July Update

Facebook has dominated most of my time lately, but I'm back on blogger!

We have officially lived in Birmingham over a year now. I love it here. The summers are not that hot after all. We've been having many days with weather in the high 80's, low 90's...in other words perfect for me. I'll start "teaching" three mornings a week in September at the Parents Day Out program at the Methodist Church near us. I'll have the 0-1 year old class with Eliza in it and Coleman's class is next door to my room.

I have decided to rediscover my pre-pregnancy figure with the help of Jillian Michaels from "The Biggest Loser". I work-out 20 minutes a day and she kicks my butt, but I feel great for the rest of the day. I have so much energy in fact that I often don't need a nap, and feel up to painting the kitchen at night. Thanks Jillian, ha, ha.

Coleman has been growing up over the last few months, and it has been painful at times. He is very jealous of Eliza and when Jared gets home he'll make it very clear that he doesn't want Daddy around: 'No Daddy, just Mama and Coleman'. He'll often say very loudly to Jared "NO, Mama do it!!" Jared often has to put him in time-out for being so rude. He's learning. He is learning how to be gentle with Eliza and loves to help with her bath, loves to give her kisses, and make her laugh. Sometimes he'll just start singing a song to her with his face inches from her face. It is so funny.

Tonight I was making dinner and cleaning up and Coleman entertained himself happily for an hour. He decided that he wanted to wash dishes, one of his favorite things to do. So he pushed the chair up to the sink as I was leaving the kitchen to take care of Eliza. I was with Eliza for about 5 minutes and I came out and found Coleman amidst a ton of bubbles. He loves to clean!



Lastly, our little Eliza bug is growing up! She is no longer content to just lay on a mat and look at a picture. She wants to be grabbing things and pulling them into her mouth. She is also interested in eating. One day I was eating a sandwich and saw her looking at my mouth so longingly as if she wanted to try eating too. So we've started giving her rice cereal and she loves it! She is starting to sleep better at night with 1 or 2 feedings on a good night. Hurray! She almost always wakes up happy and starts talking and cooing. When she sees me looking in at her she'll grin so happily. I love seeing her personality starting to come out now.



Oh yeah, for those of you (Elizabeth) interested in the update on Tikka, our cat, here it is: She is growing up too. She is now an outdoor cat and no longer sits on Jared's head at night. What a good girl. :P