10 Months Old (sniff sniff)

My little baby girl is 10 months old today. Time is just going by so fast. I just know that I'm going to turn around and she'll be 1. Then the next time I turn around, she'll be going to kindergarten. It makes me want to cry!

She is getting fast with her crawling. I can walk in the kitchen and 15 seconds later come back in the living room and she'll be all the way across the room and into something else. I have to say, I love it though. I don't mind picking up her toys 22 times a day. I just love watching her get into them and explore what they all do. She pick up a toy and it will make whatever noise it makes, then she will look at me with those beautiful blue eyes like, "Mom, did you see what I made it do?".

We have this baby doll that is supposed to be life-like. I got it when we were going to baby classes when I was pregnant. We had to bring a doll to a couple of them for demonstration purposes. I knew that since we were having a girl, the baby doll would get used a lot. But I never thought it'd be this soon. She pulls that baby towards her and hugs her and loves on her. She's so motherly already. LOL :)

Super Saturday

As we speak, little Lila Jane is snoozin' away. I'm sitting on our patio enjoying this beautiful day. I am pleased to say that this morning Lila slept until 7:15 and only woke up because I went in to check on her to make sure everything was okay. She heard me and woke up. BUT that was just fine, because she woke up in a great mood. This is the first time in about a week that she woke up in a good mood and stayed in a good mood. She's back to her normal self; that is, until her next tooth decides to come in. :)

Aunt Hannah was kind enough to come over and watch Lila while I mowed and weedeated. It needed to be done SOOO bad that the mower died seriously 15 times. I think the grass was a little high. :) Then Aunt Hannah left and Lila fought me for a nap, which is another indication that she is back feeling better. LOL

Tonight Neil and I are going to see.....HARRY POTTER! I have to adit, I'm kinda exctied. There was a time two years ago when he dragged me to see the Half-Blood Prince and I feel asleep in the movie. Now, even though I need me sleep and the movie doesn't even start until 10:00 PM, I think I can manage to stay awake.

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the weekend! GOOD DAY!

Mr. T: TALL Teeth

The last few days have been plagued by the teething monster. This has been absolutely dreadful for us. It has been days of no-stop fussing, fighting, screaming, tantrums, loving on momma and dada, more screaming, etc.

All babies go through teething, but I feel like this has been extra hard for us because Lila hardly ever cries. She has been throwing more fits lately before bedtime, but really, she is a very happy baby. Not so much since about Thursday night. At some point in the middle of the night, the teething monster broke into our house (we didn't hear him) and sneaked into Lila's room and held her hostage. He's still holding the poor girl hostage until we can make this tooth pop through. Hopefully, this will be soon because we keep telling him he's not welcome in our house.

It seems to be coming in a little more everyday, but just not quick enough. After a fabulous 4 day weekend, Mom and Dad were not ready to go back to work, let alone have to struggle to stay awake at work. I decided today that it is like having a newborn again. Up every couple hours, the thing about the newborn is, usually they just want to eat and then go back to sleep again.

I think this post was really more like a venting place as I really haven't given you any good information. The next post (hopefully) will be that a tooth has come through and maybe that will be tomorrow. We can only hope. Thanks for you ears! Y'all are too kind!

Fireworks!

Happy (day late) 4th of July to everyone! We had a wonderful extended weekend fun-filled with activities at the lake with friends and relaxing on the couch. We made it out to see fireworks last night and Lila was amazed! She stared in awe the entire time! It was adorable.

Since Lila is now crawling and all over the place, I never know what I'm going to come into when I enter a room that she is occupying. The other day she had made it to the TV and was standing there staring...6 inches from the screen. She was quite ticked off when I picked her up to sat her down at a more optometrist recommended distance. I went back to the load the laundry and when I came back she had about 10 DVDs scattered all around her. She told me!

So last week, out of no where, Lila started clapping at me. I was astounded. We hadn't been working on this so I immediately texted the babysitter to she if she had done it for her and she said no. It's too cute!

The little crawler wants to walk really bad too, but seems to always forget that she can't even balance long enough to stand, let alone walk somewhere. Once again, this just ticks her off. She has found that she loves her push walker toy and can get to where she wants using it.

Lila has been sleeping pretty well lately, but can't seem to figure out how to sit and lay back down in the middle of the night when she wakes up. Today, she figured it out when playing so I'm hoping she can remember how she did it in the middle of the night the next time it happens!

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!