More pics from this weekend....

Take two!

We had a great weekend even though it started off a little rough. I left work early Friday to go to the doctor. Strep. There went my Friday afternoon plans. Saturday we drove to Nashville--a nice drive although the last 20 miles took 2 hours. We went to Bicentennial Park and to the Farmer's Market Friday night. It rained on us on the way there, but once we got there the weather was beautiful. Unfortunately the fountains in the park were damaged in last year's flooding so we didn't get to see those. Sunday we went to Centennial Park and I got to practice shooting with my new lens. We had lunch with my aunt and uncle and they watched Isla while we went to a Renaissance fair. We went to the zoo before coming home Monday. Baby Girl slept for over 2 hours on the way home, I got to stop for one of my favorite soups, and we made it home early evening.

What a weekend!

Oh my! I just spend 30 minutes writing a post about our great weekend and was almost done when my fingers hit something that erased it all. And it autosaved over the draft copy. And someone is going to wake up from her nap hungry any minute now. I'll try to take it again later tonight while P's at a movie.

Some new favorites....

Words

Thursday night we were trying to name off all Isla's words for PAT, then again at her 15 month well baby Friday. She's adding new ones all the time, but here are the words we can come up with that she says now:
momma (rarely, and not relative to me)
daddy (sometimes meaning him, sometimes not)
hi
bye
dog (leaves off the g)
book
read
bucket
bowl
eyes
no
yeah
milk (no -lk)
duck
In addition, she signs milk, more, and eat.
Pretty good for a kid that's supposed to have 3-5 words!

Pictures for class....and Winston

These look pretty grainy on here when they are compressed to the smaller size. Not sure why--they look more clear when opened.

Daddy and Baby

Isla and P have been hanging out on Monday nights while I take a photography class. Last night I get a TM about the time class starts that says "your daughter found my belly button and won't let me be." She thought it was hilarious to lift his shirt and tickle his belly. Wish I'd seen it--she wouldn't do it tonight.

We forgot to take the Winston picture today so for the first time since the "fresh out of the womb" picture, the monthly anniversary picture wasn't taken on the 12th. We'll do that tomorrow.

I took Isla to see my parents and my mom's aunt L today. On the way there, Isla was able to reach a box of wet wipes. When we got there, I opened the car door and the. whole. box. of wipes. had been pulled out, one by one, and discarded in the seat. She was SO proud of herself when momma saw what she did!

THERE it is!

We couldn't find the cordless phone last night. We checked the couch cushions, under the couch, in the magazine boxes--no phone. I looked in the toybox and didn't see it in there either. The cleaning lady was here today...still no phone. Then tonight Isla is in the floor playing with her picnic basket and pulls out the phone. So glad "we" found it!

Tonight I went to a dinner at church for the teen mommies at our local high school. A couple of the other ladies who work with this ministry have little ones just younger than Isla. Both those little boys were there and it was so funny to see them running around. They are both more steady and confident on their feet than Isla is. Isla is getting more steady and last night she bent over and picked something up, then righted herself. I don't think she's stood up with pulling or at least touching something else, but she's been pretty close to it. She'll be running around soon enough.

Tuesday night we had a really sweet cuddle time at bedtime. She doesn't usually want to be held and rocked at bedtime anymore, but she let me that night. She even let me cradle her. She looked up into my face, smiling, patting me....really humoring momma. sigh. So sweet. When I laid her down, she didn't fuss, just went on to sleep.

Wednesday night, she screamed. And screamed. Oh well.

Pictures, pictures...

I promise, when she started getting mad, I put down the camera and helped her.

Picture pages, picture pages!

Updates....

Baby kissy face isn't kissy face so much lately. Momma can barely get a kiss at all but I do get hugs. Daddy gets some kisses but no hugs. One of her teachers said it's the same way at daycare--Ms. B gets hugs, Ms. N gets kisses.

It's no longer an assumption that Isla will cry when I leave her at daycare in the mornings. I think we had 4 out of 5 days with no tears this week. One day I even got a smile and wave as I left. And yesterday when I went to pick her up, she looked at me and kept on playing. When I asked if she wanted to go with me, she shook her head no. I'm so glad she seems to like her daycare! The teachers are all wonderful with her. In the next month or two she'll be able to move up to the 1-2 year old class since....

She's a walker now! A couple weeks ago she realized what this walking thing is all about. She still likes hanging on to fingers sometimes, but she can walk across the room on her own. She's wobbly, but is pretty good about squatting down when she feels herself loosing her balance.

Wednesday night I had her stripped down for her bath. She moved her potty chair into the middle of the floor and was trying to back up to it, looking over her shoulder, squatting, totally going to miss it when she went down. I lined it up for her and let her sit herself on it. Then she stood up and waddled out of the bathroom. Patrick said she made it to the living room before he brought her back. I let her loose again tonight naked and she LOVED it. Once I got her diaper back on her, she kept pulling at it, trying to get it off, voicing her displeasure. Cute little naked baby butt.

Isla has an ear infection. I didn't think she needed to go to the doctor but P thought she did so I took her Tuesday. Glad I did. She doesn't seem to be hurting with her ear so hopefully we'll get it cleared up before it really bothers her. I'm not sure if it's her first infection or not. We went to urgent care several weeks ago and the doctor said her ear was red. Not sure if it was just a little red or if it was infected. She's been coughing some, but her humidifier keeps it under control most nights.

There's so much I want to get done this weekend and I have zero energy to do any of it. Someone came and mowed tonight so hopefully I can finish cleaning up the backyard tomorrow and we can build the raised garden box I want to use this year. I didn't plant anything last year but year before last I had a bunch of tomato plants and a few other things. The ground and dirt here isn't horrible for growing stuff, but it's not great. I thought it might be easier and work a bit better to try the raised garden box and fill it with top soil mixed with compost. We'll see how that goes. Sunday we're going to St. Louis with some friends for a Cardinals game. Will be fun, but when am I going to do laundry and put up LAST week's laundry?

Last weekend was supposed to be a romantic weekend away with spa day and a nice stay at an Inn in Hermann. Well, my mom can't babysit right now so Isla ended up going with us. We cancelled the spa day and stopped at the Magic House in St. Louis instead. It was a lot of fun, but I think every kid in the county was on spring break and there since the weather wasn't appropriate for spring type activities. Then Saturday it started snowing! Isla hadn't had an easy nice Friday so we'd debating leaving Saturday instead of staying until Sunday. Once the snow started, we thought we'd leave town before it got bad. TOO LATE! Horrible trip leaving Hermann--at one point the car in front of us slid off the road and we almost hit them. Then we were stuck on the highway while a pick-up truck kept trying to make it up a hill, only to keep sliding EVERYWHERE. After an hour or so, we finally made it to Washington (25 miles away from her starting point) and checked into a Super 8. Isla's giggle box got turned on and she had a blast at the motel! With the stress of driving gone, we had a lot of fun being snowed in at a hotel....at the end of MARCH! We got up Sunday morning to clear roads and came on home.

Guess I'm about done writing--I'm going to fall asleep if I keep it up. I'll read over this and edit it later. I'll try to post some pics tonight. M and I are taking a photography class so I had photography "homework" to do tonight. Hopefully I can learn a lot in this class, then try to do some online tutorials like Pioneer Woman and have all kinds of wonderful pics of my beautiful little girl!

Later--

What a weekend....

I had to leave work sick Thursday and also had to stay home Friday. By Friday afternoon I was feeling better but Friday night, Isla got sick. Not sure if hers was the same bug, just affected her a little differently or if hers was something she ate. Thankfully after a few rounds of vomiting, she was back to sleep and was fine yesterday morning.

The past few days Isla has shown us that she knows the sign for "more" a few times. Tonight my mom and I were showing my dad what the sign is and Isla started doing it again. And I'm pretty sure she was signing "eat" one day last week as I changed her diaper first thing in the morning.

It's also obvious that her receptive language skills continue to grow. I asked her this morning if she wanted to call Grandma and she started reaching toward the phone saying "hi." Anytime "outside" was mentioned today, she reached for the door.

She's saying "dog" now also.

Tonight I went to the store and Daddy took her out of the bathroom three times before actually acquiescing the fourth time when she went in, stood at the tub, and leaned over it trying to get in. So she had her second bath for the day.

I don't think time change is going to be too hard on us. She was up at her usual time this morning even though her body SHOULD have thought it was 4:45. My body certainly did. She still went to bed around her usual time tonight so hopefully tomorrow morning will go as usual.

All bottled up....

Apparently my baby doesn't take a bottle anymore. For the past few weeks, she was down to just a bedtime bottle. Over the course of the last week, she cut that down to just an ounce a night so last night we went to bed without a bottle. Didn't bother my big girl at all. We did the same thing tonight. Her milk intake is great--usually around 20 ounces a day (recommendation is between 16-24 ounces) and she's been eating good since we got her back on her reflux meds. She's her momma's baby and could live off carbs, but we're getting some healthier options in there too. She loves peanut butter banana smoothies and I learned from other mommy-bloggers to put spinach in there too. You can't taste it and it adds lots of healthy stuff.

Spoons....

We usually give Isla a spoon while she's eating. Typically it ends up in the floor with the dog fairly early in the meal process but lately she's been paying more attention to it. Sometimes she'll even try to use it. This morning I tried putting some of her scrambled on it for her and handing it to her. She put it to her mouth and ate it, just like a big girl! Yeah!!! Anytime I say yeah, she claps. So it quickly became a game....momma gave her some eggs on her spoon, she'd slowly take the spoon to her mouth and eat them, hand me back the spoon with a big grin, clap and wait for more eggs. So big!!

She LOVES scrambled eggs (with cheese of course) and the texture, size, etc seems good to practice using a spoon with. Yeah Isla!!

Tidbits of stuff

There are several things I want to record here that I just haven't had the chance to yet. Hopefully I'll have time to expand on some of these soon....

1. I can't believe how much you LOVE your books! There are nights that you touch none of your other toys, just your books. And you love the library at daycare too.
2. At daycare there's a window between your room and the bigger kid room. Its just a few inches off the floor so you can sit there and enteract with the other kids through the window. Last week your teacher said that there's a new little girl in the other class and she's been crying a lot. You see her crying and you sit there blowing kisses to her.
3. You are REALLY into the kisses lately! When I pick up your coat, you start blowing kisses to your teachers.
4. You still cry most mornings when I drop you off, but otherwise the separation anxiety is getting much better. You randomly reach for people now, including some strange old woman in line at Wal-Mart last weekend. I think you made her day with your smiles. Today you reached for Miss E as we were leaving daycare.
5. You are getting very good at making your wants known---whining and reaching for them mostly. You've even started leaning over towards your crib at night and whimpering to go to bed. Looks like you're outgrowing being rocked to sleep. Sigh.
6. Food is your friend the last few days! After weeks of barely touching anything at daycare or barely eating anything other than Kix cereal, momma started you back on reflux meds last week. I don't know if that's doing it or not, but you're eating, sleeping better, and seem happier. You still love your Kix, avocado is still a favorite, and you'll try about anything momma's eating. A week or so ago you wouldn't eat your Gerber ravioli, but when you were on momma's lap you started opening your mouth following momma's chopsticks around. So you had some seaweed and octupus from momma's salad. You liked it!
7. We started water babies class last week. You like putting your face in the water. Last night you also decided you liked "jumping" in. You'd lean toward the side of the pool, reach, and whine until I'd take you over to the side and stand you at the edge of the pool. Then you'd bend your knees and ready to jump until I'd take you and "jump" you into the water.
8. Momma had a big oopsie moment last night--she forgot to take a diaper to the gym to put on you when we got dressed after we got out of the pool. So you came home with a gym towel wrapped around you under your clothes. Luckily we came straight home.
9. You still don't trust yourself to walk. Momma's anxious for you to start walking even though I know it's going to be harder once you do.
10. You love Speckles. You just squeal when we get home and she's dancing around, excited to see us. You try to share food, but haven't learned yet that once you give her a bite, you don't get it back. I thought you were going to take a bite of her puppy treat before giving it to her this morning though.

I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I go to bed. But for now, it's time to say good night, go take a shower, and go to bed.