Leila's First Christmas

Just a quick update to put down some thoughts about Leila's First Christmas...Everything went really well. Leila did great considering that she was low on sleep and high on activity!
Christmas Eve both mine and Cory's families came over for some snacks before we all headed off to church. Church was very good, as it always is on Christmas Eve...a wonderful service to really pull to the front of your mind the reason for the celebration. Leila got some great toys and clothes from Cory's parents and sister Donna and was off to bed at about 9:30...an hour and a half past her normal bed time. Christmas morning came and after breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa Coobs we all headed off to Lowden for our Howard family Christmas morning, where Leila got a bunch more toys and clothes and spent the day getting constant attention from her loving family. Here are some pictures from the events...

Me, Cory and Leila before Church


Leila's special gift from Grandpa Howard...a homemade rocking horse!


Leila taking a Christmas snooze with her new train under the Christmas tree


And last but not least...Leila in her Christmas outfit from Aunt Donna, sitting in her new kiddie couch.

Some recent pictures

I mentioned in my last post that we are working on sleep training this week...well here are a few pictures from today's efforts. As you will see, not successful.







And just for fun...This is what about 7 months will do...notice both the size of Leila and expression on the face of her momma! :)



I could use a really long nap.

Crawling!

It has been a while since the last time I posted and in that time Leila has started crawling! For a month or so now she has been doing some army crawling to get around, but last Thursday morning she was on the floor with her toys while Cory and I were getting ready for work, and she put one knee in front of the other and was off!
She started out kind of slow and wouldn't go far before giving up, but a week later, there is no stopping her! :)
We are adjusting to keeping the baby gate shut and one eye on the moving target and so far so good. So far the best part of Leila crawling has got to be watching her chase after Zoey. Leila will crawl right into her and head butt Zoey in the belly! So far Zoey has taken it really well and just move away when she gets fed up, but Leila just keeps chasing her and grabbing her tail and rubbing her head on Zoey's fur. We are trying to be very careful and be sure to praise Zoey for her good behavior and amazing temper when it comes to Leila...we have yet to catch the fun on the camcorder but we will one of these days!

We are looking forward to Christmas break when Cory and I will get to spend a week at home with Leila working on some sleep training...the sleep training we are not so much looking forward to...
We will definitely post some pictures from Christmas and a full update on all of the wonderful boxes and crunchy paper that Leila will enjoy! :)

I hope everyone that reads this has a wonderful holiday and a happy new year...for those that don't read...bah humbug!

Grandpa Ed's Birthday Party

Saturday afternoon we celebrated Grandpa Ed's 70th birthday at Biaggi's in Cedar Rapids. Leila had sent out an invitation to all of her Aunts and Uncles on Cory's side of the family and we had reserved a private room in the restaurant.
Cory's brother Evan and family weren't able to make it because of the weather, but the rest of us had a really good time. Leila looked so cute in her little teal velvet dress.
For the first time as parents, we forgot to bring the diaper bag with us...it was one of those days when I was very thankful to still be nursing so we didn't have to worry about what to feed Leila, and we lucked out and didn't have to change a diaper in the couple of hours we were out, or we would have had to run to K-mart.
Leila behaved really well and was very good about being passed around to everyone in attendance. We think that Grandpa had a good birthday, and it was really nice to get together with the family, since we had spent Thanksgiving with my side of the family this year.

Not only did we forget the diaper bag, but we also forgot the camera and the camcorder. Here are a few of the not great quality pictures that we were able to get with our camera phones.

Here is a picture of some of the party attendees...


Here is Leila with Aunt Donna and Uncle Chuck...Chuck is reading her hand puppet book to her :)


here is Leila with her Grandma Sandi


Last but not Least, Leila and the Birthday boy! :)

Here are some recent pictures

Here is Leila sporting her poncho...made by myself, Andrea and Mom


Here is Leila hanging out in her jammies


Leila and her Buddy Bryce. He is 13 months old and the son of our friends Matt and Cindy Weber.



Here is my project from this afternoon...a taggie blanket for Leila


And a couple of Leila's 6 month photos.

Well

I was just rereading my posts and I hearby resolve that I will not begin another post with the word "well."

Zoey and Leila

I wanted to post this before I forgot...

Last night Leila was being so cute and fun. Cory and I were sitting on our bed with her, and Cory was holding her up so she could stand. Zoey came in and wanted to play, she brought one of her toys with the hopes that Cory or I would throw it for her.

I picked up Zoey's toy and threw it out the bedroom door down the hallway. Zoey ran after the toy, ran back and jumped back up on the bed. We kept doing this, and Leila was standing up next to me on the bed, and when I threw the toy she would bend over so she could see Zoey chase it down the hall and run back. When Zoey jumped up on the bed with the toy Leila would laugh! It so was cute! I wish we had a third person there to get it on video...

Long weekend

Well, we are back at work from the long weekend. I have a lot to do to get back in the swing of things, but I figured I would take a few minutes to post an update.

We packed up on Thursday morning and drove to Tabor to spend the Holiday with family and we had a great time. No matter how long it has been since I lived there, I still feel at home when we visit. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Linda's house and spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Howard's house.
Andrea, Dani and I put up Grandma's Christmas tree and Dad and Grandpa put up the outside lights.
Friday night Cory and I left Leila with my mom and dad and went out with Andrea and Steve, Cousin Nick and his girlfriend Angie and our mutual friend Tracy. This was the first time we had Left Leila for any amount of time except to go to work or a football game. It was nice to get out, but I think I am getting too old to enjoy bars. They are loud and stinky.

Well I don't have any new pictures to post yet...I will have to see what we have on the camera at home, but I wanted to update that Leila is feeling much better. She seems to be back to her normal sweet self...wish us luck that this is the last ear infection we see for a while... I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday!

Leila's first illness

Well, Leila has had a pretty rough week. She started out just fine, but Tuesday night when she woke up to eat she seemed to be running a fever. This is the first time I have seen my baby girl sick, and it is a pitiful sight. she has spent the past three days laying around, not rolling, or playing....just laying on her back, or her belly, or sleeping...the poor little thing doesn't even want to crack a smile :(
Today we went to the doctor to have her checked out on Grandma Lori's suggestion...we had called earlier in the week and they wanted us to wait and see if it got worse. Well G-Ma said that she thought it was her left ear...and sure enough, Leila has a slight infection in her left ear. We were planning on attending Aunt Erica's wedding tomorrow, but it looks like we may be grounded until Miss Leila feels better. Well, I think I hear my baby calling out for her mommy ;)

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention...to match the three going on four teeth on top, Leila now has tooth number 3 cutting through on bottom!

I am not going to open my mouth.

Leila ready for church

Showing off her teeth!

Leila Bean

Well, things have been pretty exciting in the world of Leila lately...we now have FIVE teeth broken through...hopefully once number 6 makes its appearance we can all have a teething break. Leila was her usual self when the bottom teeth came in, but the top teeth seem to be bothering her a little bit.
Aside from the teeth, Leila is now sitting up on her own for a short time. It doesn't take long before she starts wobbling and then gives up and topples over, but she does enjoy sitting up and having full access to her toys. She still seems to favor her learning lion, but she also really seems to enjoy her books, I think that Moo Baa LaLaLa is her favorite.
The childproofing experiment is still in process, and Leila is already testing our progress as she rolls all over the house.
Tomorrow is G-Ma's birthday so Leila and I are planning on going to her house to make dinner for everyone to come and enjoy after the football game. Go Hawkeyes!

Her favorite book...both fun to read and delicious

Leila enjoying her bath

Leila chewing on mommy's drawstring...yum

Monday, already?

Well Cory and I took Friday off last week, but it certainly doesn't feel like we had a long weekend! Friday we went to get Leila's 6 month pictures taken. We went to the same photographer who took photos at our wedding, and Andrea's wedding. I am sure it will end up costing us a lot more then our usual trip to Penney's or Sears, but we decided to splurge. Leila did really well...I don't know that we got a lot of big smiles out of her...she was too interested in the new surroundings and spent a lot of the time just looking around. We will be sure to post the link to look at the pictures when they are ready, though it may be 3 weeks before that happens...we are very excited to see how they came out!
We also went and checked out car seats. We picked out the seat that we are going to buy for Leila in the next month or so, so that is one less thing that we have to worry about!
I had the joy of a trip to the oral surgeon's on Friday afternoon. I had a tumor that had grown on my gums, apparently this is a side effect of pregnancy. They normally go away on their own, but mine decided to stick around so I had to have it cut out of my mouth. Friday night was kind of rough, and I am still nervous about getting too close to miss grabby pants for fear that she will grab my lip and rip open the stitch, but other then that I am feeling pretty much healed, and I am just glad that experience is over!
On the teething front, we are having another break through...or two! To match the two bottom teeth that Leila has been sporting for the last month or so, she now has two top teeth that have broken the surface. More later!

6 month stats!

Leila just had her 6 month well child visit... 19 lbs, 2 ounces (95%ile) and 28 inches long...off the chart! :)

6 months!

Today is the day, Leila is six months old! Leila and daddy are following their normal weekend routine so far this morning...I took a picture in case you are interested :)



I on the other hand, can't seem to sleep past 7:30 in spite of the fact that I am still getting up to feed Leila three times a night. :( Oh well I guess, this does give me some time to get things done without having to worry about what Leila has gotten into. She is a rolling machine these days! When we lay her down on the floor it is only a matter of seconds and she has rolled herself across the carpet to the other side of the room. It is very exciting to get to see her gain some independence, but it is also very scary!
When Leila and Daddy get up, we are going to rent a carpet cleaner, since we can no longer contain our girl on a dog hair free blanket. This past week we installed our baby gate. Since our house is a split level we had to get a wall mounted gate for the top of the stairs. So far it hasn't been a problem for anyone but Zoey...that is just one more new thing that she will have to adapt to...and I must say that so far Zoey has been a very good doggie with a baby in the house...fingers crossed!
Last night Leila had a friend over to play. My friend Amanda and her husband Bryan and daughter Lilly were over for dinner. Lilly is a sweet little peanut, and in this picture you can tell that Leila was very interested in her...that is my arm holding her back from clawing Lilly's eyes out...and Lilly just took it like a champ, such a calm little girl. :)



What else is new in the world of Leila...
We recently tried out green beans...they didn't go over so well, but we continue to force Leila to eat them, in the hopes that she will learn to like veggies. I think maybe I should start force feeding veggies to Cory and I too so Leila doesn't feel left out.
Well I think I had better get ready to clean my carpet...I am saving my pennies so I can afford to replace all of this carpet with a nice laminate floor...I am getting very tired of the dog hair and stains...well I hope you enjoy the pictures, here are a few more.

This is Leila and her friend Elmo...Leila wasn't sure about Elmo the first time she met him..he kept shaking and making this giggle noise that made her cry, but now that she is older and braver, Elmo doesn't seem so bad.



Here is Leila showing us her favorite sleeping position...yes she is 6 months old and still sleeps in our room in the cosleeper...I can't quite let her move out yet...but she doesn't seem to mind the lack of space, since she curls up in a ball as it is. :)



Here is a picture of Leila and Mommy, don't ask about my hair...I live my life in a constant tired state...but doesn't my girl look beautiful?!?!



And last but not least...here is the Coobs family at Leila's first Hawkeye tailgate...there is nothing like this cute little face to look at to soften the blow of a disappointing football season. Go Hawks!

Birthdays

I have been thinking a lot lately about being a mother. Maybe it's because my birthday is fast approaching and I have never really considered my birthday as anything but my day. Now that I have a child I find myself thinking about Leila's birthday, and about the day that I was born. As a mother I would think that every birthday would be not only a day to celebrate the growth of your child, but also as the anniversary of the miracle that brought that child into the world. Being a mother has made me appreciate my own mom on a new level, and I hope that she gets a tremendous feeling of satisfaction every October 15th, and June 5th, and March 13th and November 27th, because she did an amazing thing on those days. Way to go Momma! Here are a couple of recent pictures of my little angel. Leila is starting week 3 of solid foods...We started out pretty slowly, as you can see by the look on her face, she didn't really think much of rice cereal at first. Now we think we have found the magic potion...Rice cereal and applesauce. She really seems to enjoy this. I think she will be sitting up on her own in no time. She loves to sit up with mom or dad behind her to keep her steady...It allows her the best access to her toys. Her favorite toy seems to be her Learning Lion that Great-Great Aunt Shirley sent to her. She spins the lion's stomach, and Cory and I just can't get enough of the tune... "I am a lion, I roar all day..." Just wait until you see a picture of Leila in her Halloween Lion costume...it may very well be the cutest thing ever.

You call this stuff food?

Bad to the bone, but aren't I cute?

Long weekend

Well, Cory and I learned a parenting lesson this weekend. No matter how much you are looking forward to an event that happens after baby bedtime...in the end, it will always make you miserable.
My sister's wedding was beautiful, she was beautiful, and so was Leila.

The Cutest Thing...

I don't think that anything beats when Leila looks at me and makes a huge smile that causes drool to run out of the corner of her mouth. I just can't get over how freaking adorable my baby is!

I was right about the tooth! It has officially broken through, I am curious about how long it will take for the whole tooth to come up, and I am sure it will have a neighbor soon too. She is growing so fast....but I think that when she is 16 and a pain in the butt that I will still remember these drooly little smiles. They make my worst days better.

It has been a long time since my last blog, we have been pretty busy around the Coobs household. Cory and I are working on setting up the plans to put up our fence, which could be a comedy of errors to watch. My dad found some online instructions for how to do it, and we have been studying diligently in the hopes that we won't screw this up.
Leila has been doing pretty good...We are pretty sure that a tooth is about to make an appearance in her mouth. She is dealing with it all very well, just a little bit fussy, but overall she is still the wonderful baby she has always been. She has gotten quite grabby and is now constantly grabbing her feet and her diaper and any face that comes close enough to her to get a handle on.


I hope everyone has a good weekend...I will be playing with my baby and helping my sister Andrea get ready for her wedding...Only two weeks away! I will post another update if our princess does anything extra cute over the weekend...Hopefully our camera will come back from being repaired soon so we can take some more pictures and add them to our webshots album.

Farmer Brown Eyes

Watch out, if you get very close to Leila these days, she will try to rip your nose off. It is very sweet how she will reach out for your face, until she gets a hold of it, and then watch out, that baby has a grip!
Leila has a sleeper that G-Ma bought for her that has a barn and some farm animals on it, so on the days when that sleeper gets broken out, we like to call her Farmer brown eyes, clever I know.
Well, in the slightly Leila related, but more Mommy centric news, I am working on getting myself together to advertise my birth announcements. Who knows if there will even be any interest, but I figure the costs involved are very minimal, and it will give me the opportunity to do something that actually interests me for once!
My friend Jennifer is a vendor at the local farmers market and she sells lots of great items for babies and small children, so she is going to set out a couple of my examples and some business cards for me. I am feeling really excited and nervous about this, and I am hoping that I am not getting in over my head, or wasting my time, but I figured it was worth a try. I haven't come up with a name yet for my company either...Brilliant ideas being taken from now until Close of Business on Aug. 30th. :)

Another weekend almost gone

Leila has had a pretty good weekend I think. On Saturday she got to spend some time hanging out with Daddy and Uncle Steve while Andrea and I went to her dress fitting. Saturday night we had a neighborhood block party to attend. Lots of our neighbors were there and we finally got to see all of the spring babies together. Aside from Leila there were two other baby girls and two baby boys all born in April and May this year. It is really neat to see the other babies and think about how next summer they can all be playing together at the party. We were hoping to get a picture, but there was so much going on, it was dark outside and past baby bed time before we remembered, so we will have to try to get all the kiddos together another time instead.
You may have noticed that we haven't posted any pictures of Leila lately. The cable that goes from our camera to our computer broke, and until we find the time and money to get a card reader...The pictures are staying on the camera :( but I will just tell you that I got a great shot of Leila smiling today.
Cory and I decided that we had spent too many Sunday's skipping church, so we made the trip today, and Leila wasn't thrilled about it. She has this funny little habit...She really likes to talk and make noise, and when she is really tired, she starts talking up a storm. Cory and I think she is trying to keep herself awake. Well this morning she started fussing in church, so I took her downstairs and fed her. We were on our way back upstairs to the service and she started chatting away. It was so loud, I took her back downstairs and Cory heard us and came down to help me quiet her down. Who knows when we will be going to church again, it is so hard to try to keep her quiet when we love to hear her little voice so much. She is an absolute joy, even when she interrupts church.
Well, it is Sunday afternoon and Cory is mowing the yard, and Leila is taking a nap on a blanket on the floor. She looks so cute and peaceful. All I can think about is how tomorrow is Monday and back to work again...I think I am going to go watch my baby sleep and try to get as much of her in as I can before the work week begins again.

Leila's Stats

Birth: 7 lbs, 13 ounces, 19.5 inches long
3 Weeks: 9 lbs, 4 ounces, 21 inches long
2 months: 13 lbs, 4 ounces, 24.5 inches long
4 months: 16 lbs, 10 ounces, 26 inches long
6 months: 19 lbs, 2 ounces, 28 inches long
9 Months: 21 lbs 10 ounces, 28.5 inches long
1 Year: 22 lbs, 14 ounces, 30 inches long
3 years: 36 lbs, 34 inches

My Baby Girl

Well, Leila is 4 months old and I was just thinking that I wish I had written more down during the last 4 months, I would like to be able to share more about Leila as she grows, and so I decided that starting a blog would be a good way to go.

On August 15th of 2005 I found out I was pregnant. I had a very easy, uneventful pregnancy, gained 30 pounds, had a pretty uneventful labor (thank the lord for epidurals), and now I have a beautiful baby, and I have lost those 30 pounds, plus another 20...gotta love breastfeeding!

Cory and I were both just certain we would be having a little boy. For months I was picturing myself with my little baby boy who looked just like his daddy...was I ever wrong! Leila looks just like her mommy, and is all girl! Cory has proved to be a big mush ball when it comes to his daughter. Every morning when she starts to wake up he hears her on the baby monitor and runs in to look over her co-sleeper so the first thing she sees is his smiling face, and she never fails to smile right back at him...so cute.