Contest! :)

Have you seen all the beautiful new products & contest for pro photographers on http://www.DesignAglow.com?

I hope I win!! :)

Thanksgiving and Daddy's Birthday!

All ready to go out for Daddy's birthday dinner - a few days early!

I'm soooo good at pushing my stroller everywhere

Dog bed? No way. Lila bed. :)

Dressed in her comfy 'I'm Thankful for Mommy' outfit to go to Thanksgiving.

Her feet say 'Little Turkey' :)

Lila is the head of the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Thursday was Lila's very first Thanksgiving! She was teething and had a bit of a cold, but that didn't hamper her spirits. She was a very good girl and had a fun time with everyone - and of course, everyone thought she was pretty great!

Thanksgiving was also T's birthday. So before leaving for Jenison, we had a little bday party at home. Lila was a big help opening presents and then thought that the box was a great thing to chew on. If she thinks that's great, just wait til Christmas!

We've all been fighting some crud around here. First Lila had it, then I had a sore throat, and now T is down for the count with what appears to be a nasty sinus infection. Yuck! Please tell me it's not going to be like this all winter!!!

Despite the sickness, and definitely because we had 4 days off this weekend instead of 2, we managed to get all the Christmas decorating done. The tree was the last thing to go up, and I did that tonight. Last year after Christmas I picked up a pre-lit tree. Holy crap, is that the way to go!!! It took like 20 min to assemble - and that's because it was still all packaged up. I would usually put more lights on our tree, but it's fine. Last year I started a 'good enough' decorating scheme which then transpired into other aspects of my life, as well. I'm so glad that I did, I had the decorations I needed all packed away and I didn't have to sort through all the boxes like last year. Some year, when Lila's big enough to help me, I'll put it all out again. Until that day- it's "Christmas Lite" at our house and it looks good! :) This year I also have less shelf room to put things out, since a certain someone has found out how to clear a shelf that's at her height. We have also put up a big gate around the tree. There are just too many fra-jee-lay ornaments that I would hate to lose. I actually did break one of my favorite ornaments tonight and it was awful!! grrr... maybe I can find another one someday.

Where did Fall go?!?

Lila's first Halloween was great! She was a pink butterfly, but it had hearts all over it, so we called her Lila the Lovebug! She thought it was great fun. The day of my Halloween party at school, Heidie brought her in so she could be in the parade with me and then T came to get her before the party started. I think she was a little overwhelmed by all the kids (who were thrilled to see her!) - she didn't make a peep the entire time she was at school. She was just looking everywhere, taking it all in!

This month she has become an expert speed-crawler! It's just amazing how fast she can get around -and all the things she can pick up and put in her mouth on the journey! Dog toys continue to be the item of choice for her to venture after.

Two days before she turned 8 months, she got her first tooth! Then two weeks later, the second popped through! I had all about given up on those darned teeth. Needless to say, breastfeeding ended not long after... :)

This week she turned 9 months old and is now walking with her doll stroller EVERYWHERE! Last Sunday, she took her first unaided step - so exciting!! So, Grammy and Grandpa gave her an early Christmas present - the doll stroller and dolly to push all over. She loves it - I'm sure there's got to be a sense of relief for her, to be able to get herself places - not wait for us to pick her up and take her! She's getting good at pushing it on the carpet and on the wood floor. She still hasn't taken more than a couple little steps by herself, but I don't think it will be long! She also is getting good at walking along with someone, just holding on to one finger, side-by-side. My big girl!!

Oh the sickness... since school has started, Lila has had 2 left ear infections, 1 right ear infection, an upper respiratory infection, and pink eye. Poor baby! She's taken it all in stride though... although some were some shorter nights than normal (and some were longer - a couple times she slept 11-12 hours at a time!).

Guess what? My baby likes to talk! Hard to believe, I know! :) She started out with "ba-ba", then "ra-ra", and now her favorite word of choice is "Da-Da". She makes kind of a song of "da da dee da dee dee da..." and on and on until she tires of it. Has there been any semblance of mama? NOPE!! I must say, I'm a little jealous... okay, A LOT jealous! She's also getting consistently good at waking goodbye and saying "bah bah bah" for bye. She usually will do it very quietly, but wake very big. Although, a couple of weeks ago, my mom was on the phone with Pat and said "buh-bye" and then Lila did this huge "BUH-BAH!!!" It shocked all of us!!

Lila LOVES to laugh! If anyone is laughing, she will join right in, even louder than the person laughing! Once she gets started, she really keeps at it, which of course is one of the most beautiful and hilarious things we've ever heard, and makes us laugh more. It creates a wonderful circle! Her little 2-tooth grin is one of the most adorable things ever!

I can't believe that the holidays are right around the corner! This Thanksgiving will definitely be different. I certainly have MUCH to be thankful for!

Can you tell that school has started?

Naked baby in the antique cradle

Our little Pumpkin with some of the pumpkins T grew in the garden

First night of swimming!

Well, it's been a while! Yes, the school year is now in full swing. I'm certainly hoping my posts will not be this few and far between all year! Oops! I think about updating often... the actual being able to update is a different story.

Let's see, since school has started, Lila has been to the doctor for her 6 month checkup and weighed in at 21lbs. 3oz., and 27.5 inches long. Still off the charts! I just took her the other day for more shots and they didn't weigh her - the next update will be for her 9 month appt in December.

September seemed to just fly by with school beginning, daycare beginning and all kinds of other new things! Daycare has been awesome - Lila loves it! And all the kids LOVE her - we walk in the door and they're so excited to see her! I'm so happy to have her right around the corner from me at school. They've even popped in a couple times at school while they were on walks around the neighborhood - definite highlights to my day!

In September, we also started swimming lessons! Lila loves it! She had never been in a big pool before - just her little one on the deck. The first couple of times, she was pretty much done after 15-20 minutes. Now, we can do the whole 30 min! She can hold on to the edge of the pool all by herself! Strong girl! She also likes leaning on a smartbell and kicking. Or just splashing all over. She's not a fan of getting water in her mouth, but she has quickly learned to close her mouth more, so we have had a lot less coughing/sputtering fits lately. I think one of her favorite parts of swimming is taking a shower before and after! She loves to have it spray right in her face - silly girl! I never thought that a 30 min swim class would totally take over our night, but it totally does! I usually don't get home on Mondays until 4:30, and then it seems like it's a race to have dinner, get packed, get changed, and get in the car and go in order to be in the water at 6:45pm! And it's not something I can do by myself! Either T or my mom have to come along to help schlep all the stuff, take pictures, and then help get Lila dry and dressed. By the time we get home, it's usually around 8pm and we're all exhausted!! She loves it and it's totally worth it, but wow, it's a lot of work!!

My 32nd birthday came last weekend and to celebrate, T, Lila, my parents and I all went up to Traverse City for the weekend. The weather was not so great - cool (50's) and sometimes rainy, but it didn't matter to us. The weather didn't stop us from shopping, sight-seeing, wine tasting, or eating a lot of great meals! The guys were hoping to golf, but with the weather the way it was, that didn't happen - they didn't even take their clubs. Another highlight of the trip was getting to see Kim, my friend who lives abroad and her trips home are few and far between. She hadn't met Lila yet and we got a chance to hang out and catch up at the mall on Saturday. Lila, Kim, and I all rode the carousel at the mall - I didn't throw up and Lila thought it was pretty fun!

Today I ran my first 5k! :) I have been training since july (Couch to 5K!) to do this race. I didn't quite run the entire time - my goal. But the course had some big hills and with all the rain we had gotten the day before, the roads were very muddy. I had to walk three different times from the hills. I'm used to running on my nice, FLAT, gravel road. My friend Kelly ran with me the entire time - this was her third race and could have left me in the dust, but didn't and I really appreciated that and it made the race a lot of fun too! :) It was hard, but something I'd like to do again soon! Although, I'm really quite sore right now - I may have a different opinion if I can't hardly walk tomorrow. For now, I'm looking for another one to conquer! Oh - and I didn't finish last (another goal!).

End of August?!?

Lila and Daddy at the cottage

Playing dress up - pearls and a tutu! :)

This was one of my dresses - so sweet...

More dress up - in a fairy dress that's pretty big, but absolutely adorable

Happy, smiley Six Months Old!!

Wow, it's the end of August already! Whoa... I've been back to school for meetings a few days this week, and it's been fine. I had a bit of a meltdown the day before I had to go back, but it was much less painful than I was anticipating. No sweat! It's just getting back into the whole routine of things again...

Lila has now been to daycare for one whole day and 2 hours another day. She seems to like it so far! I wasn't worried - she loves to people-watch and with all the kids and action over there, I knew she'd have plenty to see and do. Next week we'll do 2 days in a row, and then the following week we'll do all 3 days - it's been a gradual progression! I think I'm the one who needs to take the "baby steps" getting back into the school year!

I took Lila to the doctor a few weeks ago and she was up to 19lbs. 8oz. and 27in. long. She's officially off the charts! :) And doing very well!!

As for solid food - she loves it!! :) She's so much better at opening her mouth and not sticking her tongue back out (as well as most of what was put in her mouth). It used to take upwards of 30 minutes to give her a meal - now, we can do a cup of yogurt easily in 5-10 minutes. Efficient! :)

I read back over my last post and I mentioned our weekend to the Tigers game and to Cabela's. Interesting time - we made it down to Dundee Friday, went to Cabela's, then T and I went to the game. After the 3rd inning, I had some issues vomiting (yep, at Comerica Park - a wonderful place to get sick - me and 40,000 of my closest friends). I thought that it would stop, but nope, and we left after the 5th inning. Poor T, I had left him to go get a hot dog when all this happened (not taking my phone) and I was gone for 2 innings and he didn't know what had happened to me. I didn't want to go back to our seats and then throw up again - ick. Well, this "bout" continued all night - urping up biley, foamy, yuck every 5 to 10 minutes for a total of 16 hours. Absolutely disgusting. Needless to say, we didn't stay long that morning. We all got around, and then we went to Lansing Urgent Care - which should be called the not-so-urgent care or "even if you're really sick you'll have to wait for at least an hour" care. They diagnosed me with the stomach flu - which I knew it wasn't, but they gave me a shot to end my nausea and a prescription. Two days later, I had an appt for Lila, so I talked to our doctor about it and she had me go to the hospital for an ultrasound of my gallbladder. Turns out I have gallbladder disease - and 2 gallstones. This led to a consultation with a surgeon who doesn't think that I should have my gallbladder removed - at least for now. Apparently the biggest factor they use to determine surgery is a person's pain level and I have none. I just have these freaky episodes every once in a while - although none had ever been as bad as this past one. I guess we're going to play the wait and see game. If I get pain, it will be removed, if I don't, I think it stays in. I was VERY happy to hear that I didn't need surgery now. I have very limited sick days this year and I didn't want to have to use them this early in the year because I don't get more until next summer! Ouch!! The surgeon recommended I have a scope done so I'll be having that next week to see if my issues are more related to my esophagus rather than the gallbladder. We'll see what happens!

We did get back to the Tigers for a 3rd game this season and we actually got to see the entire game! And they won!! :) We took two of T's nephews and everyone had a great time - rain delay and all! It was an early bday present for each and they decided that they liked it enough to do it again next year.

It's the start of another school year - here we go!! :) Let the insanity begin!! :)

Summer rolls on...

Wow, it's August already! Lila continues to grow like crazy - next week we go back to the doctor for her 6 month appt, I'm anxious to see what her length/weight is now. Every morning when I go in to get her, I feel like she has gotten longer! Tonight we went grocery shopping and she sat in the cart like such a big girl. The clip in the cart was broken so I couldn't strap her in and it didn't even matter - she just sits up and holds on. She LOVES people watching - I think she's really going to love daycare with all the other kids and things going on.

Last week we went to Lake Michigan for the day - it was a beautiful day! We all got some sun and Lila went in a little bit. I seem to have misplaced my adaptor to import my most recent photos, so you'll have to be patient for pics!

Solid foods continues to go very well! We're now up to two meals per day. She now also really likes sweet potatoes. The next thing on our list to try is banana!

Lila is now in her "big girl" car seat - it seems gigantic compared to the bucket thing she's been in. So far, she seems to really like it - although she's only ridden in it twice!

Lila still seems to be in a "sleep funk". Some nights, it's a solid 8-10 hour stretch. Other nights, we're up 3 or 4 times a night - sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. Oy. I sure hope we're back on track before school starts!!

Since it's now August, I thought that it would be good to start tackling those things I wanted to accomplish around the house. So far, I have cleaned out under the sinks in our bathroom and reorganized pretty much every cabinet in our kitchen (including the pantry!). I still have a few more things to do, but I'm glad to be this far! This winter we will have been in our house for 5 years (!) and some of the cabinets that I cleaned out still had sawdusty ick in the corners. I guess I was so excited to move in that I kinda forgot to clean everywhere. Oops! :)

Some new stuff did get uploaded to my flickr (I helped a friend photograph a wedding and the newest pics on there are ones I took with a borrowed camera). I don't want to say that the summer is flying by - because it always does - but I think more than any other year, I'm savoring each day. It's been wonderful having this time - and there's still so much more to be had! This week I'm finally going to use one of my mother's day presents - 3 hours at the spa! :) Then the next day I have another hour massage - I'm trying to make the most of my insurance coverage while we have it!! This weekend is another Tigers game and a trip to one of T's most hallowed places - Cabela's! Summer fun keeps on coming...

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! :)