So this is what it's like?

Baby girl has been perfect today. She's my little pal! She took a nap this morning, and with only minimal fussing and fighting to fall asleep. Then she was all laughs and smiles while she played with her toys (that's right--PLAYED with her toys) late-morning/early afternoon. She loves the music table we got her because she can stand around it. It's 3:00 and she has now been napping for an hour, again with not too much struggle to get her to sleep. I just know she's going to be pleasant for the rest of the afternoon. NAPS ARE GOOD!!!! I even got to clean a little, take down the Christmas tree/decorations, and help Jay hang her new swing, which I can't wait to push her in. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas pics

I decided scraping glue, concrete & backer board remnants off the concrete kitchen floor really sucks. That's what I've been doing all morning and now my hands HUUUURT! I've got blisters on my palms...but our tile floor will be pretty when it's all finished. Much better than the grandma-style white & blue linoleum that was in there.

Anyway, I finally got around to downloading Christmas pics. For some reason, we can't take a picture of our tree with the lights on. They always come out blurry. But I managed to get a few in front of my parents' tree. I wanted one of her looking at me in front of the tree, but all she wants to do is grab the ornaments (of course!) so sideways is just as good, I guess.

I love this--she looks like she's just chillin' on the exersaucer. She only likes to be on the outside now--not on the inside.


This is Buddy--the best dog EVER. He is Jay's aunt & uncle's dog and he is the friendliest, most well-behaved dog I've ever known. Jenna decided she liked him, too.


This just cracked me up because she looked like she kind on looks like she's thinking "hee hee, you don't know it, but I'm about to do something bad." You can kind of see her bottom teeth, too. Or, you could if it was better quality.



About the sleeping at night question...she usually goes to sleep right after she finishes her last bottle. I don't know what it is. It's like she knows not to go to sleep during the day, but at night she is ready. Sometimes she'll cry & resist for a while, but eventually she goes to sleep and is OK with us putting her in the crib. She just doesn't like that during the day. Weird, but I'm not complaining that she sleeps most of the night!

Last night we had a GREAT dinner at Roy's. It's a Hawaiian-fusion seafood place. Too expensive, but hey--you have to do that on your anniversary, right? First, we stopped to get Jenna some Little People, since everyone else's babies seem to love them. :) Hopefully she will, too. Anyway, we had a private booth at the restaurant with no one else around, but I didn't really like the fish I ordered. Jay liked his a lot. When the waiter asked how everything was, I said it was OK. He asked if I wanted something else, and I said that's OK, I'll just eat it. Even though it was expensive, I didn't want to be "one of those people." A few minutes later, the manager came over and said he heard I wasn't crazy about my food. I said I'm not loving it, but I'll eat it. So then he practically begged me to get something else because they don't like when their customers aren't happy with their choices. OK, so I got a macadamia nut-crusted mahi that was yummy, and I felt better about it. That was awesome that they care. After we passed on dessert, they brought a chocolate souffle that had "Happy 9th Anniverary" written in chocolate sauce, along with 2 glasses of champagne & strawberries. How awesome is that??? And when we got home, Jenna was sound asleep in her crib, thanks to Gramma & Grampa. Weeeeeeee!!!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. 9 years! I'm not sure what we were thinking, getting married 2 days after Christmas. Well, we had our reasons but it's always kind of a hassle to celebrate our anniversaries at that time. We're going out for a nice, child-free dinner and I'm so looking forward to it!

This weekend is the kitchen remodel weekend. Jay's dad is coming to help with the tiling & countertops. Jay came home from work early and he's in the kitchen working hard at scraping up all the linoleum, while I'm sitting here blogging and watching King of Queens. :) Poor guy. I'm off this week. I scraped up a big chunk of it this morning, but then I decided to go shopping. When I got home, he was already here and had scraped up more than I had when I worked on it earlier. Yikes! I have Jenna in daycare so I could get some things done, because I learned over the past 5 days that can't get a thing done when she's here.

So yeah, I was with Jenna for 5 days straight. She was so good when we went to visit Jay's parents. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive and she was fairly good both ways. We tried timing it so she would sleep most of the time. She was pleasant and took naps there, and we were talking about how good she was. Even the next day (Christmas Eve) at my parents' house, she was great. Christmas Day, not so much. The day after? Probably even worse. The girl is the worst napper EVER and she gets way overtired. When she's overtired, WATCH OUT. She absolutely will not go to sleep. Sometimes we can coax her to sleep on our shoulders after much rocking, position-changing, and pacifier forcing. But if we dare try to put her in her crib, she immediately wakes up. I think it's out of spite, personally. She's thinking she'll show us who's boss. So I cave and let her nap on me for as long as she'll sleep. I do this because I'd rather have her sleep in any way and have her be more pleasant later, than have her not sleep and be a bear later. She had been sleeping through the night for a while, but not anymore. She wakes up just about every morning anywhere between 2 and 5, ready to go. She thinks it's playtime. Arrrgggh! Well, I'll just assume it's a phase and she'll get over it. She's got her daddy's energy, for sure!

Happy 8 months and Merry Christmas

Wow, time flies! Jenna's 8 months old today, but it's been fast and slow. Long nights (when she won't sleep); short weeks. She keeps getting cuter and more fun, but also more exhausting. Crawing everywhere (though slowly). Standing against everything she can find (though she has learned that things with wheels aren't as much fun to pull up on). Chewing on everything. Climbing on everything, including (and especially) mom & dad. Still spitting up on everything, all the time and everywhere. Still fighting sleep as much as she can. Thrashing around on her changing table when we're attempting to change her diaper or clothes. Screaming when we leave her in her exersaucer, jumperoo, playpen, or walker for more than 3 minutes. Grabbing my glasses, nose, ears, lips, and especially HAIR with her death grip and razor-sharp fingernails. But laughing a lot more. Smiling whenever she sees us. "Talking" in the cutest way! I love her! I am always anxious to see what she will do next.

I probably won't update the blog again before Christmas, so Merry Christmas!

Standing room only

Big girl is standing on her own now! She's been pulling up on things for a while, but now she can stand without holding on to anything. I didn't even know this! I took her to daycare this morning and the lady in there asked if I had seen her standing. I said when she holds on to something, but she said "No, she can stand on her own!" She was really excited about it, which made me happy to know that Jenna is with people all day who encourage her. Anyway, the lady stood Jenna on the floor and held onto her hands, and then she let go. And guess what? Jenna just stood there! By herself! For like 10 seconds! Then the lady took her hands again, but Jenna balanced herself and my jaw was hanging on the floor. Apparently this happened by accident yesterday, when she thought she was holding on to her, and then realized she wasn't anymore. But Jenna was still standing. Oh my gosh, she'll be walking before she's 9 months old, and I'm in trouble then...

Proud to be American

I was at Chick-Fil-A today and as I was paying, 2 cashiers were having a conversation about a trip to New York one had just returned from. This is how it went:

Cashier 1: It was great. We went to see blah blah show (I wasn't really paying attention yet).
Cashier 2: Did you go to Rockefeller Center?
Cashier 1: Yeah, we saw everyone ice skating, and the big tree.
Cashier 1: We went to the big liberty thing (gesturing that it was big)
Cashier 2: Oh, yeah, that big lady.
Me: The Statue of Liberty?
Cashier 1: Yeah, that's it. And we went to that island thing were the immigrants were.
Me: Ellis Island?
Cashier 1: Yeah! (To the other cashier) She knows more than me and I was just there.

Oh, American pride...

By the way, I should be banned from Carter's, Little Me, and Once Upon a Child (I get almost all Jenna's clothes there). I was going to buy her a dress and shoes, if I could find what I was looking for. I ended up buying her 5 outfits. No dress, no shoes. Poor baby doesn't have a dress. I just don't like her in them because they are too hard to keep down where they're supposed to be. My favorites are one-piece pants outfits (like the Christmas outfit in the previous post), but I'm branching out to two-piece outfits. Other moms who have baby girls who aren't walking yet: do you put them in dresses?

It's done

This morning, we decided to try taking Jenna to church with us and not putting her in the nursery. It lasted about 10 minutes. SQUIRMY girl doesn't like to sit still. At all. Combine that with her constant excessive spit up and chatting, and it doesn't mix with church. My left sleeve was soaked, and Jay took her to the nursery. She did look cute in her little Christmas outfit my mom got her though. (And look--her eyes match! I need to one day figure out how to get rid of that red eye...)

Well, today was the big revelation. The family came home and saw their house, and we all got to yell "move that bus!" You won't have to read about the home makover on this blog anymore! It was really cool. Our neighbor behind us let us hang out in her driveway, so we got a great view of everything. Otherwise we would have had to stand like sardines way over to the side and wouldn't have been able to see much. We were there almost 3 hours and had Jenna with us the whole time. She did OK, but she does NOT like to be held that long without being able to climb all over everything. She seemed to like her daddy's shoulders the best.

I kept thinking those kids have to be a little freaked out. They come home from vacation in a limo. There are thousands of people lining the streets, screaming, there are cameras everywhere, and then there is another house where their old house used to be. But the mother seemed really happy. They didn't have microphones on them for all to hear, but I'm anxious to watch this show and hear that conversation. That's the mom in the green shirt (and I'm sure everyone knows who that is talking to her!).

Here's Paige & Eduardo. I've only seen the show once, but I recognized them.

I got a great video of the whole "move that bus" revelation. I am just too lazy to download it now. :) Ordinarily, I wouldn't post pictures of random people on my blog. But they're all going to end up on national TV anyway, so I don't think they care...

Progress?

OK, I'm a dork. Deal with it. Only 3 more days of the extreme makeover. For the past 3 days around 5, Jay & Jenna & I walked over there to look at the house. I'm still so amazed by how much they get done in such a short amount of time! Jay picked up the tile we ordered yesterday, and the guy working there said he was going this morning at 3 a.m. to tile. So the place is already tiled! Anyway, here's the progress:

Tuesday... (keep in mind there was a house there earlier in the day)

Wednesday...
Today...

Yes, only 24 hours between each picture. The house is freakin' HUGE. And it does not match any other houses in the nighborhood in any way. They put that school house-looking thing on top, and we can see that when we just stand in our yard. When the old house was there, we could barely see the roof from our own roof, to put it into perspective.

Anyway...Jenna is getting better, but still has the cough. Not quite as much snot though, so that's good. We're giving her the breathing treatments, but I don't really think they do anything. We're also giving her the antibiotic, but she HATES that. I'm wondering if there's a reason we can't just squirt it into her bottle and have her drink it with the formula. It's so hard to get it in her mouth with the 2 of us, and of course even harder when I have to do it myself in the morning! She thrashes around and spits it out when I do get it in there, unless I get it way back.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but that girl loves her Cheerios! We started giving them to her for something to do while we ate (since she won't stay in her exersaucer or jumper or walker or pack & play!), and now she loves them. When we go out to dinner or usually when we're at home, she sits in her high chair and eats with us. YUMMY!

Tonight, we couldn't have made it through the meal at Cheddar's without them (Brittney, it was so great to meet you guys for dinner!!!!) YAAAAAAY for Cheerios!

Poor baby girl

I took her to the doctor this morning because her coughing and congestions doesn't seem to be getting better and I thought I heard her wheezing. It turns out she has RSV and bronchiolitis. I didn't know anything about this. I saw a lot of ads about the dangers of it when I was reading all the pregnancy & parenting magazines, but I thought it was pretty much just for preemies. I kind of freaked when the doctor said that's what it was, but hers is mild. I thought at first that this was just a cold because she eats fine, sleeps fine at night (except when she wakes up from too much congestion), doesn't have a fever, and plays great. Doesn't seem phased by it and she obviously doesn't feel bad. But the duration of it and the wheezing I thought I was hearing concerned me. So I have a nebulizer to give her breathing treatments, and antibiotics because the doctor said she has fluid in her ears from it and is developing an ear infection. Great...but it's her first one, so I guess we should be grateful we made it 7 months without anything other than a mild cold. I just hope it gets better soon, and doesn't get any worse. I feel so sorry for her! The perks of daycare, I guess.

Of course I have to comment on the makeover house--it's hard to ignore it when I can't go out the front or back of my house without hearing or seeing it. Between the big busses, trailers, trucks carrying all the equipment they need, and all the noise, it's hard not to think about, It's interesting seeing the progress of tearing down & building a house in less than a week. Right now there's a big crane I can see out my window, and of COURSE I'm going to have to head over there later to see what it looks like now. It just amazes me they can do that so fast. This family of 8, with 5 autistic kids, that couldn't pay their mortgage left their leaky, moldy, cracking house to go on vacation Sunday (or Monday?). When they come back Sunday, they'll have a brand new, bigger, fully furnished & decorated house in its place. Amazing. They won't even have a mortgage anymore, but surely they'll have a helluva tax increase...hmmmm.

The drawback of trees

Before we bought this house, we wanted lots of trees. We wanted a house with a good sized yard and lots of trees around the neighborhood. That's what we got, and now I'm cursing the trees because I can't see Ty! :) I can't see him, but I can hear him. I can hear him as I sit in my office typing this. We found out that the house that's on Extreme Makoever is actually directly across the street from the house behind us. When I look over the fence on one side, I can see stuff going on through the little gap between trees, and when I look on the other side, I only see trees. But a little while ago, Ty did his thing where he yells and gets everyone all riled up. I was just commenting to Jay yesterday how they have been really quiet over there, given what they're supposed to be doing. I learned this morning by listening to all the commotion over there that they're just starting the demolition today. I guess yesterday they were just getting everything out of the house. So let the noise begin. Jenna's room is on that side of the house, and I'm concerned that they'll keep her up at night, but we'll see.

I heard one of the people say they're setting up a spectator area, so I may have to go for a jog at lunch and see what's going on. We DVRd the show Sunday night and watched it last night, so now we at least know what they do. I was floored by the gorgeous house they built & decorated (not to mention demolishing the other one) in that short time.

In Jenna news, I'm debating whether I should take her to the doctor. She has had a chest cold for like 2 weeks now. She just has so much congestion and it's not getting better. I just want to make sure it's a cold and not something worse.

Update: I discovered that I can't see the makeover house from my roof. I can only see people standing around through the trees. So I went to look at the house from the spectator area on the side. And I saw Ty. :) That was so cool--I'm going to have to go back every day at lunch and after Jay gets home! They demolished that house in like an hour. It was amazing. When I got there, the back of the house was torn off, and when I left, probably 40 minutes later, the whole thing was a pile of rubble. I will definitely be watching them build it. Ty was just sitting there. He was playing with a dog when the camera was on him, but most of the time he was just sitting there. I guess he gets busy when they actually start building, but for now it allowed me to get a good view. :) I also found out that the family does have 6 kids, and 5 are autistic. I can't wait to see the revelation Sunday. And when I said earlier "let the noise begin," I didn't know the half of it! I feel like I'm living in a construction zone.

Extreme Makeover

Huge trailers, a stretch Navigator limo, road block signs...that's what's on our street. The whole block, really. One of the houses behind us is getting a makeover on the home edition of Extreme Makeover. I've never seen the show, but I'll have to watch this one whenever it airs. For the next 7 days, they will have these streets closed and will be working around the clock to rennovate the house. I don't know who the people are or anything, but from what I understand, the show picks a family going through a hardship.

We got a notice saying we may need to get passes in order to get to our house because apparently there are going to be lots of onlookers for this thing. This week should be interesting...maybe I'll get to see Ty!!! Woo-Hoo!

Picture pages

This post is going to be all over the place. I've had problems with blogger the past few days, but finally got it worked out.

Thanks for the toy suggestions. I think Jenna just isn't interested in toys at the moment--all she cares about it standing up. She stands up all the time--it's all she ever wants to do.


I did get her a few things though. The leap frog play & learn piano (something like that) is what we'll give her for Christmas. For now, I got her one of those PVC balls and she likes that OK. I also got a little hammer that makes sounds & lights up when you hit something. We probably shouldn't encourage her to hit things though! Especially her daddy's head...I said it's funny now, until she starts bopping other kids on the head with other toys!

I see Jay's been taking pictures because I know I didn't take this one:

We have been looking for a church home ever since we moved to Austin, but none of them seem to be "it." We LOVED our church before, but I don't think driving 2 1/2 hours to get there is feasible. Yesterday we took Jenna with us to one nearby, and we put her in their nursery during the service. I seriously almost cried. I had a sinking pit in my stomach when we left her. Jay was telling me it's only and hour and she'll have fun. I know this, and I drop her off every day at daycare. Even though I don't like that either, it's familiar and I know the people there and I know she has fun. Of course it turned out fine, but I still don't know if this church is right. I love this little outfit I had on her...of course right after I took the picture, she tried to stand up. :)

We've graduated to the big tub! I guess we've always used the "big tub" but we used the baby tub inside it. No more--she's a big girl now! Of course, all she really wants to do is stand up in the tub... (She's not standing up in this pic, but she did later.)

Friday night we went to Jay's company christmas party. My sister & her husband babysat (thanks Kelly & Paul) but I fed her before they got there. I was so glad she didn't spit her sweet potatoes all over me, but I thought it was funny to feed her in my nice dress. On another note--in a couple of weeks, that yucky floor is going away! We picked out tile and countertops, and Jay's wonderfully talented dad is coming to help put them in.

Anyway, I guess it's a sign of getting older or of mommyhood, but I'm so not into parties anymore. It was a fancy-pants drinks & dinner party at the Four Seasons with different bands and a casino room, but I'd rather be home in my jammies! We had fun playing blackjack though.