"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:

15 Months and Goodbye Pacis!

Comparing belly sizes...Sus wins!

Susannah had her 15-month check-up last week, and she is doing great!  She's 96th percentile for head circumference, 66th for weight, and 54th for length.  We love our smart, chunky girl!

Pete and I decided a while back that Susannah would say goodbye to her pacis before John gets here.  We'd already cut the tips off 2 of her 4 pacis (many of you know, she loves sleeping with ALL of them), so we've comfortably been sleeping with only 2 for a few weeks.  On Monday (yesterday) morning, we decided the pacis would just disappear before her afternoon nap.  She doesn't sleep during her morning "rest" anymore, so we knew she'd be really, really tired come nap time.  I bought a stuffed Elmo a while back to introduce whenever we took the pacis, so we had that on-the-ready for naptime.  I was very, very nervous about what the next day(s) would hold.

Needless to say, there were lots of tears despite the initial excitement about Elmo.  Pete and I took turns going in to comfort her, and after about an hour during one glorious daddy-visit, she finally gave up the fight for her "ba-pa" and fell asleep.

Sweet little angel babe during her first no-paci nap

That night, she only fussed for 45 minutes and slept really, really well compared to some of the horror stories I've heard.  Today has been pretty easy, with very little fussing (like, less than 5 minutes) before falling asleep for both nap and nighttime.  We couldn't be more thankful that this process is being so nice to us!  If you look at any online mommy forums, the ease of our transition is seemingly rare.  I guess it just goes to show that my suspicions were correct: I was way more attached to the pacifiers than she was!  And BONUS, Susannah's disposition has been even sweeter than usual the last 2 days, which makes those in-between-sleep times super fun.

Not to mention, we've had SNOW to play in!  [Cue cute snow day pictures]

Loving this white stuff!

Gloves gotta come off to taste the snow.

So much fun!

Today's snow was a little icy, so someone wasn't as excited to be out and about as she was yesterday.

And some other goodies:

Couponing.

Watching Elmo with my babies (Yes, John is pictured...barely)

Apparently something in the water is hilarious!

Trying to get Daddy's attention while he works out outside

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is so funny!

The Cutest Little Shooter

For those of you who do not know this already, the Ackers are nicknamers.  Hardly anyone on Pete's side of the family goes by his/her actual given name, so it's no surprise that Susannah has her fair share of nicknames.  Her most recent and longest-lasting nickname is Shoey, but because Pete is all about nicknames that evolve, her newest nickname is Shooter.  There may be some subliminal messaging going on there from her hunter-daddy, but I still think it's cute watching our Little Shooter walk around the house like she owns the place.

Susannah now officially knows the sounds for chicken, kitty-cat, duck, tractor, horse, and cow.  She also asks for "hep" (help) allllllllll the time.  I taught her that so she'd stop whining every time she needed assistance with something, but now she thinks it's the cure-all call.  And the main problem with that is that Susannah ONLY whispers "hep."  So if she wanders into another room and wants help opening a box or getting a book off the shelf, her whisper for help doesn't always reach the adult ears...which elicits the whining I was trying to stay away from with the teaching of that word.  It's still adorable when you do hear her say it, though.

Speaking of books, that is also something Susannah wants to do allllll the time: READ!  As a former English teacher, I think this is wonderful, but I have to be honest and say that I do get a little tired of reading the same 5 favorite books over and over again through the day.  I can recite all of our Sandra Boynton books by heart now, as well as Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  But I'm thankful that she's constantly asking us to read rather than constantly asking us to turn on the TV!

And some picture highlights from the last few weeks:

Selfies at the swing

Susannah has gotten to have lots of quality time with her favorite "Ann-hee" (Angie) lately!

Always loving the outdoors

Also always loving a full tray of food!

Playing in the Chick-Fil-A play area was so fun!

Susannah LOVES Baby Charis, our pastor and his wife's daughter!  They are both enamored with each other.

And speaking of their love for one another, Charis and Susannah had a hilariously sad interaction last week.  Charis is teething majorly and Susannah didn't like seeing her friend hurting...and Charis didn't like silence:

Visitors, New Games, and Fermented Chicken Feed

Pete's best friend Matt came in town last week and brought his wife and baby girl with him.  Pete and Matt went to VA Beach for a night to do some stuff for work, so the girls got some girl time; and we were so grateful to have company!  It took some time for Sus to warm up to Hannah, but it took zero time for Hannah to warm up to Susannah.  She is so sweet and wanted to hug on Susannah all the time; Susannah finally let her by the end of their time with us.

Showing Hannah all her toys

Bath time is so much more fun with friends!

Our big girl entertaining herself with coloring at a restaurant!  

Susannah's new favorite game is Hide-n-Seek.  It is so fun and hilarious to play with her.  She's obviously the one who does the seeking, and Pete or I do the hiding.  Here's how it goes down:
Me: "Susannah, do you want to play Hide-n-Seek?"
Sus: "Hid-Tee!"
Me: "Okay, I'm gonna go hide, and you come find me!"
(I go hide behind a door or something and call her name a few times.)
Sus: (walking toward my voice) "Maaaaamaaaa....  Maaaaammmmaaa...."
And when she finally finds me,
Me: "Boo!"
Sus: (erupts in giggles) "Maamaaaa!"
And we hug and laugh.  It's real cute.

Making friends at the library.

A "wow-weh" for each hand.

Sweet smirk.

This morning I found Susannah elbow-deep in an unidentifiable substance (that looks quite like the inside of her dirty diapers) that was inside a 5-gallon bucket, laughing and flailing and having a grand ole time.  After tossing her in the sink (which she also loved) and flipping out a little, I called Pete, demanding to know the name of that substance and whether or not I needed to call poison control.  He began laughing, of course, and told me he was just fermenting chicken feed and had forgotten to tell me.  Oh, my life...  :)

Some fun, recent Daddy-daughter time:

A little morning play time.

Those cloth diapers sure give this girl a ghetto booty!  (Playing on Daddy's keyboard is a fav activity.)

Coming back from getting the "mmmeh" (mail).  One of my all-time favorite pictures to date.