Manic Mondays

There aren't a lot of things that need to be done around here on Mondays and our schedule isn't so busy that we're running out the door by 8 or 9 o'clock, but Mondays just aren't my favorite day. Our house isn't true to The Bangle's song by the same name "Manic Monday," but for some reason Mondays are just no fun in our house.



Rachel, on the other hand, can be quite amusing, like my post from yesterday. It was just the other day that I forgot to post this video of Rachel. My parents got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and we played as much as we had time for. Most of the time when we played, the kids were in bed, but just before we left, Mom and I played a couple of games that Rachel watched. In the video, Rachel is playing Wii, just like Mommy and Nana.

Luxurious Relaxation

We are so excited about our upcoming trip. We haven't left Rachel for more than a few hours at a time since she was born, so we are getting to take some leisure time for ourselves and leaving Rachel with her grandparents!! Yea!! We thought it might be cool to stay in Shreveport, even though we don't gamble, just to say we've been to/seen a casino. We'll fill you in on some of the details when we come back, like was it worth the trip, and are casinos all they're cracked up to be.

Rachel is one amazing baby. Of course I'm a little biased, but we're so thankful for her every day. She pulls up on everything and tries to climb, but we don't have anything in the house conducive to climbing upwards, so she hasn't been very successful. She can climb stairs when we visit friends/family who have them in the house, so beware. We also love that she is able to walk along all of the furniture. We're one step closer to having her walking! I would guess that if you're a parent, that at least one person has told you that it seems like you can't wait until they can walk and talk and once they can do that you would like for the to just sit down and be quiet. We've heard that a few times, and I'm sure there will be times when I will want her to be still, but it seems like it would be so much easier to help my child if she could tell me what she wants rather than just crying, or throwing a fit.

Well, it's hard to believe it's already the middle of July. I will be so sad when Jeff has to go back to work. I hope everyone has been enjoying their summer. We hope to get some new pictures up soon.

Little Yeds

by Teri

Our craziness of never being stationary for the next 20+ years has begun. Rachel is crawling everywhere and wants to get into anything that belongs to Mommy and Daddy. We have had some whirlwind couple of weeks. In the last 2 weeks we have been to and from Illinois visiting Jeff's extended family and were accompanied on the trip by Grandma Lehmann and Aunt Megan. We had our share of fun and even left her with a non-family member babysitter for the first time. Amazingly, we weren't very apprehensive. Of course when you realize how small the world really is, it's easy to leave your child(ren) with a stranger who's a friend of family friends, even if you're 1,500 miles from home!!

On a busy note, Rachel has learned to pull up. Not only to her knees, but all the way to standing. I turned my back earlier today and turned back around to find her like this.....

Well, the picture was actually of the second time she stood up on the bookcase. At some point during the day she also pulled up to hold onto the coffee table. She also decided to stand up in her crib this evening when we put her to bed so she cried for a while and we went to check on her thinking she might be hot (since our A/C doesn't work!!), but instead we found her standing there, so we promptly moved her crib down as low as it can go.

Since Rachel is a Lehmann, she has to learn to be a good traveler and we certainly put her to the test over the last 9 days. She met all kinds of new people and slept in strange places and did it with a mostly happy attitude. She's been a trooper.

On a side note, the adults also had fun on the trip to Illinois. We saw some cool clouds, I tried to take some cool pictures (though quite unsuccessfully), we made strawberry rhubarb jam(picture below for those who don't know what rhubarb is) , went to Jeff's cousin's wedding (isn't she beautiful?).....

We also ran across this RV that we had passed sometime before we stopped for lunch. He had a little car trouble so we managed to pass him again.

Well, I'm sure there's more excitement in our lives, but we'll post another update soon! Welcome to summer!!!

The Lehmanns