Wow! The world looks so different from this angle!
Cousin Jessie's patriotic dress!



Future Meredith Alumnae!
Sleeping Angel!



Drool & slobber everywhere!

Memorial Day

This was a nice long weekend. We didn’t do anything too terribly exciting, but that was just what I wanted! Randy came in from Phoenix and spent the night with us on Friday & then he and Chris went golfing on Saturday pretty much all day, which meant I got a lot of quality time with Miss Meredith. She has been really cute lately, although that is intermittently interrupted with some crankiness, which I’m assuming is because she is teething. She is drooling so much that her little chin has broken out and everything goes in her mouth…everything. She grabs your fingers and brings them towards her mouth, I wipe her mouth with a cloth and she tries to eat it, if she can hold onto a toy long enough, in it goes. My mom said that all of us teethed early, and I think I cut my first tooth at 5 months, so looks like Meredith may be the same.
We had two big firsts this weekend. One was trying rice cereal in a bottle before bed…..it was a success to say the least. She slept for almost 12 uninterrupted hours the first night!!! Although, last night she decided that she didn’t like the taste. She would make this face and basically turn away and kinda push the bottle, so this may be short lived, but we’ll keep trying! (I can’t say that I blame her though because the stuff smells horrid!) She also had her first pool experience, which wasn’t so successful! We went over to Hillary and Allison’s apartment pool and the water was still a bit cool and Meredith hated it! She was ok until her feet hit the water and then she just wailed. I think that the water was just too cool for her. Hillary held her and kinda dunked her little bottom into the water and she lost her breath like when you get hit with cold water and it sucks the breath out of you…poor thing gasped and immediately cried. So, I guess we will give it another try once the water has gotten warmer, which will probably be in about 3 days since it has been so hot!
Back to the grind today. Thankfully I don’t have class tonight, but I do have a midterm on Thursday that I need to study for. That is the one good thing about summer school…a midterm in the 3rd week of class!
I promise I'll post pictures soon....I'm still a little technically challenged with the camera!

Rolling Over!

Well, it's official. Meredith rolled over this weekend :) I was getting pretty worried that she was going to do it at the babysitter's house and I was going to miss it, but she really did it on Sunday. First we had her on our bed and I think that I was helping her by pushing on the mattress and then we had her on the couch and it is nice and soft and she was rolling toward the middle, so I was kinda telling myself that she did it when I knew deep down that I was helping her to do it by putting her on such soft surfaces, but then last night I had her on the floor on a blanket and there she went! It was so cute because then she gets her face planted in the ground and has to figure out how to pick her head up. She is so funny when she is on her belly because she still wants to suck on her hands, but she hasn't figured out that her hands are what are holding her up, so as soon as she pulls a hand up to put it in her mouth, she kinda falls on her face!! She doesn't seem to care too much though. I think Chris and I freaked her out a little bit because we were so excited. She just had the funniest look on her face like she was surprised at herself :) I will have to get some pictures posted, just haven't gotten the camera hooked up to the computer lately. This weekend went way too fast.....

Blast from the past

The other day I ran across our wedding photo cd and thought I'd upload a few to show just how far Chris and I have come in the almost 4 years since June 29th, 2002!

Goodnight Moon!

Wednesday night I read Meredith her first book, Goodnight Moon. I picked that one because it has a lot of bright pictures as well as some black and white and I've heard so many people rave about how their child loved it. I had her on my lap, so I couldn't really see her face, but Chris said that she was looking at the book...of course, not for long. I read it again last night and she was grabbing at the pages (it's one of those little board books). I probably should have been reading to her awhile ago, but this just seemed like the right time. I'm hoping to work it into her bedtime routine...since she still isn't really on a good routine!
My plan is to pack away her 0-3 month clothes this weekend, since she has absolutely no need for them anymore! It seems like such a milestone!

My First Mother's Day

Well, my very first mother's day was quite lovely! The plan was to make it to church to be with the whole family, but I was running late as usual and now trying to make sure Meredith is fed and ready only adds to the challenge of the typical Elliott tardiness! I had gotten up, showered and was mostly ready, was heading to Meredith's nursery and Chris was still in bed. In that quite annoyed voice, I told him that I would be leaving for church as soon as I could get her fed and dressed. Well, I walked into her room and he had already been up and put my gifts in her room. One from her right in the crib with her :) He got me this cool beach chair that has a hole in it so that you can lay on your stomach and put your face in the hole and still read a book under the chair. He also got me a nice spa gift certificate and some tanning sessions for this poor white girl! Meredith got me this sweet book & CD of Martina McBride's song, "In My Daughter's Eyes" and it made me cry like a baby! It's really amazing what motherhood has done to my emotions!! So, we made it to church(late!) and had lunch with the family at one of our favorite places, Neomonde. This week was actually the first time I had to take Meredith out of church. She was just making all kinds of noise and starting to get fussy, but overall she did pretty well. She seemed really tired on the way home, so I fed her and tried to get her down for a nap and she would have nothing to do with it. She screamed and screamed and I thought she'd just wear herself out, but no such luck. We had a nice dinner at mom's for a combo of mother's day and Hillary's birthday. It was really nice.
This has also been Meredith's first week at the babysitter's house. She lives right next door, which makes it super convenient. Chris has been dropping her off and picking her up, which is a good thing because I totally lost it on Monday morning leaving for work. It is just so hard thinking about someone else spending more time with your child than you do! I also started class last night and didn't get home until after 9:30, so I got to see her for about an hour total yesterday and she wasn't very thrilled to see me that late at night :(
She is starting to really reach out and hold onto things more and more. She still hasn't rolled over, but I think it is coming pretty soon. Her legs are getting really strong too because she can stand in your lap for quite awhile now. It sounds silly, but one of my biggest challenges lately is keeping up with her fingernails! She keeps scratching herself (she has really started to rub her eyes and face when she's tired), but I just can't seem to get them to where they aren't sharp! She is such a wiggle worm that it makes it so hard. Poor thing has little scratches all over her face! She gave me a bunch of really good smiles this morning, which made it that much harder to leave! She also officially slept for a good 6 hours last night without waking up (well, at least not crying)! I am so excited, but don't want to get my hopes up either because the night before I was up with her from 4-5am...made for a fun day yesterday, especially since I left the house at 7am and didn't get home until 9:30pm.....long day.
Oh yeah, I also found out this weekend that two of my good friend's are pregnant! I won't say who yet, since it is still early for them both, but it was quite a surprise. Also, Kelly McDonald may have had her baby yesterday. She was supposed to be induced, but those can be bumped quite easily (know that from experience!), so I'm not sure if she has had her baby yet or not. Babies galore!

It has been forever since I have written anything. I guess that's because we are staying really busy these days. Between work and keeping up with Miss Meredith, finding extra time to type isn't so easy! Summer school starts next week, so who knows the next time I'll get a chance to post! Meredith is really changing every day. She is growing like a little weed! She has gotten so long that her feet are already pushing on the bottom of her 3-6 month sleepers! I'm thinking she is around 15 pounds by now. Today she is 14 weeks old and I can hardly believe how quickly the past month has gone. She is still drooling like crazy and chewing on anything that gets close to her mouth, like my shoulder or her hands or a blanket etc, which really makes me think that her teeth are starting to move around in those gums! (I pretty much always have slobber all over my shoulder, so just get used to seeing me with a wet mark on my shoulder!) She is also getting dangerously close to rolling over! She pushes off with her feet and kindof gets on her side, but those darn arms just get in the way! She also is doing so much better with tummy time. She used to absolutely hate it and scream, but now she can really hold her head up and support herself with her arms (well, as long as I sort of prop her up on them!) It is just too adorable to see her hold that head up and look around. It must be a totally different perspective for her too! She continues to gurgle and make lots of noises. Her most recent one is almost like a low growl. Chris and I just look at eachother and laugh because she will make that noise for a few minutes at a time and it just cracks us up! We went to Tennessee this past weekend for Chris's sister Kaci's wedding. We were very fortunate with the weather because it was an outdoor wedding. It rained all day Friday and Sunday, but somehow Saturday was beautiful. They had the wedding at Chris's mom & step dad's house, which is in the beautiful rolling hills of Tennessee. They board horses and Kaci is big time into horses, so she was actually rode in on a horse drawn carriage from the barn being led by a bagpipe player. It was really beautiful. I was a bridesmaid and Chris was an usher, so one of Chris's cousins held Meredith during the ceremony. She did really well, except his cousin had to get up and walk around with her a bit to keep her happy. There were two other kids that I wish their parents had done the same thing, but they decided to let them sit on the front row making all sorts of noise during the ceremony....oh well. It was a long weekend of travel and Meredith really did well until Monday when she totally fell to peices with Chris at home during the day. I think everything from the weekend just built up and she was just overstimulated and she cried all day. Poor Chris was really whipped when I got home. She got a little better through the evening, but she was still pretty fussy. I was worried she might be getting sick or something, but she was fine the next day. I guess she just likes the familiarity of home already! She starts with the babysitter next week (our next door neighbor!), so hopefully that will go well. I think that will be another emotional battle for me. It's hard enough coming to work knowing that she is at home with her dad, but now she will be with someone else :( Oh well, I guess I should just be thankful that she has been home as long as she has. Most kids aren't that lucky. Plus, I think she and Chris have really bonded over the past few weeks. It makes me so happy to see them together :)