Sunday Funday pictures

Click here to see Sunday Funday pictures. Mat was working outside so we thought we would join him in the Jump-a-roo. Then we ate some "real" food, carrots. Then we hit the bath tub and bedtime. But first we had to open her first book from Millie's Book Club!

Here are some of my favorites.

Jumping in my jump-a-roo!

































































































































Eating some carrots














Bedtime and January's Millie Book Club book "Mama and Me"

Sunday Funday

A happy Millie hangs out in the car and then goes shopping at Costco.

Spot is Spot no more...

By Saturday, Millie's rash was gone but the medicine had taken it's toll. Poor Millie was quite a pill! We went to a Will's 2nd birthday party in the morning at Kangazoom. We are DEFINITELY going back there when Millie starts to walk. It was one of those blow up inflatable places that has tons fun things for the kids! And parents too!

After a nap, lunch and Daddy time at E11, we went to a Mommie & Me GTG at our friend Rebecca's house. There were lots of mommies and babies and it was really great seeing them again. Millie however wasn't feeling the same love! She started crying inconsolably for almost the entire time we were there. I had no idea what to do. She was never like this so I wasn't sure what to do. I took her outside, we walked around, we played with toys. She was just screaming and crying. It was terrible. I tried gas drops and it helped a little bit but she was just really really upset. I didn't take many pictures of her but I managed to take some of the other babies/mommies.

Naptime after the GTG was not any fun either. She was screaming herself horse which was very scary. After my tears started flowing, I had to leave the house. Siler and I went to the backyard and played until I couldn't hear her from the outside of house. Yes, you could hear her outside the house.

Mat got to hang out with us that night and he got a taste of Millie madness when she woke up from her sleep. We just hugged her and tried to calm her. Eventually she wore herself out and fell asleep.


By Sunday, she was back to being her Millie angel self. We didn't give her any meds at all and she was just fine. Thank goodness. We got to hang out with Mat all day and really enjoyed that. Millie got her first taste of "real" food. Millie had carrots! She seemed to enjoy really them.

We go to the doctor this week for her 6 month check up. Maybe they can do a allergy test. The rash is gone and we will have to narrow down what might be causing it.

The Mommies/Babies in the picture are…
Top row: Abbie and Rory
Audra and Madelyn
Kat and Hollister
Noelani and Evelyn
Trisha and Kara

Bottom row: Kristie and Sydney
Nicole and Reece
Rebecca and Anna
Kenzi and Millie
Kelly and Sedona

Liz and Billy had to go before this picture was taken.

And the ladies/babies that couldn’t make it where certainly missed!

Engine 11 photo's

A friend of mine from my message board offered to come to Engine 11 and take pictures of the website. Her name is Danielle Bryson. I follow her blog and just love her work. Hopefully the boys can use these for the E11 website to help boost business! I think this will especially help them with renting out the upstairs party rooms. Enjoy!

Spots back

Millie's rash is back. Yuck. Millie's teacher Priya called around 3p, and told us she thought the rash had come back. She sent me pictures and her eye was pretty swollen. I called the doctors office and had them stay open. I zoomed over and picked her up. The daycare had her all ready and packed up so I just locked her in the car and headed to the doctors. She looked pretty bad when I picked her up. She was quiet and seemed uncomfortable. We were seen right away and the doctor confirmed that it is an allergic reaction to something. Not sure what that something might be. She gave us some drugs and with Benedryl, that should clear things up. Hopefully we will be able to determine if it's something I ate or possibly something she ate. I gave her some Benedryl and she is sleeping it off now. I'll keep you posted!

6 things about 6 months from Millie

1. I am sitting up very well now. Sometimes I fall over and "fake cry" just so someone can prop me up again.

2. I can't stop laughing at everything around me. Life just seems so fun and carefree.

3. I am sleeping all night long all by myself now and I have such great dreams. I like to sleep all up against the bumpers in my crib. My arms are usually doing crazy things like all raised up above my head. When I wake up in the morning, I am really quiet and play in my crib so my Mommy and Daddy can get some more Zzzzzz's. Typically Mommy hears me and comes to get me from my crib. I think make her laugh when I give her big smiles in the morning. She is a terrible singer but I let her sing the "Good Morning" song to me. I get some breakfast and then watch her get ready for work. After she leaves I hang out in my swing while Daddy gets some more Zzzzz's. I usually fall asleep until Daddy is ready to take me to school!


4. I still do NOT like to be on my belly. I even cried for like 15 mins when Daddy was playing with me on Monday. I can roll over onto my back but sometimes I just like to be stubborn like my Mommy. I haven't rolled from my back to my belly in front of my parents but maybe I will soon.

5. I have a new friend...she looks alot like me. I see her every now & then when I am on my changing table. She does exactly what I do but doesn't make a sound. I hope we can play together again soon!

6. I am a heavy drinker! Of milk of course! I am trying to drink 7oz with each bottle. And rice cereal! I can't wait to go to see Dr. D next week to see how much I weigh!

We will talk again next month!

Okay, this is Kenzi typing again. I had to pull Millie off the keyboard. I personally think she is right on track.
Millie can reach accurately for an object.

she can hold her head steady when sitting upright.

she can raise her chest with arm support while lying on her stomach.

she can roll over in one direction.

she can grasp a rattle.

she pays attention to very small objects.

she squeals with delight.

she certainly spontaneously smiles.

she might mimics sounds and gestures...I will have to double check with Mat

she turns towards the source of a sound or voice (I love this one!)

she most definitely gets attention by babbling...sometimes she wakes up the other babies with her babbling!

she makes different sounds for different needs.

she protests when you take something away that she wants...mainly cell phones and blackberry's

To see pictures of Millie in her dress, click here.

Pictures from Mike...

These were taken when Mike and Lauren were visiting at the beginning of January...

Vince and Millie "sharing"

an eventful New Year so far...

Well, it's been quite an eventful New Year thus far. We had some daycare issues and to make a very long story short, we are back at the old daycare...in a new location. Do you follow? We are having to drive quite a bit and sometimes it gets very frustrating but we trust the teacher Millie has now and that's most important. We realized that trusting Millie's school, no matter the distance, was very important. So the daycare search continues...

As you saw earlier, we have started Millie on solid foods. About 2 weeks ago we started her on half breastmilk, half formula. She is drinking more and more and it's been tough to keep up. She is enjoying her rice cereal and loves chomping on that spoon. We don't have much time after the drive home from daycare so Priya, our teacher, is feeding Millie now once a day. I think we will up it soon because she is taking to it very well.

Millie's new daycare is in a Jewish school. All food must be Kosher so we are currently looking for baby food that is Kosher. I am not allowed to make the food at home as I don't keep a Kosher kitchen. I heard Target might have the food we need but Kroger and Walmart do not. I think I am going to look for some this weekend. I am getting "Super Baby Food" from the library soon. It's supposed to be a great book on how to start kids on solid foods. I already have another book with great recipes in it. I would like to make my own baby food as much as possible. Once we do start introducing food, we will do a new food about every 3-4 days to make sure she doesn't have a reaction to the food.

Speaking of reaction...We went to a wedding (click here to see the pictures) this past weekend and left Millie with our neighbors. They have been wanting to babysit so it was a perfect opportunity as we had an afternoon wedding. We dropped her off around 10:30am and picked her up around 2pm. At the first diaper change, Linda (our neighbor) didn't notice anything unusual. But the 2nd diaper change, she noticed a red rash appearing. By diaper change #3, it was really noticeable. We picked her up and she was in her normal good spirits. Smiling, talking, seemed normal. After we got home, we took off her clothes. The rash was everywhere. And you can see the little bumps that started to form. We gave her a bath and called the on call nurse. When we took off Millie clothes, she was trying to scratch her redness. The nurse didn't think it was that serious but thought we should call our pediatrician because of all the redness. It kinda looked like a sunburn...with bumps. She wasn't warm with a temperature. We called our Pedi and she told us to give her 2ml of benadryl. After the benadryl and a nap, the redness started to go away. By that night, she was still pretty splotchy but better. Sunday she was a little bit better but it had moved to her hands and legs. By Monday it was kinda gone but had moved back onto her belly. From what we can tell, by Monday it was gone. Kinda scary!

The neighbors have a cat but so do we. But their cat goes outdoors. We have a dog. Neighbors have no dog. We couldn't think of anything else that would have triggered it. I haven't changed the laundry soap since she was born. We called upon Dr. Emily and she came through with another fabulous email diagnosis. Basically it was "Pediatric rashes are 1) rarely serious 2) usually mysterious. The majority of them are usually viral or due to a minor (and probably impossible to figure out) contact allergen." So who knows if we will ever know. I just hope it doesn't come back!

To see pictures of the rash, click here.

We are learning some sign language that hopefully she will pick up on soon. We know "eat" "water" "cereal" "banana" "cracker" "more". Most babies are able to sign back sometime between 9-14 months.

Let's see.....what else. Grandma Terry AND Mama D are making an appearance in Atlanta soon. We are very excited to see them in February and March!

We finally ordered and paid for the new doors for our house, post break-in. We can't wait because letting the dog out in the front yard is a big PAIN! Our backdoors are boarded up right now and we can't wait to get those fixed. We are getting the same front door and a slightly different back doors. I'll take pictures as soon as they are up. It should be another month but at least we are a little step closer to having working doors again. We will replace the computer soon hopefully.

Engine 11's grand opening party went very well. They did a little revamp to the website, you can check it out here. E11 was closed for MLK day and so was our daycare so it was Mat and Millie day. They had some great bonding together.

I think that's it for now! Hope you are all are doing well!

Some Random pictures of Millie

Click here to see some pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

Jon rides the Obama Train!

Nancy found this AP footage. Look closely to see Jon! I am having my people work put it on a Quicktime file. It's the same piece of tape. Way to go Nancy!

Millie and her light table

Sorry for the low lighting but she loves her table!

I got tagged...

I got tagged! Andrea tagged me....here is how it goes: go to your 4th folder (where your pictures are stored) and find the 4th picture….and post it. Then explain it. And tag 4 people.

This is me from my first Olympic distance Triathlon in Tampa, St. Anthony's. Man I get frecklie in the summer! Anyway, Mat and my parents were there to cheer me on. It was life changing for me. I hope to do another one. I want to be an example for Millie. I want to teach and show Millie, first hand, how important physical fitness is (especially for the ladies!). What a day...

I tag - (Jackie and Vince), Danica, Antoinette (and Will), and Allison

Okay, I think we got it this time! Enjoy!

Due to some of my music choices, Millie's video got booted off You Tube. Well, it's back up now! Enjoy!

The Millie eating video will be back...having technical difficulties

Gators Win!

Happy Gator Baby Millie! She was very excited about the Gator win. And the fact that Mat got to go to the game. I swear I can't make this stuff up. This kid never stops smiling! Especially when the Gators win!!











Check out a little video of Millie checkin Jeevan out. And if you want to see pictures of the two, click here.

Mike and Lauren visit

My friends Mike and Lauren came to visit for the weekend. Mike is an architect and Lauren makes chocolates! Her business is Rich Chocolates (named after her father). They wanted to meet Millie on a little southern road trip. They flew into Birmingham, drove to Atlanta, drove to New Orleans and back to Birmingham. They returned home to Chicago after a week in the deep south. Mike and I went to high school together. He is a great friend after all these years. After 8 or so years, Mike purposed to Lauren and they are going to get married sometime in 2010. We ate at Engine 11 quiet a bit which was fabulous as always. Mat even got to hang out with us a little bit. Millie when to her first Thrashers (hockey) game that she seemed to like alot more than Hawks basketball! Mike and Lauren made dinner one night and we took lots of photos all weekend long. Mike is very into photography these days and I can’t wait to see some of his photos. I am so glad that they got to meet Millie and hopefully we can make a trip to Chicago soon.

In the first picture, Millie wearing the Born in the USA onesie that Caroline and Dan got her for Christmas. It's adorable. And the second picture is of Lauren's beautiful pink ring! To see pictures from this weekend, click here.

Tainows for New Years

We had a great New Years holiday with family. Jon, Terry, Daniel and Caroline all came in on Tuesday. We didn’t leave the house much which was fabulous. We made food, we ordered in, we watched movies, we played with Millie, etc. It was awesome! We ate at Engine 11 alot but it was the only time we could see Mat.

Jon and Terry offered to watch Millie for New Years Eve (our anniversary) which was very kind of them. Engine 11 had a private all inclusive party which went really well. Mat and I shared News Years together at Engine 11 which was a great time. We didn’t celebrate right at midnight but we always have to do things a little different. Daniel, Caroline, Amanda and I danced the New Year in which was great fun.

I just want to share with you how happy I am that I am married to Mat. He is the very best father and he amazes me everyday. Millie lights up when he comes in the room and it melts my heart. He is supportive, loving, caring, thoughtful, and doing the very best for our family. I am honored to be married to him ;-)

Here are some of the pictures from our fabulous weekend. If you want to see more, click here.