Playing catch-up Part 1: the Zoo

I realized that before I can post about the last couple of weeks, I have a few things to catch up on.

In April Jane and I went to the zoo with my sister and her kids.  It was a very nice day - a little cold, but sunny.  I had never been to the zoo here in Utah and obviously Jane's only animal experiences so far have mostly been watching her mom get too close to a llama.

So get ready for lots of pictures.

Jane was a doll

3/4 of my sister's cute kids

Jane looking at an elephant

Said elephant

Jane absolutely adores her aunt Jacque and
insisted on being held by her for most of the day.
Mommy had no problem with that (heheh).

Jane didn't want to ride by herself but she was
more than happy to sit on mommy's lap

Cute cousin Ella

Cute cousin Alex

When I saw the ostrich I knew we had to ride it.

I didn't even have to push the stroller up
this big hill!  Nephews are the best!

One of these things is not like the other...

And help going DOWN the hill...

Jacque said, "Hey, Bre, you should go get
reeeeeeeal close to that llama!"
Ha ha.

Awesome tigers

Jane thought they were cool, too.

Hey, we just rode one of you!

Giraffe

Jane watching said giraffe

No idea what these things were called,
but Jane sure liked them.

Enough to lick the glass.

Jane, quit it!

Jane we have to move on, now.  Jane?

Sup?

"Take a picture, it'll last.... oh."
He seemed to say.

What can I say, I like the aviary.

Jane was happy as a clam with Aunt Jacque.

Self portrait.

Beautiful Ella.

We went for a little train ride.
Jane was getting pretty tired by that point.

But her cousins were still going strong!

I think I have forgotten most of the anecdotal events of the day, which you may or may not take to be a good thing.  But all in all it was pretty fun. =)

Last clue

We're stateside - although i would rather be at some of the exotic locales you've mentioned. :)
You can see the downtown buildings behind me in this photo and the notable skyline behind it. Where could we be? We're coming home in a day or so, and I'll do a proper blog post then.

Another Clue

Hmmm where could we be?

Guess where we are!

I'll give you a hint. I took this picture from the window of the plane on our way here:

Is it possible that my baby could outshine even Kate Middleton?

The answer is yes.

Behold Jane, in all her Easter dress glory.  She did have a little tumble and got an owie on her chin earlier that morning, but it was probably a good thing because if there were no imperfections her beauty and cuteness would have probably broken the camera lens.

So many of the photos turned out amazing (how can a mother choose?) so I put most of them in an online web album.  But here's a preview:

Random Jane stuff

I have a long, boring (but cute) video of me playing hide and go seek with Jane.  My house is messy but when they start playing cute games with you, you don't have time to pick up the morning's clothes before you grab the camera, right?

Also, I just wanted to let you know that this is my version of crack:

Soooooo good.  And sweet.  And cute.

Also, this has nothing to do with Jane, but check out the deer that I watch daily from the kitchen as I'm doing dishes.

Totally Awesome Birthday

I had a great birthday this year.  Michael took care of Jane in the morning so I could sleep in, and when I woke up I listened to him do the dishes and run around after Jane - beautiful sounds!  Then he made me an amazing breakfast with eggs and bacon and biscuits.  He'd even gone to the store before any of us woke up so he could buy Tron: Legacy since it had just come out that day!

I had to work from 12-9 which was a bummer, but one of my co-workers made a yummy crumbly chocolate cake for me, and everyone was so nice.  On my lunch break from 4-5 my brother took me to this Italian restaurant in Provo that I really like, where they have what I think is possibly the best cake ever!

When I got home from work Michael had picked up fish tacos for dinner and we watched Tron together.  I didn't get to see Jane since she had already gone to bed, which made me sad because I hardly got to see her on my birthday.  I wanted to take a picture of the two of us together, but her nap in the morning was longer than usual and we didn't have a chance.  I had Michael take a picture of me with some of the flowers he got me - did I forget to mention that he got me flowers, too?  He really did a great job of making me feel special and doing so many nice things for me.  The only bad part about my birthday was that it had to end!

Since I didn't get a picture of Jane and me on my birthday, I'll have to settle for showing you these from a few days before:

So, so tired

We are all pretty tired around here. Jane has had ear infections for the past two months and just last week was on her 4th round of antibiotics. So yesterday she had tubes put in her ears at the hospital. Did you know they make little hospital gowns for babies? She ran around the room with her little diapered tushie sticking out the back. It was so cute but at the same time so sad that she needed one.

When her turn came she ran off into the hallway with the nurses, giggling. Michael and I just watched her go feeling like, "Fine, Jane. We'll just wait here."

For the procedure they put the babies under with a little bit of gas, and apparently when the babies come out of it they feel funny and it scares them and they start crying.  When the little boy on the other side of the curtain in our room came back, he basically cried until they left.  So I kept hearing babies crying out in the hallway and thought they were bringing Jane back to me, but no! When they finally did, she was quiet (and dumbfounded), wrapped in a blanket and carried by a nurse who said, "Well, she's our first non-screamer of the day!" with a cheerful smile.  Jane was just looking around like, "What? Who said that?"

After giving Jane a bottle we took her home, where she (and Dad) fell asleep in the picture you see above. And after I took the picture I promptly laid down on the couch and slept, too. This hospital visit and the past two months of sickness have been on top of some very trying months for Michael and me, and we are all pretty wiped out.

But at least Jane can start feeling better now.  Already I can tell her ears aren't hurting her and she's been quite cheerful today.  We played hide and go seek, and one of Jane's favorite places to hide is behind the gliding chair in her room.  I love it because when I walk in the room it is usually still gliding back and forth, giving away her position.  I'll ask, "Wheeeere's Jane?" and then she giggles and runs behind her crib and sits down, usually leaving her legs hanging out in wide open view.  If I go behind her glider then she runs out of the room and into the bathroom where she slowly shuts the door.  When I ask, "Where's Jane?" I can hear her giggling behind the door.  When I finally do catch her she screams and giggles and then runs off to a new spot.  Words aren't cute enough for this girl!

Also, over the past few weeks Jane has been picking up words like crazy.  Here are the words I can think of that she has said so far:

Daddy - (she will roam around the house, looking for him, calling, "Daaaaadaaaaaa")
Mama - rarely used =(
Woof Woof - pronounced oof oof
Response to "What does the lion say?" - RRRrrrRRAAAAAARRrrrrrrr!!!
Quack Quack - pronounced ack! ack!
Shoe - pronounced "Shhhuhh" but once or twice she's said the whole "Shoo"
More! - accompanied by the correct hand sign, woo!
All done - done on Monday for the first time, THREE separate times, with the hand signal!  Pronounced "aahh dunn!"
Again - this one I heard for the first time today after I asked her, "Oh, you want to do it again?"

It really seems like just within the last week she has been picking up lots of words and repeating things back to me that I never expected her to.  More, All Done, and Again were complete surprises.  I think she is just eager to grow up even though I told her to cut it out on her birthday!

Now if I could just get her to say my name! =)

What do you feed your one-year-old?

Many of my friends have kids that are close to Jane's age right now (around 1 year), and my questions is: what do you feed them?

We have been trying lots of new things with Jane, and I have been getting books from the library about what you can feed babies and toddlers, but I'm really craving more ideas - especially practical ones.  The books I got are nice, but some of the listings have over 15 ingredients!  Or they include weird things like barley (sorry if you are a big barley eater.  I have never even seen it at the store even though it's probably there somewhere).  Jane is able to pick up small pieces of food and swallow them okay, but I feel like I'm repeating the same things over and over and I want to branch out (cheerios and bananas anyone?).

I'd love any ideas for quick easy finger foods that Jane could pick up off her tray and eat.  I'd also love any ideas for foods you can give your kids that you also incorporate into a larger family meal - i.e. what everyone else is eating.  I've been wanting to give Jane the foods that I make for dinner, but I'm always afraid that something I've prepared wouldn't be right for her - like what if I've put in too much salt?  I have no idea.

So what do you guys do?  What's your favorite finger food to give your toddler?  What do you give them from your family meal (or what do you hold back on giving them from the family meal)?

In which I milk a cow and get violated by a llama

Today I took Jane to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving point for the first time.  It was really, really windy, but Jane didn't seem to mind it too much.  I bought a little handful of feed and when the goats ate it out of my hand Jane GIGGLED and giggled as though it was the funniest thing in the world.

They also had a little pony ride, and I put Jane on a little Shetland, and at first she clung to me but then when it started to move Jane looked around like, "Heeeeeyyy!  I got this!"  And then she just held on to my one finger as we went around.  The guy running the pony ride was nice enough to take a picture, and nice enough to not care that Jane had turned her head all the way around to look behind us, and just handed me back the camera because he was DONE.  It was magical.

After that I took a few kernels of feed over to the llama pen, and an obliging lama came over and ate out of my hand while Jane giggled away.  When it had eaten everything, the lama suddenly looked me straight in the face, and slowly started moving forward, slowly, slowly, coming close and closer to my face, and somewhere in my head I'm wondering if I should back up, but the main part of my brain is thinking, "What on earth is it doing?" and it's mesmerized me, I'm just watching it come closer and closer, and then suddenly there was this monstrous PHHHH!!  It blew a blast of air right in my face that was so forceful that it actually forced my lips open and its nasty lama breath went into my mouth!  BAHH!  And I laughed like some idiot and then this wave of hideous embarrassed mortification hits me and I start to look around to see who's nearby, but then I stop because I don't really even want to know if anyone saw it, and Jane's just eyeing the llama like, "The hell did you do to my mom?"  Aaaand that was when we went back inside and I washed my hands and then I scrubbed my face and my mouth out.

Then I noticed the cow that all the little kids were crowded around, taking turns milking it.  Jane and I watched them milk the cow and we stood up by the its head and every time the cow lifted its head, munching and munching with its tongue coming out, Jane would LAUGH and laugh.  After awhile the kids left and then some of the timid adults started coming forward to take a turn milking the cow, including ME.

If you look closely in this picture you can see that I am TOTALLY missing the bucket and the milk is just squirting out onto the floor.  I guess I was too distracted by the warm squeeeeeeshiness.  I hope I just grossed you out.

Here's some more pictures for the road: