Sunday = perfect day!

On Sunday, other than my locking my keys in my car at church (dumb story...) we SO enjoyed a gorgeous weekend!!! Jeff & my dad played golf while the girls tried to enjoy a day at the pool. I say "tried" because Mel swam, but also fought a nap all afternoon! It was truly a gorgeous day, though, and it was a fun day in Frankfort!

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore....

Saturday night, after Mel was soundly asleep after all the festivities.... we were out on the porch, and saw the hail start falling. Not thinking much of it, I went in to unload the dishwasher, and turned on the radio, to learn that we were under a tornado WARNING! I told my weatherman husband, who came in to watch the weather map, which I never understand. He confirmed that the tornado was heading straight toward us, so we desparately tried to figure out whose basement to go to. Our neighbors Tom & Paula were having a dinner party, so we felt a little odd going there..... As we were brainstorming, we saw neighbors running across the yard to another house, and so we followed them! Oddly enough, we ended up in the basement of neighbors caddy-corner from us who we'd NEVER MET! Weird. But thank goodness for them! -

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Now - onto Melanie's behavior during said tornado warning. At this point, she'd been asleep for more than an hour. I picked her up, covered her in a blanket, ran her across the raining street.... and attempted to put her in a side room by herself. Well, that didn't work. She woke up, and literally the whole time we were there, was happy, played with the other kids - there was a neighbor, Megan, who just turned one on May 15! Melanie literally never fussed once. So when we went home, I put her straight back into her crib...... and she fell right back asleep!!! it was like magic! The perfect baby!

Gorgeous weekend!!!

Friday night, Jeff, Melanie and I went to dinner at 106 Street Grill; eating outdoors on a gorgeous summer night was perfect! Mel got to run up & down the street before and after dinner, so she was more than thrilled! This has become our routine every night.... Melanie LOVES hanging out outdoors!

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Saturday, Gigi and Molly came to visit, and it was the cutest visit ever. When Molly & Melanie saw each other, it was like two long-lost friends reuniting. Molly started squealing at the top of her lungs, and Mel started hugging & kissing her. For the hour they were here, Mel didn't really STOP hugging & kissing her. They both just giggled and had so much fun together the whole time. Mel was a little put-out by the fact that Mol couldn't walk; she attempted a few times to pick her up by her collar and make her walk! I was frantically looking for my camera while they interacted; I finally got a video of them, and then found my camera. None of it does the justice to the cuteness that was their interaction. it was awesome; just ask Gigi.

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Later Saturday afternoon, Jeff, Melanie and I went to Trader's Point Creamery for free ice cream cones. I think Mel will really like TPC as she gets older; there are a lot of fun things to do to learn, but there are also fun meal options to have for adults! From there, we went on to two highschool graduation parties, and Mel was asleep before we pulled into our subdivision!

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Melanie's pigtail

I picked Mel up at daycare today to find her squatting next to a crying baby, trying to soothe him! The daycare ladies say she's very nurturing, so it was funny to see her down on her knees soothing him! It's fitting, how much she loves on her "baby" that she has here at home - hugging her (pats on the back included), kissing her, even feeding her.... However, the best part of picking her up at daycare today was her hairstyle, which was not how she was sent to school. I didn't realize her hair could even do this!

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After I picked her up, we went swimming at the subdivision pool - I'm still working hard at my pool assimilation plan! Melanie is getting very comfortable with the water, now I just need to work on her attention span! In the water, out of the water, in the floaty, out of the floaty, in my arms, etc.....I'm looking forward to having her "swim" with Charlie in the near future; then she will want to mimic his every move, just like always!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

It's hard to believe that Memorial Day 2008 was spent baptizing our nearly-three-month-old, and the day after Memorial Day was my return from maternity leave! What a difference a year makes!

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Melanie was the Master Napper over the weekend, which made for good naps for Mommy too! Saturday night she stayed the night at Grandma & Grandpa Doan's house while we prepared the house for our Race Day guests. She had a great time running Gigi & Poppy ragged, and ended up with another skinned knee! We were literally sitting in the front yard awaiting their return on Sunday morning, and we were very glad to have her home - even if she went down for a long nap before the party even started!

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The Worzala Annual Race Day party was a success; you can tell the advancement of our parenthood by the changes in our party. This year we had a bounce house and a baby pool set up along with the traditional kid-pleasers like cornhole. As always, my guests did more than I did, coming up with great menu items.

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Monday was uber-lazy around our house; Mel and I didn't change out of our pajamas until after noon, and even Jeff was content lounging with us and just enjoying a day off work!

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Overall, it was a weekend full of my favorite things - relaxation, Melanie, family, friends, Chipotle, filet, crablegs, and, oh, did I mention - relaxation? :) Hope yours was great too!

Fat Lip

Melanie tripped over her own feet today at daycare.....yes, she is her Mommy's daughter! The result was a fat upper lip. She screamed & cried, but when Ms. Sandra showed her the blood on the cloth, she stopped. Opposite of what you would expect? Perhaps.

Melanie's antics

Since I'm not doing my once-a-month assessments on Miss Melanie, I wanted to give an update on what she's up to. She weighed in just yesterday at 18lbs, 3oz. She's wearing 12 month clothes, size 3 diapers, and size 4 shoes. She has about 10 teeth (I say "about" because in addition to her 8 front teeth she has some coming in on the side, but the sides are hard to assess).

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She's still taking formula from a bottle. Yes, I know she's 14 months old, but we are transitioning to milk, and for some reason she just loves the bottle; she won't take the same liquid from a sippy. She does love drinking water from a sippy - she drinks a lot of water! She folds her hands before she eats; and she's eating a ton! She loves cheese, so anything she can eat with cheese is great. We've moved away from baby food, for the most part, and she's on table food, but yogurt or other things that include utensils are still fed to her.

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She loves puppies, playing outdoors, taking walks (while she does love walking in the stroller, she also loves being pushed in her little push-toy, and also loves walking on her own around the block). She loves to read books. Many books. Many times. She loves to give open-mouthed kisses, dance, and explore every nook and crannie of every space she's in!

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When asked "where do we go to eat dinner?" she'll run to her booster seat, when told it's bath time, she'll go into the bathroom (first pulling out even more bath toys from the cabinet). She signs for "please" (she's moved on from "more" - and she knows "thank you" but will usually say it instead of sign it). She talks all the time, but the distinct words she says include puppy, baby, uh-oh, kitty, ball, hi, shoe. She waves hi and bye, and you know it's time to leave when she starts waving bye-bye. She means she's ready now! She also "prays" before she eats. She will fold her hands and look at us expectantly until we say grace. And then she'll do it for the next bite. And then for the next bite...... I have assured her that God heard us the first time. He appreciates her piousness, but He wants her to eat.

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We continue to be so blessed, and treasure her every movement (as you can tell from my ramblings!)

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Mel has had a cough for about a month now; the cold went away, but the cough stayed. Now, her nose & eyes have started running again, and we visited the doc yesterday. We had chest X-rays, and Melanie cried harder than she's ever cried. Her forehead was splotchy from the experience! Dr. Megremis' assessment was that taking her off of Prevacid (at the GI's request) was about the same timing as the cough. So we put her back on it, and are hopeful it will clear the cough up. Otherwise it may be something else, but we'll cross that bridge if we get to it.

Mothers Day Weekend

We had a great Mothers Day weekend with all of our favorite moms! Saturday night we enjoyed a Mothers Day dinner, prepared and cleaned up by all the men, at my parents' house. All of Melanie's grandparents, aunts, uncles, and first cousins were there, in addition to Aunt Brenda & Uncle Marshall! It was great to celebrate all of the moms in our lives! Sunday we got more Grandma time; the Doan family went to breakfast while Jeff & Randy took their mom to breakfast. Happy Mothers Day to all the fabulous mommies!

Choo-Choo!

Melanie participated in the 15th annual (her first) Spring Fling at Noah's Ark Daycare on Friday, May 8. She had a BIG role. She was one of five conductors on the Wittle Wallabie Wailroad. That's right, that's the spelling my 14-month old is learning :) She is in the Wallabie class at daycare. While her class didn't "perform" like the other classes, given their size and attention span, it was a cute program. One thing I learned is that I'm a horrible videotaper; I had planned to upload the video, but you might get motion sickness.

Great weekend!

We had a great weekend at the Worzala house. Saturday Mel & Mol hung out as we adults ran errands. Melanie then got the thrill she loves so much, she got to stay the night with Grandma & Grandpa Doan!! While she was there, we had friends over for a bbq, and then we actually went out later that night to watch a band at a bar!! (Flying Toasters/PJ O'Keefe's - we walked there!) Sunday morning we made our way back to Frankfort, and the guys played golf while the girls played some more.... Melanie & Molly went swimming at the YMCA, Melanie got a bloody nose, fun was had all around! It was a gorgeous weekend, and hopefully we will have more of the same this weekend for Mothers Day!

Lovin' the Yogurt

As is probably the case with parents all over the world, I suffer from the condition where my daughter is doing something impossibly cute, and then I get out the video camera, and she either a) wants to WATCH the video, not be the subject of it, or b) starts doing something else.
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I have so many videos of me saying "c'mon, do it again, please?!" or "no, Melanie, go back and do that, you can't see it from over here" (when she's trying to tape it or watch it herself). Last night I captured some of her yogurt-eating, but you'll have to ignore the obnoxious mommy-commentary of "c'mon, do it like you were before...."