happy in the morning

It's been quite a while since I've uploaded a video, so here's one that I took this morning. More often than not, Lydia wakes up happy in the morning, and I will hear her "talking" to herself.

walking before standing?

Remember back when I posted about how Lydia learned to crawl before she learned how to sit by herself? Like how she did that out of order? Well, I am thinking that she may similarly walk before she stands. I have witnessed her standing alone, but it's been so brief and unintended and infrequent on her part that I'm not "counting" it. She has been walking along furniture for a while and is getting faster at that. And over the past couple of days, DH has been "teaching" her to walk by holding her hands and walking with her. She can walk like that if we hold both her hands. But as soon as we let go, it's down onto her bottom. Even so, there's small bits of time when we're helping her walk that it feels like she's not really putting a lot of weight on our hands.

a picture of the play food

Yay, my first batch of play food is "cooked" and ready for sale! Definitely go check out my store for more pictures of the individual items, but I wanted to share the picture of all the items I've made so far:



Doesn't it look delicious? I'm very pleased with the way it's all looking so far, and VERY excited about the plans I have for the next few foods that will be coming out. :) (I still have yet to develop those patterns, though... I'll be working on that this week.)

The other two of Lydia's top teeth are breaking the gums, so by the time the weekend is here, all 4 of them should be well on their way to arriving. And she's learned how to wave pretty much on request now. I'll say "hi" and she'll wave at me and jabber. And then sometimes she'll wave just b/c she feels like it. lol. Like today in the store, she was on my back and her arms were pretty contained. At one point, though, she wiggled around and worked one of her arms free and was happily waving "hi" with it for a bit, then she wiggled it back down to where it was supposed to go. All I could do was smile. :)

i guess she's been teething for months

My poor baby. Today she was quite suddenly in a good mood. That in itself isn't really unusual, but what was unusual was the "degree" of her good mood. She was laughing SO much today, and at the most random things. Like I had her on one arm, and with the other arm I was stacking up cloth diapers. I got to about the third diaper and heard her laugh. Then this morning she was VERY gleefully banging together two of her balls and laughing at how they made a click when they connected.

But just now, I was changing her diaper, and thought I'd give her mouth a peek. Her poor gums have been looking "toothy" lately, and seem to have been looking like that for a long time, so I wasn't sure if she was really teething or not. But today, I can see the telltale little "hole" in her gums, and can feel the teeth starting to poke through. I think she is going to get all 4 of her top middle teeth at once. The teeth that I can feel are one of the middle ones and then the one on the side of her mouth right next to it.

When I went home for the holidays, my sister kept teasing me and saying that my baby was "broken" because she didn't laugh like her baby did. (Lydia's cousin is 6 months older than she is.) Lydia was in a good mood for the whole trip and played and was happy and would smile, but she would rarely laugh. I kept telling everyone that even at home she would hardly laugh even for me. But today, she laughed several times.

I think the teeth are to blame. She must have been hurting. Not enough to make her overly fussy, but just enough chronic soreness to make her not all that happy about the situation. This would definitely explain her lack of laughter. I knew that she COULD laugh since I'd witnessed it many months ago, and even in her soreness there were a few little things that would sometimes get her to give a little giggle. But I imagine that I wouldn't really want to laugh all that much either if my mouth hurt all the time. I hope those other two teeth pop though soon. I really love this "new" giggly girl I have now.

a poser and food to play with

I was looking through prior entries, and realized that it had been a while since I put in a picture of Lydia. So here are a couple from this morning for your enjoyment. In the first one, it looks like she is "posing" for the camera. Then the other one is just plain silly. :P





In other news, I have managed to start making some play food to sell in my store. I've made a sandwich (with meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato and pickle), some cheesy chips (like cheetos), some chocolate sandwich cookies, and a carrot. I'm hoping to branch out my product offering in the next week or so. I have all these totally cool ideas floating around in my head of foods to make and how to make them look like what they're supposed to. I'm very excited. :) My favorite so far are the sandwich cookies and the tomato slice. :D

i can see my carpet again

Wow, I feel so good now. I worked this past week on decluttering, and the apartment looks drastically different in areas. I feel like I can have some people over again now. :) And, I can now work on my crafts again with a clear conscience, since all of those supplies are organized as well.

Here's some before and after pictures. I'll start with the less dramatic and move on from there. In each "pair" of pictures, the "before" picture is first. (It's not as obvious on some of them.) First, the kitchen. I don't have a lot of space, but the space I DO have has definitely improved:






Then the living room. I didn't get rid of her toys. Just off the camera to the left are two crates that had been there already, but now they are a little more organized and I can actually put her toys IN them instead of on top of them. lol. Also note the changes to the mantle.




The first bedroom picture isn't all that dramatic, but now I can see the top of my dresser again. Please excuse the empty photo frame. lol. I scooted the chest of drawers over a little bit to make room for the bookshelf, thus freeing up a lot of floor space.








And the most dramatic transformation of all was the dining room. Now I feel like I can actually have some people over now and then, and don't have to worry about them tripping over something and hurting themselves.