On the road!

I'm writing from my cell phone and already had to start over once so I'm thinking this isn't going to be a regular occurrence over the next several days while we're gone.

We're on our way up to our cabin as we speak...er...as I blog. We left at about 6:15pm and plan on stopping in Albert Lea, Minnesota for the night and then we'll have less than halfway to go in the morning.

Miss Ayla is finally asleep after some screaming (her, not me), an episode of Barney (yep, the annoying purple dinosaur that I swore I would never let her watch..I'm drawing the line at The Wiggles), a bottle, and then one run of her lullaby cd. Whew. Now I can relax. For now, anyways...we'll see if she stays asleep. She can't be that comfortable all slumped over the way she is.

I'll most likely have a ridiculously long post with a hundred pictures to upload after we get home...so until then, hope you all have a great week! :)

Another busy weekend...

Ayla continues to crawl all over the place to check out every little corner, door, and window...we really need to do some baby-proofing. She gets into things that I didn't even think would be an issue. On Thursday night, our friends, Jamie and Dustin, their son Jayce, and nephew Jaxson drove in from Des Moines. We haven't seen them for a few months so we were looking forward to them coming! :)

On Friday morning, we went to the zoo...it happened to be the first over-90 degree day in a long time (it's been a strange summer). For those of you who know me well, you know I don't do well in the heat. I'm reduced to a sweaty, whiny, you-know-what. It was pretty hot and sticky and unfortunately, Ayla wasn't interested in being in her stroller for more than ten minutes at a time so I had my own personal space heater attached to my hip for most of the three hours that we were there. Awesome. Our friend, Lou, met us there and he ended up pushing Ayla's stroller the whole time. He also took all of these pictures (Thanks, Lou! Sorry we didn't get you in any of them!) Ayla wasn't too interested in anything besides the aquarium; she was craning her neck to see things and was pointing at everything. Usually she'll fall asleep in her stroller, but she hung on and skipped her first nap altogether. I decided it was time for the two of us to leave while Jamie, Dustin, Jayce, and Jaxson powered on through and stayed for a few more hours. I can't believe they didn't melt. Ayla passed out in the car almost instantly which was exactly what I was hoping. We headed to my brother's house to take a dip in the pool...it only took us 20 minutes to get there so that's all that she slept. She woke up as soon as I stopped the car and amazingly enough, she was good to go. Crazy baby.

She LOVED the pool! She was kicking and splashing and just having a great 'ol time. And my gosh, the water felt so awesome after being in the heat.I got a kick out of watching my niece, Haylee...she has no fear. She was jumping into the pool, swimming underwater, and was just all over the place.Mr.Bennett, however, was perfectly content with sitting in his little floatie and not touching the water at all. It's funny how different their personalities can be.
Ayla swam with Yeh-Yeh most of the time...he's more fun than Mommy. :) I just like to sit back and soak.She got through the day with two 20-minute naps. That's it. I can't decide if it's a good or bad thing that she can go off of such little sleep!

On Saturday afternoon, Meghan, Chris, and Heidi came over to hang out and grill and also so Aunt Jamie could see the girls in the froggy swimming pool that she gave to Ayla. We only had one taker...Heidi was happy enough just checking out the water from the outside of the pool. Smart girl...the water wasn't the warmest. After we ate and both the babies were asleep, the six of us played games, stayed up too late, and the guys all had a few too many drinks. Whoops. It was a really fun evening though...it's been a while since all of us have been together. It was a great weekend and I'm bummed that it's over but I. Am. Pooped. I cannot wait to climb into bed. It's going to be a short week with lots of things to get done before we leave on Thursday evening for our cabin in Wisconsin...we'll be there for ten days! V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

Visit from friends

Our friends, Mark and Katie and their 14-month old son, Grant, are in town from Tennessee and stopped by for a visit on Tuesday night. The last time we saw them, I was still pregnant and Grant was just four-months old...it's hard to believe what a difference ten months can make! It was great to chat and catch up while Ayla and Grant played. It was interesting because they really didn't seem to notice the other was even in the room. They were each too busy with their own things to care. :)

It's always so nice to see good friends...especially ones we don't see often enough. If I had my way, everyone would move back to Omaha and we'd all live happily ever after on the same street. I'll keep hoping...

Couple more things from this past weekend...

We went to Horsemen's Park this past Saturday with Dan and Molly (Dean's co-worker and his lovely pregnant wife who is due at the end of September!) They had live horse races so the place was extremely busy. Unfortunately, Miss Ayla didn't do as well with this outing as she did the last time. She was pretty happy in the Bjorn until we were just about to watch the second race and she proceeded to scream bloody-murder. You know, the kind where people turn around to look you up and down to make sure you didn't just pinch your baby. I smiled kindly, took her out of the Bjorn and took her on a walk for a change of scenery.
And one more update from the weekend...Ayla has graduated to a front-facing carseat. We weren't sure if she would get to face forward or not, but we got the okay from her pediatrician since size-wise, she is big enough. She seemed a bit perplexed when we plopped her in there and hit the road. She didn't really know what to think. It's fun for us to be able to see her face...

Special Day

Today was a very special day for our family; Ayla and I were baptized together. Ayla wore a beautiful hand-stitched gown that her Great-Grandma wore when she was baptized.

Aunt Marla is Ayla's sponsor :)

Thank you to our families for being with us on this day. And thank you, Dad, for taking all of these pictures...you were so busy, we didn't get you in any shots with Ayla. :(

Exploring

Now that she's officially mobile, she's been having fun roaming the living room and discovering new things and new areas to get in to.

She has been sticking her tongue out a lot lately...she even wiggles it back and forth and says "ahhhhh". I think, perhaps, she learned that from me...I always make faces at her and that happens to be one of them. Oops.
She found her way over to one of the end tables and started to climb onto it to get to a decorative plate. It was funny because she kept looking over her shoulder at me to see if I was going to tell her "no."
We played for a little while and when she got restless, we packed up and went outside to wait for Daddy to come home from work.
Daddy's home!

Off she goes!

At almost 9 1/2 months, Ayla is finally crawling after weeks of rocking and tipping over. It's so strange to look away for a few seconds and then look up to see her in a different spot! The past few days, she has gone just a few "steps" here and there but just now, she started going after toys in the living room.

Does she look like trouble or what? She's heading towards poor Kody who has no idea what he has coming.