Riding in a box

Since we already lost parenting of the year award with the face plant, we decided to go ahead and put Danielle in a box and pull her around the house in it. I am not sure she knew what was going on, but she seemed pretty content to be in it.

Ahh...the adventures in the Luepke house. We hope Dani survives us! :)

Sleeping...it didn't last long

Danielle was so tired last night as noted by her face in these pictures. Much to our dismay, she woke up at 11 p.m. and did not sleep well the rest of the evening. Short lived, but so cute and peaceful.

Snow Day #2

More sledding

Sledding

We took Danielle sledding last night as the snow was falling (we are at 9 inches right now). She is pretty wobbly on the sled, as you can imagine, which resulted in a face plant in the snow. Amazingly, she was not even phased by her face being covered in snow. The smiling picture was actually taken right after the face plant! :) Ha!

It may have been her first face plant, but we are certain it will not be her last.

Snow angel

Bath Time

Monday fun!

Today, Danielle and I spent the day recovering from the weekend at Youth Quake. We both slept in until 9:30 a.m. (wahoo!) and spent the rest of the day playing, running some errands, and relaxing. Danielle was particularly tired, taking 2 more naps after sleeping in! WOW!

As you can see in these photos, she is really into her Touch-and-Feel books--and board books in general. She really enjoys the textures of ribbons, fuzziness, and bumpy things. She can also turn the pages now on her own which makes it pretty fun for her.

Goleo, the lion who plays World Cup Soccer, is her new friend. She particularly loves the wildness of his hair and tail! I will talk for Goleo and she lights up as he is talking to her. It is very fun to watch (and play!)

Youth Quake 2009

We went to Youth Quake this weekend. (More about Youth Quake below)

Danielle is very well adjusted at 7 months. She floats from person to person and flashes that chubby-cheeked smile, batting those mile-long eyelashes along the way.

Audrey decided that at 7 months, Danielle should begin to learn how to walk (who cared if she has not yet mastered crawling. :)) Anyway, here's Audrey trying to teach Danielle how to walk. We all dressed up for Crazy Dress Night - no, we don't usually wear these kinds of things. Nate's outfit is compliments of his father, my outfit is compliments of Grandma Luepke, and Danielle is wearing some of her new favorites which includes a rock 'n roll onesie and elephant slippers!

More about Youth Quake: The themes was ONE based on Ephesians 4:4-6. The speaker, Jay Gamelin, did a fantastic job at bring the Gospel message to us. My top 3 list of what I learned is: 1) God gives me what I need and, in my sinfulness, I often turn his gifts way....but he continues to be there for me no matter what; 2) Jesus continues to whisper to me, "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you; 3) The little things in life can often become very big to me. God, is with me to face the little and the big and carry my burdens. Daniel's Window was the featured band. Fantastic! Two favorite songs of their's were: Redefined and All Night Long. I will be teaching Danielle the latter because it talks about praising God all day long - that worship is not just on Sunday morning, but everyday, all day.

I am blessed to have a husband who supports the ministry I have been called to do, joining me on these weekends away with Danielle so that I can be mom, wife, and DCE. It was a good weekend!

Fun times!

These are some fun pictures from last week!

Danielle is clapping!

7 months old

These pictures crack me up!

SNOW!

To celebrate Danielle's 7 month birthday, we decided to play in the snow. She seemed to like it, although unable to move much because of the clothing! It was fun to see her experience the snow.

Watch me move!

Rolly Poly

Danielle is mobile! In this series of pictures, you can see how she moves around. The army crawl and rolling are her current methods. It is pretty amazing to watch (and slightly frightening, too.) She loves to go after the remote, cell phones, and the digital camera! It seems that Nate and I are in denial that we really do need to baby-proof the house. Thankfully, we have plenty of people letting us know that we have less than 2 weeks to get that task done before we are "in trouble!"

Last night was hilarious with Danielle! She had the giggles and was on the move! As you can see, it was a bit of an adventure changing her diaper which turned into a funny picture shoot. Her personality was shining and it just had to be captured!

I'm a big girl!

The other day, Danielle was playing with us. This was one of the things she was especially proud of -- standing all by herself next to the coffee table. We were both in shock, but had to quickly get a picture of this strong girl!

Tonight she did the army crawl to get her Nuk and she was getting up on her hands and knees. She has not yet figured out how to move foward, but watch out...it is not too far away!