A day (or two or three) in the life of...

Ok, I've slacked this last week. I feel like I've been busier than normal. Maybe it's this whole 'Working Full Time Mom' gig (don't believe that, I have it way too cush to even try to claim that). I'll just make this a picture post and skip past my babbling. I'll babble more later this week. Izzy's Halloween costume. She went as a reluctant Lady Bug. She literally was zoned out for half the time at the mall (we didn't want to trick or treat outside, plus, it's not like we really were going to get candy... sigh), smiled some in pics and then when we got home, got amped up, giggled, played and said she didn't really dig the crowds. OK Izzy... Here are our two lil partners in crime. Rowdy's about 8 months old at this point so we get to see what fun we may be in for ahead of time. Once they're a few months older, they should be able to have an even playing field. Once they're both walking, we're in trouble. Rowdy loves jus...

We go back and forth with what we call our lil one. Mostly it's Izzy. If I'm talking to her though, I say her full name so that she hears it repeatedly and understands that I'm talking about her. Cowboy and I interchange Joonbug and Nugget mostly. I think he associates Joonbug with the hope and dreams of our baby en utero so it makes him happy. :) Baby Pteradactyl got to spend her morning with Granddad. I woke up to her coo's in my ear (the monitor on night table) and heard my Father in Law chatting with her back. I groggily woke up and peeked out our bedroom door into the nursery and saw him in the rocker, holding Izzy in his lap facing him and they were fully engaged in a happy conversation. [insert heart melting] It was a moment that I wish could be captured on camera but I didn't want to ruin the quiet moment for them by pulling a paprazzi move, plus I was way to sleepy and slow to run around and find the camera in time. I was so happy for him that he had tha...

We sent this over to Grandma already but it's amusing enough that I'm going to go ahead and share Izzy demanding attention. She doesn't really coo softly. She's too obsessed with her ability to raise her voice at the moment. It's funny now. Not sure how long the screeching lasts though. Hopefully it's a phase and she realizes that she gets through to people more when she uses a more soothing voice. Those people who constantly are loud talkers and don't realize how loud they are bug me. Please don't be that girl, Izzy. Love you anyways but just, please.

"Good morning sunshine!" That's what I think Izzy was saying. She was super chatty and squirmy when she woke up this morning so I had to pull out the Bloggie camera and capture some of it. Forgive the graininess. It was dark in her room this morning and this camera doesn't have any additional lighting. She woke up chatty and has been adorably cheery all day. We gave her a small bowl of pureed avocado mixed w/rice cereal and she loved it. The first bite was hilarious though. She took it in, looked at us, grimmaced, made a croaking sound which we took to mean 'blech' but then she flapped her birdy arms and lunged towards me with her mouth open so we just kept on. She ate every last bite happily. So, we're now confirmed as liking (and having no allergic reaction to) Butternut Squash, Apples, Bananas and avocado. Next up will be peas, yams and pears.

We took the kiddos to Picture People yesterday thanks to a gift session that Harms gave us. So, pros and cons. * Pros : It was free to us! Getting all 3 cousins together for a photo shoot w/out distractions around them. It was free to us! :) * Cons : Picture People disappointed . The photographer sucked. (for reals) Photog just kind of rushed through it and seemed very hesitant and not decisive on poses/shots. They weren't really able to get all 3 to smile at same time (though, in their defense, that's tough w/a barely 5 month old in the mix). They made us wait a good hour or so after our appointment time to finally get the pic session started which was on the cusp of Izzy meltdown time. All in all, I'm happy we have this pic of the tree amigos. Noah and Bilal LOVE them some Izzy. Since she'd been at home w/Cowboy (and by default, me, since I work from home) for the past week and a half, they were missing them some bebe girl because they'd been used to seeing h...

I'm starting to lose count of the weeks! Izzy is now 21 weeks old and her fun meter is pretty much off the scales at this point. I can't even try to explain how much fun she is but I can highlight it a bit. Between the big goofy smiles, giggles, squeals of excitement, new displays of emotion, coo'ing, sitting up (once we help her up to sitting position), observing the world around her, excited reaction to Skeeter and the cats, grabbing clumps of pet hair in her hands, wrapping us around her itty bitty little finger and teaching us about ourselves, life and patience, she's just amazing. I can't believe we get to be her parents. I couldn't pick just one or two pics of the ones I've taken in the past couple of days so I put a collage together. I could have easily put 20'ish pictures in this collage but I did some tough editing. :) The first pic, she's wearing an adorable knit hat that Grandma sent to her. In the other set of pics, she's wearing he...

So far, Izzy's had brown rice cereal, apples and butternut squash. She loves them all but butternut squash may be the winner so far. I think we're going to have to work on feeding her more slowly so that she's not that spaz eater at the table. Here's what butternut squash mealtime looks like.

So, I ran the Army 10 miler this morning and I didn't die (much). I'm sore and ready to back down to just 10k's and the such, for the most part. I'll probably just run a ten miler or half marathon (if I'm so inclined) each year and train more towards strengthening and improving my time. Coming towards the finish line, all I could think was 'where's my baby and baby-Daddy???'. I ran and looked towards the spectator crowds and spotted the loves of my life and I wanted to hop the barrier and hug on them but I decided to squeal at them and then run towards the finish line. Great race! Celebrated life being good with a crab feast w/Cowboy, Lisey and lil Izzy. Truth be told, I was in full blown indulgence mode (eating crabs till I cut myself a few times and drinking up some tasty brews) so Cowboy and Lisey were on full Izzy Love mode.  She was in good hands. :)  Life is good.

Izzy now officially rolls front to back (check the grainy dark video below for evidence. warning: it's a process so if you don't have much patience, this video may not entertain you as much. :) ). I'm really hoping she remembers this fun new skill in the middle of the night when she's on her tummy and crying out in protest of the mattress face plant.  One can only hope.  She had learned to flip back to front about a month ago and unfortunately hadn't learned to escape the face plant so she'd get pretty pissy, pretty quickly. Let's see if this starts helping her move past this frustration of hers (and helps us sleep better). Even better, Cowboy received the much anticipated offer letter. Woot! Stability, be ours! Well, as much as it can be in these times, at least.  Once he has his first day on the job, we'll be popping some bubbly and really celebrating. Till then, we're cautiously just having wine. :) Izzy and I went to the local farmer's ma...

I'm going to balance my rambling with a precious picture of Nugget. That way, if you don't want to be bored by my fitness woes, you can at least peer up some preciousness. My body, it hurts. Recouping from pregnancy has been no_joke. To be fair, though, I haven't been working out the 4-5 times a week as I'd originally set out to do. I've been inconsistent and have been at 3, maybe 4 workouts a week and I'm not doing enough (uh, any) strength work to help rebuild my body. I used to just be able to throw on my running shoes and roll out for a good run. Today's run was 5.15 miles and it was pretty tough at times, yet kinda kick ass at other times. My pace varied from 12 min mile at my worst moments (the hills here are brutal, people!) and then sub 10 at others! When I looked down at my Garmin to see that I was hitting sub 10 min mile pace at moments, I was ridiculously stoked then sobered up when I'd see a monster hill facing me. Bah! I'm mildly terri...