teaching good habits

As cousin Connor and aunt Robin can tell you, Juli is the master of teaching some less than great habits to the little ones. Wouldn't you if you could get this reaction?

learning to sit

She's still mostly just folding at this point, but here are a couple of her great efforts. It's pretty much all she wants to do right now - along with learning how to blow spit bubbles.

gone shoppin'

Thank god our best friend owns a shop so we could get out without having to be outside. We love Noun and hangin' with Aunt Steph.

lunch with friends

For Dalia's birthday we went to lunch with her friend Neva and Neva's parents, Owen and Cecily. We got some good shots of them interacting and just being plain ol' cute.

Happy 4 Month Birthday Dalia!

So, Dalia turns four months old tomorrow. She is currently being licked by Zoey and in turn petting her. Wouldn't you know it, the camera batteries just died. Oh, well. In any case, here are some of her milestones and a few of her newest photos (unfortunately, some are blurry).

• She weighs 14 pounds, 8 ounces
• She's 26 inches long and has a head circumference of 17 cm (what does this mean?)
• She grabs and holds objects with one hand and sticks everything in her mouth. She is experimenting with non-baby toy options such as spoons (see photo), little cutie oranges, baby carrots (not eating them of course), fingers - always fingers, and my hair. She is quite obviously beginning the teething process.
• She can push up on her tummy and has rolled over once. When I went to get her out of her crib this morning she was scooting around on her back by lifting her legs up and pushing them over to one side.
• She has quite a vocabulary, with sounds like la, da, ah and, her favorite when whining, mamamamamama with pout included. She is practicing her intonation and mimicking ours. She smiles when we say "Dalia". She laughs when we dance with her and when I kiss her naked tummy. Laughing often includes squealing. She loves to be naked so we can't wait until summer. (We can't wait for summer for other reasons as well, namely that winter sucks in Portland.)
• She is a great eater and sleeps around 5 hours straight every night. We go to mom and baby yoga classes often and she almost always sleeps and is a total angel.
• She likes her baby carrier and LOVES to be held. She is such an active baby and wants to be on the move all the time. So much for sitting around on the couch.

Enjoy!

Puff rocker

Mom got a new chair to nurse Dalia in as the one she's been using is really uncomfortable and makes her mad. The new one is shaped in such a way that Dalia can easily sit up in it, which makes her happy! Her monkey also makes her happy so it made sense they would go together.

Daddy time

Well, unavoidably, Dalia loves media almost as much as she loves her dad. Here they are hangin out looking at the computer.

ringing in the new year...

...with Dalia's best friend, Archer and his folks Amy and Jonas. Even though we didn't "party" all night with these great friends, we did manage to stay up past midnight which is a small miracle for mom who hasn't stayed up so late since Dalia's birthday. Thanks for the fun (and the chicken) guys. We love you!

On this very same day we took Dalia shopping to return some gifts. It was the first time we'd been shopping with her. She did great lookin around and taking it all in.

Another visit from the Vermeys clan

We had a great time with Scott, Robin and Connor. Dalia sure loves the attention. Happy New Year!

hanging out

Here's just the greatest from our latest with dad. Dalia loves to sit up now and talk. I was getting dressed and heard all this chatter coming from the living room and had to see what was up.


Have we mentioned that she loves sucking her thumb now? Oh, and she can now pet Zoey (and pull her hair) which Zoey tolerates amazingly.

Skills master

Dalia is in the putting anything in her mouth stage now. It seems like if she's interested in something she'll let you know by trying to shove it in her mouth. I'm posting video to accurately and pridefully display her skills, but also because popular demand wants more moving pics of her.

Here's grammy reading to Dalia on New Year's Day.



and here she is working on her push ups, more intent because she really wants to get Pierre the mouse in her mouth.



finally, its as though she understood what I was saying in this next video. This is perhaps her best toy so far. She has held on to this rattle for upwards of a half hour or more. It's her new favorite car toy too.