Oh man, Daddy is just the funnest! But Mommy gets all the kisses! :) 

"Oh ha ha. I'm so cute!" Her hair and eyebrows look red in this photo... 

Lila, post bath. Look at those rolls! 

I had another workout with my trainer today. That woman is brutal! I had her make a copy of the workout we did so that I can do it on my own. I don't know if I will be able to make myself work as hard as she did though. I only have two more sessions with her and then I'm done, so hopefully I'll learn a lot. If only the trainers worked for free... :o)~

Have I mentioned that Lila has started to wave? For a little over a week now, she's been waving. Sometimes she initiates it as a game and if we're leaving and I tell her, "Say, 'Bye bye, Soandso!'" and wave then she'll do it too. Today though, I was leaving her in the nursery at the gym and I said goodbye to her and told her to have fun and all that good stuff and she waved to me on her own! Not as a game, but she's made the connection that waves are how you say "Bye bye"! Cute girl!

Doug's dad, Joe (or Papa Joe, if you're Lila), had hip replacement surgery yesterday. Apparently it went fine and he's in his room now and doped up on morphine. He was so drugged yesterday evening that Irene couldn't get him to wake up and eat his dinner! Please be praying for a speedy recovery for Joe and for God to give him patience with his limited mobility in the beginning.

I am quite pleased to report that the new food processor works wonderfully! I made squash for Lila last night and it was *so* easy. When I put the squash in the food processor and turned it on, I held my breath. Ten seconds later I checked the food and it was mooshy! I started cackling like a mad scientist - Doug was very amused!

Today I am having a "15 Minute Day". I've been having trouble getting things done lately. Perfectionism and excuse-making have kept me from focusing on anything long enough to finish it. So today I'm using my timer. It started with Lila's first nap. Once she was asleep, I challened myself to finish showering and getting ready in 15 minutes. I got MOSTLY finished (no eyebrow plucking or tooth flossing)...

Then I set the timer for another 15 minutes and went to work on my morning routine. I didn't finish it in that time, but when the timer went off, I stopped! Now I'm giving myself 15 minutes of computer time. After that, if Lila is still asleep, it's back to my morning routine. And so forth and so on. Already I've accomplished more this morning than I did in some entire days last week!

*Happy Mother's Day*

I have had a wonderful first Mother's Day! It helps that my daughter is wonderful and so is my husband! :) Lila's present for me was perfect. It's a very pretty diamond necklace. Simple, beautiful, and delicate. It's a reminder of the beautiful gift of being a mother.

Doug's gift was pretty good too - a food processor! I make a lot of my own baby food and it's frustrating at times because our food processor/blender thing is inadequate. It just spins the food around instead of "processing" it. Hopefully this new, better quality one will work better! Yipee!

I also got a yummy breakfast of ginger pancakes and we went out for a Mother's Day Brunch after church with MY mother. There was so much food that it was overwhelming! Thanks to the portion control thing we've been doing, my stomach has shrunk. I got about seven bites into my first plate of food and started feeling full already (even though i'd been starving before we started)!

Now we're just relaxing and sleeping off the food and the noise. I might get a little alone time later if Doug is able to take Lila with him when he goes to meet someone. It will all depend on timing though. Anyway, it's been a nice day... :)

Lila and Cordy playing together. Cordy has started being very sweet to Lila and Lila is even starting to learn how to touch Cordy without yanking out tufts of fur! 

She was NOT interested in sitting for a photo shoot. She does love New York though! 

This is Doug's opinion of cleaning out the litter box. Hee hee. :) 

Is it true that guys can only think about one thing at a time? I mean, I learned pretty quickly what Doug's concentration face looks like. If he's intently doing something, I leave him alone. Or, if I need to talk to him, I get his attention first and give him a few seconds to figure out who I am before I start speaking.

But today he has claimed that he can't mow the lawn and think about where he'd like to eat dinner at the same time. What?!? I feel like there are always at least three things going on inside my head at once, so I don't understand this. Mowing looks pretty mindless to me. Push the mower to the edge of the lawn, turn 90 degrees, push the mower to the edge of the lawn, turn 90 degrees, push the mower...

Maybe he was only kidding. But maybe not. I'm going to laugh if he comes in from mowing and I ask him where he'd like to eat dinner and he gives me that look that says, "When have I had time to think about that?"

I don't know, sometimes I'd like to be able to think about only one thing at a time...

*That's right, my child IS a genius!*

I'm wearing a shirt today that Lila really likes. It's orange and has a row of different colored circles across the front. Earlier today, she was staring at it and I was telling her that those were circles and what color each one was. That's a blue circle. That's a white circle. Etc.

A little while ago, we were sitting in the floor and I was reading a book to her. She was sitting in front of me and I was holding the book while she turned the pages. We came to a page with a school bus on it and she started pointing at the wheel. I said, "Do you like the wheel? That's a circle - like on Mommy's shirt."

Then, she turned around and pointed to a circle on my shirt!!!

This week she has also started waving (when she's in the mood) and saying things that sound suspiciously like words. (she'll look in the mirror and say something that sounds a lot like Lila) What will she be doing next week?!?

Lila is still sick. She's only had a fever a couple of times - once on Saturday morning and once yesterday evening. I've given her Tylenol a few times when it's obvious that she just feels crummy and it seems to help. She's still congested, though not as snotty as yesterday, and now she has a cough. And she's had icky diarrhea since yesterday. I'm just trying to keep her hydrated and happy.

I don't think I ever told the story here about the latest amusing way that I injured myself. We have a rolling desk chair in the office and a phone on the desk. I was sitting in the chair (this happened a week or so ago) and the phone rang. I reached toward the phone and the chair decided *not* to roll! The chair and I both fell over sideways and I have a big bruise on my elbow from where it hit the desk. Oops.

I am trying to get Lila to take a nap right now. Apparently this is the worst kind of torture. (she normally doesn't object - much) I put her down to sleep and she cried for about 5 minutes, so I went in a few minutes ago to rock her for a little while. She just kept crying though. At one point, she stopped crying for a second, dropped the pacifier out of her mouth, leaned her head back and just started wailing. Life is so hard... :o)~

This is my poor sick child wearing... a blanket. She's pooped out on three outfits so far, and I didn't want to put another one on her - but I didn't want her to get cold either! :o)~ 

Now look at this! Can you believe how big she is?!? (look at those legs!) 

This photo is from the day we brought Lila home from the hospital. Look at how tiny she was! [sigh] 

This is not a terrible rash on Lila's face. This is what happens when she sleeps *on* her face. 

Well, after being sick for nearly a week, I'm feeling *almost* normal today. Sadly, Lila now has a runny nose. She doesn't have a fever, but you can tell she's just feeling a little "under the weather" and is extra sleepy. Either she has allergies as well (which is possible) or what I had was actually a cold and now she has it. :(

My child mocked me for the first time yesterday. Okay, maybe that wasn't her intention, but it sure seemed like it! Whenever I'd cough, which was frequently, she'd make fun of me! She thought I was trying to play the game where we fake cough at each other. This game started during the time when her favorite sound to make was a fake cough. Only I wasn't faking this time! It was really funny though. There was at least one time when she was nursing and I coughed and she stopped eating to look up at me and cough back. :)

And now I have committed the heinous crime of turning my back on Lila and she is crying like I've stabbed her. I must go and rescue my poor, puny child. It's a good thing she didn't inherit my flair for drama...

Charlie really does not approve of this Baby Thing we brought home. I've caught him, more than once, giving me a look of deepest disdain when I'm playing with her. The first time, I was being all gooey and telling her how wonderful was and I think it was more than he could handle. Today, Lila was playing in the floor, making her squealing noises and I was doing it in return. I glanced at Charlie and saw him giving me a look that clearly said, "Please, Mother, don't encourage her!" Poor Charlie... :)

Well, I've been some amount of sick for most of the week. It started with just a sore throat on Tuesday and by Wednesday I was full-on sick. Body aches, head that weighed 100 lbs., etc. Sadly, this has been the Mother of all Stressful Weeks for Doug at work (he didn't make it home on wednesday night until nearly midnight!), so he couldn't come home and help out. I felt a lot better yesterday and a little worse today. I think it's allergy problems. Who knows... Why must I be allergic to *grass*?!? That's not something you can just move to a new area and avoid. Unless the new area we moved to were a desert! And I don't think THAT would be worth it.

It was brought to my attention yesterday that I have neglected to talk about my birthday here! So, for those who are interested, here you go... My birthday was on Thursday of last week and it was a fun day! I was given the wonderful gift of having a few hours alone by my friend Ellen. She came over around 11 a.m. and took Lila off to play group with her. I was able to have a lunch date with *myself* and go shopping.

The shopping trip was at the Gap, where I used another birthday gift - a generous gift card from my parents-in-law. I got an outfit that I absolutely love and feel very pretty in. Skirt, shirt, and shoes - all for less than $25, thanks to a coupon and the gift card! :) After Doug got home, the three of us went to Marie Callendar's for dinner where I ate way too much. After a month of doing portion control (which has resulted in the loss of about 8 lbs for each of us!), that was a major shock to my body. I felt way gross! I recovered though and still enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Doug's gifts to me were a t-shirt from Chuy's (which i had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that i wanted) and the game Scene It: Harry Potter Edition. Because I am, without shame, a major Harry Potter nerd! To add to my Harry Potter glee, my friend Anne gave me a t-shirt that says, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." on the front and "Mischief Managed" on the back! :)

I also got some money from my parents which I plan to use on at least one chair massage at the gym in the near future. Oh, just thinking about it makes me long for one! Ack! Anyway, I also received a number of cute little things from parents and grandparents. Despite this detailed list of what I got, I mostly just love getting attention on my birthday. It's the little kid in me that loves to feel special!

Many thanks to those of you who sent cards and emails and phone greetings. They made me smile. :)

Doug, Lila, and I went to Dallas this weekend to visit family. Lila started babbling for real while we were there. Up until now, she's made little noises that were kind of like babbling, but mostly she just said, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!" On Saturday evening, she started saying, "Bow." Well, really she started saying, "Bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow!" Over the next 24 hours, she started to vary it a bit. Now she also says, "Ba" "Bo" "Boo" and "Bao".

So, when she's happy, she says something like, "Ba ba ba bao bao oooo!"

When she's mad she says something like, "Bow! Baaao!"

When she's talking to her toys she says somthing like, "Ba bo ba ba ba bao."

You get the picture. It's very cute, but I'm hoping that soon she'll be able to say something else. Like, "Ma ma ma ma ma," for example. :o)~