Father's Day

For Father's Day this year we went out for pizza with my parents, and my sister Jenna and brother in law Derek. Mara has started to actually like pizza, so that worked for her! She spent most of the evening running around the restaurant - I swear, she never wears herself out! We had a nice dinner and I guess we got a little exercise chasing her around too!

Weekend Fun

Last night we decided to go to Red Lobster for dinner (mmmm cheesy buscuits!). We've been cutting back on eating out lately, but had a couple gift cards, and needed to get out of the house. Mara behaved pretty well for most of dinner, but she gets tired of sitting in a highchair, so we didn't stick around too long! She really didn't want to ride in her stroller after that, so we attempted to let her walk. It worked out ok. She gets distracted (she giggled and stared at every person that walked by us), and then goes too fast and falls, but we eventually made it back to the parking ramp!

Today Mara and I hung out together at home while Daddy worked. It was too hot to do much outside (we don't have any shade, and not much room outside anyway), so we played inside mostly. Mara has figured out how to climb on whatever she needs to, to get to what she wants, which I discovered today! I see lots of trouble in our future! We did go outside for a little while to water plants and play on the patio. Mara's so funny - after I water all of the plants, she picks up the empty watering can and goes to each plant and imitates what I just did. It's crazy how much she picks up just by watching us!

While Mara napped today, I looked into some more daycare options. We felt like we really wanted to go to a center, but I'm re-thinking that now (they are so expensive, and there are SO many germs!) so I've set up interviews with 4 different in-home daycares for next week so far. It's such a big process, but we're hopeful that we can find a good place to send Mara once Jay goes back to school full time in the fall!

More adventures tomorrow I'm sure!

The Great Outdoors

Mara loves being outside, and it's nice when we go to a place where she can really run around. The kid never seems to run out of energy!!

This past Sunday we went to my cousin Nicole's high school graduation party. Nicole lives on a farm, so there was lots to see and do there. Mara doesn't like to sit still, so she was pretty happy to get out and run around. My Aunt Lois found the cool car in the first picture for her to play with, and she loved sitting in it and trying to beep the horn. She 'helped' Uncle Dave and Daddy play beanbags for awhile, and played with Uncle Dave and Aunt Michelle's dog Dori. Then she got to see some cows too. I thought she would be more interested in them than she was - maybe she just wasn't excited because they didn't move much or make much noise. We tried to get her to say cow, but the closest we got was "Ow!" (and no, we weren't pinching her!)

She had a lot of fun running around, but somehow I think I ended up more exhausted than she did! Chasing her around is a lot of work!

Watering the Plants

Mara always likes to come outside with me to water the plants that we have on our patio. Usually she just watches or plays with rocks and walks around, but yesterday after I was done watering, she wanted to play with the watering can. At first she was just playing around with it, but then she started to walk around and was actually pretending she was watering the flowers! Apparently she's been paying attention!

The Great Bottle Battle

We've been wanting to wean Mara off of bottles for awhile, but the time never seemed right. Finally we decided to just go for it. She was ignoring her cups most of the time and being way too dependent on the bottles.

So Monday morning Jay gave her a bottle for breakfast, and then cups with milk the rest of the day. It didn't go great. She wasn't happy about not getting her bottles, and she let us know it! She wouldn't drink anything out of the cup, but would carry it around with her. We tried a few different cups to see if any one would be easier, but she was equally unhappy with all of them.

Tuesday was the same. Jay gave her a bottle in the morning to make sure that she'd get at least SOME milk, but that was it. I did get her to drink at least some water out of a regular glass, but otherwise she ignored the cups completely, and was not a happy girl.

On Wednesday we decided no more bottles at all. We did sneak milk into some of her foods, to make sure she was still getting some, but otherwise, we just kept offering her the cup. Again, she wasn't happy with us. But I was thrilled on Wednesday night when she picked up her cup and drank the whole thing!

Thursday she did ok - she wanted us to hold the cup for her when she drank, but at least she was drinking from it.

Friday she started to boycott the cup again, but then drank a lot in the evening. And so far today she's drinking it well - sometimes on her own, and sometimes with our help. She seems to be in a much better mood now that she's getting hydrated again!

It was definitely an interesting week, but we're glad we did it when we did, and happy that we can finally pack away the bottles! I'm sure there will still be times when she will miss them, but overall, we're really pleased with how things are going!!

Aunt Jenna's House

Mara and I finally got a chance to go over to see my sister Jenna's new house last night. Jenna and Derek only live a few miles from us, which is nice. Their house is really nice, and in a great neighborhood!

Mara loved the big backyard!! So did I...that's what I want! It was nice to be able to just let her 'run' free around the yard.

Of course, Mara was into EVERYTHING in Jenna's house. She can spot an XBox 360 controller from a mile away, and ran right over to that when she saw it!

It was nice to see where Jenna and Derek live, and I'm sure we'll be back to play (and visit the nearby park) soon!