Church Portraits

So, we just got our first official family portrait made for the church directory! Nothing like the good ol' Lutherans to get you out for a family picture! We were the suckers that ended up spending way too much on ordering some, but we just couldn't resist the ones of Meredith (they knew that too!!) These were taken about 3 weeks ago.

We had a nice long weekend. Nothing terribly exciting. We stuck pretty close to home and got important things done like cleaning out the pantry and doing lots of laundry. Oh, can my life get much more exciting?? Meredith is talking up a storm. Still nothing substantial word wise, but she is running her mouth all the time! My favorite is her way of saying kitty cat. She ends up adding several syllables and it comes out something like kidigidycat. The babysitter said that Meredith said gracias the other day too! This whole being exposed to two languages at such an early age totally makes me excited!

Something else that has me excited is that she is starting to take an interest in books (she did attempt to eat the board book that also sings songs the other day...we got a flat tire and she was awfully quiet in the car while we were changing it and it was because she had chewed an entire corner off! Cardboard is another food group, right?). She still won't sit still long enough to let me read more than a page or two, but she'll take the book and go sit at her new table and chairs (great find on craiglist!) and turn the pages and pretend to read! It is so cute! She has moments of sitting still lately, which has thoroughly amazed me and makes me realize that there is hope for this child to be calm and peaceful on occasion!

She absolutely loves being outside. She starts to throw a fit if one of us goes outside and she can't come. She ran through the sprinkler the other day, which was pretty darn cute too.

Let's see, what else. She now has all 4 of her first molars (or whatever the first really big teeth are called) that have cut through for a total of 12 teeth! Her new favorite food is an orange. She can hardly stand to wait for me to peel it because she gets so excited! Oh yeah, we have almost gotten past the milk hurdle. She has successfully had several cups of milk now. I think it's just because she's super thirsty and that's all that is in her cup, but we are at least making progress!

Chris only has about 2 weeks of school left and then he and Meredith will start their summer together (i'm so jealous!). We are still going to take her to the babysitter probably one day a week, just so she will have some continuity through the summer and we don't just plop her off in the fall to a kindof strange place and so that Chris can get things done around the house or run errands etc...trust me, I'm working on the honeydo list!!

Summer school is going well. It is overall a very easy class in comparison to last semester and I'm already half way through (I have the midterm tomorrow)! Work is work. I've been feeling a bit disenchanted lately, so I need to get myself motivated about work again somehow.

Sorry for the long post...I've been bad lately about adding anything.

Mother's Day

The first picture is of Meredith's favorite thing ever. Her Dora chair. She loves this thing!

This second picture is a couple of weeks old. We finally put her infant seat in the attic and she decided to play with it before we put it away. Hard to believe she used to fit in that seat!!

We had a very nice Mother's Day on Sunday. We went to church (we were 15 mins late, but better late than never, right?) and since there were some other very noisy children around us, Meredith stayed for the whole service instead of going into the nursery. Then we went out to the Duke Gardens, which is right by Hillary & Joey's house, and let Meredith loose! She loved running around and was not happy to get back in her stroller. She LOVES being outside! We stopped and got a LocoPop, which is this kinda hole in the wall place in Durham that has the coolest and most unique popsicle flavors ever! I got a cantaloupe ginger one and it rocked! I was quite intrigued by the mango chile one, but didn't go there. Meredith was so cute because she basically went around to everyone and begged for a taste of their popsicles! The funky flavors didn't seem to bother her a bit. We had dinner at a mexican restaurant in Brightleaf square and then went back to Hillary & Joey's house for dessert and presents (we also combined Hillary's birthday into the day as well!) I got my baby girl's handprints :) It was a very nice day!

Bye Bye bottle!

(This is a pic from when we went to the mudcats a few weeks ago).

Well, it is quite overdue, but we are officially saying goodbye to the bottle. Meredith still won't drink milk out of a cup, but I figure she can't have a bottle forever, so it's time to just take it away completely and be sure she gets calcium elsewhere with cheese and yogurt etc. I've tried everything to get her to drink it out of a cup. I've bought new cups, some with straws, some that are just cool colors, I've tried soy milk, chocolate milk, watered down milk, half milk & half formula, only water in the bottle. She just takes one sip from the cup, makes a face and puts it down and wants nothing to do with it. I had just been hanging onto the bottle because that was the only way she was getting milk in one or two bottles a day, but now that she is 15 months old, it's just time. The good thing is that she loves cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, & broccoli (I was kindof surprised to know that broccoli is high in calcium!), so we're just going that route and will continue to try giving her milk to see if she finally will take it now that she doesn't have a bottle.

I'm so thankful that she is well again. She really was wiped out with that nastiness she had and I just can't express how nice it is to have my happy girl back! Makes me appreciate the mischief she gets into and not worry so much about all the messes she makes while she is her happy little self! We really are lucky because she hasn't been sick very much at all and I certainly don't want to re-visit it again anytime soon.

Have I mentioned that she is still obsessed with shoes? She loves them! If Chris or I leave our shoes out, she picks them up and brings them to us and tries to put them on our feet. She often finds her own shoes and will sit on the floor trying to get them on her feet, which never works, but she tries! She also hates having them on in the car. She pulls and pulls on them to see if she can get them off. Not sure what all this means, but I'm sure that this too will pass!

She also loves to try to put things together. It may be something simple, like a lid to a bowl, but she will sit there and try to fit the two pieces together for the longest time. She still won't sit still long enough to watch any tv/videos for any length of time, but some of them are starting to catch her eye. Anything with animals or babies really stops her in her tracks...for a second or two at least!
Oh yeah, her faaavorite thing to say lately is 'doggeee'. Although, everything is a doggee, everything. First we thought it was just all animals, but now it's pretty much anything she is pointing at that very moment. It is very cute :)

Mean, mean molars

Having a sick baby with molars pushing through at the same time just isn't good. Meredith got the bug her dad had last week and has been totally miserable. She spiked a fever on Friday morning, so I left work and took her to the doctor. (by the way, tried the new pediatrician up at Brier Creek, The Growing Child, and was very pleased). She got an antibiotic and cough medicine and went downhill from there the rest of the weekend. She struggled with a fever, cough and congestion all weekend along with terribly swollen gums from her inscisors and molars pushing. She would just start crying and want to be held constantly, so I got nothing done all weekend. I sat up with her for awhile at 4am on Saturday while she just wanted to be held and needed another dose of Tylenol since she was burning up. Once again, those late nights make me remember the days of a newborn...not ready for that again! By Sunday I thought we were coming out of it, but still wasn't sure, so I let her sleep in until after 10:00 on Monday and took her to daycare for half a day. I really didn't want to take another vacation day if I didn't have to and she ended up doing fine. She fell apart again last night and her cough is still pretty hacky, but I am seeing glimpses of my sweet baby coming through again. If those poor teeth would give her some relief, we'd really be on our way!

Here is the best Easter picture I have of her in her pretty dress (notice the drool all over the collar!). She just wouldn't cooperate for any other pictures! Late again, but at least it's something!