We Love Spring!

Vocal Millie

Millie has been pretty vocal lately...making all sorts of sounds, screams, squeals.  It's so cute when she makes super girly squeals.  We, obviously, think every sound she makes is super cute and can't wait to hear what her voice will sound like when she is actually talking.  Until then, enjoy these videos...

Video 1 - walking, laughing, & being her silly self:  http://youtu.be/wXgCV6iQzNk
Video 2 - yelling at Buddy (& Buddy yelling back): http://youtu.be/8uYG-57jna4

We normally don't just have her in a diaper, but it was pajama time and we stopped to play in the middle.  Don't judge me. ;)

10 Months Old

Our sweet girl is 10 Months Old! 

wow...this month's photo shoot was a challenge; it was so hard to get her to sit still for even one second!  i like how she's kicked back, chillin' in this pic.  it didn't last long.

 no babies were hurt in the making of these pictures...

she just did not want to have anything to do with that chair

Dear Camilla,

You've grown up so much this month; it's so fun to watch you grow and change, but it also kind of makes us sad too.  It's all happening so quickly, and you are becoming more and more of a toddler every day.  You are walking quite a bit now and getting really good at balancing.  Today you walked the entire length of your room!  One of your favorite games is to pick up this ball, drop it and let it roll, then walk over to pick it up...repeat.

You happily play in your room or in the downstairs jail several times a day.  It looks exhausting...you are all over the place: walking, crawling, cruising...shaking, banging...squealing.  You can get very loud at times with the happy squeals & raspberries or when you are yelling at the pets...also with the jabbering.  You make the momma, dada, baba sounds...can't tell yet if you know what they mean.  You will look around for the kitty when I ask you "where's buddy?".  And about a week ago when I asked you that question, you repeated a "buh" sound (daddy looked horrified).  Maybe your first word will be Buddy. ;)

Your favorite things this month include: swing time at the park, feeding yourself finger foods (whole wheat bagels, puffs, bananas), having mom or dad roll you back and forth on a big ball, walking behind your push toys, shaking your new shakers, blueberries, bottle time, reading the Peek-a-who? book, chasing Buddy, catching Buddy and pulling his hair, playing in the dog water bowl, ramming the dog water bowl with your walker, playing in the bath tub, Little Gym class

Your not-so-favorite things this month include: having your face wiped off after dinner, diaper changes (especially with a raw bottom), getting dressed after a bath, food that isn't heated up enough, being left in jail alone, cilantro, walks in the stroller (strangely there have been many meltdowns in the stroller lately), wearing sunglasses, riding in the car seat (ugh...we've come full circle), going back to sleep between 5-6am, having your feet on grass (you'd rather just feel the grass with your fingers and not get your feet in it)

Last night, we installed your new big girl car seat!  It's a monster.  We had you try it out in the driveway before we put it in the Jeep.  You weren't as impressed with it as you were with your shoes.

Oh, Millie Bear...you have the silliest personality; this month has been the absolute best!  I'm thankful you're sleeping through the night (well...at least until 5:30am) and that you're such a good eater...so thankful you are happy and fun to be around...so thankful you're in a good routine now and pretty easy to please....and of course, so thankful you're ours!  We love you, sweet girl.

Neglected Furry Friends

These poor little guys have been feeling a bit neglected lately.  My dream of them becoming best friends with millabean hasn't quite been realized.  Their feelings about her seem to range somewhere inbetween indifference and hatred...the latter a little more now that she's mobile and can attack them while they're sleeping.  Poor, poor beasties...

Notice that Buddy Love is on the large dog-sized bed, while Beansie is on the smaller, kitty-sized bed.  I guess he still gets his way sometimes.

House Maintenance

We've been in our house over 5 years now, and unfortunately, that means we had some major maintenance projects come up all at the same time.  Last fall, you saw that we had our front door sanded, stained and sealed.  It still looks great!  That was project number one that sort of got the ball rolling.  Here is a picture of our front landscaping; you can see that our 3 big laurels got some sort of blight last year and never recovered.  This pic was taken the first week of April before our big oak tree bloomed (at the left side of the pic).

Here is a pic of the landscaping now; also notice we just had our driveway and walkway re-sealed so the stain looks brand new again! 

We've been unable to find any english laurels larger than these 3, so we have to start over and let them grow. Grrrrr....landscaping is so frustrating. It is not something that either John or I enjoy, so it usually takes a backseat to whatever else we have going on. That's why, as John put it, we've decided to let "Jesus take the wheel". Jesus is our new lawncare and landscape maintenance professional. Hallelujah. No more lawnmowing for JKK! This is very exciting news in our house.

This is a pic of the back of our house with our 2 new trees...they are October Glory maples and should bloom orange in the fall.  Hopefully one day they will also provide some shade. 

The last piece of news (which is the best piece of news!) is that we are building a sunroom onto the back of our house.  The builder is going to double the size of our existing deck and enclose it to make a super sweet sunroom full of glorious windows...and even better, full of air conditioning in the summer!  The back of our house faces west, so we don't get tons of use out of our deck in the hot months.  It is too much heat and gets miserable pretty quickly.  We've tried sun shades, but it still didn't cut the heat enough.  This way, we'll get to have the windows open and enjoy all the nice fall and spring weather...and still get use out of it in the summer and winter since it will have its own climate control system.  We are just so excited and can't wait for them to start, which should be any day now.  The builder assures me it will be done by Millie's first birthday party and we can enjoy it then!

P.S. - Save the Date for Millie's first birthday party: Saturday, July 7th!

P.P.S. - Please try to ignore my below average photography skills, especially in the pics above...thank you.

Look Who's Walking!!

We'll just call her Mobile Millie... 

I can assure you Millie has accomplished this all on her own.  We have not been encouraging her to walk yet, since we are no where near ready for her to be toddling around the house.  We haven't even gotten everything babyproofed for the crawling phase yet.  Maybe we'll just put a helmet on her for the next few months. ;)  Such a big girl...I did manage to catch some video: http://youtu.be/c9cY3oK5j40

Not Ready for Dairy

The awful milk monster has struck again...the milk protein sensitivity monster, that is.  We've had Millie on a special formula for babies that have the milk protein sensitivity, Similac Alimentum.  When we went to her 9 month pediatrician appt two weeks ago, her doctor wanted us to move her over to a milk-based formula.  I've been gradually adding it into her diet these past 2 weeks, and she is now completely weaned of breastfeeding, so she gets her full 24 oz. a day all from formula.  Apparently, little miss Millie is not ready for dairy yet, evidenced by the nasty diarrhea that has hit full-force this weekend.  The protein sensitivity is something that builds in their system, so it wouldn't have caused this problem the first time I gave her the milk-based formula.  However, after two weeks, I guess her system had had enough.  And what's worse, it takes a full 48 hours to leave her system; just stopping the milk-based formula isn't enough to stop the diarrhea immediately.  Our poor baby...her little bottom is raw and she cries every time I change her diaper now.  We went to the dr. this morning, where she instructed us to get back to only the Alimentum formula for a full month, then we'll start easing her into the milk-based again.  If by a year old she still can't tolerate it, then we'll have to go to an allergist.   Let's hope it doesn't come to that.  In the meantime, we're just hanging at home in our jammies today; she was running a low grade temp yesterday and doesn't seem to be 100% herself.  I think we'll just take it easy for awhile and let her system get back to normal.  No complaints here. ;)