I know it’s only been a few weeks since we sent out VIP photos, but there are more there for you to check out.  You should be getting an email soon with the current password.  And if you aren’t getting VIP emails, but would like to, please shoot us an email (vip at lammlelounge.com) and we’ll put you on the list.

As the title of this post suggests, we’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks.  Harper got her first illness, which caused her to run a fever for about 30 hours, until finally breaking.  She was getting up near 102*, but the doctor was right - it eventually went back down after her body was finished fighting off whatever it was.  Of course her mother and I were freaking out as new parents do.  I’m sure the next time we won’t even bat an eyelash until it reaches at least 103*.  Yeah…right.

Then this past weekend we had a rather exciting visit from Grandpa George (my biological father, for those of you who are trying to keep your flowcharts in order), the last grandparent she needed to meet.  He got to spend a few hours with us at our condo as he passed through the area on his way back home from a whirlwind trip through northern Illinois.  We still have 4 great-grandparents for her to meet - Gene and Betty, George Zebrun Sr., and Great-grandpa Schumacher - but a lifetime of reminding her who the heck all of these people are and how they’re related to her.  The poor kid’s going to think anyone over the age of 50 is a grandparent.

Not much else to tell, other than we’re looking forward to our next visitors - Grandma Lesa, Grandpa Steve, Aunt Sara, and Cousin Bertelsen, who, by that time, we should know if it will be another girl in the family or break the mold and be a boy (everyone thinks it’s going to be a boy).  So I’m sure we’ll have more pictures in a few more weeks.  Keep checking back!

Hey, folks!  Yep, it’s been 5 months!  Hard to believe, huh?

Not much is going on around here that’s all that unusual - I’m busy working, I’m trying to do some more writing and might have a freelance gig lined up; Andrea’s taking care of Harper while trying to get her new business venture, Zenbot Baby, off the ground; and Harper’s growing like a weed and changing every day.

It was my first Father’s Day today, which was kinda cool, I must say.  Andrea made blueberry waffles while Harper and I looked on.  She also got me a really cool little Lando Calrissian figure for my desk at work.   It’s funny, but I never really thought Father’s Day was all that big of a deal until now.  I mean, I never thought it actually meant anything to my dad (or anyone else’s dad for that matter).  But now that I am a father, it’s kind of a cool holiday (even if it is completely made up).  It’s not so much that you get blueberry waffles or intergalatic smugglers as gifts on that day, but it actually helped me take a step back and realize, “Wow.  I’m a dad now.”  It put a bit of perspective on things, for lack of a better analogy.  I’ll be getting hand-painted cards and obnoxious ties for the rest of my life now.  It’s a pretty crazy, but very exciting thought.

Anyway, I know you’re only here because I sent out another VIP notification, so head up there, type in the new password, and get your fix of Harper’s latest photos and video clips.  By the way, last time I mentioned that I was going to post some new photos later that week, but I had to wait until Andrea gave copies of those photos - some awesome family portraits that were a gift from my parents - to her own dad for Father’s Day.  So now that he has them, you can finally check them out for yourself.  Enjoy and we’ll see you next time!

Hello, folks!  Sorry it’s been a while since we updated.  No excuse, really, I’ll be honest.  We’ve just been extremely busy lately.  You know how it goes…

This past weekend we went home to Fisher to visit with family in honor of my niece, Nicole (AKA Coco), who graduated from junior high.  The whole crew was there for at least part of the weekend, so Andrea and I barely held Harper for more than five minutes at a time.  We love the little gal, but sometimes that kind of a break is a good thing.

Aside from Nicole’s graduation celebration, the other big event taking place this weekend was Harper meeting my Aunt Gayle and Uncle Jim.  Aunt Gayle was my mom’s oldest sister and was always a big influence on me, especially in encouraging my love for reading and writing.  Were it not for her massive library of books that I would go through everytime I visited, there’s a pretty good chance you wouldn’t be reading this right now.  So when we were trying to figure out Harper’s middle name by going through family members, the name Gayle stuck and I couldn’t be happier to honor my aunt in this way.  So long story short, Harper was meeting her namesake this weekend and we were all very excited about it.

The weekend entailed plenty of good times - a trip to a farmer’s market in Urbana; lying outside on a blanket on a beautiful day; playing plenty of Mario Kart on the Wii; and Monical’s Pizza with the whole crew.

And with all that fun, we had to take a few pictures while we were at it.  So if you’re a member of the VIP club, you should be receiving an email with your new password.  No videos this time, but plenty of photos from the weekend and a few from random days in the last couple of months that seem worth sharing.

Enjoy and look for a new post later in the week as I update you on another cool thing that happened last weekend.  I’m sure you’re all anxious to find out what it is…

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve updated here. Things have just been incredibly busy for the Lammle Family as of late.

But before we get into the latest going on in our life, we’d like to first say congratulations to our friends Nate and Beth Lown on the birth of their son Benjamin Reinhart Lown on April 12, 2008.

Little Ben and Harper are almost exactly 3 months apart! That should make for some fun family nights spent at backyard barbecues in the years to come.

As for us, we’ve been busy getting our house in order, mainly. We’re revamping the basement office for a super-secret project that we can’t tell you about just yet, but keep your eyes here for future news. Part of that revamp is doing some major purging of our less-than-needed clutter around the house as we get rid of clothes we don’t wear, books we don’t read, movies we don’t watch, and even a couch we stopped liking about 2 years ago. Our goal behind getting rid of this stuff is to make our house easier to care for so that we don’t spend all our free time cleaning and organizing, leaving us free to spend time with Harper and each other. It’s going to be a long road, but we both know it’s going to be worth it in the end.

Speaking of Harper, she’s doing really well lately. She’s sleeping all through the night, often at 9-10 hour stretches! Which has given us parental units time to pursue some of the things we haven’t been able to do in a while - I’m writing, reading, and watching all kinds of movies and TV shows on DVD; Andrea is reading and working on her super secret project that I spoke of earlier (shhhh…). In the meantime, Harper is growing by leaps and bounds. She’s reaching out for things now, which, once she gets hold of them, go immediately to her drooling mouth to chew on. She’s sucking on her hands like crazy and is still talking up a storm. She’s even begun to laugh every once in a while. And with all that drooling, we have to wonder if a tooth is going to be poking through those gums sometime soon. Solid foods are not far behind…

So life is good in the Lammle house at the moment. We’ve been able to enjoy some of these nice Spring days and it’s been a great couple of weeks for us. Sadly, Spring is usually over before it even really begins in Missouri, so we’ll soon be in store for 90 degree weather and oppressive humidity. Joy!

Before we say goodbye for now, here’s a picture of Harper in one of her Winnie the Pooh hats that Andrea loves so much. She is quite the cutie if we do say so ourselves…

We made another trip to Fisher this past weekend for the wedding of our good friends, Helen & Eric. It worked out well because Harper got to meet her Great Grandparents - affectionately known as Granny & Pop - as well as her Great Aunt Pam and Great Uncle Byron! Grandma Lesa and Grandpa Steve were also able to spend a little time with her while we were at the reception.

We’ve had some big things happening lately. Harper is doing just fine riding in the car now, she’s sleeping on her own in her swing, she’s doing ok riding in her stroller, she’s rolling over, babbling away at us (especially just after she wakes up from a nap), and she’s begun reaching for things. Big steps for such a little girl!

If you’re a member of our VIP club, enjoy some new pictures and videos from the last week. We’re hoping to have even more soon enough!

Last weekend we made our first long trip in the car, heading home to sweet ol’ Fisher, Illinois to visit my side of the family. We’d had a long Saturday to begin with - up early to switch our cellular service to AT&T, then ran a few last minute errands, then we packed up the car and drove to Collinsville for our friend Beth’s baby shower, then we finally hit the road for Fisher around 5:15. We probably should have known that if all that time in the car was wearing on us, it would really be wearing on Harper, whose ability to handle the car has been tentative at best.

Four hours and many stops to soothe a crying infant later, we finally pulled into the driveway at my parents’ house. To give you some perspective, the trip from Collinsville would normally take about 2.5 hours. It was not a fun day. However, we got to introduce Harper to her Aunt Kris, cousins Megan and Nicole, and Aunt Sara and Uncle Andy, who were all kind enough to wait patiently for us.

On Sunday, Harper got to meet her cousin Lucy, who is just under a year old, as well as her Aunt Leigh, and later her Uncle Drew, Uncle Mike, and cousin Aaron. She even got to meet my good friend, Jackie, who is one of those honorary aunts that I mentioned in my last post. It was a busy day, but fun for the whole family.

Finally, Monday morning we packed up the car and headed back to St. Peters, MO. We learned that the best time to travel with Harper is in the mid-to-late morning. She slept from 9:30 when we left, until 12:30 when we pulled up to our condo. Perfect!

Despite her troubles on Saturday, Harper has been doing really well in her car seat. She either passes out like most kids, or stares transfixed at the little orange elephant we bought that clips onto the seat. Either way, she’s happy, so we’re happy. We’re going home again soon to see our friends Helen and Eric get married, so we’ll see if we can keep this streak going. Wish us luck!

Those of you on our VIP list should already have an email inviting you to check out the photos from our most recent adventures at home and abroad. If you’re still not on the VIP list, shoot us an email (VIP @ lammlelounge dot com) and we’ll get you added.

By the way, I don’t know why some of you can’t see the VIP videos. I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to figure out what is making things difficult. I’ll try to tweak things a little bit the next time we have video to upload and maybe that will help.

Harper is going to be one fairly confused little girl. You see, she has a lot of female relatives. In Grandmothers alone she has four - Grandma Joan, Andrea’s mom; Grandma Lesa, my mom; and Grandma Marla, my biological mom; and, of course, she’ll know about my mom, Grandma Barb, through pictures and stories. There are a few Great Grandmothers. Throw in a few Great Aunts (who will probably spoil her so much they’ll be considered honorary grandmothers), a few friends whom we’re so close to they’ll be called “Aunt”, all those cousins on the Schumacher side, a handful of cousins on the Lammle side, and you’ll have one perplexed kid. And who could blame her? She’s going to think that every woman who ever holds her is related to her - and they probably are somehow.

Over the past weekend, Grandma Marla (that’s my bio-mom, for those trying to keep track) came down for her first visit to meet Harper. She came down Friday afternoon and stayed until about noon on Saturday, and we all had a nice time talking, watching a little TV, and generally getting to see one another. I’ll post a few pictures of her visit (hopefully) tonight.

This coming weekend, if all goes well with the whole “screaming her head off every time we drive anywhere” situation, Harper will also be meeting a bunch more of her relatives in Fisher. A few aunts, a few cousins, a few uncles, and even great grandparents. As well as a rather snobby little Yorkshire Terrier. Again, though, this all depends on her willingness to ride in the car. I swear, we have the only kid ever who hates to ride in the car. Although she has gotten better over the last few weeks, and I think it’s because we’ve been trying to get her out and about as much as possible. It seems to be helping anyway.

However, in better news, it appears we have reached a new level of sleeping comfort - she is now sleeping in her swing for fairly long stretches at a time. Yes, that’s right, Andrea has been able to sleep in a big kid bed for a little over a week now! Granted, she’s sleeping restlessly because she’s still a mom who has one ear open to listen for Harper’s cries, but she is sleeping horizontally again, rather than shoehorned into the recliner. So, one small step for mom; one giant leap for Harper.

Anyway, I just wanted to get everyone updated on how things are going with the (new) Lammle Family. Again, I’ll have pictures up of Marla’s visit and then, if all goes well, pictures from Harper’s first visit to Fisher will be up next week. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Andrea was messing around, taking pictures of Harper today, and happened to snap this one that I think is hilarious. So I thought I’d share it with everyone. She’s making a face we’ve all made from time to time in this life.

I’d love to know what’s going through her little brain at the moment.

If you’re reading this site, chances are you’re a friend or a member of our family. And if you are one of those sorts of people, chances are you’d love to see more pictures - and maybe even a few video clips - of Harper.

In an effort to satisfy everyone, but to also prevent our entire lives from becoming a huge hit on YouTube, we’ve decided to setup a password-protected VIP section where we’ll be posting new videos and pictures for those who are interested. Whenever we have new stuff to share we’ll send out an email to our members with the latest password for the VIP section. So it’s sort of like a speakeasy, only with less alcohol and no G-Men busting up the joint.

Don’t worry - if you’re just coming here for the occasional picture and update, we’ll still be posting a handful of pictures from time to time, but we’re going to limit the quantity that are posted to the main site. So you’ll still be able to see her, you just won’t have unfiltered access.

If you would like to become a VIP, please send an email to:

vip @ lammlelounge.com

(Just leave out the extra spaces, though; I wrote it that way here to hopefully prevent spam.)

Use the email address you want us to have and please write a brief note of some kind or at least include your name so we’ll know who “wookie_lover_493@hotmail.com” is. Obviously we’re not just going to be giving out the VIP password to any Joe Schmoe on the web, so if you’re not a friend or family, don’t even bother.

Once you become a VIP, simply return to this website and click on the VIP link at the top of the page. Type in the new password and you’re in.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email or post a comment and we’ll tell you how the whole thing works.

Thanks and we hope you all join up as Lammle Lounge VIPs.

For about a week now Harper has been really fussy at various times during the day - sometimes it’s at 5:00 in the afternoon, sometimes it’s 12:30 at night.  She has only wanted to be held in one position and one position only - over our shoulder with us standing up.  If we’re walking around it’s even better.  So it’s been kind of a struggle to maintain our sanity as we try to keep her happy and figure out when she’s going to be in one of these moods.

After a particularly rough afternoon yesterday, we had what we are hoping is a breakthrough in the sleeping department.  Once we get her to sleep, she now likes to be swaddled.  Before, swaddling was a 50/50 thing - sometimes she’d like it, other times she’d hate it.  But last night she’d settle right in and slept for 2-3 hours in her papasan chair before waking up to eat and going right back to sleep.  Andrea even got to sleep in bed for the first time in five weeks!

Of course we’re excited about what this new development might bring, but we’re also anxiously holding our breath to see if it sticks.  So keep your fingers crossed for us and we’ll let you know how things are going.

By the way, we have more pictures that we’ll be posting soon, so look for them sometime this weekend.