Spoons and Smarties

Recently I have noticed that Lenna is in love with smarties. Not eating them because I haven't given her smarties to eat, but just playing with them in their wrapper. Come to think about it I am sure she would love eating the smarties as well but I will try to hold off on giving her such candy for a little while longer. However, Lenna makes me laugh. Literally she will carry the smarties around for an hour just chewing on it or moving it back and forth. Ahh the simple enjoyments of a baby!
The same day I took pictures of Lenna with the smarties she wanted to hang out with me and would scream if I went out of sight. I was trying to make Buckeye Balls for a party I am going to, so Lenna got to help me in the kitchen. She enjoyed the spoons I kept giving her though she really wanted the chocolate.


Lenna is becoming more and more interactive and it is fun to play with her. She is deciding that her morning nap isn't really needed anymore. I guess it just means I have to switch my running time to the afternoon instead of the morning, or she gets to go running with me in the jogging stroller. This week has been busy with book club we read On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. I enjoyed the history information of the book but not so much the story line. Then yesterday I helped with the youth's baptism temple trip by picking up the pizza for dinner. I went to Little Caesars to get the pizza which had been preordered and prepaid for. Anyway when I got there and said I was there to pick up the 18 pizzas the girl looked at me confused and then the guy in the back was like "OH NO I totally forgot!" Ummm how do you forget 18 pizzas? I don't know! But 15ish minutes later I had 18 pizzas in my car and made it to the church right when the youth did. So it all turned out okay. I am also trying to gear up for the 5 mile race on Saturday. I hope you enjoy the pictures of Lenna and hopefully you are all having a great first week of 2010!

The New Year Thoughts

Wow I haven't posted for almost a week! That is a long time for me. I even neglected Lenna's daily blog for 3 days! I feel like a slacker, but it was a good break! Now it is time to get back into the normal swing of things.

We had a great relaxing New Years break. I love the holidays because people get time off of work and there is something magical about this time of year. Plus it was fabulous having 2 four day weekends right in a row with Jared. But more importantly Lenna loved having the extra time to spend with her daddy! She is a daddy's girl through and through. She gets so very excited to see him it melts my heart.
I love Lenna too! We had a fun weekend just hanging out with the 3 of us! We had lots of good quality family time.Many people love the start of a new year because it seems like a good time to refresh or do resolutions, but it is just a depressing time of year for me in all honesty. Don't worry I am going to tell you why, you don't even have to ask. The few reasons why the new year is depressing to me is that at least at Boeing we had 7 paid work days off right in a row (that is almost 2 weeks straight from being away from work). The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas hardly anything got down at work because we were all anxiously anticipating our paid time off! However, when that time off comes to an end (at the new year) you gotta go back to work and get things done you were procrastinating in doing. Plus there was no paid holidays till the end of May to add to the heartache of all the deadlines approaching. Hence the new year was awful because it was the longest time with no paid holidays if you wanted time off you had to take vacation. Sad, sad times. Well that one doesn't apply anymore because I don't work nor do I have vacation time, but it is sad that Jared has no paid holidays till May.

Anyway next reason is resolutions. I am not against people making resolutions I just find this tradition kind of silly. I would say at least 75% of people who make resolutions never keep them. I was talking to some friends yesterday about how the gym gets so busy during the first two weeks of January. When I was growing up I would tend to avoid the gym the first 2 weeks of January then start back up with my normal routine after that to avoid the crowd. I don't mind people wanting to get in shape I just don't like an over crowded gym. Speaking of gyms we went running on Saturday around Greenlake and there were so many people with their dogs. It was nuts trying not to get taken down with a leash. But to my friends who have made resolutions I have enjoyed reading them, and I wish you the best of luck in accomplishing them. I on the other hand am going to sit on the couch and play the Wii with no remorse for not having any resolutions!

Another reason I don't like the new year is I have to take down all my decorations. It makes my house feel bare. However, this year we loved having a built in play pen with the couches that after taking the tree down we just moved Lenna's toys to that corner. Now I have a semi child proof area and don't have to worry too much about Lenna eating random things off the floor and getting into whatever she can find; this set up also allows me to set her down and do something. She seems to like the space and she knows that her super awesome toys can be found in the living room.Okay that is all I have to rant about the new year. But I do hope everyone will have a better 2010 then 2009.

I have been working on painting some more trim. I only have like 1/2 a wall to go! Woot for being closer to finishing up the require painting! I also took Lenna and Jared shopping a lot during the weekend, and I put a soft back onto a cross stitch quilt Nana Diane made for Lenna for Christmas. This way the blanket it is soft and cozy to snuggle up to, and I can more quickly tell which side is the front or back. The only other thing we really have been doing is play this game!I love playing Mario Brothers. Seriously one of my favorite games ever! Well it is a rainy Monday up here in Seattle so I should probably get to doing laundry and other normal chores I have put off because of the holidays! Happy 2010 my friends!

9 and 1/2 Months and Sleeping

If you read my last post I commented that one of my goals for the end of 2009 was to finish painting the last door I was going to paint in this house. Well that door happens to be our office door which is also the room Lucy the tortoise is living in for this week. I finished my goal and the door looks great! It also feels good to have another thing checked off my to do list. However, I had to keep the lights on in the office one night past 9pm which is when Lucy's lights on her cage go off and also must mean bedtime for her. This little gal must have been tired because she crawled only enough in to shadow her head. She is either an efficient little tortoise or lazy. But I thought it was cute that she wanted it to be dark for her to sleep.
Lenna on the note of sleeping has been fighting most of her naps. She eventually gives in, and yesterday she gave in by basically passing out while sitting up (or so I assume). This is how I found her, and she was snoring.


I was a kind mom and moved her so she was in a more comfortable position.

Today Lenna went to the doctor for her 9 month check up. Really she is now 9.5 months old, but that is when I could get her into the doctors with vacations and Christmas and such. Like always when she reaches another month mark I brought out her recliner chair and snapped a few shots of her. They made me smile I love her personality and I can't imagine life with out this little girl!





She did well at the doctor's office. She only complained at the end where she was tired, and when the nurse gave her shots. On a good note though one of the shots was the H1N1, so now I don't have to worry so much about the flu =) I am also really glad that Lenna hasn't gotten sick and she is 9.5 months old! The doctor did warn me though that sickness increases after now so I guess we shall see how long it takes till Lenna actually gets sick. Anyway the doctor also gave me lots of reading material about keeping Lenna safe from normal first aid, to poison problems. The issue I had with all this reading material was that it started to make me feel more paranoid then calm. I stopped reading half way through and will make Jared read it. I don't want to be a paranoid mom and sometimes the less you know the better off you are. Ignorance is bliss right?

Okay onto what you all really want to know, her stats! Well at least this is one of my favorite parts about reading other peoples blogs on these types of subjects. I don't know if it is because I like to have a tangible figure for me to picture or if it is just fun to see the percentiles of the kids, but here are Lenna's stats for this check up

Weight 21 lbs 1 ounce (90%)
Height 29 1/2 inches (97%)

In other news we went to Target today and it was great! We got some good clearance stuff and some groceries. I really like that Target now has a whole grocery store section. I even think I was pleasantly surprised that my total wasn't all that high for all the stuff I got. Yay for shopping!!!

I pulled out my 2010 calendar. It is official it is going to be here in a blink! To start the year off right at the beginning of January I am crazy and I am going to run a 5 mile race with my friend. Should be a good way to start the year off sore (I mean right). Hope you all have great time celebrating or ringing in the new year however you choose.

Stand up and Up and UP

This week Lenna has been practicing over and over how to stand up. With of course the help of a couch or chair or anything near by. I just think in the last 2 weeks it feels like she went from 9 months old to 12 months old. I keep telling baby Lenna to slow down and stay a baby for a little while longer. Sigh time must move forward though.

To make the best of this Christmas weekend we went on a few adventures. We walked through the trails of Hamlin park which is really close to our house maybe 15 blocks or so away. It is a beautiful park with lots of trees. It reminded me a lot of the Muir woods in California. I think we will go back to this park! Then another adventure we took was to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. We made it with perfect timing. They have a light display that goes on at 5pm. So we got to the park at 4:40pm. We found great parking walked to the end of the park and within 5 minutes the lights came on. We then proceeded to back track seeing the lights and headed back to our car as the crowd started to get larger and larger. Both Jared and I were very happy to be leaving since the crowd nearly tripled in size in just 10 minutes!Here is a parrot made of lights before the lights were turned on. I think it looked cooler not turned on.
I think Lenna loved looking at all the lights.
I love this man.
A nice couple took a picture of all 3 of us.
On Sunday Jared didn't feel so well so we had a relaxing evening at home.
Dad didn't put her tights back on after church so you could see her lovely thunder things. Wow she has some awesome rolls still!
I like the attitude in this picture.
She loves this bouncy ball that looks like a rock.
Ahh I just think she looks cute with her pink dress and bow.
Dad says Lenna hasn't mastered standing up. But after putting Lenna down for a nap this morning I heard tons of screaming. Which is normal but I went in anyways to see what was up. This is what I found. Lenna screaming and trying to chew on her crib.
She wasn't to happy about being in her crib and me taking pictures of her screaming.
But she is getting really good at standing herself up. She even steps in place! I am so not ready for her to learn to walk but I think it will be here before I can even blink.



Other news I am working at finishing up some painting at our house. I only have one more door to paint and then I will be done with all the doors I am going to paint at this house! It takes me a long time because I have to strip the paint off the hinges and then paint. But my goal is to have the last door done by 2010. Also Lenna and I went running this morning. This was the first time I actually pushed the jogging stroller. Normally Jared does it but I was determined to run around greenlake so after dropping dad off at work Lenna and I ran. Luckily we made it around and Lenna didn't even fuss! Hope you enjoyed the new pictures of Lenna! Happy last week of 2009! Maybe it is just me but I feel like 2000 was just here and now it is 10 years later. Wow life really does fly by in a blink!