph), so it's not my best pic ever.  But apparently hidden in my seemingly-small bump is a large-cabbage-sized baby!  (That's according to Babycenter.com's size estimations.)  

I failed my first glucose test, just as I did with Susannah, so I have the 3-hour test on Thursday.  Blargh.  Prayers on that, please!

We had a great time visiting the Gilberts in Mechanicsville and Figgy and Pops in Harrisonburg last week/weekend.  We also got to spend some time with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Steve, which is always a good time!  

Susannah is getting smarter every day; it is truly unreal.  I never knew just how much FUN it would be to watch someone grow up!  She understands an amazing amount of things we say and is quite a little explorer.  We cannot get enough of our cute, little Shoey Shooter Susie Girl!

PICS!

Late-night pajama raid with the Gilbert girls to Dairy Queen!

Our attempt at a cousin pic...turned out well, eh?

Nathanael is THE SWEETEST!

One of Pete's best friends, Abe, is trying to get Susannah to move her money to his care at Edward Jones.  She's skeptical.

Children's Museum in Harrisonburg.

Baby Petey and Mini Petey!

"Outta my way, I've got farm work to do!"

Got her cute St. Patty's outfit on and rockin' it.

30 Weeks!

Join My Team!

If there's anything in this life that we can all (and I mean ALL) agree on, it's that we'd rather not get sick.  We all have our own methods to avoid sickness; but if you don't already use the method we use here in the Acker house, I'm about to pitch you quite the deal, and you might just join our team. (That's my pyramid scheme intro...pretty good, eh?)  I'm contemplating making a sign with our team name to go above our door because I believe that strongly in it: TEAM GARLIC.  Or more specifically, TEAM RAW GARLIC.

I feel like I should knock on wood the entire time I'm typing this because I'm about to brag about how many times I was sick this winter season: ZERO.  And yes, I attribute that to my devotion to the intake of raw garlic, hence the post devoted to it.  Not only did I avoid getting sick when both Pete and Susannah were sick a couple months ago, but I avoided an almost impossible-to-not-get sickness last week when I babysat 3 girls who all came down with fevers (one of which was 104º!) while at our house.  So this sick-season, I've been convinced of the goodness of garlic.  It's disgusting, but it works, my friends!

(And in case you're wondering, it's not like I eat it daily.  Gross.  I only eat it when I know I'm around stuff I need to avoid catching--normally a clove twice a day for 3 days.)

And now that I'm off my garlic soapbox and you've joined our team (I'll make bumper stickers in the coming months), here are just a few pictures of our girl now that the weather is WARM!

Static Electricity Angel Babe

Picking flowers is literally our favorite activity.  She might like it more than eating...might.

Talking to the chickens about how much we love their eggs.

"Show me your teeth!"

We're heading to Mechanicsville tonight to see the Gilberts and then on to Harrisonburg for the rest of the weekend to see Pops and Figgy!  Looking forward to lots of fun!

(If you're interested in seeing some of our new wall decor, hop on over to Pete's elk hunting blog.  You might even see a cute baby!)

Cuter Everyday

Susannah has been showing lots of signs of being more like her grandmothers than her mother: she's all-the-time cleaning things up.  Or maybe I should have written "cleaning things up" in quotations.  Because it's more like (here's where I love putting words to what I think Susannah's thoughts are), "Hey, I think I don't want my sippy anywhere my parents can find it, so I'll put it in this obscure cabinet" or "I just opened this brand new package of [fill in the blank], but it looks like trash to me, so I'll throw it away" or "My shoes look kinda dirty, so I'll drop them in the back of the dishwasher" (getting close on that last one!).

She's also proving to be a really obedient child; she knows what "please put that back" means and will actually take whatever item we're referring to and put it back where she found it.  When she's fussing at me in the kitchen during meal prep, I can tell her to go sit in the living room, and she'll march right in there, plop down in the middle of the carpet, and continue fussing until she's "ready to be sweet" or her Daddy comes in to save the day and play with her.  I'll have to remember these times when she's in her Terrible Twos or teenage years...

And one quick paci update: we've moved on and not looked back!  It only took a few days, and she's back to going right to sleep (and staying asleep) during naps and nighttime.  What a trooper!

Modeling her winter wear

Learning to doodle

Nothing is safe in her wake...

A new favorite pastime: sitting in the glider to play with her sound machine 

Hat day at the Acker house!  One lady is covering up bedhead; the other is covering up breakfast food remnants.  I'll let you figure out which description goes with which girl...

I am a firm believer that when you are eating something like ice cream or cereal or cookies or anything else that we hardly EVER have in our house, it's imperative to focus on NOTHING else in order to fully enjoy the treat.  This is Pete eating cereal and blocking out my incessant, irrelevant storytelling in order to enjoy it, and I applaud him for it.

We love story time!  It was our first time to go, and Susannah broke down in tears when I told her we had to leave.

And a John Boy update: he's still measuring perfectly, according to the doc!  The heartbeat sounds beautiful, as well.  I had my glucose test on Monday morning and have not heard back from them about it, which is actually a good thing; apparently I will only hear from them if I failed.  Fingers crossed I don't get that dreaded phone call tomorrow!

And lastly, here's a funny video of Susannah watching Pete workout in the side yard: