Weekend pictures

The sun came out today in Portland and I was able to get some weeding done in the back yard and plant some petunias in our front flower bed. I betcha I won't be able to move tomorrow!

On to the pictures!
Here's Kylie getting distracted with her Gymbo hand puppet during a diaper change.


And I love this next picture. A babysitter once asked us if she would be able to tell when Kylie was ready for a nap.
Yep. You can tell.

Shutterfly book

Yesterday in the mail, I received this package.

Inside was my...

..book of my May Photo a Day Project.

My cat Phoebe wanted to be in the picture.
The title is "One Moment". And the subtitle reads: Lots of play, love and smiles captured one snapshot each day.
You can click here to see the finished project or to leave a Shutterfly comment. Or if you can't get enough of Kylie from my hundreds of photos on this blog, you can buy the book.

I've ordered some for family members (you should get yours today or tomorrow). All in all, I'm so glad I did this project!

Having fun

It's been so wonderful to have Kylie back to her healthy, energetic, fun-lovin' self.

Her newest skill is the ability to climb off and on this rocking toy and rock herself.
"Climbing on Mommy!"

"See, I'm on."


She's also learned how to slide feet-first out of our couches and chairs. She still needs help getting up into them but now can slide herself out without waiting for us.


If you ask her, "Where's Kylie's hair?" she'll pat her hair and then reach out and pat yours. She'll point to her dolls eyes and mouth when asked "Where's the doll's eyes/mouth?"" but will rarely point to her own. But the kiddo knows about her hair!

She's still playing the milk/juice game with us.
After a meal, we'll open the refrigerator door and offer her milk. She'll take a sip and then reach for the juice. Takes a sip and then reaches for the milk. She thinks this is too fun. I'm glad she's drinking but I also want to shut the fridge door.

I'm working on several scrapbook pages but don't have a finished one to show you. I'm also helping Karen by learning about Joomla websites so that's taking up some of my spare time. It's always nice to learn something new.

I hope you are all doing well!

Kylie at the zoo

Dear Kylie,

You went to the Oregon Zoo for the first time today. You were fairly interested in the sea lion and the aquarium exhibits. But then I wheeled your stroller to the Siamangs primates (aka monkeys). I kneeled down, got your attention and pointed to a monkey who was resting on a shelf, high up in his home.

He turned his head and looked down at us. Your eyes got as big as saucers, your jaw dropped open and you reached out for him. I laughed and you tore your eyes off him for a moment and then turned back and pointed to him as if to say, “Mommy, look at him!” Your expression was priceless.

You enjoyed seeing this Asian elephant up close and personal.

And you liked watching the Lorikeet birds flitting about. But I would have to say that this was your favorite moment. A goat from the petting zoo came over and let you touch his nose. You laughed with pure joy.


We didn’t see any bears or lions or giraffes. I particularly wanted you to see the giraffes because it is one of your favorite puzzle pieces from your Jungle Melissa & Doug wooden puzzle set.

As you play with your puzzle, Momma and I will make the sounds of each of the animals as we tell you their names. The giraffe doesn’t have a sound like the elephant or lion so we stick out our tongues as if to mimic the large tongues of the giraffe. You’ve been quick to mimic us by flicking your own tongue in and out while humming (quite adorable by the way!) as you play with your giraffe puzzle piece. But there were no giraffes to be seen today. Maybe next time.

Mostly, you enjoyed seeing the other babies in their strollers and the toddlers walking and running around. You snacked on Cheerios from your snack cup and just had a grand time.

Not allergies, Just a really long cold

I took Kylie to the doctor today just to get her checked out. Although, she is much better, she is not completely well.

He said her lungs were clear. And her ears are fine (I'm so glad that she's made it 2 weeks with a cold and not had it go to her ears). He did give us some eye drops and that should be a lot of fun. He wants us to give her the drops just because her eyes are still gooky and because she's rubbing them so much. The drops should keep the bacteria level down.

He told me that she's not contagious since she hasn't had a fever in a week. But dang it, she still has that runny nose so we can't go to Gymboree yet. Maybe by Monday, it will have cleared her system.

Here's two funny things that happened this week.

One. Kylie was standing in Karen's lap and Karen was asking her about her day and such. Karen said, "You have such a curly top of hair" and Kylie reached out and patted the top of Karen's hair as if to say, "YOU are the curly top Momma!"

And Two.
Karen and I were sitting in the car with Kylie sitting behind us in her carseat. We were pulling out of the garage to get some Starbucks. We leaned over and kissed one another. And we hear our little girl peal with laughter at us. We turned to look at her and she was just laughing and grinning. It was very sweet.
Here is yesterday's picture of the day.

And here is a fast scrapbook page I made for a Black and White picture challenge.

Bowl

Some days, all a girl needs is a plastic bowl.

First steps

Kylie has been walking by holding on to our fingers like this for over a month.

Sometimes holding on with two hands and other times just holding on with one.


But tonight, right before bath time, we were playing with Kylie walking back and forth between Karen and I. And Kylie let go of our hands and took two steps all on her own! And they were proud steps, not just those lunges that she's been doing for a while.

We were ridiculously proud!

It may be days or weeks before she's really walking around the house but tonight she took a leap in the right direction.

Hurray Kylie!

Lots of tissue and lots of rest

As you might have surmised from the title, we are all still sick. Poor Kylie's nose is raw from all the wiping. We just laid low around the house for the long weekend. We wanted to give Kylie lots of rest and we wanted to not spread this incredibly long-lasting cold to anyone else. We are dearly hoping we all get better soon!

I had the pleasure of doing loads of laundry with tissue paper stuck in our pockets. Have you ever done that? Well, shredded tissue ends up everywhere on the clothes. And, believe it or not, I did this twice. It made me want to just lay down in the laundry room floor and whimper.

I took an incredibly long nap on Sunday. Heck. I slept most of the day. The lovely Karen took care of the baby while I read and snoozed. I can't remember the last time I did this for a whole day. I read this book in a day. It was a great addition to the series. I think I've read everything Charlaine Harris has written.

And you know me, I still took pictures for my May photo-a-day project.
Don't you just love these giraffe pj's?


This was taken during our "hold the baby over Karen's head and then throw her on the bed and make her giggle" game.


You can view the entire May photo set by clicking this link.

And I made this scrapbook page:

Click here if you want to see a larger size. And click here for the details.

A few pictures of the day

It was challenging to pick my May Photo of the Day.

Here were some of my options:




This is the one I picked. I thought it looked enchanting.

And here is yesterday's picture. Kylie kissing her reflection in one of her books.

Cheerio explosion

Silly me. I thought Kylie was playing quietly with a rattle this morning. I turned around and saw this.

What cracked me up was that I grabbed the camera before stopping her or cleaning up. She had a wonderful time--just laughed and laughed.

Poor little darling still is STILL sick. And Karen and I are still sniffing as well.

I did take the time to whip this together tonight.

Details are here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Photos and such

Library Mary recently asked, "What kind of camera are you using?"

I use a Nikon D50 Digital SLR camera. I keep a Quantaray 2.8-32mm macro lens on it. And I keep the camera on "auto" setting most of the time. Although I have several books on my camera, I'm embarrassed to write that I don't know more about how to properly and fully use my camera. To rectify my lack of camera knowledge, I'm thinking about attending the Creative Photography Retreat held in San Jose, CA August 28-30.

Any of my blogging buddies want to go with me?

I also keep a small Kodak Easy Share M883 camera in my diaper bag. If you've been following along with my May Photo project, the picture of Kylie in the flowers and the picture of her in the shopping cart were taken with that little camera.

I use Adobe Photoshop to enhance some photos and to fix errors. I've learned a lot by taking Jessica Sprauge's classes. Some of her best photo editing tips are in this magazine which you can still find at some newsstands.

These Photoshop tips have changed my photos from this:


to this:


I snapped this picture today as well. It's me focusing on Kylie beyond her crib bars.


Kerry Lynn asked about the May project photo borders.
The beige frame is Vintage Frames 4 by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals
There is a faint brown edge as well. It's from K Pertiet Edges 7
The white grunge frame is from Gypsy Chicks Artistic photo frames1-4

I guess that is enough camera and photo talk for now. I'll leave you with another scrapbook picture.

Details are here.

Pass the bleach

We are on day six of Kylie having a head cold. After wiping her nose every five minutes and wiping my own nose as well (of course I caught her cold), I feel like I need to scour myself and this whole house with bleach. Yuck, yuck and more yuck!

I have to hand it to Kylie--she's a pretty good sport about it all. When I listen to her gasping for breath as she's trying to both eat and breathe though her mouth, I'm amazed that she's not screaming and crying more.

Of course, we have had plenty of tears over the past five days. Kylie's eyes have been leaking constant tears. And then there comes a point when she just doesn't want me to wipe her nose again.

Did you see that sweet photo in the previous post with her sitting at the sink washing her hands?


Well, this is what she really looked like most of the day:


Yep, getting a decent photo each day for my "Photo a day in May" project has been interesting. I have to be fast to catch her happy, smiling moments.




I've deeply missed taking her to Gymboree this week. We go almost every day. Kylie loves to play there and it's a wonderful way to spend part of our afternoon. Because she's been sick, I've been taking her to one of our parks instead. And I'm happy to report that she's fallen in love with the swings.

Before this past week, we had only taken her to the swings a few times. Kylie would grasp her swing seat for dear life and just sort of sit there stiffly, looking mostly at the ground. Now, she's learned to relax her arms and hands in the swing and look around her and laugh. She's really loves it and of course, I love seeing her so happy.

Thank you

Thank you to those of you who gave me your opinion on the gym matter. I'm keeping the gym membership but not planning on taking Kylie. I plan on getting to the gym at least 3 times a week for some heavy cardio and resistance training.

I'll also continue my frequent walks with Kylie in her stroller. We have a lovely neighborhood for stroller walks, with a walking/biking trail just 1/2 a mile away. But I've found that even when I walk quickly with her, up hills and such and even with the extra resistance with the stroller, it's still not enough to get my heart rate in that zone where weight loss can occur. But the stroller walks are great for weight maintenance. I just need to do a little more to get some pounds off.

Karen and I do have a babysitter/nanny who comes for four hours twice a month. But we usually use that time as "date time" or to do appointments like getting our hair cut.

So it's going to be a challenge to get to the gym but Karen's going to help and I'll just suck it up and go at night like so many other people do.

Thanks again for your comments. It really helped me to hear from you.

And now here are a few pictures!




Catching up on Kylie's Milestones.
Her 12 month page for her baby book.

Here are links for the left page and the right page.
Her 13 month milestone page for her baby book.

Details are here.

Try again or pass for now

Well, I'm really not sure what to do.

I joined a gym this week in the hopes that I could leave Kylie in the gym's kids room while I get a quick workout. We went for the first time on Tuesday and Kylie made it around 30 minutes before having a meltdown. Today, I worked out for 40 minutes before I was paged. When I ran to the kids room I learned that she had been crying the entire time even though I asked to be paged immediately if she started crying.

The kids room staff seems nice enough. However, English is these ladies second language and when I try to ask questions like, "Did she play at all?" "Did the other kids scare her?" "Can I bring her some of her toys from home?" "Did you play with her?" all I get is a smiling shrug that says, "I only understand about half of what you are saying and please take this screaming baby away".

Kylie starts off well. When we arrive, I sit with her and we play with some toys and she gets completely engaged and pretty much ignores me. Then I get up and leave her and she's fine. I don't know what happens to set her off.

I have until tomorrow to decide whether I should keep the gym membership or not. I've been told (hopefully) that I can get a full refund if I want to but I have to let them know tomorrow.

Karen and I are going to talk about it tonight. There is always the option of me working out at night and then trying again in a month or so during the day with Kylie. But like most people, I'm wiped at the end of the day and I just want to either scrapbook or cuddle with Karen on the couch.

A part of me says to keep trying that I've not given her enough time to properly adjust. But it breaks my heart to see Kylie's face all swollen and red and hear her gasp for breath because she's been crying for so long. And she seems much fussier and clings to me more for the rest of the day after she's been so upset at the gym.

So what do you think? Should I
A. try again tomorrow and then decide.
B. keep taking her no matter what because eventually she will get the hang of it.
C. keep the gym membership and try with Kylie again in 1-2 months.
D. cancel the membership and find another way to get some exercise.
Thanks for thinking about it.

And now, here are a few pictures:


Kylie, all proud of herself because she squirmed away from me before I could finish dressing her after a diaper change. Little stinker!

A few photos

Here's the photo of the day:

Although these were fun too.
Blowing me raspberries. But check out that squat!


Are we drooling a little bit today? Check the chin.


And the scrapbook page I finished: