Playtime with Heidi

Last night, we trekked over to the Gonzales house so Chris and Dean could talk "basements". Meghan and Chris are in the process of finishing their basement and needed a couple pointers on a sound system...I think? Whatever it was involved man talk, beers, and a trip to Lowe's. While they did that, Meghan and I hung out upstairs with our little girlies. Heidi is already walking! It was so cute to see her moving all around the house...I think Ayla was jealous that her friend was mobile. :)

Ayla playing with her new Sesame Street remote before we left for Meghan & Chris'

Playing in Heidi's Chicco walker

Heidi showing Ayla how everything works

"Here, let me touch your nose."

"Heidi, come back! I can't move in this thing!"

We had the dads entertain the girls for a few minutes so we could go check out the basement after we heard some sawing.

What are they looking at? Beer bottles?

Ayla!

Heidi!

Ayla was having fun with Heidi's toys...something new!

It kind of looks like they're fighting in the next two pictures...

They're just checking eachother out

It was really fun to see the two of them together...at one point, I looked over at Meghan and said, "Can you believe we have kids?!" We've been friends since high school so we've been through many life-changing events together...getting our driver's licenses, graduation, weddings, pregnancy, and now...motherhood. I always stop and laugh at what our conversations are like nowadays. They seem to be about poop more often than not. Hehe.

This next picture is from tonight...Ayla started to fall asleep as she drank her last bottle. It's so sweet to see because these days, she doesn't just simply fall asleep. Either she's being rocked to sleep for naps where getting her to stay asleep as we put her down can take a couple tries or she's putting herself to sleep at bedtime...both take several minutes. I miss the days when she would fall asleep anywhere, in any position and quickly. So, every now and then when she dozes off while she's eating, I have to enjoy it. :) Usually when I sit her up to burp her, she wakes up, but tonight she must have been pretty worn out because she stayed asleep. I decided to try and burp her over my shoulder and she still stayed asleep. She never sleeps on our shoulders! I just wanted to sit there and cuddle with her all night. She even slept through us putting her sleep sac on and then laying her down in her crib. This was so out of character, I had to share. She was one tired little baby!

7 Months!

Didn't I just post her 6-month pictures?! It seems like each month goes by quicker and quicker. She's still doing new things all the time...new movements, new sounds, new facial expressions...it's so fun to watch.

We think she's teething...she has been a bit more cranky than usual and her gums look like they might be a little swollen. We try to pull her bottom lip down to take a look, but as soon as we do that, she sticks her tongue out and starts licking our fingers. :) She has also been doing this weird thing with her mouth where she just opens and closes it over and over again...she looks like a puppet (Dean says it's a little creepy). It's about that time though...isn't 7-months pretty normal for teething to begin?

She has been sitting up really well on her own...still a little tippy, but I think she likes this new skill. She has figured out how to catch herself by putting one arm out to hold herself up. When she's playing on her tummy, she is able to rotate so she's not staring at the same thing the whole time. It's nice because she's able to entertain herself just a little bit longer. She has also been pushing all the way up on her arms and can also pull up on her knees...but not at the same time. :) I think she realizes that there's now an option of actually moving, but just can't quite figure out how to do it yet.

I hear about babies who fall asleep while they're playing and it amazes me. I can't see Ayla ever doing that. Sigh. She would freak out and demand a scenery change instead. I can already see that patience is something we will have to work on as she gets older. I'm hoping that once she's mobile, she'll stay occupied for longer periods of time. I think she gets bored and then gets frustrated and doesn't know how to handle it and as a result, becomes Miss Fussy-Pants.She still likes her sippy cup and is able to get more drinks out of it but she prefers to drink right out of a regular cup. We were eating dinner one night and she kept eyeing my glass of water, so I figured I'd give her a sip and she loved it. We just let her do it every now and then because we want her to learn how to feed herself with her sippy cups. I'm going to try a little bit of apple juice mixed into her water again. The first time she tried it, she didn't really care for it. Feeding her baby food has become slightly tricky...she's just not that into it lately and maybe it's a side effect of teething (I think I read that on BabyCenter). She does like the Gerber Yogurt Melts though. She'll open her mouth for one and when she tastes it, she lets out a little giggle. It's so cute.

She has been saying "ba" and "da" for a while now...yesterday, she started saying "ma ma." Yay!!! :) I know she doesn't know what it means yet, but it's fun to hear, nonetheless.

Cute Sweater

I just wanted to post a few pictures...I've been waiting for Ayla to grow into this cute sweater. It finally fits! :)


I had an eye appointment yesterday evening...Daddy and Ayla had a little too much fun in the waiting room. If she's anything like me, she'll be needing these someday:

Chicago

I had a really nice, schedule-free weekend with Lisa. I mention that it was schedule-free because it was fun to just wing it and not have set plans...that's how we like to do things...if we try to plan too many things, we end up not wanting to do them. Weird, I know.

We stayed at the Whitehall Hotel, which was only a block away from Michigan Ave., so tons of great shops and restaurants were within walking distance. We took advantage of the great weather on Friday night and just strolled along the street...if we saw something we liked, we stopped in. It was great!

Saturday and today, the weather wasn't so amazing, but we still managed to squeeze in some shopping and sangria in the Lincoln Park area. I'd have to say we both did rather well with limiting what we purchased. We each only brought one very small suitcase so even if we wanted to buy buy buy, we couldn't have squeezed much more in them. I found some fun jewelry and I couldn't resist getting this super cute monkey for Ayla from an adorable baby store called Giggle.Before we had to head to the airport today, I met Bryson (Dean's cousin) for lunch...definitely always great to see him. I'm so glad we were able to work something out! He was in the middle of a long and painful process called moving. No fun if you ask me...especially when it was raining off and on.

Overall, it was a great weekend and I'm happy I was able to do it...thanks Mom and Dad for watching Ayla! It was my birthday present from them. :) It was good to get away for a couple days and spend time with one of my best friends.

And although I had a wonderful time, when I finally got home and had an adorably sleepy Ayla in my arms while she was having her last bottle of the night, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.

It doesn't get any easier...

Sigh. I had to fight back the waterworks when I left my parents' house after dropping Ayla off. :( I know it's only for the weekend, but I already miss her. I stayed for a little while so I could spend some time with her before heading back home to get some last minute things done before picking up Lisa to go to the airport. It's very strange to be in the house by myself...even Kody's gone. I don't remember the last time it's happened!

I had to take some new pictures to have on my camera so I can look at them over the weekend. :)

Strike a pose!

She likes to sit on my dad's lap and watch him play Mah-Jong on the computer.

And thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes!!! I can't believe I'm 29! Crazy. For the first time ever, I didn't wake up with that warm-fuzzy "it's my birthday" feeling...it just feels like another day. A nice day though. :)

Cheeseburger in Paradise

We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise last night for an early birthday dinner...my actual birthday is tomorrow but both Dean and I will be out of town for the weekend. Dean is heading to Vegas today for a friend's bachelor party and I will be in Chicago with Lisa for some shopping and pitchers of sangria. :) And Ayla and Kody will be spending the weekend with Yeh-Yeh and Nai-Nai (my parents).Dean gave me a gift certificate for a couples' massage (I told him not to get me anything, so he justified it by saying it was for himself too). We had planned on getting massages in Cancun, but never ended up doing it because of cost and time, so this is perfect. Lee, Barb and Marla gave me gift cards to my favorite nail salon and also one for an hour massage...AND free Ayla-sitting when I decide to use them. Looks like I needed some stress-relief or something! :) Works for me! Thank you, everyone!

Before we put Ayla to bed, Marla took some fun pictures of the three of us...I LOVE them. I always tell Dean that I feel like we need more family pictures...thanks Marla! :)

Tummy snoozin'

We just went in to check on Ayla and for the third night in a row, she is snoring away on her tummy. We put her down on her back and it seems that while she's soothing herself to sleep, she flips over. The first night she did this, she woke up upset so we flipped her onto her back only to find her on her belly again not too long after...this continued for most of the night. Last night, she slept really well and as far as I know, she stayed on her tummy the entire time...we'll see how tonight goes. It's just weird because during the day, if she's on her belly playing for longer than ten minutes, she starts to get fussy, so how in the world is she okay with sleeping for ten hours that way? Silly baby. I hope this is okay since putting babies on their backs to sleep is pounded into our brains by every doctor, nurse, expert, parent, etc. from the moment they're born...but I think that's when they're really young, right? It'll be interesting to see if this is just a phase or if she'll continue to prefer sleeping this way.

She keeps us on our toes! There's always something new going on and no matter how insignificant it may seem, it's always fun and exciting to us. :)