Update

It seems we've taken a bunch of pictures lately so I thought I'd update the blog. Not much is new around here. Roman has been in Peru since Tuesday, and will be home very early tomorrow morning. He said they are staying in a nice area of Lima, but outside that area things are pretty sad. Very poor, people digging through garbage, etc. Makes me grateful to be an American, esp. as we approach Memorial Day. He also said they have been meeting with a lot of different companies, so hopefully that will translate into some good opportunities for him. Since our trip to the Bahamas was cancelled so he could go to Peru we are trying to figure out what to do as far taking a vacation. The summer in The Caribbean is the rainy season so we will save that for another time. I think we will probably just end up taking a trip to a domestic destination, or perhaps one of the inland cities in upper Mexico.

I have been trying to finish up our garden. It's been so hot already, in the 90s and very humid, so I have to wait until Lila has gone to bed to work on it. We did a bunch of planting the last couple weeks and now just have to get the rest of the mulch down. I'll try to remember to take a photo when it's done and post it. Everything with Ms. Lila is good. No teething at the moment, however she has taken to pitching little fits now when she gets frustrated. They're short, but I guess I should take them as a preview of what's to come. And she's discovered if she stands on her tip-toes she can reach the edges of the counters, so now we have to watch things on the tables and the counters.

Well, that's about all I've got for right now. The last series of pictures is of her with a little monkey backpack on. It's one of those backpacks that has a tether, so you can keep track of them in a store, etc. A friend of mine had used it with her son to no avail, so she let me borrow it to try with Lila. We figured out later that we had it one backwards, but she loved wearing it around the house. We'll see what happens in public. The video at the end is also of her with the backpack. Hope you all enjoy!

Good Morning!

I let Lila feed herself breakfast.

All clean!!

Roman was giving her watermelon and there wasn't anymore on her tray. She got frustrated and grabbed her hair with both of her messy, sticky hands. This was the resulting 'hairdo'.

On backward

With Grana Nana

On the right way

She wanted to get in her wagon with the backpack on

Mother's Day

We had a fairly low-key Mother's Day. We went to brunch with my mom and Kent, and then worked on planting some plants in our garden. I got a very nice ring that Roman say Lila picked out. He took her shopping and he said he showed her a piece of jewelry he picked out and she shook her head, and then he showed her something else and she both shook her head and waved her hands at him to take it away. When he showed her the ring he said she smiled, so that's what he got. I couldn't get a good picture from their website, but you get the idea from the one below.

I included some misc. photos of Lila I took the other day in addition to those from Mother's Day. At the bottom is a short video of her too. It won't come through if you get this update via email so you will either have to download it or go to the blog site to see it.

Grana Nana, Lila, and me

Grandma and Lila

My ring

She found my swim suit top and put it on herself.

Pushing her dolls around in her shopping cart

This is actually a picture from Easter, but I thought I'd post it.

Fort Myers

Last weekend I went to Fort Myers for a girls weekend. My friend Shannon's parents have a house there so we stayed there a couple nights and then spent one night in a hotel on the beach. It was the first time I'd been away from Lila--I'd never even been away from her overnight. I really missed her when I'd see other people with their babies, but I did fine. Pictures below.

Since we're on the topic of vacations, I have more news. Roman and I were planning to go to the Bahamas at the end of the month, but we're going to have to postpone the trip. Roman has a huge business opportunity in Peru and it falls on the same days we were planning to go. The upside is that we were able to use some of our frequent flier miles to get Roman a ticket to MN, so he will be able to come with me and Lila next month.



Nikki, me, and Shannon


All the girls


Willie, our vacation mascot


I missed some spots applying my sunscreen. Really the photo doesn't quite do my sunburnt parts justice.


Me and Shannon





Yes, she always gets tan like this.


Shannon's sister Cami, boyfriend Mark, Shannon, and me on our last day at the beach. Notice I am covered, due to my sunburn from day one at the beach.

Birthday photos

I put together a slideshow of the photos from the petting zoo we took Lila to on her birthday, her party, and some misc. pictures from the last couple weeks. For those of you who get this update via email I think you will have to go to our blog to view the slideshow. Just click on the title of this post ("Birthday photos") and it will take you there.

Good news, bad news

In the end of February Lila had a pretty severe urinary tract infection. Her pediatrician wanted her to get some tests done because of the severity of the infection and the high temp. she had at the time (almost 105). We got the tests done on Thursday and the good news is there's no sign of damage to her kidneys. The bad news is she has urinary reflux on one side of her bladder. Basically this means the urine from her bladder goes back up the tube that leads to her left kidney. If the urines get all the way up to her kidney the fluid can then create an infection in her kidney which could damage it. Lila's reflux is a 2 on a scale of 1-4, 4 being the worst. Her pediatrician prescribed a low-dose antibiotic that she will take everyday for now and we are to go see a urologist. It's something most kids will outgrow.

We had Lila's one year checkup yesterday. She's weighs 19.5 lbs, is 2 ft 5.5 inches tall, and is doing great. All in all we had a busy week. Here are a couple recent photos and some video I got of her jabbering away.

Chillin' on her Elmo couch

Lila's Birthday

All in all I think Lila had a pretty good birthday. On Friday (her actual bday) we took her to a petting zoo. It was a really nice day so we were able to spend some time wandering around. She was apprehensive about some of the animals, but she rode the pony and touched some of the tamer animals. My aunts and grandma came to visit as well on Friday so had a good tex-mex dinner with them that night. Saturday we had a little party for her at our house. She had a great time and got lots of wonderful gifts! She enjoyed her cake and ice cream quite a bit as well. We videotaped a lot of her party, so I'm still working on putting still pictures together. When I do I'll post a proper bday album. Until then here are a few from the weekend.

With Stormy, the pony at the petting zoo. Roman lead him around, while I held on to Lila, and we took her on a little ride

Petting the goats

Grana Nana bought her this party dress as one of her bday gifts

Cake and ice cream coma

The wagon was her big bday gift from Mommy and Daddy.

Misc

Well this week is going to be a busy one. We are getting ready for Lila's birthday party on Saturday, Roman left today to go to Pennsylvania for a couple days, and my aunts and grandma are coming in this Friday for a visit! Lots of exciting things happening here.

Miss Lila is quite the mischief maker lately. She's tall enough now that she can reach the edges of the tables and pull things off. This morning she pulled the edge of the placemat and pulled a glass full of water and a cereal bowl onto the floor. Roman grabbed her right away so she didn't get hurt, but you could tell by the look on her face that she knew she'd done something wrong. Unluckily for us, they weren't plastic, so there were glass and ceramic shard everywhere.

The weather here has been really nice so we are taking advantage of being outside whenever possible. Before we know it it will be too hot to be out there. Lila loves to explore and pick up little things she finds. She also likes to put those little things in her mouth so we have to watch her every second.

The photos below are just random shots from the last couple weeks.



First shower; she actually liked it.


In our backyard, she loves to be outside!


Showing me some little thing she found (and then tried to eat, of course).


Lila and a whole roll of aluminum foil. (It was cheapy foil that we were going to throw away so we let her play with it.)










"Reading" again