Father's Day...

We had a great time celebrating Paul's first Father's Day yesterday. The weather was beautiful- sunny with beautiful clouds, warm, and perfect. In the morning, I made Paul cinnamon rolls and coffee, and snuck Ginger in bed with us where she played with Daddy's goatee until he woke up. That was her way of wishing him a happy Father's Day and he was all smiles seeing her laying in between us. He opened presents after breakfast, and as expected fell in love with the Dad frame Ginger and I put together. Later in the day, our friends Dan and Melissa came over, and brought their 2 month old baby boy, Cade, and we all hung out outside and ate a fabulous barbque lunch of blue cheese burgers, potato and macaroni salad, chips, and cheesecake for dessert. Paul, Ginger and I went swimming before her nap, and she is really starting to enjoy playing in the water!

All in all, it was a fabulous day. We were having so much fun that I forgot to pull out my camera to capture some shots, which I am a little sad about now. But all in all, I am so grateful to have such a wonderful father for Ginger, and such an awesome husband, that my mind will remember this day forever, and that's good enough for me!

Dreamy milestone...

Just a cute little story- Ginger has a baby aquarium in her crib that she loves- it lights up in a soothing blue color, has cute swinging monkeys, and it plays lullabies. There is a big button shaped like a parrot on the front that is pushed to turn on the aquarium, and once an infant is old enough, they can push it themselves while in their crib if they want some entertainment.

So, Ginger and I have been working on her figuring out that she can do this herself. I take her little hand and with her little fingers, I show her the on/off button, and I swear we've done it together at least 50 times now, but she has yet to actually push the button herself.

Well, last night she hit that milestone, in the most adorable way. At about 3:30am, I hear through the baby monitor the aquarium lullabies playing in her room. I jump out of bed, thinking that she finally did it, although I did consider that it was a peculiar time for her to figure this out. As I sneak into her room, I see her fast asleep, with her arm straight up in the air, resting on the aquarium. It was pretty clear that this wasn't a purposeful move, so I gently lowered her arm and turned it off. I kind of chuckled as I got back in bed- our little girl finally did it herself, she just didn't know it. Kind of a dreamy milestone- what a cutie!

Father's Day Project...

I am not the craftiest person in the world, but when I saw a friend put together this cute father's day gift for her husband, I figured it was something I could attempt. So, this morning, Ginger and I went over to Michaels and picked up all of the necessary supplies. During her morning nap, I painted and glittered the letters, and thought that they turned out pretty cool. Boy, was I a dummy in so many ways. First, I should have realized that these letters would go right into Ginger's mouth! By the end of our photo shoot, she had glitter in her hair, on her face, on all parts of her skin, and I even had to pry a little glitter out of her mouth! Ugh. Lesson #1-Wait on glitter until baby gets a little older! Second mistake is not having a plan on the outfit until after I had chosen the color for the letters. The idea popped into my head to have her wear her Osh Kosh overalls with no undershirt, right after I had painted the letters blue. So they are not as "stand out"ish as I was anticipating. But it still turned out cute...

The photo shoot, well, it was a bit of a disaster. I really ended it thinking "Oh well, I guess this didn't work out for us". Ginger was not as smiley as she sometimes is, and the letters and feather boa were causing so much distraction for her!! I laughed at the end, as I was looking around and seeing glitter all over her, our comforter, the floor, and my face, thinking that this would be one for the books- the uncraftiest mom giving up on a father's day craft.

Well, turns out a lot of the photos I took right at the beginning came out great. After a FUN swim with Ginger, I put her down for a nap and got to reviewing the photos, and selecting the images for the frame. I have to admit- I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, seeing as though I had a lot of doubt throughout the whole project.

I CANNOT WAIT to give this gift to Paul! He is going to melt, I just know it!





Here are a few that didn't make the cut, but are still good memories for me!

She looooooooooves her new boa!

I love the pucker in this shot:

These are her "Tyra" eyes, for anyone who watches America's Next Top Model, LOL...

D is for Darling....

OR D is for Diva...

Celebrating 5 months with baby Ginger...

Today is Ginger's 5 month birthday, and we celebrated in style! She and I went to the mall and walked around, did a little shopping, and picked up some of her (heh-hem, I mean my) favorite candy- chocolate covered gummy bears from Sweet Factory. We're working on her letting mommy try on more than 2 things in the dressing room before she's "over it", but even when she's in that mood I love her too.

There are a lot of moments that I am loving about being a mom, that you just can't capture on photo/video. Last night, Paul was at a car show (surprise, surprise!) and so it was just me and Ginger. After giving her a bath and getting her in her jammies, we went into the nursery and read books together, and then she fell asleep in my arms as I sang her lullabies. Watching the silouette of her face with the nightlight in the background, peacefully sleeping while in my arms, is why being a mom is the best job I've ever had. I am filled with joy when I am with her, and even though people tell you these kind of stories, until you experience for yourself it really is hard to imagine how wonderful it really is.

Anyhow, enough for now, dere is a little slide show of some of our favorite moments over the past 5 months.

Party like a rockstar...

Last night Paul, Ginger and I were over to Backwoods BBQ to celebrate Kari's 32nd birthday. This was Ginger's first time seeing a live band, and although it seemed like she liked the music, she was WAYYYY more into the balloons that were attached to Kari's presents. I mean, giggling, laughing, squirming, practically jumping out of my arms to touch and look at these balloons. It was amazing to see her so excited about something, as she is a very, very mellow baby who rarely gets overly excited about anything! Most of the time, she is wide eyed, curious, but never spastic and I can say with confidence that she was SPASTIC over these balloons.

Here are some video/pictures from the night!



Ginger's dressed for the occasion- first time seeing a live band!

She's clearly pretty excited...

This was when we first arrived. The band is setting up in the background, and this entire table was filled with Kari's family within an hour or so...

Me and the beautiful birthday girl...

Ginger eye'ing Daddy's bottle...

"I guess I'll take mommy's milk for now, but that Corona looked good!"

Mommy snuggling with Ginger

She is a TOTAL Daddy's girl!

I love my feet...

I think Ginger was behind the curve on figuring out how much fun her feet were, but once she found them she couldn't stop! She spends most of her play time now rolling, stretching her legs straight in the air, and touching her feet. Still has only put them in her mouth once or twice, probably was handed down those tight hamstrings that mommy has! Nonetheless, she still enjoys touching them all day long!

Flipper!

We finally caught our little flipper on video. Enjoy!

Ginger's first birthday party...

...as an attendee, of course! Today she and I went over to our friend Kendall's house to celebrate her stepson Jared's 4th birthday. Since it was Ginger's first children's birthday party, we had to wear a special dress for the occasion. In all actuality, we have too many dresses and too little time- this is a 3-6 month dress, and with the long sleeves in summer, I didn't know if we'd have another opportunity to wear it (it was pretty cloudy today).

Anyhow, Ginger and Ryen got to play together while some of the other kids dared going in the pool (it was heated, luckily!) Ryen is already crawling and pulling herself to standing position on the couch, coffee table, ottoman, etc. and it's just amazing to see what we have in store for us in 3 more months! I'll add the pics that Jaime took of the girls together, but here are a few that Paul took before we left to the party (though we added a bow for good measure after these shots were taken). I also added a few from after the party, when the dress came off and comfty pants went on- a girl after my own heart. :)

4 month vaccinations

You wouldn't know Ginger is my daughter by the way she takes her shots- she is a CHAMP! Today we went in for her 4 month vaccinations (late again, but this time I had an appointment that was rescheduled by the doctor) and it went well. Ginger is now 26 inches long/tall, weighs in at 14.1 lbs, which is good progress. She didn't make a peep the entire visit(other than a few chuckles while we were waiting for the nurse to come in). At the end of the visit is when they give the shots, I held her hands and watched her face, and it was amazing. On the first shot, I didn't even know it was given because Ginger didn't even notice it! On the second shot, she whimpered for a few seconds, shed maybe two tears, and was over it. She was back to smiling in no time.

I don't have problems taking shots now, but boy when I was a kid I remember throwing fits when I had to take a shot! Let's hope this ambivalence continues- I would be so lucky! Here she is waiting for doc to come see us...

Ginger, grafitti'ed...

Well, not really, but there is a fun website my friend Kymberli emailed me about that allows you to upload pics and choose from a variety of fun backgrounds like this one. Check out www.photofunia.com, it's kind of addicting!

Test Drive!

Still no food yet, we've decided to wait until at least 5 1/2 months to introduce solids (if she maintains her patience, we'll see). With only 4 weeks to go, we thought it might be a good idea to get Ginger used to the idea of her high chair. So we took our first test drive tonight. She seemed to like it! It is so crazy that for 9 months, while I was pregnant, it felt like almost every night while sitting at the table for dinner, we'd say to each other "can you believe one day our little munchkin will be sitting right here in her high chair!?!?" Well, that day is here!

The little things...

What a cliche to say "she is growing up so fast", but it is true. She isn't even 5 months old yet, and still every day I find something new compared to the day before...

*Ginger sure knows how to turn it on. When it's just Mommy and Daddy, she is extremely vocal and rarely is she not humming, laughing, screeching, and just playing with her voice in general. We call her our future American Idol, because it will almost appear that she is singing at times. Up and down the musical scale with her vocals, no words yet of course, but seriously this girl is a talker! Sometimes people don't believe me because when she has visitors, she's so entrenched in the new person that she's not as talkative, but when its just our little family, watch out!

*She is easy to please. A lot of people have made mention so far that she is a very mellow baby. She smiles and laughs pretty easily, especially for Mommy and Daddy. But she doesn't mind being handed over to friends and family to be held and visit, most of the time just kinda staring at you and occasionally cracking a smile.

*One of the best moments is when she wakes up from sleeping in her crib, she'll fuss and cry and as soon as she sees mommy pop my head over the crib, she smiles and laughs and giggles and is clearly happy to see me. I love that moment.

*She's a daddy's girl through and through. Don't get me wrong- we have a blast every day together but when Dad gets home and picks her up in his arms, she squeals and smiles and couldn't be happier. Watching that, neither can I.

*She's starting to realize that Woody is her doggie and he just cracks her up. He follows us around a lot, and with her up on my shoulder, him following me behind, he gives her lots of giggles and squeals too. Every morning for her feeding, she makes sure he is sitting in front of our big chair, and of course he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

*One of her favorite places to visit is Paul's garage. There is so much to look at out there that it's about the only place we go where she is silent. She just stares and stares- it's like eye candy to her.

*She's a 100% mommy's milk baby, which I feel so, so, so lucky about. And I do mean luck, because I know a lot of my friends who for one reason or another were unable to strictly breastfeed. We've worked hard and have been committed, but we didn't run into ANY obstacles like the books or others have had. I attribute part of that to pure luck.

*She's a sleeper- i just knocked on my wood desk because I don't want to jinx this, but she's been sleeping really well since about 8weeks, without a drop of formula or any food so far. I have to go almost EVERY morning, at 7:45am to wake her up for the day. And her bedtime is usually between 8-8:30pm! This girl likes to sleep- she sleeps at the top of the range of hours typical for her age. She's like her mama AND her papa on that one.

*Even though she is a sleeper, she now is beginning to resist certain moments of our routine. She knows when we walk to her nursery and turn the fan on and draw the curtains, it's nap time and sometimes she still wants to play, so she'll let me know she's not happy about it. Once asleep, she's out, but she's starting to fight naps a little bit and I can tell this child will not be timid growing up. We don't believe in the cry it out method while she's still this young, so mommy does a lot of rocking, soft humming, and pacing back and forth in her nursery. And I wouldn't give it up for anything. That's why I became a mom, right?

There is a lot more to document, but I'll leave that for another day. Until then, here's a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure. By the way, she's found her feet, and thinks they're great. I think she was a bit behind the curve on that one- but it was cute to see the moment that she realized for the first time that she could actually reach them.

She's flipping! I can't seem to capture it on video, but trust me I'll keep trying.



Loving her feet...

More feet time...

She is a bubble blower, that's for sure...

This girl loves her aquarium!


our little family...


did i mention she's having fun with her toes?!?!