Legoland and Fun

Grandma Kay just came out for about a week and our friends Terilynn and family too. We went to Legoland and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. We live right next to Legoland and we had a lot of fun so maybe we'll get a season pass for it. Mary had a great time playing in the Lego Duplo room and the cool air helped since it was really hot that day. Mary also liked the different flavors of ice cream. She got a taste of everyones. Tristyn and Logan (Terilynn's kids) loved Legoland and even went for two days instead of just one. There's lots of kids rides and pretty good food there.

It was pretty hot when we went to the Wild Animal Park too but we had a good time looking at all the animals. Mary's favorite part was the Carosel. We missed the petting zoo. (It was closed by the time we got to it.) So we'll have to go again soon. Personally, I prefer the Zoo as opposed to the Wild Animal Park, but they both have animals so they're pretty similar. We did get to go on the African Safari Tour, which takes you on a bus through the habitats of the animals. They used to have you drive through in your car, but I think animals got hurt and people so they stopped doing that.

We had a great time. And soon, we're going to go to Disneyland in July for Mary's birthday. We'll keep you posted.

Home from Nor Cal

So we're back home from northern california. We visited Patty and her new baby Emily, Master Rick and Jenny, Grandma Spring, Auntie Sherilyn and Jessica and cousin Kailee (not sure of how she spells it though), Aunite Jen, Grandma Deb and Grandpa Al, Brian and friends and for the most fun we got to see cousin Carol Ann. Carol Ann is exactly 7 months older but her and Mary play together pretty well. They give hugs and kisses and are good at being gentle with each other.

We had quite a week last week. We kept a pretty hectic pace and Mom is pretty warn out. But Mary was a party animal and kept up pretty well. We went to yosemite one day and played in the grass. We also went out to dinner on a couple of nights. Grandma Kay was nice enough to take care of the little munchkins to while me and Diane went to Derrick's graduation in Davis. He recieved his PhD last week and now works at UC Merced. It was also Diane's brother Brian's 24th birthday. We celebrated with Sishi and Italian food, and some beers.

We're hoping that we can go to Salem, OR (where Carol Ann lives) in October to celebrate Halloween with her. The girls will both be walking by then (Carol Ann has been for a few months) and they'd love going out and meeting new people I'm sure. They both love other kids and maybe Mary will have more teeth so she could eat some of the candy. We live in apartments right now so it'd be hard to trick or treat here anyways. But we've got a lot planned this year so we'll see how we feel when it comes time to buy the tickets. We miss them a lot though.

This week Grandma Kay comes out to visit and we're going to go to the Wild Animal Park and Legoland. That's going to be fun. Hopefully we'll get some sleep in there somewhere.
Talk to ya'll later.

Nap Schedule

I did put her on a nap schedule and it worked like a charm. On a normal day she takes a nap at 10:30am and 2:30pm. Usually one nap is for an hour and the other for an hour and a half to two hours. Then she goes to bed at 8pm and is up by 8am. (She does wake up at like 6am for a feeding and then at like 7:15am or so for another one. But then goes quickly back to sleep.) If I let her stay up in the morning instead of putting her back to bed til 8am she's cranky. Now she's doing much better with sleeping. She's a happy baby when she's on a schedule. Otherwise she's like this all day. (See below.)

Then no one's happy. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we go on vacation. I'm hoping she'll just be excited to get out of the house that she won't notice her schedule's all messed up. We will see. Wish me luck!

10 months old and off to see Grandma

Mary turned 10 months old on June 3rd. And now we're off to Northern California on Sunday to see family and friends. Peas and Diane will meet us up there. It'll be so good for the girls to see each other again. The main reason for us traveling to nor cal is Derrick's graduation. He's getting his PhD in Physics and now we have to call him Dr. Kiley. :)

We'll be gone about a week and returning next saturday before Father's Day. (Gotta be home for that.) Then after we get back we're going to go to Legoland and the Wild Animal Park with grandma Kay and some friends. Then in July we're celebrating Mary's birthday a little early at Disneyland. Lots of fun.

We'll let you know if she starts walking or talking or anything. So far she's walking with her walker a lot and standing with support a lot. I'll post another blog when we get back from vacation.

Love, Mom

P.S. She did actually get a full tooth in and she's teething right now for her second tooth. So now she has 1.1 teeth instead of just half a tooth. But she you'd be surprised at what she can eat with only 1.1 teeth!

Still Half Tooth and Walking with the Walker

She still only has half a tooth. But we think that the tooth next to it is coming in. She's walking pretty well with the walker. Check out the video at her home movie page (walking video). She also stood on her own the other day. She let go of the coffee table and I don't think she realized it though. She sort of looked around and then sat on the ground. She also learned to clap last weekend. We've been trying to get her to clap and then she just did it one day. We were playing upstairs and she just clapped on her own. It's pretty cute. She also knows how to do the all done sign. (As seen here.) So when she's all done playing or eating she throws her arms in the air and we say "All Done." Now she can tell us when she's full.
She also says dada and mama and baba. That's pretty cool. And one of her favorite pasttimes now is opening drawers and taking everything out. So we clean a lot. She still loves to eat bunny pellets. We're still trying to get her off that. We thought of taking her to Poo Eaters Anonymous or PEA. Well hope you like the website and all the new stuff on it. Take care and we'll talk to you again soon.
Mel

New Blog Site

Here's Mary's New blog site. I'm going to see if I can transfer her other entries to this site. So Stay tuned. I'll try and transfer the comments too. But that will take a little longer.

Still Half Tooth

Mary's tooth still hasn't come in all the way. She's a baby with half a tooth. She's graduated from just crawling to cruising. She' holds onto things and stands up all the time. She loves to climb the stairs and she loves bath time.

With only half a tooth she can't eat real food yet. But she has tasted some. She likes salt and vinegar potato chips, lemons, limes, saurkraut, and mustard. She'd much rather eat real food than baby food, but she mostly still nurses anyway. So we have time before her teeth come in. But she'd like them in now, so she can have that german pub dinner!

Another one of her favorite pastimes is watching the bunnies. She likes to go over and pet them through the cage. Unfortunately she also likes to munch on bunny droppings. So we have to keep an eye on her.

She's sleeping through most of the night right now, but we haven't slept through the whole night yet. Naptime is still hit an miss also. If she doesn't want to take a nap, even if she's tired. She'll complain and moan and wail until I get her. But sometimes naptime is a breeze. I thought I'd try putting her on a nap schedule, so she takes a nap at the same time everyday. Wish us luck!

Mom