Little Trooper

Lenna has been a super duper trooper this whole week. She is definitely on the up swing of her cold! However one day she and I weren't feeling to hot so we hunkered down at home. She managed to get herself stuck in the dinning room table chairs. She didn't think it was fun that I was taking a picture instead of helping her out.
Then later that day we had a friend stop by to pick something up and Lenna saw me open the door. Right after they left I went back to doing what I was doing and I notice Lenna is at the door trying so hard to reach the door handle. This video is just of her whacking at the door but she is definitely learning to reach as far as she can to get new things.



On Friday Lenna woke up again with some awesome bed hair. It looked like a mohawk in my opinion. She really likes books right now and we sit still for me to read them to her. She really likes to turn the pages too. Lenna has been very patient with having to go to a friend's house to play so we could run some errands. Plus today she slept from 6pm till 10 am (Umm that is 16 hours!) she woke up at 6am but went back to sleep with her binky so I can't say 16 hours straight but pretty close! After her really long sleep she put up with hanging out with us and our realtor for 5.5 hours! I was super impressed she didn't have a major melt down. Thanks Lenna for being so nice to us!

To keep busy being at home and not being able to play with too many friends I painted the ceiling in the office. Now all of our ceilings are white!!! I also did some yard work because honestly Jan/Feb is the best time of year to do yard work because the weeds aren't growing as fast!

PS to all friends who want to know how I get my deals: I simple just follow the blogs link of my blog as deals. My favorite is the Bargain Jargon but that is because she is local in Western Washington so most of her deals are applicable to me. I am not super great at finding my own deals at grocery stores, so I am grateful for the help of these blogs.

How to Handle a Cold

Lenna has had a cold all week. And what do you do when you have a cold? Well Lenna celebrates! Actually she is finding things I didn't even know were still around. Like this noise maker that I have no clue how old it is or really where it came from.
After running errands she still likes to play with it. Must be a good toy.
She also likes to play with her normal toys.
And recently (for the last month or so) keeps sticking her tongue out and to the right. It is strange and we don't know why she does it but she does it.
This photo is what I call the large and in charge. She has definitely grown into her car seat. Luckily she still is under the weight and height limits. She likes to hold onto the handle of her carrier. I think she looks silly when she does this.
The sad part of Lenna being sick is that it has been really great weather once again this week. But because of her cold we have tried to hang out at home. So I have been getting a lot of stuff cleaned up and done around the house. Last week I painted the ceiling of our room. I didn't do a before shot, but imagine the walls and the ceiling being the same color. Now the ceiling is white and it makes the room look much brighter!
It is amazing how a little bit of paint can freshen up the whole look of your house. Hope you all are having great weeks. I am looking forward to LOST next week, and hopefully having our household back to 100% healthy.

Just Another Manic Monday

It is just me or when Monday rolls around I always get the 'Just Another Manic Monday' song by the Bangles stuck in my head? The day has not been crazy yet but I just like singing this song. On a side note this morning Lenna woke up with some wicked awesome bed head! She is so cute.This post have two parts. so Part # 1 Saturday Night Date.

On Saturday night our friends were kind enough to babysit Lenna while we went out on a date. We started off the evening by going to the Seattle Temple. Awww I love going here.
Then we buzzed over to the Museum of Flight for the annual Amazon after Christmas party.
The theme was 100% peculiar. The entertainment was weird and they had some entertaining desserts like these crazy cookie guys.
The food is always good from McCormick and Schmidts. Yum Yum!
We walked around a little bit, but since they had the party here last year and airplanes really aren't that cool when you can't go crawl in them and kick their tires, so we opted to not stay too long and head back home to pick up our little girl. However, the best part of the whole night was I got to hang out one on one with the hubby.
Part # 2 The Shoe Incident

OCD number 429 that I have. Okay I don't know how many OCD like attributes I actually have, but I will admit I have a few OCD tendencies.One is that I hate to loose things. Not like games, but things. I do however, like to win at games but it is okay if I loose too. Anyway yesterday I was picking out Lenna's outfit for church and went to grab the shoes I wanted her to wear and they were not there!!! I was so bummed I had lost one of her pairs of shoes. They were no where to be found.

So Lenna had to were these pink shoes to church that were just as cute. I would like to also point out the super cute tights. I found them at target for 98 cents!
Anyway after church and other things Jared agreed to run into the restaurant we went to yesterday and ask if they happened to be there. Well they were hoooray! What makes the story even better was that Lenna happened to kick one of the shoes off in the restaurant and they other on the way in or out having it fall on the sidewalk. One of the cooks happened to notice the shoe and matched it with the one they found in the restaurant and brought it in so it could be a pair. How nice was that!?!?! So the shoes are now safely back at home.
I know that with kids I will probably loose more things than I will like specially as time goes on, but I will tackle those battles when they come. Have a great Manic Monday!

Hangers, Zoo day, and Walkers

We went to the zoo the other day. It was a beautiful sunny day. The hippos were my favorite part because they were active and doing cool things. At the end we let all the kids run around in one of the play group areas. I let Lenna down thinking she would want to crawl around. But she would scream.
Then scream even louder that I would even think about putting her on the ground and leave her there for a picture! Oh one day she will probably love the outdoors.
I have been spending some more time in our office the last few days. I have a pile of clothes size 12 months that need to go to the DI. (Speaking of which if anyone wants them before i send them that way let me know.) Lenna loves to get into this pile. Then she loves to play with the carbon monoxide detector and then she tries to go for the computer cords. I try to be done being in the office by the time she has moved onto the carbon monoxide detector.

Today we hit up TG with my some of my favorite chemEs. There is truly a life time friendship you gain through massive amounts of suffering. I spent countless hours studying, sitting in classes, and hanging out with these guys. I am always happy to go out to lunch and play an awesome round of hearts with them.
Here are two videos for your enjoyment. Lenna have come to realize she loves hangers. They are quite fascinating.

Also when we were over at our friends the St. Clair's to hang out and catch up we were discussing our little girls and they reminded me about Lenna's walker. (Thanks Jen!) We pulled it out today. She walks pretty good with it. I am kind of impressed.

Well we are off to enjoy the Amazon after Christmas party! Woot! Happy weekend to you all!

Post # 102 - New Stroller

Many of my friends and family have posted something special or noted it when they have reached 100 posts I totally spaced and just saw I am now at a 102! Oops! Oh well.

This week Seattle has been graced with beautiful weather. I know many parts of the country are not so lucky. I am very grateful for the sunshine and grateful we are moving closer and closer to spring every day.

Recently Lenna is trying to decide if she wants a morning nap or not. Some days she does some days she doesn't. Today she decided to have one, so I get the chance to blog about her.

I thought this picture was super cute. We had just made it home from play group and she looked so tired. She was just relaxing in her car seat.For lunch she had a very colorful meal. Red kidney beans, blueberries, and bananas. I love that she loves to feed herself. It makes my job a little easier in just having to put food on her tray. If you are wondering she loves beans the most.
Recently we got an umbrella stroller in the mail in preparation for the great Lundell trip of 2010. After pushing many around at stores and putting Lenna in them we decided on one ordered it and it finally showed up. So yesterday Lenna and I took it for a test spin.
For the entire trip she did nothing but dangle her legs. I think that is her favorite thing about her new stroller!

I have managed to not go to Target this week (yay for me). I just did my normal grocery shopping run. My favorite was the Alberstons run the cash register man was like your total is 14 dollars and something, and then was like you saved 32 dollars and change; wow good deal! Both my Safeway run and Albertsons run was over 50% in savings! The added bonus it is all food we eat! Hooray for blogs that help me see the deals!

A Perfectly Sunny Day

What do you do on perfect weather days in January? Well if it is Lenna and I we enjoyed a walk and time outside. It is odd to go on a walk in January with it being in the mid 50s and sunny. That just hardly ever happens here. So with that here is Lenna wondering what we are going to do because this is obviously not a norm for her right now.
Now she is all set with Mallory the monkey (yes that is the monkey's name my Washington family gave it to Lenna at one of my baby showers). She seems to be more excited about our adventure now.As we walked to the park we ran into some old people since we live right be a retirement home. They were so funny; they stopped me and wanted to tell me Lenna was cute. Then they asked how old Lenna was and the old guy was like she is a good size for her age. Yep I know I have a big kid.

Further into our walk I remembered countless times this summer walking this same path with Lenna still too small to face forward in her stroller so her car seat was still attached. I also remember that I was only walking because I didn't want to feed her yet and walking was a good distraction for her. Luckily Lenna doesn't eat as much and today she just really enjoyed getting outside and looking at all the other kids at the park. After walking around a little bit I decided to let Lenna out so she could explore. This was her first time ever crawling on grass. At first I don't think she cared, but after crawling around for 10 seconds she decided she did not like it. So she would crawl to me and scream. Having a nice day like today helps me to remember spring is on its way even if it won't be here for a another 2 or so months. However since we live somewhere it doesn't snow it is fun to watch the transformation happen right before my eyes. We are starting to get buds on our rhododendrons, and we have tulip and daffodil starts shooting up! Can you see them?How about in this flower bed?As an added bonus with it being a holiday traffic was SOOO nice! It only took a half hour to take and pick up Jared from work. Since it is a holiday his bus didn't run. Ahh if we had more days like this in the summer I think the population of Seattle would double.

10 Month Pictures = Epic Fail

Happy weekend! I finally tried to take some pictures of Lenna. Either she wasn't happy or she just really was uninterested in getting her photo taken. Either way I call this photo shoot an epic fail because there wasn't even really one that was super duper cute. But oh well I guess that captures the phase of life Lenna is in. She is busy, she doesn't want to stay put, and she has an attitude.

For your pleasure I will do brief captions. Look mom I have a ring! You want to play with it?
How do I get off this chair? I did it once already by falling flat on my face I would like to avoid that this time!Nope I am so not going to look at you.Seriously are you done yet I am tired of this.
I am unsure if I should be happy about this ball because you are still taking pictures.
Stop mom! I am trying to play.
Weee look at my awesome funny face I can pull!
So with that I gave up and just let her roam. Maybe 11 months will be easier but I suspect it will be harder.

Here she is playing with her new favorite toy of the week. Skittles. The package makes noise when she shakes it and is fun to chew on apparently.
She banged on this amazon box we got for a good 20 minutes. Then she climbed on it and fell off and screamed. She has a few falling off moments. I am not sure if I should say I was a bad mom for not being right there to catch her or if I should just let her keep falling till she figured out that whole gravity concept. (Obviously within reason I am not going to let her climb to the top of the fridge and let her fall but 1/2 foot seems reasonable to let her try and get gravity.)
I will admit we went to Target last night and again this morning. After finishing labeling who got what I was short 3 Christmas gifts. I was so bummed that I hadn't actually finished my list of gifts for the year that we went back this morning so I could collect three more items. Plus return one item that wasn't what I thought it was going to be. So as of today January 16, 2010 my shopping is completely finished for all birthdays and Christmas gifts for 2010 for all my nieces and nephews! Wow it feels really good too! Jared ask how I managed to get everything at my first toy run on Friday morning. Well I happened to run into my bf #4 at the store and she took a picture of my cart for me. Yep it was completely full with toys on the bottom and eventually I surrounded Lenna and then carried some of the toys too! It was awesomely fun!Especially for the Grandmas here is a video of Lenna just talking to me. She does this often.


Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Addicted

I am not going to deny that I think I am starting to become addicted to shopping. I think my problem will slow down once all the inventory sales stop. Today I put Lenna down for a nap which she normally fights for an hour and I started to blog stalk like normal. I then see that Target toys went to 75% off! I debated for 10 minutes to let Lenna nap or just go. Since Lenna didn't look like she was going to settle down any time soon I put her in the car and away we went.

I will also admit that I went to Target yesterday with a friend because I like to shop. So with that today and yesterday below are all my finds. I got all of this for under 100 bucks. I am pretty excited. Especially for the Elmo. I have been wanting to get a version of Tickle me Elmo for Lenna for so long, but haven't been able to deal with the price, but at 75% I can deal with that price. Sadly I think I will be going back to Target again today or tomorrow to look at the shoe clearance because I really need a new pair of slip on shoes I can use on a daily basis. But if I don't make it back that is okay too. My life is really great compared to the turmoil of Haiti. If shoes are my biggest concern my life is great. Speaking of Haiti isn't it amazing how quickly everything can be destroyed? Jared and I went to Haiti a few years ago, and it was beautiful where we were. It is heart aching to think how quickly everything can go and the struggle of just getting food. All I can think of it has to be chaos there, and I pray that things will get better for everyone and hope that I never have to see destruction like that first hand.

In other events if Lenna wakes up and is happy I will take some pictures of her so you can see how big she is now at 10 months old! Happy Friday everyone!

Deals and Advancements

Lenna is growing up right before my eyes. It is crazy how slowly life chugs along for the first 20 years of life and then after that life seems to go at the speed of light!

We did some fun things as a family this week. Thanks to my blog stalking we saw that the old spaghetti factory was having 41% off their prices, so we went out to dinner with Lenna one night. She sat in her high chair and ate all the bread and snacks and water we would give her. I think her favorite part was at the end when daddy shared his ice cream with her. It was great that Lenna would go out with us past her bed time and still be a happy camper. Thanks Lenna! Other deals of this weeks I went grocery shopping and got a 4lb bag of chicken breast for 5 bucks! I was pretty excited, but it wasn't as awesome as my last week trip where I got 5 boxes of wheat thins for free, but it was still a pretty good shopping trip. I am going to have to say finding deals is definitely a new hobby of mine!

Lenna also is becoming more and more mobile. She crawls pretty fast and now she is is trying to get up on her feet and walk with her hands being her stabilizers. You can see in the video what I mean. She also stands up with the help of walls and furniture really well too. My prediction is she will be walking around 11 months, but I am also okay if it takes her longer...walking I think will bring a whole new set of baby proofing.



Speaking of months today is Lenna's 10th month mark! Happy 10 months baby girl! We have made it to double digit months which means soon she will be a year old. I will pull out her chair and take some photos sometime today or this week, but I wanted to post the video while Lenna is napping so grandmas could see.

5 Mile Bridle Trails Run

It is raining and Lenna is back to 2 naps a day so I have plenty of time to do my normal chores but instead I am going to forget the chores and blog =). Below is my friend Lindsey who is super awesome. She is a runner through and through. I am a person who likes to do random things. So when Lindsey asked if I wanted to do a 5 mile race because it was in her words "a cheap race" I said yes. I had never run a 5 mile race, but I figured I probably could do it. We both signed up and here were are all smiles before the race.Due to my inability to not have a plan or a schedule we arrived with plenty of time to just hang out and wait for the race to begin. We found a spot on a fence and waited. More and more people showed up and we couldn't figure out where the race went to or where it even began. Lindsey kept asking random people if they had ever done this race before. We met a few nice people but they had never run this race, so we ran the race having no clue about the course.

In addition to Lindsey being outgoing and asking people about the race I learned a new fact about her that she likes to look at people's shoes. She kept commenting on people wearing trail shoes. At that moment something clicked in my mind that this was a "trail" race and not a normal race. Why it didn't click before I don't know. I knew we were running on horse trails, but it didn't click to me it would different then any other type of race. Anyway when it clicked in my mind I was kind of bummed that I didn't wear my trail running shoes that I hardly ever wear but have had for many years. Next time I will put those shoes to good use! I then also started to think hmmm trail racing I wonder how much harder this is going to be compared to running around Greenlake. I know I probably should have figured this out before I signed up for the race; oh well.

The picture below is of two random guys but if you look closely in between them you will see people you know!I remember talking to my mom the day after the race telling her I really enjoyed trail running and that I might try to do more of it especially once I am done having kids and don't have to deal with strollers. My mom laughed at me and reminded me I hate the outdoors. She is right, I won't deny that, but I told her I don't mind trail running if it is a trail that is surround by a city. Such is the park we raced at. You can see the course map below. It is basically right off 405 and surrounded by Kirkland. I think these parks are kind of nifty because sometimes you can forget you are in the middle of a huge metropolitan area. The red line is the course we ran.When I finished the five miles about an hour after we started Lindsey met me at the finish line. If you ask us both about our experience it will be very different. She didn't like trail running because as I stated previously she is a runner through and through. However, trail running requires you to pay attention to your footing you can't just listen to your music and go. I loved it because the distraction of focusing where I was going totally made me forget that I was running and I was at the end before I knew it.

Here we are at the car after the race. I am pink as normal. I will thank my mom for giving me that awesome quality of turning pink in the face while working out.And finally the best picture of them all our shoes after the race. The course varied from 5' wide to 2' wide. Some parts were dry other parts were very muddy, and occasionally there was horse poop. I think I would have finished a bit faster, but there was a long stretch of the race that was just 2' wide and nothing but mud. Since I wasn't going for speed I would step off the trail and let the people running the 10mile and 50k races go past me then I would start up again. But that long 2' wide pure mud stretch sure did a number to my shoes. They were totally dirty!

I think I will do this same race again next year if I can and maybe I will look for some 10k races to see if normal races are appealing or if I just really like trail racing. Thanks Lindsey for the new experience!!!

The biggest bow yet!

If you know Lenna when she goes out and about we try to 'doll' her up. Sometimes you might think the bows I put on her head is not being super nice or even cruel, but in all honesty it is for her own good. Lenna LOVES people. She is a people person. If I didn't put cute hats or bows on her head she probably wouldn't get as many comments as she gets when we are out running errands. Lenna loves it when people talk to her so in short putting bows on Lenna's head is a good thing for both her and me! She gets attention and I have longer to complete my errands. See win-win!

Yesterday at church I put a new flower on her head and apparently it was larger then normal. I had many people comment to me it is the biggest bow yet! I thought it just matched her dress that a lady in our ward made for her. It was a cute outfit too because we had people ask if we had taken a picture in her outfit yet. So later that day we took some pictures and now you get to see them (luck you ;0 ).
Lenna likes sleeping with her bunnies and she likes to curl up on her side. I love to walk in and see how she has situated herself for a nap.Today it is pretty rainy and I feel kind of crummy so we are having a hunker at home day. I am not sure if Lenna is liking it or not. She keeps standing at our back door and just staring outside. However she is not upset she just keeps wandering around the house. Well she wanders as long as she can see me. If she can't see me she starts to scream. Ugh I hope we aren't starting the stranger anxiety or attachment stage.
I also got a video of waving. She is definitely becoming more fun as she gets older.

Happy Monday!