5 months of fun

A short Lelia update:

• At her 4 month check-up in early December, she weighed 15.4 lbs and was 25 1/2 inches which still puts her in the 90th percentiles for height and weight.

• She is sitting by herself now. She does have to be closely monitored as she tends to fall over and hasn't learned to break her fall with her hands yet. She's had a few bonks, but nothing that has drawn blood or invoked blood curdling cries. She's quite a toughie!

• Has started putting her feet into her mouth and she LOVES to suck on her big toes..socks or no socks. Wet drippy feet are the new thing at our house.

• Learned a new 'sound' this past week which consists of putting her lips together and either sucking them in or blowing air through them. Makes her look like a turtle instead of her little monkey self!

And since we always need photos to accompany Lelia updates...we took these pics of Lelia after she got her first sunglasses (thanks, Ali!) and were wanting to know how she'd feel about them. The photos say it all...

You tawkin' ta me?

Ah, this is the life...

Incognito baby

Life is good

Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Hoping all you blogger friends out there had a wonderful time with family and friends making memories and enjoying each other this holiday! We had a low-key but amazing Christmas celebration with my parents and Tre's Grandma Cleo. We had decided several months ago that since we are so incredibly blessed we would keep Christmas simple this year in regards to gift giving...and would make each other gifts! We had a blast making each other presents and it was so special to watch people enjoy their custom made present!

Lelia enjoyed her first Christmas. She was quite interactive and enjoyed grabbing the wrapping paper on her presents...and then putting it in her mouth! She got a couple new outfits, as she continues to grow like a weed! She also received her first dolly from The Greats...oh, boy! I'm already excited about next year's Christmas as Lelia will be, no doubt, on-the-move and even more aware and participatory.

And now some pictorial highlights of our special day!

Lelia playing with her new little red wagon and sock monkey friend!

Grandma Cleo helping Lelia open her gift certificate

Tre's gift to my dad...a birch wood motorcycle he built

Lelia and my gift to Koko...a garden stepping stone with Lelia's footprints

Koko helping Lelia show off her Christmas dress (thanks, Auntie M'Elle!)

Lelia and her Christmas bear that a co-worker of mine gave her

More with the Christmas bear...

Opening a gift from The Greats with Koko

Kissing her first dolly...OK, she was really trying to eat it...but it's close to kissing it, right?

Look, my first dolly!

A new monkey themed outfit for our growing Monkey girl

My beautiful new apron from Mom....love it!

Opening a present for Papa...it was a belt my dad had made for Tre with a Celtic knot pattern!

The beautiful jacket Koko made for Lelia!

Happy little blue flower

Still more smiles...

Wishing you and yours a wonderful New Year!

a smile for the jolly fella with the white beard

Tre took Lelia to meet Santa Claus today. Santa's hold on her makes it look like she's some kind of porcelain doll on display. Truth is she was probably squirming so much he had to find someway of controlling her without making it look like he was fully restraining her. HA! Still, not bad for a first time meeting.

Tre said Lelia even shared a few laughs with the jolly old fella!

Tis the season...

for an update, that is!

It's been difficult to update the blog because sweet Lelia has been on a sleep strike for the past couple weeks. Instead of sleeping from 10 PM ish to 6 AM ish, she's been waking up at 2 AM then again around 5 AM. I know, I know...I shouldn't whine because we've been SO lucky that she's been such a good sleeper up until now, but man, going from sleeping through the night to having to wake up every few hours is really taking its toll. Add to the lack of sleep the fact that I'm working now and we've got double trouble! I've felt more tired in the last few weeks than I did in the first few weeks after Lelia's birth. Crazy, right? Anyway, I think her sleep strike is slowly shifting back to normal, thank goodness!

In other Lelia news:

~ She'll be 5 months old on the 22nd of the month. It's unbelievable how quickly the last few months have gone. When I look back at her newborn pictures, it's hard to imagine she was ever that tiny. Sigh.

~ She's a healthy 15 lbs 4 oz and 25 1/2 inches in length...measurements that evidently put her in the 80th percentiles in both categories. Something tells me she's probably going to be taller than me. I'm already preparing myself to be the family midget.

~ Is grabbing at things like crazy. Gone are the days when we could sit with beverages in our hands and hold her at the same time. She's ninja-stealthy and her tiny hands magically appear on the rim of your cup threatening to spill the contents. She has actually managed to smack several bites of food as I was trying to get the morsels to my mouth. And wearing dangly earrings is a dangerous practice now. She has an unnatural attraction to dangly earrings...beware!

~ Has started sitting on her own for short periods of time...and with LOTS of supervision. She's capable of righting herself as she leans one way or the other but hasn't quite learned that if she rocks backwards/forwards/sideways with enough force, she will land on her face. And yes, I may be speaking from experience on that one.

Lelia sitting with some Boppy assistance as she goes for her 'scholarship ball', as Tre calls it! (He's hoping she'll get a full ride to University of Portland with her mad soccer skills)

~ Tre started Lelia in swim class a couple weeks ago. She wears her tiny little swimsuit and they sing songs, float on their backs and learn how to go under the water and kick their way back to the surface. Frankly, the whole thing scares me a bit, but Lelia's a little fish and she LOVES it! Check out this video to see what it's all about!

Yeah for swim class!

Our little water baby

Life continues to be busy with Tre and I alternating our schedules to be home with Lelia. We'll get some relief in January as my work counterpart will be fully trained and I'll go down to working a true part-time schedule rather than the 3/4 time schedule I've been keeping. I'm SO ready for my new schedule to kick in as I've been missing Lelia so much lately. The upside to all my working is that Tre and Lelia have formed such a great bond and I love seeing the two of them interact with each other. He's truly an amazing Papa and I'm so lucky he's willing to be home with her.

Tre and I had our first night away from Lelia last Saturday night. Originally we had planned to go out of town but with the threat of crazy weather looming we opted for a stay-cation. We dropped Lelia off at my parents house, took in a movie (Invictus), slept in the next morning and enjoyed an amazing brunch at The Sapphire Hotel whose claim to fame are their bottomless brunch mimosas. I have to say that their bread pudding french toast is....AMAZING! Although it was a short night away from the wee one, it was great to reconnect with hubby and spend some selfish time doing what we wanted to do! AH! It was wonderful and we look forward to doing it again soon!

I'll leave you with some of my favorite pics of the last couple weeks...

Laughing with Grandpa

Helping Koko sew

Our chilly trip to pick out our Christmas tree! Brrr!

A cold weather Lelia burrito

Our little sleeper...well, sometimes she sleeps

Getting some kisses from Aunt Carrie!

turkey and other things to be thankful for

We had a pretty mellow Thanksgiving. Tre was working so Lelia, the pups and I went over to my parent's house where my Grandparents joined us. The food was excellent and plentiful and Lelia even decided to graciously go down for a nap right before chow time...perfect! I feel so overwhelmingly blessed this year and it was nice to be with family!

Lelia and Great Grandma Doty

Lelia and Great Grandpa Doty (she's named after his mother)

GGD reading with Leelee

Koko and Leelee

Grandpa and Lelia

Lelia hanging out!

The Thanksgiving pups...they enjoyed quite a few fallen table scraps!

Hope all enjoyed a wonderful time of giving thanks with those they love!

4 months already

Little Lelia Drew is 4 months old today!

New Lelia 'Can-Do's'

• Can sit all by herself in her Bumbo! We got the Bumbo from Lelia's good friend Claire and she just LOVES it! She likes to be upright and be able to interact with her environment. During meals we place her on the table so she can be a part of our family time and when the dogs are around we put her on the floor so they can all get used to each other...supervised, of course! We usually put the tray on with a few toys and she bides her time fiddling with them. Mostly she just swipes the toys off the tray and when she gets really bored, she'll even take the tray itself off.

• Starting to take an interest in the dogs and the cat. She likes to sit in her Bumbo on the floor and watch everything they do. Sometimes they even come over to sniff/greet her and she smiles and smiles! Ellie has even gotten close enough that Lelia was able to pet her a bit. Lelia was quite gentle so hopefully we're off to a good start! The dogs seem to like her but the cat keeps his distance...go figure!

• Lately, when the dogs are told to 'speak', Lelia laughs when they bark. I've captured it on video but will have to post it later as Tre has that camera with him. It's pretty funny! Our dogs are not barkers so we have to coerce them with treats to speak but I'm glad she finds humor in their barks and doesn't start wailing.

• She has entered the 'back arching' stage. I'm quite sure it's not an actual STAGE, per se, but whenever she's had enough of sitting in her Bumbo, being held or gets tired...she arches her back and protests with loud grunts. And since she's so strong, sometimes it's hard to keep a hold of her! Yikes!

• She continues to be a stellar sleeper at night sleeping from about 10 PM to at least 6 AM if not 7 or 8 AM. WOW! The unfortunate part of her sleeping so long at night is that she doesn't sleep much during the day which makes for some LONG days. But we'll take long days over sleepless nights anyday!

• Her eyes are still pretty light...kind of a greyish blue! Maybe they'll remain that color...maybe they'll be green...maybe even hazel? Do you bloggers have any guesses?

• At last weigh in she was 14.5 lbs and 24 1/2 inches. Her next Peds appointment is in early December so I'm excited to see her stats then. Her cheeks and chins are growing rapidly so maybe she's having a growth spurt?!?

Life is busy with us now that I'm back at work. We find that we have only 1 family day per week where we're all together for a whole day. Otherwise Tre and I are like ships in the night...he comes home from his 24 hour shift in the morning, I give him a quick report and head off to work. I get home around 6 ish and we have a few hours before heading off to bed. We do get some family time at supper and in the early evening. But since Lelia goes to bed so late, we're usually so exhausted we're in bed right after her. We'll get some scheduling relief in January when my work counterpart is trained. Then I'll be true part-time, working 3 days one week and 2 days the following week. I think it's going to be a really good schedule that should increase our family days off together. Yipee!

I'll leave you with some new Lelia pics...look at those HUGE chipmunk cheeks! They are soo big they droop into baby-jowls! Hilarious! Also, note the excessive drool on her chin and in a large semi-circle on the front of her clothing in most of the pics. She's a complete drool monkey!

Big girl in her Bumbo!

She likes the Mr. Giraffe sticker that Tre put on the tray!

Petting Ellie...yes there is a little popcorn treat enticement for Ellie. You do whatcha gotta do!

Ellie and Lelia hanging out

Tsavo and Lelia hanging out

Some time with the furries!

Smiling drooling girl

Look at those jowls! Woo hoo!

What color eyes do I have?

Yes, the darker fabric on her chest is drool covered. She's a drool machine!