4 Months

Dear Lynnaea,

Well, I think I should start this letter by telling you you've had an uncharacteristically grumpy day!  That's so, when you read this in ten or fifteen years, you can laugh ;).  I am serious about this being unlike you.  You are our happy little girl.  You smile a lot.  You still smile the most at Daddy, even when he's just saying random stuff that doesn't even make sense to you (like about molecules).  I think it's all his hand gesturing that makes you smile ;).  I don't know.  What I do know is that you love watching him.  Maybe it's because you see Daddy less than you see Mommy, so he's way more interesting. 

Anyway, you are continuing to grow and progress and develop.  You grab your toys like a champ -- and stick them right in your mouth!  Everything goes to your mouth these days.  You've managed to roll from your back to your side, and Daddy helps you roll all the way over both ways.  You want so badly to be able to do more than you can.  You want to sit up so desperately, but you just don't have the balance and abdominal muscle know-how yet.  But you're getting there!  You are a social little bug!  You love people.  You love when people talk to you and, though you can tolerate entertaining yourself for a bit, you definitely prefer when Mommy and Daddy are surrounding you and playing.  Daddy jokes that he has to start getting ready for work with about 10 extra minutes to spare, because he knows he is going to stop getting ready and spend a few minutes here and there playing with you -- just because you're so cute!  Yep, you're our little magnet with all your smiles and charms.  You are the smiliest baby when you first wake up too!  You are just so excited about your new adventures and you give us a big grin and start wiggling like crazy!

And oh your laugh!  You're still not doing it a lot, but definitely a lot more!  Yesterday I discovered that if I tickle your face with my hair, you think that's funny and you laugh.  It's a wonderful sound, sweet baby girl.  You still love your baths, but you don't necessarily like the vacuum cleaner sound.  Unless Mommy is holding you and vacuuming one-handed.  Not an easy feat! 

Daddy and I may be biased, but we think you're so smart.  You look at everything with such interest.  And Mommy has had many people tell her you are so alert and aware. 

Lynnaea, you continue to amaze me every day.  I feel blessed to have you as my little girl.  And I feel blessed that I am able to stay home with you.  I am very thankful that Daddy feels that is important, just like I do.  Thank you for being my sweet munchkin, baby girl.  I love you always.

Love,

Mommy

Slacker

I kind of slacked a bit on the whole blog posting thing this week...  Not that I post uber-exciting posts that people are waiting anxiously to read.  Haha...  But I usually at least put up some pictures of little Miss Lynnaea for her grandpa (and anyone else who looks forward to seeing this sweet girl growing).  I actually slacked on taking pictures much this week too!  Aaahh! 

I think it's the new schedule.  For me, not for her.  Jeremy started swings on Tuesday.  Lynnaea still has her schedule.  I end up staying up later than I should (but still go to bed before Jeremy gets home, since he's working a 10 hour shift and is never home before midnight :-/). 

Oh yeah...  So being that it's pretty much the end of the harvest time... I've been working on using our garden yields.  I will say that our garden produced marvelously well given the lack of care I gave it.  Not an easy feat to have a baby for the first time and a garden that is not in your own backyard that requires watering and such...  But we ended up with about 5 crookneck squash (not a big yield there unfortunately), 6 bell peppers and maybe 10 or 15 jalapenos (yeah, the peppers didn't do so well this year, but it was a milder summer), somewhere around 40 cups of shredded zucchini (plus several others I gave away or used in other ways other than shredding for future baking use), about 10 mini pumpkins (totally didn't realize I bought ornamental pumpkins this year.  Bummer... I like pumpkin pie), and a whole lot of tomatoes.  And I do mean a whole lot.  I've been giving them away as well as peeling them and using them in case of canned diced tomatoes in soups.  I've also made fresh salsa, fresh tomato soup, and home-made spaghetti sauce.  I've used the bigger ones for tomato, biscuit, and cheese for dinner.  And just having them in salads.  And I still have a bunch I had to let ripen indoors.  And we may go tomorrow and pick what's left -- even if it's completely green.  Yeah... So I've been a bit busy with the harvest. 

We fed the missionaries on Monday night.  First time Jeremy and I have done that.  We did taco salad -- with tomatoes from the garden.  I do love taco salad.  Talk about an easy meal that makes a lot!  I need to remember to make it more often.  Because I really do like it.  Jeremy made our dessert:  french cream pie.  It's delicious and even a little fancy because it requires a meringue.  Which makes me think I should make a baked alaska again sometime.  I haven't done that in AGES. 

And what has the munchkin been up to?  Just growing :).  She laughs more, but you really do have to work at it to get her to laugh!  But she is very generous with her happy big smiles.  With Jeremy being home in the mornings, I think he is loving being the one to go in and get her when she wakes up either first thing in the morning or after her first nap.  Because she is just so smiley.  Who knew a toothless grin could warm your heart so much ;)?  She is also getting more chatty.  It is so cute!  I wish videos would upload better here, because if they did, I would upload one I took of her chatting away.  She is getting so big.  She is completely into her 3 to 6 month clothes.  She wants so badly to be able to do more than she can right now.  She is quite frustrated that she can't sit up yet.  So I think with our next baby I'll be getting a bumbo chair.  I now see the genius of them.  She is really awesome at grabbing her toys, especially her play links.  And she loves going for walks in her stroller. 

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from today.  She was busy chewing on her sheep, so she wasn't really interested in giving me a smile.  But at least you can see her ;).

 I caught a good one of her asleep for one of her naps. 

 I love the idea of gowns, but now that she's older, she kicks her legs a lot and so the gown is never covering her legs and they get cold.  So...  bummer. 

 And the next two are the ones actually from today.  I forgot I'd taken those other pictures :).  Guess I did better than I thought!!!

She'll be 4 months on Tuesday.  It's so hard to believe.  Especially when I think back to our first night at home... 

Ironic

So just when I figured the hot weather was behind us (and I'll bask in the fact that we had a mild summer and the highest temperature had been 87), this week went and happened in Washington.  Halfway through September, and we end up with the hottest day of the year!  Ugh.  It was only 90.  But still.  I find it unacceptable.  ;).  I'm such a whiner when it comes to being hot. 

Also, I don't know what the deal is with Blogger and Firefox (which is the browser I usually use for everything), but it keeps saying "oops!  It looks like you logged out from another location.  Would you like to log in again?"  So I say yes, it opens my signed-in blogger screen in another window, and I click on "create post" and we get the same message...  Very circular.  So tonight I decided to try Internet Explorer.  I guess I'll be thankful I have options.  This also lets me know it's something with Firefox.  Anyway.

So Jeremy had a 5 day weekend last weekend.  He was doing a shift change (from what they call 5-4-9s (where he works 5 days one week at 9 hours and 4 days the next week at 9 hours) to 4 10's).  And because of the way it fell, he ended up with 5 days off in a row.  It was like a mini vacation!  We didn't go anywhere fun, but we did help someone in the Ward move into their house and go to Stake Conference. 

Speaking of vacations...  Our Alabama trip is coming soon!  Yay!  Just over a month now :).  I cannot wait.  Because Jeremy's schedule is now so different, it turns out he is going to work until October 26th and then he isn't on the schedule until after we come back.  Which would have been nice to know before I bought tickets, because I sure would have enjoyed some extra days without Jeremy having to use his leave time.  After talking with my mom (who is joining us), I decided to try finding out what it would cost to move our flights up one day (to Monday morning instead of the Tuesday night flight).  Ha...  'Tis to laugh.  $240 per ticket plus the difference in fare price.  So much for that.  I was imagining maybe a $25 fee.  Guess I'm crazy.  So, needless to say, we are sticking with the original plan.  And let's all hope and pray Lynnaea sleeps through the night -- or at least doesn't scream.  Or I think there will be a lot of unhappy people on board the flight.  Or I might hang out in the bathroom with a screaming baby a lot...  (This is what happens when you buy plane tickets before your first child is born...).

Otherwise, not a whole lot of excitement going on here.  Just the same old mommy stuff.  But I have a few more cute pictures (of course ;)).  I just so love her smile!

To Write or Not to Write

If you've ever perused my "Nilla List" on the right side of this blog, you'll know that writing a book (and hopefully having it published) is one of the things I'd like to accomplish in life. 

That dream took a back seat over the last few years.  But lately I've been contemplating it again.  Then the question becomes:  what would I write?  Because according to Never Been Kissed, "somebody once said, 'To write well, you have to write what you know.'"  So what do I know? 

Pretty much my life is what I know.  I used to plan on writing the stories from my workplaces.  I even started writing them.  But I just went back recently and re-read what I've written, and I realize that I've changed to such a degree that I would eliminate some of what I wrote.  I was so very snarky in some of what I wrote.  Time and distance changed my perspective on some things and mellowed me.  And then, I had a list of stories to write, and some of them are forgotten now. 

And would I even be able to get back into the groove of how I used to write?  I had several people tell me I should write a book, but that was years ago.  And I don't know why this is suddenly important to me.  But it is. 

Anyway, that's just something I'm contemplating. 

Also... I need to work on losing the extra baby weight.  Doesn't that sound fun and exciting!?!  Eh.  Not really.  But it must be done.

And since no post these days is complete without a picture of my sweet baby girl :)...

That's her sheep she's staring at so intently :).  And she is now in 3 to 6 month clothes.  Sigh...  She is growing so fast.  So bittersweet.  But isn't she adorable?!?  I love her!

Blessing Day

We had a pretty eventful weekend here...  Saturday we went out to Jeremy's brother's and enjoyed dinner and played games (Apples to Apples and Phase 10).  It was a lot of fun.  Harder on the munchkin than I had hoped...  Ultimately she did fine.  She just had to cry herself to sleep a bit more than I like.  But there was nothing I could do.  I think she was over-tired (she didn't get a full mid-afternoon nap), and then totally over-stimulated.  But she did fall asleep within 5 minutes at around 8 (so past her normal bed-time). 

I think she is amazing.  We woke her up from that sleep to bring her home, and she didn't fuss at all.  We changed her diaper and gave her another bottle (this was around midnight), and she went right to sleep.  She is such a sweet baby.

Sunday was Lynnaea's baby blessing day.  It was a really special day.  Jeremy gave her her blessing, and lots of family and some friends were there to share the special day with us.  Both grandmas and one grandpa, one uncle and aunt, 3 cousins, and 3 other family friends (including the couple that introduced us and where Lynnaea got her middle name ;)).  And we took pictures afterwards.  And I plan to use the little family picture of Jeremy, Lynnaea, and me as the picture to hang above her crib, because I think it's special :).

And don't you just love these little feet!?!  Complete with toe fuzz from the outfit I took her to church in (I didn't want her to spit up on the dress, so just changed her into it right before church started!  Plus it is way foofie and wouldn't have fit into the car seat!