Five Months!!!

My how time flies. Layla is already five months now, which is crazy. She is changing and growing so fast. I took her into the doctors office last week because she has a couple red patches on her chest that I wanted to have checked out. They aren't anything to worry about and the pediatrician said they should go away on their own eventually. Luckily they don't seem to bother her at all.

She now weighs 13lbs 5oz and is maintaining in the 25% isle, so that is good. She is doing great with the solid foods now. We are doing avocado and sweet potato right now and she loves it. Though her first taste of the avocado by itself resulted in a bit of some dry heaving. It was rather comical. So I found that if I mixed a tiny bit of sweet potato in with it she will just gobble it up. She would be a relatively clean eater, because she doesn't spit much food back out at all, but she loves to put her fingers in her mouth so food ends up everywhere. It is usually best when she eats with just her diaper on especially since sweet potatoes are not easy to get out of clothing.

As usual, we had our month photo session and she was all smiles for me. Such a little ham sometimes. She doesn't look at the camera much these days though, so it makes it a bit more difficult to capture a great shot with her looking. So we got pretty lucky this round. =)

So love that crinkle face smile!

Playing in the Yard

The weather was so beautiful yesterday that Layla and I had ourselves a little photo session in the backyard. She just loves the outdoors.

Someone likes to roll over.

She is deep in thought.

She loves to stick that tongue out!

Father's Day

For Father's Day, Pete, Layla, and I went to the Los Angeles Zoo. We had such a good time and the weather was perfect. Layla was in such a great mood the whole time, although she looks so serious in the pictures. That is pretty much her face when she is intrigued by something. I think she liked looking at the people more than the animals. There were a lot of them and they are much more interesting than sleeping animals are. We did get lucky though and most of the animals were out for us to see. It was the perfect way to spend Father's Day: Delicious home cooked breakfast, afternoon at the zoo, and some yummy bar-b-qued tri tip for dinner.

The Family


Watching the giraffes. Mommy's favorite!

Getting a lift from Daddy.

Kangaroo chillin' in the shade.

The horns on these goats are amazing!

Loves her daddy!

And her mommy!

All the cats were so beautiful. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the snow leopard or the lions, but the tiger, jaguar, and ocelot were so beautiful. I am such a sucker for the big cats!

The pacing tiger.

This jaguar was carrying a giant bone.

The ocelot has the most beautiful markings ever! I want one!!!

Growing Up So Fast

Layla is changing and learning new things all the time. It is amazing how quickly she will go from not doing something to completely mastering it. She is learning to entertain herself a lot these days so she loves to be in her stimulus package. She plays with all the little toys, spinners, and rattles and is getting the hang of pushing off to make herself bounce. She also is much more content on long walks. She can see out so much better now and if I hand her a toy she is usually good in there for a two mile walk. She is also learning that she can shake her rattle toys and they make noise. It is too cute to watch her do it. She is starting to find her toys once she drops them now too, which is great.

I have found a couple spots on Layla that I call her tickle buttons. She is giggling all the time these days and sometimes I'm not even sure what triggers it. She has the cutest smile I have ever seen, so I love that she is such a happy baby.

She continues to make chewing motions all the time and she is even more intrigued with watching me eat. So after taking four days off from food I started her on a teaspoon of sweet potatoes with a bit of breast milk mixed in. She did amazing. She is now opening her mouth every time instead of trying to suck the food off of the spoon, and she barely spits any of it back out. So we will continue that for five days or so and then venture on to something else if all goes well.

She is doing a bit better with her bottles now, too. I found that if I heat them up more she doesn't seem to choke or pull away as much. Although she does still act like she is watching a tennis match. Such a fidgeter, that one. We are also slowly getting her into a daily routine. We have had a night time routine for quite some time now, which is so great. She has been sleeping through the night for over a week now, so I am hopeful that this is going to be the norm. Though she wakes about an hour earlier than this tired mommy would like, I know that I am lucky she is as good of a sleeper as she is. Her smiling face peaking out of her crib makes it so much easier to get up. (I'm so not a morning person.)

Layla fell asleep in her stimulus package (probably because she wakes up so early ;) and I thought it was just so adorable so I had to go grab the camera and snap a few shots of her. I got some video of her actually falling asleep, which was hilarious with the slow head bob until she finally succumbed. She is just like her daddy, she can sleep anywhere.

Looking at Audrey playing outside.

Too cute!

Some New Pictures

Here are a few shots of my little bug from the past couple weeks. She just gets cuter, which I didn't even think was possible. Love this little munchkin so very much.

So happy!


Sleepy Angel

Mesmerized by a ceiling fan.


She loves to stick her tongue out!

Just chillin' on the couch.

My little polar bear wine tasting in SB. It was a bit chilly.

Waiting at Starbucks in Malibu for Victoria and Henry so we can go to the park.


Daddy's hat is still a bit big.

Solid Foods...Maybe

Layla has been eying food and beverages a lot lately and she makes chewing motions with her mouth all the time, so after talking to her pediatrician we decided to start her on some solid foods. Her first experience came in the form of rice cereal. I do believe this is the standard choice for babies first food. I mixed up a bit with some breast milk, sat her in the Bumbo, tied on a bib, and gave it a try. She seemed to take to it quite well. Every bite she seemed to get the whole idea of eating down a little better. The only difficult part is sometimes when she sits in the Bumbo she gets a bit of a lean going (we call it her gangster lean). When she does this, her head is so tilted that it makes it somewhat of a challenge to feed her. Once she sits up on her own a bit better using the high chair might be easier.

Layla's Gangster Lean

I made the rice cereal rather soupy for the first try, which made for quite the messy situation. Especially because she grabbed the bowl at one point so a bunch ended up all over her foot. Plus sometimes she tries to suck on the spoon as opposed to open her mouth for it, and that makes most of it just pour down the handle of the spoon. I guess that is the fun of the whole infant eating experience, though.

Taking some of her first bites

Since trying the rice cereal for a few days, it seemed that it made her rather gassy. She is pretty gassy anyway, but it seemed like it was getting worse. Poor thing. I hate when she is in pain. So we decided to switch and start her on some veggies instead. I started a marathon baby food making session. It is very addicting for some reason. Now we have some green beans, peas, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, and blueberries all made up and in the freezer. Not sure about the blueberries, though, as all those tiny seeds make for quite the gritty texture. Perhaps we will wait until she can eat those whole since I don't have a way to remove the seeds.

Our first veggie attempt was with some sweet peas. Unfortunately, that didn't go over so well. Although, she was quite overtired, gassy, and not in the best of moods at the time, so that could definitely be a factor. So then we went on to butternut squash. Not so much. So next we tried some sweet potatoes. She wasn't too into that so I mixed a bit of banana in with it. It took a couple bites in before she stopped making that disgusted face and then she was loving it. I was excited that she was finally enjoying it.

Unfortunately, she seems to still be having some major gassy issues and I am sure that digesting new foods isn't helping the situation. So I think that we are going to take a few days off and try and get her system back in order. I still don't think that I will give her the rice cereal again, but we might try the oatmeal. She is making the chewing motion all the time and she is such a good eater (as long as she likes it), but I think that her system isn't quite as ready as her mouth is.

One thing with my Layla bug is she has never made the whole eating process easy for me. In the last month or so, whenever she takes her bottle it is like she is watching a tennis match. She turns her head side to side and is always fidgeting, pulling at my hands and the bottle, and sometimes pulls away like she is going to choke on the milk. And when she nurses she is constantly moving her arms and pushing against me. My arms are getting a workout just trying to keep her in place.

I'm trying not to get discouraged by all of this, though sometimes it is rather trying. Her gassiness is so difficult to remedy because it seems to be rather inconsistent. I don't know if it is my milk, the formula, the solids, or a mix of all of it, or just the way she is. Everything with raising a little one is such a learning experience, especially in patience. So hopefully soon we will have some better luck with her eating and digestion. Luckily, besides that she is such a happy little girl, which is good because I can't get enough of that big smile and those adorable giggles.