on my tummy

she finally enjoys being on her tummy...when there's something fun to play with in front of her! when i first saw this toy it seemed so loud and busy - almost too much for me to take in...but Sierra loved it from the very beginning. it's the only thing that keeps her attention long enough to have extended tummy time! (thanks to abuela for finding it for us!) ...until she rolls over to her back...and then mommy sweeps in and rolls her back to her tummy ...over and over :)

isn't she so cute?!!!

Grandparents are great!

Sierra has the best grandparents!!! She is one blessed little girl to be loved so well from both sets of grandparents!

She got to spend time with all 4 of them this weekend :)

Abuela and Poppa on the balcony of their new house, just outside of Austin! We are so excited to have them close by! ...and look at that beautiful view!


G.G. and Capt's when they came to visit today - they drove in just for the day to see us!

an acquired taste

this is random, but for those who know me well, you know that i have never liked coffee. and you also know that my husband is a coffee lover/addict/etc. he seriously loves the stuff. coffee and cereal - his two all time favorites; and i don't like or partake in either...

...until this week. i decided after Sierra was born that i wanted to learn to like coffee. yes, learn...to teach myself to like it. i have always said that if i didn't like it, why force myself to acquire a taste for it? well, with a baby in our lives i see a very long road of early mornings ahead of me and think that coffee may help me conquer those a little better.

so my journey has started. 3 mornings this week. kyle is helping me "doctor" them with some milk, flavor and sweetness. so far so good. i actually liked it the first two days! today, not so much but i'm still experimenting with proportions.

anyway, just wanted to document this big step. kyle never thought the day would come...and neither did i (ha!).

ok, that's enough on that topic. i can't believe i just posted about coffee. who am i?!?!!

this little piggy...

Sierra has been reaching for her feet for awhile and now can not only reach them, but also grab them and put them in her mouth! It's really funny to watch and amazing how she can just fold her body like that! (especially with the size of that belly and those thighs!)

About a week ago when she first got her right foot to her mouth the first thing she did was lick her big toe...ha! It was hilarious - she just kept licking it, trying to figure out what it was. I guess she liked it enough to proceed to sucking on it :)

As soon as you lay her on her back her legs immediately go straight up into the air...and then the arms go out and grab her feet. Also when she's sitting she leans forward to grab them (remember being tested in Elementary school on how far we could stretch to touch our toes?!)...and she has recently taken interest in my toes too!

Quite a few times now when I have gone in to get her after a nap, I find her socks off...and sometimes in her mouth!

...mouth open...ready to chomp...

she is soooo fun :)

Mayfield Park

we love this park and always have. kyle and i used to go there a lot while we were dating when the weather was nice. we'd grab some coffee (and tea) and sit at the park. it's so peaceful and beautiful. the park is full of: ponds with fishies, gardens (taken care of by locals), stone structures and arches...and peacocks! they roam the grounds, hang out high in the trees and fly between the branches...oh and make their squawking sounds, kind of like a car horn - i previously had no idea that peacocks even made sounds but turns out they are very loud!

celebrating the gorgeous day and Sierra's 5th monday birthday, on saturday we took a trip to Mayfield Park. we went in the evening when she is usually a bit fussy so it was hard work to try to get smiles, but she was a trooper and we did get some cute pictures :)

surviving the chaos of...

...the church nursery!

WOW.

so today was the first time we left Sierra at the church nursery. to be honest, we haven't gone to church all that many times since she was born and when we have, we've taken her in with us in her car seat and she has napped. well, she doesn't nap so well in public anymore because she's sooo curious.

things looked so calm and wonderful as we dropped her off in the baby room - one little boy sleeping in the pack n play, one little girl playing on the mat and another napping in her car seat. the 3 volunteers were just sitting back watching, so relaxed. the room was quiet and all was well. we handed Sierra off and she didn't cry! (that in itself was an answered prayer) it couldn't have gone better.

we got through the whole class and hadn't heard from the nursery! so i guess when we showed up i expected to see the same peaceful, calm scene that we had left. oh, contraire! what we saw stopped us in our tracks and i think we just stared with dropped jaws for a good minute before even locating Sierra.

baby chaos. total chaos. one guy volunteer on a rocking chair with two screaming babies on his lap, two volunteers on the floor feeding baby food to two babies - one turned out to be holding Sierra on her lap at the same time as spoon feeding a baby sitting in front of her (and with as squirmy and grabby as Sierra is, i have NO idea how she managed to do that!), one girl walking around the room trying to put a fussy baby to sleep, one baby playing alone on the play mat, one just laying there, one sleeping in her car seat, etc, etc. all the caretakers were different than the ones who were there when we dropped Sierra off and there were probably 3 too few workers for that many babies. yes, it was chaos...but YES, Sierra survived...and seemed happy about it!

for all you nursery volunteers out there...THANK YOU! whoever you are, thank you thank you. that is not an easy job!

...upon returning home we discovered they fed Sierra the "emergency" bottle from her bag. she shouldn't have been hungry while she was there, so we're guessing she must have been crying at some point for them to have dug out the bottle and fed it to her. and knowing how much she loves food, that might explain the happy state we found her in :)

so one nap less and one bottle more, she made it out in one piece...smiling! i guess in the world of baby nurseries we call that a success :)

a follow up to the last post...


ha, she hasn't quite learned the "sneeze in your arm/elbow" technique yet...and we wonder why all 3 of us ended up sick?!