5 Months Old!

I'm 5 months old today!

Another "photoshoot" with Mommy - but Lila is much more interested in watching Remy (that's the tip of his nose)

Lila's first "solid" food! Rice cereal - yummy! Mommy couldn't spoon it fast enough!

Next food was avocado - way more ended up on our face and everywhere else than in her mouth. We'll try again another time...

Photoshop fun with her blue dress

My baby girl is 5 months old now! :) I suppose the biggest development of the last week or so has been the introduction of food to Lila's diet! She loves her rice cereal and now eats the whole little bowl that I make for her. We also tried avocado, but that didn't go over as well. One of these days, I'm going to fix her some sweet potatoes and see how she likes that. She's always very interested when others are eating and trying to grab at the utensils. We figured that she knew what this eating this was all about and that it was time to start her. My goal is to get her more on food by the time school gets here - I soooo want to be done pumping at school. So far, so good! :)

In other news... my grandma has been visiting from Florida for the last couple weeks. It's been nice to have her here - she loves hanging out with Lila. They have a good time together - Grandma sings her silly songs and Lila laughs.

I was able to score Lila a Jumperoo the other day and she loves it! She jumps so high and just giggles and laughs. I'll try to get it on video soon and post it - it's so hysterical. What did we laugh about before Lila?!? Sure the dogs are mildly entertaining, but she's way better!

On Saturday, T and I traded in my exped.ition for a 2007 edge. It seems so much smaller than what I've been used to (probably because it is!). There's like an extra 5 feet of empty space now in the garage! I was driving all that around! For just me and Lila! When we got the truck a few years ago, we thought it would be perfect for hauling around a kid and the dogs and all their stuff and our stuff. However, the vast majority of the time, it was just me going back and forth to school, with the occasional trip to GR or up north. If we need to take a lot of stuff, we still have T's truck that we can all pile into. I can count on one hand the times that I had enough people in it to use the 3rd row. So far, I love it - it's the closest thing that I've driven to a car since I was like 19! T keeps asking me if I still love it or if I want to take it back. Umm... I think I'll keep it! It's also a nice change at the pump - I filled up yesterday for $40. It was never less than $60 in my other truck. Last summer during the crazy high gas prices, it was not uncommon for me to put in over $100 into one tank. Ugh!! I think this will be better suited for what we need. I hope so - T says I have to have it for the next 6 years!! :)

Also happening now around our house is a next exercise regiment - of running! A few years ago, I started running and was doing pretty well, but then I have no idea what happened and I stopped. T has been an on- again - off-again runner. Usually, he and Remy use the summer and early fall to get both of them in shape for hunting out west. I'm hoping to do my first 5K this fall. I highly doubt that I'll be able to run the whole way, but I'm not ashamed to walk part of the time! Lila loves being outside and hardly ever makes a peep in the jogging stroller - she's usually asleep partway through. So far, it's been going pretty well - I haven't collapsed from hyperventilating or had any injuries. Although the last few times I ran, it was raining so I ran on the treadmill, and today I ran outside. What a difference! It's soooo much more difficult out on the road. Although I'm also pushing the stroller, so that may have something to do with it. Oh well, I'm out there and doing it. This is the most exercise that I have done in like a year. Seriously. I did virtually nothing while I was pregnant. I either felt like crap or was too tired after school to drag my butt onto the treadmill. I remember taking smokey on a charity walk on the river trail once in like October and that was it. I think I was one of the last to finish - I just kept going slower and slower. I thought that being pregnant might prompt me to eat super-healthy and really take care of myself. Um, nope. Enter cheetos and hanging out in the big brown chair. Lila seems to have turned out just fine! T thought that she may be orange because of all the cheetos and spaghetti-ohs I was consuming. Nope- she's perfectly pink! :)

I absolutely cannot put into words how fantastic this summer has been so far. My favorite time of the day is first thing in the morning - getting up when she does, feeding her, and then just cuddling for as long as she'll let me. I think those are the times that I will miss the most when school starts again. Just us, hanging out. ARG! I'm crying right now just thinking about missing those times! My teacher friends reading this: PLEASE help me get through those first few days back into school - I'm really going to need it!! She's so sweet, just a living doll. Happy, alert, inquisitive, and definitely a Mama's Girl. Sure, she loves her daddy too, but it's me she reaches for - the ultimate self-esteem booster.

There's lots more pics on my flickr - check 'em out! :)

Still here!

Family picture in front of the marina in Ludington

Look at my big blue eyes - I am soooo alert!

Sweet smile

Hitting the beach at Lake Michigan

On the way to Ludington, we met up with Andrea and Eli. I only wish we would have had more time to catch up and hang out. Next time!!

T's First Father's Day! :) Lila's shirt says "Daddy's Girl"

"Ohhhhhh... I LOVE my mozart music cube!!"

Lila at Four Months

Lila loves her baths - now she's big enough to use the big tub!

Happy happy girl!

Lila has seemed to have inherited her Mommy's thighs - it's now difficult to slide her legs into the bumbo. She thinks it's funny!

Cool shades for the hot summer sun!

Beautiful baby girl

At Nick's baseball game

Oh my goodness... my goal of blogging at least once a week once school got out has been shot to hell. It's hard to believe, but I've been out of school for almost a month! A MONTH!! It's been wonderful, to say the least. This is the first summer since 2001 that I have not taught summer school. Yes, it's only half day and decent cash, but there's this little girl here who needs her mama!!

Let's see, some of the things that have been going on this past month:

-Lila turned 4 months old on June 18!

-I actually had my classroom cleaned out and ready for summer the day after school was out - a new record!

-We had another baby shower - T's mom's friends got together to shower Lila with more presents. Fun fun!

-T and I had our first trip somewhere without Lila (farther than Men.ards in Ion.ia) - we went to Detroit to see a Tigers game. It actually got rained out and we only saw 4 innings, but it was a great time. Of course, we came back with a little pink Tigers hat for you-know-who... We have 2 more games that we have tickets for in August. Yay! :)

-June 25 we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. Four years!! It's so hard to believe that it's been that long. It's also crazy to think that we were building this house FIVE years ago. There's 6 months of my life that I never want to relive... We are living in this house until we go to the nursing home!!

-We took our annual trip to Hamlin Lake in Ludington - this was the longest amount of time that we have spent there - 10 days. It was wonderful to get away. T really needed the break from work - it's been crazy busy for him with all these federal stimulus programs going on. He said he didn't think about work once (although I caught him checking messages on his work phone a couple times). The first 4 days we were there, the weather was fantastic! 70's and sunny - perfect sunbathing weather! Then we had some cool/drizzly days. That was fine with my mom and I since we are perfectly happy hanging around the cottage. T and my dad golfed just about every day - even in the cool and drizzle. I must say, this year was definitely different than ever having Lila there. I usually read at least one magazine or novel per day while we're there. This year, I did manage to eek out one novel for the week. Lila had a great time - we went on lots of walks, went to the beach at Lake Michigan, went to Manistee, made lots of trips to the House of Flavors (yummy!!) and played and played!

-Lila is teething something terrible. Usually the mornings are pretty okay for her, but the afternoon/evening is another story. She'll be her normal happy self, then the next minute she's screaming. Poor baby girl... Ty.lenol is a wonderful thing.

-Once school got out, Lila stopped sleeping through the night most nights. Like clockwork, she woke up every night at 3am and was up for an hour, then went back to sleep for another 4-5 hours. I got reacquainted with my good friend Ti.vo to keep me awake.

-I took Lila to the doctor for her 4 month checkup/shot visit today. She now weighs 17 lbs. 13 oz. and is 25.5 in. 95th percentile! :) Whoohoo - in my class, 95% is an A! hee hee...

-In the parking lot, while loading Lila into the truck after her doctor's appt, I threw my back out. I wasn't totally surprised since I've been toting her around more since she's been more clingy with her teeth issues, however, I wasn't expecting it in the parking lot. I called my mom and she met us at our house since I could barely get myself in and out of the truck, let alone lift her. We went to my chiropractor and he worked some small miracles and I'm now moving and feeling much better. I go back in a couple days for more magic adjustments and a massage. yaaaaayyyyy...

-We're now truck-shopping, although we'd like to sell ours first. If anyone out there in bloggerville is interested in a 2004 Expedition in good shape - email me!