A Mover and Shaker

Things are quickly changing around our house--Lily has started to crawl within the last week, which means my procrastination of baby-proofing our house has finally caught up with me, so I am now trying to put up some makeshift barriers to keep her away from the entertainment center and electrical cords and other such tempting objects. Rolling had been her previous method of getting from point A to point B, but she finally figured out how to get her legs to work. Unfortunately, she could only go in reverse for a while. For several days, this is what I found each time I walked into the living room. She was always in the same spot, her head just poking out from under the futon. Now, however, she has figured out how to scoot forward. Her preferred system is a combination of scooting and rolling to get to whatever has attracted her attention--usually something exciting like a bottle of lotion or a phone charger. Heaven forbid she want to play with one of her toys! Anyway, all of this activity tends to wear her out, so she's been sleeping quite well. I was checking on her during her afternoon nap the other day to find her like this.
She's got all of that space and yet 9 times out of 10, I find her pressed up against the rails of her crib. Oh well, whatever works for her.

GM River Days

This last weekend marked a big event in downtown Detroit--GM River Days. It's a four day festival on the Detroit International Riverfront (Windsor, Canada is on the other side of the river) . It included games, rides, music, food, exhibits, and fireworks.
We went on Saturday and were lucky to take everything in just before a huge rainstorm began. It was quite a bit of fun--we got to see some jet ski performances--I was amazed at the stuff those guys (and girls) can do! Adam's favorite thing was watching the Ultimate Air Dogs--dock jumping dogs that run and jump off a platform into a pool and compete to see who gets the longest distance. We let Lily splash around in a couple of fountains and entered some raffles/sweepstakes things. Lily won a DVD at one booth.

They also had an impressive display of classic cars. Here is Adam in front of a '57 Chevy Bellaire.
You can see the ominous clouds above. We had to book it back to the Renaissance Center to beat the downpour. Because we had Lily's stroller we had to go up the wheelchair ramp, which is just a lot of switchbacks. As the rain started coming down we scrapped that idea and carried her up the stairs in it and made a mad dash for shelter. Good times!

Father's Day!

Father's Day was a weekend celebration in our house, regardless if Adam noticed, or not. Saturday started off with me trying to keep Lily quiet and entertained so he could sleep in. When he woke up I made us a nice, healthy breakfast, which was followed by a long walk to the local farmer's market in downtown Farmington. Before we left, Adam was complaining that he didn't have anything to wear, so I decided to grace him with an early Father's Day present. He finally got a Detroit Tiger's hat as well as a new T-shirt.
We had planned on trying to find some vegetable plants at the market to take home with us but didn't find anything to our liking. Instead we went to Quiznos and had lunch. I consider the trip a success. I had a good laugh when I pointed out to Adam that he had overlooked the sizing sticker on the front of his shirt and had been walking around all day with it like that. It was a fun, laid-back morning. Adam--always the optimist--noted that if it weren't for the high gas prices, we probably wouldn't have even thought of going out for a morning stroll, which is probably true. We've tried to curb our driving as much as possible and, hence, have started walking more. Let me tell you, though--it was a hot walk home--I felt like I was suffocating in my jeans--if only Lily hadn't vomited all over my shorts the night before! Once we got home we filled Lily's swimming pool up and let her splash around for a while.

On Sunday Adam enjoyed yet another day of sleeping in, followed by a much-slaved-over breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. The one thing he asked for for father's day was a nap. He attempted to take one, but the quality, I fear, was less than stellar; Lily had just woken up from her nap as he went to lay down, and she's usually rather vocal after she gets up. I walked into the bedroom to find Adam with a pillow over his face in an attempt to muffle her squawking. I ended up taking her out for a walk. We tried to grill for dinner, but apparently the charcoal we bought is rather cheap and was not cooking the chicken satisfactory to Adam's taste, so we scrapped that and threw it in the oven. I think it turned out fine.
(If Nat is reading this, please note there is not one, but two bottles of spray butter on the table).
Adam and his little buddy before she went to bed (try to ignore the messy spit up stain on her shirt). Happy Father's Day Adam!

Feasting on the Words of Christ

Somehow I don't think this is quite what Nephi had in mind. This afternoon I left Lily in the living room with some toys and put on a DVD for her to watch so I could clean up the kitchen. She was having a great time, laughing, squealing, and so forth. I noticed after a while she was no longer sitting up, but laying on her stomach. I could only see her legs because the Love Sac was blocking my view. Normally she gets mad when she's on her tummy, but she seemed to be fine, so I didn't think anything of it. Then after 5-10 minutes I began to wonder what was keeping her occupied so intently. I walked over to find she had gotten hold of my Ensign and had wrinkled, shredded, slobbered all over, and eaten (apparently) the first page of Elder Bednar's talk.
For shame! Does this look like the face of one who is remorseful for what they have done? I didn't think so either.

Mother's Day '08

Sunday marked my first official mother's day--I say official because we kind of celebrated it last year since I was pregnant at the time. Overall, it was a pretty good day. The whole weekend was actually quite nice. On Saturday I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts (by myself!) to see a special exhibit. It was one of my birthday gifts from Adam--a day to myself to go to the museum. I'm not sure if that was because he was being thoughtful or that he just didn't want to go. Let me tell you, it was amazing--I spent a couple of hours perusing some incredible paintings. One of the highlights was part of the museum's permanent collection--an enormous mural by Diego River, housed in a large room called the Rivera Court. It was just overwhelming to see. I can't describe how huge this thing is--here's a picture so you can get a glimpse of its scale.
Moving on--later that afternoon, Adam, Lily and I went to the park and threw the Frisbee around--Lily didn't participate so much in that--she just chilled and watched us for about half an hour. I must say that Adam's Frisbee throwing ability has improved quite a bit over the years. Sunday was cold and rainy, alas, but it was still quite nice. Lily surprised me with a wonderful gift--a good night of sleep (which is the same thing she gave me last Christmas, but I'll take it). Adam gave me cold, hard cash to spend on whatever I wanted (mainly because I tell him something new I want every other day so he had no idea which thing to get), and the double CD set of Ghostbusters I and II (kind of an inside joke)--what a great husband. He also had sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers on Friday.
On Sunday he took care of Lily all day at church and that afternoon so I could just sit back and relax. You might note that Lily has become much more photogenic when having her picture taken. She gets very excited and just smiles as soon as we whip out the camera (which happens quite a bit around here).

Having Fun!

Lily and I were playing for a while before dinner and she was in one of her (rare) non-fussy moods, so I recorded it on our camera. Don't ask me why the color is weird--I haven't figured it out yet. The background noise is a little overbearing--I was watching a documentary for the John Wayne movie The Searchers at the time, so try to ignore it.

At long last.....

So I've been getting crap from about every person I know about not updating my blog, so you can all finally sleep at night knowing that I have at long last put up a new post. :) In spite of the wintery weather, we had a great Easter holiday.

Here is a picture of Lily in her pretty, little Easter dress. I had an Easter dress as well, but it was too cold to wear it--what's with Easter being in March!?

Adam's sister, Ashley, came to stay with us for a week and we had a lot of fun. She was gracious enough to babysit for us, so Adam and I went out on a date for the first time since Lily was born! As mentioned, it's been a while since I've posted anything, so there have naturally been some new developments, as far as Lily is concerned. She is a week shy of 5 months and has passed several fun milestones in the last month. Allow me to illustrate a few of them for you:

Lily has discovered she has feet. Every time I put her on her changing table she instantly grabs 0ne of her legs or feet (she tends to favor the right). It wasn't long after that, that her mouth also disovered her feet, as you can see.

Lily has started eating rice cereal. It didn't go so well at first, but she's got it down now and enjoys it (I think). She looks like a spastic little bird when she eats, and though it would appear otherwise, she does get more in her mouth than she does on her face.

Miraculously, Lily will now take a bottle! Sweet freedom!! She only gets one bottle a day, but I can't even begin to tell you how much of a relief it is to know that I have a little more leeway with leaving her with Adam to go to the store or somewhere and not have to be back within 2 hours. If she's in a reclined position, she can give herself the bottle--she does a pretty good job of holding it.

Lily has an occassional moment of tranquility during tummy time. Usually she is red-faced and screaming, but she is starting to have sessions where she will just play and even smile!

Lily has also learned how to drive a car. Okay, not really, but she did have a fun time at GM World at the Renaissance Center, where Adam works. She particularly liked the Corvette.

Sadly, she has had a bout of acid reflux, and wasn't putting on much weight. She was about 11 1/2 pounds at her 4 month check, so I had to take her back every week for several weeks so they could keep weighing her. She is taking some medicine to help with the reflux and she now weighs in at 12 pounds 4 ounces!

Other things that have transpired: I celebrated my 27th birthday last week. It was a fun-filled day of doing laundry and packing clothes for my Utah trip and trying to keep Lily happy--it didn't go so well. I flew out to Utah the next day for a 3 week trip. It was my first time flying alone with Lily, so I was a little nervous, but she was so good! It was a nonstop flight (about 4 hours) and she was as happy as can be. The flight attendants were just fawning over her and a woman sitting in the row in front of us asked if she could hold her to give me a break. Let's hope she does okay on our return flights. Adam got to go to the New York auto show a few weeks ago and then went to a conference in New Jersey last week and then will be in Arkansas this week. In spite of the cold weather I've decided that it is spring in my book, and have hence started wearing flip flops every day. It's my small way of protesting this unrelenting winter season--doesn't it know that spring started on March 20?! Anyway, I solemnly swear that I'll do my utmost to keep the posts coming.