Four

My grandma asked me yesterday how old Dori was, and I told her 4 months. My niece then said "she's only 4 months? It seems like she has be around forever!" I agree with that to an extent...I can't remember what life was like without her very well, but I also feel like it's going by pretty fast too.
Everything went really well at her 4-month appointment and she's pretty much perfect! She's still on the skinny side but at least she's on the charts right? Don't you just love this face?! I just want to chew on her!

This Kills Me!

Same pajamas in each picture, just filled out a little differently. The sleeves are rolled up in this first picture.Ugh...it just about breaks my heart to see her double in size like this, but I love it too because she's so much fun right now! I'm just not sure how to get her to smile for a picture?

Sweet Escape

I have wanted to blog about this for a while, and just now getting to it.

A few weeks ago on a Saturday, Gary and I had nowhere to go. We were able to stay home and spend time watching t.v., cleaning the house, playing with Dori, and just hanging out. Dori was getting ready to take her afternoon nap and Gary wanted to rock her to sleep since he rarely gets the chance. I could tell as he was rocking her that we was feeling the need for a nap as well. With the house clean and Gary and Dori preoccupied, I thought maybe I'd get out of Dodge for a while.

We had a ton of stuff that needed to go to the DI, so I loaded bags of clothes and old junk and headed out. About 2 seconds of driving down the road, I realized I was alone. No baby? What a silly feeling! I decided to do a Maverick stop since I didn't have a baby carrier to haul around, and I got these!

And this!!

And I listened to this!

I guess it's not the most glamorous of outings, and the music wasn't really anything to pump my fists to, but my fists were full of M&M's and Diet Coke. I felt completely liberated, almost as though I was getting an hour long massage and drinking cucumber water.

I realized as I was driving to the DI, that being a mom is hard. Being a mom is also the best thing ever! But most importantly, I realized how important it was to do something for myself, even this small. so that I could be a happier mom to this thing.

Bless Her!

I don't believe babies come much more angelic than this little girl! Here she is all dressed in white on her blessing day. I think she looks absolutely gorgeous in white, but she looked especially darling in her blessing dress. I had a vision of what I wanted her dress to be like, so I told my mom what I wanted and she was able to make it for her! I love simplicity, and everything in the stores was much too frilly for my liking. The dress turned out completely perfect! My mom was even able to find a little white sweater for her too.
Isn't she perfect? I also love the fact that the blanket she's laying on was made by my grandma especially for her blessing day!

Radio From Hell

So...Gary loves Radio From Hell in the morning. Kerry, Bill, and Gina. He listens to it every morning while he gets ready for work, and on the way to work, and then he podcasts whatever he's missed. Only a couple of months after Dori was born he was invited to sit in the studio with them and watch while they did their show. I'm an okay fan of theirs, but Gary is a die-hard fan. He probably knows more about them than he knows about me.

Anyway, he asked me to go with him to the studio, which meant waking up at 4:30 in the morning. It was a pure act of love because I would have much rather slept. When we got there, Gina told us "we love you, but we're going to ignore you because we have a show to do." She was right. They ignored us. But we did get free breakfast so it sort of evened out.

Gary had such a good time and he was a little star struck and needed a picture with them. I didn't need a picture. I sort of thought they were jerks.

Gene Simmons Would Be Envious

And Now For Her Next Trick!

The Circle of Life

The four breathtaking chicks you see surrounding Dori are my sister Stacey's girls. I was 12 when the oldest was born and I saw her almost every day for the first few years of her life, so she was practically my little sister. I remember when they were all born, I remember babysitting them, and I remember how each of them would get into my room and take my stuff.... or eat my school projects (Amy). I didn't always love babysitting them, but my mom always said that by the time I have a baby, they will be old enough to babysit for me. And they are!!
If you look closely you can see Dori has a hold of Mellie's hair. She loves her cousins and they love her lots too!

We Ski!

Oh how I love to ski! Don't I look happy in this picture? I am! I'm so excited to get on the slopes and ski my day away! Before this, I had only been skiing one time and I had so much fun...even though I had to figure it out by myself. I never had lessons, no one told me that I could zig-zag down the mountain instead of going straight on. I actually picked that up from a 5 year old that zoomed past me while I was scooting down the mountain on my butt. But once I picked it up, I fell in love with it!

Fast forward 10 years to my second experience on the slopes. I seriously was so giddy I'm sure I was annoying as heck on the car ride. We made it to the beginner slope so I could get used to skiing again. I did great! I went down a couple times and didn't fall once. My confidence level was phenomenal! So we went to the next hardest slope.

I knew to be a little more careful and not get carried away, so I did my best to zig-zag a little more and to ease myself into the harder stuff. About half way down the mountain, I hit a rough patch of snow and caught the edge of my ski. My first fall of the day, and boy was it a good one! I went flying forward face first into the snow, and somehow one of my skis came off and hit me in the back of the head. It was then I understood why people wear helmets. I also had banged my right knee up pretty good. Once I stopped seeing stars I got up and kept going. My confidence had slightly fallen but I kept on. Then I fell again. And again. And again. One of the times that Gary was helping me up, one of our poles smacked me in the mouth. Ugh.

Not to be defeated to easily, I made it down the mountain and we rode the lift up to try it again. I made it a fair way down before I fell, and banged my right knee again! By this time, my confidence had plummeted, but not only that, my knee was in so much pain that I couldn't turn on my skis anymore. I had to literally slide down the mountain sideways, and if I tried to turn at all, I would keep falling and falling and falling. So sad.

Well, by that time it was lunch time and I thought I was done for the day. We went back to the car to eat, and I thought I would stay there the rest of the day to recover. But, after an hour of rest or so, I thought I would try again, but only do the beginner slope the rest of the day. So I did. I was able to go gently enough down the hill a few times and my knee was feeling better.

I realized I was done though when I fell on about the 5th run down and I couldn't get up at all! My strength was not only gone, it was in the negative. My brother in law pretty much had to pick me up.

The next day, Gary and I tried to count the bruises on my body, but stopped after about 20 or so. Every muscle in my body was in pure agony too! It will probably be a little while before I try to ski again, and when that day comes, I'm staying on the bunny hill. I would LOVE to see my baby grow into adulthood is all.

The Other Trimester

I have a stinky 3 month old! What a trip. I'm still waking up a couple times a night to feed this tiny little girl but I love those snuggle times with her! She's so much fun even though she is by far my toughest boss for the hardest job I have ever had!

I love this sneaky little face and those crazy hairs!!

Things that Dori enjoys:

*Baby Einstein. She can only handle about 20 minutes at a time before it gets too stimulating.

*When I sing to her. She loves 5 Little Monkey's and most Beatles songs.

*Hanging out in the swing. I didn't think she'd be much of a swing baby but she likes to sit in it while Gary and I are in the kitchen so she can see us.

*Talking. I'll tell her to say "a-goo's" and she usually will get really excited and try to talk to me.

*I just found out her little toes are ticklish! Mostly her left foot

*She likes to be social. She doesn't like to be home all the time. She needs to be around people and chaos sometimes...but then loves the peace an quiet after a while.

*She loves to hold her hands while she sleeps. If she can't fall asleep holding her hands she gets mad.

She's such a happy little girl and so snuggly and fun. She makes life really easy on me most of the time except when she gets too tired. I love this baby!