Janelle Slide Show - birth to 6mo

Janelle's YouTube Timeline

Direct link here.

Someone likes Mommy's laptop

The next generation of geek!

Want to see my new teeth?!

Click on the picture of Janelle, then look at All Sizes >> Original Size, and you can see her two front-bottom teeth!

We've started solids!

On Sunday, July 13, Janelle had her first bit of solid foods -- baby oatmeal. We, of course, caught a video of the event:

And a few snapshots from yesterday:





Lessons Learned:

• Feed baby when she's naked (nothing but a diaper). If not, *definitely* put a bib on her.
  
• Stick with the regular rubber-covered spoons. Pass on the fancy colorful long-handled spoons. The handles are heavy, so they fall out of the bowl, and they're too distracting.
  
• Pretend to eat along with her -- this will help her figure out what's going on.
  
• Hold her hand while feeding her -- that way she doesn't smack the spoon away while trying to grab it.

It was *great* though! And Janelle was thrilled, I'm sure, to be eating like Mommy and Daddy. :D

Another declaration

And as your President, I promise to give every baby their own play gym, and there will be mandatory poop breaks for all!

Janelle's Declaration

And so that is why I pronounce Mr. Octopus to be my best friend... this week.

My little gal

Haven't posted any pictures of Janelle recently (although I've got 700+ pictures on my flickr set). Thought I'd post just a few of my recent favorites...
Click on the picture below to see a larger view.

Our little talker

Just so my recent rant isn't at the top of my blog, I figured I'd post a video of our little talker. She's been talking a *lot* recently -- to us, to her hands, to the side of her crib, to her toys (starts off as happy babbling, but then turns serious, and eventually she's threatening them). Love it!

Cellphone Photos

I finally downloaded my photos off my phone, and below are some of my favorites (...so far). Of course you can see *all* of my Janelle photos in the Janelle Flickr set.

Tummy Time - We're making progress!

We've been having Janelle work on strengthening her neck and back muscles by doing "tummy time" with her every day. This prepares her for rolling over and eventually crawling, sitting, and walking. Welp, she's definitely been making progress. The first video below is her tummy time at 5 weeks. You can she that she's not too thrilled with it. Last week (at 9 weeks) I noticed she was doing much better, so I recorded the second video below.

5 Weeks


9 Weeks


My apologies for the "shakey jake" camera shots!

2 Months Already!

I cannot believe that Janelle is two months old today! Happy birthday Janelle!

She's a talker!

For the past couple of weeks, Janelle's been watching our lips intently when we talk to her. Well, the past couple of days, she's gone from simple cooing sounds to a kind of baby talk. (Hard to describe -- watch the videos below to see what I mean.) It's great, though -- every day, she and I have long "conversations". :D

Janelle's First Professional Photos

For our baby shower, one of the gifts Kristy and Dory gave us was a Smile Savers subscription at JC Penneys, which gives us two years of no sitting fees at their photo studio, which is really great! Well, we took advantage of our gift, and below are "a few" of my favorites.

View entire photo set.

She's definitely smiling now!

Yes, my blog has officially become a "baby blog". I have yet another cute video of Janelle. :) Over the past couple of weeks, she's started what they call "social smiling" -- not just smiles when she has gas. ...Although she still does that, too. :P This video is over her a few days ago when I woke her up.

Happy Birthday Janelle!

Depending on who you talk to, yesterday or today is Janelle's one month birthday. Wow. Can't believe it's already been a month! Anyway, I have yet another video -- this one of her talking and laughing. Love it!!

More Janelle Videos

I'm posting these mostly for my Mom to see, but I figure anyone else might enjoy seeing my little beautiful babe!

Whoa! Our First Diaper Explosion!

Roy and I decided we'd take the baby out today and run some errands. We looked at some apartments we're thinking of moving into later this year. Went to the store to pick up a few things. Then we found this new little bitty Thai restaurant we decided to try.

Janelle's bottle-fed now, and so we'd fed her, packed up a couple of bottles, and headed out. Our last stop - the quiet Thai restaurant. We're just about done. Janelle had been quietly sitting in her carrier drifting between dozing and quiet alertness. Suddenly she starts crying and I decide to go ahead and pick her up and try to calm her down. Well, she then wets all over her little outfit, which surprised me b/c so far we hadn't had any problems until then with her diapers leaking, and this was a *major* leak. So, I quickly grab the diaper bag and we run to the restroom. It was a pretty one-toilet restroom -- beautiful sink, fancy everything... absolutely no counter space. So I reach out into the hallway and grab an empty chair and drag it into the restroom to give me *something* to change my baby on.

And then I opened her onesie ... and *it* was *everywhere*. I could not believe our baby could make that big of a mess. And she was absolutely not pleased that I was angling her 21 1/4 inch body on a changing pad across the seat of this wooden chair trying desperately to undress/clean her without making things worse. I guess it was her incessant screams that brought Roy back to the restroom (thank God!) and he quietly knocked on the door, and when I opened it, he quickly stepped in and helped me.

Since that time, just a few hours ago, we've come home, given Janelle a bath. Daddy's taking a nap, and I'm still marveling at our first diaper explosion. I immediately think of the stories my Mom lovingly (and with a chuckle) tells of similar instances from when me or my sisters were babies. For me, I think the chuckle will come later. All I can think right now is "whoa".

Janelle Is Here!

Our gorgeous little girl was born at 6:30pm on Monday, Feb. 4, weighing 8 pounds, 3.5 ounces, and measuring 21 inches. It ended up being a c-section, so I'm having to heal up from that. (i'll write out the whole birth story some time when I have a little more time.) As expected, Roy and I have taken lots of pictures and a couple of videos - below are links to them.

Janelle Photo Set


Janelle's Wake Up Stretch


Dirty Diaper Dance