Little Mover!

Now that Lila has learned that she CAN crawl, she's doing it all the time. She goes all over the place to get the things she wants. A.K.A Anything electronic! She is currently throwing a fit because she can't get to my computer. Well let me rephrase that. She can get to the computer, I just won't let her have it. Life is terrible for a little girl who doesn't get her way!

Daddy is going to give her a bath right now, that she's probably not gonna like. For some reason she gives Neil a terrible time during bath-time and post bath-time. It usually ends in, "You take her, she hates me!". LOL She's a mess.

Over the last couple weeks she will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and sit up. I have heard of other babies that do this. I've been told that if you just let them cry they will eventually lay back down and go back to sleep. I don't know. I'd rather go lay her back down and get my sleep! :) I'm such a selfish mom.

Today, my Aunt Lisa and little cousin Halle watched Lila. She got up really early and drove halfway to work with Dad. I didn't hardly get to see her this morning because she was still sleeping when they left. I was so happy to see her stinky little butt when I got off work. I did, however, treat myself to a run, BY MYSELF, right after work before I went to get her. It was so nice to get to go for a run and not have to push a stroller. I love spending time with her, but moms need their alone time too!

I hope that everyone has a great week and I hope to post more pictures on my next blog post!

Also, I felt the need to share the song that is being sung in the bathroom right now while I sit out here and blog. I hope it puts a smile on many faces! "My name is Lila. I have blonde hair. Boom Boom Boom." :)

9 months.....

I first want to apologize for taking so long to make another post! I'm just getting awful at trying to keep it up. To think, originally I wanted to do this every couple days. Now here we are two and a half weeks later! Ugh...life is just crazy busy these days. That tends to always be the case in summer though.

So since the last time I wrote, we've been to weddings, birthdays, Neil's first Father's day, and much more. I'll try to brief everyone on what's been going on.

We made it to Brad and Michelle's wedding, which was beautiful and so much fun! We got to roll around the University of Illinois campus, where I went to school for a year, and see so much fun stuff!

Lila was such a good girl, talking to all kinds of people and distracting them from the wedding! She was a dancing machine too. Our first time staying in a hotel was not really the greatest experience. Lila just started sleeping really good again about a week and a half before the stay. Being in an unknown location for two nights in a row and also the fact that she was in the room with us, was just not a good combination. She doesn't wake easily, but it's hard to really get to sleep in the first place when so much is going on. All in all, it was a pretty fantastic weekend!

She's been going to my Dad's house at least one day a week this summer. You can bet she gets worn out there. Connor always keeps that baby busy. They go to the gym, they run around the house; there's always something going on. The first day she went, I got this video from my Dad. I was literally laughing out loud for about 10 minutes at my office.

It was only moments later that I received this picture. It says it all!

I got so tickled at this. Poor thing was worn completely out. It showed too. She napped when she got home until like 7:00 that night and then barely ate (must have been too much work) then crashed again at like 8:30. What a mess. Since then, she's gotten use to all of the activity that goes on in that house! :) GOOD TIMES!

We went for the big 9 month check-up last week as well. Everything is great! No shots which is always a great thing. She also has lost a pound in the last month. Must be all that extra work she's doing at Grandpa's! I had expressed some concern to Dr. Matt that she was not even trying to crawl. This was a little over a month ago. I have been convinced since then that she just wasn't going to crawl. She hates being on her stomach and throws a big fit when we try to make her. She is, on the other hand, trying and wanting to walk. Holding our fingers, she will walk all over the place.

Well.............she just had to prove mom wrong. As she usually does, if you remember the rolling over story! Oh well, that's just fine by me. Saturday night she just decided that she was gonna do it. She's got kind of a crab walk. She goes forward at a diagonal angle. :) It's too cute. She doesn't get much practice at my Dad's because everyone wants to hold her...all the time! I'm thinking that she'll really perfect her skills being at the babysitter all day and wanting to chase those other kids around. We'll see how much this crawling business makes mommy crazy! Here's a couple videos. Please ignore Neil and I talking! haha

I'm going to be trying my best to get another post sooner rather than later this time!

Little Swimmer

Right now, I'm loving being a mom more than anything. Lila's at that stage where she knows Neil and me, knows that we are her lifelines, and prefers us. I know this could potentially be a bad thing, but right now I'm just lovin' the hugs and snuggles that I'm getting. She is trying new things every day. She ate a hamburger last night! (Not the whole thing, but she did take leftovers to the babysitter today)

She's getting braver every day too. She will move from her play stand to a foot stool and then to me. She has to be really brave to do this, but she's done it a couple of times. She is trying to putt up and got brave enough a couple nights ago, then fell so she hasn't done it since. We help her and show her that she can do it and I think it's starting to help a little.

My baby that hates to be on her stomach is sleeping on her stomach for a majority of the night. She cracks me up. She is just exploring and getting to know so many different things, it's amazing.

So last week when I blogged, we were preparing for Medley and Clay's wedding. It was beautiful...as expected. We snapped a couple pictures, but honestly, we got so busy with everything I forgot to take many pictures. I have to get better about this!

This picture looks distorted...or maybe I just look funny!

This girl LOVES her daddy!

Last night I took Lila up to my Grandma's to swim because the water has FINALLY gotten warm enough to actually get in. OMG....she LOVED it! I mean, loved it! Grandma Jane had this baby raft floaty thing and I put her in it and I thought she would be unsure. No way. She smiled and laughed and kicked her legs and moved around everywhere. She loves baths so I shouldn't have been surprised, but really baths and swimming are totally different. I'm so so so happy that she likes it. Swimming is a great part of our summer so she must've known that she had to like it to "be" in our family!

Here's a couple more pictures from this weekend and her first big pool experience!

Diving for rings

Thanks for spiking my hair, Mom!

Playing with Cousin Ally (they were sharing really well)

She was teaching her the colors

Finally in the big pool! KICK KICK KICK

Aunt Hannah, take my picture! I'm a big girl!

So this weekend we have another long weekend. Tomorrow we leave for Champaign to go to another wedding. Neil is in this wedding. The last one of his buddies to tie the knot! So we're leaving early to get there for the rehearsal dinner and I'm just hoping that Lila will survive it all. She is truly an amazing baby. She most always seems to be on her best behavior. We joke that she's the kind of baby that suckers you into wanting another one. :) I think she will be great, I just hope she doesn't have trouble sleeping in the hotel with 6 other people. We will take the Pack N Play, but she's been sleeping like a rockstar and I hope this doesn't break the trend.

Hopefully I'll have more pictures to post next week from this wedding!

8 months old :(

I can't believe my baby girl is 8 months old. I feel like this summer is gonna fly by (because summers always do) and then it's gonna be her first birthday. I'm about ready to cry thinking about it right now.

She has been a squirrel lately. Cracking us up and wearing us out. Last night, it was like she wanted to be held, but was squirming to get down the whole time. Then we'd put her down and she would want back up. She's just a hoot.

Lila's friend Elle came to visit her the other day. Elle's mom came to visit me. :) They were cracking us up. If they end up being anything like their moms, we're gonna be in trouble. I can't wait for them to get older and they can actually play together. Right now, there's just a bunch of eye gauging and hand holding. :) They were so sweet though.

Lila is starting to finally discover that she can move around and get stuff. She's not interested at all in crawling and I think she's going to skip it completely. She can scoot herself to get to stuff, but if it's too far away then she just forgets about it. That's my lazy girl!! I honestly don't know where she gets that because in all seriousness, neither Neil nor I am lazy on a regular basis. She is finding out that she can actually pull herself up on things other than my hands or Neil's hands. She getting so big so fast. She is very interested in walking more than anything. She pulls up on our fingers and immediately starts to take off. I'm not so sure I'm ready for this. :(

We went swimming last weekend at my Grandma's house, and by swimming, I mean we put our toes in the water on the top step. It was FREEZING. The weather started warming up early this week, but we had bad storms and cool weather today and probably tomorrow. I feel like we're never gonna get to swim. She was most in awe with Connor jumping around in the water and going off the diving board. She was screaming at him the whole time. It was so cute.

I've got a super long weekend this weekend and hopefully it will warm up and we'll have some great weather. One of my great friends Medley Wilson is getting married to her high school sweetheart, Clay Ford on Saturday. Aren't they so cute! It should be a blast! Hopefully I'll have pictures from the wedding for my next blog. I wish y'all the best marriage!

It's gonna be Lila's first wedding and I'm hoping the reception will be fun for her! She loves music and dancing so we can only hope. Next weekend we have another wedding out of town and Neil is in it! Should be an interesting weekend. I'll blog later about it.

I'm going to try to get some updated pictures and videos put up on here too. I just have to find the time! :)

Summer...maybe

The weather here has been so crazy lately. It will be 70 degrees in February, then 30 in March. Last Friday it was 85 degrees during the day and a storm came through and it's been in the 50s and 60s since then. It's crazy. I feel like we just woke up and forgot we moved to Alaska. At this rate, we'll never get in the pool this year because it won't warm up enough to get the water comfortable.

Lila loves being outside too and I feel bad because we can't go out and play like we were a few weeks ago. I don't want her to catch another cold or be miserable with sinus stuff. Ugh...I just hate it.

Tonight, Lila literally fell asleep mid-bite. I was cracking up. We did some exercises today to try to get her out of her "comfort zone" as far as sitting goes. She is a champion sitter, but won't transition into crawling position or sit up from lying down. It really just pisses her off to have to do it. I know this isn't a big deal yet, since she's only going to be 8 months old on Friday, but I just wanted to make sure that if there is something I can do to be helping her, I am.

Sometimes I feel like being a working mom is putting her behind. Neil and I work with her when we're home with her, but we don't get to do it all day with her. I know I'm making myself feel guilty for no reason, but sometimes you just can't help but think that way. We are a totally realistic family and like millions of other families, we both have to work. Wouldn't it be nice if we BOTH got to stay home with our daughter every day and take in every second of her growth and development?! HAHAHA We'd probably drive ourselves crazy! Maybe we should start playing the lottery! :)

I can't believe that almost 8 months have gone by since we were in the hospital awaiting her arrival. It's just so crazy how fast time really flies when you're having fun!

Sweet Little Stinker Face

Oh this girl! She is so funny. She's already developing such an attitude, I told Neil this morning that he was gonna end up witnessing a lot of mother/daughter fights in the years to come. She kicks and rolls every time you try to change her diaper. When you put her in her car seat, she arches her back and tries to fight the straps being fastened. To get her to eat is just as much of a chore these days too. If it's not something that she absolutely wants, she shakes her head "no", or purses her lips together or knocks the spoon out of the way. Whatever it takes. She's a mess.

On the other end of that, she is talking more and more. I sometimes wonder what her little brain is trying to get her mouth to say to us. Then other times, I think, maybe I don't want to know! :) He voice gets sweeter and sweeter everyday. It's so soft and angelic, like nothing I've ever heard before. When we're at some kind of sporting event, she hears others yelling and then she'll go off on a rant where she does the same thing. It's hilarious.

Her fine motor skills are getting very good too. She learned in no time at all to pick up a Puff and put it in her mouth. She has gotten really good at it and I think the girl thinks she can live on puffs and although it's nice to give her something to keep her occupied while I'm making dinner or doing laundry or something, I have to assure her that they do not meet her daily requirements of vitamins and minerals! :)

She loves the dogs. She could watch them all day. Just playing or walking back and forth or even just laying there; she loves them.

Posts #25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Day 25-Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs

1. Son of a Sailor - Jimmy Buffett

2. Wannabe - Spice Girls

3. Take the Money and Run - Steve Miller Band

4. Coconut Telegraph - Jimmy Buffett

5. Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani

6. Ignition (remix) - R Kelly

7. Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue - Toby Keith

8. Kerosene - Miranda Lambert

9. The Hurricane - Bob Dylan

10. Lollipop - Lil Wayne

Quite the diverse set of tracks, don't ya think???

Day 26-Picture of your family

Day 27-Pets - Jasper (Australian Shepherd), Ringo (Black Lab)

Day 28-Something that stresses you out - People who lie and manipulate, being away from my family, the dogs when they are misbehaving (Jasper jumping on the door to come inside or Ringo chewing through an AC unit cord), people who think they are too good to help out others in need, hypocrites. I try NOT to stress out very much, but sometimes there's no getting around it.

Day 29-3 Wishes - I wish that gas prices would go down. I wish people were nicer to each other. I wish that there were more hours in the day. The list could go on and on.

Day 30-a picture

This "30 Day" challenge only took me like 4 months to finish! I think I'll be done with these for a while. I'll probably do another post today though on Miss Lila Jane! Check back tomorrow if it's not done today. :)