Sleep and Play

Linnea's First Retirement Party

Ben's dad retired this past Friday and we headed down to Columbia for his retirement party. Linnea did her best to try to steal the show and her grandpa's rosebud. She's looking forward to spending more time with her grandpa now that he is retired.

"Crib Sweet Crib"

Thursday night the website said that the crib would be shipped on the 31st, but as you can see it came a little bit earlier than that, in fact Friday while Linnea was eating her lunch the UPS man delivered it to our front porch. Linnea has made herself right at home. We put her in to check it out and realized that we didn't have the matress low enough! Last night she decided to turn herself all the way around and sleep the other way, she took her blanket and pacifier with her in the process. When Ben puts her to bed at night he places her pacifier right above her head and usually if she wakes up in the night she will find it and pop it in her mouth if she needs it to go back to sleep. She is our smart little sweetie:-)

Feed Me!

Linnea is definitely a Merritt, she enjoyed having her great grandpa Citro feed her while we were out enjoying one of her daddy's favorite food groups, Ci Ci's pizza :-) She ate all her baby food, back up baby food, and then proceeded to down a whole bottle in record time, she likes to eat and I imagine someday will love pizza as much as her daddy. One of her favorite things to play with right now are straws, you can give her one and it will provide lengthy entertainment for her, if we were going on her straw waving skills we might say she could be a future conductor :-)

Linnea Goes Shopping

This picture of Linnea is from June and it was her first time sitting in a grocery cart. We had to snag it off from her grammie's phone. She was adorable riding around, but we haven't ventured to try it too often yet, because she likes to try to hang over the side or handle to look down at the floor. She loves to do the same thing when she is in her stroller, but at least in her stroller we can strap her in with the shoulder harness as well. And while we are on the topic of shopping we went a little crazy last week with the baby equipment shopping. Linnea soon will be the proud owner of a new sleigh crib, it's on order and should be here in a couple of weeks. We finally settled on a crib that we liked after looking and looking, I think that all Linnea will care about is that the matress is comfy! Linnea also has a new luxurious big girl carseat that will be installed as soon as mommy and daddy are ready to come to terms with the fact that their little baby girl is not getting any shorter and will be growing out of her infant carrier very soon. We are at 26 inches and 16 pounds and still growing strong!

Little Liam

It's official-we are going to have a little nephew come end of November/beginning of December. His name will be Liam Donovan. Linnea and Liam, I like the sound of it!

Messy Eater

Linnea especially loves orange foods, sweet potatoes, apricots, carrots...but as you can see she doesn't sit still long enough so it ends up everywhere. She loves to look all around while eating so sometimes we are ready with the spoon in one place and her face is going the yet another direction. She really likes to look at her bibs and chew on them, sometimes we just have to wait for her to finish her ponderings and other times we can't get the food in her fast enough!

Sunbathing & Sitting

Linnea loves being outside, so much so that she was content to just lay on the chaise lounge while we put dinner on the table. She likes to sit up wherever we put her, though she doesn't always last long because she is usually turning over and trying to get to something else. We put her in her bouncy seat and was suprised to see that she pulled herself up and sat straight up and played with the toys the whole time we were eating.

Linnea & Nathaniel hang out

Linnea and mommy went to spend a few days with the Hawleys while, daddy was at Chapel Hill working. Linnea loved getting to spend time with another baby, getting licked by Caleb, their dog, and taking longs walks around the pond.

Lots O' Linnea

And we mean lots of Linnea! Picture/blog happy Sunday at the Merritt household!

"THE END"

Ok so obviously way too much time on my hands, but as you can see Linnea likes to flip over in her bathtub, she also likes to move herself from one end of the tub to the other by rolling and scooting, and she does not like anyone who tries to prevent her from trying to do it!

Random and more random

The little orange newt on Ben's hand was almost run over by Linnea's stroller, everytime we took her on a walk on the road we would see tons of them. Linnea loved car rides and walks on the dirt road,usually it would put her right to sleep, which was rather funny seeing as she looked like she was going to bounce right out of her stroller most of the time! The last night we were in VT, Linnea decided that she didn't want to go to sleep and for the first time ever we packed her up in the car and took her for an almost midnight ride to get her to sleep. Ben and Sawyer helped grandpa replace the ramp on the back of the barn one morning. Linnea is really missing Laddie, probably her most favorite dog in the world, by the time we left they were great pals. Laddie would come lay beside her all the time and whenever he would get near her Linnea would start talking just hoping that he would come give her a good face washing. Oh and last but not least her sheep, too bad mommy never got the camera out to take a picture of Linnea with the sheep, such a slacker!

Linnea with her Great Grandpa & Grammie Batten

Four generations

Linnea's first hike

Linnea at Lost River

We took a road trip through New Hampshire and when we stopped at Lost River, Linnea loved watching the water

in the water trough.

Linnea hangs out with her cousins

Linnea in Vermont

Hanging out with great grandpa

At the Pond

One of our favorite places to be in Vermont is up at the pond on Steph's grandparent's farm, it's incredibly beautiful and so peaceful. We have enjoyed many years of cookouts and hanging out with family at the pond. Linnea really enjoyed all of the new things like sticking her feet in the pond, playing with tall grass, and her very first time eating, memories and more memories.