Musings on life, parenting, Jesus, and more...

Just last night, Jenica finally discovered consonants. As most of you know, her favorite (and only) noise for the longest time has been "aaaaahhhh". She does different variations of it and even started experimenting with different pitches over the last week or so, but last night she discovered "da" and "ba" and "ga" and maybe a few others. She was actually saying "dada" pretty clearly, although I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what that means yet. She's also crawling all over the place now, which is fun to see but definitely makes more work for mommy. I was trying to get some work done on the computer this morning, and usually she just plays nicely on her blanket. Not this morning though. She crawled into the kitchen and started chewing on my running shoes, then she found the magazine rack and pulled out all the magazines. Finally I walked over to my office and got her Johnny Jump-up so she could play in that for a while wit

We had a good Easter here in Oregon despite the rain. We went to church in the morning, then over to visit some of Rob's family for Easter dinner. Jenica looked so cute in her Easter dress (thanks Grandpa!) and was a very good girl throughout the festivities. We were hoping she might get a tooth today since a few of her other "milestones" have occurred on holidays. No such luck though...she is still toothless. Here are a few pic's...

Hi all- This is Dad writing again. Jenica made me a real proud pappa this morning as she has learned how to crawl forward. (she had figured out how to scoot backwards before, but that was more frustrating than useful for her). She is by no means an expert yet, but she is moving pretty good none the less. Unfortunately, mommy was working this last Saturday of tax season. But I captured a bit of it on video for her (and now everyone else too!). Jenica has been practicing her hand and leg movements for some time now, so I'm sure she is very pround of this performance as well. Grab a bowl of popcorn and pull up a chair...I made it a bit of a production (though it's only 30 sec long) :)

I haven't really given you any updates on Jenica lately, so here's what's been going on with her. She can now sit up on her own with out any problems. Although she will eventually tip over, she does so very gracefully and just transitions to her tummy. She can't sit back up on her own at that point though so she can get a little frustrated. She is over her cold now and has her appetite back more than ever. So far, she hasn't disliked anything that we've tried. She's had green beans, peas, carrots, squash, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, and bananas. We try to do a new food every few days, but with tax season I haven't had as much time to make new ones so I'm looking forward to having more time after next week to experiment. Making your own baby food is actually very easy and quite cost effective, not to mention healthier in my opinion. Just recently, Jenica has started having a little stranger anxiety - which I hear is totally normal for this age. We